Was looking over the Vaulters expansion and though I loved the faction in Endless Legend I just can't bring myself to play ES2 again even with the promised goodies which look awesome

The reason boils down to: why is the game still so pland?

It has been some time I have palyed it, but I remeber other players also brought this up on the forums back then:

- Why are the fleets only represented via wire-frame on the galaxy map?

- Why is ground invasion so low-res and cartoonish?

The second we can strike down as a nieche question for space 4x but showing off cool spaceships is something I would not expected to take a backseat especially considering the work put into them

The player is expected to interact with the Galaxy map during most of the play-time and the background, planets and nebulas are looking nice.

So why have the otherwise beautifull ship models been replaced with ugly wirefirmes? Is it a thematic reason? The assets are alreay there

In fact, I generally have the feeling that the game is trying to prevent the player from enjoying the spaceship models which is so odd in this genre and even EL had tons of ways the player could marvel on the unit models:

1. Wireframe models on the Galaxy map nuff said

2. Ship designer does not allow for zoomin zoomout, and always snaps the model back to the starting location

3. Tactical cam feels restricted even in Free cam mode. A default RTS or even Total War cam would have done the job- it oddly feels like too much freedom is the problem here posing a nice contast to the second point :)

The only reason I can think of why the first point is a thing, is to better distinguish the factions, but there is alread a fleet icon with unique faction color

To top it off, the default images of the ship models are hardly visible on my Full HD monitor. They don't have much space that is true, but the colorfull background often obscures their (from a distance) samey contours. So the unit icon already has tiny space and the ships within that space get around 50% of the space while mostly having no stricking differneces (like an orc does compared to a dragon)

I still have little idea how most of the ships actually look like as I never get a feeling for them on the Galaxy map, and even when doing battles against them, the need for top-down high- level tactical information overwrites the time needed to tediously maneuver the camera around them

It boils down to personal taste, I assume. Personally, I liked the wireframe models from the first moment I saw them, and I also liked the ground battle animations too. The only problem was when there were too many units on screen. I haven't been watching ground battles because of this since early access so I don't know how that changed.

Zooming in ship designer? I never wanted to. I think it serves the purpose pretty well. If you want to marvel at each ship and zoom way in, you can do that on the Endless Space 2 website. Me, I'm doing other stuff during the game.

Tactical cam... I always manage to see what I wanna see, I'm fine with it, but I can see how it doesn't satisfy others. Again, personal taste.

I can kinda see what you mean. I don't mind the wireframe so much, I think it has a certain style to it and it's kinda to portray the space map as you actually viewing a tactical space map in your strategy room, you being the faction leader, rather than you seeing the galaxy in real time with your own eyes. I prefer the latter (kinda more like Stellaris), but I can appreciate and still enjoy the direction ES2 has gone with.

I do agree that I wouldn't mind a version where the ships aren't wireframes and you can see them in all their glory. I believe someone asked this on discord and said it's moddable, so there's perhaps a possibility that if anyone know how. I do fully agree however I think the ship design screen should allow to zoom. While it serves it functions, I do wish I could appreciate the ships more as you put guns on them. About the tactical cam, I'm quite fine as it is and how the camera works.

Anyway, while it's never been something holding me back from enjoying the game, I can agree and I wouldn't mind some more options to enjoy the ships. That's why one of my biggest wishes for features is to be able to view other battles than just your own, especially in multiplayer. The ship designs in ES2 are amazing and blows away a lot of other space games or designs in series/movies for me. So any way to enjoy looking at the ships that's obviously gotten a lot of attention (do zoom REALLY close in battles on them if you haven't, especially carriers, they got a lot of cool details) is just a major plus.

I, personally, don't find it pland.

Here is an example:

Total War games have a long history of unit representation. Discarding the army representation that has remained largely unchanged over the numerous titles, there was one time when the unit cards have been replaced with abstract representations of the units, and that was in Rome II

So presumably due to the setting and UI theme considerations, brand new assets have been created for this purpose instead of shoiwng a 2D image of the unit in a tactical layer.

The results were a great case study as first people kinf of liked it (me incldued) but it quickly became appreant that it actually detracted for the usability of the image itself. With so many factions and unit variants the abstract images sort of blended together after a while.

Lesson learned: CA has dropped the concept when Attila has hit the stores and even deviated from this concept in the latest DLC for Rome II

Interestingly: they have been using the rendered model for generals albeit with some resolution problem that has prompted the modding community to create abstract images for the genreals instead :)

The point is: if there are already abstract representations used (in Galaxy map and in ground invasion), it should serve more purpose then simply thematic and the representation should be visually more engaging then the thing it is representing otherwise it just detracts from the laters quality and recognisability

PLease don't clutter up the screen with dozens of ships per fleet. Keep it simple. And I personally like the wireframes. The ground combat animations are ok for me as well. They are just a animation for all the math in the background. Since we do not have any kind of influence on the actual engagement beyond the selection of a tactic, I do not see any use for more detailed battles. There are other more importatnt areas that need dev attention IMO.

Simple low hanging fruit (and an idea from Endless Legend they should plunder)

Assimilating a minor faction should give you access to that factions ship designs.

There. Solved. Blandness begone. Now the fights across space will be full of varied and much more interesting ship combats with a wider spread of more interesting ships rather than you having to use the SAME DESIGN ALL THE TIME. Endless Legend allowed you to assemble an army of interesting monsters. This represented a major step forward. If you're going to make us -look- at the fight, let us have enough in the design to work with that concept.

I like the idea a lot (though I meant something else and this would not resolve that :))

Just goes to show how visuals are recieved by different persons: I found the roster to be sufficient even though there are not a lot of designs due to how varried they are per race. It would probably give it a kick of course if it could incorporate minor faction designs like EL did (that game was awesome). What might be considered here is how these minor ships would be integrated into special fation mechanics (same as mercs I guess), annd if they would cause repetition (depending on their roster)

BTW: did you notice that you already "incorporate" minor faction troop designs just like EL? :)

They are visible in the ground invasion screen - and by "visible" I mean you really need to peel through the data noise to see them

There will also be no help to identify them, but they are there fighting alongside your main faction troopers (I guess they were equal to the proportion of their pop ration within the empire)