The cinematic first seconds of the review definitely don't disappoint. Morphs videos are how we all imagine us playing SC one day, knowing that we'll probably end up flying all our ships alone all day anyways.
@@CyberneticArgumentCreator the goal is to use blades/NPC crews. So technically with blades yes. Yes you can solo the Polaris. Won't be as good as a focused dedicated crew however.
The game is infinitely more interesting when running with a crew, I can't even imagine wanting to run something like this solo. Running anything bigger than Large as a solo is going to be so time and resource inefficient that I don't think anyone will even want to.
@@shakedown4716 It's me, I want to do it all solo. Too much of our lives is taken up already with scheduling, waiting, conflicts, illness, unforeseen events, and I'd rather not subject myself to adding another two dozen people to it. Two guys and 40 AIs in two ships will always be better (timeliness, cargo capacity, DPS) than twenty guys in one ship.
Hit the nail on the head with the medical area being so far behind the Carracks, really hope they go back to that as it's a universal thing you just associate with medical/clinical areas. White. Bright. Clean.
the medical bay of the polaris looks like it could be easily mistaken for the brig to a concussed or confused person, it has a concierge but no doctors office, no x-ray room, and no medical storage or medical synthesizer room, hell it doesnt even have any pressure vessels for oxygen or nitrous oxide. the carrack is so much better equipped than the polaris is in terms of its medical bay while the polaris medical bay feels so bare bones that it makes even the cutlass red, apollo triage, and C8R pisces look better equipped than the polaris at this point. i would have much better preferred to lose 2 out of the 4 beds and make one of the 2 rooms have the doctors office merged with medical storage & synthesizer so it at least makes sense, have the room with the beds actually have more design language than a closet and have the wall store pressure vessels for oxygen and nitrous oxide, and have valves behind the beds for IV connection points and buttons for lights, bed reclination, and a nurse call button for medical emergencies. as well as additional equipment like an ECG rack or AED rack, or an emergency shelf for medipens and paramed devices, as well as dispensaries for more. or redesign the space completely and move the beds to where the useless concierge is and have the 1st room house the x-ray machine and the 2nd room house the doctors office + medical storage/dispensary + medical synthesizer. as a medical professional this is by far the most lackluster part of this ship, and is the reason why the carrack is still superior despite being years behind the gold standard. i honestly cant even believe that the polaris is even at gold standard because this is far from what i expect from the level of polish expected from gold standard. its almost as if this ship came out of the oven far too early. edit: also im sure some people are wondering why you would need an ECG or AED rack separate from the medical bays computer, mainly because of the same reason real hospitals dont rely on plugged hardware exclusively, because when the power goes out (and it absolutely will as far as murphy's law is concerned) then you'll wish you had secondary backups that ran on its own internal power. it almost feels like the medical bay of the most popular ship in the game (the carrack) was intentionally nerfed to force players to spend more money on other medical bay equipped ships.
I'm hoping it's to let us decorate it. Blank spaces are easier to do that around. Plus it's less stuff that they have to remove to give us that option. Like when decorations come out they will have to remove some of that from the carrak
@@chloekaftan SC backers complain about capital ships taking too long and that CIG will never finish the backlog, and then when CIG does its best to deliver an awesome capital ship without taking several years the same people be like:
@@chloekaftan Funny you should say it could be mistaken for a brig, because it's across the hallway from the brig and they both have the exact same room design. Just instead of a guard and cells it's a receptionist and beds.
I think the drab, monotone, and utilitarian design of the interior is absolutely perfect! It's very reminiscent of modern day submarines, and works well. I served onboard a US submarine for several years and there was no signage for anything. The interior was very monotone and nondescript. The Polaris embodies this design language absolutely flawlessly, and I think it's a perfect representation of its modern day equivalent. The Polaris is LITERALLY a spaceship version of a submarine, it embodies it perfectly, and I absolutely love every square inch of it.
You love every square inch of an obviously unfinished interior design with blocked off access to the previous XO space? I mean sure your opinion, your right and I love the ship too but not...every square inch hahaha. But I served on RAN surface ships so maybe I prefer a little luxury (like an ice cream machine and wifi) 😂
One thing to note as well, some of that empty space will be taken up by clutter. I imagine that the cargo area and hangar will have munitions and misc equipment lying around or stowed away
@@SpaceShipDee I believe that CIG will polish the final pieces before it's put in the PU. And sure, we don't know what the captains quarters looks like yet, but I'm sure it'll be just fine. I suppose if there were one gripe I'd have it's that the berthing spaces are nonsensical. The overly slanted and cramped passageway along with the individual heads doesn't make sense to me. It's like they were going for luxury but forgot it was a warship and tried too hard to stick to the angles in the slanted passageways.
I am not a native English speaker and do not understand the introduction correctly. However, I completely understood that this ship is the coolest thing ever.
@@mitcharbiter3371 my thoughts. :) As soon as I saw the incredibly detailed hull with all its eyecandy and fluff and cool animations, I bet - I KNEW - that this was the result of some very personal involvement. ^^
amazes me that there isnt the shortest path markings for all major services on the ground. Even the door to the brig or medical gives no visual indication of whats behind it. (vs the Carrack where you know your changing spaces with the med bay or the drone room)
As someone who serves aboard submarines, the interior design makes absolute sense to me. Military vehicles aren't typically designed to be easy on the eyes or pretty looking, focusing more on function over form.
Hey I work at a morgue and our morgue looks a lot nicer than this. Our morgue is closer to a hospital than this place is. Plus we have plants and windows
@@Hazlius You know Carrack is also the warship? According to many people in the Naval service, their medic room are quite light both on DDG and CV. Why keep finging these excuses?
I'm willing to bet that the majority of the Polaris was done before the design team learned a lot of the lessons they have over the years, the habitation deck almost looks like it's one of the earlier in-game ships, but it's VERY obvious that the engineering decks have been completely reworked because of the incoming engineering systems. The fact that the CQ isn't in yet tells me that they're probably retooling the habitation deck, but they wanted to get it out because it's been in development for so long they just wanted it out the door.
What's actually funny to me about the habitation area is that the previous previews we got of the Polaris _were_ much more utilitarian, much closer to how the Javelin looks. The old bunk room was a long hallway with angled double bunks along both sides. Why they turned it into a series of private rooms that each have their own head confuses me.
It feels like a submarine or a proper military warship. No windows except for bridge is good. It doesnt need to be all cosy, its a ship designed for a purpose.
Windows can have an utility for military in fact. For instance, when the hangar is closed, there is no view on what is out of the ship even with the copilot camera. Same with the cargo bay. And for a game perspective, windows bring a great sensation of really being in a moving ship which is one of the best aspect of this game.
10/10 perspective! Exactly what I expected from someone with a background in design. The exterior is gorgeous but I feel the interior is lacking in comparison. You can see the detail, love, and care given to the exterior to really make the ship shine, but when you move to the interior it feels very basic and mute. This could be due to the lack of lighting as with some rooms and halls it feels like you have entered almost an abandoned space. Its bare and basic and when compared to other ship of its size or with similar rooms, such as the Medbay in the Carrack and Idris from Invictus or the Mess Hall compared to the Javelin from Invictus or even MSR, the interior feels very ignored. I also feel from the recent release of the Zeus which as you pointed out had great accents to highlight the interior design, the Polaris just has the necessities. So while I love the ship, I do hope we see some interior polish in the future. To end, I do want to say that the team that did work in the interior please don't be too dishearten by the feedback as I think you knocked it out the park for the engineering room, torpedo bay, and bridge!
Thinking on this, the PU ship team is separate from the SQ42 ship team. The Idris and Javelin have been worked and reworked quite a few times over the years, and have had the benefit of being critically examined throughout that time. The Polaris is the first PU only capital ship developed on a shorter timeline than those aformentioned ships. I think this means that in the future, they may need to spend more time on the interior OR they need to imitate the program of them since they've already been worked out for much longer.
@@Morphologis Thats a great point and an oversight on my end. Thanks for pointing that out. I think its possible especially with the family of RSI large ships coming afterwards as its been mentioned in the past that assets from the Polaris will help with the Perseus and Galaxy. Its speculation, but I don't think improbably to assume some polish updates for the Polaris will come when those ships release.
Don't forget though, the Polaris is a MILITARY warship, albeit as small one. It wouldn't have the room to have a high end medbay (look at the medbay of a frigate compared to say an aircraft carrier). You also can't really compare interior accents and decor (or lack of) against a primarily civilian ship. It would be like comparing a fishing trawler to a yacht because they're the same size, why doesn't the fishing trawler have a nice interior like the yacht? Does the Polaris need more work on the interior? yes. But it should not become something that would make you wonder if you're on a military ship or a civilian transport.
