What type of ships are you more drawn too?

[ToyotaSupra]

Depends really. I like ships that you could live in, with gardens, medical bays etc.

 

[Crusade]

RP, lots of details, and a structure that may possibly 'work' in real life. In space, you don't really need to worry about aerodynamics, but armor plating, airlocks, and a strong structure will go a long way.
Bonus points for extra details like fuel lines, fuel tanks, scale-correct and detailed interiors.

eg.
My cargo ship

 

[Kyoretsu]

I love themed ships. I understand the appeal of having that one ship, though. The best franchises in our society did that. Millenium Falcon, Serenity, That giant Japanese anime ship that is fucking everywhere (the one that looks like a boat with two giant rockets attached to either side).

On the other side though, I love the look and feel (when my computer is capable of handling, anyway) of a fleet of ships of identical function. The Empire, primarily. That cold, callous sensation from a million ships, are made the same, functioning as a unit. I don't think there is anything better.

 

[Colt556]

That giant Japanese anime ship that is fucking everywhere (the one that looks like a boat with two giant rockets attached to either side)..

The Yamato?

 

[Mariux]

I usually build ships that are a balance between interior/RP functions and power, while they follow a specific theme. Though I make replicas, too every so often.

 

[Kyoretsu]

The Yamato?

No, but I have seen that one around. Let me look for it. The ship that the Heldtech Damocles is modeled after. I see that ship everywhere, lol.

 

[jayman38]

I like building themed ships (primarily from the Battletech franchise), until I git gud at building. I am working on building an original one-off ship right now, based on classic 60s designs, like those drawn up by Arthur C. Clarke. I hope to build more like it in the future, but I need to finish this one and get it out the door first. I have more franchise (still mostly Battletech) designs to build after this current build, before I go for more original designs.

 

[Colt556]

No, but I have seen that one around. Let me look for it. The ship that the Heldtech Damocles is modeled after. I see that ship everywhere, lol.

That ship doesn't look like any japanese ship I've ever seen, nor does it seem all that common.

 

[AtraUnam]

I really like biological (Tyranid / Zerg) looking ships but they are hard to make look nice in a voxel game. I'm holding off until we get rails in the hopes that constant moving parts can add some life to them.

 

[Panpiper]

To me a ship built based on a previous work (film, television, anime, whatever), no matter how pretty or well done, simply means to me that somebody had a lot of time to invest. It says nothing about the builder's creativity, or more importantly to me, their ship design expertise. Moreover, I invariably question it's functionality in the game, and that to me is a killer. A ship that sacrifices function in favor of chrome, is to me a poor ship.

That does not mean that a functional design has to be ugly. There are plenty of ways to make such a ship visually interesting, even stunning (which I aim to prove to you all in a few months). To me however, visual evidence of surpassing function is itself a thing of beauty.

Simply cramming in a largely random assortment of weaponry and shield blocks into whatever space is left after the 'important' stuff like being pretty and having 'roleplaying' interiors (that virtually no one will ever roleplay in), to me is just bad ship design. I realize that most people think ship design is the process of making pretty shapes and exteriors. To me shapes and exteriors you can make pretty 'after' you get the ship design right, design meaning a rigorous planning of strategy, of the ship's function to fulfill that strategy, the systems which will optimally fulfill that function, and the other supporting systems the ship will need. Once all that has been identified, a large part of the structure of the ship will be determined by that. Only after that structure is identified in this manner, can consideration be given to it's visual appeal, and any such visual appeal cannot be allowed to impinge upon it's function.

Starting with visual flair suborns this process and sacrifices function as a result. Such a ship quite literally lessens it's impressiveness to me. In a fleet engagement the ships build to look good are just so much cannon fodder in my opinion. The ships I worry about are those built to deadly purpose, and they are uniques.

I am still learning the game, and so my functionality is simplistic. At this time due to how the mechanics work I am mostly concerned about functionality within limits of mass, turn rate, optimum power generation and the like. Given that I build uniquely in a sandbox environment, building materials have to be worked for and cannot be squandered. At the moment my goto ship is a cube, barely a third finished after a week of work and resource accumulation.

