Designing space ships and creativity questions.

[KiloZulu]

My designs come from a number of places. They are inspired by a purpose that I conceive for a ship, images I find in online searches, and just plain doodling. As I sketch out an idea, I start thinking about how well I can translate the idea into Starmade. Where will turrets be placed? How will I board the ship? Will it be able to land on a planet?

Two strong strategies for good building that have been brought up have been: draw it out on paper first and build a frame to start. I've often said in threads like this one that another important thing to keep in mind is the scale of everything. Make sure you know how large each part of your ship will be in relationship to one another. You probably want to frame out turrets, fighters, and important aspects of your ship before you get too far along. This will help you avoid ending up with over-sized turrets on your hull, or shuttle bays that can't fit the planned ship.

My ships don't tend to have a lot of external detail. I favor a smooth hull unless I see a reason for a break. Generally, I'm thinking from the aspect of aerodynamics (if it can enter atmosphere) and armor deflection. At the same time, I want a ship that is sleek and stylish. I favor wedges and corners to create clean and cool designs. That's not to say I won't find places to add structural details, but they are generally in recesses and areas that are not supposed to see much combat.

 

[Majorfatboy]

For scale, it's handy to keep in mind that in games like this, one block is usually considered one meter (Or a bit over one yard for We Americans).
So, two blocks would be two meters (just over six feet), slightly above the average height of a man. But in block games, it's a good idea to not be to anal about real world figures vs in game, as We can only work in three meter blocks, so for sanity's sake, I just consider the player to be six feet tall, or two blocks.
With this, We can establish a common sense of scale between the player character, the ship being built, and the player's ideas / sketch.

What I do is, I sketch out the ship, with no regard to blocks / game conventions. From here, I look at a human accessible part of the ship, like an airlock, bridge, cockpit, etc. Something You can draw a person on / by. From a top view and side view of this, I can establish a scale for the drawing itself.
And from here, I can work out the rough length/width/depth of the ship concept on paper.

Example: When I start building again, I'm thinking of doing a version of the British WWII fighter, the Supermarine Spitfire. Here's a sketch:

1st: I drew out My idea, as best as I could, from top and side.
2nd: I identified where the pilot, a human would be in both views.
3rd: I drew the human.
4th: I assume the human is six feet tall.
5th: I grab a ruler, measure the human (About 3/4 of an inch), assume that is six feet, and measure out the ship. I find the ship is about 36 feet long, or 12 yards/meters (The real Supermarine Spitfire was about 29 ft long, I think).
6th: at twelve meters (blocks) long, this will be too small to get any real detail or systems into, so I start toying with the block scale. 26 blocks may work, or as I am sometimes fond of doing, swapping meters/blocks for feet, making this 36 blocks/meters (108 feet!) in length instead of feet, giving Me plenty of room to work with.
Why do this?
For small craft, like fighters or shuttles, doing 1:1 scale isn't such a great idea. Ships like these are small and compact, if You build them to 1:1 length/width/height in game with three foot blocks, You're going to end up with a lumpy little plane with little to no room for equipment.
Because of this, I tend to double / triple the size, to account for the blocks' mass. Now I can use wedges and such for rounding, add details, and fit equipment in.

If it's a large ship, say a corvette or bigger, then You'll be mostly fine with trying to do a 1:1 scale build. Just keep in mind that in game, Your walls, hull, floors, Etc will be at least three feet thick. Quite a bit thicker then they would be in real life. Working the concept out on graph paper or paint program solves this.


For scale, it also helps to have some pre-established conventions to draw from.
I've built so many fighters, that I have a basic cockpit design I can default to at any point in the design phase. This gives Me a starting point for how big the ship must be, purely for the sake of fitting the player in.

Example: the "P47 Thunderbolt""

...has the following cockpit (More or less) in it:

...And this fighter was mid drafted in MS paint:

...by rescaling and then drawing over a preexisting image:

...Along with a pile of sketches that I can't be bothered to dig out, but You get the idea.

TL;DR:
Draw the ship, find a human accessible part of the ship, draw a human there, assume human is six feet tall, get scale, assess scale, adjust to blocks as necessary.

 

[Malacodor]

After everything is all said and done and i have an idea and outline, how do you guys know what size to build it or is it just wingin it.. i tend to underbuild it seems lol or sometimes i go overboard, sketching it out mi ght be a good idea on graph paper i guess?

First I think out a ship design, its role, the rough shape, turret placement and such. Then i make a sketch on paper or in paint. After that I build the hull and modify it until I'm happy with how it looks. At last I fill it with systems and interior, which is the hardest part. Placing systems first and then adding hull is easier, but you'll either not get the exact shape you want or you'll end up with lots of wasted space.

 

[AtraUnam]

I constantly switch building styles and methods. 9 times out of 10 I scrap the project, the other 1 time I end up with something good.

 

[DivineEvil]

I constantly switch building styles and methods. 9 times out of 10 I scrap the project, the other 1 time I end up with something good.

That's why you always should start small with something of around 5k blocks or so, until you has some idea how to build ships without changing the method all the time.

 

[AtraUnam]

That's why you always should start small with something of around 5k blocks or so, until you has some idea how to build ships without changing the method all the time.

The changing methods is mostly due to quickly loosing interest in a project, I do just fine when I actually decide to finish a ship (except when it turns invisible for being 'too big')

 

[DivineEvil]

The changing methods is mostly due to quickly loosing interest in a project, I do just fine when I actually decide to finish a ship (except when it turns invisible for being 'too big')

Which is why I prefer not to do anything in SP, since I prefer to build ships for a specific purpoce. It's hard to lose interest in a project, when it is intended for something aside from cocking with around the community. And with recent changes, it also makes building 'too big' a mighty counter-productive effort.

 

[Pyre]

Great ideas in this thread, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, I've only played for a few hours or so and got my first brick like thing blown up because I accidentally had the weapon controller computer facing left and shot the shop while trying to see where it was shooting >< .

I find myself thinking and musing a lot about designs, specifically what would make the most sense seeing as we are free from the constraints of aerodynamics. I keep thinking something like the "Orion" craft from the 60s, I guess cylinders make the most sense for enclosing a large space efficiently.

From a fighter perspective I'd imagine an angel fish shaped sort of deal, very hard slim leading edge. Maybe an X configuration but I'm not sure as that just exposes more surface to fire.