Yet, the design philosophy is that the advent are centered around being female, so having a vagina/womb + ovaries ship moving along (don't forget the halo) isn't thinking outside the box.  Its quite a small stretch to say that the direct feminine inspiration is unimaginative and downright strange.  Having a humanoid shaped ship is also not very inspired, again very strange thought process.  While the design philosophy of the other two races seems to make a modicum of sense, the advent isn't nearly as well thought out.

I would agree that it is unique, but unique isn't always a posative thing.  A goiter is unique, but not exactly desired...But when compared to the uniqueness displayed in the other races I find the advent ship design mentally half assed and downright dull.  The other aspects of its construction are done well, but putting a nice coat of paint on a crappy mesh doesn't solve anything.

The best thing about this picture is the beautiful background.  This ship fits and it is designed to bring out its best attributes, good spacing, a tactical move to miniturize the ship to maximize background. yet the fact remains, that it is still a vagina halo.  From this angle it looks more like a truncated cylon from the new battlestar galactica series minus the cool red eye.  I believe the halo is a simple inspiration to denote a possibly fanatical religious aspect to the advent...Yet its implimentation is also lazy.  All in all the sequential unveiling of the ships and analysis of the ship designs would conclude that the advent ships were the last to be designed and by the look of it, the design team had run out of ideas. 

Unity, the focal point of the advent would be better represented by a generally circlular or spherical shape and this should be the dominant characteristic of any advent ship that carries the advent cause to battle.  There are so many unique variants to this idea and still have your beloved vagina halo look incorporated somewhere in the design...

As for being asked to think different, why should I sit by and let a poor ship design get added to an awesome game?  Not to mention this ship will look awkward when seen next to the advent fleet.  This ship does not fit with the advent design.  Any person with a basic understanding of art and style can see this, why can't the ship designers themselves?

As for dreaming about me, you will have to realize that i'm taken, sorry dude. 

Well, where you see a vagina/womb, i see a clove :

As thinking outside the box, maybe you wish something like :

Anyway, if you are not happy with the actual Advent titan, nothing stop you to download some free 3D software and make yourself a titan who look like you wish... your sphere idea can be modeld in a few second since it is one of the primitive shape in any 3D software... if you are not able to make these simple task, you can always "steal" the borg sphere from the startrek mod or the dead star from the star war mod... and modify the texture...

Is this a gripe about the advent titan looks or the abilities? or just both?

Because besides a screenshot and teaser we haven't had an honest look at any of these.

lol, like we are all here to impress sinperium... Any reason why this is "epeening"? or in your arrogance do you enjoy making unsupported statements? Anyways this is not "epeening", this is a straight up negative review of the ship design from what I have seen in the screenshots.  In my view the poorly designed radiance battleship looks better, call me a critic. 

Well the TEC are a trade fleet that has had to become souped up to fight a war.  Easiest way to do that is to weld on some big ass armor plates and make some big ass guns and there you go, a warship is born.

The vasari have the "tech edge" and have the cool alien aspect, as well as the "previous overlords of the galaxy" title to justify their strong starbases and cheap efficient tactics.

The advent are the bastard middle child, part human, part alien telepathic consciousness, they are the hardest to design because by nature they are somewhere in between the extremes of the other two races.  This design is inherent in the tech trees if you think I am wrong.  I would note that this is the main inherent flaw in the thinking behind the advent's racial design.  They need their own path, the guardian is a good example of this design, yet it has several failures inherent in its abilities that render it an expensive military toy, nothing more, nothing less.

Hmm somehow I missed this lil nugget of goodness.

Actually this discussion is quite expensive, as failing to do well on rebellion will substantially hurt the companies involved, if not cause them to fail outright.  The designers CANNOT AFFORD to screw it up.  Your "lure to buy" is going to get screwed up if people don't think your 6 titans are cool.  It is quite plain to see that the developers have had difficulty designing the advent titans, and you want me to offer the solution gratis.  Only an idiot would do so, I have given you some thought inspirations that could assist in the development of a new titan, if anyone wants my work you will have to pay.  Or have you forgotten that this is a mercenary culture? 

So in your view, all opinions are stupid except for the high priest/designers view in his unapproachable chair of light at the top of his sacred mountain?  Your post stinks of corporate dogma.  I don't have privilages, I have rights, or have you forgotten the age old struggle for liberty?  Has that lil tidbit of history eluded you?   If you are from a country other then the USA, I can understand your thinking.  But if you think you are a true US citizen, Ideologically you are NOT.  You are more in line with the subversives who would destroy the USA and all that is wonderful about that idea.  It is plain to see you bought into a corporate lifestyle, but I would recommend you get a bit more experience in things grounded in reality before you seek to engage ANYONE in the area of ideas.

sareth01 dont start it over.

Gay race needs gay looking titan with gay abilities. thats logical

Yes there is a difference, a prediction can be made and it is my opinion that the design "might" fail as it currently is.  I am stating they don't have the luxury to fail.  If 2/3 races is good enough for the designers, it won't be good enough for the players.  Many games fail that are 95% on and 5% off, why allow yourself the error when it is easily fixed?  I point it out as a community service, because it is only human to become wrapped up in your work and attached to it, and blinded by it.  The developers are receiving feedback from someone who cares about the game from a different point of view.  The team at ironclad does deserve praise because they have made an awesome game, and I want them to get paid so they make more games that I like to play.  To do this they need good eye candy because that is the reality of the game industry.  The advent titan is not good eye candy, it fundamentally doesn't make sense and leaves one with the impression that is not satisfying.  This is a problem.  It needs to get fixed. 