@Bakuryu0083 i can agree with this. Definitely does not need to be civilized but outside the brig i don't think the medbay and messhall should look like prison cells. Plus just better lighting in the halls and accents would keep the military feel while also improving the interior from being less eerie
@@akiodono better lighting and some cabinets are all it really needs in the medbay, then just better lighting internally overall. Maybe add in a couple of "access" hatches that don't actually open on some of the walls to add accent.
@@Jaeeger-1 that actually makes sense because trying to get the size 10 torpedo re-armed is alreaddy difficult enough, going through extra doors/etcc would be too demanding during intense firefights where you need to reload asap
You really made me appreciate the exterior far more than before... some of the mechanical movements CIG really knocked out of the park. It's good to see them getting kudos where earned and kept honest where not.
I think a b+ is fair, if not generous. I'd have given it a B. The points you brought up are all accurate. If medical needs white/light gray walls, we need better signage to know where everything is, lighting and color in the corridors needs improvement. And for the love of God let us have at least one window 😂
I never cared for Polaris due to my play style, but I was blown away by it when I got a chance to try it out on PTU. It can do everything I might ever need and can be managed by a group of friends that doesn't necessarily need to be an org. Its gonna be a popular ship for sure and now I want one
I would actually like to comment on the crew count idea, keep in mind one thing: Military ships should have shifts. So if you took the expected full crew and multiplied it by three, what would you get? Two thirds of the crew would be awake, the other third would be sleeping for their shift. So if you manned every turret and had a single man for a fighter, or two for a pair of arrows, your nominal crew would be around 13-14. A crew of forty two would actually be optimal, which sounds crazy, but would make sense overall for a military vessel. Plus give you security, extra people to repair and fight fires, etc. Which for a decent sized org? Two shift levels would actually be doable, twenty four people if you don't use a fighter is more than enough to run a polaris, as well as act as security, repair and trauma teams. It's alot, but that actually means the ship would be functioning at pretty good levels, with every turret manned, a dedicated doctor, engineer, pilot, and copilot on top of the extra hands needed for everything else. Edits: Math.
Just a quick follow up to this. For context, I spent a total of 13 months serving on multiple Military Ships. What you're thinking of is called "Hot Racks" which is extremely common in submarines. Not so much larger ships as they have berthings (large shared living quarters). This ships as an awkward like mix that I think could have been solved but just putting in a berthing instead of all these individual 2 person rooms.
I'm not totally agreeing here for that to be a reason to limit the amount of beds on the ship (especially when there's so much unused space in it still). There's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
Feels like the interior got to a minimal viable product level and is just waiting for the final pass which is probably when the captains quarters come in.
yeah i’m guessing they’re either waiting for feedback to iterate or just leaving it bare bones for modular or player interior decorating which will probably be a whole other livery system, which will definitely make them more money. This entire operation is an MVP anyway lol.
Or the Starfarer or 600i, two ships which Morph made massive videos on their failings. Zero rework after years of acknowledgement by CIG. New concepts in the way though!
There needs to be a lockable blast door before intruders can get to the armory. Give the crew a chance to defend themselves before boarders bum rush the deck. Something that needs to be cut through, or shot through. A door worthy of Qui-Gon Jinn using his lightsaber to melt through it. One more thing Morphologist, you don't have to take it so easy on CIG. They deserve every ounce of righteous criticism for this ship. You hit them with a whiffle ball bat when they needed a tungsten bat.
I agree. I also agree that the Arms room needs more work in design. The area where there is a visible couch could change to a desk area for the armorer... and center benches (x2) With that in mind... unfortunate a lot of new lessons are learned when new ships are built... hope these lessons learned are used to revisit old ships like the Connie, Carrack, and many other ships and bring forward a new era of Mk2s (and even Mk5s)! Cheers and @morphologis, TY for another good video!
Commander does need a window. I understand the concept behind the submarine idea...but this is not a sub....it's a spaceship...900 years in the future...Nothing wrong with giving the Commander a window like that of the Carrack... behind the desk area of the commander's office/room. Even one by the DFAC...
@@geege4043 probably because maybe there are actual cig developers and ship designers watching his videos and someone who is an arcthitect might bring up some valid points that they didnt know about yet (not saying thats the case just what i think)
Very well review! I played around with the Polaris over the weekend, and deliberately watched your video only after that. My impressions are exactly the same as yours. The interior looks like it didn’t had enough time to be finalized before IAE. CIG may wanted to get it out in time, even with some polishing missing. I found the missing markings and colour codings of areas especially difficult. But it is an impressive ship and hopefully will be polished at a later stage.
6:41 the holographic projections also make sense outside of gameplay enhancement because of the sheer size of the ramp, it'd be realistic to have some sort of marking to tell where its going to extend to impo
Honestly, thank you so much for these videos, as a game developer my self seeing other fans praise and critics other games with a passion like your videos brings me so much joy.
It wouldn't be something any military vessel would bother with its entirely pointless to do so. Unlike the carrack that is exploration or the Zeus are a mix of tasks but not designated military craft that you'd see in combat
I agree with pretty much all of the points made in this video. I can't help but wonder if a full interior polish pass is in the works since the captain's quarters is currently absent. I'd hope that along with adding that in that CIG will revisit the med bay and mess hall in particular.
The exterior of the Polaris is absolutely beautiful, but not necessarily in a conventional sense. The level of detail on the outside is absolutely astounding and on a completely other level compared to previous ships. All the nooks and crannies and lights and just textures all over it adds a level of realism that has an existed previously. The animations, especially of the rear when the landing gear is raised and lowered, is an extremely welcome change and something they need to do on more ships. The inside, on the other hand, looks and feels rushed. Especially considering their decision to remove the XO office entirely simply to add in four more gear lockers and a sofa. Not to mention half-assing the rec room portion of the mess hall which in this case amounts to merely a sofa and a chess board.
@@buzzfightbeer8023 I didn't say anything about the Captain's room, which is still being worked on. I mentioned their decision to remove the XO office, which originally was located directly across from the captain's quarters.
I do like the chess board and want it to stay, but I was expecting something a little bigger/more exciting. Even the starlancer MAX has a pool table in it
The first time I saw my Org mate's Polaris I spent ten seconds just looking into the rear landing gear well. Absolutely beautiful first release for the ship.
Thanks for this great review. My only encounter with a Polaris so far was to board an abandoned one near Grim Hex, where I shut off off the power and shields, to get it ready for salvage using my Reclaimer. I am a solo'er who couldn't possibly afford this ship in real life. In all I must have spent close to an hour walking through the ship, checking all rooms and compartments, and admiring its design and utility. I admire the efforts of the design team to bring this to life, and look forward to more capital ships (to salvage 😁) from RSI and other manufacturers!
Surprised you didn't mention the biggest engineering design flaw when you walked past it: torpedo carousel 3 sends its torpedoes magically through the main elevator shaft.
@@Swift-q8m they specifically told us they are loaded from the bottom of the spindles, also if you watch the animation in the torpedo control room you can see them rolling in from the side not the end of the tubes where the lift is.
A few personal remarks. Not on the video, but the ship: 1. The exterior looks too busy. There's already a lot of components to the ship. It doesn't need more visual clutter. This could also be detrimental to future gameplay. When things get stressful, you want the exterior to be easy to read. Or, if you're the attacker, know where to shoot. 2. Yes, the hallway could use some more accent colors for orientation. Does SC have a unified color scheme for certain functions? Is the med bay always dark-ish green? If not, it should. 2.5. Does the lighting change, when the ship is on "high alert"? Or visual indicators to the escape pods, if "self-destruct" is activated? 3. The bunk beds need blinds. 4. Is the "mechanical" stripe on the hangar floor a catapult? 5. The tractor beam turret could really be present more impressively. These are only my personal oppinions. If you wish to comment on my critique points, please stay civil.
As far as exterior surfaces, the Star Wars rule of "the more greebles the better" applies to SC ships as well IMO, and your comment of not easily knowing where to shoot as an attacker may just be exactly the thing a ship designer has in mind for defense. Also I think you need to reframe your question about unified design; the question isn't whether SC/CIG have a unified design for certain functions, it's whether Aegis/Anvil/MISC/RSI have unified designs within their own brand. More generally to respond to Morph, I agree the med bay could look more like a room at one of the station hospitals, but to say it should look like an Anvil Carrack or the med bay of a science and exploration vessel misses the mark for me.
