Ugliest Starship

[Reynard]

There's the problem when we compare movie designs to designs in Traveller. Even some other SFRPGs have consistent racial ship styles. Traveller though prides itself on providing the ref/players with tools to create their own ships and submit them. Third party outfits have provided ships for so many decades and some have become icons.

I have noticed non-imperial designs (aslan, vargr, etc.) actually do follow the basic racial form by most people. It's imperial that don't have any essential 'standard' form and I can say that's what imperial designs are all about. The Imperium is a huge collection of semi-sovereign states that run things locally. That includes ship architecture. There are many ships that have become standard throughout the Imperium yet variants and unique styles are part and parcel for localities. The citizens of the Imperium pride themselves on artistic freedom. Part of that is the ugly ship now and then.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I think one of things I don't like about starship designs in the OTU is that there's not really much rhyme or reason to them. Other settings have a certain consistency to them - Star Trek with its nacelles and saucers, Star Wars with its 'letter-ships" and bulbous strutt-y rebel cruisers and TIE fighters and big triangular ships for the Empire, Babylon 5 with it's spinning section for Earth Force, and big fins for Minbari, etc. But the OTU? That's largely an incoherent mess. There's no real consistent design logic between the ship designs, no real sense of a chain of evolution from one ship type to another. Sure, the different races have different aesthetics -Vargr with their spiky ships, K'Kree with their big saucers, Aslan with their round nodular ships etc - but the human ships are just all over the place.

Did someone just compare big budget films that had industrial designers and concept artists, to a paper and pencil game that barely had an art department?

 

[Reynard]

And I don't believe most studios regularly supplement with a lot of fan art contributions.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I think one of things I don't like about starship designs in the OTU is that there's not really much rhyme or reason to them. Other settings have a certain consistency to them - Star Trek with its nacelles and saucers, Star Wars with its 'letter-ships" and bulbous strutt-y rebel cruisers and TIE fighters and big triangular ships for the Empire, Babylon 5 with it's spinning section for Earth Force, and big fins for Minbari, etc. But the OTU? That's largely an incoherent mess. There's no real consistent design logic between the ship designs, no real sense of a chain of evolution from one ship type to another. Sure, the different races have different aesthetics -Vargr with their spiky ships, K'Kree with their big saucers, Aslan with their round nodular ships etc - but the human ships are just all over the place.

Did someone just compare big budget films that had industrial designers and concept artists, to a paper and pencil game that barely had an art department?

Game Designers ignore the expectations of their customer base, regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable, at their own peril.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

There's the problem when we compare movie designs to designs in Traveller. Even some other SFRPGs have consistent racial ship styles. Traveller though prides itself on providing the ref/players with tools to create their own ships and submit them. Third party outfits have provided ships for so many decades and some have become icons.

I have noticed non-imperial designs (aslan, vargr, etc.) actually do follow the basic racial form by most people. It's imperial that don't have any essential 'standard' form and I can say that's what imperial designs are all about. The Imperium is a huge collection of semi-sovereign states that run things locally. That includes ship architecture. There are many ships that have become standard throughout the Imperium yet variants and unique styles are part and parcel for localities. The citizens of the Imperium pride themselves on artistic freedom. Part of that is the ugly ship now and then.

I think the intended design patter for Vilani designs was supposed to be “blatantly geometric”. Not sure how often they stuck to that.

 

[Reynard]

I think it was thirty seconds after defeating the Vilani.

 

[wbnc]

I think one of things I don't like about starship designs in the OTU is that there's not really much rhyme or reason to them. Other settings have a certain consistency to them - Star Trek with its nacelles and saucers, Star Wars with its 'letter-ships" and bulbous strutt-y rebel cruisers and TIE fighters and big triangular ships for the Empire, Babylon 5 with it's spinning section for Earth Force, and big fins for Minbari, etc. But the OTU? That's largely an incoherent mess. There's no real consistent design logic between the ship designs, no real sense of a chain of evolution from one ship type to another. Sure, the different races have different aesthetics -Vargr with their spiky ships, K'Kree with their big saucers, Aslan with their round nodular ships etc - but the human ships are just all over the place.