The only complaint about my opinion is that it is a singular individuals outspoken opinion.  Hence the unproven hypothesis, I will predict it will go one way.  The experiment of the game's release will verify the hypothesis (the game will do quite well regardless). This discussion is not on if rebellion will do well because of the poor design of a titan or two, it is a discussion of HOW MUCH BETTER IT WILL DO if the design of the ship is improved.  I have the luxury to enjoy the experiment of the games release from afar at no cost to me.  The developers do not.  They should do a decision analysis and spend a small amount of cash to see if their audiences actually find the ship designs pleasing, because I guarantee that if they do they will have a change to the advent ship design and possibly a change to other ship designs as well.

Currently, the ship designs have every indication that they were built in the womb of ironclad ready to be released upon the world whether the world likes it or not.  You should actually ask the world before you do so.  Not every baby is pretty.

Once the forums get active again a communal consensus will be reached about the titans and people will show the least interest in the advent titan designs(that is my hypothesis, which is perfectly valid).  This being after the fact the developers will be powerless to make any changes and would also be completely ignorant of the potential cash they could have made if they followed intelligent marketing techniques.  To be fair, as the publisher stardock should be responsible for influencing how ironclad does business to ensure the quality of the product, but every corporate culture has its own strengths and weaknesses (and I for one don't know the nuance of either Ironclad or Stardock).  Perhaps this is a weakness of stardock, or a strength...perhaps stardock doesn't want to put in its word yet because it understands that ICO is a tight nit group of good designers.  I would say however, even good designers can convince each other with their fatigued brains that what they have made is a golden triumph when it is in actuality a dull ball of mud.  Hopefully stardock can step it up and ensure relatively simple quick fixes like ship design could be maximized to ensure better marketing of the product.  It would need to be done soon however, as the media ball is starting to roll.  Don't mess up your hype.

Developers, I want you to make more money. 

I don't have to kiss your ass and whisper sweet nothings in your ear while I explain how this is possible.

here are some designs that people paid a lot of money for that didn't work, don't be like them!

http://www.google.com/search?q=bad+logos&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ryM_T86yKsXZiALNtZjQDw&ved=0CCkQsAQ&biw=1595&bih=855

Sareth is an idiot. He needs to write essays to explain and complain about simple problems than just saying: "Hey can you do these kinds of designs- posts his " done.

Some people apparently never get into the box and end up obsessing about the wonder and joy the box so much that when they get into the box they discover they are trapped and are as F*'d as before but only now with obsessing about getting out the box so much that they keep fucking posting idiotic stuff about how they never get laid and the advent ships get them randy.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar unless you let bill clinton around it, then it is an excuse to bomb serbia to cover up the lack of hankies in the oval office.  Cripes Sareth, switch to decaf and stop lusting after bene geserit dropouts.

Probably the best retort here.

 I would however say more like fish-talkers+ bene gesserit.

You have one distant screen with no indication of what it will look like with abilities on or firing, etc....you make a Freudian psychological analysis and then 'peen back at our posts...EPEEN!

(This would be fine on Joe User though--maybe under "philosophy".)

Need proof of the 'peen?  Here's some quotes of the "substance"...we call this "evidence" in the real world:

OWE my mind hurts!

I don't worship those who create this game, I am instead very critical of them.

I have a thing for telepaths

NO, we can't have people who stand up for themselves in this society

I may as well crap on civilization and spit on self improvement while I burn books around an idol of christ killing muhammad.

awww you hurt my poor widdle feewings.

sareth is a dumb dumb

I don't have to kiss your ass and whisper sweet nothings in your ear while I explain how this is possible.

A three year old with my reading comprehension and writing skills would be quite amazing indeed.

Your post stinks of corporate dogma.

It demands a rapier

you have a broken stick.

in the womb of ironclad

like a floating vagina/womb in space minus the ovaries

It hurt my head reading all this.  You could have just said, "As a regular Advent player, I don't like the new Titan design and hope they'll consider changing it."...but that would never satisfy the 'peen.

Frankly, i know where you are coming from, as i am the kind of person too, who tends to care for "purely cosmetic" stuff. But you might be slightly overreacting here, its fairly difficult to judge from those pictures, which are available. You are right though, i feel the Advent ships - with few exceptions - are the less attractive. They remind me of Ori ships from Stargate SG1 btw, i wonder if there was some kind of inspiration, given their similar nature. 

BTW, i do not think that Vasari Titans are that great, especially the spider looks bit underwhelming. It might make sense, but its hardly original and additionaly does not really look that great - but this is observation based on that one screenshot, it may change, when i see more of this. Similarly the other Titan, Charybdis, i think it would be cooler, if it was vertical, this way it looks like oversized fighter. Personally, given the rumours about one of the Titans being the "homeworld", i would prefer something more along the lines of Alien Mothership from ID4 combined with some Orkulus visual features/elements - overall i consider Orkulus, Kortul and Vulkoras to be the best and most unique ship models of the game, therefore this idea...actually all the units, which were added to game as part of the Entrenchement were IMHO the pinnacle of the ingame design, my only gripe was with the Advent Starbase, which should have been kept in its originally proposed outlook with a simple vertical cylinder adjusted to the ring part, instead of the DS9 like looking pylon it has now... 

Regarding TEC Titans, i was not a big fan, but i would agree with your description. Seeing them on the trailer in higher quality changed my mind, they really looked good there, so i suppose my original opinion was influenced by seeing their ingame version, which is - given the lacklustre graphics - bit meh...