Aesthetic vs Performance preference (again)

[Jestersage]

For both builders and downloaders: When do you say there are too much Aesthetic parts (eg "Rockomax Adaptor 02"), and when do you consider more work need to be done to make it look good?

One of the reason I even start to build my own stuff is that many of the replicas require more CPU processing power due to the high part counts, but I noticed that as time goes on, I started to add more and more parts that exist solely for looks. Furthermore, many aesthetic parts does affect the Delta-V/TRW/Cost of a craft (eg Structural panels)

[Wjolcz]

Replicas are ugly, tbh.

[Jestersage]

29 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Replicas are ugly, tbh.

Oh come on, the Soyuz is beautiful. Especially its inside -- very roomy!

[Servo]

I'm biased - replicas are my bread and butter. But I love them because they're a challenge to build and make look good. Plus, you can always see your skills improving. It's been a very long time since I actually went to space. 

Now, IMO the best replicas are those that break the tradespace of looks - performance - part count (pick two). If you can make something look good, fly well, and be accessible to those of us playing on lower-powered machines, you're a fantastic builder.

1 hour ago, Wjolcz said:

Replicas are ugly, tbh.

My heart.

 

But in actuality, so long as you can stand the look of your own craft, I don't care if it's an ugly brick or not. 

[Dman Revolution]

19 hours ago, Wjolcz said:

Replicas are ugly, tbh.

That hurts my man

 

[klond]

On 8/9/2019 at 11:33 AM, Jestersage said:

when do you consider more work need to be done to make it look good?

 I went the other direction on my blimp.  I had big lettering on both sides, 700 some parts, lagged bad on my pc - felt icky.  Deleted all the lettering and advertising and lighting, got it down to 300 parts, where flying it was fun again, then I called it done.

 

[panzer1b]

I do my share of replicas as its a much greater engineering challenge to make something out of a sci-fi movie (especially if its a dumb design like half the sci-fi ships in any movie, offcenter thrust, not aerodynamic, ect).  Anyone whos played this game for a while can make a rocket to get anywhere (ive been to every planet without cheats or mods), but it takes a special type of skillset to make a good looking ship (that remotely resembles something from reality/scifi movie), make it do more then just sit in orbit, and also not make your machine lag to hell (and in my case, have armor to withstand some amount of stock weapons fire).

 

That said, the vast majority of my vessels are heavily inspired but not 100% replicas, for example my fairly recent dimension-III class warship, interior is based on older dimension-II, exterior is taken from a failed providence replica (well not exactly failed, but it ended up having way too many parts to justify using in any sort of larger scale battle and i cut out some of the organic styling and the nose which i couldnt do without alot of parts).

And as for buildings, i tend to go a bit more all-out with those (at least civilian models, bunkers and military facilities tend to be much simpler).  My latest skytower rendition, not a true replica or even close, but i stole alot of design asthetics from the citadel in HL2, even if its just some aspects of it (3 sided, middle segment having that open section with those ibeam/girder things, ect).

[Raptor9]

I will always maintain that whatever makes the player feel inspiration, is the right path to take.  What's interesting is that you can have players that bring their KSP game to a crawl with high part counts to emulate appearance or function.  Take EJ or @Azimech, they build large complex contraptions that are meant to replicate complicated functions of real life designs, and then you have others that add high part counts simply to create a very precise shape solely to replicate the appearance.

I do think there are some players that box themselves unnecessarily into certain design constraints, because they feel they are supposed to.  I've seen some players argue with others over minute details of a craft and whether or not it's "accurate" to it's real-life counterpart.  Who cares?  @Rocketology built a space shuttle that looks quite different from the real-life STS, because he felt it performs better.  I've used the MEM lander can on other, non-Apollo lander designs, and I did not use it on my Apollo LEM analogue.

Again, the most important thing is to design craft in whatever way makes you feel motivated to keep hitting that KSP.exe icon. 

[Majorjim!]

On 8/9/2019 at 7:11 PM, Wjolcz said:

Replicas are ugly, tbh.

Only poorly made ones are.

[Aelipse]

As for me, I don't build replicas but rather my own designs. The priority list for me goes: 1) Performance (low part count) 2) Functionality (has to feel tight in flight) 3) Looks.

I prefer SSTO spaceplanes, since, to me, there's nothing more beautiful than a leisurely cruise above and between Kerbin's mountains, visiting lakes and performing acrobatic tricks in a craft that just returned from Laythe. I try to avoid part clipping as much as I can, keep the part count to the minimum and always focus on the functionality - and you know what, sometimes the aesthetics just emerge as a pleasant bonus on top of all that.

[sturmhauke]

I'll joke that I don't care what my craft look like, but that's not entirely true. I do generally stress function over form pretty heavily, but I don't like just throwing completely random parts together. I suppose I'd call my style a sort of kerbalized rocket Brutalism.