Did someone just compare big budget films that had industrial designers and concept artists, to a paper and pencil game that barely had an art department?

Game Designers ignore the expectations of their customer base, regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable, at their own peril.

as far as the radical differences in style and design of starships I think that could be expected. Each design house would have it's own take on Form and style. While it would be within a certain broad envelope a lot of variation would be common. Especially among humans who can't even agree on what to have for dinner much less style and design options for a starship. There would be the Form flows function route, with different ideas of how to execute that. Form over function types, If you can afford to waste space, and creds on a ship you like the looks of but isn't optimized to the last detail. And, of course, Designers who build ships as an art form.

As for the need to supply art that is to the high demands of the audience... with the ease of communications, artists that had no access to publishers back in the day can be used. Publishers have a much larger pool of talent to dip into. Having good art isn't dependent on random chance, or lucking into someone who has some skill who just happens to be within your general area/circle of associates.

However despite the abundance of artists, it is now more difficult to find artists who can do the sort of art needed.... As a rule, the audience has become more demanding. They have a very well developed taste for art these days. back when They were making "Star crash" and "Battle Beyond the Stars" audiences were relatively easy to please Now fifty/sixty years into Scifi as a visual art form audiences are much more demanding, and much more educated.back in the 50s to 70s very few people had any real grasp of the science behind scifi...they wouldn't be as prone to go..That would never work...so artists have to work harder to allow for reasonable suspension of disbelief.
This also applies to game art. Back in the early 80s I was happy just to have a quick line drawing or three. Look at the first generation of game books. the writers and creators were using art that whipped up themselves or paid a friend a few bucks to sketch out....Now like what was said above..If you skimp on art it bites you in the butt. Gamers just won't go for sparse, or cheap low-quality art, unless the quality of the game is well above average...

Since I started trying to publicly present art and game material even in a small community I have had to really up my game...of course having people around who don't shy away from being painfully honest in their opinions is a good thing... it forces an evolution of art, and game material to a more evolved state....

 

[rust2]

Alas, those days when Judges Guild published supplements where the Far Trader and the Subsidized Merchant looked like a type of rifle ammunition ... :shock:

 

[wbnc]

Alas, those days when Judges Guild published supplements where the Far Trader and the Subsidized Merchant looked like a type of rifle ammunition ... :shock:

yeah, that is a look that has been sidelined..very practical but not much to look at. And let us not forget spaceships that looked like random bits of industrial machinery welded together.. It works for certain types of ship but it's a real nightmare when it comes to other types.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I always thought that the Type Y Yacht was ugly. Surprisingly ugly given how it's a noble's plaything.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well said, wbnc, about facing the realities of a modern audience...

I agree that the Earth Humans and the Solomani are going to have lots of “unrestrained creativity” in their ship designs... but the Vilani are different. They have a looong history of evaluating the reliability of a design, and a penchant for being traditional. They also favor geometric forms. This should, in theory, lead to some universal aesthetics being present in their ship designs; I’m not convinced this was particularly well borne out in canon, and probably should be reconsidered.

 

[middenface]

I always thought that the Type Y Yacht was ugly. Surprisingly ugly given how it's a noble's plaything.

Tis a bit of a dogs dinner that one..
Here's one I did.

I have started a more streamlined one as well.
BTW Check out Jess DeGraffs version. That is rather good too.

 

[Condottiere]

My feeling is that the Imperium concentrates more on having numbers in commission, which is why you have a substantial proportion of it's Navy constructed as close structured hulls, compared to the Solomani Navy, which appears to gone Empire in the lead up to the Rim War, and apparently aquatic for adventurously inclined ships.

 

[fusor]

Well said, wbnc, about facing the realities of a modern audience...

