Craver Shipyards - Current project: Carrier. Daily updates!

[Eirich]

Welcome to Craver Shipyards, this is where I'll be showing you my designs and if anyone takes a fancy to any of them I'll make them available for download.

Before I get started with the designs I want to give an explanation to an abbrevation I'll be using every now and then:
PCT - Player Controllable Turret
But wait you say, ain't all turrets controllable by players? Sure they are, but the turrets I give the PCT label are designed with player control in mind and one of my requirements is that the turret should be completely manageable without the player ever having to leave the ship. The player should obviously also end up back in the ship when leaving the turret. Thus a PCT design effects both the turret and the ship it's intended to be mounted on.

Now on to the first design:
Missile Frigate Mk3
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlYlVpaEpBZXU5UFE/edit?usp=sharing
Mass: 545.7
Length: 76m
Heigth: 12m
Width: 36m
Power: 20 000 (13 025.2 e/sec)
Thrust: 366.8
Shield: 19 850.0 (962 s/sec)

Armament:
6x SD-BB Missiles, 38 blocks/array
3x SD-BB Missiles, 39 blocks/array
2x Small turrets
Shield: 3 227 (263 s/sec)
1x AMC, 12 blocks
4x Medium turrets
Shield: 3 990 (307 s/sec)
2x AMC, 17 blocks/gun
2x PCT
Shield: 9 593 (578 s/sec)
4x AMC, 16 blocks/gun
2x SD-BB Missiles, 36 blocks/array

Additional images:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlckdtLTlISWNyeW8/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlcFVfT1MxSGc2ZDA/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlLXRYa2ZoVXR5cm8/edit?usp=sharing

All my uploaded designs can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzBwd48DUtNlbGx0RXVKM0piRkU&usp=sharing


I'll soon post some WIP pics from my current project, a carrier with a decent fighter bay and a dock that would be capable of housing the above mentioned frigate if its core wasn't placed so far back..

 

[DeltaE93]

The frigate looks fantastic. I look forward to seeing the carrier project, and would love to compare it to my own WIP carrier. Also am iterested in how you set up your PCTs a concept I never got fully working (granted I didn\'t work at it for too long.)

 

[Eirich]

The frigate did turn out rather well and Mk3 I felt was worth sharing and get some feedback on.
Mk1 lookd very much like a shoebox with a commandbridge mounted on top, it was also less than half the size of the current one.
Mk2 looked very similar to Mk3, but instead of the two PCTs at the back it had two small hangars. Turned out to look just as elegant as attaching a big caravan to a sleek sports car..

And now on to some WIP pics of my carrier project.
The project was started early last week and I\'ve spent at least six hours a day working on it. Until this weekend I was only working on a prototype where I did a rough design of the fighter bay and the large dock plus a minimum of framework for the hull to determine where the core should be located on the actuall ship.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlNUVqZkl3ZEhEY1E/edit?usp=sharing
She is turing into quite the beast, currently measuring about 280m long, 250m wide and 50m high. She also passed the 2 500 mass mark yesterday. I\'m thinking about folding down the outer half the \'wings\' to a 45 degree angle, but we\'ll see about that.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlLUtSOEFNS0tEOFk/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlYk1BSjdlMHRUXzA/edit?usp=sharing
The fighter bay can house ten 17m long and 13m wide ships. (can\'t recall the maximum height atm)
I hope that will be large enough for some decently powerful craft.
On top of the fighter bay is the large dock, 91m long, 41m wide and about 18m high. Since chain docking ain\'t possible at the moment I\'ll most likely use it as a secure shipyard or let it house a large harvesting ship. Both the fighter bay and the upper dock will be protected by large doors in the end and will be guarded by PCTs.

That\'s it for now, I\'ll upload the blueprint for the frigate later today and I\'ll also show you how I\'ve designed the PCTs to make them work properly. This will most likely also include an update on my progress with the carrier.

 

[Winterhome]

I\'m absolutely loving this

 

[DeltaE93]

.Thanks for the update, the shape of the carrier looks great. The curves make it look rather sleek. And although I usually tend to avoid large wings those look like they\'ll fit the design quite well. Look forward to the PCTs and update.

 

[Eirich]

First off, here\'s the link to what will hopefully become a library of ship designs.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzBwd48DUtNlbGx0RXVKM0piRkU&usp=sharing
The link to this folder has been added to the first post as well. I might upload it to the ship section of the site once I figure out how, but they will always be available in that folder and there I can keep all my uploaded designs collected in one place.

When thinking about the PCT design I ended up asking myself what\'s the smallest design that fits my PCT criteria and here it is:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlR3Z5c2Utek5mWGc/edit?usp=sharing
It\'s completely useless and has no purpose at all, but if I remove any of the blocks from the turret or add a block in between the two platforms I will no longer end up under the turret dock when I leave the turret.
It\'s quite simple really, when you leave the turret the game searches outwards from the faces of the core to find the first valid area to place the player, thus you need two blocks on each face of the turret core (other than the bottom) in order to guarantee that the shortest distance is to the area below the turret dock.
Apparently the player requires at least a 3x2x3 area of free space below the dock in order for the game to recognise it as a valid exit point. This is pretty much all there is to designing a PCT, other than connecting the area below the turret to the rest of the ship and figuring out a good turret design.

