Bonus Content Disc/Technology: Space Vehicles - Human

The following are transcriptions of the artists' comments for the design gallery "The Technology of Mass Effect: Space Vehicles - Human" found on the bonus content disc of Mass Effect released in 2007.

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Derek Watts: So, as we're drawing all these ships, we're just throwing out ideas. One of the ideas for this one was to actually have the main body of the ship be encapsulated by this skeleton, this almost bracing fabrication that went around the ship. This one had two large cannons on it. So, the main body, you can see through all these braces that went around it. One of the ideas-- we're just trying to get some ideas for how our ships are going to look different than other games, and other movies.

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Derek Watts: This is another design for a ship. Maybe it was very narrow; the engines were very rectangular. A lot of geometric shapes in there to keep it clean. This one didn't go too far, it was just a quick drawing.

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Derek Watts: This is just a quick drawing done up in Photoshop. Maybe how the layers of the ship would work. Kind of hard to see really where the cockpit is, it's a hard read; where's the end of it? So, this one didn't go too far. We kind of liked a few elements in here though.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept maybe for the human dreadnought, a very large ship. It would have to have the mass relay gun, or mass driver gun at the front. These had smaller turrets all around it. Again, there wasn't enough shape to it to kind of make it iconic. It would just be this giant rectangle flying through space, like a giant ruler. Not very interesting.

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Derek Watts: So, this is pretty well the final design for the human dreadnought. It has the large cannons at the front, it has these nice shapes for the wings on the side... We started to incorporate a lot of the elements from the Normandy. If you compare the two ships, you'll notice some of the wings are the same. They're the same kind of engines. So, you'd have the boosters, these long fins that would come out with a solid piece; that was what we kind of used in a lot of the human ships to tie them all together. And the way the wings could kind of move out and then kind of conform back into the ship to make it more aerodynamic when it went through the mass relay. I know it doesn't make sense, but design-wise it's something you kind of play around with.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept for a human fighter. It's a pretty neat design, it was like a dual pod. Actually the pod was on the right side where the driver would be and the pod was on the left side and then just held together by that linkage. It actually feels more like a car, some kind of a ground vehicle than a space vehicle.

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Derek Watts: This is another idea for a fighter. Again, using some of that-- one of the earlier ships had the main body surrounded by almost like a skeleton structure. And this is kind of using some of that design features from that one. The cockpit is in the center and then there's a lot of holes for the ship, making it very light. So, it's kind of skeleton work around there, and just kind of playing around with some ideas for that.

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Derek Watts: Another quick design done up for the human fighter. This was kind of like a very art ship. Again, bringing in some of those elements from the previous concept. This one had nice colors. I actually like this one quite a bit but we were just worried about how it would read; a tough shape to kind of make out.

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Derek Watts: So, this is the final human fighter, and again as we finalized the Normandy, we were able to use a lot of those elements in this one. It's got a lot of the similar engines on it, the intakes, the wings out of the front, the cockpit, using a lot of those same kind of design features from that, to kind of tie in the human race altogether for their ships.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept we did up. I think actually this was a really early attempt at the Normandy. At this point we were just playing around with any kind of idea. Maybe it was more of a freighter, a smuggler ship. This again would-- the cockpit is up at the front and then maybe the rover would be kind of attached in the middle, around all that bracing. It would actually be open to space and it would land on these large kind of angular structures.

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Derek Watts: This is another early version of the Normandy. It actually looks more like a freighter, which we were starting to even think of it later on. So, the containers would actually be down there and they would slide in through the back, brace up underneath.

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Derek Watts: These are some concepts for maybe some space-- some shuttles, some kind of freighters you would come across out in the unknown worlds. Very long ship and then those three vertical sections at the back are actually circles that would actually rotate around the ship, maybe making a false gravity in there. Just some ideas we were playing with.

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Derek Watts: This is the final concept for the freighter. Some of these elements you can actually see in the levels. Off to the right there, those are the canisters. These are strewn around. There are some in "war world" where you actually go into, some in the uncharted worlds. It has a really aggressive cockpit off the front left which we liked. It's almost this cylinder broken up by these rectangular shapes, rectangular elements in there. So, this ship was supposed to be different lengths. We were going to do a few variations but we ended up just doing the one. The main body of the ship is a cockpit and then that long rectangular section in the middle with the fin at the back, and then you can just hook these canisters on for the amount of cargo. The ship could be quite long. Maybe it had 15 to 20 of these canisters on, other ones might only have 2 or 3. And then, the engine in the middle was incorporating some of the design features of the Normandy.

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Derek Watts: This is another early concept for what the Normandy was going to look like. We had the off-centered cockpit. Maybe looking at some of the ideas from the Millennium Falcon. You would get into the middle of that, go up to the cockpit... Maybe off to the left would be where the cannon was. The large middle section would be where the crew was. These were... We kept these around. Maybe it could have been a concept for a shuttle. We always scan into everything and keep it all. You never know when you're going to need a ship design for something else than what it was intended.

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Derek Watts: This ship design had these large shapes, two large shapes that went from front to back and then the cockpit was off to the right, which was a neat idea. At this point, we drew it up, looked at it and started to decide what we want from certain ships.

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Derek Watts: This is another ship design. Those 4 cylinders were supposed to be able to rotate around. So, they would actually rotate backwards so they would stay flat, provide a lift like a Harrier and then rotate back so you could go forward in that.

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Derek Watts: This is an early concept for the Normandy that we kept around. We were actually playing around with this, maybe it could have been the turian fighter. It had this neat plate look to it, very flat when it landed. Those circles off to the left and right on the wings would provide a boost up and then rotate around to give a thrust forward. The cockpit on this, we modified that for the freighter. You can kind of see a lot of design elements in there. This one had a neat feeling because of the way it felt like layers of metal coming down off it.

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Derek Watts: This is the final design for the shuttle. Again, we looked at a lot of stuff from the Final Fantasy movie, Spirits Within. It has thrusters up at the front, it has some nice wings at the back... Again, we incorporated that engine from the Normandy. I don't even know if this was made in the final game. It was supposed to be in the hangar where the Normandy lands in at the Citadel. As the game goes on, you build the models, sometimes the levels get heavier and heavier, you have to really cut back on how much stuff you can put in there. Being a ship, you need a massive texture in there; is it worth it putting it in, or is it worth boosting up all the textures in the actual level? The cockpit would be on the front, and then underneath you see where all those lights are. That's where all the passengers would sit on this ship.