Matrix Games Forums

Post watching a majority of the previews, I noticed that in the design screen the art for weapon types when changed across types didn't change the on-ship art asset weapon representation. For example, a laser or cannon or ion bomb type weapon had the same asset art it seemed, furthermore the different sizes (s,m,l) were not physically different in their on-ship representation.

Curious if there will be different art representations of ship components (engines, weapons, etc.), and the same asset used was more due to preview build or if the components are overall generalized to one art asset across different components for their on-ship representations?

Sorry for digging deep on this, but I am a bit of a ship design geek, and love when the minor details reflect the build/components I have selected. I can tell the weapon size, engine type, etc. visually.

The weapon component meshes built into the models have two different sizes (small and large) and three different types (long barrel, short barrel, vertical launcher). These are then allocated in the data between the different weapon types, so for example a Small Concussion Missile Launcher will look different from a Large Concussion Missile Launcher but may look the same as a Small Lightning Missile Launcher but would definitely look different than a Small Maxos Blaster or a Small Epsilon Torpedo.

Different Engine types will have the same meshes, but different colored exhausts, but a ship with two engines will generally look fairly different from one with four, etc.. Hangar Bays are either there or they are not (in which case the ship looks like it was never meant to have one, we have additional support meshes so that whatever you choose, the ship looks like it was meant to be that way). Shields have one component mesh, Sensors have a small and a large variation.

What we were going for was enough representation to make the ship models look different based on the design, but while there is unique 2D art for each different component in the component list, each component does not have its own exclusive unique 3D mesh. A ship fielding all rail guns will still have different looking turrets from one fielding epsilon torpedos and a ship fielding heavy rail guns (a large long-barreled weapon) will look distinctive as well, but its by general weapon type rather than that exact component.

Regards,

- Erik

Wow, fast response. Thank you and appreciate the clarity.