Cryptic and CBS unveiled the new Odyssey-class Enterprise-F design today on StarTrek.com in a blog post written by STO Executive Producer, Dan Stahl. I still like the design, but I have mixed feelings about how the reveal was done.
I like seeing the ship textured as I finally have an idea of the scale of the ship and it does indeed seem massive. I also like that the ship’s class name references journeys and exploration over combat.
I don’t like the angle chosen for the initial screenshot. It makes the ship look whale-like by over-emphasizing the secondary hull and dish and marginalizing the dual necks. Were this the only image I’d seen of the new ship I wouldn’t event realize how different the overall design if from the Sovereign. Besides the bad angle, the image itself is not very large and I’ve found no links to higher resolution images, or to additional images from other angles.
My guess as to why they did the photo this way is that they want to keep the ship still partially under wraps until it’s revealed in-game for the first time. That’s understandable but it doesn’t give a good first impression. Fortunately we still have this image.
From other angles it might look too much like sperm? Maybe this was the best view of the new Enterprise?
I’m afraid they are fighting a losing battle here. I did not like any Enterprise the first time I saw it. But the Galaxy D grew on me over the course of the show. I also accepted the first Enterprise as the “real thing”. I even liked the “Archerprise” Akira-inspired NX-01. A lot more than the Enterprise E. Just not enough screentime.
The “F” has only its looks to convince. Let’s see if it grows on me. I got used to my Excelsior by now, I always found it too thin and really prefer some earlier tier classes like the “Vesper” class and I am also quite fond of my Cryptic-parts Assault Cruiser mix.
So far reactions to the F have been fairly negative, especially as many seem to have preferred the runner-ups. I am very sceptical if this is going to end well.
But if they give the F a kickass slot layout the ship could look like Brienne of Tarth and I would kiss it nevertheless.
I loved the Akira-like NX-01 and the Sovereign from the first moments I saw them, but all of the other ships took time to grow on me. The F I wasn’t sure about until I saw the clay models that I included above, but I do really like those so that’s why I was surprised by my reaction to the reveal photo.
LOL @ Longasc. That’s funny. 🙂
I don’t know. It looks pretty nice to me. And it’s a pretty classic angle for starship photography. It fills the horizontal frame nicely.
I think the issue is that we’re used to seeing these ships in motion. It’ll be much better once you can spin it on all three axes.
I think if the ship was pointed slightly more towards the viewer it would’ve worked better, but yeah the big moment will be when it’s in 3D in the game.
Since they added it to netflix, I have been obsessing out on Star Trek Voyager. I just passed the 100 episode mark today. STO seems to draw more heavily on that aesthetic than most of the shows. I’m starting to seriously consider firing STO up again.
I have Netflix on my phone now so I think I’m going to start watching Trek during my lunch breaks at work. 🙂
As far as the Voyager aesthetic, Cryptic’s designers try to keep chronology in mind (based on the dev posts I’ve read) so they do look at the later series (Voyager and DS9) when they guess at how ship designs advanced into the current timeline of the game.
I kinda like it… but it doesn’t read like a “Picard” ship. Ships too easily get attached to the people in them, at least in my experience, as far as association and identity go. If this new Enterprise has a more adventurous, aggressive captain than the venerable Picard, I think that could go a long way to filling out its personality and role in the lore. The thing looks like it wants to Go Somewhere. It needs a crew to match.
Good points, Tesh. Adventurous and aggressive matches up pretty well with the current situation the Federation is in as well.