How do you make your creations?

[AtraUnam]

I decide what I want out of a ship and design it to that end, the actual ship itself generally starts from a single component and grows from there with no kind of preplanning.

 

[Spoolooni]

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

It's how vehicular industries work in the real world, applying the same logic to the Starmade community has allowed the creation of innovative designs.

 

[EricBlank]

I typically start by considering the role of the craft, and what that implies in the functions it will need. Then move onto maybe a drawing of what I want the final product to roughly resemble. Then build a rough framework and slowly install the interior components and the exterior around them, so the hull isn't complete until the interior is mapped out. Once I finish the empty hull, I typically save that, then make a first go at the ship with systems in place, call it good for a bit. Then throw everything away, go back to the hull blueprint, give it some new details and fix issues that crop up playing with the MK I build. Re-save the hull, install systems, repeat indefinitely.

 

[Groovrider]

I try to plan but I start with an idea and either make it way too big or too small, revise it and just power through and see what I end up with. This has led to some odd creations but after a while the ship pick up its own momentum and it starts to become clearer what the finished product may be.

 

[Daeridanii]

1. I never plan out my builds on paper, or anything like that. I just wing it.
2. I'll shape the front of my to-be ship.
3. I decide it looks absolutely horrible and discard it. Repeat as necessary.
4. I try again with the front of the ship, and I like it this time.
5. I start extending back from the front, detailing as I go.
6. I add some sort of horizontal or vertical extension a little more than half way, and then work on blending that into the rest of the hull.
7. I finish the rear of the ship with some fancy engines.
8. I begin work on interior, starting with the core room.
9. Finish interior, begin work on systems, starting with power.
10. Finish systems, build airlocks.
11. Do quick battle testing to see that all the systems are power stable, etc.

This definitely doesn't represent all of my builds, but tracks with my general haphazard style.

 

[MrFURB]

I usually start with a picture that I like. I figure out what I'd like to stea- borrow from the picture and base the rest of the ship's aesthetic design around that.
As for function, I try to come up with some sort of gimmick or specialty that matches the ship's aesthetics. Lots of studying and research can go into making a ship that boasts something unique into a powerful tool for a fleet or just by itself.


A good example...
I watched the Blood and Steel tourney. A lot of the contestants used very high mobility ships to negate incoming cannon fire and dodge around clusters of swarm missiles. I think of how impressive some of those ships would do when competing against the bulky, heavily armored ships that are used by major navies. So I decide I should add a similar ship to my own roster.
I write down what I'd like from the ship...

Role- Brawler/flanker. Fast enough to quickly get into a position where larger ships can't hit it or stay nimble at a long enough range that cannons aren't effective against it.
Aesthetics- Somewhere around 350-400 meters length, sleek shape, minimal front cross-section. This design looks cool.
Defense- Thick (and heavily sloped) front armor to allow it to charge at a larger ship and fly past it to it's flanks in one piece.
Offense- As always, I need a weapon against shields and a weapon against blocks/armor. I decide that I'll be relying on turrets since I'm likely going to spend a good chunk of time turning to face an enemy after charging behind them. So an ion beam weapon and a cannon/beam/punch weapon for making holes in important parts of the ship. The turrets need to be all-around effective, so I choose cannon/cannon/punch for them.
Speciality- Speed and acceleration. At least 3.5 thrust/mass ratio. Gonna put some passive overdrive in there too, probably in lieu of an ion passive.


Well, that turned into a page of text rather quickly. That's the entirety of the preliminary design of the ship. The rest is just placing blocks.

 

[SchnellBier]

Here´s how I do it. Wall of text incoming.

1. First you need at least one idea you like. Doesn´t matter what idea and how big it is. It helps if you already know how it should look in the end but it´s not necessary.

