Dannage Fleetyards: Poor Advice For Noobs

Dannage · Apr 26, 2015

Hello peeps.

I have been playing SM for a few months on and off, and started many ships, but then got bored and lonely in my little sandbox and have been wanting to join a server for a little while. It's just figuring out which one to join, as I'd like a light RP and mainly PVE not PVP (Who wants to watch 6 week's of work get obliterated in ne shot?!) ad the internet connection where I'm staying atm is a bit... sketchy...

But it occurred to me, I should try and fashion a bit of a reputation first, as perhaps not the worst and dumbest user out there.... I may not succeed on the dumb front. In conjunction with this, I'm seeing a lot of people who have recently got the games seem to wonder why they haven't been able to build that Titan in week one, and think they are lame builder because they only found 25 blocks...

So I figured I'd go through a lifetime on my own server (to force me to finish a build or two) and let the other noobs see how not to do it. Expect to see as many posts from other people telling me I'm dumb, as there are of me discussing my ships. :eek:

[DOUBLEPOST=1430047183,1430045168][/DOUBLEPOST]Starting out:

Day 1, Ship 1: The Salvage Skiff. I needn't really have bothered buying any hull, since the first ship would be completely wiped before long, but I decided to go into the shop and use up all my money anyway. Got to a total of 40 salvage units, which I put in 8 sets.

It is not pretty, it is not enclosed, but it strip mined an asteroid in but a few minutes. I slaved a cannon computer and 14 of your starting cannon barrels to improve recharge time by 30%.

Also has an astromech beam, to remind me that this will become my all round utility ship in the future. Only other thing I bought was another 8 power generators. Even with 40 salvage beams, didn't lose an ounce of power, so this was more than enough for your starting ship.

Dannage · Apr 26, 2015

After just one asteroid you get a healthy amount of cash. I've also realised asteroids respawn, piece by piece now, which I think is an epic idea... Only I'll never clean this home sector up.

Haven't spent all the cash from asteroid 1. Still not -that- fussed about aesthetics, since I've still got one or two more levels of growth to give this before I turn it into a 'ship'

Still not fully enclosed (At the moment that doesn't matter, but to all you new people wondering why you start off with a space helmt, I believe a future update is promised which evacuates the air out of your lungs! (And your ship if it's not enclosed)

After a second asteroid I have plenty of cash left over, even after buying another 40 salvage units, 26 more cannons and 12 more power generators (I did start to lose power) but generally all I'm doing here is putting more salvage points and extending the barrels to make them more effective. I have also increased the number of barrels.

I'll take out two more asteroids, then I'll build her into a starter ship.

Dannage · Apr 27, 2015

5 hours of play later, and your ship may well get to the 'fugly' stage. I have an idea of a design, based on a drawing I did 17 years or so ago, but my main concern is mining enough to get enough cash for shields, whilst trying to get an outline sorted for the ship, and getting more salvage cannons so I can mine a bit quicker...

At this stage, she has a miniscule point defense turret on top, and no decent weaponry to defend herself, but her aim is to avoid pirates!

Current stats, are:

Mass: 135
Power: 121674
Charge: 20074/sec
Thrust: 104
Shields: 11387 (I'll aim for 50k before I stop checking radar every five seconds for pirates!)
ShieldCharge: 517/sec (I'll aim to get this to about 1k)

Dannage · Apr 29, 2015

Every couple of asteroids, she gets a few extra blocks. Yesterday I did things like work, and shopping so there wasn't much time, but I found a couple of big asteroids, so far not found any pirates (huzzah!) and managed to up my shields to 25k and the recharge to 770. My overall power recharge now up to 34k, so I shouldn't run into any power problems.

So far, still only the (slightly improved) cannon turret and 6 tiny single unit missile launchers. Any insects had better watch out around me, cos those babies home...

Still, it's nice to have a nose cone. I think two more asteroids and I'll be building the 'people' part of the ship... Just need to find a new shop (I'm doing this example without using admin commands!)

Dannage · Apr 30, 2015

So, a couple of days in (assuming you don't play for long each day) and you will find yourself at a loss. Mainly because doesn't matter how much you mine, the shops you can find are all empty, at least of that hull you're buyin up...

And you end up with still gaping holes in your ship.

But then, you finally think... Hey, could I take on a pirate? And rather than take on a station, you spawn a single Isanth VI. You watch your turret peck away at him, then you get out of range and fire off your ridiculously slow charging missiles. Two shots in and his core is overheating, then you fly in and scoop up pots of loot and salvage what's left of his ship from under him... Mwuha hah haaa... The guy gave up 560 shield units... tee hee...

till haven't placed them all, but now got 52k shields (Only a 902 recharge rate though) so I splashed out and broke up the flat side with some side turrets.

I can now comfortably take one pirate on... Stations?... No, I think you'll find I'll need a frigate for that...

Dannage · May 1, 2015

Only terrifying if you're an asteroid...

Otherwise, a bit like a Disney dog... Or an Aardman Animation....

Dannage · May 2, 2015

So, I'm satisfied that the Atlas will survive travelling the galaxy.

