How do you create a reliable ship?

[Novalar]

Hey,

So I started building a ship lately, it looked pretty cool and had some shields and good working cannons with sufficient power. But, a "raid" on my base (luckily it was a homebase) destroyed the ship I worked for so long. Now my question is: How do I make a reliable ship that doesn't blow up with the smallest missile fired on it? And what are good weapon combinations for such a ship?

I know it is a pretty big question, but i really don't want to build on a ship for 3 days and then see it being destroyed in 1 second.

thanks in advance,
Novalar

 

[DivineEvil]

A well-balanced ship has about 10% of it's mass as Thrusters, 10% as Power generation and storage and about 30% as Shield capacitors and rechargers, deducing the 50% left for armor/decor, weapons and modules. It is convenient to determine the target mass of your ship beforehand in order to outfit it in those proportions without the need to reconstruct particular parts to add sufficient modules.

Additionaly, several turrets can be added to defend against missiles. It is also handy to have an AI block on your ship to make it work as a turret by itself, while you're away working on a station or factories.

 

[Novalar]

Thanks for your quick answer!

But how do I calculate the mass (I'm noob I know ) and how do I determine the target mass?

 

[jorgekorke]

Thanks for your quick answer!

But how do I calculate the mass (I'm noob I know ) and how do I determine the target mass?

Current Mass appears on your build mode, left of your screen. 0.1 mass = 1 block if i'm not mistaken.
What Divine means is that you need to engage a ship with around the same size as the one you are driving. Or, of course, your ship being bigger as well.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

/giveid (names)

Build it in a cube shape
Add as much shields and power as possible

/thread.

(jk, what the guys above said)

 

[CyberTao]

Spoiler: Slight off topic

0.1 mass = 1 block if i'm not mistaken.

Terrain blocks like crystal have a mass of .2
64535.7 mass ship/577542 blocks is my source

But the ratio of blocks depends on what you are building sometimes. Smaller ships tend to benefit more from speed (with a human pilot) then shields in some instances. You can test your ship in a controlled environment by using admin commands to spawn pirates (and respawning your ship afterwards) if you wish to go with a trial by fire.

Also, don't forget to save your work in the catalog, it allows you to spawn back your ship at the state it was saved (it costs the blocks that were used to make it, and to visit a shop). Gives you a chance to get lost ships back and modify them if need be.

Turrets and AI is normally a good investment as well, extra support tends to make things easier.

 

[DivineEvil]

Thanks for your quick answer!

But how do I calculate the mass (I'm noob I know ) and how do I determine the target mass?

Most blocks used in building a ship weight 0.1 of a ton, which means a ship mass is roughly it's block count divided by 10.
Target mass is easier to be determined by the most important module you have the least. For example, you only have 20k shield capacitors and 20k shield rechargers and you need to build a combat ship. In that case you summ them up for 40k shield blocks total. Since shields should consist no less than 30% of the ship's mass to give that ship sufficient combat durability, the target minimum block count of a ship is about 130k blocks or 13000 tons. For that ship you'd likely also gonna need:
10% power = 13,000 blocks of power = roughly 10k power capacitors and 3k power reactors for fine power supply.
10% thrust = 13,000 thrusters for efficient maneurability.
50% modular space = 65k of hull/armor, decoration, weapons, jump drive, defensive effects and sensors.

Applying that method for your present material stock would give you an idea of how big ship you can or can't build.

 

[TrainDodger]

How many blocks did your ship have in it? If I knew the approximate figure, I'd be able to tell you how many of those blocks should have been shield blocks.

I used to build under-shielded ships, too. But I quickly figured out that the ideal ratio of shields to everything else is from about a third of your ship's mass all the way up to nearly one-half, not including the mass of turrets or docked ships.

 

[Novalar]

Sorry i really have no idea, it was pretty quickly destroyed and I didn't really took the time to look everything up. However it's dimensions were arround 30 x 15 x 7

 

[CyberTao]

Ah, sounds like a small sized craft, could just build a hanger in the base for something that sized. The smaller the ship, the faster things can go from good to bad. Would've loved to have seen it, small ships always have a nice charm to them.

 

[Panpiper]

Additionaly, several turrets can be added to defend against missiles. It is also handy to have an AI block on your ship to make it work as a turret by itself, while you're away working on a station or factories.

