EVE General Discussion

I thought I'd open up a discussion about what our impressions were, in regards to ship aesthetics, when we first started EvE, verses now. Also, for the second part, what particular ships do you feel are perfect or near-perfect for what they do?

Aesthetics
On my first day of EVE, as I sat there waiting for some skill to train, I did what I am sure many people did then: I browsed ships via the marketplace. So many ships, so many different styles, and with the exception of the old Moa, so beautiful. But, each person has a sort of style they appreciate above all else. For me, it's pointy and sharp edges. So it was only natural that the Raven series caught my eye. Oh my what a magnificent and beautiful ship. It looked like a demonic terror and I couldn't wait for the day I could fly one. Or better yet, a Raven Navy issue. Oh with that cool blue digital-camo paint job and stats even nastier than the normal ship. Oh but so expensive! I couldn't imagine, back in those days, how anyone could afford one.

That was, eh, a few years ago.

I've had the ability to sit in a Raven Navy Issue for years. But I never did own one. I just never really liked missile mechanics over the finesse of turret combat.

These days, different ships have caught my eye, and I do fly them. My favorite favorite eye candy is the Kronos. Every part of the design just screams "powerful". I love looking at the intricate details all over the hull. Those massive "arms" that hold the primary turret batteries. The awesome battle bridge. The secondary thruster housings. And whatever that thing is that hangs off the port side on top of the hull. I don't wish to diminish any other ship in this game, but my god, whomever was in charge of putting together the Kronos obviously had a lot of passion for it. It's big, it's beautiful, and just looking at it you can tell the sort of power it commands. It just has this palpable presence about it. I get pumped up just looking at it, like "that's my ship, f-k yeah!" Even the bastion animation for it is the best, with those electrified power cores emerging from the top of those massive arms and it looks freaking awesome. Best of all the marauders, I say!

I also fly and have much love for my Paladin. Stat-wise, and for all practical purposes, it is my favorite ship. I enjoy laser weapons, the stats on it rock, the resist profile is amazing, the hull bonuses are perfect exactly as they are, and it flies like a dream. But to look at it, it doesn't have the immediate commanding presence of the Kronos. Where the Kronos comes off as almost "muscular", the Paladin is sleek and trim. When I look at the Paladin, it stirs in me the thought of a luxury cruise ship, rather than the mighty powerhouse that it is. I love the ornate details carefully etched into the workings underneath that hard upper shell of the ship. But while the top is beautifully detailed and ornate, much of the interesting structure stuff is on the underside. In a way, the underside of the ship almost reminds me of the underside of the sort of thing like "Cloud City". I like looking at that stuff; it makes the ship feel real when you can see so much of the structure. But it's hard to observe that stuff while in the hanger.

And it's still no Kronos.

Function
For function, I'd like to spotlight a class of ships that I feel are basically perfect. Balancing is a hard thing, finding unique roles for hundreds of ships can be hard, but sometimes you find a way to get it just right. I'm referring to Blockade Runners and Deep-Space Transports.

DST's especially are something I like playing with. The Devs making the primary hanger a "fleet" hanger to encourage fitting tank instead of cargo expanders was genius. Giving the fleet hanger outside accessibility was icing on the cake. And the unique role bonus is truly inspired. With great bonuses to primary defense layers, a huge hanger, great fitting, and enough slots to give you a lot of options to fit to your needs, I feel like the entire class of Transport vessels is pretty much perfect. They may or may not be easy on the eyes, but they are awesome regardless. Easily the backbone of any serious small to mid-size hauling needs, these are vessels that every pilot should flock to. Whether the individual capsuleer needs to move something of his own, or if they do it as a profession, DST's and BR's are amazing tools for the job.

So what about you guys? What were your first impressions with ships, verses what you fly now? Any ships you still lust over, either for stats or for aesthetic value?

Form follows function. This is the major reason why things appear as they do; why trees look like trees and lions look like lions. We're accustomed to seeing things as images before us and rarely overlay the developmental tale behind the final form, so it's often lost why and how things came to appear as they do.

