WipEout 2048 Ships

[Snakenator1]

Actually those five bars is your speedometer believe it or not and the one underneath is thrust (but you probably knew that one)
Its weird and a impractical way of displaying your speed, but its the case. But who knows I may be wrong like I always am

[Jonny]

I'm just loudly thinking...

Foir bars, maybe
1st - D-Class
2nd - C-Class
3rd - B-Class
4th - A-Class and faster

judging by the fact that in C Class only 2 and in B class only 3 of thse bars are filled on top speed.

But they defenitely don't fill up when the ship shifts.

[mannjon]

Well if you watched the opening video at least once, the theme is evolution of the sport. It started with a 1940's-ish looking racecar, and ends with the ships in the 2048 season. So the gear shifting would make sense if this was the first season of the sport. It would have been the in between step and makes sense for the first ever AG racing league. I think Snakenator is right about the 5 speed bars as being gears. Do speed laps and watch closely, and you'll see that they don't simply clock speed. There are definitely street racing style sound effects, which would further support this theory.

If you played the original Wipeout, you know that the first 4 ships were FEISAR, Auricom, AG Systems, and Qirex. Then later, Piranha made an appearance in Wipeout XL. So based on the inclusion of the Piranha in 2048, and the exclusion of it in the first Wipeout, chronologically speaking, this would imply that Piranha was just taking a break until the XL season happened. It is not coincidence that the original 4 ships are all included in 2048. You have to remember that 2048 is unique in the storyline. Consider it a prequel. The ships don't handle like their later iterations do, and I partly think that SL was trying to tell a story and hint that these were the first ships. They feel heavier because well, they still handle a little like cars which fits the narrative. I don't know if SL was trying to imply that AG racing came about because of street racing, but the feel of the game would almost appear so, because the races are more like street races rather than the futuristic off-world races we've come to accept in the series. All in all I think the ship handling was deliberate to fit in with the story.

So if you take the story into account, then you have to follow it the whole way through to figure out how Icaras, Triakis, and all the other ships came to be. That is to say that yes, if you took the Icaras from HD, it would obviously nerf the Piranha Speed (Icaras nerfs Piranha in HD too). But comparing the two is like comparing a Model T with a Bugatti Veyron. The 100 year difference in development time accounts for many improvements.

As to the whole concept of the actual design of the ships, they may resemble the StarWars crafts, but you know what came out before Episodes I, II, and III? Wipeout did. If you look at the original ship design for the original Wipeout, you'll notice that all the ships look almost identical. It may have initially just been due to limitations of 3D modelling, but SL did an excellent job of tying that in to the 2048 versions of the ships. I would argue that George Lucas modeled the StarWars fighters after original Wipeout ships. In either case, you can see the evolution of the ship design by following the series in chronological order:

2048 -> Wipeout (very similar ship designs)
Wipeout -> Wipeout XL (Piranha prototype released, ship design remains mostly unchanged)
Wipeout XL -> Wip3out (note that we see some new teams with Goteki45, Assegai, Icaras, and the commercially available Piranha, and that we also see the evolution of the dual hull ship designs as a first too)
Wip3out -> Fusion (things got a little weird here, but the dual hull design translated over for Auricom, and Xios was essentially Qirex also with a dual hull)
Fusion -> WipeoutHD (designs are refined, and retain all previous styling to support the ship evolution)
WipeoutHD -> Fury (Fury ships are bulkier than HD counterparts, HD counterparts more closely resemble previous versions)

And obviously one final point to be made is the teams evolved in a way that maintained their specific team attributes. Piranha and Icaras are fast. AG Systems and FEISAR are good at handling, etc...

[Jonny]

Awww, we start talking about the stoyr

[mannjon]

Well, it isn't so much about talking about the story as it is just what has transpired from game to game. Even without a storyline to explain why or why not the changes may have taken place, you can trace the evolution of the ship designs. There is a very clear path from Wipeout - Wipeout HD if you follow each of the games in chronological order based on release date.

Here is an example:

First check out the original ship designs from the first Wipeout game...
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...00-d588do7.jpg
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...cc-d58agv4.jpg
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...64-d58agsg.jpg

Notice how they are all single hull with a much wider frame towards the engine??

Now look at the 2048 renditions of the same ships...
http://static.wixstatic.com/media/ad...0_0.00_jpg_srz
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/6...db0460fe_o.jpg
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j...06071643370534

You'll notice that the ships in the first Wipeout game are very similar in design to the 2048 versions. I won't bother to post the additional comparisons, but the train of thought here is that the ships have evolved over time throughout the course of the various games. If you look at one ship in the timeline and compare it to the same ship in a consecutively ordered game, the differences are small.

I think that SL attempted to essentially go back in time with the 2048 ships in an attempt to maintain the order of the evolution between the ship designs. A nice touch for those of us who have played every game in the series.

[Jonny]

Again just loud thinking....

2048-2050 -> Small ships with turbines, basic design.
2052 -> Bigger ships but still simple with turbines.
2097 -> Dual Hulled and Semi-Dual Hulles crafts, Ion-Engines.
2098 -> No changes, Piranha switched to Semi-Dual Hull
2116 -> More variations in ship designs, also the basic designs for later (compare a w3o FEISAR with a PurE one)
2160 -> More complex ships, Triple Hulled crafts (Reminds me the 2008 F1 cars with all the wings)
2197 -> Ships again like in the F7200
2206 -> Again individual engine sounds
2207 -> New engines for all contender.

(BTW the reson why Pir-hana is in 2048 is that the Brazilian comoanies Pir and Hana merged to Pir-hana, probably a reference to the misspelling in w3o as Pirhana. 2050 it was bought by Chinese business men and dragged out of ag racing. 2116 it was relocated to Bazil.

[mannjon]

^ That.

I just think it is cool that the ship evolutions are traceable through the games AND the storyline! Can't just be a coincidence.