CYBERSPACE SHIPYARDS

[MChain]

Whoah, looking very nice!

BTW, instead of mounting construction equipment inside the tubes, you could mount it in recesses and add decorative rails for them to look like they can "move" inside the tube during construction. This way you can keep the whole assembly area and still add assembly equipment props.

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

Whoah, looking very nice!

BTW, instead of mounting construction equipment inside the tubes, you could mount it in recesses and add decorative rails for them to look like they can "move" inside the tube during construction. This way you can keep the whole assembly area and still add assembly equipment props.

Good idea! - I will do it like that then, and perhaps even make those rails actually functional (so that when players will be using those shipyards to build smaller ships, they could bring in the machinery for the extra industrial feel of it)

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #32​

A week ago, after 200 downloads of the original, I uploaded the first update of Quasar E77 - The Mysterious Science Station.
It's now as fresh as 2019 and the morning snow, so let me invite you all a second time for some fun:

Do you have an explorer's or detective's spirit? - Then you will love Quasar E77!​

The main focus of this station is interior exploration, and I've put quite some thought and effort into making it worth it. If you are explorative enough, there will come several points where you will face something odd, fishy or worrisome. To prepare for such moments, let's just say that certain things "might" be just the first layer of strangeness, with a second (or perhaps even a third) layer residing much closer than you would think upon first glance. Being attentive and caring to search will bring major rewards!

To give a rough idea of what to expect, if you find the most sinister part of the station (and there are many), no less than three layers of spine-chilling strangeness will lead you to face (and I mean face-to-face) either monstrously drooling jaws, or... who knows?

CHALLENGE: find the 16 suspicious strangers hiding throughout the station - listen to what they "say", take it with a grain of salt, and find out the true reason of why they are hiding - depending on your investigative skills, you may discover that there are actually two equally worrisome reasons for their hiding.

CLUE: find the visiting corporate executive's room in the private rooms corridor of the habitation section - the email left open on his computer's display has an unmistakable reference to the station's biggest hidden secret - the backbone of the station's lore narrative, which overaches the secondary storyline of the hiding strangers.

I would be really-really curious to know if someone managed to find the BIGGEST SECRET. Please share your impressions and tell me and others about your discoveries in the reviews

 

[Gasboy]

Love the binary system in the background. :D

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #33​

Remember when I said this:

I had a spark of inspiration: AN ALIEN STATION! - I personally didn't see that done in StarMade before.

But then I asked myself, what would make an alien station fun besides looking alien? - Well, maybe something I already wished to include one day in a station project: A DEFENSE FLEET!

And thus a pretty ambitious plan has born:

• huge purple station...
• green glow emitting from everywhere...
• a set of huge glass capsules attached somewhere...
• insectile AI drone ships asleep in the liquid content of said capsules, like in the "Matrix", except it will be the machines who are encapsulated this time around...
• until a decrease in shields is sensed, at which point the capsule lids burst open, the AI drones "wake up", fly out, open their buggy armor, start flapping/spinning their wings, and attack the enemy!

The only things remaining unrealized from that very ambitious plan are the green-glowing huge purple station and its shield sensor system.

I finally revisited this project and made the capsule for the drone. And just as the drone, the capsule already has all of its rail-and-logic stuff installed, and is thus able to perform all the functions mentioned above. And since the whole capsule is a ship entity, fitting around ten of these on the yet-to-be-started station will be very easy (no need to copy-paste in multiple sections, or to reconnect logic, or to redock the drones and the lids).

The only problem with it is that it contains ~160,000 water blocks... Which cause lag when the drone moves through the juice... But they also fix the ugly transparency you can see at the ends, where there's no liquid.

Spoiler: Also...

Whoever dares to mention that it looks like a dildo can inject a 125-meter alien wasp into their butt

 

[klawxx]

Spoiler: Also...

Whoever dares to mention that it looks like a dildo can inject a 125-meter alien wasp into their butt

View attachment 52640 View attachment 52641 View attachment 52642

It does not look like the aforementioned, but I would make those 4 horizontal bars (that hold the entire thing together) actually 6 sided.
1 more in symmetry mode right in the middle of each side... Just IMO... Otherwise it's a very cool looking chrysalid thingie.

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

I would make those 4 horizontal bars (that hold the entire thing together) actually 6 sided.
1 more in symmetry mode right in the middle of each side.

