Ugliest Ship

[Lazy Panda]

the most worthless? Technically it's the Tarsus. It was made up for that specific purpose- a ship that the gamer would whant to ditch in order to get something descent.

But for my part, I just can't help myself, I love that peice of junk.

IMHO, the Tarsus's look describes it's use - as flying coffin. Seeing it from the Standoff mod, the Tarsus is no match even in gerater numbers, mainly due to lack of speed and armament.

 

[Eder]

Boxy WC1 ships? What are you people on?

The Scimitar's top things and wingtips are curvy, as are the Raptor's main 4 wings and the two side panels and the cockpit, as are the Rapier's main 2 wings, folded-down wingtip things, side-of-the-cockpit fins and cockpit, as are the Hornet's wingtips and rear protrusions on the wings. Then there's the Drayman, the Exeter, the Dorkir, the Ralari's and the Krant's wings, the Dralthi, the Salthi, and the Jalthi.

A Raptor with it's 4 curvy wings, bubble-like cockpit, and the two arc-like panels is much closer to a Sabre than to a Thud (take 3 boxes, move some vertices, extrude 7 faces) or a Longbow (take 1 box, move some vertices, extrude 6 faces).

If you ask me, the Sabre is boxier than the Raptor, even - apart from the airplane nose, the cockpit, the two nose-mounted fins, and the guns, most of which have minor impact on the ship's shape... as opposed to stuff like the Raptor's panels and big curved-back wings which are the ships most recognizable features.

 

[Lynx]

WC1 ships smooth? What stuff are you smoking, can I have some?

There are a few rounded parts on WC1 ships as gun and engine barrels and cockpit parts on some ships. And check out the Scimitar, besides those pods it's really edgy even the "smooth" main body consists of a few straight lines with clear edges seen from above. They are just as edgy as WC3 craft, but are more detailed and less massive looking.

As for the movie ships being disliked, I think I know why:

If you look at almost all WC ships their backside is larger compared to the front, both capships and fighters alike, making their rear look "heavier" and more prominent than the front part, while most of the movie ships had their center emphasized, whith bridge towers while front and back were mostly equally thin, making their centerpart look most prominent.

 

[Eder]

There are a few rounded parts on WC1 ships as gun and engine barrels and cockpit parts on some ships. And check out the Scimitar, besides those pods it's really edgy even the "smooth" main body consists of a few straight lines with clear edges seen from above.

Yes, that's just the Scimitar though, and the Hornet also works the same way to some extent. But most other ships have rounded lines at least on their wings. And those are a pretty important and distinguishable feature of the ship's design in most cases (specially considering some have a lot of fins/wings). Draw a Raptor with straight, blocky wings like the Longbow's - that'll not look like a Raptor at all. If you think the wings don't make enough of a difference... Draw a Rapier with straight lines, and from the top it'll look (ugh) just like a Hellcat.

And even the edgy ships are closer to the WC2 ships than to the WC3 ships, in terms of complexity. They have multiple fins, protruding guns, elegant structures with few "heavy" parts other than the rear half of their bodies where tube-like engine nozzles usually come out of.

Compare the overall shape of even the Hornet and Scimitar to the Ferret and the Sabre, then to the Hellcat and Excalibur. WC3's designs clearly are the ones that stand out as oversimplified flying bricks - they look like sets of blocks, with too many parallel lines that feel like they're always the same distance from each other, as if someone had used a really big Grid Snap setting when modelling them.
Most of them can be defined pretty accurately from a 2d silhouette, as if someone modelled them from a 2D view.

 

[Edx]

I actually really liked the Wing 3s style, but then I never played Wing 1 or 2.

Ed

 

[chanman]

Eder put it more eloquently than I could. I've played WC 1/2/privateer, but have only seen screenshots and pictures of the ships from WC3/WC4, and especially for WC3, it's hard for me to get past the 'flying geometric shapes' aspect. In some cases, it seems like the only tool the designers had besides their pens were rulers.

I admit that some WC2 ships were rather angular, the Concordia and the destroyers, for example, but for me, the Waterloo and Kilrathi ships offset that.

As to what I've been smoking? I live in Vancouver, you don't need to smoke anything, it's all second-hand

 

[Marc]

I've played WC 1/2/privateer, but have only seen screenshots and pictures of the ships from WC3/WC4, and especially for WC3, it's hard for me to get past the 'flying geometric shapes' aspect. In some cases, it seems like the only tool the designers had besides their pens were rulers.

That's because you haven't seen the betwen-missions video cutscenes. I'll admit the WC3 fighters don't look all that hot in game. But ,ah man, let me say: the clip where the first Excalibur lands on the Victory carrier... love at first sight.

There's defenetly something to be said about evaluating the difference of an artist's version and an in-game working model of the same ship.

 

[AdmiralHuang]

The Thud is beautifull... The Sabre is the ugly one! It seems like the squashed it lenghtwise. Very ugly.

I don't really think that WC1 and 2 had rounded, flowing lines, really. They had those characteristics on print, but INGAME they were actually a mess of big pixels.

The Sabre was cool except for the weird-looking gun pods on the wings.

 

[Eder]

There's defenetly something to be said about evaluating the difference of an artist's version and an in-game working model of the same ship.