2. How big will the ship be? That´s not always predictable how stuff turns out but it doesn´t have to be. The important part is to get a feeling how big the interior will get. If you´re sure that you´ll have multiple floors reserve some space for it. I always block out the heights of the floors to get them all on one level and to make sure that there´s space for floor and ceiling detailing. Basically every floor is 5 blocks, 2 of them are floor and ceiling.

3. Third step is placing and building the idea that you have in relation to the core. This is also a step that doesn´t work out all the time but can be fixed with copy/paste. The heights of the floors should help to find a suitable spot. If your idea is a bridge you know where to build it to line it up with a floor.

4. One of the major steps for me is evaluating if designs work. This is a tricky one because everyone has different standards and this step has to get repeated in this whole process several times. Don´t be affraid to delete stuff again if you don´t like it. Perfection needs time and sometimes trial and error. Rule of thumb here is if you don´t like it yourself you can´t expect others to like it. "for me it´s good" doesn´t make it better for others. To rate your own build from a neutral point of view is one of the hardest things and if you can master this it´s only a matter of time to get great results.

5. Incorporate your idea into the ship design. If your idea is ~70% finished you can start to give the rest of the ship a go. Use the finished part to continue building a shape. I suggest to use rectangles for the base shape. You don´t have to build the full shell it´s more like finding out what shapes work together. Evaluation and flexibility is now the key to success. Don´t even think about finishing the shape of your ship at that point. A good way to aproach it is: build rectangle shape -> use wedges on it -> use slabs on it -> evaluate. Of course you can use other shapes too but my experience the rectangle shape is the most flexible at this point. Don´t be afraid to use colors. The use of colors can change the feel of shapes greatly.

6. Repeat process. Add more basic shapes and continue to use use wedges and slabs to enhence them. Then evaluate. Sounds easy but you´ll get to a point where this isn´t enough anymore. Connecting the shapes will get more and more important as you add to the ship. This can be done with details or additional shapes. Don´t be afraid to detail out a part of the ship even if the shape isn´t finished. The details you use will help you to get a clearer goal where the design is heading. It also helps to flesh out the colors you want to use in the build.

7. Adding interior. While the hull is still in progress you will get to a point where you want to add windows. To get this right I suggest to switch to interior and block out the space needed. Windows help to make the ship feel real and less like a toy. This is a difficult process because once you finished the ship hull you´re stuck with the space you have. Take your time to plan it carefully before closing the hull fully. Don´t be afraid to change the ship shape to get some windows in it. It´ll feel realistic that the shapes are adapted to the needs of the ship crew. Same goes with USDs.

8. Blank space? Put a turret on it! If you didn´t know this already turrets are a great way to get details on your ship. Take your time to build good turrets. It´s worth every minute. With good turrets i mean not only pretty turrets but also effective turrets maybe even self-sustaining. If you put enough effort in them they will save a considerable amount of time because you can use them multiple times (even on different ships) and they cover empty space with delicious details.

9. Thrusters. A small list of stuff how I handle them:
- Make them deep. Depths looks powerful.
- Don´t use 1 block walls. Thin walls make them look cheap.
- Don´t make big flat thruster surfaces. They are boring. Multiple small thrusters are better
- Don´t use flat mandala patterns as detail on the thruster surface. It´ll also look cheap.
- ice -> gap -> thruster and surround the ice with lights/forcefields/whatever for pretty new thruster plume effect on glowy ice surface.

10. Finish the hull. Self explaining. Closing the hull is now priority. Then adding details.

11. Logic and interior. At this point you want to add the logic to the ship. You have the shell to hide a landing gear and everything else you want in it and you also have the rough shape of the interior to place the necessary buttons or make sure the logic lines aren´t visible. Since you got the hull finished you can also now finish the interior.

12. Adding systems ot finish the ship. My process is to start with the power systems. Then I use (Yet another?) weapon spreadsheet to design my weapons. Then I add everything else. It´s always important to check if the ship has enough power to operate the systems so it´s a good advice to be careful.

