What makes a world practical is generalization, ships and stations that do a little of everything. Boring, but workable. A minivan, sedan or suburban ranch house.

What make a world cool and sci-fi-ish is specialization, devices that serve a single purpose and do their job exceptionally well. A Ferrari, mountaintop fortress or articulated high-speed train.

Today's Vendetta universe is all about generalization. Every station carries every kind of service, if not all at the same levels. Stations are compact outposts in space, every inch dedicated to function. This leads to a practical but intensely boring world. It is the impractical that draws us in. What about whimsy? Fancy?

In a sense, I'm asking you to consider what makes a truly special game world. I'd wager it's not prudent, realistic design. For example, some of the worlds that impressed me most were those of Warcraft, Starcraft, Marathon and Myst. Beautiful, even artful in their unrealistic twistings. The whole point of this spiel is to ask where that sense of impractical beauty is in the Vendetta universe, and if it is absent, what may be done to create it.

Good luck on this endevor…

For instance, why can't Serco have more interesting looking stations? They're just hunks of metal stuck in space. Itani stations are facinating structures that spread way out with solar panels and other habitat modules. Serco stations should have some sort of simplistic beauty to them like Chinese and Japanese paintings and woodblock prints.

I think Serco stations should be ugly, and bristling with weapons and sensors. UIT stations should be so covered with ads you can barely see them.

When I try to imagine a Serco station if it had been real I see a huge chunk of metal with the plates welded together in incredably tough but clearly visible welds. Portals are defended by turrets and there are little or no external windows. Huge long-range guns here and there and huge scanner arrays and transmitters.

An Itani station would be less practical. It would be pretty and polished with glas domes where trees are visible. Some guns here and there, but nothing major. Some communications arrays would be nice, but keep it classy. These guys are ruled by munks and their architecture should reflect this.

A UIT station should look like a hundrer spaceship hulls were torn apart and assembled into a shopping mall. Some of them should look like two smaller stations that were towed closer and secured together with a quick weld. It should be built on whatever they could get their hands on.
The Captitol stations should be the same way, only it should look like it was "covered up". Same thing with the compaies.
Most companies are started places like someones garage. What if that garage was in space, so that rather than moving to bigger offices you just extend the garage a bit?

[edit]
Heh, I forgot to put my point in here:
I totally agree with ctishmanl.
This universe needs more scifi and less real world.
[/edit]

"What make a world cool and sci-fi-ish is specialization, devices that serve a single purpose and do their job exceptionally well. A Ferrari, mountaintop fortress or articulated high-speed train."

I kinda derived this from your example, but a high speed "train" that flies between stations would be cool. Now think about this and then for the station walking peolple :p how about being able to walk around in your own ship, how great would this be when you take the train to get somewhere and you can walk around in it. Ok, i know what the feeling here are about walking around, but this kinda seems like a nice (very) long term idea.

ArAsH: Sounds like "Vendetta 2: Return of SpaceQuake" to me.
The engine now is geared towards space combat. Re-gearing it for rendering indoor enviroment would take a whole lot of time and manpower.

No walking around. Please devs, do not waste time on this as it would be an entire game in itself and take WAY too much time away from developing what's allready here.

As for the "train between stations", I don't want to be a helpless passenger. Anyone else want to be Serco/Itani food served in an AI-controlled "train"?

"No walking around. Please devs, do not waste time on this as it would be an entire game in itself and take WAY too much time away from developing what's allready here."

Yes i know, thats why i said on the very long term ;) didn't actually wanted to upset anyone with another "please let us walk in stations" comment. So forget about i mentioned it, i was just thinking further from the train idea. The train however, me like, I think it adds to the crowdy place with lots of life experiance, even if you as player can't actually make use of it.

Blow it up! Blow it up and feast on the cargo inside!
-:sigma.SB

I always thought that Serco stations would be designed by either the bioengineers or the mechanical engineers, or sometimes both. For example, one of the stations in Sol II could look like the current one, and the other station would be all bulgey space-flesh with implanted armor.

Oh, I thought you were commenting on space food. Longer trips get a choice of meals, short trips get a snack.

UIT Snack: 8 peanuts in a foil packet, 100c
UIT Meal: Choice of Soybeef or Soychicken, 500c.

Itani Snack: A single rice cracker
Itani Meal: A bowl of rice with soy sauce. Half-hour guided meditation before serving.

Serco Snack: Be strong. You don't need a snack.
Serco Meal: Haunch of meat+little plastic pouch of BBQ sauce. Yes, I know there's not enough sauce. We're at war, and sacrifices must be made.

I don't know if a "train" per say is a good idea, though some sort of passanger liner that is a NEW model then anything we currently have would be nice to see flying around. Any player stuck in a bus with no money could use the passanger liner to get to a different part of the universe by purchasing a cheap ticket (≤100cr). I don't think anyone likes flying around with a free battery and a bus, I know I don't.

There definitely needs to be different looks between the nations, and to an extent there is, but definitely not up to what everyone wants. At least I think =)

Serco to me would be like with FM said, rough, ugly, lots of turrets and arrays for sensors and communication, especially Sky Command. Possibly even small exterior floating artiliry stations, for defence. A big show of strength though superior firepower.

Itani should definitely be more on the looks then function end of it, though theirs should be just as secure as the Serco simply because they have been in space as a nation a lot longer then the Serco. LoTS of polished metal, lots of windows and open areas. Should reflect there monkly beliefs.

As far as the UIT are concerned, I think they already have the look I would expect. Lots of smaller pieces of station connected loosely. FM has a good suggestion fo LOTS more signs (does anyone else read them but me? =) ) Lots of docking areas on there stations.

For all of them I wish we saW more npc ships in all areas, but specifically in station zones. And a much bigger variety on sizes of ships, the occasional cap ship that jumps in and circles A station for an hour as it's bots load/unload it's hull with supplies and stuff, etc would be really cool.

I was thinkng in the game we could make it more customizable, i mean ship wise, Nowadays even in real life someone wants to add this and that to their car almost no on is the exact same. Maybe make there a electronics slot and a weapons slots. Add more modules and weapons. some special electronics that reduce cool down time, increase scanner range, or increase the range of energy weapons. Variety seems to be a good thing and customization is grand.