Time for very honest feedback: These ship designs look too clean and shiny. It is, quite simply, something out of Starcraft 2. In a bad way. In a way that feels like Sins has lots a bit of its identity. If you told me I was looking at Starcraft 3, I'd believe you. If you told me I was looking at Sins 2, I'd have to squint and go "Oh yeah, that kinda does look like the Kol".
HOWEVER, I can understand why it was done. The colors are nice and readable, which is good for multiplayer. I just think that there needs to be a compromise with the above design and the Sins 1 designs - which in my opinion are some of the best ship designs out there. Maybe when the ships are first produced, they are nice and clean like above. Which makes sense. Fresh coat of paint. But over time, they gain battle damage and that's represented by alternative textures. Black scorch marks, rust (there's no oxygen in space, but still), paint starts to chip and fade. It could be very cool, and I think a good way to make you feel like your veteran fleet has seen some action. Could also give enemy players a rough idea of capital ship veterancy. A ship with scars is probably higher level.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock did this 'battle scars' concept already. So, it's doable in theory.
I felt the same when I saw the ships... but if that is the only thing that changes I am fine with it, however I loved the design before. Now it looks very generic to be honest... TEC must look old and rusty, also the officers uniform looks too modern, better stick with the old design!
And wasnt that thing at the left side of the Kol its hangar bay before? Where did it go?
Yeah, it does seem to be gone. One thing I really liked about all the old Sins capital ships was that you could see either their abilities or their weapon hardpoints in their model - and not just the turrets. The 'butt' of the Kol is the adaptive shield generator, for example.
But an argument could be made that during in-universe remodels, the old hanger bay was ditched or replaced, or maybe it's still there and just has an armored hanger door now. Who knows.
I mean if the advent look clean, that would fit their style right? But TEC were supposed to have repurposed old trading ships for the job afaik with I guess the Kol being the exception. But maybe the people in charge of the design are not the same as the ones before so they might not have noticed the details (like your mentioned adaptive shield generator for instance)...
It's most likely a design decision to make the colors more vibrant and stand out. All the ships seem to have a lot more color vs just a stripe of paint here and there. My initial reaction was that the ship, especially the ones with an orange coat of paint, remind me of the Expanse. Blue making the ships resemble UN ships and the orange resembling the MCRN ships.
The KOL ship does look brand new shiny. But in my opinion, it makes sense. It doesn't look like the KOL we know; it looks like an upgraded version. The old KOL looks like a repurposed trade ship, this looks like they like the TEC said we need a stronger ship of war, use the existing KOL prefab and make it a ship of war. Just look at it, it looks brand spanking new with more armor reinforcements and bigger guns.
If you look at some of the other media images, it does look like some of the ships have worn paint and seasoned exteriors. Such as in this one: https://www.stardock.com/sinsofasolarempire/sinsofasolarempire2/media/screenshots/ann/sinsII_ann_ss02.png
Although I do think there's nothing wrong with the KOL looking ship to be "clean and shiny", I hope this treatment wasn't for all ships. Could be cool to have ships that start out looking closer to the original series and as you progres, perhaps you unlock the newer model of ships. Or maybe just have the fleet consist of new and old ships. It might just be too early in the development to see what the other ships look like.
I also like your idea of having veteran ships have battle scars. Would be a cool feature to see them implement.
It would be indeed cool if you could research like an "overhaul" to the existing prototypes. So for example the first time you build it it is kind of a prototype ship, like in the original and if you research "advanced designs" or something like that you get the upgraded version... but you are right, its too early to speculate what the final product will look like!
Completely agree with this. Advent would fit this style exactly. With the TEC, they just end up looking like Terrans from Starcraft 2. And imagine Vasari looking all bright and shiny and friendly, instead of the evil alien overlords we know and love.
I agree, TEC ships should have their own style, and btw, are the vessels around Kol in the picture Javelin?
Agree. The overall look is very cartoonish. Remember Star Control Origins? Looks like a dumb down for general audience
Yeah that's a concern for me, the first game had a very realistic art style and design, Sins 2 seems very cartoonish from the banner with the characters to the ships being so colorful. I don't mind it looking clean, in 5 years we're not sure what advances have been made but I'd prefer the team colors to be more subtle. The character designs though, this looks like they pulled them from a Nickelodeon cartoon show.
Let's wait for the gameplay footage. Let's hope it did not lose scale or complexity for the sake of attracting the Fortnite audience
I agree with the Star Control: Origins comparison — such an art style works fine there, but not in Sins. At the very least, is it possible to make the ships have a proper metal look and feel instead of what is often described as “plastic”?
Still, I am more concerned about gameplay than about graphics — these can always be modified with a mod. Just take a look at Sins Remastered.
I get what you mean with it too clean, but it is still early access. Not even yet technically.
The new designs give me odd vibes like how Red Alert 3 looked compared to Red Alert 2? Or better yet, C&C 3 Tiberium Wars. RA3 looked...cartooney? Compared to other 3D strategy games. RA2 wasn't even 3D. But the designs were rugged and unique.
Personally though, I'm anxious to see how it looks with the sky box, planets, debris, and obviously most important, the game play and features added/taken away.
I think the only reason people think that the units look "cartoony" is because of the larger team color spaces on the units, and the relative lack of weathering effects compared to how motley and dirty the original TEC ships were. However, for certain other units like this new frigate (the updated Cobalt?) it's clear that shape-wise the designs still look "realistic" once the team color spaces are relegated to stripes or small spaces, since they still have lots of sharp angles with immense amounts of surface detail. I'd call them "cartoony" if they suddenly gained lots of softer, rounded edges to otherwise blocky designs with more exaggerated features with less detail, as in the case with games like Command and Conquer 4, and that's simply not what I'm seeing from the screenshots. Even the Kol battleship image used as the OP example still has a good amount of raised surface detail on it, and just a change in color to the new Kol battleship changes its impression entirely, as shown by this particular screenshot.
The reason people think that the units look "cartoony" is because current images suggest models lacking realism in terms of proportions, material look. And people want realism
How do you even measure "realism" in terms of proportions for a sci-fi game anyway? Nothing I've seen out of the current ship images suggest any exaggerated proportions. While I've seen people whine about the large turrets on the new Kol - a complaint I don't understand myself since the turrets don't look large or "cartoony", I keep asking myself how its size relative to the ship is any different from say the Kodiak's (non functional) turret back then. I've seen people claim that the "large" turrets are also "unrealistic" somehow, despite the fact that we're talking about a sci-fi setting here that doesn't exactly stick to "realism" the hardest. The "clean" part is the only complaint I get, and one I've already explained in my previous post. Even then though, that's an easy enough fix if the art team just add the more "plated and dirty" texture of the original ships on here. Even without such though, the surface detail on the ships combined with their general shape more than prevent them from looking "cartoony" to me, at least when they are looked at by their own merits and not compared to the previous game's TEC ships.
"Realistic" vs "Cartoony" in an RTS is something like the difference between Dawn of War II vs Dawn of War III, or Tiberium Wars vs Tiberian Twilight. This is hardly such a difference in my eyes, and I personally don't have an issue with having more "clean" looking ships (always been more a Star Trek guy than a Star Wars one). Now if these ships somehow sway when moving with turrets that pointlessly bounce, then we can talk about "cartooony", but as it is there doesn't seem to be any indication that they're going down such a route.
Let's put things into perspective: Homeworld - Realism 10/10, Stellaris - realism 7-8/10, Star Control Origins - realism 3/10, Warhammer40K - realism 2/10. Do you see where this is heading to?
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