mediocre ship design

Bite your tongue! I think the ship designs in Sins are fantastic!

Ever played HW2, think again

Sins is designed for weaker computers, not ultra modern ones.

That means models and textures need to be complex enough too look good, but not enough to chog down computers when rendering hundreds of ships.

There are several graphic mods being worked on at the moment, which will increase the visuals in SoaSe.

EDIT: Also, the above user is correct. Look at hw2 again. For some reason as time goes on, we remember things better than they actually were.
I always remembered the classics of n64 (super mario 64, super mario cart, and so on) being alot smoother; I downloaded a rom of them and was in for a bit of a surprise.

Well, have you looked at HW2's lately? I was playing it last night and while it's ships are technologically inferior to sins, with lower-res textures and no bump-maps, they're artistically superior in overall design. Their real-time self-shadows are subtle but nice as well, something I wasn't able to run on my 9800pro at the game's release. Overall, even today - I'd say HW2 is the better looking game.

No one needs to point out how subjective that opinion is, - but there you go, I think Sins' technology is more competent than HW2, it's an ambitious game and is running smoothly while rendering and tracking more than HW2 ever did.

But it doesn't have much visual flair, especially by comparison - even the 2-D art is awkward looking. The ship design ranges from adequate to uninspired, with a few standout designs bucking the trend and upstaging the others. In general ships look more shiny and toy-like than HW2's. Battles still look epic but the style isn't as appealing to me as Relic's odd combo of bright splashes of color across grungy panel.

The sky-boxes are really pretty though.

Giving us the option to use better models, detail levels, etc., would be a great thing for those of us who can take advantage of it. My PC is a mid-level gaming machine, but it doesn't really have any trouble with Sins, and I'm planning to beef it up again in another month or two. Being able to increase the quality of the ship visuals would be really great. I'm sure lots of people will be playing this game for years to come, so having it scale up as the hardware gets better would be good for everyone eventually.

Just out of curiosity, are you running detail levels on Highest and not High? Cuz there's a pretty big difference between the two.

Personally, I find the ship designs to be great, from both and asthetic and technical standpoint. Not to mention I can have hundreds of ships on screen blasting each other without my system even having a hiccup.

As far as I know, there isn't an effeciant way to 'degrade' a models polygon count. You can do it easily; it just won't look very pretty.

Having multiple ships with varying polygon counts (low, medium, high) would be a waste of memory and time. This completely excludes texturing and UV (but that isn't as hard)

I do wish sins had an option for shadows; having your planets fight in the shadow of a planet would be awesome!

I'm not sure actually. I'll have to check when I get home.


Having different models with varying poly counts would be a fine solution. Only one set of models would actually be loaded, determined by the detail settings you choose. Shadows and some dynamic lighting effects would make the battles even more amazing to watch

Actually there are very good algorithms for reducing level of detail. I can guarantee you they are used extensively in this game - that's why you're able to have hundreds of ships on the same screen - and the reason you don't notice that is 'cause the algorithms are very good. It would be very possible to have even higher level of detail when zoomed in real close on the ships, but personally I don't find the ship design lacking at all. I mean sure, there are the occasional duds here and there, but overall I find the ships very interesting, varied and when you have those big fleets squaring off, very impressive. Of course I haven't played HW2 (really should though) so I can't compare to that.

I'd have to agree,
I bought this game based on the G4 review and feel that it may have really been a 3 out of 5 stars (not 4 out of 5 they gave it). Ship design is just one of the items that is way to basic for an epic space game. I feel the game has lots of room for improvement maybe rushed to the store too soon?

I feel that the mods to this game will be really interesting.

I have a high end PC and I find some of the ship designs really beautiful, but some of the "uninspired" TEC designs are really SUPPOSED to be ugly IMHO. Their ships are industrial makeovers! The only "pretty" TEC ship is the KOL, which was the only ship built from the bottom up to be a ship of war.

I too was very disappointed with the ship designs. Most of the TEC capital ships and the heavy cruiser are very clunky and cartoonish. The Kol Battleship is actually okay, but when I see the others, I always think "ugh, I've got to look at that for the next 2 mins. of battle?" HW2 is a great example of excellent ship design; they actually enjoyable to look at, and they look like warships instead of garbage scows. And, yes, pleasing ship design is very important to a game like sins; this is not a minor point.

Quoted for truth.

Great art design does not require high polycount and hi-res textures.

I have this feeling that Ironclad didn't hire a concept artist (is there a dev that can confirm/deny this?), and they subcontracted it out. It's understandable as they are just a small, indie company still and would have to keep the payroll expenses down.

People keep praising Relic's art design- well, kids, that's what you get from big game companies. Relic/EA/Blizzard/Valve. They all have VERY talented Art Directors and Designers.

Why why why do people think Warships need to be flashy and have the cool arches and doodads?

The Capitals in Sins look like they should. They are bulky in design, look like they carry abit of armor, and they look like they can get their asses kicked but still return it.

While the TEC ones arent the prettiest ones, they look like what a Warship would realisticaly look like. Advent and Visari are abit more elegant, but still look like actual warships instead of this fancy pansy designs most games try to go with.

I was a little dissapointed with the ships designs only becacuse the expectations were high, but, I found that the ship design is pretty good by itself. Comparing it with mayor companies, of course, maybe... just maybe they will be a little inferior. "Maybe" because there were so many games that failed miserably in ship designs. Anyone tried out O.R.B.? now that's what I call a bad design.

For some reason, I love when space ships take their base from navy ships. That's what i liked so mucho from HW2, anyone who paid some attention to the Hiigaran fleet could tell that their designs were based on real navy ships, wich makes perfect sense. From that POV, let me tell you, that IMHO, Sova Carrier is the best looking ship in the game.

Staticstarter nailed it. I think Ironclad did great with their resources. Want pretty ships? Wait till Ironclad's the size of Relic.

And some of us are fond of the "garbage scows" look.

Well said. Actually, I think if anybody has problems with the ship designs - particularly those of the Vasari and the TEC - then they also mustn`t like the starships from Babylon 5, the Descent: Freespace series, or the Marine cruiser Sulaco from ALIENS. The design aesthetics are the same.

To each his own.

I don't think good art-direction is synonymous with big companies.

Yeah but I don't find any of the ships definitively ugly even....they're all...plastic looking. An example of inspired ugliness would be maybe the Earth ships from Nexus, with their centrifugal mid-sections and Apollo-esque nacelle nozzles.

This game has some of the most interesting capital ship designs I've seen.

Better art direction and slightly better technical graphics would make this game perfect for me. Right now it lacks some style & atmosphere, making the setting less believable.

the ship designs in sins are great ! from the smallest scout to the biggest cap ship they are the coolest designs i've ever seen !!!!

Yeah Relic simply had/has extremely extremely extremely talented concept artists.

Not all good modelers/texturers are good with concepts.

Ironclad is a small company.

Yeah HW2's are way better artistically, so are some more games, but sins is more fun and more addicting to me.(Though HW2 had better combat mechanics)

I must be the only one who likes the look of the Marza Dreadnaught and Sol Carrier...