13. Done. Yeah that´s quite the process but that´s basically how I build my stuff. Of course you can spend unlimited time adding details or improving stuff but if your evaluation process works like it should the result is probably pretty good at this point.

That this process works can be seen on my latest release SBS Raya. The only idea I had was the cockpit. I basically developed the ship around it and it fits.

 

[Captain_Boroski]

Contrary to what would be most logical and practical to do, I design the exteriors and aesthetics of my ships first and then fill them with systems later. This helps to preserve A E S T H E T I C S theme that I've set for my military vessels. It's very easy to design new ships of different sizes and classes when you've got a reference point from your previous works that also help you develope new A E S T H E T I C features.

For example; Wolfgang. When I first begun designing this ship, I wanted a military-practical look, I wanted it to really look like a warship from keel-to-keel, but I wasn't sure how to go around doing it within the limits of starmade's wedges, tetras and whatnot. So I looked up cold-war ships, specifically the russian ones. The rugged, non-nonsense extremely practical and easy to manufacture modular ships really did an impression on me and I set to implement their look into Wolfgang without resorting to carbon-copying (which I absolutely despise). This has set a standard and a easily continued aesthetic theme that I've succesfully implemented to every new ship design ever since.

There were other things, such as implementing actually practical design ideas such as stand-off armor and double-bulkheads, these things ensure extremely rugged and durable hull that are especially resilient to missile hits.

The other thing was to stay away from the mandatory scifi-tropes, such as pointless lights, smooth surfaces, wings and pieces that serve no practical use, uneven distritubion of turrets and weaponry (such as total lack of turrets on bottom) and the greatest sin of all; windows on the superstructure that are there for no other reason other than to have a window on a corridor. I also wanted to avoid the generic "cigar" hull type of scifi ships; a big tube with guns on other end and engines on other end. There was also the intend to avoid being too "blocky", the hull gradually expands and retracts.

So I set to plan the logic behind my ship's aesthetics; it uses active and passive sensors, radar guidance systems, thermal & electromagnetic detection, ECM and ECCM, electronic warfare, things that you find in real world naval vessels. One of the things that I could imagine being developed and put to ships was giant microwave projectors that mess up with electronics, this idea was implemented on Wolfgang as those two potrucions that can be mistaken as giant air intakes of engines. This idea helped to avoid 90-degree flat surfaces that had no apparent detail or purpose.

 

[Gamma92]

8. Blank space? Put a turret on it! If you didn´t know this already turrets are a great way to get details on your ship. Take your time to build good turrets. It´s worth every minute. With good turrets i mean not only pretty turrets but also effective turrets maybe even self-sustaining. If you put enough effort in them they will save a considerable amount of time because you can use them multiple times (even on different ships) and they cover empty space with delicious details.

9. Thrusters. A small list of stuff how I handle them:
- Make them deep. Depths looks powerful.
- Don´t use 1 block walls. Thin walls make them look cheap.
- Don´t make big flat thruster surfaces. They are boring. Multiple small thrusters are better
- Don´t use flat mandala patterns as detail on the thruster surface. It´ll also look cheap.
- ice -> gap -> thruster and surround the ice with lights/forcefields/whatever for pretty new thruster plume effect on glowy ice surface.

I've actually had difficulty with detail, especially thrusters, so I may try these ideas myself.

 

[Zekester81]

If you haven't done a cammo job on a ship, try it, it's fun. Just throwing that out there. Plus it can help make a flat surface look better. I prefer smooth hulls, not everyone does though, so greebling works wonders, even if it's just visual.

 

[Nauvran]

Few pictures of how I built my frigate.
mostly just improvising and editing till it worked. Trial and error.

 

[Edymnion]

I'm currently starting on a new pocket titan (currently only aiming at it being about a kilometer long). Here's the process I've gone through for it so far:

1) Decide on what I want the ship to do.
Seems pretty straightforward, but its the most important thing to decide on up front, as it will dictate everything else you do. For this ship, what I want is a fighter carrier. Not just a drone carrier, I already have one of those, but an actual fighter carrier. As in fighters that could be manned by human pilots and still be fun to fly.

