Look at this tweet, I'm glad they're thinking about this.
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/678681755067502592Summary:
-Sprites should continue to be streamlined and given more visual 'pop'
-Weapons mounts are ugly, hand remove them from most sprites.
-Draw weapons mounts over sprites in the refit dialog
-Make cockpits much more visible, possible via glow maps.
-Consider "blink maps" to give sprites pulsing nacelles, cargo ship style blinking lights, or red/green port/starboard lights.
Intro to the problem:
The planet, terrain, and incidental graphics in Starsector are really quite good, but honestly some of the sprites don't do it for me.Efforts to remove greebles have paid off and ships like the eagle and the enforcer (formerly a sort of volumeless space raspberry) now look like they have volume at least. Even if it's realistic for a ship to be just a weird jumble of junk, gameplay wise if a ship is to be more effective than just having a triangle with the word "SHIP" underneath it, the sprite has to convey some kind of information about the ship to the player such as: What the ships role is, how big it is (and therfore more about the role), what it's overall strengths and weaknesses are, etc. Also they should look cool.
Things that make a sprite effective:
1. Indicators of scale like a cockpit
2. Indicators of function, ship role, or general characteristic
3. An overall form that isn't totally overwhelmed by greebles and weapons mounts. This makes them look cool.
Some good sprites.
Here are my favorite sprites from the game, with a numbers for which of the above points they win on.
Spoiler
1 (cockpit), 3 (clear wedge-like form)
1 (runways), 2 (runways), 3 (nice curves)
1 (Cockpit), 2 (Wedge shape and many engines indicates role as zippy harrasser ship) 3 (Despite small size, weapon mounts don't obstruct shape much. Love this one)
1 (windows, shuttlebay on starliner)
2(windows!, cruise ship style colors!)
but they fail 3, since the greebles on the sides for weapons mounts should be better integrated into the composition.
Still love these though.
2 (fuel bubbles.)
2. (Looks like what it is)
2/3 (looks sleek and fragile, is sleek and fragile)
1 (Visible cockpit, but should be brighter)
2/3 (Looks sturdy and tough, is sturdy and tough)
Examples of some sprites that don't quite work:Number indicates which of the three points it fails on
Spoiler
1,2,3 (Much improved since last version, but its shape/overall form indicates nothing about its role, nothing indicates scale, and the mounts/greebles still too obstructive. There are transperant squares in the middle... what are they supposed to be?)
3. This is supposed to be hightech, but all the weapons mounts and greebling stand out and make it look like a lumpy freighter with a runway attached)
1 (can't tell if there is any cockpit)
3 (Looks like the borg assimilated a chocolate chip cookie because of those ugly empty mount graphics.)
2( Looks like a fat freighter.)
1,2 (What is this supposed to be? a transport has so many opportunities for indicating scale/function with windows, but this just looks like a crude space phallus... and it isn't since it's just a weak transport)
1 (cockpit not clearly visible) 3 (looks like deformed fetus from a jar due to large hardpoint, which distracts from engines and millennium falcon style setup)
1. (The cockpit has too many windows so it actually looks like a big ship) 2 (role is not really clear, could be a warship)
2. (The flight deck doesn't stand out at all due to ships coloring)
3. (there is no shape or composition to this ship.its just random greebles. Looks like something starving refugees from Maxios would make in a junkyard to fly into the EU)
1. (Nothing to indicate scale)
2. (nothing recognizable on this, except I guess a ton of weapons mounts. Has a funny little white spot in the middle that looks like a little man wearing a gasmask, which confuses things.
3 (Much improved since last version but still that bit of confusing greebling)
1/2/3 (This is supposed to be a high tech ship but its all greebles, has a boring shape, nothing recognizable on it, and just looks like the inside of my 1996 Inkjet printer)
Basically almost all fighters fail to look like anything to me. They have too many greebles which doesn't work on such small sprites. None of them really indicate anything about their role except the wasp. The dagger has the big red missile sprite, but they just look like little Rudolphs.
TAKEAWAYS FROM ALL THIS
For point 1 indicating scale: The obvious thing is to make cockpit glows stand out more, either by just making the pixels bighter and more prominent, or using glowmaps. Other than sprite size, there isn't much which can indicate scale except wings or engines, except flight decks. These also should 'pop' out more either from glow maps or just brighter coloring.
Another idea is animated sprites with little sequences of blinking runway lights on flight decks to make them more stand out more.
Point two ship role:Cockpits are important. Fighter type bubbles: combat ships, etc. square windows, shuttles, etc.
Play to peoples' connotations by using sharp edges and bold shapes for warships, and blockier/boxier/uglier stuff for freighters.
Blink/light maps for sprites: White or red/green lights flashing in sequence could indicate role and also help indicate scale. small white lights flashing in a pattern like "blinkblinkblink--long pause-blinkblinkblink" could make a ship seem like a big ponderous freighter. Whereas just a simple red and green light on port and starboard of a ship might indicate its a smaller vessel like a hound. Gradually pulsing lights going from high to low intensity on engine nacelles could also indicate a high tech ship or something.
Point 3, overall composition:Keep getting rid of greebles in favor of volumetric shapes.
REMOVE THE WEAPONS MOUNTS. There is no reason to see them when they aren't bearing a weapon. Even sprites that kind of work now are much improved by this. See a mockup of a tempest:
Left: mockup without weapons mounts. Right: with weapons mounts
The left one really shows off the cool alien curves of the tempest a lot better.
Why do we need to see empty weapons mounts really? It seems a bit pedantic.
The codex graphics are too small and blurry to see mounts on many sprites, so people usually look down and read the specs as it is. What you want is an overall first impression of the ship. Plus many loadouts don't utilize all the mounts in a ship so it would be nice if the empty ones weren't part of the sprites.
The only place you'd really need them is in the refit dialog. So you could either just draw mount socket graphics (same mount sprites used by all ships) over the ship sprites in the refit dialog, or you could just forget the mount sockets and have refit dialog draw overlay colored circles indicating the positions/size of mounts on the intact hulls. Could activate this in the codex also with a hotkey or something, if you ever plan to make the codex sprites non blurry/interlaced.
FIGHTERSWhy do i dislike so many fighter sprites? They just don't look like anything to me. Just pixels. The amount of pixels you have to work with is so small, that there is really no room for greebles and fancy stuff. You need a cockpit that pops out, and a very recognizable, primitive, geometric shape. That's all you have room for, at max zoom they get pixellated anyway. So stick to v
ery simple shapes that somehow indicate their role. Probably by playing to people's connotation with modern fightercraft is the way to go.