Cosmoteer Official Forum

Hmm. This is going to be a tough pick. I'll sleep on it.

Thoughts on the entries-

1st Bracket - Lots of railgun-centric craft this bracket.

Urd's Swan - The main strength of this entry is the paintjob, using fades between shades of blue with a layer of very dark blue on top. It reminds me of the movie Tron.

Stardriven - A diagonal build. Very straight-line-y.The paintjob is interesting in how the white almost shadows the yellow. The thrusters blend in nicely. However, the reactors in the middle of the paintjob disrupt it.

Ewr - Another diagonal ship. The purple compliments the shields well. The ship is asymmetrical because of the control room, but it's not immediately obvious.

Phantom - This ship creates an interesting effect by making the high decals the same color as the base paint, allowing for patterns that would otherwise be impossible. I checked, and it still looks pretty good even with a variety of colors.

Splinter - This ship has an asymmetrical paintjob, with the colors not quite swapped. I feel as if it could utilize it's base color more then it does.

Outlaw - An asymmetrical ship, built around a railgun. It's nice how the crew color was changed to better blend in with the paint. The black gradients give it a sense of depth.

Industrial Mass Driver - There appears to be an error. Someone has accidentally submitted a Starsector ship. Joking aside, this has a very nice use of gradients, only broken up by the components. The The rail gun blends in well with the paint. The thrusters, however, are a tad jarring against the dark and pale grays.

Trident - My own entry. Very similar to Urd's Swan in design, with two engine rooms, two closely packed railguns, and four shields (I submitted it first, for the record). Is blue and white instead of blue and black. This ship tries to disguise a boxy design by adding slopes of armor and having a semi-chaotic paintjob.

2nd Bracket - Shame Jungle didn't get in. I had hopes for it. There are a lot of diagonal ships this bracket.

H4XXOR - Nice shape and good use of white to outline it. I like how the design changes from geometric straight lines to curves without any dissonance.

Goose - The black doesn't contrast very well with the slightly lighter black, leaving the main source of contrast between the yellow and the black/black. While other ships use this to draw attention to their shape, this just feels random. I'm not a fan of the regularity of the back end; the flatness of the line of thrusters and the uniformity of the spikes.

Harbringer's Echo - I question the wisdom of having another ship named Harbringer. The long, thin pieces combined with the chunkier body bring to mind either an insect, or an electric guitar. I think the white is underutilized.

Vortex - The only asymmetrical ship of second bracket. It looks like a spiral. The speckling of reactors break up the paintjob with little attempt to accommodate them. The colors do not contrast very much, All being approximately the same brightness. There was an attempt to color the inner and outer sides with shades of blue.

Crystal Guardian - Similar in name to the Crystal Angel of last design contest, assumedly if it wins they shall fuse together into the Crystal Guardian Angel. I'm questioning the use of whole squares, as opposed to fades, used to give it texture. The outline brings to mind deep sea life.

Kovlier - A diagonal ship. It highlights its contours well with the light light blue while the less light blue gives it shape. I feel as if it should a smoother transition between the fragmentary tail pieces and the solid body.

Excalibur - Also diagonal. It also uses Ions. The sporadic use of yellow is jarring compared to the straight lines of dark gray.

Fragarach - The colors were chosen well. The pale yellow compliments the thrusters while the two more subtly different shades of blue give the design depth. The flak blends in well.

3rd Bracket

Iridium - Very monochrome, which makes the purple of the shields and green of the reactors all the more apparent. On the flip side, the missiles blend in very well.

Nausicca/Nausicaa XL - Sounds vaguely like a drink order. Reminds me of that movie with a princess and giant bugs. The ship is very geometric

Araphel the Everlasting - Uses the same principles as Urd's Swan, but with red and purple: the same colors as the ions and shields. I think that the spikes of structure on the end would look better as armor, but then the missile's wouldn't be able to get out.

Paramount - The name and color scheme bring to mind a mountain. The green of the reactors blends in with the teal. I find the straightness of the side panels off putting compared to the slopes of the rest of the design.

Geode - My entry. Crew quarters and missile launchers contrast with the paintjob, too many straight lines for an organic appearance. Flak blends in nicely, though.

Queen's Hive - An inspired attempt to make a ship out of hexagons, reminiscent of a beehive. It uses three shades of orange / yellow, but I don't think the low decals and the paintjob (the two shades of yellow) contrast as well as the orange and tellow.. On the bright side, the engines blend in very good. Unfortunately everything else does not. The regularity of the paintjob is broken up by the components.

Stygil - Very straight. The color scheme is interesting in how it uses two shades of cyan, something not obvious at first glance.

Vengeance Diagonal. The dark and light grey give it depth, but I'm questioning the inclusion of the straight, perpendicular lines on the sides. They cut across everything else.

Nagalia - This ship reminds me of the Pokemon 'Kyogre.' I forgot what it was called and googled 'pokemon that's red, white, blue, and looks like a whale' and it was the first result. The missiles break up the straight lines of the paintjob and silhouette. The small white lines with a blue outline are jarring, they are the only lines that break up a region of color.

Ragros - Very Interesting design with lots of curves yet having a boxy centerpiece. The coloring is desaturated compared to other entries, but it pulls it off.

CaptainRedstone Here's my reasoning:

I'm kinda bummed that none of mine made it in, but to be fair, I knew I should have made the sound waves three layers instead of only two and I guess making an upgraded version of an existing ship didn't really fly, wasn't too shocked about Bomb Shell, because I dunno what I was thinking with that paint scheme. In any case...

1st Bracket: Equalizer's Ewr and PsyCrow's Phantom

2nd Bracket: This was hard for me; because there's so many laser craft when we have a ton of options for that already in the game, ranging in effectiveness; but I'm gonna have to go with MrMeep's Vortex and Kieffer5101's Fragarach

3rd Bracket: Luke SpaceCat's Nausica XL and Salephz's Queen's Hive (I wanted to pick Saris' and Sputnik's Stygil, but I gotta be honest, it doesn't seem all that practical in combat, more like a showpiece than anything other than, plus the other choices I had falling under the same reasoning as 2nd)

CursedPh4nt0m While that may be true, having the missile launcher facing backwards like that takes a lot out of their range, meaning practically any kiters could easily pick it off over time, and its own flak isn't really doing it any favors, with the fact that having it as a diagonal build like that gives it the largest width possible without mods, so you're looking at a HUGE target with relatively low range for the weapon type.

Edit: And while you say that underestimation would be bad, I'm pretty sure most people would keep their distance as a natural response to the sheer size of the craft anyways...