Next to, or near, the RSI logo in the Docking Port Entry Point (7:15) would be a good place for CIG to allow ORGs to have a logo mounted too. Probably other places like the Bridge and Commander/Owners Cabin also. I have seen that other UA-camrs agree with you about the lack of accent colors inside.
simulated windows would be a good idea. After all, the tech exists for that, from the Tevarin fighters. Why not improve crew moral by having big wall screens in the crew quarters and rec room that simulate windows? Maybe one in the med bay as well. Don't need it in engineering, or the hangar. Maybe in the cargo bay as well so you can "look outside" to see if its safe to lower the ramp. just a thought
I'm surprised that Morph did a review without the ship being fully released yet. One thing I was wondering about on this ship was why the first officer's quarters was not giving a more unique treatment like they said it would. They are definitely going to do another pass on this ship. Shame the interior wasn't as polished as the Carrack's.
as always this video is not just very informative , but its also visually appealing. you have a great eye for the details and how the architecture flow does or does not make sense. I have to say every time there is a ship in SC that comes out I'm always looking for your review on it. always appreciate your time and work!
Morph, im surprised you didnt point out the fact that the access elevator blocks torpedo tubes 3 and 4. Do the torps just magically teleport from their revolvers to their launchers?
Because it doesn't; CIG-Employee Michael Bartrum and John Crewe stated: "The torps are sent downwards by the loading mechanism where theyre shuttled along the sides of the elevator shaft, then get rotated into their final position in the firing tubes. You can see this last part if you watch the windows on the tubes when it reloads". hope this helps.
@@captn_tvbut if you check the YT video about the perspective of interior design on Polaris, you will see the set up of torpedo pipeline and you will know they just make up an excuse
I think ur perspective is highly appreciated! Well done fam. I think a briefing room would have been epic. I do like that the crew have separate rooms but I also feel it would have been nice to have a bunk room instead, still like the separate rooms and how it’s done tho. I would have liked to have some windows outside too. Maybe in the captain’s quarters 🤞
Everyone's always hyped on the new big ship, but once the shine wears off I think most people will see many of the issues you point out, and more. The brig, for example, is a massive waste of space for just 2 cells, each of which has large blind spots from the giant, unnecessary guard desk. The crew quarters are more like jail cells than the brig. It's genuinely like no one at CIG ever thought to look at a real ship brig, or has even seen a holding cell of any kind ever.
Lovely video as always, Morph! Just adding to the fact that the ship needs more beds (has 13) for the kind of crew it seemingly needs to be run efficiently (needs 14+), another crew limiting factor on the ship is the fact that there's only 12 single-person escape pods. So if you got say 14 people onboard the ship, 2 people will not be able to escape the ship 😅
I saw someone suggest keep your pilots in the brig (thus solving the bed problem). Though I guess 'action stations' then better includes someone opening up those doors :D
@@patchmoulton5438 I would agree with you, but as I mentioned in my post - what speaks against hot bunking (for the "permanent" crew) is the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods : )
I hope the designers don't get defensive on these reviews and really take to heart the suggestions. I know they have in the past and I know you aren't the final say but you do bring up excellent points in all aspects of the design. Great work as always.
He's a civilian architect not anything close to ships and naval warfare especially.. If you ever go into an actual warship you'll realize this isn't that far off...
@yulfine1688 I have been on several naval warships, and you're right. However, we're not talking about naval warships, we're talking about fictional space ships. In that context, I stand by my comment.
Last time I was on the PTU, flying around in my perfect Starlancer, there were like 12 of these parked at the Commons. I had to go to NBIS because I wasn't dressed for the walk. You could see them from SO FAR AWAY. Coming in, there was so much light outside the Commons I thought it was a Save Stanton thing or something. I took one, thanks for the test fly to whomever. I did put it back after about an hour.
Been waiting for "An architect reviews" on the Polaris! Stoked to watch this latest review from you Morph. I would wager your reviews of ships are the best in the business, always fun to watch. On a sidenote: Morph I've been a subscriber since your early days when (if I recall correctly) you had around 10K subs and you had started the brilliant "an architect reviews" videos. I do love the content of these reviews, but for me a very endearing element in your videos is how you say (paraphrasing a bit): "Like and subscribe ONLY if you feel I deserve it". An absolutely huge and humble contrast to the shouty "smash the like button and hit subscribe" yada yada from 90% of youtubers. A breath of fresh air especially considering you DO create excellent content and so it is fair to request likes and subscription.
I agree with the comments about the interior feeling a bit lackluster. I couldn't put my finger on it but yes, lighting and colors would make a huge difference
It was not very clever to make the review on the test serves. They are improvements already in place. And a whole room is missing. Why not wait a few weeks and make a legit review?
@Somerandom18 I have not personally noticed those changes so if they were implemented it's not making a huge deal. How do they remotely impact his review/opinion of the ship in any case?
I hear you about the bunk situation but hear me out on this; many naval ships in this class and even larger tend to "hot bunk" and thus never have enough bunks for all crew member. They work in two opposite shifts sharing the bunk off duty.
Hot bunking makes sense when you have legacy crew requirements before automation was a thing and space is a premium. The Polaris has none of those issues.
I mentioned this in another comment, but there's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
some things id like to add - cameras work in the prison cells and show on the guard station screens - water in the reactor room is the first real water in a ship it gives water noises and effects as well as your temp hits -275c (beyond freezing cold) - mirrors work in bathrooms - the defense turrets DO NOT shoot ships just torps and missiles at the moment i dont think they intend for them to be offensive - their is now a chess board that fully works the same as the mercury star runner - med bay has 2 screens that will have function in the future but what im not sure - their is 2 cargo elevators and they go below into the cargo bay from the hanger - their is also a tractor beam in the cargo bay im sure theirs a few things im forgetting but this thing is a master piece imo and im curious if the PDC turrets will shoot ships within 1km in the future but priorities missiles
i thought they stated a targeting priority for the PDCs, torps/missiles first, then attacking fighters as seen in the polaris pew-pew vid during this year's IAE.
@@christoperblair5172 when i posted this they never even looked at ships but now they do attack ships wich is cool but only things vanguard size and smaller
Those automatic PDCs are just so incredible awesome! It's not The Expanse, but close enough. I really hope they'll me added to more ships, and hopefully some new ships will have them be deployable from the hull too.
To be fair, there really are a lot of other things that probably should be higher priority with far more gameplay impact than fictional captain's quarters (although I agree it's unfortunate they couldn't get it in on release)
I love how you describe this ship as the most Star Trek-esque because it does pretty much everything that Star Trek online failed to do. If I'm on a Galaxy class, I don't want to be doing every single job by myself.
If someone hasn’t already said it there is a good chance the reason the ship doesn’t have enough bunks for each crew member is that they use a practice called “hot bunking” where the shift not one watch sleeps in the same beds as the sailors on watch. Since they never overlap there is always enough bed space. I believe I’ve even seen lore mentioning that the UEE Navy does this on all but the largest ships ie the Bengals, the unknown cruiser or the Retribution.
Excellent review of this ship. Agree with so much said here. Lots of the Polaris’ interior could use improvement to detailing and lighting. Really hope it gets updated at some point. 🥲
I love that Morph's criticisms of this ship are often 'space feels claustrophobic', 'boring color scheme', or 'poor lighting'; so, like an actual military ship? Great video overall though.
If the ship feels "emtpy" or missing some flavor, that was by choice. They want players filling up the ship with items moving forward. We are meant to decorate them ourselves and utilize the spaces how we see fit
I mean honestly, biggest complaint i have is that the angled corridors are extremely inefficient space usage, something you'd like to avoid in a military (utilitarian) ship. This also means that, for the crew quarters specifically, there is barely any room to move past one another, further hindering crew readiness.
Overall, I think this review is one of your finest, Morphologis. But - Even though this is set a few centuries further out, I think CIG found the real feel of a military (and I stress military) vessel. The cold "haze gray" and minimal "niceties" are the distinguishing features of a warship. The cold lighting colors for most of the interior meet up well with what I experienced in my years at sea in naval vessels. About the only space on a warship with any color would be Medical, and there I feel you are spot on, as with the rest of the review. Well done!
@ Yeah, but just the pure complexity of the ship and the size of the engineering section. It’ll be very intense as it gets battered. Great video, and I totally agree with those points you made about the interior. I just wish it was brighter with blue accents. That’s the RSI I love. Also the claustrophobic feeling is pretty bad in some places (the holo map room before the bridge and the crew quarters.).