The effectiveness of missile defense turrets depends on the AI difficulty setting on your server. If you are playing with an AI difficulty of easy or medium, do not bother with anti-missile turrets, they won't be able to hit their targets effectively enough. The same goes for offensive turrets. If the AI difficulty is easy or medium, do not put cannons or lasers or dumbfire missiles on turrets, they again won't be able to hit anything. On the other hand, homing missiles (50% missile, 50%damage beam) hit things just fine even on easy mode (while nothing can be done to shoot them down, making easy in some respects, much harder than hard).

Also, I would advise against putting your own ship on AI while you are away. I have been killed by my own ship doing that (probably a bug). More however, it will not only engage pirates it sees, it will pursue them, quite possibly taking your ship well out of your sight. I have one such ship 'somewhere' in my home sector.

 

[TrainDodger]

Sorry i really have no idea, it was pretty quickly destroyed and I didn't really took the time to look everything up. However it's dimensions were arround 30 x 15 x 7

Yep, that's a small fighter or gunship. Depending on how boxy it is, I'd say the mass was probably in the area of 50 to 150.

This means you should have roughly 10,000 to 20,000 shield capacity and 500 to 1000 regen to make it survivable for its weight class. My guess is that you had under 10,000 shields. That never lasts particularly long. Even the very small point-defense turrets on my dreadnought do 3,000 DPS, while the anti-fighter turrets do 15,000 DPS. Even a small number of stock AI pirates can overwhelm shields that weak in a matter of moments.

Small gunships of up to 250 mass can be useful in the right hands, dodging and weaving incoming fire, but when they're just sitting around unpiloted, they're basically cannon fodder. In my opinion, the ideal mass range for a personal exploration ship is 3,000 to 8,000 mass. Any larger, and you won't be able to make planetary landings. Any smaller, and your shields will be wiped out in mere moments the first time you run across another player or a pack of pirates.

 

[Groovrider]

Go for 30k shields with at least 3000 regen. Get 2-4 beefy beam missile turrets and make sure the have 3-5k shields each. With systems, power and capacity you're going to hit about 8-10k mass. You should be able to withstand a station barrage. Get a stop module or a docked lander for planets.

 

[Shadar]

Ah, sounds like a small sized craft, could just build a hanger in the base for something that sized. The smaller the ship, the faster things can go from good to bad. Would've loved to have seen it, small ships always have a nice charm to them.

I'm new to this game, as well, and have only been building small ships. The hanger method is what I've been using to keep them secure while away from the server. When I get enough resources to build a large ship, I'm thinking that a collection of turrets and drones may help to keep it safe.

 

[Novalar]

Go for 30k shields with at least 3000 regen. Get 2-4 beefy beam missile turrets and make sure the have 3-5k shields each. With systems, power and capacity you're going to hit about 8-10k mass. You should be able to withstand a station barrage. Get a stop module or a docked lander for planets.

What can i do with a shop module and what is a docked lander for planets?

 

[Panpiper]

A shop module allows you to sell stuff to other players on a multi-player server. You would be of course competing with the NPC shops, so generally it is not worth the bother.

A docked lander means basically carrying around a small ship docked to your big ship. The big ship cannot effectively land on a planet, but you use your small, docked ship as a shuttle so you can land on the planet with that.

 

[Novalar]

Ahh, I see! That is indeed a good idea
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Yep, that's a small fighter or gunship. Depending on how boxy it is, I'd say the mass was probably in the area of 50 to 150.

This means you should have roughly 10,000 to 20,000 shield capacity and 500 to 1000 regen to make it survivable for its weight class. My guess is that you had under 10,000 shields. That never lasts particularly long. Even the very small point-defense turrets on my dreadnought do 3,000 DPS, while the anti-fighter turrets do 15,000 DPS. Even a small number of stock AI pirates can overwhelm shields that weak in a matter of moments.

Small gunships of up to 250 mass can be useful in the right hands, dodging and weaving incoming fire, but when they're just sitting around unpiloted, they're basically cannon fodder. In my opinion, the ideal mass range for a personal exploration ship is 3,000 to 8,000 mass. Any larger, and you won't be able to make planetary landings. Any smaller, and your shields will be wiped out in mere moments the first time you run across another player or a pack of pirates.

But what are the lengths of such a ship? Because I'm having a pretty hard time trying to calculate how much blocks and therefor how much mass ill have?

