The graphic and design style of this game is supposed to be Minecraft/Roblox themed?

[Naxreus]

Hi
Im new here and I really like the space ship tactical genre, been playing a lot of Fractured Space before it got shut down and currently im playing Dreadnought actively.
I like the gameplay idea of this game as it looks like the combat can be realistic and there is several loadouts and ship classes to choose. My main concern is the visual aspect of this game, Fractured Space, Dreadnought, Eve even Star citizen have some very nice realist space ship designs, with a lot of detail, variety and shapes that they look nice, unique, apealing and allow many customization so you can have an unique ship by changing the entire model, ships parts combinations, skins, lights, crew voice, effects, etc.
This game in the other hand looks like its designed to follow a more simple Minecraft/Roblox/Space engineers visual style, so the ships are just flying blocks with very simple shapes and no deep or many customizable details.

I saw that you can change some colors of the ship in the trail but that dont really seems to add much in terms of customization, dont looks like there is a ship model editor either with many smaller shapes for more interesting designs.

Right now the game is in early acces but im not sure how the final product may look like, the ships always be with this simple style or at some point you will be able to have nice looking ships like the ones from Fractured Space, Dreadnought, Eve or Star citizen? the maps seem to be quite detailed so if the ships were also as detailed an unique probably that would make this game more apealing to join into.

[Slamz]

My guess: I doubt it will change. The game uses physical hitboxes (similar to World of Warships) so its vital that everyone sees the same physical ship layout, regardless of graphics settings. Perhaps higher resolution textures could be added someday, though.

[CHOO CHOO]

The visuals are a bit low-fidelity, and the ship designs are utilitarian in design rather than the fanciful random-shapes-and-colors you find in most sci-fi-fantasy games. I personally like the style. It's nothing like minecraft though, that's a completely different ballpark!

[HungryHunter]

Originally posted by Naxreus:

Minecraft/Roblox themed?

can you explain what you want this game to look like becouse i find the details are on a high level already.

[perl]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2837251946

[Naxreus]

Originally posted by HungryHunter:

Originally posted by Naxreus:

Minecraft/Roblox themed?

can you explain what you want this game to look like becouse i find the details are on a high level already.

I just think better looking ship designs with more advanced and detailed shapes could make it more visually apealing, look at example the ships designs of games like Sins of Solar empire, Star wars, Fractured Space, Dreadnought, Eve, Star citizen... The ship designs on those games are very detailed and unique so they dont have simple cube shapes, thats why I refered to roblox or minecraft as style as on those games everything is build with cubes and cant do much more.

If this game was designed to use that visual style with those more simplistic shapes and designs in mind then probably it wont expand from there and leave it like as that was the main concept design.

[CHOO CHOO]

The models of the ships in all of those games are also pretty much just fantasy wank, whereas the ship models in Nebulous actually make sense. The latter are simpler and less fantastical, but they're also obviously space warships and not modern art failures like, say, the entire Gallente navy.

[HungryHunter]

Mr Naxreus
I think i understand where you comming from.
You played games with a larger and/or more arcade focus.
This games dont need to or cant handle angle of armor or maneuver thruster.
They handwave many simulations away with shilds and zero point drives.
This game does handle this and as a result the ship look "simple" to limit bullettraps and other weakpoints.

[jptenn]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

The models of the ships in all of those games are also pretty much just fantasy wank, whereas the ship models in Nebulous actually make sense. The latter are simpler and less fantastical, but they're also obviously space warships and not modern art failures like, say, the entire Gallente navy.

Exactly. Military ships built simply and efficiently. One could postulate that it is a module design that also facilitates upgrades and repairs. A shipyard could turn out multiple copies of the same hull and the Naval Service outfits it for the role they need at that time.

[Divine Crab Farmer [hungry]]

A long time ago, in the first version of Nebulous, ship hulls were constructed out of blocks. The hull-shape would determine the interior boundaries of the ship in question that you could then construct. You then had to individually assign compartments (including passageways and ship ladders as the crew was a physical entity) by dimensions and attach objects to those compartments for them to serve their function (generators, Damage Control lockers, berthings), while also planning out the ship's atmospheric or fuel piping and electrical systems down to the individual junction for each compartment or object that needed it.

While this might sound novel, what takes only a handful of minutes now to outfit a fleet in the current version of Nebulous took hours to build one ship and minutes to destroy it in the first version. In short, it was needlessly complex, horribly niche, out-of-scope, and- simply put- not fun.

Nebulous has a robust armor system that takes into account spalling, relative armor thickness-to-angle calculations, ricochets, and penetration depth. While this doesn't prevent us from doing more complex ship designs, extreme angles can create "shell traps" that focus damage into one, unintended spot or turn fights into long, monotonous slugfests of warships consistently hitting ricochets or having armor thicker than a mountain and never seeing any kind of penetration, annoying everybody- But that's my own opinion.

Our ship design also stems from the military backgrounds that some of us, the developers, come from. Mazer, our project lead, is an active-duty US Navy officer and wanted Alliance designs to be utilitarian, familiar, and reminiscent of a wet navy, as most of the ships in Nebulous have similar aspects to their real-world counterparts. I was Air Force and while that doesn't translate very well to naval warfare, the focus on practical military design is also something I prefer. I'm excluding a few worldbuilding reasons but they're not exactly relevant.

Ultimately, the aesthetic of Nebulous boils down to gameplay and personal tastes. We've considered optional paint schemes but it is currently not a priority at this time.

