So I did a test, I kinda felt like the ship was too flat overall, so I decided to try and flip the whole back section sideways to give it volume. It looks... interesting. I kinda like it, will need some heavy modifications however, since at the moment the back looks way too wide/bulky in that orientation. Might be that the angle right after the rings looks too steep. Anyways, here's what it looks like with the back simply flipped:
What do you guys think (keeping in mind this isn't final in any way shape or form)?
Edit:
I added in the old wings to get a rough idea of what the final product's shape will look like.
Oh my god it did, I never realized! The running gag is always that it's a giant flying tuning fork, but it was even more a giant chromosome before I flipped the back! In any case, I modified the shape of the back. It's a lot sleeker now (very slightly longer too):The original, with all of its many merits, looks a bit too much like a giant chromosome.
stop making all these sexy thingsUpdate #5: New medium turret
Presenting, the M5 turret:
This turret will replace the old M3 turret (the one with the big barrels) as the ship's anti-medium-stuff defense. As you can see, it will use beams as it's weapon, in order to properly hit smaller and nimbler targets. It has 360 degrees range of motion, meaning it'll never collide with the ship and get stuck. Before you ask, yes, the ball is floating. I felt like this fit well with the ship's futuristic style, much better than the old turrets in any case.
Now, the fun part, this turret will be the first feature of the ship to incorporate battle mode. Battle mode will essentially be a mode that can be toggled on/off and that will induce transformations through out the ship. As the name indicates, it'll be for combat situations.
The picture above shows what the turret looks like when battle mode is turned on, here's what it looks like when it's off:
Doesn't look like a turret at all, right? The idea was to have seemingly inconspicuous features on the ship turn into weapons or stuff like that when battle mode is on. So for example, the super weapon will only "deploy" when battle mode is activated, the engines will go into overdrive, etc... For the turret, this is what the transition between the "on" and "off" states looks like (accelerated 2x):
And yes, there is animated lightning, because I can. (normal speed):
On the systems side, the turret will contain around 5-6k weapon blocks. I have not put them in yet since the configs are still in a state of change. I did however put in the enhancers (more on that below). For armor, the ball has at least 3-4 layers of armor on each side. The "socket" of the turret is 3-4 armor thick, and the surroundings is pretty thick as well. The turret base, which is located under the ball, is protected by a dual layer of forcefields and 3 layers of armor.
It took quite a bit of logic and rail engineering to make this thing. If you're interested in how I made it, then read on in the spoiler below:
For starters, I wanted the base of the turret to be inside the main ship, in order to maximize the amount of weapon blocks I could put inside the ball, and to reduce the risk of the turret dock being shot off. The only part of the base that is inside the ball is the turret dock, with the entire ball being the "weapons" portion of the turret. The enhancers for the base are located in a ring that goes all the way around the socket, and that has barely enough clearance to rotate without hitting anything (when the turret is in "on" mode, otherwise it's blocked and can't rotate). That way the enhancers and the turret base have full benefit from the main ship's armor protection. It also enables the whole assembly to be as compact as possible height wise, otherwise it wouldn't fit in the ship (since there will be 2 turrets opposite each other in every location).
The reason for the forcefield at the bottom of the turret's socket is to protect the turret base. I could not make it any lower unfortunately, since I don't have enough vertical space in the ship to make it fully underneath the socket (since it needs space to move up/down). Here's the "base" highlighted when the turret is deployed:
As you can see, the forcefield also serves to hide the small gap between the turret base and the turret socket :P. Here's where the base is located when the turret is in "off" position:
As you can see it got lowered into the ship along with the rest of the turret. Right below the base's ring of enhancers is a second ring that belongs to the rail that does the up/down motion, since these are needed to enhance the turret base's movement.
