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Ship design philosophy

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I've been heeding my sainted mom's advise and trying mightily to say nothing if I'd had nothing good to say. But tonight I failed. I posted this elsewhere in the forums:
I can't stay quiet about this any longer.

WHY do Cryptic's ship designers think that suddenly fluid dynamics akin to air- or water-borne vessels suddenly apply toward Starfleet vessels? Either they look like naval drone sub-prototypes or they're going in the opposite direction and growing goiter-like bolted-on masses and pointless extensions and cut-outs.

The series has a style based on relatively clean geometric solids, but these designs either go way too far toward the 1950's sleek silver rocketship meme or too far in another direction towards Transformers meets Power Rangers. It's like watching an art school grad paint a Cubist style painting when the exercise called for Renaissance.

This is part of the reason people are calling for ships from the TV show and movies. The new ships in the game are too far off the mark. Too far from what may have been in the world of the source material. And before someone chimes in with "it's 30 years later" think about a WWII era aircraft carrier's silhouette compared to a Nimitz class carrier of seventy years later. Without visual cues as to size most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

But I'm just one guy. What do I know.

I just want to know, now that I've gotten that off my chest a few minutes ago, what is the design philosophy being pursued by the ship designers for this game? I don't think it's "make it look like it must be a ship from a scene of a show or movie the player may have missed". It's trying for something distinct I gather, but what? Or is it the need to make mix-and-match components look distinct while still fitting together?

I want to fall for these ships. I fell for the "2011 Ships of the Line" NX refit I've seen posted here and several book cover illustration Starfleet ships I've run across through the years, so it's not about *having* to have seen it on screen.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I couldn't agree more. I love this game and have played nonstop since open beta. But the monstrosity that is the Imperial is a perfect example. That ship design would be great for Mirror Universe Ships, but it in no way reflects the nearly 50 years of design philosophy used by the show's developers/Starfleet Shipyards if you will.

    It is wholly incongruous and jars me out of immersion into the game. To be honest, I have to work kind of hard to get to the immersion point in the first place with this iteration of Trek and the just plain wrong ship design does not help.

    I do not intend to insult the designers who have already worked so hard on these designs. They are in truth pretty awesome, but they are not Trek. In any other franchise that design aesthetic would pwn, but here it widely misses the mark.

    Federation ships should be all clean lines and elegant even graceful curves. Not Franken cruisers.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I do agree there are too many holes and protrusions that need to be toned down or eliminated. emphasis is on the wrong spots. Variants are cool, but design the originals right, then create the variants around that in order to maintain the core function areas. That would have helped avoid the design dilemmas that came up with the intrepid's impulse engines, for example
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Just spit-balling off the top of my head here now, but some examples that come to me of kitbash ships that might not suck and might allow for some Trek production style recycling of resources:
    • Cruiser: Sovereign Saucer and nacelles with the engines under the saucer Miranda/Centaur/Nebula style. Instead of a secondary hull a ventral weapons or mission pod
    • Science: Intrepid Saucer with Akira/NX style dual hull extensions aft and a sensor/deflector dish pod between them Steamrunner style
    • Escort: Galaxy Saucer with Steamrunner style embedded nacelles and an axial phaser cannon “All Good Things” style (More like a Fed battle cruiser given its size, but hey, top of my head)

    Not directly related to my original post, but it regards ships that might have shown up in a Trek production but didn't.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Absolutely agree, Cryptic models veer further and further away from the excellent series style each week.

    You are getting this very wrong, Cryptic, it seems as though your model guys have no real ideas of their own so they are going for the wild and wacky approach to make ship designs distinctive. These complicated designs do not look like designes of the futre, they look old and outdated; much like real world batleship in the case of the cruisers.

    You'll find that a great many people feel strongly about this I would think.

    The best model in the game is the Intrepid class, while the Galaxy (the best looking ship from any series in my opinion) looks utterly horrible in STO - but still better than anything your designers have come up with.

    This is important guys, there are plenty of good models on the web from guys who don;t have half your experieince.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    agree

    saucer - engines- struts- body

    linear (hard edge) orignal enterprise- or curved - the next genration one- (not as good)

    the saucer when not a full circle is - ugly- studies show that a warped circle is unpleasent to most peoples eyes- i liked voyager series alot- but the ship was ..?....

    they really need a mix and match thing , skip tiers and "admiral"

    everyone moans that the game is on the edge (of being truly killer) - but it is worse in the sense that that they have everything there now that just needs tweaking
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    It's an immersion killer, that's for sure.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    attacko wrote:
    agree

    saucer - engines- struts- body

    linear (hard edge) orignal enterprise- or curved - the next genration one- (not as good)

    the saucer when not a full circle is - ugly- studies show that a warped circle is unpleasent to most peoples eyes- i liked voyager series alot- but the ship was ..?....

    they really need a mix and match thing , skip tiers and "admiral"

    everyone moans that the game is on the edge (of being truly killer) - but it is worse in the sense that that they have everything there now that just needs tweaking

    A lot of the changes, especially in design philosophy, that you and others bring up in this thread can be made.

    The underlined one, can not.

    An MMORPG designed around levelling and tiers, which has incorporated the ship into part of that process, and has launched ... can not change something that basic about its gameplay.

    That ship has sailed so to speak.

    So while there can certainly be a huge shift made in how the ships look and why the team makes the ships look the way they look ...

    It's far too late to go back and say "oops, ships aren't part of your levelling process anymore!"

    And if you look at their plans, for the next step in the levelling process, you can see they are going full speed ahead with new ships being part of that process.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    i could see that

    then just rename admiral to captain and let me skin some and i's be happy

    (but they should let you specialize more- like have 6 engines - you can really fly- but you have like one torpedo tube)

    that way "fleet" stuff could have a panaplay of different ship attacks
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