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ComCardinal's Community Convoy Escort Contest - Spring 2025
What is it:
A contest to design the best convoy escort ship in both form and function on the current STABLE build of StarMade.
What is a "convoy escort ship" you may ask? While technically any ship with sufficient firepower could escort a convoy, I'm looking for something more purpose-built to that task. In the real world, both world wars saw the construction and use of extensive classes of dedicated escort craft, a list of which can be found here. Other solutions were devised to deal with shipping raids as well; the construction of Q-ships (innocuous looking cargo ships which were secretly armored and filled with weapons that would bait out enemy attacks to destroy the attacking vessels) is one such example. There are plenty of reasons in the real world why you would want purpose built escorts, and many of these reasons also apply to StarMade. Sending a battleship to escort a series of freighters, for example, would seem to be a poor allocation of resources, unless you KNOW there will be a full armada of enemy ships opposing you, at which point the "escort" part of this is secondary and the "battle" part becomes primary.
So, what characteristics define a good convoy escort ship?
- Cost effective: it should be readily manufacturable, and loss of one of these ships should not break the bank.
- Good detection: it should be able to detect stealthy enemy ships that may seek to threaten the convoy - cloaking ships are basically the U-boats of space, after all!
- Decent speed: if it can't keep up with the convoy, it's absolutely worthless. It should also be capable of going a decent bit faster than the convoy, so it can rush ahead to intercept threats.
- Strong missile defense: Raiding ships may be equipped with a lot of missiles, and while the escort may have shields to tank it, ideally it'll dispose of those missiles before they can threaten the convoy
- Versatility of weapons: Convoys are most likely to be attacked by pirates in peacetime or relatively small dedicated raiding vessels during wartime; having weapons suited to dealing with a wide variety of threats (from fighters to small frigates), and especially a large quantity of threats (a swarm of fighters may not present a threat to a serious warship, but could present a threat to a convoy of ships, and if the escort cannot deal with enough of them quickly enough, they may cause damage) is vital to performing effective escort.
- Decent crew facilities: Convoys can sometimes travel far distances and take a while to get there; having decent accommodations for a crew is useful to keeping them mission-effective.
When is it:
From now until the linked timestamp I'll be taking submissions: StarMade Convoy Escort Contest
Review will happen at some time after that (probably within the day, but we'll see). At that point, scoring will begin, however I will continue to accept any submissions which come in before I release final scores. Try not to rely on this if you can help it, but this will give those of you running behind a little bit of slush time to try to finish in.
How to submit:
Submissions can be sent to me as links to StarMade Dock postings or as direct submissions through Discord (I can be found on the StarMade Discord without too much work, probably). Dock submissions can be sent directly to me on the Dock here or added as replies/comments to this thread. It should probably go without saying that submissions of "classified" ships may not be wise, though I don't think anyone considers a convoy escort particularly groundbreaking or key to their fleet composition.
How many submissions:
You can submit as many ships as you want, however depending on the number of submissions we get, I may only review the first two, so make those your best.
Are there any build limitations:
Players tend to have pretty different ideas of scale they operate within. As such, I'm reluctant to set any hard limitations, especially in terms of size, but the bigger the ship, the more it will cost. Cost will be a major deciding factor in score, and will be determined primarily by the "price" found in the catalogue on the main menu. While I won't restrict you from going above this, I think having a price above 15,000,000 starts getting into guaranteed score loss territory, scaling proportionate to the overrun. I will be inclined to waive this if your ship features some sort of onboard fighters or carrier capabilities; that's inherently big and a bit more expensive, but that cost is technically in the fighters more than the ship itself, so it seems more reasonable. I'd also waive this if you are going for a Q Ship modification of an existing freighter, since that might be quite big/expensive for the cargo capacity, but not expensive relative to the freighter's cost itself. If you have questions or want clarification this, I'd be happy to try to assist.
I'd LIKE all builds to have RP-friendly interiors as well as systems, but I understand not everyone enjoys doing both. You probably won't get quite as high a score as someone that pulls off both, but you won't be disqualified for not having one or the other.
I also won't prohibit the submission of already constructed ships or designs. I will favor original ships over science fiction/other IP replicas, but I won't disqualify those either.
How will it be judged:
I will be evaluating both aesthetics and function. It will be judged by me, more or less subjectively. If you don't like my ratings, too bad, go host your own contest.
What is the prize:
A pat on the back and bragging rights!
How will results be revealed:
I'll likely make posts on the Dock or Discord (or both) going over my reviews and announcing the top three winners. No videos from me, sorry. For my fighter contest, I created a spreadsheet for each category measured and went from there; if you would like, I can share those values more directly. I am tempted to go with shorter reviews for each ship this time, but if you all really liked the details I included last time, I can try for that again. Please let me know!
Any other questions can be asked directly!
Bonus note: Submitting with nice pictures, lore, description, and "marketing" might give a better first impression and improve your score!
Good luck, everyone!
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