Isis Interstellar
This page is devoted to the company. For the 2013 Isis Interstellar OXP, see the note below. And there is also the 2023 Isis Interstellar Station OXP.
 Isis Interstellar a subsidiary of Isis International. |
Cebior, located in the North East region of Galaxy 2, is home to one of space travel’s true superpowers; Isis Interstellar.
The company began on Earth in the 20th century as Isis International, and quickly established itself as a global powerhouse, making both strong allies and powerful enemies all over the world ~ a trait that would almost become the company's signature.
As humanity spread out into the galaxies, Isis Interstellar was born. Somewhat late to the party, Isis Interstellar began life producing weaponry and repairing and servicing existing ships, but were all the while studying and learning from other companies’ successes and failures. The reception to their first ship, the iconic Vampire, set them on the path to success and – in keeping with the company’s history – on the path to brutal conflict with powerful rivals, most notably the WinterHaven Corporation.
A policy of selling high quality ships at a decent price made Isis Interstellar very popular, a clever strategy that quickly generated high profits and a solid reputation. Initiating a supply/service relationship with GalCop police forces helped them further, both in income and public image, but their greatest leap in power came with their alliance with the Navy. At a time when the Thargoid offensives were threatening extinction level conflicts in numerous systems, the Navy were finding themselves outmanned and outclassed until Isis Interstellar stepped in and offered supplies of Vampires free of charge. A capable fighter in its own right, when outfitted with military grade weapons and defensive measures the ship truly became a force to be reckoned with and is widely credited with drastically slowing the Thargoid advances. Since that time Isis Interstellar has become synonymous with military actions, and the military partnership repaid them in exclusive contracts and rights to use and sell slightly modified military grade ordnance. The company has particularly strong ties with the 138th Special Operations Regiment, nicknamed “Damage, Inc.”.
As events escalated between Isis Interstellar and WinterHaven, Isis Interstellar’s standing with the legal authorities grew ever more unstable, especially as it started becoming apparent that WinterHaven had “bought” many high-ranking legal bodies to bring pressure against Miss Gold’s company. The breaking point came in the competition for the design and production of the Cobra MkV, when Isis Interstellar’s prototype was ambushed and destroyed – when GalCop took an antagonistic stance against Isis Interstellar, Miss Gold curtly severed ties with GalCop, ceasing all supply and service agreements with the police.
Originally based in structures bought or rented, invariably on reconfigured asteroids, continued growth and expansion prompted Isis Interstellar to start looking for bigger premises. The loss or damage of several establishments due to inter-company hostilities highlighted the need for somewhere more easily defended, and so Miss Gold decided the best option would be to create their own space station in a system of their choice.
After a detailed search, the Cebior system was chosen as the new home system. Already populated by human colonials and listed as a Tech Level 10 system, the planet provided a ready source of labour and personnel, easy access to high-end machinery, robots, computers and components, and good market conditions for a steady income stream.
Conventional wisdom would perhaps suggest picking a more stable system than a Confederacy as a home base, but although never officially acknowledged by the company there is another benefit to this system; given its slightly unruly political status, the steady flow of pirates, offenders and fugitives in the surrounding spacelanes have provided Isis Interstellar with the perfect testing grounds for their new vessels. Public opinion regarding a company testing its products by actively hunting and killing people has so far had zero impact on Isis Interstellar’s practice ~ and indeed some inhabitants of the system, notably honest traders who have been victims of piracy themselves, have welcomed the increase in safety that the company’s activities have brought. Police authorities have voiced a stern disapproval of these activities, but with no action having been taking against any ships with a clean legal status they remain powerless to actively move against the company.
Isis Interstellar continues to grow in strength and stature, branching out into all aspects of space travel, except for unmanned probes/drones, and so does the WinterHaven Corporation ~ many people suspect it is only a matter of time before a full-on war breaks out between the two, and with the potential for police forces and the Navy getting dragged into the conflict this could have very serious repercussions in all galaxies.
 Nuit Space Station |
 Sothis Space Station |
 Hathor Trade Station |
 Nephthys Station |
 Isis Interstellar Station OXP |
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Contents
OXPs
Stations
- Hathor Trade Station - this elegant station is close to the sun and provides better profits for cheaper essentials
- Nephthys Station - on the far side of the planet, this station caters to the wealthy. Updated by Montana05.
- Nuit Space Station OXP Isis Interstellar formally announces the availability of their newest creation, the Nuit space station.
- Sothis Space Station - this one is quite beautiful - even the buoy.
- Isis Interstellar Station OXP - utterly massive HQ for the company. Docking is an unbelievable experience! Extra goodies in OXP.
Ships
Werewolf OXP Isis Interstellar are proud to announce the launch of their latest spacecraft, the Werewolf.
Vampire OXP Adds the Purgatori Vampire series of combat ships. A strong combat ship in numerous different versions and paint-jobs.
A Military version is used by the police, but several civilian versions of the ship are also available on the open market.
Reduxed Vampires The above Vampires but with shaders (Anniversary Edition).
