EVE General Discussion

Mt Eve is losing its overall look. There seems to be a shift to making ships more symmetrical, but there must be an equal amount, if not, more asymmetrical ships to keep their designs "Eve". In many space themed games and movies, their vessels are always symmetrical, Eve differs by exploring ideas that these hulls do not necessarily need to be symmetrical to function in space as aerodynamics do not apply. I'd like to encourage CCP to continue exploring the ideas as they have before with designing asymmetrical hulls that gave Eve it's look and releasing assymetrical, but new designs in later expansions.

amarr ships, not quite

I'm in favor of assymetrical design, provided it's in line with the contrary standard I.e. good.

Im of the opinion that being extreme either way is bad. however, ships must follow themes.
Amarr should be symmetrical, theyre all about perfection
Caldari semi-symmetrical but sensible, their industrial and made-to-purpose
gallente highly asymmetrical and stylized, free thinkers, encouraging creativeness
minmatar highly ecclectic, use what they have on hand, everything can be repurposed for another task

pirate ships should be mixtures of their two races visual themes.

Strictly speaking unless a ship is spherical it is asymmetrical on at least one axis.


EDIT: Actually a few other regular shapes like a cylinder or cube would also qualify as symmetrical.

Hulls should be skins. Rather than redesigning them every few years, they should just add new options.

Personally, I dislike the asymmetrical ship designs. I like order and symmetry and everything in it's place. However! I realize that my tastes are personal and that others prefer more unique designs. Neither of us is right, so why make one party suffer through an "ugly" design to satisfy another.

I say they should provide several different skins for each ship and let the manufacturer decide which one he wants to build. It will diversify the market even further.

Asymmetrical is cool.

Asymmetrical done horribly wrong ... not so much.

EVE is still learning that.

If it looks like it would fly around in circles, something is wrong.

I can't think of anything we sent people up in that wasn't symmetric.

Mercury capsule was symmetrical. Gemini capsule was symmetrical. Apollo capsule was symmetrical. Space Shuttle was symmetrical. I'm not really bothering with Russian stuff. Hubble Space Telescope is symmetrical. ISS is predominantly symmetrical.

All probes, all shuttles, all capsules.

The fact that you mention the space shuttle demonstrates the main problem: you only think of symmetry one-dimensionally — left to right. There's just one problem: left and right does not exist matter in space. Left-right symmetry only exists if there is a clear up-down and forwards-backwards for it to exist perpendicular to. The shuttle has such symmetry because it's meant to land with the wheels pointed downwards in the manner of a over-engineered brick airplane, with wings creating lift upwards and landing gear pointing downwards. It has left-right symmetry to keep its forwards-backwards axis pointed in the same direction and not go into a flat spin. Hell, lifting wings as a concept work precisely because they're not symmetrical in relation to the direction of travel.

In space, forwards and backwards (in terms of direction of travel) exists as a single axis, but that's about it. Symmetry (if you need it at all) has to exist around this axis, but there is no left/right/up/down. You can have almost any kind of symmetry you want — three-way, four-way, two-way, n-way — and you're not restricted to just two pre-determined axes.

So using airplanes as a point of comparison, a regular 747 is not symmetric along this single relevant axis. This 747 would be, as would this one. With that an mind, go back and look at pictures of everything we've sent into space. Almost nothing is (visually) symmetrical in any way that matters (but all of it is of course symmetrical in terms of mass distribution and thrust, but that's something quite separate).