How big should I make my ship?

[Jorvalt]

I've always been really terrible at building things in voxel-based games, and StarMade is no exception. One of the problems I face is that a lot of the time I either make my ships too big or too small. About how big should each type of ship be? i.e. small ship, medium ship, large ship, flag ship

I tried googling this but found absolutely nothing.

 

[Neon_42]

If you play on most servers people tend to push the limit to the size set by the admins. I.e. if the server has a 400x400x400 block size limit the longest axis of the ship will be about 400 blocks long.

That being said: I try to shoot for a 1:2, 1:3,1:4,1:5 ratio to the longest axis. So for the above example if my ship is 400 blocks long it might be 200 blocks wide and 100 blocks tall. A 1:2 and a 1:4 ratio.

 

[Lecic]

Most people consider a small ship at something under 50m. Medium ships are 50m to 250m. Large ships are anything bigger than that. I'd consider a titan to be anything over 500m, and supertitans anything larger than 650m. This is, of course, assuming dimension ratios similar to what @Neon_42 gave. Irregularly shaped ships (spheres, cubes, disconnected chunks, needle ships, pancake ships, etc) must be classed differently. I take their weight, and then class them based on how long a normally ratio'd ship of that weight would be.

 

[Mariux]

If you're new, I suggest you don't build larger than 100m in the longest axis for the first large ship.

 

[Thalanor]

Best part is to "find your style" with a corvette-sized ship, then work your way up Beyond 500m it gets highly impractical though.
When I try to make a "reasonable size capital" I go for about 300m in length, that way the ship won't single handedly crash the server when it gets close to an asteroid

 

[jayman38]

I've always been really terrible at building things in voxel-based games, and StarMade is no exception. One of the problems I face is that a lot of the time I either make my ships too big or too small. About how big should each type of ship be? i.e. small ship, medium ship, large ship, flag ship

It is said that if you can make a decent-looking small ship (less than about 50 blocks on a side?), you can make anything. I recommend you start small and do multiple small ships (fighters and shuttles) to get some good limited-size building practice. On a personal note, something that helped me to design better was to "get over" my plans for a smooth-looking ship and embrace the angular nature of the game. My designs went a lot better when I just went with it. Even with that, I'm still pretty happy with my contours and angles.

Since you seem to be unhappy with your builds, I recommend starting out with a goal of ugly ships. (random tentacle ships, ships with vertical downward posts that looks like it's "dripping" down into space, ships that look like caves, etc.) If you are aiming for ugly, you may find yourself putting in attractive details by mistake.

 

[Jorvalt]

Best part is to "find your style" with a corvette-sized ship, then work your way up Beyond 500m it gets highly impractical though.
When I try to make a "reasonable size capital" I go for about 300m in length, that way the ship won't single handedly crash the server when it gets close to an asteroid

True, true. The bigger the ship gets, generally the slower it becomes. It also causes massive lag. The problem I have though is that if the ship is too small, I can't put in enough detail. 500m is probably plenty though, lol.

It is said that if you can make a decent-looking small ship (less than about 50 blocks on a side?), you can make anything. I recommend you start small and do multiple small ships (fighters and shuttles) to get some good limited-size building practice. On a personal note, something that helped me to design better was to "get over" my plans for a smooth-looking ship and embrace the angular nature of the game. My designs went a lot better when I just went with it. Even with that, I'm still pretty happy with my contours and angles.

Since you seem to be unhappy with your builds, I recommend starting out with a goal of ugly ships. (random tentacle ships, ships with vertical downward posts that looks like it's "dripping" down into space, ships that look like caves, etc.) If you are aiming for ugly, you may find yourself putting in attractive details by mistake.

Interesting notion. Building ugly ships on purpose to maybe strike some creative genius. Anyways, I have more trouble building small ships because of how limited small ships can be in terms of aesthetics. Big ships have plenty of room for all the gizmos and whatsits, which leaves plenty more room for fancy looking stuff. I'll try your idea and see where it goes.[DOUBLEPOST=1413300688,1413300533][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and to add another question while I'm at it: What about ship core placement? If I end up putting the ship core in an awkward place, I'm screwed. Can you move the ship core location in SMEdit? I've never tried it.

