What do you think of the ships design?

[Knarkarkent]

Hello!

Elite Dangerous is a really fun game, all creds to the devs. But I think they really should enlist another ship designer, or make the excisting rethink the design. Most of the ships have very uninspiring designs, looking like 80-90s cars gone spaceships. I understand that its probably some history here, the devs wanting to connect to previus Elitegames, but hey, why not make the ships look a little more futuristic? I think that a new ship design would appeal to a broader player base than the old Elite-fans.

I want to fly spaceships, not a converted minivan.

 

[Mephane]

I find they have some of the best spaceship designs ever.

 

[torc]

That's your opinion.

I love the ship design...no star citizen crap.

I'm a '80 guy, and this retro look is fantastic.

 

[lazerus]

I think they're great. Ok, yes, they're in the main based on the original Elite's ships, which was slightly limited by polygons, but I think they've turned out well.
As to futuristic, what are you expecting? Form follows function, Most vehicles these days haven't changed a great deal since their origins. And the flying cheese wedge I think is ideal for storage (getting the most standard cargo canisters into a fixed volume), hi-g manoeuvring (you don't want spindles, spines, fins and wings snapping off when you turn) and when it comes to planetary landing, it's ideal.

 

[Geers]

I don't like it. It's just not interesting to look at. I've never seen an Elite ship and gone "Wow!"

 

[Knarkarkent]

The shipdesigns are not catastrophic, just boring and uninspiring. It is not a important feature for the game to be enjoyable and good, but it is a detail that should be considered. Considering that even the sidewinder can cruise extremly close to a sun and fuel scoop without burning up or being caught in the suns gravity, there can not be any restriction to the design of the ships for functionality. The only restriction would be that the ships have to be able to dock at spacestations, therefore not being too big and that they have to have flat underbellies. The ships doesnt have to be designed in any particular way to be able to perform planetary landings, they must have ingrav-thrusters and such or else we wouldnt be able to cruise so close to big stellar objects. And if they would have to be designed for planetary landing and flight they really would have to have wings, being very streamlined and so on. To get any ideas of good looking spaceships just google spaceships. I would like more cool designs. But if the meaning of elite is to give that rustic industrial feeling then I guess the ships designs are good. But its just my opinion. I guess there will be more ships in the future of the game and more differing designs too. Like the hunter

 

[Defacto]

I don't like it. It's just not interesting to look at. I've never seen an Elite ship and gone "Wow!"

I don't ever think I've seen any ship and gone ''Wow!''
Is that a thing? Spaceship game fans look at the latest concept art and screams WAOW IS BESTEST SHIP

It's just spaceship designs. I think that they look nice, they feel good to fly and they have good sound.
I like the spaceship design in ED.

 

[DefiledDragon]

I think the ships look great, if you want to see some really ugly spaceships you should play EVE online.

 

[Vasea Azure]

I really like simple utilitarian look of Elite ships.

 

[Oddity]

I think the ships look great, if you want to see some really ugly spaceships you should play EVE online.

Careful... for some reasons beyond my understanding in this forum mentioning the E-word is pretty much the equivalent of drawing Mohammed irl.

 

[OnePercent]

Simplistic.

Bad? Hardly.

 

[Panzer]

Ships look great, but there's no interiors aside from the cockpits/bridge. I know, i checked with a buddy - the anaconda has two texture holes and there's nothing inside.

 

[OnePercent]

To put things into perspective.

Elite dangerous ships all look like king tiger tanks except the imperial ships.

 

[kungfubiker]

there is a historical context to alot .....and il admit the Asp is pig ugly lol but no nice designs? two words.......Imperial Clipper!, and of course the up coming Fer De Lance, ....nuff daid

 

[Yurisputnik]

How long until someone complains that the space between stars isn't black enough? 80's bloke too and i think they're fine

 

[Varrag]

Matter of personal taste. As far as I am concerned, most ships are pretty well designed. Granted that some things look odd, like for example pilot cabines stretching out of the hulls. Would you really want to sit in that fragile glass cage instead in some well protected space deep inside the armoured hull?

 

[Geers]

I don't ever think I've seen any ship and gone ''Wow!''
Is that a thing? Spaceship game fans look at the latest concept art and screams WAOW IS BESTEST SHIP

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
Imperial Star Destroyer
TIE Fighter
X-Wing
Discovery 1

These are ships people immediately recognize. Even by mere silhouettes. Elite doesn't have anything near as visually striking. All the ships are just generic and plain. That's my opinion.

 

[salad]

The ships have their own personality, thats why I like them.

They're not so fancy and all, I like the simplicity.

 

[Bobbydylan]

Pyhthon is the4 sexiest ship in Gaming right now, IMHO:

 

[Tinman]

Ships look great, but there's no interiors aside from the cockpits/bridge. I know, i checked with a buddy - the anaconda has two texture holes and there's nothing inside.

Yet...the ship interiors are taken into account for future expansions though when designing the ships and are also very roughly blocked out by the 3D modelers.

Taken from a "Meet the Team interview" with John Kelly, September 2013:

Some of our forum members are curious about how the ship interiors are coming along. How much of the cockpit and general interior will be fully modelled for initial release?

Currently we've only got one cockpit developed to a sort of Alpha stage in-game and that is modelled up to about 180 degrees around you, at some point we do hope to have a full 360 degree cockpit but it’s not a priority at this stage. A fair amount of the Cockpit is modelled though.

The rest of the interiors at the moment aren't a high priority. We have built some blockout pieces for them, but they're more of a focus for later on, once we have the ships in and stations all going and everything spit polished, that's when we're really going to start digging into the interiors and their components, but we're laying the foundations for them for sure.

As long as we can't actually walk inside these ships there is very little point in loading these interiors into memory even if they might at this point potentially have done more to them. Same thing applies to the station interiors...the inside doesn't really exist until your ship comes close enough so that you can see it. This is no different from any other game out there.