ComCardinal's Community Convoy Escort Contest - Spring 2025

[eatsomedust4]

Some absolutely awesome lookin' stuff getting posted here! Nice work everyone!

As of posting this, about 10 days remain. No pressure

sounds cool I can't wait to see how my escorts compare with the others

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

ComCardinal
Before submitting my entry, I have to ask, how strict will the score reduction be for entries above the price limit?

It's kinda funny, the first ship I built for this contest (130 long) ended up being a couple million credits over the limit with barely any interior or systems. While my second attempt (a 90-long ship) is now just a bit over the limit with completely filled up insides.

Ship #2 originally had a standard armor hull, with which it costs ~16,500,000. Made a version with basic armor, which brought it down to 15.5 mill. Removing around a thousand thrusters or shield capacitors could bring it under the limit, but is it that necessary? Or would the performance advantage of leaving those blocks in count more towards the score?

 

[colonel lacu]

Removing around a thousand thrusters or shield capacitors could bring it under the limit, but is it that necessary? Or would the performance advantage of leaving those blocks in count more towards the score?

You probably know that you can get more score by adding interior deep into the systems area in the form of maintenece or engineering corridors and rooms. Its a good way to bring the price down while making the ship more impressive.

 

[ComCardinal]

ComCardinal
Before submitting my entry, I have to ask, how strict will the score reduction be for entries above the price limit?

It's kinda funny, the first ship I built for this contest (130 long) ended up being a couple million credits over the limit with barely any interior or systems. While my second attempt (a 90-long ship) is now just a bit over the limit with completely filled up insides.

Ship #2 originally had a standard armor hull, with which it costs ~16,500,000. Made a version with basic armor, which brought it down to 15.5 mill. Removing around a thousand thrusters or shield capacitors could bring it under the limit, but is it that necessary? Or would the performance advantage of leaving those blocks in count more towards the score?

I'm not sure how much of a difference said systems would make; one option you could do is do two versions and submit them both - I'll accept that and score each - that being said, if you don't want to do that, I'd say the trend so far has been to take the performance over the credits.

If all you're over by is about 1.5 million, that's about ~10%; I wouldn't flat reduce score by 10% since there are other factors, probably ultimately like 1-2%, so if the performance gain is greater than "2%" worth you'd probably be best to just take it and eat the penalty.

If you want I can try to be more specific, hopefully this helped?

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

I'm not sure how much of a difference said systems would make; one option you could do is do two versions and submit them both - I'll accept that and score each - that being said, if you don't want to do that, I'd say the trend so far has been to take the performance over the credits.

If all you're over by is about 1.5 million, that's about ~10%; I wouldn't flat reduce score by 10% since there are other factors, probably ultimately like 1-2%, so if the performance gain is greater than "2%" worth you'd probably be best to just take it and eat the penalty.

If you want I can try to be more specific, hopefully this helped?

I went with including two variants in the package, you can choose which one's more eligible. Would've uploaded two versions anyway, since their different armor alloys are also differently painted, and both look neat.

Blueprints: Locust-class convoy escort

The purple one sacrifices some shield capacity to stay under the price limit (its basic armor is actually stronger than standard in single layer, if I'm not mistaken). Those who wish, can revert this easily by flood-filling its empty space with capacitors.

​

 

[ua2hk]

UA2HK Escort - 109m v1.0 v0.203.175

https://starmadedock.net/content/escort-109m-v1-0-v0-203-175.8716/

 

[Rechkalov]

Hey guys, can I have a discord invite? All of the links I can find are already expired
P.S. Wish me luck with beating the deadline

 

[colonel lacu]

Hey guys, can I have a discord invite? All of the links I can find are already expired
P.S. Wish me luck with beating the deadline

Join the StarMade Discord Server!

Check out the StarMade community on Discord – hang out with 2818 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

I'll delete this tomorrow probably

 

[MeRobo]

Join the StarMade Discord Server!

Check out the StarMade community on Discord – hang out with 2818 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

I'll delete this tomorrow probably

wouldn't it make more sense to send a single use link via dms on here?

 

[colonel lacu]

wouldn't it make more sense to send a single use link via dms on here?

I don't think its that big a deal.
If it was, then it probably shouldn't allow me to make invite links in the first place..

 

[ComCardinal]

Hey guys, can I have a discord invite? All of the links I can find are already expired
P.S. Wish me luck with beating the deadline

Don't forget that you may have some slush time between when the contest ends and when I finish reviewing the ships - I think I counted about 14 submissions already, so I likely won't be done with reviews for another week or so!

 

[colonel lacu]

My 2nd entry:
the Augur Buzzard
View attachment 63895
this one's a very low-cost one since my first one was big and expensive

Augur Buzzard

a mound of spare parts welded together into a can with a big scary gun in the front. It can protect a convoy from small threats. Made for comcardinal's escort ship contest cost 6 744 000

starmadedock.net

Made a small update, fixed the spinny parts. There's now a button to start them if they don't spin

 

[MeRobo]

I don't think its that big a deal.
If it was, then it probably shouldn't allow me to make invite links in the first place..

True, it just seemed to me as you were at least a little worried that the link might cause some trouble

 

[ComCardinal]

Alright, time has been reached!

Submission entry is not closed, however, until I release final scores! I'm still deciding if I want to stagger release reviews or not, but with how many ships have been submitted, I don't expect to be done reviewing submissions for about a week or more. Try to wrap up your builds ASAP if they're not already, but you do still have some time!

Poll results were essentially unanimous: I will be doing detailed and thorough reviews for each build. Do note that this will contribute to a delay in results; please be patient, I will hopefully provide feedback that is worthwhile!

All in all we've had some truly incredible entries, by the looks of it, and I'm very positively surprised by the number of different people and entries submitted! Thank you all for participating!

 

[Rechkalov]

Submission entry is not closed

 

[Rechkalov]

Ta-DAH


it's supposed to be "EM ROUNDS" but I can't be arsed to fix it*

 

[Rechkalov]

Unrelated, who do I pester about getting permissions to post on the discord?

 

[colonel lacu]

Unrelated, who do I pester about getting permissions to post on the discord?

have you connected your account?