I too thought that it should look a little more rigid... It would be easy to add two more of those dark grey rods to the left end right side, but I would prefer if the view from the sides would be obstructed as little as possible. So that those who will stumble upon the station to which such capsules will be attached, could easily see as much detail of the drones as possible.

And even those green octagonal rings made it feel a little less capsule-ish and a little more shipyard-y for me, but they were necessary, since it felt like anything that wouldn't connect those four grey rods together, wouldn't be sturdy enough to serve as the capsule's main connection to the station's framework trusses.

Otherwise it's a very cool looking chrysalid thingie.

Thanks, happy to hear that you find it appealing... Also, thanks for the "chrysalid" word, didn't know they were called that in biology

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #34​

I told you it will be easy to work with these capsules, thanks to the fact that they're ship entities, not templates... Almost finished with this.

This is still NOT the "Hive" station that I daydreamed-aloud about before. It's just an "alien target practice" thing. Wanted to make a prototype before the real thing, partially to make sure the general concept works, but mostly cause I want to see these things in action so much.

Already have the shield sensor system down on paper, to the last detail, and I believe it will conduce to really fun PvE play. (Also, I decided to remove the water from the capsules to drastically improve performance, and the crystal armor transparency isn't that bad this way either.)

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #35​

Finished and published the subject of the last two progress update posts: ALIEN TARGET PRACTICE - Kill the wasps before you kill the hive!

This "alien target practice" structure was meant as a prototype of my original plan, but we can consider it the real deal.

I'm still fond of the idea of a larger and much more elaborate "alien hive" station that would feature much more appealingly weird and alien-vibey interior spaces... But what we already have here satisfies each and every point of the original plan, and I'd rather not spend time on something basically the same but one-uped.

Also, an "announcement":​

Besides "The Hive" project, every still unfinished work-in-progress I ever shown and every potential future project I ever mentioned, older and more recent ones alike, can be considered officially cancelled, unless at some future point some renewed inspiration will resurrect one or more of them from Development Hell (seems unlikely ATM).

It didn't take much reflection to realise that StarMade, even when played like I usually do, as a harmless creative hobby of sometimes awesome results, became somewhat of a hindrance in my life, due to my obsessive personality, pathological perfectionism and escapist tendencies.

StarMade as a creative outlet, and SMD as a means of gathering feedback and interacting with others, were beneficial for me at many times, but major time-killers mostly. So I decided to try to cut back: re-organized my project archive, re-categorized every WIP to simply "unfinished", and emptied my to-do list by updating my CC resources that were worthy of fixing/modernizing.

Ideally, I would be away until the Universe Update teasers. Realistically, though, I'll probably relapse several times, but will try to limit things to low-effort building, and will certainly not waste more time on old stagnant projects. Same goes to visiting/being active on SMD.

It became an addiction for me, and I aim to minimize my indulgence in it... Wish me luck

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #36​

Been a while... Like two months, until I got inspired again... And like often, it was by something that our crazy genius Tshara made:
awesome method of ship design!

Here's how I copycat-ed his innovative approach:


1) Build a non-functional miniature model of whatever type of ship you wish to make:



2) Build a scaled-up set of the basic block shapes, with the desired size of the final ship in mind:
(These are of 1-to-11 scale, and have all but their key faces made out of rock, so that you can choose to either easily remove the covered and unneeded faces with the Remove filter tool, or to turn the exposed and needed faces into your chosen hull material with the Replace filter tool.)



3) Use your scaled-up block templates to recreate the miniature model in full size:
(It all was a day's work. Never made a hull this fast. Still needs a hella lot of repainting and detailing. I'm calling it "Orcinus" for now.)

 

[Gasboy]

Fell off the wagon again, eh? :P

 

[Tshara]

It sort of reminds me of a fish with a frowned brow. Very unique silhouette that way.

Now I’m imagining an actual fish with rockets strapped to its fins…. My mind is a strange place…

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

Fell off the wagon again, eh? :P

Yes indeed. This terrible affliction that is StarMade addiction has too strong a grasp on me

Jokes aside, it was nice to dive right into a larger project after even a little time of inactivity.

It sort of reminds me of a fish with a frowned brow. Very unique silhouette that way.

Now I’m imagining an actual fish with rockets strapped to its fins…. My mind is a strange place…

I know right? Its overall form accidentally turned out in a way that it reminded me too of some fish.

