An Architect Reviews: The Starfarer [Star Citizen]

don't let the beautiful scenery and well selected music fool you expertly framed in shot lies before you the ugliest ship and star citizen whose interior organizational strategy was likely derived from taking a handful of spaghetti and throwing it onto the floor I'm morphologist and this is an architect rents and I mean reviews this time we're taking a look at the worst example and star citizen for this particular way of reviewing ships the M is C Starfarer okay okay dry humor aside guys obviously this is meant as a bit tongue-in-cheek it's a joke I'm not this harsh usually on ships but C IG and I both know that this was one of their first big ships they put out and they've learned a lot since then so I've decided that rather than holding this ship to the same level I hold other ships that they put out we're gonna have a bit more fun with this episode while still being informative so I hope you guys enjoy this format and if you don't you know what to do back to the episode so in this episode we're going to take a look at this catastrophe of design and go over its bad parts and worst parts and there there's probably some good parts in there too we'll find those and as always hopefully you'll learn something about design specifically for this episode what not to do [Music] according to lore the Starfarer is a heavy refueling vessel that has not just the ability to transport large quantities of fuel to the front lines but to also collect gases and refine them to be used in theater that makes the star fare the lifeblood of the logistics of the UAE and any private fleet operated by players the ship though is far from defenseless sporting one size for turd on the top with two size five guns and a couple of additional turrets on the back with size three guns unlike other big ships though the palette also has access to two size four gimble turrets that are slaved to the pilot seat meaning that the pilot too can join the fight the star fire Gemini the military variant of the ship also comes equipped with an additional rocket pod on the nose of the ship which you'll see here just below the bridge if I were to describe the design style of the exterior it would be muscular and maybe somewhat brutal indicating that the designers were trying to communicate something about being able to take a punch and indeed the MIS sea line up is known for being tanky so it fits but you may have noticed already by taking a look at this examination of its exterior that even though it's advertised as being a refueling and refining ship that much of its mass is taken up by inhabitable space and while yes some of that may be refinery we'll find in our tour of the interior that much of it is tied up in superfluous circulation in space but take a step inside with me so I can show you what I mean in all design meant for humans to interact the human scale is important so I thought it'd be good to start here on the ground with the ship landed to get a good idea of just how big the ship actually is and yes I am shivering it's very cold on micro tak now for good design the ingress point is one of the most important events in the users procession through space because it establishes the tone of the experience and also can communicate subconsciously the circulation path the user might take to get to their desired program now initially you might think that entering through a cargo bay might be a bad design choice and it might be to some extent but it does set the user up for understanding the tone of a ship the cargo bay communicates that this is a utilitarian vessel that has few creature comforts and is meant just to get the job done that being said CI G's attention to detail and set design even at this very early stage was still very impressive everything from cargo straps is modeled and feels somewhat believable however the main feeling of the Starfarer as I alluded to at the beginning is not its attention to detail but is instead its spaghetti-like organizational strategy now there are designing conventions where when you enter through a main entry that it is often understood that the vertical circulation path will be clearly marked and directly across from the entry exceptions being of course where the vertical circulation is clearly marked or is clearly visible from the entry off-center the star ferrars masterful design however directs you into the other ingress point perhaps suggesting that you should immediately leave the ship this by the way is an e VA / airlock room has multiple doors to make sure that you can decompress the room without decompressing the ship so in that way it's well thought out ignoring of course once again the very basic design convention of having a clearly marked vertical and horizontal circulation path there was however some attempt to indicate the entry via this fecal matter colored plating which was a weak attempt at best this leads you to a criminally oversized stairway that should not be this big in a ship where space is at a premium but maybe designers were being considerate thinking of people of all shapes and sizes but at this point has the pilot you may be curious of where you should go next right or straight the hapless new crewman on his first day on the job may choose straight as this is a design convention in internal design strategies this would unfortunately lead to that crewmen's early retirement via decompression in the airlock should the crewman been so fortunate however to still be wearing an Evo suit they would find themselves out here on a catwalk that overlooks multiple fuel tanks this is a place where you can monitor the state of the hydrogen fuel that you have on board returning to the airlock you'll find two lifts on either side of the door which will lead you up into an Eevee a room that links to one of the crucial systems of the ship for some reason we'll go over that later moving on from the space that's doubtlessly killed countless crewmen in