Well, I kinda surprise that nobody has used this word yet. The KOL right now looks like a "Junk" ship. You know, the type of ship that you see outlaw factions use in various anime and game, it certainly doesn't look like "the" ship of the line.


The other battleships look like luxury liners ... which makes sense, because maybe they were luxury liner refitted for combat, but the KOL for the most part, looks too random as in it doesn't seem to have a unify pattern. The reason I call it a junk ship because it looks like the TEC Salvage some pieces from this, recycle some pieces from that and patch them up together into the KOL.

Also, that picture of the KOL someone posted on the first page of this topic reminds me an issue that I have been putting up repeatably, that is the gun orientation and angle of fire. The issue of turret does not have a rotating animation is not very severe, but the angle of fire is. Look at that picture, the sight of 4 laser firing straight up, or in my game, firing almost at a 90 decree angle to side ... it is a very painful sight. Maybe the gun should only be able to fire at a 30 decree angle to each side (add up to a 60 decree arch), not only this is better but maybe it put more consideration into ship turning.

The beams cannot target something outside of a very narrow arc in front of them. The problem is that the beams attach themselves to the target, so for as long as the beams are firing, they will track the target, even if it means the beams will go through the Kol (I have another screeny of that happening).

Perhaps the beams should cut out when targets move outside the field of fire.

Also, Satthukaraoke is pretty much accurate in saying the KOL looks pieced together.

The KOL's main frame is fine. If they make the 'laser prongs' on the front into cooler looking turrets, they'll be okay as well.

However, the KOL's huge 'smokestack turret' on one side and the big ass hangar on the other kinda look like someone duct taped them on. The hangar and 'supersize me' turret/smokestack just scream jury rigged modified ship.

The KOL has not yet gone through the same level of refinement as most of the other capital ships in the game. While the basic 'feel' will remain the same, you can expect something very different.

Do you mean looks or weapons ? Or both ?

It needs more windows

It needs turrets that move

It needs fighter bays that don't look so empty inside...

As long as we're talking about the graphical representation of the ships...


I... Agree. The Kol is lacking something. it's beautifully detailed, I'll grant, but it dosen't seem to be the big great battleship it should be.


I'm willing to bet that everyone who will be consuming this game has been influenced by at minimum one of the following, and possibly more, or all (note that these are just those which influenced me):


The Homeworld series (HW/HW:C/HW2)
The Wing Commander Series (and the movie)
The X series (Most likely X3: The Reunion)
Galactic Civilizations
Star Wars
Star Trek
Sword of the Stars (Crappy game, cool ships)


A good, terran-built ship, should be large. It should have a sort of dark industrial-gothic look about it, by which I am not referring to Warhammer 40K's architecture, I am refering to the dark and yet gleaming broodyness of it all.

A terran capital ship should be massive. Absoloutely enormous. It's turrets should be the size of a small frigate. It should (in defiance of all inteligent space-naval design) have a very obvious "Bridge Tower" section. It should have obvious sensor spines of some sort sticking out the front, and possibly down below. And it should rain energy and death like water directly in front of it.

I try. With the Kol, I really try. I can almost feel it sometimes, but it's just not... Mmm, what's the word? Intimidating enough.

Part of this is the weapon sounds. "Pew pew pew!"... No. I'm sorry, "Pew pew pew" should be the sound the deck guns make when they blow up fighters.

"Ka-CHUNG!" is a good sound for a capital railgun to make. So would be "Ka-ZEEELCH!", if you want to ham up the electrical nature of the railgun.

The lasers should look like lasers. I can't tell what's a laser and what's an autocannon, because they look so alike. Maybe lasers should be an obvious beam effect, that dosen't last as long nor does it look as particle-streamy as the beam cannons on the front of the Kol. (Play Nexus: the Jupiter Incident. Their lasers are perfect.)

As for the beams at the front... The beams themselves are good, though I don't like the way they all converge on one vertix, that may or may not even be an important part of the ship it's firing at. (I honestly don't think converging all four beams at the end of the grapple-arm of a construction frigate is going to be that damaging.)

And the sound effect? Guys, please, go play Homeworld again. The ion cannons firing is what I imagine in my mind when I watch those beams on the Kol firing. As for the "Four feelers", I first thought those were part of the Kol's navigational array. I was surprised when they fired those beam cannons, heh.



Oooooh, looky: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/300W/images2.deviantart.com/i/2004/04/2/a/Hiigaran_Battlecruiser.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.deviantart.com/view/4872232/&h=225&w=300&sz=15&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=KcTl32FkHWezGM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHiigaran%2BBattlecruiser%26imgsz%3Dsmall%257Cmedium%257Clarge%257Cxlarge%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D100%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

This is a good, right proper capital ship. More "nice and clean" than the TEC stuff should be, but it's massive in scale, you can clearly tell how impressive it is. And really, the Kol is big, compared to the frigates, but I don't think it's big enough.

