Tactical, Basic, Assault etc all shouldn't look exactly the same. I assume that this is in the works. I would also like to see the better versions look different as well, even if it's just a different color. I have no motivation to buy a gun that looks exactly the same as what I'm already using, but 2 damage more per shot.

Because how the gun looks makes it kill better.

Tactical, Basic, Assault etc all shouldn't look exactly the same. I assume that this is in the works. I would also like to see the better versions look different as well, even if it's just a different color. I have no motivation to buy a gun that looks exactly the same as what I'm already using, but 2 damage more per shot.

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Well to a degree, CCP are working on additional game assets.
Something however to keep in mind is the PlayStation 3 memory limitations actually cause some issues in terms of what they can provide variety wise.

Now personally I have a feeling they haven't thought it through properly, as I know they are using the Unreal 3 Engine (UDK) where it is a bit more difficult to manage memory quite as well as an in-house engine might ... but the problem likely stems from how they do things in EVE right now.

Where-by rather than creating a modular asset, each Ship is an individual model with multiple shader-based textures determining the Corporation / Faction they are associated with to add "variation". Although to a degree this can provide variation often through Normal Map means, so the same base model can have slight variations; something that UDK allows, which I often don't see developers taking advantage of is that you can import models that have multiple mesh associated with them.

You can then create an instance asset that can show / hide given mesh, along with a Material that again can be instanced creating a very different colour scheme output; as they are instanced, then the memory footprint they have actually is very minor at most.

Still there is a very difficult to keep within 256MB System Memory Limitation, along with only 256MB Video Memory; not to mention the latency between both of them. This means much longer loading times, as well as some very tough decisions on variety of models as well as their Materials simply due to Memory Limits.

Something I have said to most Fanboys of the PlayStation 3 for years, is that because of how it is designed; basically it's like an AMG Mercedes. Sure it has phenominal raw power, but the rest of it isn't designed to support that power ... as such you get alot of tyre spin and smoke without much happening.

It's an absolute mess of a system to try to develop for, this is clearly evidenced when sure the sheer scale in terms of map size which are still technically the "smaller maps" right now; is just incredible; yet as soon as you get into the confined space of the complexes suddenly performance takes a nosedive, which many ppl have been assuming is network latency... but it isn't, simply memory limitations being hit causing bottlenecks in performance.

You also have the added issue that unless all the game logic uses Floating-Point math, frankly you get limited performance in that respect as well; because the SPU are literally Floating-Point Math Co-Processors... not Integer Logic Processors, the PS3 only has a single core PPC that splits it's duties between the Game, XMB and SPU Control. This again can cause some nasty bottlenecks to appear in performance.

Fact kinda ends up being that while I'm sure they would love to add more model variety, chances are the limitations of the PlayStation 3 will probably prevent this in the long run.

Memory limitations should have very little to do with this. Battlefield 3 has maps that are larger than any maps we've played so far on this game, and they are 10 times more detailed at least. Not to mention you have 10+ guns per class in that game.

I'm guessing because the Unreal Engine is tried&tested whereas others like Frostbite 2 are still relatively new and still being tweaked here and there.