 

[TrainDodger]

Ahh, I see! That is indeed a good idea
[DOUBLEPOST=1422284865,1422284778][/DOUBLEPOST]

But what are the lengths of such a ship? Because I'm having a pretty hard time trying to calculate how much blocks and therefor how much mass ill have?

For an idea of what to shoot for, check this out. I'm just putting the finishing touches on the Zauber Heavy Gunship. It needs some painting and detailing work, but other than that, the final version should only deviate slightly from these figures. These are its stats:

Mass: 464.1 (Blocks: 4641)
Length: 49m, Height: 9m;Width: 21m
Power: 50000.0/50000.0 (100668.1 e/sec)
Thrust: 1046.9; PowerCons: 538.0; (blocks: 538)
TurningSpeed: X-Axis: 1.7, Y-Axis: 2.6, Z-Axis: 1.3
Shields: 18190.0/18190.0 (2051.o s/sec); Blocks R/C: 373/373; PowerCons: 2051.0

It has four Cannon/Cannon guns putting out 2440 DPS at 60 damage per projectile, two slow-charging jumpdrives and the capability to infinitely jam (yes, even while thrusting ahead, firing weapons and recharging shields, which would consume approximately 93,000 e/sec). It even has a small interior with a bed and a lounge seat by the airlock. It is, by mass, only 1/6th shield blocks. Ideally, it should have more shields than this, not less, but it makes up for it to some extent with the jamming. It is intended as an anti-fighter/anti-drone platform, but could in theory be armed with missiles instead of cannons to make it into a Light Bomber.

Go for 30k shields with at least 3000 regen. Get 2-4 beefy beam missile turrets and make sure the have 3-5k shields each. With systems, power and capacity you're going to hit about 8-10k mass. You should be able to withstand a station barrage. Get a stop module or a docked lander for planets.

30k shields with 3000 regen on a ship with 8k to 10k mass is hilariously under-shielded. It should have at least ten times that much.

 

[Novalar]

For an idea of what to shoot for, check this out. I'm just putting the finishing touches on the Zauber Heavy Gunship. It needs some painting and detailing work, but other than that, the final version should only deviate slightly from these figures. These are its stats:

Mass: 464.1 (Blocks: 4641)
Length: 49m, Height: 9m;Width: 21m
Power: 50000.0/50000.0 (100668.1 e/sec)
Thrust: 1046.9; PowerCons: 538.0; (blocks: 538)
TurningSpeed: X-Axis: 1.7, Y-Axis: 2.6, Z-Axis: 1.3
Shields: 18190.0/18190.0 (2051.o s/sec); Blocks R/C: 373/373; PowerCons: 2051.0

It has four Cannon/Cannon guns putting out 2440 DPS at 60 damage per projectile, two slow-charging jumpdrives and the capability to infinitely jam (yes, even while thrusting ahead, firing weapons and recharging shields, which would consume approximately 93,000 e/sec). It even has a small interior with a bed and a lounge seat by the airlock. It is, by mass, only 1/6th shield blocks. Ideally, it should have more shields than this, not less, but it makes up for it to some extent with the jamming. It is intended as an anti-fighter/anti-drone platform, but could in theory be armed with missiles instead of cannons to make it into a Light Bomber.



30k shields with 3000 regen on a ship with 8k to 10k mass is hilariously under-shielded. It should have at least ten times that much.

But I pretty much liked the idea of having a exploration ship that will not be broken in some seconds, you said 3000 to 8000 mass but now you're going for 464 mass. Will such a sized ship have the same capabilities?

 

[Panpiper]

But I pretty much liked the idea of having a exploration ship that will not be broken in some seconds, you said 3000 to 8000 mass but now you're going for 464 mass. Will such a sized ship have the same capabilities?

Pirates typically come out in small squadrons. Unless you like dogfighting while outnumbered by similarly sized forces, I would recommend having a 5-10,000 mass ship for general purpose work. Give it missile/damage beam turrets to make killing pirates fairly automatic. Be aware though that pirates will target the turrets, so make sure they can take some fire without having to be repaired or replaced all the time.

Either that or a MUCH lighter permacloak ship that just hides all the time. It IS possible to build a perfectly serviceable mining ship that can perma-cloak. It does not look pretty though. ;-)