Did some more work on the new ship tonight. More and more I feel this block is going to be my replacement for the old plateau. It's so very blocky though, I'm going to have to add bits and bobs to make it feel a little more organic and less assembly line. Otherwise photos will be incoming tomorrow morning sometime. As of posting it's past midnight here so I'm off to bed for a bit...then pics of the work so far in the morn.
Uploaded my photos at 4am...... slacker :P I'm really liking your use of logic btw. Thanks for updating the thread. It's great to see what others are up to so my brain can take a break from building.
A few new photos today. I ended up shrinking the side sponsons down so they're a little less obtuse. Previously they took up about 99% of the vertical travel when you looked at a side profile. Now it's down to about 85% which feels a little more proportionate. They still have a decent range of travel on the turrets inside, but they were never meant to have a a full 360 degree rotation anyways. They are forward firing weapons after all...
A loaded turret inside the sponson.
thrusters on the bottom...
fully loaded with turrets, and you can see some of the detail on the nose/bow of the ship as well. I went with the odd pattern cause it didn't feel quite right. It was blocky and sort of... whale shaped? meh, this feels better than leaving it as giant wedges.
All that's left is;
tail section - have a few ideas im tossing about for this
airlock just below tail
interior details - rooms mostly
system components - shields, power, etc.
weapon components - main battery
a Name - cause my_latest_Ship is boring.
some more roundness on the outer shell - wedged a few edges but it could use some love
Did some work on the Prometheus this morning, messed around with the Locust for a bit and added cargo storage space to the Scrap Flea. All in all it's been a rather productive day so far. Ton of photos incoming!
The new Scrap Flea preparing to dock aboard the Prometheus.
The outside has been given a nice little "Reactor room". Complete with piping and modeling loosely based on real world nuclear reactors.
Hmm.. what else is there... oh yeah! Cargo Room!
At the end of which is a neat little viewing room to gaze out at the stars/planets or random space whales that may be floating by.
Edit: Forgot to mention, the elevator got an update. It now uses my wireless call button system to reduce the needed logic blocks, and eat through some of the mess.
Did some more work on my latest vessel. Decided i'm going to use an old name from a ship that was never finished. This will henceforth be known as The Taiga.
The whole thing is still very much WIP but I feel the major shapes are in place. Time to chew out some of that extra bulky armor and make it into plating.
I've nailed down alot of the forms on the Taiga now, I am reworking the hangar doors however. Rotating things just tend to break down too easily. I mean, every 15 minutes or so the darn thing gets stuck at some point or another. So i'll just go back to sliding doors.
Got bored, so I started to work on the old Locust. I felt it needed some love after being left un-updated for so very long. While in the process I also updated the Ju Ga.
One side is now a simple landing pad for a pair of Medium-Large escort drones. The updated gun moths(Ju Gas) are currently there.
The nose was merged with the Cicada because it's A) armored, and B) looks nifty
There are now 4 cargo pods on the left hand side. These may be undocked and ferried about via my new forklift system on stations. I haven't tried using them on planets yet, but I get the feeling some minor tweaking could make them work there too. Something would have to prop them up or they'd fall down but that's the only issue I can see.
entryway....
open Sesame[seed]!
nifty little interior with a medpack for heals just in case.
closing the door also turns on the lights and opens the protective forcefield.
When all is said and done the Locust is now a very valuable transport ship. It can hold about ~18k cargo between the four pods. It also sports enough long distance support to get the heck outta dodge incase of pirates. Actually has an interior now, albeit quite cramped. Uses a better jump drive and makes use of the thruster update by being well over 1:1 thrust ratio.
The new Locust is zippier, more armored, and still an easily mass produced ship. All thats left on it is some more internal work and it should be ready to be uploaded to CC.
Edit: The cargo pods are 4.6k each, making the grand total just under 19k total cargo capacity. The ship now also has power drain beams... just because. Was going to do something support-y with the ship but I felt none of the support weapons are really all that useful. Power drain at least contributes something if you wanna stick around the fight, whereas it doesn't have the shielding needed to supply that and astrotech beams are rubbish. It is really quite zippy though, especially after the drones are undocked.
