Right. So I have done work on lots of frigate hulls over the past few days. Sorry for the lack of episodes. Station reviews are taking over my channel till I manage to do them all.
I have made progress on the:
Incursus, Tormentor, Impairor, Astero, Ibis, Heron, Bantam, Burst, Probe, Slasher
Here's a video!
Now. I am working on what appears to be a lot of ships at once. There is a reason for this. Essentially I need to figure out a module size that uniformly fits across all the ships of a certain size. Modules are the machines that you attach to you ship in EVE. Basically gear for you "character". From turrets to armor/shield hardeners to cap boosters, all of them are modules that I will eventually design.
The problem is that certain ship sizes share the same sized modules. This means that frigates and destroyers need to be able to fit any module built for them. That's about 40~ ships that need to fit the same machines. This means I need to find the smallest ship, with the most amount of modules and the least amount of interior space. I need to maximize the module size so that it actually benefits the player, otherwise the impact is negligible. So far the Heron seems to have the smallest volume internally, and it fits 5 medium slot modules, which is a pain to fit in there. But I managed.
I just need to finish up a few other hulls and verify that the heron is suitable for me to base the module size on. Once this is completed, it means that I will be free to finish frigates and destroyers without being cautious of the interior space that I use. You can expect a frigate about once a week at this rate.
Aside from all that I want to explain the purpose of ship roles. Ships In EVE are granted bonuses to the various modules they use. One ship may get extra damage on specific turrets, another may get a boost to tackling effectiveness. This somewhat forces the player to choose specific fittings that go well with certain tasks. Players will equip those specific turrets to get the bonus, especially if they want the extra damage.
So how does this translate to StarMade? Essentially when you install a module, you will see there are additional effect blocks nearby. These effect blocks will not be attached to the effect computer. The computer comes with the module. Once you place the module down you can attach the bonus blocks to the computer on the module. So while you may be able to fit shield hardeners on all the ships, some ships will have additional effect blocks there, meaning a few ships will get a better bonus than others once the modules are connected. Hopefully this gives roles to the ships, instead of making it entirely viable to attach any module to any ship. Ships will get better results depending on what modules are installed.
When it comes to turrets there are two ways you can handle this. A turret can be docked as they normally can. This comes with the bonus of not having to directly face an enemy. You can fire from all directions. The downside is that you will not get the bonuses to the weapon that are already installed. Unless however, you directly copy and paste the turret onto its turret mount and connect the computer to built in modules. This means the player will have to make a choice; either connect the turret as a turret and get an overall coverage or attach the turret in a fixed position with additional firepower. On smaller ships this may not be an issue, but on the larger ones I plan on making that bonus to damage a bit higher. Will you use massive directional cannons or will you place down turrets because you can hardly turn?