1a) Since this is a carrier, I first went and designed the fighters it would be carrying. I already had drones designed and in use on another ship, but if I'm going to make a fighter carrier I first need to know the size/shape/capabilities of the fighters it will be carrying. Doesn't do me a lick of good to build a big huge carrier and then find out I made the bays too small to house more than one or two ships each.

2) Look for reference photos.
Even though I have a style that I'm going to build this in that is going to be consistent with what I've already done, looking at other ships helps get me an idea of what I want to do visually. So I dig up anything that looks cool or has cool looking bits that I might be able to steal... er copy.... er take inspiration from. Couple of them that I found for my carrier:



Will I use all of them? Probably not. I likely won't even come up with anything that looks remotely like them, but they're good for getting my head in the right place.

3) Think about logistics.
For a carrier, I'll need to be able to do two things well. Launch a large number of ships, and retrieve a large number of ships. Again, seems pretty obvious, but when you start thinking about that you hit design snags. Launching the ships, if you're launching in battle you can't just shoot them out one at a time, else the target will simply shoot them down one at a time with no trouble, you gotta be able to launch as many ships as possible as fast as possible to ensure that your swarm gets out there for safety in numbers (10 turrets vs. 10 drones means the drones survive, 10 turrets vs. 1 drone at a time means dead drones). So that means I'll need lots of launch bays.

Recovery is also an issue. The AI is dumb, it gets kinda twitchy if drones/ships have to wait in line to access the same pickup point, so you want as many pickup points as possible. But you also need to make sure your pickup points are far away from the main body of the mother ship, because again, drones are stupid, they will crash into your ship at full speed trying to get to the pickup point if you let them. So not only do I need as many outputs as I can, I need as many inputs as I can.

Have to balance that against aesthetics (least I do). Just making a big borg cube covered in drones is easy, making something that looks like a kickass spaceship is hard.

4) Start building from the core.
This is frankly the hardest part of Starmade for me. I wish I wish I wish we didn't have to start from the damned core every time. I'll have a great idea for engine porn, but can't do it because I'm not entirely sure where the back end of the ship will be exactly relative to the core. Or I have an idea for an awesome galley or sick bay, but I can't start building those because again, I have no clue where they're going to be relative to the core right now (vague ideas of "over there" don't work when you need exact block counts).

So instead, I started building a bridge around the core for the ship. Got about 4k blocks in, went to bed, and then decided during the night that I didn't want the core on the bridge. That I knew command chairs were coming, and there would be no need to directly access the core in the future, so screw it. Scrapped the entire design and started over. Built a core room that looks like an engine room around the core instead. Likely ended up moving the core in the overall build from the front to the back of the ship in the process.

5) Branch out into interior
Once the engine core room is finished, I will start making the interior spaces. Used to be this would be entirely RP areas, but with the crew update coming eventually, I'm going to need that internal space for the crew. Not exactly sure WHAT kind of internal space will be strictly required for the crew, but at the very least I'm going to be looking at quarters and likely a computer room or two to house the weapon computers in, in case crew need to easily access those. I'll build out all of the interior spaces I really want, trying to keep a basic idea of the ship shape I want to have and then build around them later.

6) Plan ahead.
Already mentioned the crew space and the command chairs, but since this is going to be a BIG ship, I'm likely going to make it my capital ship once that update comes out. Capital ships are supposed to be able to have station-only blocks, so I'm going to be putting in placeholders for factories, enhancers, refineries, etc. Heck, I'm even planning on putting a small shipyard in the thing's belly so that it can produce it's own fighters and drones. For now these areas will be simply for looks, but in the future we should get updates that will make them viable, which means minimal refitting to make everything work. It'll be the difference between spending 2 months designing a titan that you throw out with the next update, and spending 2 months building a titan you'll keep forever.

