Which is more interesting to look at, A or B? Then: which is playing a supporting role better in the overall context of the work of art?A. I like smooth.
The issue is that the "greebles" as you call them caused there to be a sort of scale to the ships. A largeness personified by all the multitude of tiny pieces making them up. Even small ships felt large due to all the interlocking plates and pieces. Not only does getting rid of them make the ships themselves (in my opinion) look substantially worse, but also serves to remove the uniqueness of the ships. The ships don't look as unique anymore, they look more like things drawn by committee than by an inspired artist.
I don't expect to change your mind, but since you have been developing the same game over the course of 5 years and made the same amount of progress a team of 4 could do in as many months, I don't see you changing much of anything let alone your own mind.
Mmmh, I'm not a huge fan of the new Eagle... The first one was definitively over-the-top in term of greeble, and the second a stark improvement. But that new one lost something imo: some volumes aren't as defined as before, especially on the front arms and just behind the side medium turrets. There is also the fact that the whole armor has the same frequency details now, when before some parts were very detailed and other smoother, the scale is more difficult to guess. And the arms details seems rougher too, not as polished as the rest, plus the sudden break in the lines when the side medium hardpoints emerge straight from a tilted shape with tilted plating.
Sorry for the harsh disappointment post, and I swear, I'm not complaining because I have three variants of the Eagle to redo for a coming mod. (or only a little >< )
the design with the little windows and the thin colored lines are just too different from the stuff we currently have in the game.
(Also, why isn't the blogpost titled "Grief with Greebles"? Or "Greeble-Greed"? ;))
Also that new frig is super retro looking. Is it a shuttle or what?
I'm kinda ambivalent regarding the new frigate though, it looks a bit too much like a fat space shuttle, which is a pretty meh spaceship shape.
As Cycerin said, that new shuttle-thing looks straight out from some 90's Shmup. That's pretty cool.
I'm not sure about the Eagle MK.III. Before you could clearly place him in the mid-tech family with the Hammerhead, Conquest etc. But now? It feel more like a semi-high-tech D-variant, a bit like the Odyssey. I'll still gladly take it but i'll probably miss the MK.II. I hope you'll eventually try to "smooth-it-up" other ships like the Venture or the Apogee in the future.
By the way, is it possible to have a png of that old web page layout? So many pipes! And rails and wires and tubes and... For someone that loves the "flying oil refinery" style, this is a kitbashing wet dream.
The issue is that the "greebles" as you call them caused there to be a sort of scale to the ships. A largeness personified by all the multitude of tiny pieces making them up. Even small ships felt large due to all the interlocking plates and pieces. Not only does getting rid of them make the ships themselves (in my opinion) look substantially worse, but also serves to remove the uniqueness of the ships. The ships don't look as unique anymore, they look more like things drawn by committee than by an inspired artist.
I don't expect to change your mind, but since you have been developing the same game over the course of 5 years and made the same amount of progress a team of 4 could do in as many months, I don't see you changing much of anything let alone your own mind.
My only concern about this ship is its purpose. We already have the Mercury and the Hermes as light-freighters. What can that thing do more to make it interesting? With only three small mounts, its use on the battlefield will be severely limited. So what? A sensor frigate thingy?
*cough* (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Tribbles) ;)
There is also the major problem of losing the aesthetics that made each Faction distinctive, insofar as they've ever been differentiated; that high-frequency look was largely defining for early Independent / Midline ships, with their dull monotones, whereas Low Tech has always felt a little more organic and open and High Tech has always been smoother (well, other than a few outlier designs that look like they're alien tech).
This is one of SS's major areas where I still think it could be improved; visual themes that stay consistent across a Faction make them iconic and are helpful in terms of feel and as a marketing device.
There is a key line in the post that I think applies to the point you raise: "The impetus for this revision is, really, driven by a desire to create some ‘skin’ variants. And doing so was bloody impossible with all those greebles mucking things up!"I agree with that sentiment and I get the problem. Trying out specific paint schemes with a greeble-covered ship is somewhat harder and can be really annoying :)
Hmm! Hmmm.
That said, I think that the point about a sense of scale is probably the biggest issue. The easiest solution for that is to simply add some functional-looking specific greebles that stand out, or some pixel-art touchup to bring out some things.
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About the only way to get semi-firm control over that would be to render the sprites with a shader pass designed to arrive at a very specific outcome, in terms of what people will see. It's quite possible to run a shader to do pixel-pixel comparisons, sharpen up heights, etc., although once again, you get into some compromises, such as having to be quite careful about adjacent pixel values for some things, using some very specific colors as control objects, etc.
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I am selfishly eager to play with the new features since, judging by the blog posts, v.65.2a is way behind the trunk.I actually agree with you on that; it's not really broken and these issues are mainly about polish; but we all love watching David fussing with polish :)
I very much understand the need to smoothe out the textures for the purpose of easily "re-branding" ships, I fear it may cost the Starsector universe its "used" feel.
I very much understand the need to smoothe out the textures for the purpose of easily "re-branding" ships, I fear it may cost the Starsector universe its "used" feel.
Just look at the Eagle-d from the blogpost, you get all the greebles when the ship is actually "used".
However, with the new texture, it could be easily be painted blue to look like a Tri-Tach ship.Agreed. Same with the Heron, too. Actually, because Heron has no ballistic-only mounts, if Heron was colored blue and its CR deployment raised, it can easily appear as a high-tech or Tri-Tachyon ship. Eagle, if its medium hardpoints changed to energy, and its flux stats boosted (and special changed to Phase Skimmer), it could be high-tech too, and I prefer to use an energy-spec Eagle over an Aurora. (Aurora is only good as a missile boat.)