For Backers Only: Unit Whitebox Sheet

OMG!! I love this!!!

FINALLY FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER: The units are all the correct sizes in relation to each other. A battleship is actually huge. A kbot is actually small. Trees are the right scale in according to everything else. Perfection.

It looks so epic! Amazing stuff guys!

LOVE what I'm seeing so far!

I don't want to add this as criticism, but, everything I've seen so far looks very ARM. It would be nice to see some units looking more CORE.

But as has been mentioned, this is only some of the units.

The base buildings are all good sizes, if anything I'd make them bigger just because they look so nice. It always kind of bugs me in games like Starcraft where the unit scales are all fudged relative to the cutscenes.

THIS!!!

I didn't know you needed windows to use radar...

Will you release this picture again soon with all the units and buildings listed?

Maybe replace the "bridges" of the ships with something more like, i dont know, computer-ish or brain-ish (the big quantum brain from Supcom2?)

I don't know how you can tell that these look arm instead of core, most of them don't even have definable shapes as they are still untextured and in some cases they are most certainly placeholders...

From Aircraft to ships as well as the Bots and Tanks all have an Arm Touch in Terms of design

The tanks and the planes mostly. But I think people get me.

I would like to see a few more walking brick things like the Sumo and stuff but we haven't seen everything and the game is going to be moddable...

So d*mn nice units! Really like the style!

I agree with many other peoples feedback, but here's my two cents:
Regarding the bridges on the ships: some sort of radar-/communications-tower on the top is needed, but the current design is to "human". This also goes for the fighter-jets.
The kbot and vehicle factories are to similar and larger/smaller factories need to be more advanced.

I'm not sure about what I think about the energy/mass symbol on the economybuildings... I guess that they're really efficient on showing what the building do and as it seems that there will be lots of different economy buildings some kind of marked for this is needed.
One idea I just came up with is that all power generators, regardless of type, could have some sort of distinct module attached to it, kinda how the factories have the construction warning stripes. And the same goes for the mass producers. The power generators could have Tesla coils or capacitors or something cool like that.
So, yes, something to mark that "this is a power/mass building", but the current symbol, rather not. I hope that this will be changed, I know, I know, it's only whitebox...

On the whole: Really nice for being whitebox, I love the scale difference and the blocky feeling. The colors are nice as well, with good readability on the faction color.

I'm damn happy about the scout-units, kinda missed in in the SC-series. Lets hope that they are fast enough to actually be able to scout something before being shot down!
There is a good readability on most of the units. And the ones that aren't as immediately readable as the other ones, they have an enough uniqueness to them so that they should be easy to differentiate quickly when playing the game.

Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see more.

Ps... Soo... when does the alpha come? :lol: Can't wait to send swarms of those little kbots to the enemies base to distract them from my... *secret tactic*

Maybe make the tank fabber look a little less like the tanks? its always nice to have fabbers that are very very recognizable. The stripes definitely help but you can barely see them on the T1 fabber.

Still, a bridge is necessary for all of these high tech tracking systems, and it has to be somewhere above the deck.

I don't think it's too human at all... It's more "blocky" and not as streamlined. As for the battleships, they do have bridges for a reason, line of sight. Robots or not, it's easier to see over the horizon the higher you are...

Well this seems like a good place to make my first post. Hi!

Seeing is a human concept and it refers to a sensor that operates in the visual spectrum, a machine would just use it's radar/ladar/long pointy stick to the same effect.

While those would benefit from being placed higher, there would be no real reason to have anything other than some kind of superstructure with some sensor-like things on it. Definitely no need for a bridge.

I would also humbly suggest considering a phased radar array, as seen on this Japanese Atago class destroyer:


The radar is in those light-grey octogonal panels on the front (and presumably the back for 360 coverage).
I think it would fit with the simple geometric look and at the same time offer a nice sleek efficient look for naval units.

I think that as long as the navel units look awesome, it wouldn't matter if it looked like it was made for humans to use or not.

The problem is that while "realistic", it's not a good design for gameplay, it could easily be 'lost' among other greebles, especially when zoomed further out.

The same suggestion came up when I did my Battleship;


Click to view more images

Mike

On the radars, I think they should stick with the dish shape, it's easily recognizable and it's able to show whether or not it's active (rotating/not rotating).

First off we very well may change the ships to look less human. As I mentioned before this stuff is just white box so it will change.

That being said, why do commanders look humanoid? Why does anything look cool at all in a robot universe? Why not just have a bunch of borg cubes, maybe just different sizes for units? Why is there any color to the units at all? Why does the visual look matter to robots?

It's because people can relate to and understand these units when they show up in familiar form. Evoking human design is how we create a connection for people who play the game. The idea here isn't to try and visualize what a realistic future might be, it's to make an awesome game that people can have fun playing.

The fiction side of it is very easy to fix. I can easily come up with an explanation for any aesthetic choice we make. Perhaps the originators of the technology the commanders use were people and did have a use for a bridge on a ship for example. The robots don't care, they just want effective machinery that does the job and how a design evolves over time is going to effect the look.

Check out this urban legend about cutting the ends of the roast for an example of vestigal structure. http://www.snopes.com/weddings/newlywed/secret.asp

We've already said these things are von neumann machines that reproduce. They came from somewhere and it's ok for that influence to be felt. It's a natural part of the evolutionary process which these guys are subject too just like anything else in the universe.

Ding ding ding. It looks like radar because people understand what it means.

Awsome. I'm even more excited then i was nice to see uber creating dedicated naval units and production facilities. really liking the style of the units... well the ones that aren't blocks .