A major failing of science fiction design is adding or subtracting things, or creating forms, with no functional basis behind them. A good example are the many "aliens" created for Star Trek 2. They pretty much just glued appendages to humanoid forms. Another example would be The Creature From The Black Lagoon. He's a bi-pedal, waterproof guy with fins and webbed hands and feet. Nothing remotely similar to an aquatic "creature". He's a "man" that looks like a fish.

In a zero gravity environment, with no atmosphere, items such as wings are completely unnecessary. Space ships don't fly. Flight is defeating gravity in an atmosphere with an airfoil. For space, or deep space, the most functional and preferred form for a large craft would be the sphere. (I was pleasantly surprised years ago to see Star Wars use the sphere for the Death Star. Most designers would have leaped at the chance to wax eloquent and throw together the most involved, slap anything that looks "sci fi" behemoth possible!)

The other factor about having protrusions, such as FINS, or Pokey Outey Things on a warship is, what do you think will be blown off in the first thirty seconds of combat? And, these appendages better not serve a significant function, because with the supposed weapons being employed, when they go, that function goes. No one builds vulnerability into something just so it'll look cool IF it's to be used for the intended purpose.

It's hard to seriously keep in mind the concept of structural integrity, when viewing the design work of artists today, but of course in a culture so saturated with these "other" images, it would be design suicide to present to an audience hungry for "cool" the image of a soundly engineered space vessel frame.

Since form follows function is a cardinal rule of aesthetics, unfortunately pretty much all of EVE's eye candy is disqualified from consideration, and only ONE design in living memory comes close to fitting the bill.

True, but to be honest, most car designs today have things on them that are completely unnecessary and sometimes even detract from performance. Even so, designers put extras on cars for aesthetic purposes. Once space travel is widespread, people will probably do the same thing, so unnecessary things like wings, struts, etc aren't that far fetched.

Some are trying to put hard sci-fi reality into a soft sci-fi space game. It won't end well. EVE has some trappings of hard Sci-Fi but actually falls into some level between Star Wars and Star Trek (to use the two biggies).

To really discuss looks, I've been flying a Thorax for so long it's actually looking decent to me even though I dislike asymmetry for 'looks' purposes and have a good laugh at the added 'gun porch' on the one side.

Then I just got my first Exequror, that is an awesome design. It screams engine power, the warp 'nacelles' animate to warp position then drop to act as guards for the main engines in normal space. It's the closest I've seen so far to a ship that actually has functional design principals, even in a fantasy setting, applied. The only thing I'd add to it is that in warp, the warp nacelles should be generating a large engine trails to provide the illusion of additional 'thrust' coming from them.

For pure aesthetics, the Amarr seem to have that market cornered. Very beautiful paint jobs and some good looking vessels to put them on.

As for the comments on wings, some space ships would need them. Anything that lands would benefit from them. You also might need places to put weapons or sensors out away from the ship hull, wings would be the obvious choice to do that and allow for better cooling systems. So there is rational choice for wings in space, but maybe not aerodynamic ones unless it was a gas miner in denser gas fields.

Mind you, all of this is moot, since going back to my original point, hard Sci-fi would not have us 'flying' ships at all like we do in EVE. They behave like winged craft when they would behave very vector based. Even the ancient game "Lunar Lander" had more real space ship movement than our ships do in EVE.

Well i do like ships now more than before just because visuals got updated few times during the years...but some of new things got less style in them mostly caldari all of them look more current navy than before

i don't dislike that approach just consider it more mainstream and thus least awesome.

For example i am prob one of rare that consider old moa better than new one it is more rad in all aspect of it and one more thing CCP early concept of moa is better than old and current moa combined it is the most anime mid 80's early 90's sci-fi awesome boat i seen.

Same goes for concept art tempest it blows away current and old hull combined the shape of that thing the looks sharpness...unmatched to date.

Also few ships lost its soul during the process few examples to follow

Loki lost its pirate skull in certain config...cmon that's just mean thing to do.

Gallente frig lost its impale spear.

Tempest fleet issue lost its legendary vertical solar panels in return it got jungle como < who ever did this >is blind in his mind and since it rhymes it must be true.

Other than that go new stuff looking forward to few impending redesigns .

Well, I will put it in this words: I would like current navy to look like caldari ships.

agreed

just not what i said(wrote)

Minmatar Shuttle!

It's one of the few ships I get into and always, always fly around zoomed in really close so I can look at it.