With the classic CIG notion of 'Soon', such a delay to his review might have the weight of years behind it. Furthermore, this review might influence CIG to address a few of the weak points Morphologis (and others) have identified alongside with more obviously missing touches, like the Captain's quarters.
The bed situation is fine. On older ships, especially things like submarines, people would often hot rack the beds. Two people sharing one bed since half the crew would typically be on watch while the other sleeps.
The problem comes when you don't have enough beds to log out the entire crew. Cause I think CIG plans on leaving a player's character model in the bed when logged out.
There's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
@OmegaZyion the Polaris etc is not designed for things like that... These are active warships meant for long term deployment not hopping on and off whenever you see fit...
@@Commander_Jackyou also need other support personnel this is common in the military and what the ship is designed for long term patrol and missions not for you to casually engage with the game.
Engine room is definitely my favorite, though realistically speaking I imagine all that liquid cooling would be a nightmare if the gravity generator ever stopped working.
@@AdityaWaghmarethere's no reason to, while he's in school for it he's very off in how something used in the military would function or be designed and he just proved how bad of an architectural engineer he'd be for the military or anything of the like.
Morphologis, you always talk about lighting in your videos but you also always forget about auxiliary and emergency lighting. I honestly absolutely love the auxiliary lighting in the Polaris when it’s manually activated in every rooms, especially in the engineering bay, it was definitely quite a surprise to see the color of the reactor change from blue to yellow and it was definitely astonishing. I hope you will check this detail more often in your future videos, thank you.
To be fair to the artists, this is still in PTU. I put the video out in the hope that it could provide some feedback in time for the final polish pass.
Fantastic video again! My two biggest gripes. #1, the ship has one job and you can’t do it from the bridge. It makes me so angry. I want that torp firing officer to be a part of the bridge crew. #2 is not so much a Polaris thing as a general PDC thing. They don’t even try to fire at slower, fatter bombs.
I think a very easily solution to the blandness of the interior is implementing colored pathing lines, and walls to indicate where things go. For example, let's say medical is "green" well, have lines going on the edge of the floor throughout the ship that guide to the medical space. On the exterior of the medbay, have the wall and door itself the same green color as the pathing line. Doesn't have to be the entire wall, could be half wall so it doesn't break up the color language too much. Also could make it the diagonal stripes as we have seen elsewhere. Interior of those spaces should also implement that color language. For example, in the medbay, have the walls be white on the top half, and solid green on the bottom half. Implementing this into the different spaces, while not adding a lot of additional points of interest, would at least add color, as well as guidance through the ship, and all with relatively easy implementation.
I agree 100%, even though I'm not a huge Polaris fan overall, that the exterior and feel of this ship was knocked out of the park. CIG did a great job and brings a ton of hope to future designs. These releases just keep getting better and better from a functionality standpoint and style. I do have mixed feelings on your interior views. I agree from a design standpoint/screenshot standpoint that some of these these issues with lighting and coloring cold have been made better. But, I've been on modern warships and there is a part of me that understands the simplicity that would have been placed since this is a ship of war and the first one we've seen that doesn't have a real separate version for civilians that we are actually flying. I like that feeling with regards to the colors and paints. Hopefully a few of the lighting things get worked out as they make lighting better in game overall. I'll close with...holy crap that engine room looks awesome!
For a "war" ship, I think it is correct to not put clear signage in case of enemy boarding, you want to confuse the enemies; it won't be an issue for the crews on board since they will be staying in there for months with repeating training, they will remember the route
![An Architect Reviews the Crusader Spirit [Star Citizen]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dWwqbsEOnXA/mqdefault.jpg)
The cinematic first seconds of the review definitely don't disappoint. Morphs videos are how we all imagine us playing SC one day, knowing that we'll probably end up flying all our ships alone all day anyways.
Assuming the game works, yes
Key word is "imagine"
You're not going to be soloing a Polaris in 1.0.
@@CyberneticArgumentCreator the goal is to use blades/NPC crews. So technically with blades yes. Yes you can solo the Polaris. Won't be as good as a focused dedicated crew however.
The game is infinitely more interesting when running with a crew, I can't even imagine wanting to run something like this solo. Running anything bigger than Large as a solo is going to be so time and resource inefficient that I don't think anyone will even want to.
@@shakedown4716 It's me, I want to do it all solo. Too much of our lives is taken up already with scheduling, waiting, conflicts, illness, unforeseen events, and I'd rather not subject myself to adding another two dozen people to it. Two guys and 40 AIs in two ships will always be better (timeliness, cargo capacity, DPS) than twenty guys in one ship.
Hit the nail on the head with the medical area being so far behind the Carracks, really hope they go back to that as it's a universal thing you just associate with medical/clinical areas. White. Bright. Clean.
the medical bay of the polaris looks like it could be easily mistaken for the brig to a concussed or confused person, it has a concierge but no doctors office, no x-ray room, and no medical storage or medical synthesizer room, hell it doesnt even have any pressure vessels for oxygen or nitrous oxide. the carrack is so much better equipped than the polaris is in terms of its medical bay while the polaris medical bay feels so bare bones that it makes even the cutlass red, apollo triage, and C8R pisces look better equipped than the polaris at this point.
i would have much better preferred to lose 2 out of the 4 beds and make one of the 2 rooms have the doctors office merged with medical storage & synthesizer so it at least makes sense, have the room with the beds actually have more design language than a closet and have the wall store pressure vessels for oxygen and nitrous oxide, and have valves behind the beds for IV connection points and buttons for lights, bed reclination, and a nurse call button for medical emergencies. as well as additional equipment like an ECG rack or AED rack, or an emergency shelf for medipens and paramed devices, as well as dispensaries for more. or redesign the space completely and move the beds to where the useless concierge is and have the 1st room house the x-ray machine and the 2nd room house the doctors office + medical storage/dispensary + medical synthesizer.
as a medical professional this is by far the most lackluster part of this ship, and is the reason why the carrack is still superior despite being years behind the gold standard. i honestly cant even believe that the polaris is even at gold standard because this is far from what i expect from the level of polish expected from gold standard. its almost as if this ship came out of the oven far too early.
edit: also im sure some people are wondering why you would need an ECG or AED rack separate from the medical bays computer, mainly because of the same reason real hospitals dont rely on plugged hardware exclusively, because when the power goes out (and it absolutely will as far as murphy's law is concerned) then you'll wish you had secondary backups that ran on its own internal power.
it almost feels like the medical bay of the most popular ship in the game (the carrack) was
intentionally nerfed to force players to spend more money on other medical bay equipped ships.
I'm hoping it's to let us decorate it. Blank spaces are easier to do that around. Plus it's less stuff that they have to remove to give us that option. Like when decorations come out they will have to remove some of that from the carrak
@@chloekaftan SC backers complain about capital ships taking too long and that CIG will never finish the backlog, and then when CIG does its best to deliver an awesome capital ship without taking several years the same people be like:
@@chloekaftan Funny you should say it could be mistaken for a brig, because it's across the hallway from the brig and they both have the exact same room design. Just instead of a guard and cells it's a receptionist and beds.
I agree that the back to back comparison shot with the Carracks medical bay was pretty jarring.
I think the drab, monotone, and utilitarian design of the interior is absolutely perfect! It's very reminiscent of modern day submarines, and works well.
I served onboard a US submarine for several years and there was no signage for anything. The interior was very monotone and nondescript. The Polaris embodies this design language absolutely flawlessly, and I think it's a perfect representation of its modern day equivalent.
The Polaris is LITERALLY a spaceship version of a submarine, it embodies it perfectly, and I absolutely love every square inch of it.
Nah I think some areas showed a lot of that design just more cleanly and well executed I wish that came to the rest of the ship
You love every square inch of an obviously unfinished interior design with blocked off access to the previous XO space?
I mean sure your opinion, your right and I love the ship too but not...every square inch hahaha.
But I served on RAN surface ships so maybe I prefer a little luxury (like an ice cream machine and wifi) 😂
One thing to note as well, some of that empty space will be taken up by clutter. I imagine that the cargo area and hangar will have munitions and misc equipment lying around or stowed away
There are no bullseyes in the silent service? Y'all built different
- Carrier sailor
@@SpaceShipDee I believe that CIG will polish the final pieces before it's put in the PU. And sure, we don't know what the captains quarters looks like yet, but I'm sure it'll be just fine.
I suppose if there were one gripe I'd have it's that the berthing spaces are nonsensical. The overly slanted and cramped passageway along with the individual heads doesn't make sense to me. It's like they were going for luxury but forgot it was a warship and tried too hard to stick to the angles in the slanted passageways.
