How do you create a reliable ship?

[TrainDodger]

But I pretty much liked the idea of having a exploration ship that will not be broken in some seconds, you said 3000 to 8000 mass but now you're going for 464 mass. Will such a sized ship have the same capabilities?

Not really. Combat effectiveness tends to scale exponentially with size, although larger ships definitely need turrets because of their poor turning rates. By 3000 to 8000 mass ship, I mean a ship that's at least 100 meters on its longest axis. The Zauber falls far short of that, but for a good reason; it has to fit in the relatively compact docking bays of my unfinished Dreadnought, which can carry up to 20 of them despite not being a dedicated carrier. Also, I managed to raise its shield capacity to 21,516 while keeping the mass at 474 by tweaking the block distribution slightly.

I once built a 4500-mass ship with a pair of deadly side turrets. I took out 8 pirates (custom pirates, I might add) in about 30 seconds with that thing. A 500-mass ship would have been overwhelmed and forced to retreat.

 

[Groovrider]

30k shields with 3000 regen on a ship with 8k to 10k mass is hilariously under-shielded. It should have at least ten times that much.

I'm pretty sure I just mixed mass up with block number.

Ok having looked at my new ship of 2263 mass and 120000 shields I can only say that it was late when I made that post and I was eating a burrito.

/shameless plug
I haven't been playing for that long my setup at the moment is 1'600,000 power 200,000 regen and around 1700 thrust. 4 big beam missile turrets, 2 missile defence turrets that actually work, ion cannon and other various missile system. I can pretty much go where I please and deal with anything I've found along the way. Presently there is only one pirate station that I can't outright annihilate along with as many waves they throw at me in the process. I'm still toying around with dimensions and weapons and turning speed is pretty good at the moment. I'll probably replace the cannon system with beams eventually.

 

[Novalar]

Damn your ships look so good... Any tips on designing one once you have "the shape" of the ship?

 

[Groovrider]

Damn your ships look so good... Any tips on designing one once you have "the shape" of the ship?

I am really just a beginner and I have a lot to learn. This was the 1st time I have used the "hull first" method. Although not obvious, the ship is actually quite vertical in design and after making the hull outline I placed:

1. cockpit and camera in a space big enough to get in/out of the core and easily reach all of the weapons computers without going into build mode.

2. POWER! Take a look at your longest dimensions and use it a a basis for racking generators is a system that maximizes your energy. It can be tricky but clever.

3. Weapon placement block organisation.

4. Power Tank time. Your weapons will be hungry and they must be fed or you will suffer.

5 .Testing systems along they way for power, efficiency and awesomeness.

6. Repeat steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 randomly until you get something cool that kills stuff and doesn't die.

 

[Novalar]

I am really just a beginner and I have a lot to learn. This was the 1st time I have used the "hull first" method. Although not obvious, the ship is actually quite vertical in design and after making the hull outline I placed:

1. cockpit and camera in a space big enough to get in/out of the core and easily reach all of the weapons computers without going into build mode.

2. POWER! Take a look at your longest dimensions and use it a a basis for racking generators is a system that maximizes your energy. It can be tricky but clever.

3. Weapon placement block organisation.

4. Power Tank time. Your weapons will be hungry and they must be fed or you will suffer.

5 .Testing systems along they way for power, efficiency and awesomeness.

6. Repeat steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 randomly until you get something cool that kills stuff and doesn't die.

Thanks for the tips! But do you also have an idea how to design the hull? Because I just can't lay any detail in my work and it's pretty damn frustratinig

 

[Groovrider]

OK. Don't worry about detail so much yet. 1st start with a ship that you like from a film or comic, an animal, a stick, the vacuum cleaner... Let form follow function but let function inform form. The detail you see on my ship comes from multiple passes every time I upgraded a system. The salvage array looked a bit like a mouth and the hull like a beak so I decorated it it with an eye and then I gave it wings with missiles and cannons. I just kept adding bits at a tine. I used to be all grey with straight sided but then I was like, "hold on, this is a space station with propulsion, not a plane". So I started building down as well as up to give the turrets maximum effective envelope. The colour comes from the fact that I found a crap ton of brown and white armour blocks when I raided a station.

And press left ctrl while in build mode to access advanced build mode that lets you set mirror symmetry planes which makes it a lot easier too.

 

[Yetimania]

Terrain blocks like crystal have a mass of .2
64535.7 mass ship/577542 blocks is my source.

I think that's because the mass calculation includes docked ships and turrets, while the block count doesn't.