It has a double 15x15 salvage/pulse array so I don't have to wait fifteen seconds before resuming mining. Most asteroids are digested within 30 seconds. It is also utterly impervious to pirates, and this at only one third complete! I just found this rather nice trading station and thought to perhaps place my homebase beside it, but there was a pirate station nearby. So I thought to deal with it, the ship's shields at less than half planned strength and it's weaponry barely a quarter of it's planned outfit.

The pirate station lasted a whole minute, which I thought excessive, though my shields never dipped below 100%. Then I discovered that there was a second pirate station within firing distance and my ship had dealt with both in that minute.

This is a 63 block length salvage ship. Function is it's own beauty. But I find this cube visually appealing now, and I intend for it to remain so as it is completed.

 

[Colt556]

To me a ship built based on a previous work (film, television, anime, whatever), no matter how pretty or well done, simply means to me that somebody had a lot of time to invest. It says nothing about the builder's creativity, or more importantly to me, their ship design expertise. Moreover, I invariably question it's functionality in the game, and that to me is a killer. A ship that sacrifices function in favor of chrome, is to me a poor ship.

That does not mean that a functional design has to be ugly. There are plenty of ways to make such a ship visually interesting, even stunning (which I aim to prove to you all in a few months). To me however, visual evidence of surpassing function is itself a thing of beauty.

Simply cramming in a largely random assortment of weaponry and shield blocks into whatever space is left after the 'important' stuff like being pretty and having 'roleplaying' interiors (that virtually no one will ever roleplay in), to me is just bad ship design. I realize that most people think ship design is the process of making pretty shapes and exteriors. To me shapes and exteriors you can make pretty 'after' you get the ship design right, design meaning a rigorous planning of strategy, of the ship's function to fulfill that strategy, the systems which will optimally fulfill that function, and the other supporting systems the ship will need. Once all that has been identified, a large part of the structure of the ship will be determined by that. Only after that structure is identified in this manner, can consideration be given to it's visual appeal, and any such visual appeal cannot be allowed to impinge upon it's function.

Starting with visual flair suborns this process and sacrifices function as a result. Such a ship quite literally lessens it's impressiveness to me. In a fleet engagement the ships build to look good are just so much cannon fodder in my opinion. The ships I worry about are those built to deadly purpose, and they are uniques.

I am still learning the game, and so my functionality is simplistic. At this time due to how the mechanics work I am mostly concerned about functionality within limits of mass, turn rate, optimum power generation and the like. Given that I build uniquely in a sandbox environment, building materials have to be worked for and cannot be squandered. At the moment my goto ship is a cube, barely a third finished after a week of work and resource accumulation.

It has a double 15x15 salvage/pulse array so I don't have to wait fifteen seconds before resuming mining. Most asteroids are digested within 30 seconds. It is also utterly impervious to pirates, and this at only one third complete! I just found this rather nice trading station and thought to perhaps place my homebase beside it, but there was a pirate station nearby. So I thought to deal with it, the ship's shields at less than half planned strength and it's weaponry barely a quarter of it's planned outfit.

The pirate station lasted a whole minute, which I thought excessive, though my shields never dipped below 100%. Then I discovered that there was a second pirate station within firing distance and my ship had dealt with both in that minute.

This is a 63 block length salvage ship. Function is it's own beauty. But I find this cube visually appealing now, and I intend for it to remain so as it is completed.

I, personally, strongly disagree with everything you said. What you talk about takes no real effort or skill. Most systems rely on a system of more is better, want strong shields? Just crank up your advanced builder and plop a 100x100x100 square of shield blocks and bam, done. Need lots of power? Well there's a cap on dimension bonuses so hell, do the same thing with power blocks. Want strong weapons? You know what to do. You proved it yourself with that cube you posted, someone who knows absolutely nothing of the game, has no creativity or skill can cobble together a doomcube. As it is, making systems really doesn't take any effort beyond placing the blocks once you know how they all work. Making a ship that looks good is what takes skill and effort. There's a reason doomcubes are frowned upon everywhere in the community, because they are the absolute bottom rung of creativity. It takes skill to recreate a good looking replica out of meter long blocks. It takes creativity to bring to life something you designed in your head. It takes neither of those things to plop down a mass of systems and get a super duper powerful cube.