In other news I am thinking the cargo pods may need to be fitted to the Cricket next, and a landing pad specifically for the new Locust should be glued onto the Prometheus for sure. Then again, with all that I've done to upgrade the Locust, the Cricket is somewhat redundant, although the fairly niche role of Planent-side dropship may still prove useful.
Finally got around to finishing the thrusters on the new Cricket. I decided on a cross between the current topside and the newer thrusters on the Taiga. This was the last real thing left to do on the Cricket update, other things touched up include the top side, the lighting system, new cargo storage, and fixed docking system to allow actual landings without a special module.
I'm thinking about adding a tug system down below to allow for mission specific modules like teleporter pods, deployable salvage rigs, and other nifty things I may come up with in the future.
So lets see some pics!!
Undeployed or Travel mode...
Vs.
Landing gear deployed...
Up next some outside photos...
The front... below the yellow lights are the cargo tubes. Between the Green and red is the bridge, and the rest is much the same as the last update.
May be hard to see but the inside is now much more spacious. Originally it was a 1 block radii around the center chair, it has since been doubled on all sides.
Here we have the sides detailing the new landing gear, which I styled to resemble legs.
the new crossover thrusters...
Back of the thrusters and below them is a hangar/dock for an updated Scrap Flea! Now there's no more guessing about what hides below the surface of that planet, your onboard Scrap Flea will gladly take a sample for you! *
*Capable pilot not included, licensed or warrantied by LSD inc.
And then the insides...
From the bridge facing inwards... note the new workstations along the walls actually extend outwards a bit.
Main cargo is accessible from just behind the bridge area.
Outside looking into the ground/bottom level of the gravity chute.
Teleporter controls are to the right of the core.
Rear access hatch to the hangar pad is CLOSED
Rear acess hatch to the hangar pad is OPEN
That about does it for the Cricket update. IF I go further with a universal docking mount I will update with that later. For now though I'm thinking of making a write-up and putting this guy on CC shortly.
So it's been 11 days and I still haven't gotten the cc updated yet. Here's a recap of what's happened so far incase anyone has been curious.
Started a new job, now working 11-12 hours a day.
Created a template to upload to CC. Now ships have a cool layout to make us more officially awesome. ^^;
Rebuilt the prometheus
found some issues with docking and cargo transfer
Have to completely rework the locust due in part to both of the previous notes.
So what's going on? well I went to town on the prometheus and rebuilt much of the outer structure, moving things around, adding new details, reworking old details. I changed the internal anti-personnel turret to a completely new turtle shell design. It retains all the functionality of the old turret but takes up about half the space. The old one was always temporary though, so having done this is just one more thing I can cross off my list.
Docking issues - When it comes to cargo transfer moving across 3 or more entities is a pain in the ass to get right. It takes up a rather clunky amount of logic and getting it to work without losing ANY cargo is both time consuming and extremely prone to breakage. Not to say that I didn't have it working, cause it did, but I found that some cargo was always lost in transition. As I would rather prefer not to lose any precious cargo, I removed the arm and added a large sweeping arm similar to a push broom. It now sweeps across the target surface slowly while endlessly collecting materials. It then transfers said materials at 100% efficiency to the main ship.
Now that I know cargo is a pain to do this way I have a few thoughts about what to do next. The Locust needs to remove the separate cargo pods and just go with integrated storage. I can't imagine myself ever creating an alternative to the pods given how much of a pain the whole docking procedure currently is. Not to mention the whole cargo transfer thing is just ludicrous.
After the above issues I was working on the landing pad for the new cricket, locust, and whatever else may fit there. As it turns out absolutely no blocks at all must be touching when un-docking. If you do it this way, then the un-docked ship won't move and won't knock the mother-ship all over the damn place. With the Cricket this was incredibly easy to achieve. With the Locust.... not so much. Actually, it's nearly impossible with it's current shape, which leads me to redesigning it.