 

[Aecetym]

Well other people have responded already pretty well to this post, still gonna leave my 2 cents here.

Honestly if you're not that great at building you might want to keep your ships between 50-250 m, maybe even 150 m max. Finding your unique style takes time and you building ships and more ships, some a succes and some might not ever get finished, is pretty much the only way of finding it.

Great looking ships are most of the time the result of previous failures, successes and lessons learned along the way. Even when you just finished your best looking ship yet, the next one might be even better due to the things you learned from the previous one.

Oh, and to add another question while I'm at it: What about ship core placement? If I end up putting the ship core in an awkward place, I'm screwed. Can you move the ship core location in SMEdit? I've never tried it.

Depending on the size of the ship you can just copy/past it in a better position. But copy/pasting ships with an axis larger then 100 m it's not recommended. I build loads of prebuild parts for my ships, some get really big and it can or crash the game or really lag the game bad for a moment. I don't know about SMEdit, never used it and I think it doesn't work properly atm.

I always aim at a 50/50 ratio on all axis. Pretty much the core at the center of the ship as that is the best way for docking it later on.

• small ship: under 50m.
• Medium ships: 50m to 250m.
• Large ships: >250m to 500m.
• titan to be anything over 500m
• supertitans anything larger than 650m.

These are very agreeable and realistic numbers.

 

[NeonSturm]

Personally, I think we should measure ships by

1. through which gates they fit | which shipyards can build them
2. what are they meant for
3. what RP stuff do they have (It's MY opinion!)

Spoiler: Example : Shuttles

Small shuttles usually have little to no comfort and cary 2-8 persons.
Large shuttlles are about the size of an air-plane. Enough peoples to have all important knowledge and working power to get something decent done.
Shuttles have:

1. Sleeping bays with a 2x2x4 m toilet and a 2x3x4 m per person rooms. 2-4 peoples per room.
2. Cargo bay, usually 1/2 to 2/1 the size of the Crew sections.
3. Life support for 1-3 weeks for Planet-Moon or Planet-Ship|Station Shuttles.
4. Their primary purpose is to escape gravity.

Two special cases:

1. Replica of a shuttle from Star-Trek, Star-Gate or external sources
2. Mobile rooms, 1 deck max, 2:1:6 size ratio, external wings allowed, <20% blocks (compared to a fighter) for combat-situations, worse turn-rate

I think about those sizes as standard:

• 24m ship, 32m gate|hangar (shuttles, scouts, fighters, drones)
  
• 48m ship, 64m gate|hangar (standard interstellar)
• 96m ship, 128m gate|hangar (standard deep-space)
• 192m ship, 256m gate|hangar (partially intergalactic, big ships)
• 384m ship, 512m gate|hangar (fully intergalactic, captial)
• 768m ship, 1024m gate|hangar (titan, aka "WTF (as in WereTheFuck) did you get all the resources?" aka flagship, aka super-capital)
• Ships >850m (Mobile moons)
  
• Ships > 1600m (Mobile planets - I think to remember Earth as ~12'000 km diameter, thus a factor of SM-m 1 : 10'000 IRL-m)

In "Xm ship, Xm gate|hangar" X means width in blocks.

This leaves some room for minor errors (+-10% size differences)
It also leaves room for navigation errors - mostly vertically.​

____

I usually build my ships with:

x : 2 middle axis (usually width)
y : 1 smallest axis (usually height)
z : 6 longest axis (usually length)​

Building ships taller or broader makes it difficult to pass gates, except you want to pass it by flying up/downwards or strafing. I prefer the gate sizes to be:

• 32 (very common)
  
• 64 (common)
• 128 (uncommon)
• 256 (rare)
• 512 (very rare)

With rare ones usually non-public. and common usually public usable (build by NPC factions).

