Hey everyone!
My name is Brittany, I'm the artist that did about 95% of these gear pieces! I can try to help fill in some of these blanks. I'm gonna make a list, I like lists of things. Also let me know if you have more questions!
1. Artists - The gear was mostly made by me, but we had 2 other artists that helped me finish them off; that's why a couple of them look a little different.
2. Reference - Most everything came from various Star Wars encyclopedias. Even though we were using the "official" Star Wars books, by the time we started work on this game was around the time Disney bought Star Wars and started reworking the canon, so we had to submit these pictures and ask for approval on pretty much everything, make sure everything was cool to use. These are the books I was using: http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/Naastika/20170306_154131_zpseq1hdqyu.jpg
It's funny you found most of the reference pictures that I was using to make these gear pieces, lol. (droidcaller, biotech implant, sensor array, comlink, hypo syringe, stun cuffs, datapad, fusion furnace,shield generator, thermal detonator, binoculars, security scanner, holo projector, keypad, bacta gel, targeting lens)
3. Lots of art - I actually made probably triple the amount of gear art that you see in game. Back in early development we had different mechanics for attaining and upgrading gear, so there were many different variations of gear. Mostly just color changes, but there were other differences that were physical. There is also still a ton of art that didn't even make it into the final game! For example, the Nubian Design Tech, that little round white piece you see there, was part of a 35 piece set, and that is JUST for the Nubian Design Tech piece. The circle was one of 6 shapes, and the white was one of 7 colors. I don't remember what the plans were for that particular gear, but it was quite a lot. They wanted something that was a group of easy shapes to tell apart, that I could then make look techy. The Medpac used to have about 7 different variations and upgrades.The one you now see in game is one of our old high-tier medpacks. There were others that were small boxes like that one pictured. So much stuff got scrapped!
4. The bacta gel was the first piece of gear I made! The binoculars were the last piece!
5. Gear naming - Most of the gear naming and references are canon. There are some instances where we needed to make up gear, or modify existing gear/tech to fit in with gear tiering mechanics at the time. I believe these mechanics are long gone. I don't know why some stuff was renamed. It may have been a product of the way we had stuff designed early on. The gear was once heavily influenced by and categorized by Star Wars manufacturers. So you could have a Sienar version of a holo projector, or maybe you would get the SoroSuub version. We scrapped this idea, but I always like when there is more of a story behind stuff like this!
6. Production - Our designers had gone through many of the Star Wars material to find pieces they thought would be cool to represent in game, then I would look at the books, try to find more reference, model them in 3D, and then do some Photoshop magic after.
7. Armor + Weapon Mods - The armor and weapon mods are items that were requested to be generic tech looking "things". I didn't have a description or any reference. It was just something I made up, I just tried to make it look like something you'd plop into some scifi circuitry. lol @ "dumb circle" These were definitely some early pieces of gear.
8. Hypo Syringe - The hypo syringe was made up from the designers, and the reference pictures are spot on, but I had to change it to be a handheld distributor. It's not from anything, I just added a handle. I would sometimes fatten the styles on the gear to reflect the game's style and so you could see what the heck it is at a tiny size. Now that I'm looking at it, I probably got the handle from Sith Medkit that is shown in the Star Wars Complete Visual Dictionary under Episode 2. There used to be another health spray gear that looked more like the one in the picture, but I guess the only thing now is the syringe.
9. The ion power cell - I want to say this used to be something else. I thought there were maybe different variations of this back in the day, a good one, a scrapped one and a trashed one. I didn't make this one, so I don't quite remember. Found it in The Visual Dictionary
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/Naastika/ioncell_zpspuuiozdq.jpg
10. Random Gear - We chose these weird gear pieces because Lucas did not want any piece of gear that was specifically light side or dark side or specific to any one character. Since, you are a player in the Star Wars Universe, these are items that would probably be available to any ol' Joe Scoundrel.
11. Bacta Gel - The bacta gel was meant to resemble the big tank Luke was hanging out in, but at that time I was making most of the gear very simplistic. It was supposed to be a small container you could hold in your hand.
12. Stun Gun - Found in the Complete Visual Dictionary http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/Naastika/stungun_zpsgusb9udf.jpg
Any other questions? I did a lot of stuff on this game, I'll try to answer what I can!
