Liquid Systems Nano Yard (LSNY)

[Loadout]

The Rails Update:

Slowly but surely I am updating all designs to include this new feature that has finally been released.
So far the Marsh is updated with;

• new ACTUAL wireless logic, to launch drones without build-mode hopping or menu hopping as it was before
• A brand new rail system, which has decreased the size of the drone rack by nearly 1/3!
• No more rack ejection, more on this below

So with real wireless logic in place drones can now be launched with a single click. It has never been so easy which is a huge relief. =) On top of this thanks to rails I managed to shrink the rack size down immensely, see for yourself!

Old rack is on the right, new one is on the left.

Rack ejection, I was always kind of disappointed that I had to lose a large structure from my ship in the middle of combat just because. It didn't really make sense to lose something that while not critical was annoying to rebuild from scratch at times. Now thanks to the wireless logic I can simply undock the drones and then leave the rack alone. It can be easily recycled and turned into a new rack back at the homebase. This actually saves alot of time and materials when replacing drones, as logic circuits often had to be built in certain specific groups requiring either a dedicated factory setup or extra production time on the main units. Not to mention the whole switching back and forth between parts thing, that was and still is a pain.

Aside from that, because the rack is no longer in danger of being lost to the abyss of space, I can now design racks that are not only functional but actually look cool too! So this new mechanism here actually opens the door for some things I've been wanting to try for quite a while now. Hopefully I'll get around to them soon.

Planned updates for other ships;

Savannah:

• Rails and an entirely new launch system
• Improved drone capacity
• Upgrading drones to Wisps/Dragonflys from Phaser Fleas & Rumble Bees
• Turret updates to rail system
• Finally get some interior work done (god I hope so, it's been forever)

Plateau:

• Turret updates to rail system mostly, it should smooth out the exterior turrets a bit and make it nicer looking too
• New Scorpion Parasite drones which will use the rail system as well
• Possibly rework the outside to look better... something about the shape bothers my creative itch
• Engines... gotta redo those eventually
• Wireless logic on the M3s, and the clamps holding them need rails
• May redesign the entire M3 section of the ship altogether

Cicada & Locust:

• Rails for docking, armor plates may become sliding, who knows?
• New weapons
• maybe a size boost so they're not über tiny.

All in all more stuff to randomly be done will happen as well. Oh! one last note, I'm holding off on releasing the newly updated Marsh until I figure out a better airlock, I'm just not happy with the current one... it feels too clunky.

As if space pirates randomly welded some potato chips, scrap metal, and soda cans together to keep them from flying out into deep space.

 

[Loadout]

So... designs have been flitting about my head lately and a lot of stuff has gone on. I've made a new airlock design, yet to implement it though. It needs to be compacted a bit more to fit properly.

It needs a bit more work before I can stuff it into the Marsh and call it ready for the next update. xP

I've been experimenting with pop-up turrets. Not going as well as I'd hoped, apparently turret-rail-axis blocks do not like to be moved while they're rotating. Shame really, loads of cool stuff I could've done there. =/

New Rail design, hoping to implement it as a kind of Super turret mine launcher? Gif below!


Let's see... what else... oh yeah! Thanks to rails the new drone rack for the marsh is now smaller than the rack for the Savannah! Which means...

Yup, the Savannah can now carry medium drones and plenty of em.
Assuming I don't add an extra layer of drones we're talking about having 48 medium sized drones. As opposed to 40 nano drones.

In simple terms that means going from about 612 mass to around 2044 mass in drones. More then triple the mass, shielding, firepower and overall happy-kill-sprees. All the while using a rack system that is easily recyclable and hopefully not too shabby on the eyes, if I should I get around to dressing it up a bit.

 

[Loadout]

So after some R&D i've come up with a new method for launching drones... several new ones actually.

First up is the Auto-rail. I did have a working one on my latest Marsh G2 build, however it turns out this was bugged due to a flaw in the Rails. Appearently rails do NOT like having multiple drones on the same rail at the same time, they have a nasty habit of freezing in place and not responding. As such this design is currently...

Mothballed.

Until further notice.

Up next is my newest attempt at reducing rail size, and thus having less chances of bugs.

The Roto-Rail

by hiding a drone rack underneath the armor plates of a shape we can effectively store them almost anywhere! Racks will no longer be limited to specific areas so long as there's enough space we can fit a two pack, or four pack of drones snugly inside the confines of a battleship.