the UE we move instead onto a catwalk that overlooks the cargo bay an entry to the ship this is actually a rather cool space and serves as an excellent defensive position should you be boarded through it's one of only two entry points this leads us to yet another poorly lit corridor that has no indication of where I need to go as a crewman trying to make their way to the bridge but perhaps I'm miss reading this this may have been an intentional design strategy by the creators to maybe confuse and disorient any borders so that they'll never find the bridge before they die of old age now the foyer that leads us to the bridge is a bit utilitarian and useful actually because it has escape pods in it and each escape pod Bay is flanked by some structural struts this space is oversized but I can see it being a nice defensive point if you are defending against borders this again seems to come back to something that I suspect the ship was designed for and that's FPS combat it clearly was not designed to be a ship used by real human beings now the bridge itself is pretty typical of MIS sea design they only give you horizontal visibility because in space of course ships will never approach you from above or below that's just awkward at least the captain though has a place to sit in this ship which is cool got to admit it's cool to have a captain's seat one of the things I really like about M is C designs in all seriousness though is that even though it's a utilitarian design it still goes to the trouble of covering up much of the conduits this distinguishes itself from the drakes utilitarian design language which prefers to leave wires exposed so that small children can electrocute themselves the can walk opposite of the one we came in on has access to a ladder that brings you into a Jefferies tube on the upper deck we will go into that tube a little bit later because it is an interesting part of the design of the ship however let's now make our way up to the refinery deck uh pay needlessly creepy hallway an oversized corridor we'll find ourselves on the refinery deck which also has access to engineering and a weird room with a train like thingy that I'm sure does something important now having all of these circulation paths located about the ship may seem cool and give you extra space for FPS combat but practically speaking it only serves to make the traversal of decks more difficult for crew which can prove fatal in the event of an emergency when the systems need to be quickly accessed and repaired you notice that coming out of this corridor it's very unclear which direction I should go say I want to go to the crew quarters what do I do well there was a bit of a weak attempt to put labels on the floors but they don't always work you may instead be led down a hallway that puts you into a Jefferies - and that's not where you want to be you when you're trying just to get some rack time on the positive for Xenomorphs this is a great place to hide to pick off crewmen one by one heading even further down the hallway you will still not find the crew quarters you'll instead find access to engineering located strangely in the same corridor as access to the turrets that's okay I mean Aegis left their engines exposed in the Hammerhead in the cargo bay so maybe mi SC is doing okay here something I like about this corridor though are the windows that look out to the exterior this gives you a nice idea of where you are in the world and this is something that I like seeing on big ships having an understanding of your location is key to giving you the idea that you're on a spaceship I know that their weak points but they're also cool points back in the engineering section and the weird train thingy will find access to places where there will surely be modules that have yet to be added into this particular ship for star citizen the ship component system is not fully finished yet in the game and so they're mostly placeholders for what will be actual functional systems that can be repaired by crew people this glowing red ball though is the gravity generator which has access to an airlock and evie a room that brings us back down onto the refueling deck which you saw earlier this gives boarders easy access to the gravity generator so that they can disable it and disorient the unsuspecting crew beyond the reactor seems to be something like an engine room or a refinery bay I'm not sure which but it looks cool I suppose that leads us to a corridor which is nearly identical to the one we came in through making it superfluous really except for the turret access which is very necessary moving now forward in the ship we'll find ourselves in another room that has access to additional systems but it also has a door which leads us into another Jefferies tube this is actually the ladder that we saw on the lower deck and the catwalk above the cargo room so you can use this as an alternative access point to traverse multiple decks if we go up one more level above that we'll find ourselves in the crew quarters it is strange to me that this vertical circulation path is faster than the main one we'll go into that more towards the end of the video when I talk about how this ship might be improved moving even further forward from that room we'll find ourselves at the lift access which is identical on both sides of the ship this is gonna bring us to the habitation part of the ship the crew quarters now while Stila still is a cool-looking material it's not very well suited to living quarters the reason why it's often in kitchens and and bathrooms is because it's easily sterilized which makes the crew quoters about as welcoming as a slaughterhouse the harsh lighting and reflections also don't help to serve the space well it's almost as if it wasn't designed by a human but I suppose that fits in lore because mi SC is supposedly a cooperative with the Shi on an alien race in star citizen this is the top shirt access by the way which I suppose is appropriate