I was actually thinking about the difficulty of tracking your opponent in such a system, not only your own ship. Agreed on disliking the implications.

Just watched it (wasn't a backer then, and hadn't made it through the backlog). Definitely not a fan of the elements shown there—was imagining/speaking of multiple SC2-style planets.

I couldn't resist looking at the ships, haha...

Dan 'Nath - Seriously?  This one is going to be too powerful, haha.  It's "Gravitic Torpedo" is immensely powerful weapon tactically.  To give you an idea... it is my "dream design wonder weapon" from 3 decades ago.  A Photon Torpedo that leaves a short duration micro-singularity.  It's OK to have this weapon, it's combining it with "Repel" that is the problem.  Repel is just about the best ability you can have, combined with the best weapon you can have.  This thing will have to barely be able to move, or it's weapon/repel weakened to being not really useful.  I would suggest giving it a stationary version of it's weapon, replacing the repel with a gravitic mine.  Give the Repel to another ship that needs it, like that useless "Greegrox" that could REALLY use a Repel!

Mu'Kay - This is a very powerful design, I like this one a lot.  This can be balanced as it is, it is just going to be a high point cost ship.  It's really good tactically.

Scryve - This ship is probably pretty weak, especially since it is clearly supposed to be one of the big ones.  Obviously, if the weapon does a lot of damage like the Vux, and it's flak guns did too, it would be dangerous.  But in terms of wanting to use it the main gun is extremely limited since you can't turn while it is firing.  It is "unreliable" tactically, no matter how much damage it is doing.  It's kind of a "suckers ship" if it is doing lots of damage, seems very powerful but is actually kind of crippling tactically to make use of.

Menkmack - I will probably use this ship a lot in supermelee as well, this is a good design for dueling.

The Measured - This is an ace's ship, I will have at least 2 of these in my lineup.  This is a very powerful fighter if you know how to use it.  It will be like the Airlou in SC2, very powerful by dies easy when hit.

All the rest of the ships seem to have designs that can be made to work well.  These ones above really do as well, except the Dan 'Nath and Greegrox... that thing is going to be out of control, or you'll have to make it's abilities so weak that the ship becomes kind of useless.  I would kill two birds with one stone and give the repel to the Greegrox.

I always assumed their Guardian ship blazer form was related to their experiments in interdimensional fatigue, so their ship (if any) in a prequel might be very different or less advanced. But even though they are in the backstory of humanity they might not have an important part in the story at all. They were mentioned many times in Star Control 2 but their contribution to the story was rather minor and all posthumous.

They were featured very prominently in SC1, though.

Also, this was before the big push for expansion content that we've seen in the past 10 years. Who's to say that if SC2 were done now that the Androsynth wouldn't appear as an expansion.

I don't know how I missed this thread. Lol.

Ignore the lighting here but alien dialog changes and UI changes are starting to go in this month.

Putting aside the lighting and the 2D background, what I'm happy with is that the characters are procedurally animated with full lip syncing to the voice actor.

Is this an example of the lighting we are supposed to ignore, or is it an example of the UI changes we aren't?

That diagonal console that slashes through "You made" is very distracting.

I'll tell you how you missed it. IT WASN'T BOLD LIKE REGULAR THREADS.  

And I personally still don't care for the lip sync or alien 3D models. As a matter of fact I hate what Civ 6 did with their leader screens after I played it for 70 hours. 2D backgrounds are so bad and clash with leaders models so hard that my LCD has cracks now.

I care more for the background to be "alive" (animated, eye-candied etc.) Actually, I care about this a lot.

I care more for ALL Alien names not to be 2-syllable names.

Shoot, I care more for that human dialog font to be memorable and not Ariel, Tahoma or Times New Roman (which is what's in the screentshot).

I also care to have some shadows during planet exploration, but absolutely don't care for their fidelity.

I care for hyperspace, melee, exploration sound tracks to be as good as the title track (the revealed ones are very underwhelming in comparison).

I care a lot for the main campaign to be a bit longer than SC2 campaign. Not the same length as mentioned in update. We have been waiting 25 years for it!! I worry about more alien cuts. Like we have 12 now instead of 14 one month ago? It would be fine if all of them are heavily involved in the main campaign and there are non-space-faring characters or races, but 18 hours for the main campaign (which is what completionist SC2 campaign approximately is (not that there's much to complete))?... That would suck!!!

Pretty much everything I would have said has already been covered so I won't rehash that. However, I'm stoked to see the "drop pin" function on the galaxy map. I'm assuming that we'll be able to leave notes on the pins as well.

