How do you make your creations?

[Gamma92]

What techniques do you use? What style do you try to emulate? Is your creation off the cuff and spontaneous or do you spend some time planning it out and write it down?

I personally found out that planning my ships out using a comp book with grid lines actually helps me in brain storming and planning out my next few creations. The first time I tried this technique, I built the actual ship (a 180x60x58 frigate) with multiple utility rooms, a small hanger and even a ventilation system to crawl through.

Just curious about what others do.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

My ships spontaneously form into Borg-like cubes. It's terrible.

 

[Gamma92]

My ships spontaneously form into Borg-like cubes. It's terrible.

Hey now, last time I checked, the Borg nearly ripped the entire Starfleet apart with just one (albeit giant) cube! :D

 

[MChain]

Usually I carefully plan the logic and rail systems, roughly imagine the general shape of the hull and main interiors and then start building, letting the rest to happen on itself. Not a very good way of creating the vessel, though - as usually it turns into a flying brick. Fully functional flying brick, though.

 

[Gamma92]

Fully functional flying brick, though.

Mind sharing a screenshot? I'm legit curious if you mean an actual brick of metal, guns and logic or just a boxy ship. Also:

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

1. What Do I Need? - I typically start off with coming up with a role that I need filled, as it generally impacts how my final ships will look. For example, I'm soon going to start working on an antifighter ship. It's going to be a relatively simple shape to give the turrets as large a sight line as possible around the ship.

2. Testing - I then start out with testing different weapons. Being still a novice at weapons, I try to just balance power requirements, and look to the forums for help. For my anti-fighter ship, I built the turrets that will be mounted first, and tested them on a power block to see how much power they are draining, and spawned in a couple swarms of fighters to see how well they do at taking them out. For my Hippogryph, I wanted strong missiles to take out hull, while still having a lot of them launching to try and get through AMS defenses, and still not draining all my power. Since I built the missile groups 14x2x2, the missile pods/shoulders ended up making the ship look fairly beefy.

3. Concepting - After I have the turrets and weapons mostly figured out, I start concepting. I make a very small ship, less than 30 blocks in length, and start defining the general silhouette that the ship will have, and marking areas where turrets and weapons groups will be.

4. Wireframe - Once I have the general shape worked out, I size it up. Usually this involves deciding on how long I want the ship to be to fit weapons and whatnot. For example, my antifighter ship will have turrets in groups of 3, with 2 groups going lengthwise. Each turret is 17 blocks wide, and I want room to make it look good, so the ship will be 17blocks*6*2 = 204 blocks long, giving my ample room to have the turrets and make them looks proportionate to the rest of the ship. I use that number to build the wireframe, giving me a VERY LOOSE space to build in. I emphasized loose because I don't want to get locked into making sure it is that exact space with no room for future ideas or streamlining. Here is a picture of my Orthos concept ship compared to its wireframe: https://goo.gl/photos/LaJRDP7WjcU9SKCM8
https://goo.gl/photos/LaJRDP7WjcU9SKCM8
5. Building - It's here where I actually start detailing. Unlike a lot of others, I don't have a general building phase and a detailing phase. I typically do both at the same time. This ends up with parts of my ship looking completely done, while others aren't even started, as seen here: https://goo.gl/photos/xz5u2hCf3cmTgJQ56 I may hop around the ship a bit, building parts that I know what I want, and then stitching them together at the end. Of course, I can still go back and change things if I want to, as what happened with my Hippogryph. While building, my style involves using large armor panels to define the general shape of the ship, and industrial greebling to give it some dimension underneath that armor.

6. Interior - I do the interior next, fleshing out what rooms I want, separating them into decks, and generally making it looks nice. Not much needs to be said.

7. Systems - Finally I do the systems. Again, not much needs to be said.

TL;DR Come up with stuff on my own based on the role it needs filled, create small ship for the shape, make a bigger version, build from there.

 

[MChain]

Leonov class Small Cargo Vessel

I was brave enough not to simply take a screenshot, but also to upload the thing here.
If you decide to use Pirs cargo pier though, I've found recently a minor flaw with its logic, so one of the containers won't load as it was intended (the port one, exactly). Will correct as soon as possible.

 

[Gamma92]

TL;DR Come up with stuff on my own based on the role it needs filled, create small ship for the shape, make a bigger version, build from there.

So essentially you take a very manufactured approach to it. Very incredible! :D I guess I'm a bit more anarchically when it comes to creating my ships. I usually create the shell first and then use basic white hull to create the interior silhouette before adding the weapons and systems. Then I detail after the ship is pretty much functional.
[doublepost=1476290994,1476290668][/doublepost]

Leonov class Small Cargo Vessel

It actually looks pretty cool! It's kinda reminiscent of cargo ships I notice flying around Star War's Coruscant.

 

[Trekkerjoe]

First, I try to get an idea of the logic and how it works and looks in my head. Then, with this vague idea, I create a mental image of it in my mind. At this point with logic I will start documenting the ideas as they come to me, and make the individual components, and then wire them together according to my mental image, a diagram, or both.

For ships, I usually just build it out from the core room. Once I am satisfied with the interior, I then finish the exterior, afterwards adding in the systems and weapons. Again, I like to picture the entire thing in my mind so that I know where to put everything.

 

[Xacktar]

Usually my build process goes something like this:

1. Have half an idea at 3 AM. Draw a sketch of it on paper, go back to bed.

2. Wake up later, look at sketch. Wonder what the hell I was thinking.

3. Boot up starmade, wireframe the idea. It's usually ugly.

4. Tear down the wireframe.

5. Rebuild vast sections of it until I like the look.

6. mark out where I want weapons to fire from and where the crew areas will be.

