Not all Ships have a face

So, this has been a shape in my WIPs folder for quite some time, and it is part of my effort to make Overdrive a game different from other fleet wargames: less about warhips, more about various ships that find themselves fighting for resources.

In this context, a factory/refinery/shipyard vessel that, basically does stuff around is a great pick. And, as you might have noticed, it has engine muzzles on both sides.

Not so Easy

There are a few problems with this approach:

1. Players want to have fun. And that means that each player wants to be able to do a bit of everything. Considering a battle would likely just field one of these, maybe followed by a smaller support ship, I can't have super-specialized ships, because they would kill the fun to players. Similarly, if the alternative is a massive warship, the choice would be obvious for everyone: pick the one with the guns.

2. The ship must look the part. Let's say that the factory-ship does everything: does it look like it does? If I make a mobile refinery made entirely of pipes, it won't feel like it can pack a punch, or move around, or be useful at all. So, I need to add the kind of readability in the model to make it fit its capabilities

3. Size matters. Silly jokes aside, printers have a limited volume, and I don't want people to waste resin. At the same time, I am aware that even in 2mm scale (1:850 roughly) the limit of how big a ship can be is pretty strong. So, as much as I would like to print a whole shipyard... it would simply not fit the scale of the game.

A corollary of the points above is probably the biggest issue when planning a new game with "unique" components: how different should they be, in order to feel distinct entities without having a wide range of super specific models that don't match? Or, in other words, how do I prevent myself from sculpting 40 different ships just to cover all the general archetypes in a setting that is clearly much, much wider than a simple battle between two military fleets?

To be clear, I don't have an answer to this.

Design Compromises

There's still a lot to do on this one, and hopefully I'll post updates soon with more readable shapes and functionalities.

My goal is to add one hard weapon attachment or two, and shape the various parts to make it look distinct enough from a more fully fledged ship like the Opulence, while maintaining the same design language.

It's important that the language is similar to the rest of the ships. It's meant to be a "Size 3 Ship" (more on that in future posts), so it's gonna be quite big.

Stay tuned!