My hope is to further improve upon this design to stretch it to the limits of rail tech, and get as much as I can from it, in as little space as possible.

Spoiler: Gif!

Finally a theory build based off a sketch I came up with. This one doesn't have any pics... yet, however I'll be adding some hopefully later on tonight. Name-wise, I have no idea what to call it. The premise however is similar to the roto rail, except instead of the plate rotating backwards(X-rotation) it will rotate to the side and reveal drones hidden underneath (Z-rotation). This will allow drones to be deployed without pesky sliding and bumping, but also quickly and from unexpected locations.

 

[Loadout]

So the new rails are in... actually have been for a few days now just haven't had the time to upload stuff xP



Our drone-gineers have determined that by rotating along the shorter axis we can stuff even more drones into the same space than we could before! Amazing how technology works, and math...

In other news the Savannah has been stripped down, redesigned and updated to use rails. Progress is progressing slowly but surely and the new vessel will sport a truly unique drone launch that we have never before used on any vessel. Exciting things are happening here @LSD and more is yet to come.

Spoiler: Some teasers to get you all started ; )

 

[Loadout]

So earlier today I made a gif showing off a view of the new savannah designs...

 

[Loadout]

After much arguing, coffee breaks, and sleepless nights spent in deep space we here at Liquid Systems Designs have used the nano-yard to rebuild the popular Locust model with new docking and launch mechanisms.

The result of this rebuild is featured below....

presenting...
The Locust X4

Open Docking Clamps...

Closed Docking Clamps...

Side view of the open clamps...

Closeup of the docking area showing details...

Rear view highlighting the newly rebuilt engines of the Locust. These are the same drives built on the marsh, wisp, and other vessels.

The new design is slightly wider to more comfortably accommodate the new clamps. It is also longer to maintain a certain proportion. With these additions the new Locust is more heavily armored but further thrust has been added to compensate.

In the end however, the Locust is still just a transfer vessel. It is not a direct combat vessel, however it's combat variant the Cicada is already in the works for a major overhaul.

 

[Loadout]

In looking to nature for inspiration I found that a new color scheme is quite attractive on my newest Update. Presenting the new...

Phaser Flea TGX

This new flea is an (almost) completely cosmetic update. The motivation here was to bring the older designs some elements from the newer ones to help tie everything together pre-fleet update. Which I'm slowly working on.

In addition to the cosmetics I'm updating my colors to Orange/Black. Why change colors? I was tired of brown being annoyingly difficult to mass produce. I wish I could say that it was something more philosophical or deep but it literally is just a pain in the ass to gather 6 different asteroids to make a single piece of armor. =/ sadly I can't be arsed so I went with new colors...

Well you might be asking why orange? answer, I have a metric #@$%-ton of orange crystal and metal lying around <_< seriously my asteroid mining belt is almost 50% orange. So it seemed fairly easy to bring around the world harvesters and gather up enough orange to make an entire fleet in minutes.

On top of that, Orange/Black just looks cool. Very aggressive, but natural.

Also, look at that detail I've gotten now. ~droooool... errhrmm.. So with this new update the Phaser flea is not only super sexy, it also has additional shields bringing it up to a nice 3k shielding. It retains the same weapons systems (ratios included!), as well as thrust with only a small increase to mass(17->19.2). Size rating has not changed at all, it is still a 7 x 5 x 7.

 

[Loadout]

When cruising through the depths of space we have encountered a strange and terribly nano-virus. This virus subsequently infected and demolished much of our systems. Thanks to the valiant sacrifice of our beloved plasma-brewery, the senior design team managed to escape with only a few minor losses. The locust X4 will need to be rebuilt as will a new prototype of the Canyon heavy carrier, although it was going to be redesigned anyways to fit new rail tech from the core up. The previously planned update to the Savannah has been lost, although a new and vastly superior update is underway.

What this means; Eh, got a nasty virus while downloading some tunes and my starmade folders got corrupted. Most of the blueprints however were spared.

The new panels on the Savannah...

Each panel will hold about 30 flea sized drones, meaning a grand total of 120! Pretty darned spiffy. To be honest the medium and heavy drones however are in need of work, they have a lot of shielding but personally I feel they need more DPS. Given I have to basically start from scratch I'm planning to take a long examination of their offensive abilities and hopefully improve them.

 

[Loadout]

Some update photos of the Savannah...
Angled photo showing the side turrets...

The turrets are mounted on rotator cuffs allowing nearly 360 degree rotation.

