Splash Screen with T6 Ships

repetitiveepic

Whenever i look at them, with their oversimplified, childish, inelegant, dumbed down design, I am reminded immediately of the sort of knock off micro machine space ships you'd get out gum ball machines as a kid.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

orangeitis

repetitiveepic wrote: »

knock off micro machine space ships you'd get out gum ball machines as a kid.

Those were hella cool.

tacofangs

Hmmm . . . now tell us what you really think.

ashkrik23

tacofangs wrote: »

Hmmm . . . now tell us what you really think.

How many lights does he see also..

jagdhippies

I don't care for how the intel ships look either, even the klink and rommy ones look really bad to me. I really like how the guardian looks though.

gulberat

I can't say I was a fan of the designs either and even before DR dropped, the looks were a reason for going the T5U route instead.

I'm a lot happier with my Vesta--and even as alien as it is, my Dromias. It may be alien, but there IS a sense of proportion to the Undine design that becomes evident when you zoom all the way in on it and look from its back to the front: the big protrusions at the front appear as if exactly equal in length to the ones in the back, from that perspective. It's a nice little touch.

cpc2011a

I don't know. The T6 designs are all pretty much ok in my opinion. However I find the Z axis a bit lacking on some of the Fed and KDF ships, if you get my meaning oh 3D design folks.

johnsteward

tacofangs wrote: »

Hmmm . . . now tell us what you really think.

Sad but I feel the same way. Cryptic designs tend to feel strange even ugly. They focus heavily on some design elements that you guys seem to like but in the end arent good at all from my point of view.

Take the eclipse cruiser with his strange nacelled and elongated saucer section. Its flat long and has overly big ugly shaped nacelles.
Oddessy and vesta are really great ships. The rest not so much.

You or someone else there made a dev blog once explaining how ships are designed. Like identifying design elements and patterns and then using them and stuff.

Thats exactly how cryptic ship designs look 95% of the time: constructed/patched together from partly badly designed basic part or even badly arranged good part.

Instead of designing the whole thing you build certain parts from you design studies and then try to find some acceptable way of putting them together instead of starting with the whole thing and kind of cutting it from a block of whatever like maybe a stone-masonry work.

Thats why your ships always look like a bad-part patchwork.


And while we're at it - "we wanted them to not look federation" maybe a goal but negatives are bad guidelines for design you always want positives.

szim

The splash screen with all T6 ships looks ok. The loading screen with the human super model, the Klingon thug (duuuuuh) and Romulan latex lady on the other hand looks absolutely ridicoulus. It looks like it was made by someone who tried to ridicule the game.

truewarper

I was wondering if anyone felt that way...

szim wrote: »

The splash screen with all T6 ships looks ok. The loading screen with the human super model, the Klingon thug (duuuuuh) and Romulan latex lady on the other hand looks absolutely ridicoulus. It looks like it was made by someone who tried to ridicule the game.

nikephorus

I find most of the ships ugly as well. The guardian was the only one that even remotely looked like a Federation ship. The eclipse looks like someone sat on its saucer section...or chevron whatever you wanna call it. I suppose it's suppose to look sleek, but then it has those gigantic ugly nacelles that kind of ruin that idea. Then we have the phantom which looks like a steamroller ran over a defiant - a flying pancake.

originalkatic

I find myself a fan of the ships in game that weren't designed by Cryptic, with a few exceptions, and I'll explain why;

In Star Trek, we see over three hundred years of ship design lineages. And at each stage, the ships seem to get larger, but smoother, more graceful, with curves and flowing, almost aerodynamic designs. Look at the 1701, and compare to the 1701-E, or even the 1701-J.

Cryptic seems to, for much of their design legacy, taken the opposite approach.

Compare the Miranda and the Shikar Class vessels, both Frigates, but the Shikar is Cryptic, and it's all hard edges and angles. Look at the Sovereign (Trek) vs the Imperial (Cryptic), or the Saber (Trek) vs the Gladius (Cryptic), look at the Prometheus (Trek) vs the Hephaestus (Cryptic).

There are exceptions, but, alas, most of them are exceptions because even though they may not be canon, they're not Cryptic either, the Vesta, the Odyssey..

Now, there are a few Cryptic outliers, designs which flow just as much if not more than their canon Trek originals, the Regent, the Emissary, the Venture, but even these designs, here & there, suffer from some unwillingness of Cryptic simply leave well enough alone, the Venture Deflector, the strange raised channels on the Emissary..

Again and again Cryptic attempts to design ships (systems, game mechanics, storylines, an economy, etc) for a Star Trek game and seem to utterly and completely miss the spirit and feeling of the source material.

I get it, it's an MMORPG, there have to be concessions, but, whoever is deciding what concessions, most likely some metric obsessed penny-pincher for PWE with veto authority, is way off the mark.