seeing as how you may want to quickly access the defense's if you were enjoying some rack time but suddenly had to go to quarters it leaves me with an impression that's best described by a word I don't often use in architecture jank it's pretty jank but at least leave visibility in the turrets pretty good stepping out of the turret across from it is the the mess hall where the crew of the ship will come together and eat and probably discuss just how uncomfortable it is to live on this ship unfortunately for the crew though there's no table and so I think they may be taking more of a minimalist approach here maybe they're supposed to eat on the floor which may be fine as we covered earlier it is stainless steel and so it probably is easily sterilized programatic adjacencies are often discussed and designed because you want to think about what makes sense to locate things where for some reason the captains quarters is located directly off the mess hall apparently they thought that maybe the captain was really hungry all the time and therefore should have direct access to the mess hall or maybe there's a problem with stealing food aboard you EE ships and so the captain needs to be ready at all times judging by the distinct lack of seating I think that the thought here is that the captain is a very stern individual who has no need for seats at any time and stands when addressing the crew or maybe they just sit on the floor I'm not I'm not sure uncomfortably exposed to the public area of the captains quarters or the personal quarters of the captain who effectively is living inside of a bathroom you know I really do get the feeling that this was designed by an alien who went to a human design day seminar and forgot most of the key points but at least there's a window in here so that the captain can look out in long contemplation upon their poor life choices that led them to commanding this sorry excuse for a you EE vessel the alien designing the room probably also had some issues understanding the age of the person likely to command the vessel and well yeah back into the main corridor that led us into the mess hall and then the captain's quarters will also find access to the crew quarters which is an unusual design as far as star citizen goes we've seen a lot of bunk bed designs so far but this early attempt at design decided to use way more space than necessary here to is clad and mostly stainless steel or some metallic finish that makes the space even more uncomfortable to inhabit I do have a question the location of a window in these quarters though seeing as how Kru may be tempted to break it to relieve themselves from this nightmare at least the crew though don't need to smell their own feces because they have their own separate head to use that is located well away from their actual sleeping area now believe it or not the issues you might have with the bridge itself and its visibility are minor in comparison to the organizational problems this ship has the problem is really that there is too much circulation space in the ship having Jefferies tubes is fine but they shouldn't be the best way to traverse decks from the main entry there should be a clear vertical circulation path marked out by signs or just visible upon entry take for example the new anvil Carrick designed by CI G rather than having excessive hallways that are just kind of every which way with no clear organization they have several central vertical circulation elevators and a Jefferies tube but which will lead you up in the event that the ship is powered down this of course gives the crew the benefit of being able to navigate the space quickly and easily without having I think too much about signage to guide their way one of the challenges that designers will face when designing any interior space is minimizing the amount of circulation paths to maximize the amount of usable programmatic space the characters this by having a centrally located too bloated corridor which is the most efficient way to locate program and a connection to it so for the Starfarer to better serve the interiors use of space instead of locating the quarters on the periphery of the ship it would be better served to follow the kerrick's design scheme with a centrally located double-loaded corridor with vertical circulation paths in redundancy in case of emergency well it would make sense to have some systems centrally located and in those cases the paths can go around it it doesn't make much sense to have corridors and stairways in different parts of the ship it just makes it confusing and causes people to get lost frequently it's also horrendously cost inefficient to have lifts in different locations it'd be far better to have one centrally located lift that takes you to multiple decks this would also help aid in recent flying the ship as you would not have to navigate many tight corridors to transport things from various decks in good circulation design signage should only ever be used as a supplementary device especially in cases where there are many rooms and programs to visit but they should never be the crutch by which the navigation of the ship is held together but see IG know this judging by their recent ships and so when this massive ship gets a rework I suspect that it'll be just as good as the carrick if you guys enjoyed this episode don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the bell icon if you're already subscribed so you're notified the next time I post an episode you can also see me live on Mondays Wednesdays and Saturdays on Twitch which will be in the description of the video so let me know what you guys think down below in the comment section for an architect reviews i'm morphologist I hope to see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Morphologis

Views: 374,945

Keywords: Star Citizen, Ship Review, Gameplay, Tour, Architecture review

Id: h2vbubcN8d0

Length: 18min 30sec (1110 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020