today i noticed engine trails being way off... so i think its time i actually write this all down.
its all minor stuff, nothing gamebreaking, but still stuff that could be improved.
so first thing i noticed with the human ships was a weird green light in the center of them:
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as i played zenox since release and just now started a game as humans and before seeing on streams that some other factions have blinky lights on their ships... and zenox haveing no blinky lights atall... i thought maybe this green light is some bugged out blinky lights for human ships. but i doubt that is the case. i guess humans have instead of blinky lights all the glowy bits and windows etc?
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so no idea what that light is supposed to be... but it feels "wrong" and bugged out.
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so i just made a new game with all tech and went through a few ship designs...
i.e. the small and medium exploration ships have the green light... the large exploration ship doesnt have it.
same with the constructors... small and medium has it in the middle and the large one doesnt.
with mining ships the small one has the green light but the medium and large one doesnt have it.
also the green light is kinda blinking... and i saw that the battleship and carrier both have blinking lights on it (they look great) and no other ship or station has blinking lights? why?
i hope it is a bug as the blinking lights on the carrier and battleship do look great and having them on all ships/stations would be great. (fighters included... blinky lights on the wingtips or so could look great)
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while we on the topic of blinky lights... other races also have the same inconsistency with having blinking lights and not having them...
i.e. the haakonish explorer looks great with the blinky lights on it blinking in some intervall pattern (not all on/off at the same time)
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at this point i might aswell make a list of the races about what ships do have blinky lights and what ships dont:
haakonish:
has lights:
-battleship, carrier, colonyship, constructionship, explorationship, M-freighter, mining ship, passenger ship, L-freighter, S-Freighter, troop transport, fuel tanker,
has no lights:
-bomber, cruiser, destroyer, defensebase, escort, frigate, interceptor, L-spaceport, monitor station, mining station, M-spaceport, resort base, research station, S-spaceport,
this is a total mixed bag with ships, big ships have lights like battleship, but also small ships have lights like exploration and freighters... and smaller combat ships and stations dont have lights.
overall pretty good blinky lights on this race, they dont just turn "on/off" but have some patterns to them.
colony ship might could have a few more lights maybe? at the square back and maybe the green circle things.
the fuel tanker lights are a bit hard to see ontop the white bit. maybe they would be better to see if they go 45° left/right along the round bits on the green part instead of along the white bit ontop of the round bits.
i think the medium freighter might use the wrong ship model? it looks like the fuel tanker where the small and large freighter look more bloky.
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Teekan:
has lights:
- battleship, carrier, colonyship, cruiser, constructionship, destroyer, defensebase, escort, explorationship, frigate, M-freighter, L-freighter, L-spaceport, fueltanker, monitor station, mining station, M-spaceport, passengership, resortbase, research station, S-freighter, S-spaceport, trooptransport, mining ship.
has no lights:
-bomber, interceptor,
basically everything has lights, apart from fighters and bombers.
the unsymetric light placement is nice on teekan stuff... still jsut "on/off" pattern... but the unsymetric placement fits to the race well.
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Ackdarian:
has lights:
-battleship, carrier, colony ship, cruiser, constructionship, destroyer, escort, explorationship, frigate, L-freighter, S-freighter, passengership, mining ship, troop transport, fuel tanker, M-freighter (bugged lights! too far from model)
has no lights:
-bomber, defensebase, interceptor, L-spaceport, monitorstation, miningstation, M-spaceport, resortbase, research station, S-spaceport,
basically all ships have lights, all stations dont.
the medium freighter has bugged lights.
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Boskara:
has lights:
-
has no lights:
- ALL ships/stations
with boskara it makes sense atleast as they all organic... and they have "spotlight" glowy bits.
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Human:
has lights:
-battleship, carrier
has no lights:
-everything else
why do just these two big ships have lights? it doest really make any sense.
also why does just the escort have a mroe white/blue texture instead of darkgray/blue?
every ship/station/even weapons are dark gray... why is the escort more white?
(also the white/blue of the escort looks good... maybe make all the darkgray textures (ships/stations/weapons) more white like the escort white is?)
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Mortalen:
has lights:
- all ships/stations
has no lights:
-bomber, interceptor
small freighter blinks better than all the other ships, as the others just go "on/off" with their lights. why does just this one ship has lights that blink this way? it would look great if all ships/stations lights blink in such a way liek the small freighter lights does. gives it some "racial feel" to the lights, instead of just "on/off"... similar to how teekan lights are all unsymetric.
destroyer blinks quicker than the rest?
large spaceport lights blink very subtile.
S and M spaceport lights dont blink atall? (but they got lights)
mining station just has lights on one half. (both hangars have lights around them though, the one on the side with no lights has them too. the lights at the hangar corners are a bit hard to see, compared to the other lights)
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Zenox:
has lights:
-
has no lights:
- ALL ships/stations
actually if zenox are also staying without blinky lights... there are black bits at the ships.. maybe the teal areas in these black parts could glow similar to how human/boskaran ship parts glow... that might would give the ships a special feel.
all the stations dont really have such black parts though... a few do have darker bits but not as black as the ships... but maybe adding some black areas to the stations and making the bright bits in there then glowing might look good?
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in general maybe makeing the blinky lights a bit more "bright" so they show better a bit zoomed out might be good to? imagine airplane lights in the dark... they viewable quite some distance.
(example: haarkonish explorer... the two green lights at the end of the poles are the only ones that really show if you zoomed out a bit. but that might just be the level of detail reduction when more zoomed out, the lights disappear after a while too)
also some lights on the wingtips of fighters/bombers might look nice and makes them more visible?
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