Things to do next;
Redeisgn Locust from the ground up as it were
add some "nose" bits to define the front of the prometheus
add something to balance the oddly swinging arm of the prometheus
find the time to actually start uploading stuff! (hopefully this weekend)
After a ton of work, I have finally finished the Prometheus. yes that's right. FINISHED. :O Or at least for now it is... more will likely come to it later but for now its finished. Here's a few teaser photos to give you all an idea of what it's like now...
The main tower section. Where the elevator and most everything you'll use is located.
From here we can see the two rotating augers which pause occasionally adding a cool effect. You can also just barely see the hangar which houses an updated Scrap Flea for probing of planets, asteroids, or other unknowns. You can even use it while afk harvesting to speed things up a teeny bit.
Great shot looking out over the center area, the moving gears, the moving piston, and the super charger attached to the classy chassis.
Quick shot over looking the central bits as well as the piston shaft(red moving piston!)
And here's the new locust, or at least a quick peek at it.
The landing pad is now fully compatible with both the newly updated Locust, and the newly updated Cricket. Both of which can be seen in the photos above. Now that the pad can actually house them the only remaining thing left to do is automate the cargo transfer process. Something I should be able to do in about 13 seconds or less. Two clicks, that's all it'll take. =)
Its late though and I have to be gone for another 12 hours tomorrow so I'll aim to get more photos taken in the morning and hopefully start on the write-ups for the Prometheus and the other ships I have to update. The list is at 5 currently.
To do List;
Writeups for Kabuto RHO, JuGa Desperado, LSD Locust, Cricket mk2, Prometheus
ACTUALLY upload the damn ships already! >_<
Get back to updating the old Savannah
Eventually finish the Canyon
Start work on a new carrier
Slack off working on said new carrier
Eventually get around to stuff 18 months from now I planned to do yesterday
So.... I finally got around to it, I uploaded the latest versions of the Kabuto RHO, JuGa Desperado, Locust 3.0, and Cricket 2.0. Links are below for those that are interested...
Aside from that I'm getting a writeup put together for the Prometheus... I hope I can honestly get it out into the CC section by this friday. It just needs some photos and some text, all stats are ready to roll. Once I've got the photos, an Icon, and the flavor Text it'll be smashed together and then Spit out for all to see and download.
After alot of different methods and attempts at re-configuring, rebuilding, and just updating the Savannah I can honestly say it's not happening. So instead I've decided to mothball the Savannah and create a new Mid-size carrier. The result is me creating a plate of perfab parts that I can mash together to create ships. I've taken bits and pieces of the Prometheus, The Canyon, and some entirely new bits and have come up with this...
Side of the ship showing some of the prefabs nearby.
Bow of the ship so far. Could use a bit more work but so far so good.
Front to Back shot of the center of the ship, you can see numerous prefabs here
Just a quick progress report, pics will come later tonight/tomorrow...
Nearly finished with the Veld now, it holds 60 of my larger scale drones (JuGa, Kabuto, Gryllos, Kuwaga). Definitely the largest carrier I've built so far, the Veld measures about 200m wide, about 100m long and about 80m tall. The ship has plentiful shielding, recharge, power
It includes a full interior with pool hall, bar/lounge, multiple berths (crew quarters), two med-bays, two science bays, and a cargo room. In addition to these quarters, there is a fully equipped bridge accessible from the external elevator.
Speaking of which I built a custom elevator/airlock. This structure actually travels between points on the ship and performs both functions of airlock and elevator.
That said, the only thing really left to finish on the veld are the beams for the launch mechanism. Shouldn't take long at all tomorrow, and hopefully I can come up with a decent write up for the Prometheus as well as the Veld. Once all that's done I'll be releasing both the Prometheus and the Veld on CC.
Hmmm I'll post some pics tomorrow morning probably, just to give you guys an idea of where the Veld is at currently.
I'll be releasing the Veld mid-size carrier and also the Prometheus to any parties interested in them.