The sheer size of a Kol should make any frigate captain want to command his to bring him his brown trousers.


Just my ruminations. Ignore me if you wish.

Try using a link that works -- that link just sends me to google.

Wow, you want to have your cake and eat it too, don't you?

Worky Linky?


Happy now?

I dig the Kol. Looks like a big mean squid that shoots particle accelerators out of its apendages when its not spewning a gazilion rounds out of its "small" arms tri-cluster of cannons on its mid back at surrounding targets. Its non-antimatter augmented firepower is noticeably less than the other battleships, and mite stand to have atleast a couple standard mid-sized broadside guns coupled with its spammers though,but, obviously, has the best tank in the game.;

I threw a level 10 Kol with 5 missile frigs against 15 gauss-defence cannons and won after a handful of repeat tries. Micromanaging the timing on your antimat specials
can go a long ways.

This argument just never dies!

Seriously, I'm impressed! Lots of good points all around!

If lordkosc had his way the ships would be made of glass with pink space ponies running around inside.   

mmmm yes, a species which doesn't need to traverse the horrible demon field other-space to travel interstellar distances, and thus open holes in the universe for such creatures to enter our realm... truly these are a worthless people!

Well, given that that photo was a major part of your post, having a working link is probably a pretty good idea



ROFL! I don't think it was Kosc who came up with that idea...

Correct the pony idea was never mine.... but the windows were

The following are some more suggestions to improve the KOL.

1. The Spine/Antenna Mounted Lasers just seem to be lacking.

The Ion Canons in Homeworld 2 seemed to be a lot more impressive in almost every way. For starters, HW2 ion beams moved/pivoted very slowly while tracking targets. This gave an impression of power in that it took those huge, slow moving turrets to harness that kind of power.

Also, the HW2 Ion beams seemed more focused, narrower and cleaner somehow (maybe the bluish white ion beams just seemed more focused, narrower and cleaner than the KOL's reddish beams).

The KOL beams can be winged around instantly. This makes them feel cheap, weak and fake.

Also, it doesn't help that the KOL beams can pass harmlessly through your own nearby ships.

Finally, the antenna/spires that the beams come out of seem a little lame. I mean, even with present technology, we can harness laser beams through turrets. So what is with these antennas?

2. The Hangar seems to take up too much space on the ship. This is a battleship, not a carrier. The Hangar needs to be reduced in size/openings.

3. The big smokestack gun on the side is just ugly and seems out of place. Hmmm, perhaps Ironclad should put a tiny hangar on the underbelly, and stack both sides of the KOL with auto canons, canons, and laser turrets.

4. The KOL engine could be improved. Perhaps having more 'stacks' of engines on the rear of the ship (side by side) would do the trick.

well someone was complaining that the Kol was not manly enough in it's shape and apperance, perhaps it the engines at the stern were givin a more curlular shape and the cannon moved to the center of the bow... that might make it apper more manly!  

Quite frankly, I can think of a number of ways to achieve this. Gravitational lensing being used as the "final" step in directing the energy, for example.

or just ubermirrors...

Yeah, 100% reflective mirrors do a nice trick.

pfff, ur living in the 21st century arent you ron?! ubermirrors= 105% reflection

but what if the mirror reflects the beam back on the ship by accident?

Eh, just make it a lens instead. A perfectly clear lens.

Paradoxnt had a good idea above about smaller hangers and his comment on the gauss cannons and engines. Three "stacks" of engines (the existing engines and one on either side of it) would do it. As for the gauss cannons (smoke stack), I believe that they would look better if they were mounted internally on the front of the ship (somewhat like the frigates in the recent Halo E3 trailer). However, I wouldn't do anything with the beam weapons. As far as them firing through the ship and each other, I suggest making it so that if an enemy was to one side of the ship, the beams on the opposite side would not fire until the Kol had turned to face it. That way, the beams wouldn't cross into the other "antennas" (or "pylons" or whatever they're called). I'm open to the suggestion of turreted beam weapons, so long as it doesn't destroy the frame of the ship, although someone else (Erog, reply #87) earlier on this forum stated any number of real-life reasons as to why turrets are not necessary to direct a laser. A few changes could be good for the Kol, but I really like the overall design of the ship and would like to see great care and consideration in any overall design change. This being said, I have been greatly pleased with the ship redesigns as of late (Sova Carrier and Marza Dreadnoughts being great examples), so perhaps I have nothing to worry about.

<3

I think I'll remodel the Kol battleship so it will be a giant pink pony that shoots lasers from its eyes!

but honestly, lasers are light, so it can be reflected! think of is as a ship upgrade: glass armor, 95% reflection of laser attacks, but takes 50% more damage from autocannon and 70% more from missiles.