And now to the carrier project update.
This is how she looks now after a few hours of work:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlci1lb3l1eFVoNnc/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlUnFDOEtYN1BiU3c/edit?usp=sharing
She has gained a bit of weight and is now past the 3 000 mass mark, her length has increased to 300 meters.
Does look a bit like an overgrown fighter, doesn\'t she?

After taking both a second and a third look at the wings I felt that, although they were a step in the right direction to break up a rather dull area of the ship, they didn\'t blend in properly with the rest of the curved features so I set out to smoothly bend the outer half downward at a 45 degree angle. Since almost all curves of the ship are done without the help of any tools (MS Paint has been used to shape the oval bottom of the stern and the circular engines) it took me a little while to get it right, but it was time well spent in the end.
I also added some basic framework to the wings to help the eyes fill in the currently hollow areas.
Here\'s a close up on the adjusted wing tips:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlMTJuYTZUS1hkRWM/edit?usp=sharing

The other large feature I spent some time on was the engine section.
It now consists of seven \'exhausts\' in an oval cluster with a reworked cover above and it actually looks like it could get her up to some decent speed. I fear she\'ll be about as agile as a hippo in a fridge though..
Never the less, it was a visual improvement and I think it will blend in nicely with the rest of the design.
I might have to make the cover a tad bit smoother in the end, but I doubt it.
Here\'s how it turned out:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlSDlhVDNPVWVnS2c/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlcTNLRW9OendMWG8/edit?usp=sharing

I\'ve also spent a little bit of time on the internal walkways, but nothing worth going into detail about.

To end this rather long post I thought I\'d include a three additional images from the build. Two with a focus on design elements and a third from an attempt getting my frigate into the upper dock.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlNFFRc3BiZmVyZ2s/edit?usp=sharing
This might give a hint to what the front section of the ship is going to look like in the end. The main transit you see in the pic is nine blocks wide and five blocks high (walls, floor and cieling included), plenty of space to walk on and big enough to look like an important route between the bridge and the rest of the ship.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlZld5R0FyQnpYMDA/edit?usp=sharing
Fighter bay entrance, currently the only part of the ship that has been prepared for PCTs. One will be mounted below each of the two protruding sections. From there they will be able to shoot at most things in front of and to the sides of the carrier while remaining fairly protected.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlR1JqTnVlZDNyY2c/edit?usp=sharing
And finally my attempt at getting the frigate into the upper dock. Turned out to be a bit easier than I expected but it\'s still a delicate manouvre since there ain\'t much margin of error. Sadly Mk3 will never be able to actually dock properly since, as I mentioned in my first post, the core of the frigate is mounted too far back.

That\'s it for this update. Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope you find it interesting and perhaps are able to steal a few ideas or just give me tips on how you think I should design certain areas of the ship.
More pics and progress will be posted tomorrow!
(Apologies for any funky spelling and wierd grammar, it became rather late before this post was finished)

 

[Eirich]

Todays update will be much shorter than the last one.
I\'ve spent a lot of time working on the hull of the main body. The upper half has finally gotten some framework and the bottom half has been redone to fit the other curves better.
The wings have been made thicker in order to be able to fit PCTs to them once they\'re done. I\'m sure they\'ll need a few more iterations before I\'m truly happy with how they connect to the rest of the ship though. Hopefully I\'ll have a first decent looking version of the thicker wings done tomorrow. I also plan on adding some more framework to the stern of the ship tomorrow.

Here\'s how she looks after todays work:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlbmtZYlBMR3BmeFk/edit?usp=sharing

 

[DeltaE93]

I like the overall design of the carrier, the shape reminds me of a turtle. the large shell that is the bulk of the craft, the narrower neck that expands into the helm of the ship and the fin like wings. All of which give it a natural look and feel. Also, has the carrier has been named?

And thank you for explaining the PCTs, I will now shamelessly steal the process for myself!

 

[Eirich]

It is turning out quite well, even though the smooth, organic shapes are a pain to get done right from time to time.
She is currently without a name. At the moment her only designation is Carrier Mk1, but she will recieve a proper name at some stage during the construction. I\'d happily consider any suggestions I can get.

I hope your PCT designs will turn out well and I wouldn\'t mind seeing the results when you\'re done.

 

[Eirich]

Had quite a bit of an accident today. When I tried to make a back up save of the carrier it turned out I had ran out of space on the computer and the file got corrupted due to that.
Even worse, the actuall carrier vanished in the process so all progress has been lost I\'m afraid.
I\'ll start recreating it today and it won\'t take too long to reach the state it was in before the accident, not more than a few days.

 

[mdingrimsby]

I appreciate the effort this has taken. I hope you were able to re build it.

 

[BigD145]

When people scream at you about releasing the ship files for download they are really encouraging you to backup your files online.... Yeah, that\'s it.