In other news, my new mobile airlock doubles as an elevator. This gloriously simple technology allows for innovative hull design based off easily mass produced compartments. Which may be just as easily connected to said elevator. End result being a rapidly produced ship that took only a week to create(maybe 20 hours total spent on this project). If I had to do it again with pre-established prefabs it probably would've only taken half that time-frame. Given how quickly this project proceeded, future projects from LSD will attempt to include this system as well.
Another week, another ship is being built. This current project is code-named Mercury. The goal is to build an exploration vessel, unlike my other fleet works this ship is not specific in any particular role. It carries the following in no particular order;
a single wing(3x) of JuGa drones for support
several AMS turret housings are being made
a fairly small defensive weapons array
A modest cargo hold
modest salvage array
jump drive included as well as a scanner
A new teleportation system...more on this below
So my idea for a teleporter... honestly going back and forth to and from the planet surface is a hassle. Even drop ships have difficulty landing smoothly on a planets surface. But a small pod, maybe 7 x 3 x 7 could land fairly easily with minimal bouncing that larger ships experience. If this pod had a teleporter on board linked to the ship in orbit... we could go Startrek all over this bitch. I already have in mind a mounting to both launch and recover(mostly) the pod in question. Said mounting will be attached turret style to the Mercury and thus allow exploration of planets easily without the fuss of landing on a dime.
Simply fire-ze-podz! then activate the nearby teleporter to travel instantly and conveniently to the surface of a nearby planet, station, or wherever you want to go. The best part of this pod system is how easy it is to reproduce a small vessel with a total of maybe 50 blocks. Given how disposable they are, the pods could be left on planets or recycled and used for stations built on the planets themselves. This makes colonization and exploration a more feasible task.
Status Report on the Mercury:
I haven't had much time of late, working a lot of overtime. So progress has been equally slow going on the new exploratory vessel. A few challenges have also arisen and been squashed along the way with a list of several below. Despite these challenges the overall frame is nearly completed and needs minimal work to flesh out the internal structures. The external hull on the other hand is an entirely different story.
Segments - The ship is divided into two parts. The forward part is command and control where all the bits and pieces to live, eat, and generally do whatever needs to be done are placed. This section contains the drone hangars, as well as the main weapons. The aft section is the engineering area, where the engines, thrusters, and other functional bits are located. I chose this duality because in future projects I plan to recycle as much as possible. Which leads to the next bullet point...
Elevator/Trolley connecting the segments - this one was quite a challenge. I have an extremely limited area in which to build this and as much as I wanted to save time by reusing parts I had to alter them somewhat in order for them to fit. The end result was me rebuilding the elevator from the Veld. Originally the doors slide DOWN, now they slide UP. This saved a TON of vertical space without having to design an entirely new elevator. I also cleared out some of the middle bits to give a more scenic view as it was rather restricted.
Transporter unit - so this one was a bit of a puzzler. At first I figured something small and flat would be best. After numerous attempts at varying designs including both moving and non-moving parts, I came to the conclusion my original assumption was correct. Turns out a flat disc shape is the best option for planet-side landings so far. That said balancing the force of the launch and recover unit is tricky at best. On the one hand you can easily push it with minimal force, but too much force when pushing isn't bad. Pulling on the other hand is the hard part, too much and you'll send it flying in the wrong direction at 100 km/s without breaking a sweat. The new invisible rails that were mentioned will help with this as a sort of recovery net I've planned but that's still a ways off yet.
Salvage turret - this one is kind of clever, its a multi-beam salvage array that rotates on the top of the aft unit. Which lets you collect materials from asteroids or planets fairly easily and store them inside a cargo unit. The cargo unit connects to the docker which then transmits all that blocky goodness into the main vessel's cargo hold which is also located in the aft segment.
Once a few details are done, these main components should be attached to the frame of the ship and then I can build the outermost hull, which may take a while to design.
So I've completed about 75% of the interior work so far, only a few details I need to copy paste in are left really. Aside from those details the remaining interior bits that need work are...
call buttons
a lift to the tele-pod area
cargo setup
The outermost shell has it's first pass done, so it's a bit rough but here's some photos to oogle for a while.