7. Build the exterior.

8. Build the crew quarters, transporters, and any docking bays or doors.

9. Install basic thrusters and power.

10. Install weapons.

11. Realize the weapons use way more power than I have, add more power.

12. Install shields.

13. Test drive the ship. Adding thrusters as needed.

14. Add jump drives, scanners, and other secondary systems.

15. Add turrets.

16. Refine details until ready.

 

[Zekester81]

I start with a plan, that usually degenerates quickly into whatever the final result is. Sometimes better than I expected, sometimes worse. Like my latest thing, I failed to properly plan for all the logic and recent updates, but I had left extra room, so it might work out anyways. Logic always takes more than what I planned on.

Sorry, it's not ready for upload yet, long ways to go. The first pic is outdated as of last night, no more side ports for launching fighters, but a much better landing control system overall.

TL;DR: By the seat of my pants is how I build.

 

[Gamma92]

I like to picture the entire thing in my mind so that I know where to put everything.

Dude, your mind must have 4k resolution, cuz I would never have thought of a walker. :D That's neat!!

 

[TheWurm]

Most of my ships start with the main power tree, then I use that as skeleton for everything else. This provides interesting shapes, but I do tend to sacrifice logical architecture on the interiors. My fleet submission contains four ships that were built this way, as well as a transport ship that wasn't.

 

[Gamma92]

View attachment 33345 View attachment 33346 Sorry, it's not ready for upload yet, long ways to go. The first pic is outdated as of last night, no more side ports for launching fighters, but a much better landing control system overall.
TL;DR: By the seat of my pants is how I build.

Yeah, there have been multiple times I look at my creation and wonder how I got a ship to look like a donut.
Also, does your ship now just have a singular landing strip? Or does it still integrate a storage system for fighters?

 

[Spoolooni]

I look at what's currently known as the best, then I try to beat their builds in every way.

 

[Gamma92]

I look at what's currently known as the best, then I try to beat their builds in every way.

Ah, a bit of competitiveness, I see. No better way to sharpen your steel.

 

[madman Captain]

I think first about what kind of ship I want (a large Carrier with long range fire support capabilities)
so I need: a large hanger and long range weapons.
And then I ask myself what I want, like:


symmetrical or asymmetrical ? : Asymmetrical

external or internal hanger ? : internal Hanger

missile or cannon based weapons,
turret based weapons or not ? : turret based Sniper Cannons

what kind of other design features it shoud have too ?: external Runways, large "fuel" tanks at the rear, the orange "Shield emitter Ball",
the large blue glowing "Plasma Reactor", colossal main turrets

I start with the most space intensive features, the lage internal hanger (with 32 small fighters over 3 decks), the Shield ball and the reactor.
In my case the external runways gives one half of the ship its form and the optical features dominate the other.

Then i build a detailless hull around it create engines and install the main turrets, Flak defense and Anti missile turrets.

Under the runways i install hangers for larger ships (Heavy Fighters, Bombers)

After I finished the Hangers I create the other Internal (I'm really bad in internal).

Then I fill the empty space with Systems and give the hull more details .

And so I build ships .

 

[jayman38]

1. My technique typically involves cross-sections and profiles drawn in LibreOffice Draw with grid snap, asking myself questions about basic features.
2. For style, I typically try to maintain straight lines and flat plates. I have found that using blocks and wedges to simulate curved surfaces deeply offends my personal sense of aesthetics. Due to time constraints, I normally limit myself to smaller ships.
3. I tend to perform a lot of pre-planning, especially in Draw. This helps minimize a lot of problems before they become problems.

 

[Zekester81]

Yeah, there have been multiple times I look at my creation and wonder how I got a ship to look like a donut.
Also, does your ship now just have a singular landing strip? Or does it still integrate a storage system for fighters?

It always had a single landing strip, but the fighters rolled to each bay, oriented, and pointed nose out of the side doors. Now they roll to each bay and slide in sideways, still pointed at the rear, but I will be able to dock an additional 6 fighters on the main deck to match the 12 bays( for 18 heavy fighters). Also, there is a second landing deck below it that will hold smaller fighters but will work the same way. The belly looks kind of ugly right now, not sure what to do there, but it holds 4 patrol ships in private bays at the moment.


Oh, the two piggybacked on the rear of the carrier are cargo/troop transport ships. There is one of each right now.

I added a couple pics to the album with the bottom bays open and rearranged the pics a little so they made a little more sense.

 

[Malacodor]

Since there are more than enough angular shaped designs, my ships are typically a combination of various more or less round shapes. At the beginning there is the desired role and some thoughts about the rough shape. Then I make a few drawings on paper or in paint. Next up, I fiddle with an external voxel shape generator until I'm satisfied with the exact shapes of the parts, that make up the ship or station. After building these shapes I make the connections between the parts and I add turrets. The interior starts with reactors. Since it isn't easy to estimate the internal volume of round shapes, I went over to fill them with a random block type and count the needed blocks. I place the various systems in brick shape at the outside of the ship to find out if there's enough power and everything works as intended. It looks strange, but this way I can already fly around, fire the weapons or activate passives. If something needs to be changed, shifting blocks from one system to another is very easy at this stage. Finally, I pack everything into the inside, which is the worst part. After a short period of happiness, I find problems I haven't seen before and I dawns on me that I have to redesign the ship.