 

[Eirich]

The cause of the corruption seem to have been a lack of disc space.
Ships saved before the carrier seem to be rather fine, but the turrets on the frigate seem to be broken.
I\'ll fix that and upload a new version of it later today along with the new shield stats.

 

[Eirich]

So, as you can see from my previous posts the carrier was sadly lost to a corrupted file.
I\'ve gone through all my saved designs to see how bad the damage was and it turns out that the uploaded frigate had been affected to some degree, a few of the turret files had suffered damage.
That\'s what I\'ve been fixing today. A new version of the Missile Frigate Mk3 has been uploaded and the stats in the first post has been updated to post patch shield stats. I redesigned the frontal turrets to have a bit more bite and the PCTs also got adjusted a bit. The cannons got two additional blocks each and the missile pods were fused together with the turret body to match the geometry of the ship a bit better.
(The overview image of the frigate has also been updated)

I\'ve also started the work of recreating the carrier from scratch. If it wasn\'t for all the screenshots I\'ve taken for the purpose of showing in this thread I\'m sure I would\'ve been forced to try a completely new design.
It will take some time to get back to where I was though, but with a bit of luck I should\'ve recreated most of it by sunday evening.

Here\'s what half an hours worth of late work looks like:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlVm4zV2kwcG9SYjQ/edit?usp=sharing

That\'s it for today, more progress (hopefully) awaits tomorrow!

 

[DeltaE93]

sorry to hear about the corruption of the file, hate to hear about the set back. as for my own PCTs, the turret docking has gone a little bonkers for me and no matter how large the docking area, according to the game no ship fits, so my turrets are currently on the backburner until the rest of the ship is finished, but I\'d be happy to share the design when I finish them.

as for a name, I like Chelone. But Ao, or Gamera are good too. All of which are worth a google.(Im going with the turtle theme.)

 

[Eirich]

Good news!
Seven hours ago I decided to make a serious attempt to restore as much as possible during the evening. (I\'m located in Sweden, so at the time of writing this it\'s roughly 02:00 am)
I plugged in the headset and turned on some rock opera to be able to keep up my concentration and now that I\'m about to call it a night I\'m almost at the point where I was before the corruption occured!

A few of the curves have been modified and the large dock somehow ended up slightly further back than in the first build. It actually looks a tad bit sleeker than it used to, despite the fact that no measurements have changed.

Her current state:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlYnhveTNCYXBWUmM/edit?usp=sharing

Tomorrow the project will be moving forward once more!

 

[Eirich]

After another day of progress I\'ve finally completed all the major framework, although some small adjustments might occur when I start the final work with wedges.
Merging some of the curves turned out to be more of a pain than I first thought. The front section proved quite the challenge, as did the lower joining between hull and wings.

Here\'s how she ended up looking at the end of the day:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlOXlfb0NTZHg4Snc/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzBwd48DUtNlZlFoS2lFX0J0dFk/edit?usp=sharing

Measurements:
Length: 300m
Width: 260m
Heigth: 48m

Regarding her name I\'m starting to think along the same lines as DeltaE93, something turtle related might suit her very well. I won\'t decide on a name quite yet though as my head is still occupied with going over possible design elements and features, but I am going to add a name to the list of candidates.

A\'Tuin, the name of the great turtle from the book series about the discworld by Terry Pratchett.
Upon her back she carries four elephants who in turn carries the world.

This name might fit better on a mothership classed vessel though.

I\'ll start to work on the interior tomorrow and I\'ve come up with additional features that I might add:
-- A recreational deck, basically a piece of a temperate planet in a big room with coverable glass ceiling behind the large upper dock.
-- A small dock at the lower back of the front section capable of housing a small shuttle in order to reduce the ammount of time it will take to reach the ship core.

If you got any suggestions, questions or thoughts regarding this project then feel free to contact me in any way you deem suitable.

That\'s it for this update.
Hope you\'re enjoying this as much as I am!

 

[Eirich]

Sorry guys, no new pictures today.
I\'ve started the work on the internal structure and added all docking modules to the bays. Most of the day has been spent planning what rooms I want where and how I should go about connecting all the areas in a way that\'s easy to navigate and still save space for other internal structures.

I did upload the project to the server of a friend of mine and it was really nice to hear some first hand thoughts about the design.
He did have some ideas that, even though they would\'ve increased the combat capabillity of the ship, didn\'t appeal much to me. This mostly concerned the posibillity of filling the floor and ceiling of the manouver channel that connects the fighter docks with the outside world with docking ports for drones. Although it would be possible to fit roughly 160 drones in there I still prefer to keep that area clean and retain the higher ammount of manouver space for the fighters. I also didn\'t design the ship with a large ammount of drones in mind, might do a dedicated design for it in the future though.

Tomorrow there should be pictures once more. I might finish a fighter dock just to see what you have to say about the design, other than that I\'ll keep constructing walk ways and basic framework for some different rooms.

 

[JustSpawned]

I like your Missle Frigate. might wish to apply it to be animated @ http://star-made.org/content/animated-voxel-ships-your-ships-wanted-showcase ?

 

[Trollerbobman]

Post some download links, when you do, im deffinately downloading!