I am not a native English speaker and do not understand the introduction correctly. However, I completely understood that this ship is the coolest thing ever.
That would be Zeus)
@@SolarWindsRider I agree. RSI builds such a nice ships.
@@みず-i1u Well it does have Chris's name. :)
@@mitcharbiter3371 my thoughts. :) As soon as I saw the incredibly detailed hull with all its eyecandy and fluff and cool animations, I bet - I KNEW - that this was the result of some very personal involvement. ^^
15:30 It shouldn't say 'Hangar 01' when you are inside the hangar, it should say "Brig" or "Medical"
Why did they even put HANGAR 01 on the doors for the hangar. It's the only fucking hangar on the ship. It doesn't need to be numbered.
100^^❤
amazes me that there isnt the shortest path markings for all major services on the ground.
Even the door to the brig or medical gives no visual indication of whats behind it. (vs the Carrack where you know your changing spaces with the med bay or the drone room)
The signage on Polaris is awful.
@@Halkenguard tbf the cargo bay is a cooler hanger then the real one imo
As someone who serves aboard submarines, the interior design makes absolute sense to me. Military vehicles aren't typically designed to be easy on the eyes or pretty looking, focusing more on function over form.
How did you like the little bed of plants in that one corridor?
100%
@@Exsulator2 dead when we decompress :'(
Come to the comments to say this exact thing! I'm also a submariner haha
People enter the sub via the torpedo bay? Interesting.
Polaris medical bay looks like a morgue
To be fair sick call at BCT also felt like a morgue, or at least a hospice.
Lol USAF BMT medical facilities felt like that too @@buschacha
You know what maybe that’s intentional? This being a warship and all 😅 this isn’t for crew members who got space sick; it’s a casualty ward
Hey I work at a morgue and our morgue looks a lot nicer than this. Our morgue is closer to a hospital than this place is. Plus we have plants and windows
@@Hazlius You know Carrack is also the warship? According to many people in the Naval service, their medic room are quite light both on DDG and CV. Why keep finging these excuses?
I'm willing to bet that the majority of the Polaris was done before the design team learned a lot of the lessons they have over the years, the habitation deck almost looks like it's one of the earlier in-game ships, but it's VERY obvious that the engineering decks have been completely reworked because of the incoming engineering systems.
The fact that the CQ isn't in yet tells me that they're probably retooling the habitation deck, but they wanted to get it out because it's been in development for so long they just wanted it out the door.
What's actually funny to me about the habitation area is that the previous previews we got of the Polaris _were_ much more utilitarian, much closer to how the Javelin looks. The old bunk room was a long hallway with angled double bunks along both sides. Why they turned it into a series of private rooms that each have their own head confuses me.
They just spend well over a year on this ship and it represents the current gold standard.
Or... hehe, maybe it has a reference to SQ42 in it. Hehe...
That's just me poking the hype bear, it's likely not that, but 'worth a hope, eh?
It feels like a submarine or a proper military warship.
No windows except for bridge is good. It doesnt need to be all cosy, its a ship designed for a purpose.
Yeah kinda was itching me this review, a military ship getting compared to civilian vessels, there’s not supposed to be much embellishment.
He had to find something to complain about so people don’t accuse him of shilling, but he truly scraped the barrel on this one.
@@AlexeiX1 he's an architect but a civilian/high end property architect. Maybe he doesn't get military brutalist design.
Windows can have an utility for military in fact. For instance, when the hangar is closed, there is no view on what is out of the ship even with the copilot camera. Same with the cargo bay.
And for a game perspective, windows bring a great sensation of really being in a moving ship which is one of the best aspect of this game.
@@FireHawkGaming uuuhuh, and the tilted geometry design would get anyone at cig laughed at.
10/10 perspective! Exactly what I expected from someone with a background in design. The exterior is gorgeous but I feel the interior is lacking in comparison. You can see the detail, love, and care given to the exterior to really make the ship shine, but when you move to the interior it feels very basic and mute. This could be due to the lack of lighting as with some rooms and halls it feels like you have entered almost an abandoned space. Its bare and basic and when compared to other ship of its size or with similar rooms, such as the Medbay in the Carrack and Idris from Invictus or the Mess Hall compared to the Javelin from Invictus or even MSR, the interior feels very ignored. I also feel from the recent release of the Zeus which as you pointed out had great accents to highlight the interior design, the Polaris just has the necessities. So while I love the ship, I do hope we see some interior polish in the future. To end, I do want to say that the team that did work in the interior please don't be too dishearten by the feedback as I think you knocked it out the park for the engineering room, torpedo bay, and bridge!
Thinking on this, the PU ship team is separate from the SQ42 ship team. The Idris and Javelin have been worked and reworked quite a few times over the years, and have had the benefit of being critically examined throughout that time. The Polaris is the first PU only capital ship developed on a shorter timeline than those aformentioned ships. I think this means that in the future, they may need to spend more time on the interior OR they need to imitate the program of them since they've already been worked out for much longer.
@@Morphologis Thats a great point and an oversight on my end. Thanks for pointing that out. I think its possible especially with the family of RSI large ships coming afterwards as its been mentioned in the past that assets from the Polaris will help with the Perseus and Galaxy. Its speculation, but I don't think improbably to assume some polish updates for the Polaris will come when those ships release.
Don't forget though, the Polaris is a MILITARY warship, albeit as small one. It wouldn't have the room to have a high end medbay (look at the medbay of a frigate compared to say an aircraft carrier).
You also can't really compare interior accents and decor (or lack of) against a primarily civilian ship.
It would be like comparing a fishing trawler to a yacht because they're the same size, why doesn't the fishing trawler have a nice interior like the yacht?
Does the Polaris need more work on the interior? yes. But it should not become something that would make you wonder if you're on a military ship or a civilian transport.
@Bakuryu0083 i can agree with this. Definitely does not need to be civilized but outside the brig i don't think the medbay and messhall should look like prison cells. Plus just better lighting in the halls and accents would keep the military feel while also improving the interior from being less eerie
@@akiodono better lighting and some cabinets are all it really needs in the medbay, then just better lighting internally overall. Maybe add in a couple of "access" hatches that don't actually open on some of the walls to add accent.
What I really don’t like is that the amory not have enough suit locker for the full crew
Also missed a bulkhead between the cargo room and the torpedobay makes no sense in my mind on a warship.
Cargo Bay... the suit lockers are only for hot equip (instances where you want/need to put on a full suit configuration all at once).
@@Jaeeger-1 that actually makes sense because trying to get the size 10 torpedo re-armed is alreaddy difficult enough, going through extra doors/etcc would be too demanding during intense firefights where you need to reload asap
You really made me appreciate the exterior far more than before... some of the mechanical movements CIG really knocked out of the park. It's good to see them getting kudos where earned and kept honest where not.
The Exterior landing lights are well positioned too, its amazing to walk under when landed in one of microTech's forests at night.
I think a b+ is fair, if not generous. I'd have given it a B. The points you brought up are all accurate. If medical needs white/light gray walls, we need better signage to know where everything is, lighting and color in the corridors needs improvement. And for the love of God let us have at least one window 😂
I never cared for Polaris due to my play style, but I was blown away by it when I got a chance to try it out on PTU. It can do everything I might ever need and can be managed by a group of friends that doesn't necessarily need to be an org. Its gonna be a popular ship for sure and now I want one
The crew quarters makes sense for 1/2 or 1/3 of the total number of crew needed to run the ship, if they are sleeping and working in shifts.
I would actually like to comment on the crew count idea, keep in mind one thing: Military ships should have shifts. So if you took the expected full crew and multiplied it by three, what would you get? Two thirds of the crew would be awake, the other third would be sleeping for their shift. So if you manned every turret and had a single man for a fighter, or two for a pair of arrows, your nominal crew would be around 13-14. A crew of forty two would actually be optimal, which sounds crazy, but would make sense overall for a military vessel. Plus give you security, extra people to repair and fight fires, etc. Which for a decent sized org? Two shift levels would actually be doable, twenty four people if you don't use a fighter is more than enough to run a polaris, as well as act as security, repair and trauma teams. It's alot, but that actually means the ship would be functioning at pretty good levels, with every turret manned, a dedicated doctor, engineer, pilot, and copilot on top of the extra hands needed for everything else.
Edits: Math.
Just a quick follow up to this. For context, I spent a total of 13 months serving on multiple Military Ships. What you're thinking of is called "Hot Racks" which is extremely common in submarines. Not so much larger ships as they have berthings (large shared living quarters). This ships as an awkward like mix that I think could have been solved but just putting in a berthing instead of all these individual 2 person rooms.