This game isn't World of Tanks, it's not EVE, it's not based on Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica or Titan A.E. or Babylon 5, or any other Sci-Fi IP. The only bargaining chip STO has in the MMO Gaming market is the Star Trek IP, and the further they move from it, the more they cater to the whiny players who just want spacey pew pew and don't give a D@mn about Trek, the fewer lasting (spending) players they're going to have.

equinox976

The reason why cannon trek ships (usually) look so good is because they were created by profesional sculpters, and often had to create a dozen or more different models (and then go on to adjust the final model) before they were accepted.

They were elegant, and usually followed the golden ratio (everything in proportion) and despite being very nice to look at - form and function were perfectly combined.

The new models I am sad to say (because I don't like to put anybody's hard work down) compared to classic trek ships, look like something a child created. They are blocky, bulky and just ugly.

Even when the trek sculptors created a Borg cube (despite just being a 'cube') they managed to make it look both awesome and intimidating - in contrast the Intel ships do not seem to have been created with stealth or 'intel' in mind.

I appreciate the fact that they tried to create new ships for us to enjoy - but it cannot be ignored you have practically rammed them down our throat, given that there are hardly any T6 cannon ships available.

mustrumridcully0

I saw Unification yesterday, where we see a Federation scrapyard "Qualor". There were a few wrecks/decomissioned ships there from ships that almost seemed predecessors to the Eclipse and Phantom designs. They seemed very "flat" in appearance. (A 4 nacelled Excelsior, an Enterprise Study design that was not picked)
Star Trek certainly has a certain... "design language" - but it has a lot of words in that language. The path from the Constitution to the Sovereign is not the only possible, as ships like the Defiant, Voyager, Stargazer, Oberth or the Olympus show us.

One can't like them all, I think...

jackal1701apw

What I really think is this:

The Phantom is a nice ship.
The Eclipse and Scryer would be nice ships IF they had decent nacelles (scryer bussards are too big and a very odd shape and the eclipse pancake nacelles are just WRONG!).

Allowing the use of standard hull skins was a good decision as I really don't like the standard intel skins. (too much tron and not in a cool way like the aegis shields)

The romulan intel ship is ok, but only ok, I just can't put my finger on what makes me not like it that much - perhaps its the wings/nacelles at the ends of the wings. The romulan T6 non-intel ship is a beauty to behold, best model in ages, just a shame it's stats suck but well done to graphics team.

I have no opinion on KDF ships as I havent flown them yet.

riccardo171

Aesthetics wise for me (1/10):

Faeht 10
Aelahl 8
Guardian 9
Eclipse 5
Scryer 2
Phantom 5
Qib 5
Matha 8

I wish they made more ship like the Avenger in design; that's a ship I'd rate 11.

angrytarg

truewarper wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone felt that way...

Absolutely. But what do you expect? You can instantly win the forum screenshot contest when you put female models with miniskirts on it XD

markhawkman

angrytarg wrote: »

Absolutely. But what do you expect? You can instantly win the forum screenshot contest when you put female models with miniskirts on it XD

lol wut? How many of them actually had that?

tyler002

The Intel ships look fine to me, they resemble existing canon ships (and the Luna).

vestereng

I wouldn't want to battle star trek geeks's demands for ships design.

And that's exactly why you shouldn't go the cheap route just because it's comfortable and saves you money.

They had 4 years to come up with an answer for ruining out of real star trek ships. Their solution was to try and save money on ships designs?

(Then sugar coat the fake design with a new tier)

But hey the whales will buy just about everything so let's not apply any effort or do work we can be proud of.

erei1

szim wrote: »

The splash screen with all T6 ships looks ok. The loading screen with the human super model, the Klingon thug (duuuuuh) and Romulan latex lady on the other hand looks absolutely ridicoulus. It looks like it was made by someone who tried to ridicule the game.

Agreed. It looks like it was made by someone without any knowledge of Star Trek or STO. And the klingon looks like he just escaped from age of wushu, and is going to do some kung fu soon.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

gulberat

Not all of the Cryptic-made ship designs are bad. The Vesta--I had to work with it a long time to figure out how to get rid of the appearance that the color down its center was a skunk stripe, but once I hit the right combo in the tailor, it was really awesome. (By using the correct skin texture, I made it look instead of paint like parts of the ship were bronze or copper-plated. Problem solved.) The Reconnaissance Science Vessel--I actually ended up going with the more angular nacelles and back end, and ended up using the Reman shield with it to create a pretty mean-looking ship.

My Dromias works very well once seen as representing a very alien, non-humanoid aesthetic.

But with the T6, wholeheartedly agree--not good design choices.

rsoblivion

Thing is the design choices aren't too far off with the T6 Intel ships. They just have one major flaw, they are all too thin...

The Mogh for instance is quite similar design wise to the Qib, but the Qib looks like it went through a metal press first. Everything is flattened and in turn looks unrealistic in comparison to other ships in the ST Universe. TBH the Qib would look really good if it got a bit of weight to justify it's crew compliment.

The Scryer is a bit of an awful mess of angles badly marred by implied circles. The Ring at the front doesn't match it's nacelles in the slightest and it suffers the most from stylistic clashes throughout. All in all it just looks terribly wrong.