 

[Gerion]

Im gonna say something completely different:

First ship? If you play singleplayer and you dont have unlimited resources, keep it small. 20m, a fighter, with salvage beams if possible to get the resources for bigger ships. If you have the resources though, build a corvette (150m). They are quick enough to build and you get good design and mechanical experience from it.

 

[DaveC9000]

It looks like most people start their builds with the outer hull and fill in the inside later. I start with the interior and build the outer hull around it when I'm done. The end results tend to be quite different. I consider starting with the interior to be the functional build method as opposed to starting with the outside which seems a more aesthetic method. Neither is right or wrong - maybe try both and see what works best for you. My ships and stations look good on the inside, but somewhat of a mess from outside. Then again I've seen other ships with the opposite problem. I don't get hung up on meters or ship classes (I'm playing single-player right now so I can get away with that). There's no right or wrong answer - just food for thought.

 

[Theck]

Nowadays what I do is start with an "skeleton" to know the general shape of the ship and then I start with the systems (weapons, energy, shields, etc.). With this approach I can extend and transform the general shape easily to the needs of the ship's function.

Then, I do the interior detailing, allowing me to change some system locations to accommodate corridors and other aesthetics blocks like lights.

Last I detail the exteriors now all the inner parts fit.

 

[Jorvalt]

Depending on the size of the ship you can just copy/past it in a better position.

What do you mean by that?

 

[Aecetym]

What do you mean by that?

Find a top corner and a big enough box to fit the ship in. Then copy the whole thing, remove the ship or take a new core, and past it in the right place.

 

[KiloZulu]

I've always been really terrible at building things in voxel-based games, and StarMade is no exception. One of the problems I face is that a lot of the time I either make my ships too big or too small. About how big should each type of ship be? i.e. small ship, medium ship, large ship, flag ship

I tried googling this but found absolutely nothing.

Here are some lessons I've taken away from building ships over time:
1. Determine the purpose of your ship.
Do you want a nimble fighter? Do you want something that can handle a wave of pirates? Do you want a certain weapon layout? These kinds of questions alone should get you in the ballpark for your ship's scale.

2. Determine the size of the components you will put on your ship.
If you are going to build a carrier, you first need to know how big your fighters are. This will determine the size of your hangar bay(s) and any other related ship functions. When I first started trying to add hangars to my ships, I regularly underestimated the area I would need. Keep in mind that your fighters need to be able to maneuver enough to target the docking module block. Make sure your hangar gives them the room to spin around and find their way out the door.

This also goes for turrets. Nothing throws off the look of a ship more, I think, than over-sized turrets that obscure the look of your ship. Figure out the size of the turrets you're going to use and layout their locations with a framework.

3. Make space for refits and upgrades. The game is still in development and we've all seen good ships turned into scrap heaps because they couldn't be retrofitted for changes to the game mechanics. We already know that more are likely on their way; such as changes to the thruster mechanics.

4. Don't build to a size class, build a ship and feel free to classify it afterwards. IF your goal is to build a ship based on some size class, you might as well just layout a frame to that size and then fill it as best you can, that becomes your defining feature from lesson #1. The reason people get in trouble with builds, I've found, is that they try to build to a preconceived notion of size and then find the ship can't do what they wanted.

 

[Jorvalt]

Find a top corner and a big enough box to fit the ship in. Then copy the whole thing, remove the ship or take a new core, and past it in the right place.

How the balls would I do that? Copying is limited to 10x10x10 max because of the size limitation of advanced build mode.

 

[Aecetym]

How the balls would I do that? Copying is limited to 10x10x10 max because of the size limitation of advanced build mode.

1. Go to your starmade folder;
2. Find the file 'server.cfg' and open it;
3. Find the next line: PLAYER_MAX_BUILD_AREA = 10 //max area a player may add/remove in adv. build mode;
4. Now change that to: PLAYER_MAX_BUILD_AREA = 100 //max area a player may add/remove in adv. build mode;
5. Now you can copy parts up to 100 blocks/m in all directions in SP.

If you want the ship on MP, you need to fix it first on SP and then load and buy it on the MP server.