Front needs some more hull work...no idea what to do yet though
Glowy logo on the aft segment! oooooooooh...
engines, was thinking of maybe making them taller...
automated salvage sweeps... I went with vertical cause it was easier to move around while you're inside it. They'll be connected to buttons later on so all you'll need to do is click the button and point it in the general direction. You can then move the ship itself and sweep through asteroid fields harvesting stuff that's next to you. Which isn't very effective but is more fun flying about dodging asteroids while lasers hack them to bits.
or at least it sounds fun. x)
The redesigned elevator from the veld. Nothing changed about the logic, only a few visual things and the doors really. Same size and everything, just more open concept.
these side panels bother me honestly... Thinking about scrapping the panels and just exposing the stuff underneath cause they cover quite a bit of detail.
These are all for now, I hope to get more of the aft segment nailed down later today and tomorrow. Then begin working on the AMS turrets, which also need some love. Once all that is good, the aft segment should be pretty much complete aside from maybe a detailed pass over or two. Then onto the monster that is the front segment >_<.
Also of note, those that didn't catch it before, these pieces/segments are meant to be interchangeable somewhere down the line which is why they're being built separately. Who knows, I may mix and match creating ships willy nilly. Think of them as Extra large prefabs. =)
How time flies... well several projects have since been completed since last I posted so heres the report to bring everyone up to speed...
Updates have been done to the following;
Locust
Cricket
Glade* new ship since last I posted
There are planned/in progress updates for the following;
Veld - whole new hangar system that will be less blockey... slightly
Prometheus - now a salvage drone carrier for fleet salvaging
A New fleet is being prepped to be released, it will be a mining fleet with the new Prometheus as the star of the show.
Prefabricated copy-paste base blocks.
In detail...
Cicada - formerly Locust
The new Cicada class dropship features fleet colors of light grey, with teal secondaries, and white runners. It also holds space for a large cargo container setup or prefab base blocks. This vessel comes equipped with an anti-gravity drive and solid thrust performance ratio to enable quick movement. Because of the dropship status I have removed the jump drives and will focus more on using these as surface to surface ships. That is, moving from planet A to station/Planet B.
Palmetto - formerly Cricket
The new Palmetto class cargo ship refits the old cricket drop ship with some cargo pods, a jump drive, and a cool new forward entry hatch. On top of this it mounts a turret on the aft section of the ship to deter any would be pirates from chasing her down.
[No pics as of yet]
What happened here?
I was finding the Cricket a little too obtuse to land on planets. Even with all the alterations I've made to it thus far, It's still very difficult to land a wide ship on most planet plates. The Locust on the other hand has always been much smaller than the Cricket (thus easier to land) and so it made more sense to switch the roles of the two. That way it would be easy to drop off cargo planetside, but I would still have a dedicated transit ship to fend off pirates while moving goods.
and introducing the new...
Glade - Drone carrying missile cruiser
The glade is my latest ship, it has the following features;
an enemy detector - that is so far 95% effective
balanced power generation and storage
numerous missile launchers
Long range cannons for added dps
plentiful AMS to reduce incoming missile fire
6 Kabuto Rho drones connected to the enemy detector to automatically launch when enemies are near!
Manual override for drone launch included!
enemy detector setup. the center turret rotates to face forward enemies and releases the two triggers. Originally it was just one trigger but that didn't go off every so often, about 1 in 10 would hiccup. So I added a second line to reduce the chances of it goobering.
Ah it's been a while. Nearly a month now since my last post. Before that it was even further away. Hmm... well here are a list of the things I've been going on with since Last I posted.
The Palmetto
The Cricket was getting an update some time ago and I virtually finished the entire thing shortly after posting. Never got around to taking pics of the outside till now though, just a few brief screenies really.
Things of note; Less 'busy' hull design
The front end is actually an airlock :O
Cargo pods! :D
I didn't take any photos of the interior cause, it hasn't changed much at all. It doesn't show well either but I replaced the small shuttle pod on the back with a rear facing turret. It's not very damaging but should be enough to keep weaker pirates off your tail. Since you'll be running cargo through the depths of space you might as well be prepared.