An important consideration for balance, down the line, is that multi-ship combat will be an option - and by extension a division of player/ship roles will come about. Tanking, support, carry, control. Ships that would be considered weak in 1v1 situations can become pivotal in 5v5 situations.

This may not be what some people are picturing when they think SCO, but for me it is one of the core concepts that might become reality.

I'm assuming that picture of the lady above is going to be our earth base liaison. If so then why does she look so young? Seems a bit concerning that we put the entirety of humanities future in the hands of someone who looks like they're in there 20's.

Why not try to make her look like she's in her 40's?

While I know Star Control isn't 100% realistic its things like this that put those grains of sand in my mind.

Now if she's not the Earth base liaison then continue on and ignore this.

Haha. We had a lenghty discussion about characters age about a year ago.

Sorry to be lazy, but do you mind linking that? 

1. I agree that having some cool animation in the background is great in 2D

2. I doubt the dialogue is going to be in basic font that's hard to read over the background.

3. The planets need to be very slick because that's literally 70% of the game, exploring planets.

4. I am not an audiophile so I can't help here.

5. I am more interested in the side quests. These can build the story and lore more than the main quest can. I have 100's of hours in Witcher, Fallout, and Skyrim. Most of their main quests are actually fairly short, like 8-10 hours. There is just so much else you can do on the side.

I like the star map and the colors (Glad it's not blue). Very nice, can't wait to see it in action.

Ships: I am not sure I like having only one attack for most of the ships. This is 2016, so 2 attacks and one defense would be great.

Dan'Nath: I really like the main weapon. Does the secondary weapon cause damage? Would be awesome if the projectile also warped your sight for a few seconds since singularity bends light. This doesn't have to be the whole screen, maybe a fish eye effect.

Drenkend: I am not sure sending fighters should be the main weapon. Both the Orz and Ur-Quan had some backup for their fighters. This ship sounds exactly like a Mycon but instead of a homing projectile you have homing fighters. Would be great to give this an actual weapon requiring skill to use. I loved the Mycon lore but their ships were terrible in competitive play.

Human: Same as SC2. Sounds like it would stop the Drenkend and Phamysht cold with its secondary. Would love to see a micro warp jump for this ship in a straight line. Make it use all energy and only go for a certain distance based on how much energy it started with.

Greegrox: Sounds totally alien, can't wait to see it in action. Would be cool to get some ramming damage. Since this is only 1 vs 1. I think it needs another secondary and just allow it to shoot both directions at the same time.

MenkMack: I am interested in how many mines it gets out at one time and how big its explosion radius is? With screen wrap, ambush tactics become very viable and I approve heartily. I hope the Target mark weapon does 1 point of damage and has some serious range.

Mowlings & Jeff: I hate the idea of taking damage that skill cannot get you out of. So I hope Jeff isn't a jerk. Stun gun sounds really short range and bad for fast pace combat. Sounds like it could be grieved, though I could be wrong. Unless you have a tar pit ability, short range weapons suck. The Vux and the Chmmer had tar pits to compensate for their short range.

Mu'Kay: Melee was not popular in SC2. I like the fact it's melee is a passive ability. Hope the harpoons have more range than the Zot-Fot-Pik. Another ambush weapon that tar pits. I hope it gets lot's of ink spots. Would be nice if it also affected vision since that's what squid ink is for.

Phamysht: Should have known the Flying TV parts would be zombifying. I like everything about the abilities on this ship except one ability that requires your other ability to land before it works. This makes it a one trick pony and does not give options. Again the human ship will brutalize these abilities with it's laser. 

Pinthi: Sounds cool. I wish the primary weapon was just a passive and give it one more ability. I hope it's cloud won't kill crew and fighters in space. Short range abilities without a tar pit are not a lot of fun. Still do not like pet's/fighters being the primary damage for a ship as it gets rid of all skill.

Scryve: I like the weapons it has. But the secondary weapon should be skill and not RNG.

The Measured: Not crazy about the name. From the shape I was expecting something Mayan or Incan. Now that you revealed the main weapon, it should be as they both used Bola's in combat. Ship's main weapon should be able to take advantage of it's inertia-less drive. I hope that since its a bola, it expands as it travels and all the shots then hit the target when one connects.

Trandals: Have that Saturday morning cartoon sort of name. Not sure how two weapons that leech energy are good for killing ships. The ball in the middle looks like a plasma ball toy that you put your hands on. Hope the Energy ribbon looks like the plasma lightning.

I would love to see 1 more ability per ship. SC2 was awesome but let's upgrade the combat an inch. Also several of the ships are one trick ponies. They lack skill and reflex to use.

Would you rather see 1 more ability per ship, or would you rather have a new ship?

