There is a significant amount of empty space on the starboard bow of the Mercury Star Runner. Why is that, and do we have plans for it in the future?
TL;DRBen Curtis says the empty space exists because of balancing exterior look against function, tight player metrics and technical clearances; extra rooms or crawl spaces would be awkward, though it could probably have been better.
I think there's always a balance between visually what you want the ship to look like and functionally what it needs to work. When it comes to making the exteriors and interiors work together, if you've got a big vent or a big access hatch or something on the exterior of the ship and on the inside there's a room that it goes straight into, it just doesn't make sense. And there's a bit of a balance between making the player space and the functionality work, and then the implied functionality of what the exterior of the ship is telling you, and how those two things work together. On the Star Runner itself, I remember actually having a look at this when we were playing with the ship and when it was in development. And although there does look to be quite a large dead space at the front of it, by the time you take into account all of the player metrics and the size we need to actually fit additional rooms in there, it does start to get a little bit tight, with a lot of intersection with the exterior. And also, when you take into account things like the safe space we need between the interior and exterior for damage meshes and for vis areas and all those sort of more technical things... And I think there's also that balance between having dead space in ships. So ships that have got big open spaces in them, and how that feels as a player when you're in it. Because for me, I like functionality. I like that feel that you can go through a room and know that there is functionality in there. And I think, yeah, we could fit some more crawl spaces in there, but you'd have like a little rat maze going around, and it's like, where do they then lead you to? And so, yes, there is some empty space in there. Could we have made it better? We probably could have done, but I'm very happy with what we did.