I agree that the Earth Humans and the Solomani are going to have lots of “unrestrained creativity” in their ship designs... but the Vilani are different. They have a looong history of evaluating the reliability of a design, and a penchant for being traditional. They also favor geometric forms. This should, in theory, lead to some universal aesthetics being present in their ship designs; I’m not convinced this was particularly well borne out in canon, and probably should be reconsidered.

I think the issue I raised is nothing to do with the earlier (laughable) suggestion that "big studios had professional designers" and everything to do with the fact that the technology required a consistent design. You don't need to be a pro to think "hm, if my FTL engine tech requires nacelles, then all my FTL ships should have nacelle-like structures on them" or "if my engines need to be far from the habitable parts of the ship then ships will tend to be long spindly things" . The OTU doesn't have anything like that, it's more like "anything goes".

 

[rust2]

"if my engines need to be far from the habitable parts of the ship then ships will tend to be long spindly things" .

And then other naval architects find this idea of spindly ships silly, because they keep the engines far from the habitable parts by designing their ships as boxes or spheres with outriggers for the engines, or ... :lol:

Remember, the main interest of almost every designer is to create his own unique personal style and if possible to become famous and wealthy because of his invention, not to remain obscure by copying what others have invented long ago. Likewise every shipyard is very likely to want its own easily recognizable style, not to build ships which look exactly like the ones built by all the competitors.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Erm... no... a ship designer has to design a ship that accommodates the needs of his customer. For some, that is efficient day-to-day operation. For others, that is lots of luxury for the owner, and keeping the servants and ship crew out of the way where the owner never has to see them, which preserves the illusion that the owner has full access to the entire ship. Even artistic visions have to be functional, in the same way that building architecture has to earn its keep. People who design pretty buildings that constantly break down don’t get a lot of repeat business.

 

[fusor]

Remember, the main interest of almost every designer is to create his own unique personal style and if possible to become famous and wealthy because of his invention, not to remain obscure by copying what others have invented long ago. Likewise every shipyard is very likely to want its own easily recognizable style, not to build ships which look exactly like the ones built by all the competitors.

Ships aren't an artform or fashion show though - it's not like you have the Guccis and Versaces of the Shipyards . They have to be practical and buildable and serve the purpose that they're designed for. And honestly, even today who remembers the engineers who actually designed things like tanks or fighter planes or ships? Designers work for big corporations that build the ships, the idea that some random guy can come up with an iconic ship design just by having high skill in Naval Designer is a bit silly, to be honest. It's not like a hit record that someone can come up with by playing in their garage and shopping it around to the labels.

And even so, if the practicalities of the technology dictate that sensors or engines have to be in a certain configuration, then no amount of design fanciness is going to get around that. If FTL engines can't be placed within 20 metres of eachother because of interference between their FTL Fields, then someone who designs a ship where they're 10 metres apart isn't going to go far.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Different markets.


Most ships:

Functional boxes.


Human customers involved:

Functional box, but it can't be too ugly.


Yachts:

Design is a powerful sales argument.

 

[fusor]

Sure, but how many of those have the propellers at the front? How many cars have five wheels? That's what I'm talking about here. In reality, design is limited by how the technologies involved in them function. You can still do a lot within those limitations (as your ship photos show), but In the OTU there doesn't really seem to be any such design limitations at all. Ships can be all sorts of shapes and sizes, because it doesn't matter where the maneuver drive is, how many engines there are, there's no need for radiators etc. That encourages aesthetic variation, sure, at the cost of a consistent, distinctive look to the ships.

Though if the aesthetics of a design was really an individual thing in the OTU, we'd see a bewildering variety of custom-made ships of all shapes and sizes. We don't though - there are standard designs but we haven't really seen much beyond that.

 

[Condottiere]

Form tends to follow function; in the case of spaceships that don't have to follow aerodynamics, how the designers prioritized the desired features.