I'm not totally agreeing here for that to be a reason to limit the amount of beds on the ship (especially when there's so much unused space in it still). There's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
@@chadromano8853 To be fair, Polaris has no windows - so it's a submarine as well lol
In theory, you would also need one doctor for the hospital and one guard for the brig.
@@sebc8938 I did count the doctor in there, and off bridge duty personnel could act as brig guards.
Feels like the interior got to a minimal viable product level and is just waiting for the final pass which is probably when the captains quarters come in.
yeah i’m guessing they’re either waiting for feedback to iterate or just leaving it bare bones for modular or player interior decorating which will probably be a whole other livery system, which will definitely make them more money. This entire operation is an MVP anyway lol.
Hopium....they will redesign nothing. Look at the reclaimer
Or the Starfarer or 600i, two ships which Morph made massive videos on their failings. Zero rework after years of acknowledgement by CIG.
New concepts in the way though!
There needs to be a lockable blast door before intruders can get to the armory. Give the crew a chance to defend themselves before boarders bum rush the deck.
Something that needs to be cut through, or shot through. A door worthy of Qui-Gon Jinn using his lightsaber to melt through it.
One more thing Morphologist, you don't have to take it so easy on CIG. They deserve every ounce of righteous criticism for this ship. You hit them with a whiffle ball bat when they needed a tungsten bat.
Why?
I agree. I also agree that the Arms room needs more work in design. The area where there is a visible couch could change to a desk area for the armorer... and center benches (x2)
With that in mind... unfortunate a lot of new lessons are learned when new ships are built... hope these lessons learned are used to revisit old ships like the Connie, Carrack, and many other ships and bring forward a new era of Mk2s (and even Mk5s)!
Cheers and @morphologis, TY for another good video!
Commander does need a window. I understand the concept behind the submarine idea...but this is not a sub....it's a spaceship...900 years in the future...Nothing wrong with giving the Commander a window like that of the Carrack... behind the desk area of the commander's office/room. Even one by the DFAC...
It’s a subtle touch, but the aspect ratio gives the video that extra cinematic feel. Well done 👍🏻
I thought you would wait until the Captain's quarters were in
Yea its still in polishing mode. Wonder why review it until its actually complete.
Because everyone else is reviewing it right now, and Morph wants to cash in on that while the Polaris is still a hot topic
@@geege4043 probably because maybe there are actual cig developers and ship designers watching his videos and someone who is an arcthitect might bring up some valid points that they didnt know about yet (not saying thats the case just what i think)
The only ship review channel I watch. Been waiting for this!
Also RSI needs to hire you as a QA person cus you definitely deserve it
i really enjoy this series, i can tell you are a very skilled and passionate architect
already looking forward for the next (capital) ship review
Very well review! I played around with the Polaris over the weekend, and deliberately watched your video only after that. My impressions are exactly the same as yours. The interior looks like it didn’t had enough time to be finalized before IAE. CIG may wanted to get it out in time, even with some polishing missing.
I found the missing markings and colour codings of areas especially difficult. But it is an impressive ship and hopefully will be polished at a later stage.
6:41 the holographic projections also make sense outside of gameplay enhancement because of the sheer size of the ramp, it'd be realistic to have some sort of marking to tell where its going to extend to impo
Honestly, thank you so much for these videos, as a game developer my self seeing other fans praise and critics other games with a passion like your videos brings me so much joy.
On the hangar deck once you realise blue trim on the deck leads to the Med bay and orange to the Brig it helps orientate you
I saw those but never put them together. I thought maybe it was not correct coloring lol. Thanks for pointing that out.
It wouldn't be something any military vessel would bother with its entirely pointless to do so.
Unlike the carrack that is exploration or the Zeus are a mix of tasks but not designated military craft that you'd see in combat
been waiting for this! :) I miss the days I discovered your channel and I was able to binge all the Architect Reviews vids :P
The ships interior just reads that they ran out of time to get it released by iae. My hope is the come back to do some additional art passes
everytime you say "my hope" relating to SC you should think twice if you really want to waste it on that.
Love this type of reviews, they are always very well done, thanks! 👍
The engineering area looks “newer” somehow. The lighting really makes that section much more appealing
I agree with pretty much all of the points made in this video. I can't help but wonder if a full interior polish pass is in the works since the captain's quarters is currently absent. I'd hope that along with adding that in that CIG will revisit the med bay and mess hall in particular.
While an interior polish pass would be great, I don't think it's realistic to expect it anytime soon.
The exterior of the Polaris is absolutely beautiful, but not necessarily in a conventional sense. The level of detail on the outside is absolutely astounding and on a completely other level compared to previous ships. All the nooks and crannies and lights and just textures all over it adds a level of realism that has an existed previously. The animations, especially of the rear when the landing gear is raised and lowered, is an extremely welcome change and something they need to do on more ships. The inside, on the other hand, looks and feels rushed. Especially considering their decision to remove the XO office entirely simply to add in four more gear lockers and a sofa. Not to mention half-assing the rec room portion of the mess hall which in this case amounts to merely a sofa and a chess board.
They did not remove the Captain's Room(not XO). They have stated they will be releasing it sometime around Invictus next year.
@@buzzfightbeer8023 I didn't say anything about the Captain's room, which is still being worked on. I mentioned their decision to remove the XO office, which originally was located directly across from the captain's quarters.
I do like the chess board and want it to stay, but I was expecting something a little bigger/more exciting. Even the starlancer MAX has a pool table in it
The first time I saw my Org mate's Polaris I spent ten seconds just looking into the rear landing gear well. Absolutely beautiful first release for the ship.
Thanks for this great review. My only encounter with a Polaris so far was to board an abandoned one near Grim Hex, where I shut off off the power and shields, to get it ready for salvage using my Reclaimer. I am a solo'er who couldn't possibly afford this ship in real life. In all I must have spent close to an hour walking through the ship, checking all rooms and compartments, and admiring its design and utility. I admire the efforts of the design team to bring this to life, and look forward to more capital ships (to salvage 😁) from RSI and other manufacturers!
Surprised you didn't mention the biggest engineering design flaw when you walked past it: torpedo carousel 3 sends its torpedoes magically through the main elevator shaft.
Ben Curtis already addressed this on X. The loading tube is behind the elevator and doesn't intersect it. :)
@@Morphologis You know that is not true. You can check the loading bay animation.
@@Swift-q8m It is true. There's a rendering issue where the spindles don't load. So that "hole" in front of the torpedoes isn't actually a hole.
@@Swift-q8m they specifically told us they are loaded from the bottom of the spindles, also if you watch the animation in the torpedo control room you can see them rolling in from the side not the end of the tubes where the lift is.
@@Fire-Bound Doesn't that lift go down? What happens to the torpedo tube when the lift goes down?
Since the Polaris was finally released I've been waiting for this video.Thank you Morph!
A few personal remarks. Not on the video, but the ship:
1. The exterior looks too busy. There's already a lot of components to the ship. It doesn't need more visual clutter. This could also be detrimental to future gameplay. When things get stressful, you want the exterior to be easy to read. Or, if you're the attacker, know where to shoot.
2. Yes, the hallway could use some more accent colors for orientation. Does SC have a unified color scheme for certain functions? Is the med bay always dark-ish green? If not, it should.
2.5. Does the lighting change, when the ship is on "high alert"? Or visual indicators to the escape pods, if "self-destruct" is activated?
3. The bunk beds need blinds.
4. Is the "mechanical" stripe on the hangar floor a catapult?
5. The tractor beam turret could really be present more impressively.
These are only my personal oppinions. If you wish to comment on my critique points, please stay civil.
Agree that there's way too much going on with the exterior surfaces, nowhere for the eye to rest when looking at it.
As far as exterior surfaces, the Star Wars rule of "the more greebles the better" applies to SC ships as well IMO, and your comment of not easily knowing where to shoot as an attacker may just be exactly the thing a ship designer has in mind for defense. Also I think you need to reframe your question about unified design; the question isn't whether SC/CIG have a unified design for certain functions, it's whether Aegis/Anvil/MISC/RSI have unified designs within their own brand.
More generally to respond to Morph, I agree the med bay could look more like a room at one of the station hospitals, but to say it should look like an Anvil Carrack or the med bay of a science and exploration vessel misses the mark for me.
@@shakedown4716 Fair point
I was definitely looking forward to your review of this ship the most. Excellent work!