7) Build basic hull shape.
Once all the interior spaces are done, I'll start building the basic shape of my ship. And when I say basic, I mean fairly basic. No detailing, nothing fancy, just big flat surfaces and shapes. The idea is going to be to get the rough shape of the ship down, check layout, check basic profiles, etc.

8) Refine the hull.
Go back over your basic shapes and start adding decorations, hull elements, etc. Make your cuts and your additions and make it look all purdy. This is where I'll build out the final exterior of the hull.

9) Add your turrets.
You should have been keeping space for the turrets during the above detailing, if not go back and make room for them now. Get all your turrets installed.

10) Double layer the hull in an obnoxious color
Do you have a sexy black hulled doomship? Welp, you're going to need to double layer the hull at least, and its next to impossible to tell if you got it all if you use the same color. Make the interior shell and any interior bulkheads out of a completely different color than everything else so that you can easily see any missed spots, and any hull damage in the future will show up instantly when your sleek doomship suddenly has a bright pink hole in it.

11) Add your systems.
Final step for me will be adding the actual systems. Used to be you'd use thrusters as gap filler, but with the plume update that looks really bad these days. So, gap fill with shields, keep all of your thrusters together or deeply buried so that the plumes won't show, and put in your weapons, your power, etc.

12) Conquer the galaxy in waves of blood and fire! I mean go help your neighbors build cool stuff too!

 

[Brokengauge]

Step 1: come up with role of ship. draw a rough silhouette. Final ship may or may not resemble it in any way.

Step 2: start from bridge (core room) and frame the whole thing out.

Step 3: place systems.

Step 4: test systems.

Step 5: overhaul everything.

Step 6: test

Step 7: exterior hull/armor/greebles

Step 8: interior crap.

Step 9: oh crap, I forgot logic.

Step 10: find creative places to hide logic.

Step 11: cry

Step 12: delete entire thing and never speak of it again.

Usually, I try to give my ships lines that are reminiscent of old school muscle cars, while being laid out like ww2 era warships. The interiors are more like a cross between star trek and the battleship Texas, which I've actually gotten to visit in person and explore while I was in Houston for work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I like ww2 warships...

 

[Nickizzy]

Step 1: come up with role of ship. draw a rough silhouette. Final ship may or may not resemble it in any way.

Step 2: start from bridge (core room) and frame the whole thing out.

Step 3: place systems.

Step 4: test systems.

Step 5: overhaul everything.

Step 6: test

Step 7: exterior hull/armor/greebles

Step 8: interior crap.

Step 9: oh crap, I forgot logic.

Step 10: find creative places to hide logic.

Step 11: cry

Step 12: delete entire thing and never speak of it again.

Usually, I try to give my ships lines that are reminiscent of old school muscle cars, while being laid out like ww2 era warships. The interiors are more like a cross between star trek and the battleship Texas, which I've actually gotten to visit in person and explore while I was in Houston for work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I like ww2 warships...

You should watch one of the Yamato titles.

 

[Brokengauge]

The Yamato was a veritable monster of a ship, and is a really interesting piece of engineering. It's even more impressive when you keep in mind all they had were slide rules and paper blueprints. I couldn't even design something small precisely unless I'm using some form of CAD program. It's really, truly impressive what they were able to do (with so few resources to boot!)

But... if you're referring to "space battleship Yamato" I must admit that I'm only vaguely familiar with it. The concept is really interesting, but between work, kids, and my OTHER really big hobby, I will probably never get a chance to watch it. :/

 

[KiloZulu]

I don't have any one method that I use. I find that I'm inspired to create a ship and use whatever methods seem most practical for doing so. More often than not, I'm going to start with some sketches followed by a mock-up of the ship using as few blocks as possible to see how the sketch translates into the game's 45° architecture. I might layout a design or floor plan on graph paper.