 

[Panpiper]

Most systems rely on a system of more is better, want strong shields? Just crank up your advanced builder and plop a 100x100x100 square of shield blocks and bam, done. Need lots of power? Well there's a cap on dimension bonuses so hell, do the same thing with power blocks. Want strong weapons? You know what to do.

Respectfully, I disagree. It is thinking this way that makes people think there is nothing wrong with starting with whatever shape, filling the shape with 'roleplaying spaces', and then cramming in the seemingly unimportant details like weapons and shields in the resultant haphazard manner you outline.

That 100x100x100 square of shield blocks will NOT give you strong shields, without also having a strong regen. I expect somewhere on the ship is a similar block of regen. Such a ship is EXTREMELY vulnerable to a one two punch that happens to to hit any such block. Critical systems need to be carefully placed, often dispersed and layered very tactically. Some systems are more important than others and need to be more centrally located so they are not among the first things hit in battle. Some things can be more forward, others need to be more guarded and further to the rear, so the ship can maintain fighting capacity even while sustaining repeated hull hits.

Weapons need to be far more thought out than simply whatever fits in turrets, etc.. A weapon turret on most media ships is utterly incapable of posing a serious threat to a purpose built unique, when simply filled with whatever weapon fits. It is not enough to have just one or a few big weapons in the hull (just placing down big block sets), as again a single hit can disable them. Any such large weapon needs to be built along a central core so as to have the damage mitigation of lesser systems, and (dare I say it), the interior armored hull of roleplaying spaces, surrounding it.

 

[Crusade]

Panpiper, if you're in a fight with someone else, module placement is not important. Since they will target your core as soon as your shields are dropped, which normally happens in the space of a few seconds.

A great part of "cramming in the seemingly unimportant details", as you put it, is that you have to focus more on efficient reactors where regen in under, or around 1 million e/sec. Fitting weapons in carefully without disturbing the interior spaces, and striking a good balance between shield regen and capacity. Building ships with interiors isn't lazy, I've build ships that are disguised doomcubes, they are much easier than a well-thought-out RP ship.

I respect your opinion, but I urge you to try building a ship with a nice interior and lots of details. It's fun, challenging and very satisfying when you complete it.

 

[Panpiper]

Paraphrasing, "It doesn't matter, because your opponent will use this strategy for which there is no counter."

This is not true. I have seen purpose built uniques that are built to counter this, and it's not solely a result of building strategy, it's tactical usage, again for which they are designed. None of those ships by the way, are ugly to look at. Quite the contrary, they are beautiful, but beautiful not solely for how they look, but beautiful for their elegance in which they master their trade, war.

And those ships by the way will utterly obliterate any ship not purpose built to take them on. (They may target 'your' core. They are not going to target 'my' core.)

By the way...

"Building ships with interiors isn't lazy..."

Absolutely it is not lazy. I am sure huge amounts of work and creativity goes into them. My point is not that people who build ships that way are "lazy". I just don't think they should be building 'war' ships.

 

[jayman38]

Remember folks, the OP is after subjective opinions for research. Feel free to open a separate thread or PM to debate. Otherwise, potentially valuable insights and opinions might either be lost in the midst, or might never be presented, for fear of being judged harshly.

 

[Jananton]

Hmm, I think I don't fit in either category I'm afraid. I'm mostly a single-player survival kind of guy, were I set the following rules. Playing legit, so everything is crafted or bought and every ship build, except the very first, should be enterable by the pilot. In other words the core shouldn't be reachable from the outside.
Obviously this means ship design as well as systems optimization is needed to create crafts that are up to the task intended. It also means, with the above in mind, it isn't possible to have wall to wall system computers, modules and what else that is needed. In fact I prefer smaller ships over what most seem to fancy because of the challenge they impose to have all components in enough quantities to fulfill the intended goal.

Greets,

Jan

 

[Colt556]

Paraphrasing, "It doesn't matter, because your opponent will use this strategy for which there is no counter."

This is not true. I have seen purpose built uniques that are built to counter this, and it's not solely a result of building strategy, it's tactical usage, again for which they are designed. None of those ships by the way, are ugly to look at. Quite the contrary, they are beautiful, but beautiful not solely for how they look, but beautiful for their elegance in which they master their trade, war.

And those ships by the way will utterly obliterate any ship not purpose built to take them on. (They may target 'your' core. They are not going to target 'my' core.)

By the way...