Next to, or near, the RSI logo in the Docking Port Entry Point (7:15) would be a good place for CIG to allow ORGs to have a logo mounted too. Probably other places like the Bridge and Commander/Owners Cabin also. I have seen that other UA-camrs agree with you about the lack of accent colors inside.
How can this be a 26min video but I feel like there could easily be another 15-20min in addition. Outstanding work again Morph!
simulated windows would be a good idea. After all, the tech exists for that, from the Tevarin fighters. Why not improve crew moral by having big wall screens in the crew quarters and rec room that simulate windows? Maybe one in the med bay as well. Don't need it in engineering, or the hangar. Maybe in the cargo bay as well so you can "look outside" to see if its safe to lower the ramp.
just a thought
Yoooo this came out much faster than I expected!! Nice!
I'm surprised that Morph did a review without the ship being fully released yet. One thing I was wondering about on this ship was why the first officer's quarters was not giving a more unique treatment like they said it would. They are definitely going to do another pass on this ship. Shame the interior wasn't as polished as the Carrack's.
I thought it was released tho
@alexc9434 its still doing polish passes on PTU
yeah, i think they nixed the xo quarters since he did the vid.
as always this video is not just very informative , but its also visually appealing. you have a great eye for the details and how the architecture flow does or does not make sense. I have to say every time there is a ship in SC that comes out I'm always looking for your review on it. always appreciate your time and work!
Morph, im surprised you didnt point out the fact that the access elevator blocks torpedo tubes 3 and 4. Do the torps just magically teleport from their revolvers to their launchers?
Because it doesn't; CIG-Employee Michael Bartrum and John Crewe stated: "The torps are sent downwards by the loading mechanism where theyre shuttled along the sides of the elevator shaft, then get rotated into their final position in the firing tubes. You can see this last part if you watch the windows on the tubes when it reloads".
hope this helps.
@@captn_tv That is not true. You can check the loading bay animaiton.
@@captn_tvbut if you check the YT video about the perspective of interior design on Polaris, you will see the set up of torpedo pipeline and you will know they just make up an excuse
the torpedoes dont go forward towards the elevator, they go downards into the tubes
@@CCat404 Would you want polaris to be released 1 and a half year later? I think this doesn't really matter
I think ur perspective is highly appreciated! Well done fam. I think a briefing room would have been epic. I do like that the crew have separate rooms but I also feel it would have been nice to have a bunk room instead, still like the separate rooms and how it’s done tho. I would have liked to have some windows outside too. Maybe in the captain’s quarters 🤞
I think the lack of wayfinding is a good military strategy against boarding. As only ship personnel would know the actual layout of the ship
I always look forward to the Architect Review every time SC releases a new ship 😂
Everyone's always hyped on the new big ship, but once the shine wears off I think most people will see many of the issues you point out, and more. The brig, for example, is a massive waste of space for just 2 cells, each of which has large blind spots from the giant, unnecessary guard desk. The crew quarters are more like jail cells than the brig. It's genuinely like no one at CIG ever thought to look at a real ship brig, or has even seen a holding cell of any kind ever.
if you check my brig, you will find the FM team. Just the right amount of space! LOL!
My favorite part of any new ship release is looking forward to another Architecture reviews
Lovely video as always, Morph! Just adding to the fact that the ship needs more beds (has 13) for the kind of crew it seemingly needs to be run efficiently (needs 14+), another crew limiting factor on the ship is the fact that there's only 12 single-person escape pods. So if you got say 14 people onboard the ship, 2 people will not be able to escape the ship 😅
This reminds me of the end of Space Balls lol.
I saw someone suggest keep your pilots in the brig (thus solving the bed problem). Though I guess 'action stations' then better includes someone opening up those doors :D
Im pretty sure the crew is expected to hot rack. Especially if they are supposed to have Marines or MAs or anything similar aboard.
@@patchmoulton5438 I would agree with you, but as I mentioned in my post - what speaks against hot bunking (for the "permanent" crew) is the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods : )
actually -1, the captain always goes down with the ship lol
I hope the designers don't get defensive on these reviews and really take to heart the suggestions. I know they have in the past and I know you aren't the final say but you do bring up excellent points in all aspects of the design. Great work as always.
CIG needs to hire this man for the ship design team
He's a civilian architect not anything close to ships and naval warfare especially..
If you ever go into an actual warship you'll realize this isn't that far off...
@yulfine1688 I have been on several naval warships, and you're right. However, we're not talking about naval warships, we're talking about fictional space ships. In that context, I stand by my comment.
Last time I was on the PTU, flying around in my perfect Starlancer, there were like 12 of these parked at the Commons. I had to go to NBIS because I wasn't dressed for the walk. You could see them from SO FAR AWAY. Coming in, there was so much light outside the Commons I thought it was a Save Stanton thing or something. I took one, thanks for the test fly to whomever. I did put it back after about an hour.
Been waiting for "An architect reviews" on the Polaris! Stoked to watch this latest review from you Morph. I would wager your reviews of ships are the best in the business, always fun to watch.
On a sidenote: Morph I've been a subscriber since your early days when (if I recall correctly) you had around 10K subs and you had started the brilliant "an architect reviews" videos. I do love the content of these reviews, but for me a very endearing element in your videos is how you say (paraphrasing a bit): "Like and subscribe ONLY if you feel I deserve it". An absolutely huge and humble contrast to the shouty "smash the like button and hit subscribe" yada yada from 90% of youtubers. A breath of fresh air especially considering you DO create excellent content and so it is fair to request likes and subscription.
I agree with the comments about the interior feeling a bit lackluster. I couldn't put my finger on it but yes, lighting and colors would make a huge difference
63 views after 1 minute? Bro fell off! 😂😅
been looking forward to this one! Keep it up, Morph! ❤
how has cig not hired someone like you to consult during the ship design process. I really enjoy your insights.
Has some BattleStar Galactica vibes... I approve.
10:59 Me a USN veteran: *laughs at the idea that any military would care enough to put green on their vessels*
It's unfortunate that this was posted before the Polaris is on live. Since they're still iterating and polishing the ship while it's in the PTU.
Not much is going to change in maybe 2 weeks (actually less then that what 9 days). The only change so far is adding a chess board to the mess hall.
@@isawarenshi Completely ignoring the lighting and VFX polish along with the size 6 turret improvements?
It was not very clever to make the review on the test serves. They are improvements already in place. And a whole room is missing. Why not wait a few weeks and make a legit review?
@Somerandom18 I have not personally noticed those changes so if they were implemented it's not making a huge deal. How do they remotely impact his review/opinion of the ship in any case?
What you see is what you get. So many people “hoping” that it still gets tweaks just go to show the actual underlying sentiment
Last video of yours I watched was the 890J Super Yacht video, glad to see you're still at it. (:
I hear you about the bunk situation but hear me out on this; many naval ships in this class and even larger tend to "hot bunk" and thus never have enough bunks for all crew member. They work in two opposite shifts sharing the bunk off duty.
Hot bunking makes sense when you have legacy crew requirements before automation was a thing and space is a premium. The Polaris has none of those issues.
I mentioned this in another comment, but there's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
gOSH Dang Morph! These reviews are always so thoroughly enjoyable to watch. Thank you!
some things id like to add
- cameras work in the prison cells and show on the guard station screens
- water in the reactor room is the first real water in a ship it gives water noises and effects as well as your temp hits -275c (beyond freezing cold)
- mirrors work in bathrooms
- the defense turrets DO NOT shoot ships just torps and missiles at the moment i dont think they intend for them to be offensive
- their is now a chess board that fully works the same as the mercury star runner
- med bay has 2 screens that will have function in the future but what im not sure
- their is 2 cargo elevators and they go below into the cargo bay from the hanger
- their is also a tractor beam in the cargo bay
im sure theirs a few things im forgetting but this thing is a master piece imo and im curious if the PDC turrets will shoot ships within 1km in the future but priorities missiles
Is English your first language?
@@Tihamatt yea why?
i thought they stated a targeting priority for the PDCs, torps/missiles first, then attacking fighters as seen in the polaris pew-pew vid during this year's IAE.
@@christoperblair5172 when i posted this they never even looked at ships but now they do attack ships wich is cool but only things vanguard size and smaller
I've been waiting for this video when I started seeing other channels posting this ship. You can't beat Morph's quality and and eye for detail.
WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!! LETS GOOOOOO
Those automatic PDCs are just so incredible awesome!
It's not The Expanse, but close enough.
I really hope they'll me added to more ships, and hopefully some new ships will have them be deployable from the hull too.
Ship simulator's number one reviewer!
