Sry, had to finish this first:
About the ship
-Changed flow around turret mounts to integrate them more into hull
-Disturbed symmetry to underline "spare parts" lore
-Changed some details, add different parts
-Some subtle dodging/burning
And now back to Xeno:
Those are detailes that matter:
For example those engine connections, even while tiny detail you can easily imagine them in 3d, they have function, they tell something about ship, same for Paragon, every detail is easily possible to represent in 3d, tells something about ship design, about function of that part, you can see where different parts connected where are parts covering each other. What are you mostly doing is burying those details under noise that is impossible to represent in 3d, don´t serve a function and are there just for sake of more dots over the image. But same was done in Master of Orion, it is hard to imagine how those ship would look like, how they were constructed. And as you said you are fan of MO, doing total conversion so probably aiming for that style... it is ok, go for it, by all means. But don´t compare it David´s work and this instance of modern spriting approach, it is more difficult, it is different, it is not typical pixel painting.