Several of the ships in SC2 were one trick ponies, too. Druuge. Supox. Chmrrr. Ilwrathi. It happens when there is great synergy between the primary and secondary attacks.

Actually I really like the passive ability idea for their 3rd ability. although one more active ability would be my personal pick.

Druuge was a 1 trick pony but absolutely fun to get that across the screen shot off. The fact that it's gun gave a huge boost to speed made it seem like it was actually more than one trick. Used that more than once to go flying behind someone who was trying to get behind me and kill them.

Supox was a lot of fun to skill with. It probably had the highest skill level of all the ships in the game. It's weapon was decent, but it's maneuvering made it awesome. I would have loved one more ability though. Also it was a mid-range ship giving lots of options.

Chmmr was defenitely not a one trick pony. It could web you into it's tar pit and satellites. It could pull you into planets (personal favorite) or it could sling shot itself and become a zinging ray of death. If you got fast enough your satellites wouldn't keep up and they could travel independently attacking the enemy as they tried to get back to you.

Ilwrath was also not a one trick pony but had the second highest skill to use. The camera made it really awkward to use. Unfortunately it really needed the slingshot to have any hope of engaging the enemy. I would say it was the least used next to the Zot-Fot-Pik. The fact that the earthling cruiser could kill a cloaked Ilwrath fairly easily showed how flawed the design was.

Melee ships are really tough to do right. Chmmr, Vux, Arilou, and Mmrnmhrm were all melee/short range ships done right.

I took a comment out of my original reply that said that they had not announced the full set of passive abilities for ships. Guess I should have left it in. :/

Regarding your lists, you kinda missed the point of what I was saying. Did these ships have abilities that synergized well together? Yes. That made them feel like they had only one ability or playstyle. Was that bad? No. They didn't need another ability to make them more unique. The only ships that need new abilities are the ones that had sucky ones. Fortunately, it doesn't look like we have any ZFP's in the SCO lineup.

Rather than give each ship an extra ability or passive, I would rather have a whole new race / ship to play with. Not only does this open up the chance to have new matchups, it also gives the Explorer crowd something new to deal with. In fact, I would trade 16 new abilities for 1 extra race.

I would rather have tactical flexibility on the current ships rather than have a bunch of extra frivolous and tactically limited races to play. Don;t get me wrong, more races are welcome but not at the expense of innovation. I love SC2 but its over 20 years later, let's up the ante a bit.

I would also rather have ships that use skill rather than 5 races with fire and forget abilities and some which are based on RNG. I am not against FaF abilities but it should not be there primary ability to deal damage.

Looking and listening to everything in the vault leaves me wanting more!I really liked the title track music.It seems very fitting for SCO.The ships look pretty cool.I would like to see how they look in actual game play and the weapon effects also.

Found it! The age discussion happens half way down the page:

https://forums.starcontrol.com/474081/page/2/#replies

Thank you kindly.

I held off on replying to this until the expansionists/explorers had a say. But they haven't shown up so...

A few things...

1. You may have missed the opportunity to voice your input on the number of abilities per ship. We had a discussion with Vaelzad about this. The team DID think about this. He said that the goal for the team was to add depth without adding complexity. Do more with less. Adding more abilities violates that design principle.

2. One thing that I don't think was present in the original SC2 design was the level of external beta testing that goes into modern development. (Case in point: Overwatch's Bastion initially had a shield.) We will have ample time to test out the ship designs and provide feedback. If we think a ship needs a little extra, we can let SD know. Every ship doesn't need a 3rd ability, but some might need some extra attention to avoid them from turning into SCO's ZFP Stinger.

Also, I feel it would be better if only SOME ships got tertiaries. For example, the Orz Nemesis comes to mind. And if you get a little abstract (and this is kind of a stretch), the Arilou Skiff's tertiary was the tactical use of the enemy's OWN TRACKING WEAPONS.

Yup, and the tertiary abilities need to fit the ship. The Orz's cannon seemed to be built around the principle of kiting - aim the cannon backwards, kite slower ships, drop space marines in your wake.

Giving the Orz the ability to teleport instead would not have fit the ship's design principle.

The funny thing is most of the ships that had additional abilities and tactical flexibility are the ones we remember most. The ones that were one trick ponies don't even get honorable mention most of the time unless it's an example of what not to do. SC 3 copied the ship combat formula, but no one talks about their ships because they stuck to the formula and felt uninspired.

I would say the tertiary ability for the Arilou was their inertia-less drive. Their extreme maneuverability gave you the ability to stop on a dime and make Mycons weep as they killed themselves.

I know it's a pipe dream to ask for more. I have already derailed this conversation away from the abilities and ships that have been revealed. Less tracking and RNG and more skill abilities would be great.