I like that one little free lancer hiding underneath the Polaris in the blind spot haha
the engine room reminds me of HALO 2, the tutorial when you first wake up on that space ship... idk why the room just feel similar and nostalgic
yeah, how did he do that????
I will bet you they won't touch any remodelling or even finish the capt's quarters within the next 5 years , all it has to do is fly and pew pew.
To be fair, there really are a lot of other things that probably should be higher priority with far more gameplay impact than fictional captain's quarters (although I agree it's unfortunate they couldn't get it in on release)
I love how you describe this ship as the most Star Trek-esque because it does pretty much everything that Star Trek online failed to do. If I'm on a Galaxy class, I don't want to be doing every single job by myself.
I was waiting for this!
If someone hasn’t already said it there is a good chance the reason the ship doesn’t have enough bunks for each crew member is that they use a practice called “hot bunking” where the shift not one watch sleeps in the same beds as the sailors on watch. Since they never overlap there is always enough bed space. I believe I’ve even seen lore mentioning that the UEE Navy does this on all but the largest ships ie the Bengals, the unknown cruiser or the Retribution.
Finally a good polaris review
Saying this 4 minutes after the 27 minutes long video was uploaded is wild
@@doraafelfedezoofisol It's made by Morphologis, so it must be good
@doraafelfedezoofisol i saw the whole video though 🤔
Excellent review of this ship.
Agree with so much said here. Lots of the Polaris’ interior could use improvement to detailing and lighting. Really hope it gets updated at some point. 🥲
I love that Morph's criticisms of this ship are often 'space feels claustrophobic', 'boring color scheme', or 'poor lighting'; so, like an actual military ship? Great video overall though.
I can see some Leroy moments with that torpedo control room….. “Fred….. why did you launch all torpedos while we were just leaving the hanger”
If the ship feels "emtpy" or missing some flavor, that was by choice. They want players filling up the ship with items moving forward. We are meant to decorate them ourselves and utilize the spaces how we see fit
Jeeeesus😅 well thats not gonna happen
Not to mention it’s purely a military vessel. Don’t know why he excepts it to be colorful.
I mean honestly, biggest complaint i have is that the angled corridors are extremely inefficient space usage, something you'd like to avoid in a military (utilitarian) ship. This also means that, for the crew quarters specifically, there is barely any room to move past one another, further hindering crew readiness.
that sounds like an excuse to cut the development time and give them reasons to be lazy.
@@chloekaftan okay Mr Wannabe game designer 😂
Overall, I think this review is one of your finest, Morphologis. But - Even though this is set a few centuries further out, I think CIG found the real feel of a military (and I stress military) vessel. The cold "haze gray" and minimal "niceties" are the distinguishing features of a warship. The cold lighting colors for most of the interior meet up well with what I experienced in my years at sea in naval vessels. About the only space on a warship with any color would be Medical, and there I feel you are spot on, as with the rest of the review. Well done!
That’s ship is going to be a nightmare when maelstrom comes out lol.
The destruction animation is pretty amazing. It's not maelstrom yet, but it shows off an even more mature destruction design.
@ Yeah, but just the pure complexity of the ship and the size of the engineering section. It’ll be very intense as it gets battered. Great video, and I totally agree with those points you made about the interior. I just wish it was brighter with blue accents. That’s the RSI I love. Also the claustrophobic feeling is pretty bad in some places (the holo map room before the bridge and the crew quarters.).
YESSS!! i've been waiting for this!! great content as always Moprh :D
Appreciate your work Morph ❤
I’m delighted to hear that from the most truthful UA-camr in the world!
Polaris not done yet, why not wait with the "architect reviews" until its completion? Still appreciate the work you put into this video. Thank you!
With the classic CIG notion of 'Soon', such a delay to his review might have the weight of years behind it.
Furthermore, this review might influence CIG to address a few of the weak points Morphologis (and others) have identified alongside with more obviously missing touches, like the Captain's quarters.
@@jasonp.1195 Well said
As always, well done Morph👍
The bed situation is fine. On older ships, especially things like submarines, people would often hot rack the beds. Two people sharing one bed since half the crew would typically be on watch while the other sleeps.
The problem comes when you don't have enough beds to log out the entire crew. Cause I think CIG plans on leaving a player's character model in the bed when logged out.
Makes sense on small ships and subs, where every square inch is needed, but on a huge ship, with so much wasted space?
There's gameplay implications for why enough beds is important - such as bed logging. The ship also doesn't really seem to support the hot bunking idea either, because there's only as many single-person escape pods (12) as there are beds for the crew (13 beds - but no. 13 person is the attached fighter pilot (or whatever ship you park in the hangar) who can escape in their ship). So if you were hot bunking on the Polaris, there wouldn't be enough escape pods for the numbers exceeding the 12 - meaning the numbers above that would die with the ship. That's problematic too, that they don't get a survival chance, due to the gameplay implications of death of a spaceman - death is meaningful in SC. So my point with that is just that while one could use the idea of hot-bunking on those beds, the fact that the ship only has 12 escape pods seems to counter that argument. Generally speaking, CIG hasn't usually gone for the hot bunk idea either - given all other ships (outside of SQ42) seem to have the amount of beds needed for an effective crew size : )
@OmegaZyion the Polaris etc is not designed for things like that...
These are active warships meant for long term deployment not hopping on and off whenever you see fit...
@@Commander_Jackyou also need other support personnel this is common in the military and what the ship is designed for long term patrol and missions not for you to casually engage with the game.
Engine room is definitely my favorite, though realistically speaking I imagine all that liquid cooling would be a nightmare if the gravity generator ever stopped working.
It's high time CIG use you as a consultant on architectural stuff.
They can’t afford him.
Architecture consulting is not cheap.
@@AdityaWaghmarethere's no reason to, while he's in school for it he's very off in how something used in the military would function or be designed and he just proved how bad of an architectural engineer he'd be for the military or anything of the like.
Morphologis, you always talk about lighting in your videos but you also always forget about auxiliary and emergency lighting.
I honestly absolutely love the auxiliary lighting in the Polaris when it’s manually activated in every rooms, especially in the engineering bay, it was definitely quite a surprise to see the color of the reactor change from blue to yellow and it was definitely astonishing.
I hope you will check this detail more often in your future videos, thank you.
Compare to its concept and other RSI style ship like Zeus mk2, the exterior design of Polaris is absolutely disaster.
Probably my most anticipated Morphologis video ever, what a ship!
You can tell the polaris was rushed as its polish is missing.
To be fair to the artists, this is still in PTU. I put the video out in the hope that it could provide some feedback in time for the final polish pass.
Full crew, 5 ships in the top bay and a few spare in the lower. Oh the joys we have had.
very excited for the follow-up video
Fantastic video again! My two biggest gripes. #1, the ship has one job and you can’t do it from the bridge. It makes me so angry. I want that torp firing officer to be a part of the bridge crew. #2 is not so much a Polaris thing as a general PDC thing. They don’t even try to fire at slower, fatter bombs.
If you look at naval ships I believe the atmosphere is spot on. Accent lighting can be for the 890 jump .
I think a very easily solution to the blandness of the interior is implementing colored pathing lines, and walls to indicate where things go.
For example, let's say medical is "green" well, have lines going on the edge of the floor throughout the ship that guide to the medical space. On the exterior of the medbay, have the wall and door itself the same green color as the pathing line. Doesn't have to be the entire wall, could be half wall so it doesn't break up the color language too much. Also could make it the diagonal stripes as we have seen elsewhere.
Interior of those spaces should also implement that color language. For example, in the medbay, have the walls be white on the top half, and solid green on the bottom half.
Implementing this into the different spaces, while not adding a lot of additional points of interest, would at least add color, as well as guidance through the ship, and all with relatively easy implementation.
I agree 100%, even though I'm not a huge Polaris fan overall, that the exterior and feel of this ship was knocked out of the park. CIG did a great job and brings a ton of hope to future designs. These releases just keep getting better and better from a functionality standpoint and style. I do have mixed feelings on your interior views. I agree from a design standpoint/screenshot standpoint that some of these these issues with lighting and coloring cold have been made better. But, I've been on modern warships and there is a part of me that understands the simplicity that would have been placed since this is a ship of war and the first one we've seen that doesn't have a real separate version for civilians that we are actually flying. I like that feeling with regards to the colors and paints. Hopefully a few of the lighting things get worked out as they make lighting better in game overall. I'll close with...holy crap that engine room looks awesome!
For a "war" ship, I think it is correct to not put clear signage in case of enemy boarding, you want to confuse the enemies; it won't be an issue for the crews on board since they will be staying in there for months with repeating training, they will remember the route