talk on the Renzu Liner

[Ursus]

I like the Liner a lot, have only had it a while but it's a nice ship overall and its fun to fly. Definitely a conversation piece.

There are a couple of things I dislike about it however. First is that the default view makes it look like I'm piloting Underdog. From the side it looks great, but the perspective in the default view makes the tail cover look like a cape, and makes the forward bulge look like a head. You can see what I mean in the pics below, it's a head and a cape



and here is Underdog.

Looking at it from a slightly different rotation eliminates the effect entirely



One issue is the rear "wing" is at an angle that makes the wing mass disappear. This could be solved by changing the angle a bit so that more of the wing is visible at the default angle, or by increasing the coverage so the edge of the wing is not the focal point, or some other trick I'm not a graphic artist just throwing a couple suggestions

The bulge up front that looks like Underdog's head has a couple of problems. I think you should get rid of the fancy "ball" thing, get rid of the stylized swoosh whatever it is, and extend the bulge further back and give it windows so that it is a real deck. This will keep the target profile the same, but eliminate the bulge/hair visual, and make it look a little less decrative and a little more serious business.

I also don't like the way the wings are setup with the single row of windows and the very large platforms that the guns are mounted on. Those platforms are too large and don't look like they serve a purpose except for mounting the gun turrets. I think it would look better to use recesses for visual relief, similar to the small rectangle recess on the side of the rear wing (seen in the sideways pic).

Finally part of the rear armor has a visual gap in it, which can be seen in the 1st pic above. There is a slight gap that lets light bleed through. I don't know what causes it, but it is kind of distracting and makes the ship look cheap.

As for functional usage, my only real complaint is that weapon arcs are pretty bad for a ship with 12 guns, since not all guns fire forwards or backwards. The other ships with 12 guns can put all 12 guns to bear front and sometimes rear, the Renzu Liner has wider coverage but its fewer guns in each direction. The biggest weakness is to the rear, where we only get 7 guns if the target is in the correct spot. I think we should get two more guns in the rear to give it a bit more defensive capability for stuff that is trying to chase us down, otherwise leave it alone for a while longer and see what shakes out.

Fine ship overall, only thought about trading it for something else a couple of times so far

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