I added the lateral and dorsal fin thingies later to fit with its fishiness... Or actually, let's say "sea-mammal-ness", because its "Orcinus" name refers to killer whales

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #37​

This project is progressing pretty rapidly... Probably because I'm not really paying the usual amount of attention to aesthetics and functionality.

Its main merits so far are its fun killer whale form, its overkill engines, and the fact that it's the first thing I ever built with this "recreate a miniature model with scaled-up block templates" technique.

Glad that I finally found a good use for a gargantuan engine pod template I had for a while. Four of them are built on the ship itself, another four on a diagonally docked entity, and then some more in the middle to be sure. I'm planning to give them some nice startup lighting animation too.

Also made some turrets: four larger ones with 10,000-module simple beams each, plus four smaller ones with 5,000-module beams.

 

[Tshara]

Those are some sweet engines.

 

[jayman38]

Awesome! But you might need MORE ENGINE! What was that? I couldn't hear you over the roar of your engines!

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

Awesome! But you might need MORE ENGINE! What was that? I couldn't hear you over the roar of your engines!

To tell the truth, as the project progresses, I'm getting more and more worried that this cruiser will end up being slower than a fighter

If only we had KSP-style 8-way radial symmetry, so that I could slap on a few dozen more of those engines a little less painfully!

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #38​

I decided, in record time, to shelve the ship shown in the last couple of progress updates. It was more of a "let's build something just to try this recreate-a-miniature-model-with-enlarged-block-templates technique" anyway. I mostly like what was built on it so far, but it's too lacking in elegance, shape and color wise, to continue working on it, at least for now.

Instead I'm planning to start a steampunk station project: copper gears and pipes everywhere, a vast, cozy Victorian interior, and all that good stuff.


Meanwhile, I made these:


DOWNLOAD: Gator-class patrol corvette

DOWNLOAD: Gator patrol corvette quintet

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #39​

After 600 downloads of the original version, I finally updated my first serious shipyard station.

It was about time, because the first time I promised that it will be refitted with new systems was at the 400 downloads mark.

It has been for a long time, and still is, my most popular StarMade creation, so expect to see care put into this update.

It was really fun to modernize this dusty old industrial station, not only by making it functional again systems-wise, but by bringing it up to my evolved aesthetic standards that have came about in the two years since I last touched this.


HERE IT IS: PetroFlux H56 Refueling & Repair Station

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

PROGRESS UPDATE POST #40​

Did some exceptionally fruitful building yesterday. I thought it would worth saying a few words about the methodology, because it's probably very rare for a fairly complex structure of 850 x 300 x 850 dimensions (and already 1.5 million blocks) to be put together in as little as 3 hours and so effortlessly.


But first off, let me get out the skeletons from my closet: I must admit at this point that I'm an awful shipyard station abandoner. I basically have a whole graveyard of shipyards, all abandoned in their early skeletal phase. Here they are in chronological order (ask if you would like me to send you any of them):



Sad to have to leave behind such good work, but fortunately, I've identified the root causes of failure/demotivation:

1. Firstly, underestimation of scale (eg. trussy frameworks tend to not work at titanic sizes).
2. Secondly, messed up layout of large parts (when you build big, you can't just cut off eg. a poorly placed shipyard and slap it somewhere else where it's in better harmony in relation to other key parts of your station).
3. And perhaps most importantly, there's something we could call the "psychology of architecture". (Ever felt acrophobic because, in space, there's 46.5 billion lightyears below your feet? Ever felt agoraphobic because, in space, you're smack-in-the-middle of the void, with a potential for asteroid impacts or pirate attacks from literally any direction? Ever felt claustrophobic due to being imprisoned inside a bubble of metal and plastic? - You get the idea, such factors have to be architecturally mitigated to achieve an ideal vibe for a station.)

So here's my most recent attempt at solving these issues:

1. Build with upscaled block templates (11 x 11 x 11 in this case; you get sizable results in minutes; can't go wrong with them)
2. Start with a miniature model (you can figure out the ideal overall arrangement of key parts before stepping onto more effortful scales)
3. Have a watertight bowl at the bottom and a transparent dome at the top (ie. some non-flat landmass below your feet + some shielding see-through material above your head = perfection, kinda like Earth, right?)