I agree with you there, but I don't get the same feeling as you do with WC3/4 ships. When I look at them in-game I see boxes, but it's not the engine's fault - when I look at the FMV models, I see boxes with rounded edges and guns and hull plating and other small details on them... but they're still boxes when you look at them from more than 2 meters away (though I'll admit that the Excal is much better than most of the rest of the lot).

In other words, I'm not saying I don't like the lack of detail that was imposed on the artists by the game engine... What I don't like is the lack of creativity in designing most of the ships. I'm certain that much more interesting designs than Hellcats and Thunderbolts could have been modelled with just as few polygons.

 

[Edfilho]

I said that the WC1 and 2 ships INGAME were a mess of pixels... And they surelly were. There is nothing round about any of them in the engine. And, pardon me, but aside from the cockpits and the Raptor wings, the Confed ships in WC1 were rather full of straight lines and angles, even in the blueprints. Sure, there are 2 round pods and 2 round engine exhausts in the Scim, but EVERYTHING else was straight. The Rapier was also all angles...

here: https://www.wcnews.com/ships/wc1confed.shtml

 

[Eder]

I said that the WC1 and 2 ships INGAME were a mess of pixels... And they surelly were. There is nothing round about any of them in the engine.

No such thing as in-game ships and off-game ships. There's just in-game graphics and off-game graphics for the same ships.

I don't really think that WC1 and 2 had rounded, flowing lines, really. They had those characteristics on print, but INGAME they were actually a mess of big pixels.

There, that's what you said: you said the ships had rounded, flowing lines on print. You are obviously aware that there was no way they could render the in-game sprites in the same level of detail as the Claw Marks blueprints, so I don't see why you base your opinion on the sprites. They are clearly not the way the artists intended the ships to look, the blueprints are.

here: https://www.wcnews.com/ships/wc1confed.shtml

Thanks, but I prefer to form my opinion based on the intended looks for each ship rather than from the ugly mess of pixels (which was 1990's top of the line).

(And either way, I've already specifically pointed out just about every single occurence of non-straight lines in WC1 ships. I don't think doing it again will convince any more people).

 

[Maj.Striker]

Well, seriously...if you look at the blueprints of the Raptor (for example) you'll see the only thing rounded is the side armor thing that connects the wings and the cockpit. From both the top and side views the Raptor is very boxy looking. For me, the blueprint diagram is the most accurate description of the ship. However let me try to balance that statement by saying when I mean boxy I mean that you can pick out the edges of it if you look closely enough. Compare that to a modern fighter such as an F-18 for example you find very few edges (I'm especially referring to the main body section). Granted WC1 is no where near the boxiness of WC3 but to some extent you can consider them still "boxy." I, however, am working on a remodelled Raptor that I feel looks much much better than what I've seen or done previously. When I get home I'll post a picture of it.

On a side note, I'm also reworking a Scimitar and I find that surprisingly the Claw Marks diagram do not match correctly. What do I mean? The top view provides a different nose style than the side view...most interesting. I'll have to get the blueprints to know I'm doing it correctly.

 

[Eder]

On a side note, I'm also reworking a Scimitar and I find that surprisingly the Claw Marks diagram do not match correctly. What do I mean? The top view provides a different nose style than the side view...most interesting. I'll have to get the blueprints to know I'm doing it correctly.

Yeah, half of WC1's Claw Marks blueprints don't match up. Most are just misproportioned in some sections, but the bad news is that the Scimitar is hands down the king of contradictions.

Check out the blueprints from Claw Marks, the stand-alone blueprints, the pictures from Taggart's Tactics, the launch screen side-view of the cockpit, and finally the in-game sprites... it's pretty hard to find 2 different sources that agree on what the damn thing's nose section should look like.

(FWIW, my favorite Scim is the Taggart's Tactics version )

 

[Lynx]

And the WCA Scimitar. Maybe there are a few different versions of the Scimitar like with the Rapier II. The WCA Scim has two lasers instead of massdrivers, so I think we can already call it a version of the standard design (and yes, Taggarts tactics Scimitar rocks )

 

[Eder]

Well, visual differences between WC1 and WCA are common.

(Hey Lynx, now you made me want to model that Scim )

 

[Edfilho]

The Scim cockpit is really a mistery. No two pictures agree in regards to its location

And well... wc1 and 2 ships were surelly more complex and less boxy than the wc3 and 4 ones. They had more surfaces and wings ans winglets and canards and stuff. But they were mostly straight lines and angles...

 

[Maj.Striker]

Alright, here's my interpretation of the WC1 Scimitar based solely off the stand alone blue prints included with the original game. (not the diagram in Claw Marks). I think it sticks very very close to the original but I certainly welcome pointing out any noticeable deviations so I can adjust.

First a side blue print look just to kinda set the feel.

Then the actual render

Front view

Side view

 

[Maj.Striker]

I'm not completely pleased with it but it'll do for now...

 

[TopGun]

It's looks great MS, as always

 

[Lynx]

Well, visual differences between WC1 and WCA are common.

But there are also additional differences like armament and loadout, indicating that there are a few different versions of each ship type

(Hey Lynx, now you made me want to model that Scim )

I certainly won't stop you.

As for Strikers Scimitar, the model is pretty high quality, but I don't like it. The body is too rounded, no matter how different the various depictions of the Scim are there were always a few clear edges in the main body. And those spitfire thingies on the nose don't help either.