"Building ships with interiors isn't lazy..."

Absolutely it is not lazy. I am sure huge amounts of work and creativity goes into them. My point is not that people who build ships that way are "lazy". I just don't think they should be building 'war' ships.

I have literally never seen a good looking doomcube. Ever. I have seen one good looking cube but that was because it was a replica of a Borg Cube and it looked exactly like the original. Ships built the way you are describing are exceptionally easy, can be done in less than an hour depending on their size, and look absolutely disgusting. I'm all for function over form when it comes to aesthetics, I have criticized the starmade communities obsession with pointless detail and their hatred of blank or boring spaces despite such things being very common in real life vehicles. But as with everything extremes are bad, being too obsessed with details is bad, but not caring at all is equally as bad. You talk about placement and whatnot but at the end of the day your interior will be packed with nothing but systems, so if the enemy pens your shields and armor they're gonna shred your systems regardless of their location. At absolute best all someone has to do is go "well, shields in the back of the ship" or something.

Have you ever wondered why a new players first ship is often a doomcube? Because they require absolutely no skill to make. Getting impressive stats with a fleshed out interior all inside a nice looking hull, that takes skill. Slapping systems in a box, regardless of how tactical their placement, THAT is lazy and that requires absolutely zero creativity or building skill. If you like doomcubes that's fine, the joy of this game is to build what you enjoy. But let's not pretend reality doesn't exist here. As I said in my last post, doomcubes are absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of building. I can assure you I could whip up a doomcube to rival any "warship" you make in less than an hour. There simply isn't any skill involved, no creativity, nothing.

 

[Keptick]

Original ships all the way. I do have a certain theme that carries on throughout my ships, but they still differ wildly in looks.

 

[Captain_Stripes]

Spoiler: Fleets Man

Themed ships man. Its the way to go if you're asking me. I want each of my ships that represents my faction to look similar and like they belong to each other. Actually one of the main reasons why I don't like allowing other people into my faction because its very likely that someone new to the faction would want to use the vast amount of resources I have gathered to build a ship. Good chance that ship is going to look very different from mine and I feel that it kinda ruins the idea of a fleet. It irks me when all my ships are black and grey and then that one random faction member has built a massive purple space-dildo looking thing. I dislike that so much that I just wish I could dis-allow members to build.

Also random side note, the ships in the spoiler have a complete interior and are completely capable war ships. They have not sacrificed any function in favor for 'chrome'. They all serve their purpose and they serve it well. Alone one of these ships are amazing, together, unstoppable. And a ship based off of a previous work tells me that the builder is just as creative as anyone and far more creative than someone who builds a standard, un-detailed, without thought, cube. A brainless idiot can make a cube. But for someone to build a pretty ship, original design or not, and make it function in a universe it did not originally belong in or is new to, is outstanding. A doom cube is only built by someone who isn't confident enough in him/herself to pilot and keep a ship worth piloting and keeping.

 

[Colt556]

Spoiler: Fleets Man

Themed ships man. Its the way to go if you're asking me. I want each of my ships that represents my faction to look similar and like they belong to each other. Actually one of the main reasons why I don't like allowing other people into my faction because its very likely that someone new to the faction would want to use the vast amount of resources I have gathered to build a ship. Good chance that ship is going to look very different from mine and I feel that it kinda ruins the idea of a fleet. It irks me when all my ships are black and grey and then that one random faction member has built a massive purple space-dildo looking thing. I dislike that so much that I just wish I could dis-allow members to build.

Also random side note, the ships in the spoiler have a complete interior and are completely capable war ships. They have not sacrificed any function in favor for 'chrome'. They all serve their purpose and they serve it well. Alone one of these ships are amazing, together, unstoppable. And a ship based off of a previous work tells me that the builder is just as creative as anyone and far more creative than someone who builds a standard, un-detailed, without thought, cube. A brainless idiot can make a cube. But for someone to build a pretty ship, original design or not, and make it function in a universe it did not originally belong in or is new to, is outstanding. A doom cube is only built by someone who isn't confident enough in him/herself to pilot and keep a ship worth piloting and keeping.

I like variants of existing ships. Those are so obviously based on starship troopers and yet they aren't the ships in that series, they're something different. This is off-topic but what's the size/mass of that big one?