Do you like the Illustrated Novel Space Ships?

The E wrote:What these designs are intended to do is to define a clear style we can always identify as "Manticoran" or "Havenite" or "Andermani" or "Solarian", without having to look for the way the hammerhead is shaped (which is what SITS did), or look at how the names of the ships are written (Is it just a simple hull number? Mantie. Full name? Grayson.). The canon designs, with their hull shapes dictated by the physics, simply aren't detailed enough to provide that information at a glance. Remember, in a movie, the designs have to be recognizable enough to work in a 1.5 to 2 second establishing shot, and canon Honorverse vessels look too alike to work there.

Yeah, I call BS on this. Star Wars and Star Trek both have ships that appear outwardly similar, to the point of having simple paintjobs, but have small details which add up to easily identifiable classes. Hell, it's true even in nBSG with the Galactica and Pegasus. Also, there's smart paint that's a part of the official cannon. It would be nothing at all to make Manticoran ships black with gold accents and so on. And the good ol' fly-by of the ship by the captain prior to taking command, which was done how many times in the books?

Not to mention all the various movie techniques you can use to establish which ship is which that have been done to death in previous sci-fi novels.

I just spent $25 going to an afternoon showing of the new Jack Ryan movie and that was with the reduced matinee price. If they expect me to pay that, or possibly more, for an Honorverse movie then they're going to have to try harder to conform to established canon. Or, for that matter, to spend any money on the comic book.

Fyrwulf wrote:Yeah, I call BS on this. Star Wars and Star Trek both have ships that appear outwardly similar, to the point of having simple paintjobs, but have small details which add up to easily identifiable classes. Hell, it's true even in nBSG with the Galactica and Pegasus.

Uh, no. That's not what they're talking about.

Let's take Star Trek: You can see at a glance that a Federation starship is a Federation starship, because of certain standardised design elements - saucer, nacelles. You can see at a glance that a ship is Cardassia, because of standardised design; same for Romulan, Klingon, etc.

Let's take Star Wars: You can see at a glance that a ship is Imperial - angular, grey, 'eyeball' fighter cockpits - or rebel.

The canon Honorverse designs do not have that kind of distinction between the different factions; adding that distinction is what the different designs are about, not the difference between classes.

Werrf wrote:The canon Honorverse designs do not have that kind of distinction between the different factions; adding that distinction is what the different designs are about, not the difference between classes.

But somebody significantly versed enough in the Trek universe can tell the difference between a Galaxy class and an Enterprise-whatever class at a glance. Even I, who watch the Star Trek movies because they're sci-fi and don't care much about the ships beyond that, can tell what's an Enterprise class and what isn't.

My point is that the sheeple won't care so long as the action and dialogue are good. The sci-fi people will be able to tell that one ship within a navy is of a different class than another, but won't know specifically what ship and class that is but will find out quickly if they care to look. Honorverse fans will know off the rip.

David's reasons for not using anything other than haze gray or whatever the Honorverse equivalent is in the books are sound, but that shouldn't be carried over into the movies. Black and gold can quickly be established as the colors of the good guys, all the better if there's a huge Manticoran crest of the broadsides. Similarly, silver and green can be established as the colors of the bad guys, all the better if there's a huge star on the broadsides.

In regards to the comic book, there's absolutely no reason to not be faithful to the Honorverse ship designs. None of the reasons posited for the movie, which I don't buy, come even close to existing for a graphic novel. There are only two possible valid reasons for the vast changes. One, they want to change it for the sake of putting their own stamp on the series. My resposne to that is a long monologue in the best traditions of R. Lee Ermy. If they don't want the ships to look like double ended sex toys, they need to just come out and say so. I'd have far more sympathy for that point of view.

EDIT: Somebody from Evergreen needs to come on here and start explaining. It's not hard, the account creation process is very straight forward. David-as-an-intermediary is no longer helpful, because we know many times over he has faith in Evergreen and the process, but we aren't creators and live in the non-creative world where failures must be explained and those explanations must be judged as valid or BS.

At this point I'm so weary of the hesitance to directly explain themselves that I can't help but think they're up to something dodgy. They need to fix that. Now. They will find that the vast majority of us are willing to listen, but given what's been posted we're suspicious of them sending David as the messenger to be shot. And this is coming from me, who was one of their initial supporters and who was willing to take it on faith that David had every reason to be hopeful.

Fyrwulf wrote:

Werrf wrote:The canon Honorverse designs do not have that kind of distinction between the different factions; adding that distinction is what the different designs are about, not the difference between classes.