No I haven't really done much to her but as I've had longer today, I've stripped two sides of my home planet, and built some factories. I've never used factories, but am now slowly producing grey standard armour blocks.

Final stats for the DF-001 Atlas Utility Vehicle

Mass: 534.7
Power: 228.5k
Charge: 40415/sec
Thrust: 556
Shields: 63.2k
ShieldCharge: 1743/sec

I guess it's time to produce some military hardware...

Meshua_x · May 2, 2015

(Am I allowed to post here?)
I like very much, Seeing progression of things is very interesting to me, especially the way you are doing it. Each stage is functional, but each stage looks cool as it is. Good work mate

Dannage · May 2, 2015

Uh yeah, this is a forum, so responses are welcome.. in fact, invited. (Otherwise I'll never learn how to make a decent ship.

Knocked up a fighter. Went for as small a profile I could, with only light armament and the name may give you some sense of how long she's expected to last in a fight.

DF010 Mayfly class fighter

I'm favouring quite clean lines for these ships. I'm sure the bigger ones will be a tiny bit more interesting. (Though I can't promise prettier)

Dannage · May 3, 2015

I tell ya, nothing makes you more nervous than flying a corridor to a nearby shop, past a pirate base, especially when you only have two shield rechargers.... Good thing it had a lot of thrust!

Dannage · May 4, 2015

On the plus side, about 24 hours later (real time not game time!) the DF020 Constitution Class Frigate is well under way.

On the downside, I have not done any wallpapering, and I really should... So I might go do that now.

Dannage · May 6, 2015

Pretty much done the frigate. Had to sadly cut short production, and leave some empty internal spaces to still leave her in the Frigate range (as set by Bench, which I'm taking as the benchmark #youseewhatIdidthere?) ... Let's say there ere budget cuts because the empire hasn't really expanded beyond the one planet...

... She's at something like 997 mass...

(Yes I've filled the exterior hull on top of the engine pods! the budget wasn't that tight!)

She did start off with rather a nice tail, but that had to be trimmed back significantly. ho hum.

Frustrated by space constraints I decided to jump straight onto a Cruiser. I have 7500 Mass to play with now.

The DF-030 Agano Cruiser, is a corridor that also doubles as a crucifix...

And yes... The fact that the underside turrets align to face the rear of the ship does irritate my OCD.

Comr4de · May 6, 2015

You should download hte dev and play with the rail turrets, where you can set the default facing.

Dannage · May 7, 2015

I... I... I... Can download the dev version?....And... play with .... rails.... and the swingy turret things?.... *breathes very slowly*

Megacrafter127 · May 7, 2015

Dannage said:
I... I... I... Can download the dev version?....And... play with .... rails.... and the swingy turret things?.... *breathes very slowly*

Yes, just set the build branch to 'DEV' in the installation settings.

Dannage · May 7, 2015

I can't.... I mustn't... I must resist the fiery temptation of the slidy, swivelly goodness... Besides, I don't want to learn my best work in my sandbox, I want to join a server and build a godship for someone else.

Megacrafter127 · May 7, 2015

Dannage said:
I can't.... I mustn't... I must resist the fiery temptation of the slidy, swivelly goodness... Besides, I don't want to learn my best work in my sandbox, I want to join a server and build a godship for someone else.

The testserver always runs the latest devbuild.

Dannage · May 7, 2015

I found he 'dev' bit in installation settings... And changed the local host 4242 to play.star-made.org:4242... but that doesn't seem to have done anything. Is the test server a public one we can all access together and if so, how does one get to it?

Megacrafter127 · May 7, 2015

Dannage said:
I found he 'dev' bit in installation settings... And changed the local host 4242 to play.star-made.org:4242... but that doesn't seem to have done anything. Is the test server a public one we can all access together and if so, how does one get to it?

If the server would not be available, your game would crash or simply not start. If the game started, you probably forgot to change the game from 'singleplayer' to 'multiplayer', or the server had no players on it at the time.

Insane Randomness · May 7, 2015

I'm entertained by all this. I remember building my first ships from scratch. Started with a fighter. It wasn't fancy, I was just trying to make it look like "An ship" but man was it high powered.

A couple of suggestions:
1. Use the wiki to figure out systems build. It's outdated, but the advice in there makes sense.
2. Place shield capacitor blocks on the outside of your ship. This protects the more vital energy capacitor and regen blocks, as well as wapons, on the inside, providing a bit of extra defense.
3. Don't use armor. Seriously, don't.
4. Play around with weapons placement and compination on a test build. Basically, in combat, theres really only two ways of fighting: tunneling, or destroying. In tunneling, you use a constant beam weapon, or a high rate of fire cannon weapon to blow past shields and drill through only the blocks you have to to reach the core. In the destroying method, you put as much firepower as you can into missiles, using explosive effect blocks, to simply blow the ship up outright. In this method, you can literally blow ships off the field with a single shot, if the missiles connect.
5. HAVE SOME FUN! Don't get wrapped up in that infinite build. Find some smaller ships to build while constructing that unbeatable capital ship.