Sometimes the design process is more fluid and inspired, however, and I just build a room around the core and start working my way out. Sometimes I make a wire frame structure. Sometimes I completely layout the crew's floor plan and then skin the hull around it. Sometimes I build the hull and then fill things in. Sometimes the ship is driven by some external factor, such as the fighters or turrets it will carry, and I build lines out to where they will be placed in relation to the core, and then build a ship to fit their placement.

 

[JinM]

I allways have a special shape in mind, either inspired from a imaginary form or an object (space movie, some pictures, a car...) I saw.

Before I go on, I also consent on the role and the duties this construction will have. If it is very specialised, like having a fighter with Cann-Cann that penetrate 5 block of systems (equals 1000 weapon blocks and would not fit in a 10m fighter) with each shoot, I calculate the space before and adjust the object size dependently. Another example is a salvager, that I want to buy on a server after 30 minutes of gametime: I calculate the average salvager size and what I can afford.

Then I decide on the size I need to realise that form function in its neccessary detail, but in its smallest possible scale.

The small scale is for constructing more diversity and saves time and work. If I made a 10m long fighter I don't have such a hard time making a nice hangar for it as when this fighter would be 50m long. I understand when people crave for gigantism. But thats not my style, because I get the same satisfaction from the small scope, knowing that it does not blow any server and I allways can add new constructions without spending ages reaching up to the set standard ship size some others have.

When I build the hull, I often allready know some of the objects this ship should have, like what the cockpit will look like, where its placement is, where the entry of the cockpit should be, where the walkways go. When the outline of the hull is done, just the first 10 lines you place of blocks, I also allready fairly know where I have some special systems placed (like the big chunk of salvage arrays of a salvager, or a special turret place - other stuff like shields or capazitor places I dont need to know jet).

In the same time I decide on more objects that will be on the hull or in some allready outlined walkways and rooms, like a crane or a cylinder that should be a battery, or a hangar entrance, or some PD turrets. I dont design these details at a certain time, one detail I make right away, another I just sketch out with one or two outline blocks. Thruster placement is important and I try to as early as possible line them out, because they are allways big objects and can't be moved like other details. They want to be at geometrical correct places pleasing the eye. From the first few blocks placed on the constructing, I allways take a step back when I finished some part or just started deciding on its placement, then I go on to another part. Taking a step back and knowing if it fits into the whole design is important and takes place at every stage of the construction.

I go on like that until I finish the complete design of the hull.

One of the last things I allways do, is inserting the systems. Because I allready know the role and the system size at the start, I fairly know where what system will be in the ship and what size they have.

The finalizing of the project allways includes taking a step back again, walking around the ship and polishing some grates.

 

[splatthecat]

I normally would start with a role in mind and throw down a core. Cockpit would be lined out and then everything would follow next. Hopefully it would work out and look aesthetically pleasing, sometimes it would need some "editing" and sometimes I would simply discard it. If there were any cool bits I might copy them and save them as templates.

I have recently started a new ship and on this occasion I have used a variety of coloured hull blocks to outline the main hull, engines, docking points, etc. This so far has proven to be an interesting exercise and I may use a mix of these methods in future.

 

[TrickyNicky27]

I can only create a good ship when I have good inspiration. It could be just an idea for 1 room or an entire ship, or a system on the ship. Trial and error is the game for me. I have about a 1/10 or so chance of getting a design right off the bat(Like my Nco Destroyer), otherwise I will keep building the ship until I like where it is going. Sometimes I build Inside out, and other times I build outside in. For my next ship I scribbled down a list of features, logic elements, and purpose, and I think I will build outside in as well as inside out.
Also I just have those days where I can create great looking ships and then there are those days where I just cant make a ship to save my life.
For some reason, I build way better in a resource-limited enviroment, rather than a creative mode environment.
It never works trying to design a ship on paper, I have tried and instantly lost interest.