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Do you remember a keen disagreement where you were making a vehicle of one manufacturer and somebody was really vehemently against it, [saying] it's not that manufacturer, it's got to be somebody else?

TL;DRThe panel recalls the Mule being debated as Drake versus another manufacturer, and the Vulcan drifting from Anvil, noting that designers shifting mindset between brands sometimes pulls ships toward other manufacturers.

Ben CurtisVehicle Art Director

Mule. Mule's an easy one. Kind of split the vote a little bit, didn't it? I think the functionality of the Mule leads more to Drake than necessarily... it is quite a high-end vehicle for Drake. It feels a little bit more refined, but a lot of the inspiration for the Mule came from what we see now in tractors and combine harvesters and that sort of thing. And they are very purpose-built, so they kind of tick that brief, but they are just a little bit nicer.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

Melkor the Wise is like, the Mule is high-end?

Ben CurtisVehicle Art Director

Well, compared to Drake.

Cory BamfordVehicle team

Yeah, compared to some of the other Drake ships. It feels more kind of Argo-y, in the sense it's, like you say, like plant machinery.

Ben CurtisVehicle Art Director

Yeah, if you look at the interior, the interior is all sort of moulded plastics, whereas if you look at the interior of some of our Drake spaceships, they're...

Cory BamfordVehicle team

Very stripped back. Screens very basic.

Ben CurtisVehicle Art Director

Screens on the floor, helicopter seats, that sort of style.

John CreweVehicle Director

The Vulcan concept was Anvil for probably 80% of its concept development, and then it got towards the end and we're like, it's sort of not particularly Anvil-y anymore. It's getting towards Aegis, and then the whole cockpit bit of it changed to be more like the front of the Reclaimer.

Mark GibsonLead Vehicle Content Designer

I think the Vulture looks more Argo.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

Well, the big dirty secret is that there aren't 15 different manufacturers making all these. It's the people at this table who are making them. And so you've got to put your brain in, okay, I've got to put my brain in Drake mode, I've got to put my brain in Crusader mode. And sometimes the brain just doesn't want to do what you want it to do, and it will push you towards whatever these other manufacturers are. And occasionally that leads you to invent new manufacturers, when your brain just wants to do something completely different.

Dan McCabeVehicle Artist

I remember just before I moved on to the Fury, I'd spent a little bit of time on the Corsair helping Lodit, and my entire visual library was just Drake. And then it's like, now you're doing a MISC racing ship that's kind of Mirai performance kind of thing. We weren't really sure which direction it was going to go then. And every time I modelled anything, I went square. I went big bolt, and Ben was like, no, rivets, metal, like chrome. I was like, okay. And every mechanism was more Drake-y until I remembered the direction of it.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

You just referred to the Fury as a racing ship. Obviously, the two variants that we just released are not dedicated [racers].

Dan McCabeVehicle Artist

No, no, I meant nippy, like they're fast and stuff like that.

Star Citizen Live›Invictus All-Vehicles Roundtable·
Published on this date.26 May 2023
EpisodeShipsLore