The Hangar Turret Project
My latest drone launcher is actually a turret. A Hangar Turret to be exact. This guy will rotate and follow enemies on a single axis to aim the drone launch directly at your foes. It also does recovery as well, but that's not the best part. The best part of this design is actually how simple it is to upgrade!
Should you ever wish to change how your drones will launch, or how many drones you carry on a large entity, the Hangar Turret can also be swapped out for an entirely separate hangar. No fuss, no muss, no digging through massive swampy layers of launch mechanisms and hangar spaces. Just flip and flop! Of course if you wanted fewer big guns on your battle-cruiser you could also convert it into a carrier without ANY* internal redesigns. The opposite is also true, behold modular technology at it's best.
*Except for a few wireless blocks.
The Veld: Updates
A while back someone commented that the Veld was a little too boxy, well yeah it kind of had to be the way the hangars were built, but no more I say! Boxy-ness be gone! shoo! shoo! go away!
So in order to further that agenda I've begun a redesign of the hangars and body. Mainly the Hangars though, as the body itself will end up quite differently as the process continues. You can already see the engines got swapped out for a newer model.
The Ocean
Lastly a very old project gets a very new look... The Ocean. I started working on the Ocean battleship forever and a day ago. Never even came close to finishing and eventually went off to work on other projects altogether. Now that I've narrowed my list of things down a bit, I can begin rebuilding my next biggest ship ever.
Right now all I have is most of the floor plan laid out. I'm still missing the forward part of the ship, however the aft and midsections are largely in place. Details remain to be done and several rooms are literally just a blank floor but progress is slow and steady.
The Habitat area
Above which are some Gravity lifts
Engineering - pretty barren atm
Hallway towards aft Airlock
Some thoughts on this ship;
Total Drone Capacity is: 33** [15 Hangar Turret, 9 in 2 Hangars that flank the aft section of the ship.]
Large mounted weapon does approximately 500k Dps. [Cannon Beam setup 2:1 ratio for 2-sector range with minimal reload impact]
Numerous AMS mounts [9 planned, likely more to come]
Trigun Turrets [ 2-one fore, one aft. Large anti-captial turrets that are top mounted to keep clean LoF]
Shield Capacity is unknown, easily 2-3 mil+ Regen is planned @120k/s, but will likely change.
Energy is subject to change but will be several million to cover thrust, weapons, and regen. As needed basis some space reserved for tweaking.
** Drone capacity includes the modular Hangar Turret. If for some reason I change said turret, capacity may also change. Minimum though will remain at 18.
Since I have made leaps and bounds with my enemy detector turret I can now finally make something I've always wanted to do. Passive Drone defense. I did so by making a Mine which doubles as a Drone rack... or as I am calling it, Project Mangler
I was thinking something like Mine - Hanger but that is a bit of an odd thing to say. Calling it a mango might be easier. This is, so far, a completed project, it just needs photos, a write-up, and of course DRONES! =) After which it'll be in the CC area.
Estimated time-frame: ... well I sincerely hope it doesn't take me all day to do photos as it's a pretty straightforward device x)
Let's say by the end of today the 14th or early on the 15th it should be ready.
Have you ever wanted to release your angry hornets nest of drones on an unsuspecting foe while you were at work? Maybe perhaps whilst grabbing a snack? Or even while visiting the little squids room? Have you ever wondered would it be possible to just leave a few behind to protect a sector or 2? The answer to your questions and pondering bits is here.
The Mangler Mine
The Mangler class D mine, is a drone rack hybrid deployment system. This mechanism combines both the enemy detector as well as basic rail shootout functionality to provide you with an easy to use fire and forget mine. Said mine will then detect and launch its payload of drones whenever an enemy approaches.
Notice: I am unable to load onto CC atm as I have to run off and do real world things. I will attempt to upload these later tonight when I return from said land of the living.
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