Finally, there's quite a bit of logic that went into this. I won't get into details, but I used the rails to provide the timing for the logic, meaning that if there's server lag and the rails slow down, the timing is still respected. There's also some other features for input spam protection, randomizing the lightning strikes, etc... In the following image you can see all the logic, the underside of the turret base's center, and the "elevator's" ring of mass enhancers:
If you have any further questions, just let me know and I'll answer to the best of my ability!
That's it for today, hope you like it! Next I'll probably work on detailing and overall finishing the back of the ship.
I'll keep this simple.Update #5: New medium turret
Presenting, the M5 turret:
This turret will replace the old M3 turret (the one with the big barrels) as the ship's anti-medium-stuff defense. As you can see, it will use beams as it's weapon, in order to properly hit smaller and nimbler targets. It has 360 degrees range of motion, meaning it'll never collide with the ship and get stuck. Before you ask, yes, the ball is floating. I felt like this fit well with the ship's futuristic style, much better than the old turrets in any case.
Now, the fun part, this turret will be the first feature of the ship to incorporate battle mode. Battle mode will essentially be a mode that can be toggled on/off and that will induce transformations through out the ship. As the name indicates, it'll be for combat situations.
The picture above shows what the turret looks like when battle mode is turned on, here's what it looks like when it's off:
Doesn't look like a turret at all, right? The idea was to have seemingly inconspicuous features on the ship turn into weapons or stuff like that when battle mode is on. So for example, the super weapon will only "deploy" when battle mode is activated, the engines will go into overdrive, etc... For the turret, this is what the transition between the "on" and "off" states looks like (accelerated 2x):
And yes, there is animated lightning, because I can. (normal speed):
On the systems side, the turret will contain around 5-6k weapon blocks. I have not put them in yet since the configs are still in a state of change. I did however put in the enhancers (more on that below). For armor, the ball has at least 3-4 layers of armor on each side. The "socket" of the turret is 3-4 armor thick, and the surroundings is pretty thick as well. The turret base, which is located under the ball, is protected by a dual layer of forcefields and 3 layers of armor.
It took quite a bit of logic and rail engineering to make this thing. If you're interested in how I made it, then read on in the spoiler below:
For starters, I wanted the base of the turret to be inside the main ship, in order to maximize the amount of weapon blocks I could put inside the ball, and to reduce the risk of the turret dock being shot off. The only part of the base that is inside the ball is the turret dock, with the entire ball being the "weapons" portion of the turret. The enhancers for the base are located in a ring that goes all the way around the socket, and that has barely enough clearance to rotate without hitting anything (when the turret is in "on" mode, otherwise it's blocked and can't rotate). That way the enhancers and the turret base have full benefit from the main ship's armor protection. It also enables the whole assembly to be as compact as possible height wise, otherwise it wouldn't fit in the ship (since there will be 2 turrets opposite each other in every location).
The reason for the forcefield at the bottom of the turret's socket is to protect the turret base. I could not make it any lower unfortunately, since I don't have enough vertical space in the ship to make it fully underneath the socket (since it needs space to move up/down). Here's the "base" highlighted when the turret is deployed:
As you can see, the forcefield also serves to hide the small gap between the turret base and the turret socket :P. Here's where the base is located when the turret is in "off" position:
As you can see it got lowered into the ship along with the rest of the turret. Right below the base's ring of enhancers is a second ring that belongs to the rail that does the up/down motion, since these are needed to enhance the turret base's movement.
Finally, there's quite a bit of logic that went into this. I won't get into details, but I used the rails to provide the timing for the logic, meaning that if there's server lag and the rails slow down, the timing is still respected. There's also some other features for input spam protection, randomizing the lightning strikes, etc... In the following image you can see all the logic, the underside of the turret base's center, and the "elevator's" ring of mass enhancers:
If you have any further questions, just let me know and I'll answer to the best of my ability!
That's it for today, hope you like it! Next I'll probably work on detailing and overall finishing the back of the ship.
I refusestop making all these sexy things
Fine! I was going to eventually anyways haha