[Hulls] Stations of the Great Powers

What a nice surprise, Ace. :smiley: You know, just last weekend I was thinking of this mod and hoping weā€™d see more of it soon. Thank you for putting your nose to the metaphoric grindstone; itā€™ll be good to have the Core Four races fully provided-for.

Well, the four completed sprites (2 Alliance, 2 Parasite) have been glaring at me from my GSB working drive for six months now, and since I got back into the swing of modding with recent work on the Antares Expanse, I felt I should at least try to get the visually-designed stations into folksā€™ hands. And finishing off the Core 4 also helps me to get this mod organized in the most convenient fashion, so Iā€™m trying to kill two very metaphorical birds with one equal metaphorical stone. :slight_smile:

(As a side benefit, working through these stations helps spark new ideas to attack some of the remaining problematic stations as well.)

As the first post now reflects, the hulls for the Core 4 Stations are now complete. I have also split each DLC into its own pack to simplify installation and use for those who have not purchased all six DLC races. Download, deploy, and be merry! (for tomorrow your ships may be so much space debris)

I think Iā€™ll skip the usual introduction for this photo and just let you enjoy:

The Parasite stations are complete, alpha-tested, and ready to go. Witness:

Enjoy!

These Parasite units look really nice. Well done! Your persistent work has paid off. Now even the repulsive ā€œgerm fleetā€ [-chuckle-] finally has a place to, for example, obtain replacement insulators for worn-out Cruiser Flak Cannons without having to go all the way home. :slight_smile:

Woah, love them so much! =D
Sir, awesome stations, as always!

Hereā€™s a crack at the cruiser-class Nomad station, dubbed the Oasis:

Iā€™m still working on this one but I figured Iā€™d solicit some opinions on it. In my mind, the way the Nomads build a station is by welding together the still-serviceable parts of heavily-damaged ships, with little regard to overall design. Slap on a fresh coat of paint (in whatever color happens to be handy) and youā€™ve got yourself a station.

Quite eclectic! :slight_smile: It visually matches your background history of the unit, but there are some factors implicit in that which make the design fall a bit short of where I think it can be nudged to, and without a major amount of effort. Hereā€™s what Iā€™m thinking, Aceā€¦

I believe that your aims would best be served by either expanding the amount of visual variety, or reducing it. IMO, at present it falls just a wee bit too easily into something akin to the kit-bashing equivalent of the Uncanny Valley. As the old clichĆ© goes, thatā€™s a nice place to visit but we wouldnā€™t want to live there. :wink: Alternatives include the following:

The more varied the stationā€™s appearance is, the more it will look like a semi-randomized organic whole whose many parts are different enough that the viewerā€™s eye quickly accepts it as-is. Filling in more of the whitespace is one possible step on that path.

The less varied it is, the more it will look like like 2 or 3 (at most) recognizable Nomad hulls in particular, and the viewerā€™s eye soon settles down as it belatedly realizes that it can stop frantically trying to match the station to a much wider number of hull fragments. Possibly making two parallel designs, one based wholly on cruiser parts and the other wholly on frigate parts, may be one way to help focus things.

Right now, your Nomad work-in-progress happens to straddle an awkward design space that has a foot placed firmly on both sides of the boundaries described above, but not fully belonging to the design space on either side of the line. Thatā€™s why I suggest choosing which side of the line appeals to you most as a concept, and then coming down decisively with both feet on the side you prefer.

You may wish to enlist color and luminance as stronger allies in your effort to tie the station together visually. At present, I find that the variations on both are somewhat a source of disunity rather than harmony. A cleverly detailed and data-filled entity that exists in a design space original enough to offer the viewerā€™s eye something newā€¦ah, that is a great prize indeed, and often hard to achieve. But a union of shape and hue does not mean that the end product must be predictable or dull, though. I think that youā€™re clearly on an interesting path; it merely needs to be followed farther over the horizon. I look forward to seeing the next iteration of your Nomad space station(s), Ace. :smiley:

Many moon later and the next version of the cruiser-class Nomad station looks like this:

Iā€™m still not satisfied with the look, but I like the engines-repurposed-as-weapons-platform stuck out at the front. Thought Iā€™d see if anyone has reactions to share.

you got to add some symmetry to it,like make it smiler on each side, iā€™m not saying that you have to make a perfect ring, but to me it looks like a strange spaceship

I donā€™t see the Nomads as worrying too much about symmetry and style when building the places they hang their proverbial hats for awhile.

After all, what is a space station but a spaceship with no engines? :slight_smile: