Roberts Space Industries - Star Citizen

General
42

Sure, Starcraft looks unrealistic (though not nearly as in the sequel) - about as much as SC should, actually. It doesn’t mean their design wasn’t good. At least in the first one, as I said despite the technical limitations - they couldn’t do nearly as well as today with this kind of tech, and it was mostly in the videos (or in the manual) more than with in-game units that you could really look at their design.
But Starcraft 2 didn’t refine their design. They pimped it to eleven, then pimped it a bit more, then cartoonished it some more.

I can’t talk about Homeworld 2, I didn’t play it. In the original (including some of Cataclysm’s ships), though, they did a great job with what little polygons they had.

Whatever you are doing, watch it. Now. Though you may have to download it first, as there were no official translation AFAICT, so you have to find a (good) fansub.
It’s slow, it’s about 36h long, the title is bombastic, there is no dub, some of the credits will make you sleep, it was done 25 years ago, and it’s still the best SF story I’ve ever watched, shows and movies included.
No idea about the game, though.

Because that’s pretty much what they are. A ship meant to carry and use giant cannons, and that’s pretty much it.

Well, with 25 years between those, sure one will look better. Similarly, if you compare this to this, people will tell you that the second one is better. For some reason, though, it’s the first one that people will recognize.
And I still prefer the first one : it looks more believable, and the second one kind of look videogame-generic. And there would be no question which one would win (giving same size and technology level) : the one with 1km-long guns and 10m-thick armour.
Not that the second one look bad or anything. It looks good and I wouldn’t complain if I saw it in a game I played. But it’s not memorable.
In fact, I remembered that it was the ship in the SC videos pretty much only because this is a SC thread. OTOH, I remember LotGH’s battleships, Homeworld’s Mothership and Taidani heavy cruiser, Starcraft’s old Battlecruiser, even Babylon5’s Human warships (and Shadow, but aliens don’t count), though they would have gained from ten years of design experience and tech evolution, as they feel slightly off… Fighters are easier to remember so I won’t list them.
Hell, I still miss remember the Thor from the old forums.

Also, I never mentioned BfT overall ship desgins (that could have been better - I’d say Babylon5-level). I mentioned one tiny little detail of the design of one ship, that IMHO is enough to put it in my top list of ship design ever by itself, even if it’s for reasons that have little to do with actual ship design, and that pretty much everyone will probably miss.

43

Those long ships look like guns, definitely. I like to imagine there’s two meanings for that.

44

[quote=“ThornEel, post:42, topic:136”]
they couldn’t do nearly as well as today with this kind of tech[/quote]
That’s actually not my problem. My claim is that Star Citizen has the best 3D implementation and the best concept to date for space ships in an absolute sense, not a relative sense. Starcraft was relatively, the best of it’s time of course. We’re not in that time anymore and I’m speaking in absolute terms.

I agree with this. I actually have all of the concept art for Starcraft 2 because I bought the collector’s edition. The concept art is pretty breathtaking, just not for the ships. The characters, the settings, the creatures are all pretty masterful. But both for SC 1 and SC 2, I’ve never seen any good ship concept art. And if you look at the movies, the ships look pretty terribad. All you can see is a silhouette most of the time and the poly count is so low. There is no detail in the hulls and no texture in the plating for SC1.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:42, topic:136”]
But Starcraft 2 didn’t refine their design. They pimped it to eleven, then pimped it a bit more, then cartoonished it some more.[/quote]
You know, I think they did for the Terren definitely, the Zerg maybe. But I think the Protoss actually look less cartoony, both in-game and cutscenes. There is only one piece of concept art out of all the ships the blew that blew me away completely-

ho-lee-phuk!

and here’s the 3d implementation lol!

But even in that impressive image, there is no indication as to how the interceptors launch. How does the thing actually move? There is no animation in the ship design, none of the pieces articulate or give life in a meaningful way or any way at all.

And to compare alien to alien:

[quote=“ThornEel, post:42, topic:136”]
Whatever you are doing, watch it.[/quote]
I’m not a huge fan of Japanese stuff but I might!

That’s okay. Here is a better looking ship that is a gun-

-Star Trek: Voyager, “Year of Hell”

or if you want to still have the heavily armored feel:

-Halo 4

But even those ships I don’t think holds a candle to Star Citizen ships in terms of the depth of the design and at least for Voyager, the 3D implementation.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:42, topic:136”]
it’s not memorable[/quote]
That’s probably because you haven’t played the game or keep up with it’s development. If I only watched Babylon 5 a couple times, I probably would not remember any of the ships.

And things that are extremely memorable are caricatures which generally are not realistic or functional, both of which are a requirement in Star Citizen. The X wing design… It’s like hitting someone in the face with a brick after telling them you’re going to hit them in the face with a brick. It’s an X-wing, it has wings… shaped in an X. Is this memorable from maybe only one viewing of Star Wars to someone who doesn’t even like scifi? Yes it is. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Frankly, I don’t want to be able to sum up everything when I look at a design or piece of art. Art should not be that simple, especially in a game. In a movie, there is more reliance on immediate impact because you have 1.5-2 hours on average to tell a whole story. The best art both does have the initial impact that gives you a really good idea of what is going on, and this initial experience should be able to be successful by itself but it should also have a depth that you can return to later and figure out something new. This is what Star Citizen does with all of it’s concepts. The Scythe that I linked to above has immediate impact, a memorable design, and it has the detail available to really get in close and see what makes it work. You can see how in-depth the design process actually is for these: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13772-WIP-Scythe-Update

Each of the Star Citizen ships are iconic. I remembered all of their designs almost immediately when they released them. I think the shot of the Bengal I linked was a bad example because it’s a back angle of only the engines. Then again I couldn’t find any decent shots that were of the whole ship because it’s so large. In a way I think this is a better view:

For all of the concepts you’ve mentioned so far, not only do I think they have unpleasant overall shapes, but they also are lacking in a lot of features like design specifics. How do the rockets reload or how does the ship actually move in Homeworld 1 or 2 for example. Where’s the engine room? Where are the toilets? Are people sleeping? And these are questions I could ask of pretty much any sci-fi series and not get a great answer. Your response might be, these examples are using older technology, or those details are not within the scope of the game. Again, those excuses actually aren’t my problem.

My point is, there has never been this much detail or thoughtfulness before in a ship design for film/tv/game in the concept art nor the 3D implementation. That’s it. I’ve yet to seen any media that comes even close. To make excuses as to why a concept or 3D implementation isn’t as successful as Star Citizen is to admit that it’s not as successful while explaining why.

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Would just like to point out, I haven’t seen a single Star Citizen ship I genuinely like the look of. Designs seem messy and disjointed mishmash of conflicting design styles; even that carrier looks plain weird to me.

Would prefer it without the annoying swoopy plating in the middle of it that doesn’t match the rest of its styling at all:

(forgive crummy MSpaint cut&shut)

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You really believe that you and a couple of friends with newcomer ships could take on a few guys with a destroyer and similar skill? You can’t look at only 1vs1 fights. A group with a bigger and more expensive ship will certainly have an advantage. If that wasn’t the case there would be serious problems with balancing.

Just like there will be better equipment(quality/tiers), there will be better ships. What stops a guy that bought a destroyer to just sell it and buy the top tier of all equipment on a top tier newbie ship and have an advantage over the people who bought no ships?

The “game design” of Star Citizen is that, with skill, you could win a battle against anyone. Not that you won’t be able to improve your ship.

Also, you get lifetime insurance when you buy the ships. If that wasn’t an advantage/convenience of some sort, they wouldn’t have been selling it.

There might be people out there that just bought the ships to “help the dream”, but I seriously doubt most ship buyers would have spent half as much if they didn’t have something to show for their investment.

And finally, having different ship types(and play styles) at your disposal from day one certainly looks like an advantage to me.

(no, I did not read the wall of text below the quoted reply)

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47

You don’t get LTI anymore.

Anyone that is educated in the game design of Star Citizen

Said design is WIP.

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[quote=“AngryMarine, post:46, topic:136”]
You really believe that you and a couple of friends with newcomer ships could take on a few guys with a destroyer and similar skill?[/quote]
So first of all, you can’t fly a destroyer with 3 people, secondly destroyers aren’t for sale, thirdly this scenario just won’t happen in Star Citizen. For my explanation of why, you have to look at how the persistent universe is actually designed which I explain in the links towards the middle of this post.

The Idris frigate is the current largest craft for sale.

I don’t believe that 3 guys in an aurora could take down an Idris frigate (which would be smaller than a destroyer, but the destroyer specs aren’t released yet so I can’t comment on it), although there would be Citizens that disagree with me. But 3 guys in hornets or avengers? Yes, I believe they could if the Idris was alone. Make it 3 gladiator bombers, and it might even be easy. But that being said, the Idris is never run alone, it has a compliment of Hornet fighters in it’s hold. And for anything larger than a Constellation freighter or thereabouts, you actually can’t fly the ship alone. So you either have a crew or it doesn’t leave spacedock. In the case of an Idris, to take full advantage of the ship, the old crew capacity is 10 players (it was announced that it will be increased but they haven’t released the new numbers yet). After a certain threshold, the players can’t operate the core systems and the ship is severely crippled.

If you’re asking if maybe 3 players can take down a 10 player Idris, and everyone was of equal skill, then you’re asking whether 3 players should be able to defeat 10 players holding skill equal. And my answer is no.

[quote=“AngryMarine, post:46, topic:136”]
Just like there will be better equipment(quality/tiers), there will be better ships.[/quote]
There will be some equipment that is better quality. But the vast majority of equipment will be sidegrades. There will be more horizontal selection than vertical selection. As far as ships, this is even more true. Although others would disagree with me on making even the following concession, I believe the Aurora (starter ship) is the only ship that doesn’t do anything particularly well. That being said, there are people that plan on only using the Aurora for the rest of their game and still kicking ass with it.

[quote=“AngryMarine, post:46, topic:136”]
What stops a guy that bought a destroyer to just sell it and buy the top tier of all equipment on a top tier newbie ship and have an advantage over the people who bought no ships?[/quote]
Every package comes with at least an Aurora so there won’t be anyone with no ship when they start at this point. This is a good question that people have asked in the past. The developers said that the sale price of at least a pledge ship or possibly all ships will be very low. So once you bought a ship either in game or through a pledge, you’re going to loose a lot of money/credits if you sell it again.

So what if someone bought the “completionist” package for 15,000 USD which comes with almost all the available pledge ships. Say they sell all their ships except a Hornet for a fraction of their in-game price and have a decent number of credits to outfit their Hornet with the best vertical dogfight upgrades. It still won’t be easy. Credits alone will not allow you to automatically get all the great weapons. Weapons and equipment are going to be spread out across the 'verse. The most powerful will likely be in the rim worlds which are lawless and dangerous. You’ll still have to work hard for those pieces of equipment. And, if you get those pieces of equipment, you still won’t be killing newbies in Auroras. Please refer to Will crowdfunding continue after the Kickstarter completes? and Star Citizen's crowdfunding model for my explanation of why.

[quote=“AngryMarine, post:46, topic:136”]
Also, you get lifetime insurance when you buy the ships. If that wasn’t an advantage/convenience of some sort, they wouldn’t have been selling it.[/quote]
Lifetime insurance is certainly a convenience. The fact that insurance exists is more of an in-lore explanation of why you won’t lose everything and have to start over from the beginning than it is a mechanic that gives an “advantage”. They’ve said that the cost for players to have regular insurance on their ships will be minimal. The character death mechanic as described in the Death of a Spaceman article also provides that same lore/design compatibility.

[quote=“AngryMarine, post:46, topic:136”]
There might be people out there that just bought the ships to “help the dream”, but I seriously doubt most ship buyers would have spent half as much if they didn’t have something to show for their investment.[/quote]
As I said, I agree with you. For example, I can speak with experience. I first bought the 35 USD pledge during the initial campaign. I then spent 135 USD or something like that on a 350r. The reason I did this was because:

-I wanted to support the development of a game that I will love playing.
-I wanted to support the change of the developer-publisher model.
-I wanted to support the monopoly that PC gaming historically had on innovation and leadership in the broader gaming industry which it definitely no longer has.
-I wanted to support the growth of the space-sim genre specifically. (which is why I still follow Infinity)
-I wanted to fly the 350r because it’s the perfect ship for me. I don’t have any particular interest in flying a large slow gunboat or a warfighter. I wanted something smallish, nimble, fast, with a large power output for speed/exploration equipment/piloting new jump points, and it had to look sexy like a Ferrari. I felt that this kind of setup would allow the greatest impact for my skill into the game. I didn’t have any interest in flying the Aurora first to get the 350r later. I wanted something specific to my style and needs and it was for sale so I bought it. (I also got an exclusive cosmetic item). I was willing to sacrifice armor, shields, weapon slots, and cargo space to specialize in those attributes. If my needs were focused on taking out capital ships, dogfighting against Hornets or battling 325As, then that may be a crappy choice. Although I think the 350r is a ship that is fairly unique. It is so fast and so skill intensive that it will be the worst ship for most people and an amazing, possibly OP ship for a very select few that can fly it. There is no ship that has all the advantages. The name of the game in Star Citizen is sidegrade and skill.

When you say “I seriously doubt most ship buyers would have spent half as much if they didn’t have something to show for their investment”, you seem to say it as if this is a bad thing. The vast majority of Star Citizens spent extra money to both support the game and to jump into the playstyle they want as soon as the game ships (no pun intended).

[quote=“Naiba, post:45, topic:136”]
Would prefer it without the annoying swoopy plating in the middle of it that doesn’t match the rest of its styling at all[/quote]
Since I don’t want to write another ridiculously long post about design aesthetics which people frequently spend a 4 year degree or their entire lives on, let’s agree to disagree =)

[quote=“Naiba, post:45, topic:136”]
I haven’t seen a single Star Citizen ship I genuinely like the look of.[/quote]

Even the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYjD1wiTBmM ?

[quote=“Cinder, post:47, topic:136”]
Said design is WIP.[/quote]
The game design as a whole is a huge WIP but the part that I specifically mentioned, which is the rock-paper-scissors style of balancing, is as core to the game as the fact that it’s in space.

49

Star citizen looks average to me :expressionless:

Just my 2 cents.

1 Like
50

Design of fin on the back makes no logical sense and looks completely unbalanced. Ship itself looks like it has a broken back. It’s probably #2 on my mental list of bad SC ship designs, second only to that pirate thing with the random metal curve bolted to one side of it for no discernible reason.

EDIT: The only ship I even half-like the look of (that’s been confirmed for the game) so far is the hornet. (It’s still got a bunch of design shortcomings both from a realism/immersion and game design standpoint.) So many of the design features for SC ships are tacked on with no thought at all for why they’re supposed to be a good idea or what the point of them is beyond looking cool.(ish, to some people.)

It just feels childish and I already know it would end up killing any immersion factor. It shouldn’t be so easy to poke holes in ship designs, especially with them making such a big deal about how everything is supposed to be functional.

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Interesting. I’ll ask you the same question I asked, Thorn.

What space ships in gaming do you actually like?

[quote=“Naiba, post:50, topic:136”]
The only ship I even half-like the look of (that’s been confirmed for the game) so far is the hornet. (It’s still got a bunch of design shortcomings both from a realism/immersion and game design standpoint.)[/quote]
If one of the things you’re talking about are the hydro scoops (fans) on the front, pretty much everyone agrees with you on that point.

And for the metal curve, are you talking about the scythe?

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My own builds in Kerbal Space Program, 100% functional awesomeness :smile:

But honestly, I’m still waiting on the perfect mix of aesthetic style, believability and technical proficiency for ships in a space orientated game. That said, from non-space focused games, probably ships in Deadspace 1&2.

That’s one, although I’m also talking about the motors to rotate the reaction control thrusters rather than just having multiple ports, looks like it adds extra weight to the design and gives you lag between control input and turning, makes no sense to have it done that way other than “Zomg! Moving parts!”. The cockpit interior has way too much view space taken up with the cockpit frame to the point of needing to invent extra gauges and screens to stick to it. The holographic radar display is see-through for no reason seeing as it’s mounted in front of metal plating meaning there’s no reason not to just have it on a screen. Oh, and miniguns are a thing in space for some reason.

And all this is just one ship and what I’ve seen of it from a few short video clips. Just know already the game would end up bugging the hell out of me.

Yes. Very.

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Well, moving thrusters may make sense given the right technical assumptions (something that isn’t hard to have in soft-SF like SC), but what bothered me at the time was that they didn’t fire back to stop the ship to turn - officially because it wasn’t intuitive enough for players. I feel that this is either underestimating the average player’s intelligence or pandering to the dumbest ones, either being kind of insulting and poor marketing.

And yeah, this Scythe thing looks like nonsense. OTOH, if this giant piece of metal was a powered cutter to be used as a ram…

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But even the Reavers from firefly/serenity (zombie-cannibal-savages) knew to fit TWO scythe-claws to their ships for balance. I hope those pilots like flying in circles with their blade-ships. :smile:

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No no no! Not zombie savages! The highly educated population of a futuristic civilization hand-picked by their totalitarian government to live on a paradise-like planet and just temporarily suffering from lifelong drug-induced hyper-aggression. Most of them are likely genius-level intellects, so it makes sense they’ll know more about simple physical principles than your average space pirate.

You’re right about the cannibalism, though.

2 Likes
56

Now lets just all lie down and get some sleep . . . . . .

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The survivor from the colony ship on the show turns into one. Face it. They’re zombies.

Besides; point still stands.

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The reaction of the survivor from the colony ship is not entirely unlike what you might see in severe PTSD cases in the real world. Certainly, a reaction quite that strong isn’t likely, but it’s well within the realm of creative license.

But yeah, I absolutely agree that two entirely cosmetic claws would make more sense than just the one. I know a lot of people think symmetrical spaceships are boring/overused, but they’ve been overused for a reason.

A single powered cutter, on the other hand, would actually make sense - the one-time cost of calculating how to balance the thrust would be well worth it for the reduced production cost and added piercing power.

59

Ah, okay. I completely see where you’re coming from. You’re looking for something that is much more realistic than is presented in the industry currently. I’m sorry it doesn’t really exist yet.

There is a lot of talk about that balance in the SC community though. For example, a lot of people want there to be no external sounds, except those times where the hull has conducted the sound like an impact. Also, if this were more simulation than it is, there wouldn’t be any windows for non-combat ships. And there wouldn’t be any people flying the combat ships at all. The ships would all be drones, not only to prevent the loss of human life, but also because the drones would be able to survive faster maneuvers without blacking out than a human pilot. The developers decided that in order to have a fun game, those things are necessary.

As for Deadspace, I only played a little bit of the second one at a friend’s so I won’t comment on it other than the facts that the fictional physics in that game is more fictional than Star Citizen and the back of Ishimura looks cartoonish. That’s caused by the 3D implementation not having enough small pieces or greeble to give that section scale. It’s a bit more tolerable in the concept. The front looks cool, I don’t know what all the raised plates are for but it’s nice. It looks alien instead of Terran.

[quote=“Naiba, post:52, topic:136”]
I’m also talking about the motors to rotate the reaction control thrusters rather than just having multiple ports, looks like it adds extra weight to the design and gives you lag between control input and turning, makes no sense to have it done that way other than “Zomg! Moving parts!”.[/quote]

In Star Citizen, the physics are simulated in real time and the flight is maintained by the IFCS (intelligent flight control system) which is both an in-fiction aspect of every ship’s computer that facilitates human-body-friendly flight and is also a module of the modified CryEngine that renders the physics of the ship and the thrusters. Star Citizen is a fully Newtonian physics space simulator like the Infinity Combat Prototype. The semi-arcade flight style comes from the IFCS in the ships and the engine. You can turn off IFCS at any time and engage in Newtonian combat.

This is important in regards to the gimbal thrusters because a gimbaled thruster can initiate an impulse with variable vectors within a tolerance. In Star Citizen, your thrusters can be disabled, or destroyed. If you have fixed thrusters, you would have permanently lost maneuvering in whichever direction those thrusters were used for. With gimbaled thrusters, depending on which were disabled, you can still maintain flight maneuverability with the assistance of IFCS. Additionally, in Star Citizen, parts of your ship can be destroyed. If your wing gets shot off, that changes the center of mass of your ship. Gimbaled thrusters and the IFCS will compensate and give you continued control over your ship albeit with less effectiveness.

[quote=“Naiba, post:52, topic:136”]
The holographic radar display is see-through for no reason seeing as it’s mounted in front of metal plating meaning there’s no reason not to just have it on a screen.[/quote]
It looks cooler.

[quote=“Naiba, post:52, topic:136”]
miniguns are a thing in space for some reason[/quote]
Why not? Battlestar Galactica has them too.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:53, topic:136”]
if this giant piece of metal was a powered cutter to be used as a ram…[/quote]

[quote=“Naiba, post:52, topic:136”]
Yes. Very.[/quote]
It’s actually meant to slice through ships.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:53, topic:136”]
didn’t fire back to stop the ship to turn[/quote]
Yep, that is one thing, along with the absence of sound in space that is currently not planned.

[quote=“Naiba, post:54, topic:136”]
TWO scythe-claws to their ships for balance.[/quote]
With an IFCS, you don’t need to have a ship that is naturally balanced or stable. It is a better design to be and more efficient. But then again, the Scythe is an alien ship so maybe they placed more importance on striking fear into the hearts of their enemies than practicality. Also, while the large wing extends far out of the ship to the right of center of thrust, the cockpit is also shifted to the left of center of thrust. Without knowing more about where the systems and their masses in the ship are placed, I don’t know if that’s enough to balance out the wing. I almost don’t care because of how beautiful it is.

If you want real natural stability and the most efficiency in the design, there would be balance and symmetry in at least 2 planes instead of 1. This is one of the reasons why the Space Shuttle is such a failure for example. The Apollo capsule had 2 plane balance and symmetry. The Venture Star from Avatar had 2 plane balance. If you want the ultimate realism, that’s the only way to design spacecraft.

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Then why doesn’t it look like it? Right now it looks like a giant piece of scrap meant to look like a blunted, broken butcher’s knife. Not the thing you’d expect to slice through space armour.

Regarding to stability, always firing verniers wouldn’t make much sense : even without accounting for the wear and tear and assuming that fuel is free, it means that in case of failure (like, say, a vernier taking a blaster hit), your ship will spin when you use your main engines.

A better solution is to put the engines behind the craft’s center of gravity. In fact, if you try it in KSP, you’ll see that you can make an asymetrical ship as long as your center of thrust (and lift, if you’re still in atmosphere) is aligned with your center of mass.
In fact, this ugly piece of scrap design could still be salvaged if they had put a new engine on the right, so it looked like the designers added it to rebalance it for the blade’s mass.

You can’t compare the two!

Sound can be simulated, which has the added interest that if for some reason your computer takes a hit and the simulation is disabled, you are suddenly in a very quitet, very claustrophobic cockpit where the only sounds are the ones of your ship - or the hits you take.
So it’s believable and Shattered Horizon proved how well this works as a gameplay and immersion element.

Verniers not firing back is just a big “Frak you!” to physics, and looks stupid.

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[quote=“ThornEel, post:60, topic:136”]
Right now it looks like a giant piece of scrap meant to look like a blunted, broken butcher’s knife.[/quote]
You must not have played Wing Commander.

When you’re moving that quickly in space, you don’t need something as sharp as an exacto knife to destroy something. When I say slice, I don’t mean a clean cut. It’s more like… precision ramming.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:60, topic:136”]
Regarding to stability, always firing verniers wouldn’t make much sense… design could still be salvaged if they had put a new engine on the right, so it looked like the designers added it to rebalance it for the blade’s mass. [/quote]
There isn’t a qualitative distinction in Star Citizen between thrusters and main engines. Thrusters are just smaller engine outputs. So when I mentioned that “With an IFCS, you don’t need to have a ship that is naturally balanced or stable.” above, I actually meant exactly what you said. There could be an extra thruster or what you would call an engine placed on the back of the wing or under it. Or maybe there already is, I haven’t seen that part of the ship very closely after the PBR pass and redesign.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:60, topic:136”]
Sound can be simulated[/quote]
That is a good point, and actually now that you remind me, that’s exactly what Chris Roberts said about the subject.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:60, topic:136”]
your computer takes a hit and the simulation is disabled, you are suddenly in a very quitet, very claustrophobic cockpit where the only sounds are the ones of your ship - or the hits you take.[/quote]
I don’t know whether this is already in the feature list but I’m suggesting it.

[quote=“ThornEel, post:60, topic:136”]
Verniers not firing back is just a big “Frak you!” to physics, and looks stupid.[/quote]
I can tell you play a lot of KSP. Well I think for most people, since we live on Earth, it’s at least not distracting. The fact that you don’t need to consciously impulse in the opposite direction to stop a turn is more intuitive than having to, because that’s the environment we live in. What it looks like to me, is sometimes unrealistic. That doesn’t necessarily mean it looks stupid. That’s just me and hundreds of thousands of other people though. I say sometimes because during combat, the thrusters are pretty much all doing work all the time and it’s not noticeable.