But somebody significantly versed enough in the Trek universe can tell the difference between a Galaxy class and an Enterprise-whatever class at a glance. Even I, who watch the Star Trek movies because they're sci-fi and don't care much about the ships beyond that, can tell what's an Enterprise class and what isn't.

Yes - because they're designed that way. The canon designs lack that clear visual differentiation, and that's what the visual designs are designed to provide. They're also trying to provide clear visual distinction between different star nation's ships.

Fyrwulf wrote:In regards to the comic book, there's absolutely no reason to not be faithful to the Honorverse ship designs. None of the reasons posited for the movie, which I don't buy, come even close to existing for a graphic novel.

There are plenty of reasons. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Werrf wrote:Yes - because they're designed that way. The canon designs lack that clear visual differentiation, and that's what the visual designs are designed to provide. They're also trying to provide clear visual distinction between different star nation's ships.

Really? Do I honestly have to pull images from House of Steel? Remember those are all Manticoran ships. I'm willing to bet, without even opening up my copy, that you can tell the difference between cruisers of different classes.

Also, I don't think you're giving the idea of a simple paintjob for differentiation purposes enough credit. The core non-hardcore audience is going to be people in my generation and the two generations bracketing it. That means mid teens to mid thirties. We're almost universally gamers and we have plenty of experience differentiating units based on nothing but paintjobs.

I did it all the time playing online matches of Homeworld 2. Not only is that game an RTS, which means by default the POV is zoomed out, but fights in that game tended to devolve into tightly packed furballs.

There are plenty of reasons. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Like what? Fight scenes in comic books aren't usually busy and are constructed like movie story boards.

Fyrwulf wrote:

Werrf wrote:Yes - because they're designed that way. The canon designs lack that clear visual differentiation, and that's what the visual designs are designed to provide. They're also trying to provide clear visual distinction between different star nation's ships.

Really? Do I honestly have to pull images from House of Steel? Remember those are all Manticoran ships. I'm willing to bet, without even opening up my copy, that you can tell the difference between cruisers of different classes.

Also, I don't think you're giving the idea of a simple paintjob for differentiation purposes enough credit. The core non-hardcore audience is going to be people in my generation and the two generations bracketing it. That means mid teens to mid thirties. We're almost universally gamers and we have plenty of experience differentiating units based on nothing but paintjobs.

I did it all the time playing online matches of Homeworld 2. Not only is that game an RTS, which means by default the POV is zoomed out, but fights in that game tended to devolve into tightly packed furballs.

There are plenty of reasons. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Like what? Fight scenes in comic books aren't usually busy and are constructed like movie story boards.

I see the point on both sides. I also played Homeworld 2 (and Homeworld, although neither in multiplayer), and while it's a good example, it's also a poor example because despite the critical accolades both games received, they're both niche, with a hardcore core following, and little mainstream knowledge. Mainstream gamers will take awhile to distinguish ships, especially when zoomed all the way out, although I admit that very different and distinctive coloring between the sides helps a lot, especially since the engine trails are also color-coded, something that's lacking in the HV.

That is how any Honorverse movie (or graphic novel) is going to be as well. Most of the audience for these are going to be people who don't know anything about the Honorverse, and I can see them sitting there scratching their heads wondering why *both* sides are using the same ships, but just painted different colors. Sure, you and I will know the difference by not only the color, but the shape of the hammerheads, the design of the conning tower, the placement of the missile tubes vs. energy mounts, and so on, but *they* won't.

Unlike gamers who can repeatedly play games at little to no cost, moviegoers sure as hell aren't going to shell out $10-$20 per person, per viewing, for multiple viewings to finally figure out which side is which. It also doesn't help that movie audiences are *conditioned* to expect that each side in a conflict has distinctively different design for their equipment. Name me *one* science fiction movie with two sides battling against each other, that have ships that look extremely similar. In a way, Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and any other movie/series you can think of have done more to sabotage an Honorverse movie than anything else.

I understand why Evergreen wants to make the ships distinctive for either side, but I have hopes that the differences will not only be noticeable to the mainstream audience, but be minimal enough to satisfy the hardcore fans. That will be a difficult tightrope for them to walk, and based on a lot of the posts here, we've made sure that there ain't no net.

Something else to consider: most of us have *only* seen the Manticoran ships. Those who went to Evergreen's presentation at HonorCon also saw some Havenite designs. At that time, they were pretty far off different from each other, to the point that one had to wonder if either one was using impeller technology. Both sides had the impeller rings almost lost in everything else.

With the new artwork, Evergreen/Top Cow seem to have dropped some of the drastic design choices that were made before, and the impeller rings are much more obvious now. Of course, we still haven't seen any Haven ships yet, but I have a feeling the same will hold true for those as well.