Also, this is just another of my opinions here, but EVE ship designs are anything but realistic, especially where the Caldari and Gallente are concerned.

[Naxreus]

Originally posted by big-possum.com:

A long time ago, in the first version of Nebulous, ship hulls were constructed out of blocks. The hull-shape would determine the interior boundaries of the ship in question that you could then construct. You then had to individually assign compartments (including passageways and ship ladders) by dimensions and attach objects to those compartments for them to serve their function (generators, Damage Control lockers, berthings), while also planning out the ship's atmospheric or fuel piping and electrical systems down to the individual junction for each compartment or object that needed it.

While this might sound novel, what takes only a handful of minutes now to outfit a fleet in the current version of Nebulous took hours to build one ship and minutes to destroy it. In short, it was needlessly complex, horribly niche, out-of-scope, and- simply put- not fun.

Nebulous has a robust armor system that takes into account spalling, relative armor thickness-to-angle calculations, ricochets, and penetration depth. While this doesn't prevent us from doing more complex ship designs, extreme angles can create "shell traps" that focus damage into one, unintended spot or turn fights into long, monotonous slugfests of warships consistently hitting ricochets or having armor thicker than a mountain and annoying everybody, but that's my own opinion.

Our ship design also stems from the military backgrounds that some of us, the developers, come from. Mazer, our project lead, is an active-duty US Navy officer and wanted Alliance designs to be utilitarian, familiar, and reminiscent of a wet navy, as most of the ships in Nebulous have similar aspects to their real-world counterparts. I was Air Force and while that doesn't translate very well to naval warfare, the focus on practical military design is also something I prefer. I'm excluding a few worldbuilding reasons but they're not exactly relevant.

Ultimately, the aesthetic of Nebulous boils down to gameplay and personal tastes. We've considered optional paint schemes but it is currently not a priority at this time.

Also, this is just another of my opinions here, but EVE ship designs are anything but realistic, especially where the Caldari and Gallente are concerned.

Thanks for you answer, I can see that you guys went for a more realistic and logical aproach that just works and is efficient in that way. Its true that many people are so used to fantasy shapes and crazy designs that logicaly makes little sense for a space ship like the Star Wars Imperial Destroyers that logically are really unefficient.

Im not really against this kinda of ship designs as you guys now answered the reasson of why they have those shapes. But definetly im looking forward to the future customziation upgrades to make you ships feel more unique and different from each other.

Gonna buy and try this game as it seems quite solid.

[MaxTheLagomorphicWonder]

Honestly, the ship designs look perfectly fine to me with regards to the actual ships themselves... I'd like to see some variety, but this game is in beta and it looks like they are focusing on making the mechanics of the game work more than they are trying to build up the visual design. Plus, it fits with the core idea of 'hard' sci-fi, yes, we are in space, yes there are lazers and guided weaponry, but this is not Mass Effect, Star Wars, or Star Trek. Think more along the lines of The Expanse.

That said, while I understand that the interface follows the pattern set up by current military interfaces, I still can't help but feel like it's all the way back with 'Space Invaders'. I agree that being practical is at the core of everything the military does, the icons and interface still feel like I should have an old CRT TV with a Commodore 64 plugged into it. I'm not pining for the fancy holograms you might see in sci-fi shows today, but maybe an alternative UI that's a little less blocky.

Not enough to chase me away from the game at all, not by a long shot, but still something that tugs at the back of my brain.

[Eliphaser]

Originally posted by Maxss2:

Honestly, the ship designs look perfectly fine to me with regards to the actual ships themselves... I'd like to see some variety, but this game is in beta and it looks like they are focusing on making the mechanics of the game work more than they are trying to build up the visual design. Plus, it fits with the core idea of 'hard' sci-fi, yes, we are in space, yes there are lazers and guided weaponry, but this is not Mass Effect, Star Wars, or Star Trek. Think more along the lines of The Expanse.

That said, while I understand that the interface follows the pattern set up by current military interfaces, I still can't help but feel like it's all the way back with 'Space Invaders'. I agree that being practical is at the core of everything the military does, the icons and interface still feel like I should have an old CRT TV with a Commodore 64 plugged into it. I'm not pining for the fancy holograms you might see in sci-fi shows today, but maybe an alternative UI that's a little less blocky.

Not enough to chase me away from the game at all, not by a long shot, but still something that tugs at the back of my brain.

I'd argue in terms of realism it's far closer to mass effect than the expanse
the expanse, while still not that realistic, is probably more so than nebulous

I also like how the UI gives off a cassette futurism vibe instead of modern clean and polished interface, which I find is far too present

[CHOO CHOO]

Yeah, nebulous may look very grounded, but the underlying sci-fi and game mechanics are softer than they seem. Speed limits even under constant thrust, very limited detection distance, very short weapon ranges and all kinds of things for gameplay's sake.

[MaxTheLagomorphicWonder]

Originally posted by Eliphaser:

I also like how the UI gives off a cassette futurism vibe instead of modern clean and polished interface, which I find is far too present

Oh, I completely agree with not getting it too dressed up. As I said, the fancy hologram interfaces we find even in the Expanse are extreme... And the military doesn't really want fancy high-def icons that they have to commission artists to come up with, they just want things to be identifiable very quickly once you learn them... But I just instinctively look for some setting in the game where I can just change the font to something else and stop everything from being in Bold. I don't want calligraphy in italics, just something only SLIGHTLY less blocky.