The Eclipse looks pretty good, but suffer's the same issue as the Qib, it's been flattened too much. Give it a bit more Z axis and reduce some of the length to make it more proportionally useful and it would work a lot better.

The Phantom is one shape I do like, however I don't like it's stock look much. Break the handle at the back, give it the Scryer Nacelles and the ship looks great. It's like a large defiant missing it's nose (not always a bad thing!).

The Rom ships are all pretty good, the Faeht suffering from compression issues but the least of all the ships so far, but it also has the least variant parts to choose from and even then they are all poor compared to the stock look.

The Mat'ha is interesting. The Nacelles look too large for the ship like a Vor'cha had offspring with Raptor, which look odd, but can grow on the looks. Still a design I don't find as appealing as the classic Vor'cha or B'Rel, and not even close to the league the Mogh created (favourite Klink ship by a long way).

Given the other aspects of DR, I'd say the ships are pretty amazing by comparison

jornado

Although I am more than willing to pick on Cryptic when they deserve it -

When designing non-canon ships in Trek, you have what barely amounts to a non-zero chance to make even a minority of people happy.

There, I said it. Trekkies are a very, very diverse group and have diverse takes on Trek, especially Trek aesthetics.

While I dislike the T6 ships, I totally see where they were going with the design. Is it something I would choose if I had to? No. Is it something that belongs in a Star Trek game? Yeah, it's no worse than some of the other weird ships we've seen over the years.

Personally, I love the designs of the TOS soft-canon 3-nacelle Dreadnought. Many people do not. They are even arguably canonical, but you will probably still not get a vote to add those in game to even a sizeable minority of players.

It's Trek. We are Trekkies. A lot of us dislike things that are not our Trek. We always learn to live with it eventually.

anazonda

tacofangs wrote: »

Hmmm . . . now tell us what you really think.

Hmmm... Are you sure you want to open that can of worms?

hyperionx09

Personally, I'm a fan of the new Intel Designs. They fit the theme they were going for, while retaining all the essential aesthetics of each faction (material option can always be changed). And most importantly, they look more modern. Thankfully, so does the new non-Intel ships like the Pathfinder and Guardian, which makes both a win-win in my book.

And I personally hope Cryptic continues to come up with unique looks for each future specialization while also coming out with more traditional looks like the Guardian. In addition, I do hope for more ships that while not themed to a specific Specialization, are themed to a specific season/chapter/episode series much like the Dyson Ships and Obelisk.

It's nice to see some ultra-specialized ships working alongside more traditional ships. Much like how real life has both ancient B-52s working alongside futuristic B-2s (and the future replacement that's been mentioned as in the works).

gaevsman

Ships I love:

1.- Pathfinder
2.- Reagent
3.- Vesta
4.- Ar'Kiff/Ar'Kala
5.- Venture
6.- Vor'Kang
7.- Andorian Ships
8.- Romulan DSD
9.- Klingon DSD

And some others i'm missing... overall there are very good ship designs.. and some ugly ones, the older ones from more than 3 years...

I'm not too fond of the original ships from canon... we are in the future.. so i'll scrap the old ones (miranda, i'm looking at you!), and get new ones...

But thats my personal taste...

psycoticvulcan

The Aelahl, the Mat'Ha, and the Guardian are amazing designs and I would buy them all in a heartbeat if they weren't so expensive. The intel ships are okay, but I don't think I'd want to fly one.

toiva

From the Tier 6 ships:

• I like the Guardian.
• I like the Mat'ha.
• I quite like the Aelahl (perhaps too large a beak - head- to me).
• I more or less like the Faeht (the hull still seems fat, if they're trying to make intel ships flat, it's just crazy the Romulan one ends up the fattest of the bunch; also the nacelles at the wingtips could get more pronounced - get a more regular shape).
• I more or less like the Eclipse (after picking all the less 'intel' and more regular options in the tailor, all it lacks are some more typical nacelles: the thin red line feels too small a visual for a bussard collector and they're too wide in front, thinning too much near the ends).
• I don't like the Phantom (I never liked the Defiant either, but this feels even worse to me, one thing to stick in my mind: a bulbous bottom - it almost feels unfinished there).
• I hate the Scryer (I don't see what part I could praise here. Despite liking the Luna and loving the Sol, I find the nacelles, hull, saucer, deflectors a very shady work - looks unfinished, both the model and the textures - on the Scyer.).
• I hate the Qib (and this one's sad, it could be a wonderful ship if only it wasn't so ridiculously thin. The result is an almost nonexistent deflector, nacelles and head sections. Unless this ship is used to literally slice enemy ships in half like a bat'leth, I see no reason for it existing - that's a joke of course, I wouldn't believe it if they said it's used to ram ship and slice them).

The Dauntless is not Cryptic's design and I can say I love that little shrimp.

I don't know enough of the Pathfinder to really decide. So far, I can say the 'winglets' protruding behind the secondary hull from the pylons look very jarring as well as other details on the ship. However the general shape and ratios look very fine on it.