As to your first paragraph above, I'm modeling these ships for BuNine, and even *I* can't tell at a glance which ship is which. I need at least a minute or so to focus on hammerhead shape and other stuff to figure that out. Now, that is for ships of the same navy, or two navies, actually, since the Grayson ships are also in HoS. I haven't seen much of any design work for Haven ships yet, and TBH, I'm not even sure how much has been done for those. It's not the area I'm currently concentrating on - I've been doing strictly RMN ships, weapons, and so on.

If you spend any time reading or looking at photos (or even fiction movies) of wet navies since we got into the 1890s, (real world, of course) you can quickly start recognizing the general look of the naval ships of various nations. That flows through to today.
The various fiction communities with space ships have done exactly the same thing. Ships have been shaped differently. Sometimes (like B5) the various races involved not only have vastly different esthetic perspective (Earth /Minbari/Narn/Centauri) but tech (also Earth/Minbari) and drive systems (Minbari/Vorlon/Shadow). We do get to see an “early” Mnibari capital ship in the episode where the Sinclair goes back to B4 and you get the feel of a logical progression from the (relatively) smaller and overall look of their warships.

Trek is VERY clear with visuals in design of ships, so is SW and Galactica. That works right along with everything I can think of including things like Above and Beyond to Wing Commander.
One “little” problem. ST, SW, BSG & B5 and so many others got introduced to most people either on TV or in movies and the look & feel of the ships/tec got established there.
RFC has mostly been doing this in print with things like the game and the sketches of ships in books which puts a lot of that look and feel in the imagination of us, the readers.
What Evergreen has to end up doing is finding some signature feel for the “current” naval ships of the political systems involved. For the most part, Manticore and Grayson look very similar but that is because they have been co-designing and or building warships together in a hot war for more than 20 years. I don’t have any real experience with the Peep’s ships look. It MIGHT have to end up mostly being paint jobs with some (for the general public) minor layout differences. It isn’t going to be anything like the difference between a US (DD, CA, BB or CV) and a Japanese ship in the same type during WW II. Same for the British ships. They were DESIGNED for different conditions and tactics and, of course, dealing with (or ignoring) various treaties.

If (big IF) we are going to be seeing much of "fleet" action we are going to be watching a lot of "red or green" icons on tactical screens or space is going to be even more dangerous than normal because of that little complicaton of wedge size on capital ships…big smile.

We do, however, have a fair amount of art work in the books so one would think that Evergreen’s artists could at least have that as a starting point. Perhaps I am giving them too much credit?

Try this.

Havenite ship.



clearly boxy, looks brutish, and not as sleek as it could be. It looks like a basic design.


Manty ship.




Rounder, sleeker looking, less like a box, and more like a ship. It suggests a higher level of tech over the havenite ship with the sleek design, and the fact that its slightly less cluttered suggests its design has been refined over time.


add a paint job to both, which is semi plausible to be a new part of canon due to smart paint having been mentioned in text, and you have clearly delineatable ship designs between haven and manticore.


Best part? both images are of correct nationality of my suggestions, and are off the wikia page for HH, so differences in looks are already distinct enough, as well as being canonish images.

Spacekiwi wrote:Try this.

Havenite ship.



clearly boxy, looks brutish, and not as sleek as it could be. It looks like a basic design.


Manty ship.




Rounder, sleeker looking, less like a box, and more like a ship. It suggests a higher level of tech over the havenite ship with the sleek design, and the fact that its slightly less cluttered suggests its design has been refined over time.


add a paint job to both, which is semi plausible to be a new part of canon due to smart paint having been mentioned in text, and you have clearly delineatable ship designs between haven and manticore.


Best part? both images are of correct nationality of my suggestions, and are off the wikia page for HH, so differences in looks are already distinct enough, as well as being canonish images.

Now try flashing those images at someone *not* familiar with the universe for just a few seconds (about the time one would see them onscreen) and ask them to explain the differences, or tell you which ship belongs to which side.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but trying to think like someone not familiar with the Honorverse.

Spacekiwi wrote:Try this.

Havenite ship.
[ship image deleted]

clearly boxy, looks brutish, and not as sleek as it could be. It looks like a basic design.


Manty ship.
[ship image deleted]

Rounder, sleeker looking, less like a box, and more like a ship. It suggests a higher level of tech over the havenite ship with the sleek design, and the fact that its slightly less cluttered suggests its design has been refined over time.

I've been reading Honorverse books for 25 years, and I've even seen both of those images before, but I can't tell which ship belongs to which navy by just looking at the pictures. You certainly can't expect it of someone who only gets a 2 second screen shot and is unfamiliar with the Honorverse.