Vampire Dominatrix OXP Adds the Dominatrix Vampire series of combat ships. A strong combat ship in numerous different versions and paint-jobs.
A Military version is used by the police, but several civilian versions of the ship are also available on the open market.
Vampire Diamondback OXP Adds the Diamondback Vampire series of combat ships. A strong combat ship in numerous different versions and paint-jobs.
A Military version is used by the police, but several civilian versions of the ship are also available on the open market.
Venom OXP From Isis Interstellar who previously also made the Vampire. This ship also provides three extra HUDs.
Cobra MK IV From Isis Interstellar. Has more energy than its famous predecessor and a "Black" variant with more upgrades.
King Cobra ~ Cobra MK VI From Isis Interstellar. This ship comes with new missiles and an integrated hardened Escape pod as well as other goodies.
Poltergeist Found in the Isis Interstellar Station OXP. An updated version of the Spectre.
HUDs
- Isis HUD
- Killer Wolf's Dynamic HUD - different HUDs for Green Alert (small scanner), Red Alert (large scanner), Damaged & Docked. This HUD comes installed with some of his ships.
- Killer Wolf's Steampunk HUD (with a foldable contrast lens)
- Wolf's HUD is also shown on the Dynamic HUD & Isis HUD pages
- His special HUDs for his Dominatrix, Vampire and Venom ships are shown on his own page.
- The King Cobra HUD is shown on the King Cobra page. It has two different docked HUDs for the various docked screens.
Isis Interstellar OXP
The .oxp contains Vampires for police, pirates, traders, a player purgatori vampire & a player reaper vampire with a selection of HUDs.
KW's thoughts on his ships
Disembodied: Everybody has different tastes. As has been said many times before, one person's uber is another person's nicely kitted-out. But I think it's a good idea for designers to keep their feet on the (imaginary ;)) ground. It's easy to make something that's better than everything else: it just needs bigger numbers than everything else. The real trick is exercising sufficient self-control to leave stuff out; to impose limits for no other reason than to give a creation more character and to make things more interesting for the player. For example (off the top of my head – I'd be interested to see what people thought about these, and if anyone has their own suggestions):
- 1) a really hot combat ship that can't carry any missiles (or even can only carry 1);
- or
- 2) a fast bulk trader that can't fit a rear laser.
KW: i tried stuff like that w/ my Vampires, they were well specced but to balance out they didn't have side or rear weapons points. it wasn't well received.
Disembodied: I find that a bit disappointing, that it wasn't well-received. Personally I thought your Vampires and Werewolves were pretty well balanced. Might it be that lots of people were quietly happy, and a few were noisily upset? ;)
KW: lol, mighta been! at the time, i took out the side guns because i'd never ever had a use for them in all my Elite/Oolite player. similarly, the rear gun just got my coordination all snafu, and IIRC Elite used one heat level so there was no point to switching to a rear gun. on release, a few people actually said they used the rear gun as a matter of course, which kinda surprised me. guess it goes to show you should never assume everyone else has the same levels of ineptitude as you do when it comes to flying in reverse :-D in later releases i put the guns back, but i try to balance out missile carrying and cargo space etc - in my write-ups i blather about space being taken up by powerplants etc so you get a good fighter w/ not much cargo space, etc etc. the prob i have w/ each release tho, is that i'm starting to hit a "glass ceiling" : you naturally want each new ship to be better/faster/stronger to keep up the impression of technical advances etc, but you start running into the ubericity factor. i guess maybe if every new Vampire model had the same stats it might not bother people in gameplay, but for me i like to pretend things are real, and if Isis Interstellar's MkIII Vampire got xxx recharge rate and yyy top speed, i have to consider that if the Mark IV didn't get that "+ zzz%" then they wouldn't have bothered putting it into production. <edit> BTW, thanks for the compliment on my ships :-)
Taken from the Antiebericity thread (2011)
Download
Use this mirror if the official site is down.
OR try https://app.box.com/s/m2jw4wo5fdjzu3b30ma4hg9fofypgudo
Copyright
KillerWolf refused to give copyright to any of his oxp's (the ones above) unless he was going to be forced to.
There is a context to this. There were two nasty debates on "the friendliest bulletin board this side of Riedquat" which took place in 2008-9. One was over Sung's shady ships, the second over Lestradae's mega-oxp's Realistic Shipyards/RS & Oolite Extended/OE.
This whole business led to an increased emphasis on licensing - and thus to creation of the Expansions Manager where the need for licensing is made explicit when one submits an oxp to it.
References
- Post by Killer Wolf on copyright (2007)
- Several posts by Killer Wolf on this (2009) - KW's position is not simplistic
- Mauiby deFug's synopsis (2013) (was he correct?)
Killer Wolf
Killer Wolf was also involved in producing the Anarchies oxp. - and a cover for Drew Wagar's Mutabilis novella.
His work has provided inspiration for many other oxps: Another HUD, the Coluber HUDs, SothisTC, etc.
He ended up being chased away by some leading members of the oolite community back in 2012.