The new top of the Savannah, planning to add some lights to make it jump a bit.

Engines, still a work in progress but the sides are largely finished.

That middle though... =/ been bugging me and I don't have a clue what to do about it.

All in all the Savannah is coming about nicely. Some things still need a ton of work, others are fairly well done. At the present time;

• The drone systems are actually ready to roll.
• The forward turrets need a bit of decor but are otherwise 100% functional.
• The interior weapon systems are operational.
• Interior work needs to be started as it has yet to be touched.
• The forward section is being rebuilt to match the brown version shown above, I like that shape a bit better than the current one.
• Rear engines need something in the middle area to tie them together.

In other news plans are currently underway on a new Cruiser. This ship will feature multiple turrets designed to rapidly dispatch enemy drones while holding it's own (limited) supply of drones to boot. Name is up in the air right now, but I'm thinking it'll be something woodsy to keep the terrain-name pattern I have so far.

 

[Loadout]

Update on the Savannah:
Engines are done!

New Turrets are looking sexy...

So I can officially cross those two things off the list. Up next I'm going to do some work on the panels in the back as well as make a new Nano Drone to compliment the Phaser Flea TGX I have on there. Also those phaser fleas are getting a minor tweak. As I was perusing the galaxy I realised that orange crystal and orange metal are not on the same asteroid, however Red crystal and Orange metal ARE so they'll get a quick crystal color swap to make it even easier to farm them. =)

Thoughts on advanced armor for drones anyone? I've been considering upping the orange to advanced and dropping the black to basic hull. That'd reduce the number of asteroid types to 2. Quite tempting considering the vast number you need to farm as is.

 

[epicfacethe3rd]

I seem to have missed all the fun. anyhow, here's an idea: wings that come out of the sides that have nothing but drones in them, and they stay open as there are huge weapon batteries inside them.

 

[Loadout]

Over a month now and a ton has happened. Lost internet, got internet back, got a new isp, and came up with a half dozen or so new things... Lets get started then.

To answer epicfacethe3rd; Having weapons in the deployable panels hasn't worked out quite so well. They frequently misfire and end up hitting either the drones or the mothership. Also because the panels are rarely large enough to house a massive weapon, the weapons themselves tend to be rather small compared to the space needed to house them. It just hasn't worked out so far, although I have laid out the framework for some weapon panels that gets rid of the drones, I haven't bothered because again it takes more space than just mounting a turret of similar size.

At some point awesomeness has to make way for actual usefulness, and this is one point where I feel that is the case.

Moving onwards! A new ship has been made, using the panels mentioned above, although the release(whenever I get around to it) will likely use the drones mounted in the pics...

The Mesa

A replacement for the much outdated Gorge. The Mesa is a lightweight easily mass produced destroyer with high alpha potential and modest DPS. It maintains a nearly 1:1 thrust ratio, and houses 4 updated Ju Ga(jew-gah) drones for interception duty.
This vessel is equipped with full standard armor, a modest RP interior and capable shields for a vessel of it's size. Which is roughly 1.2k mass.

Spoiler: Mesa Pics

close up of filigree

minimal details on top side to give it some negative space...

Down below to show side details of interior

Aft view

ooh shiny doors....

Door slides up!

Interior of airlock...

You can see the hangars from inside the airlock!

Hallway viewing engineering

Engineering Looking forwards..

Looking @ cockpit

Cockpit

continued....

 

[Loadout]

The Ocean

Every fleet needs a heavy hitter, and up till now that has been the LSD Plateau design. Unfortunately it's not big enough. So after many Irish Cappuccinos and a few innings of frog baseball, we decided to make something BIG. Hence the Ocean was conceived. A Battleship of unprecedented proportions here at LSD, the Ocean will weigh in over at well over we don't know mass(shooting for about 80-100k but who knows at this point). Whenever we finish collecting enough space hamsters to power the thing, we'll get a much better estimate on it's total mass.
Until such point we're moving forward specifically with a focus on internal design this time about. With nice, neat internal details we will build outwards and attempt to mount the biggest baddest weapon we have ever crafted. We call it... the HOG, or Hand of Gawd. This weapon is currently a secret, however as the PR rep for Liquid Systems I can say this, it's got massive Deeps, and may actually be large enough to hold a Savannah in the barrel alone.

That said there are some current photos we are allowed to press release for you all to drool over.

Spoiler: Ocean WIP

Partial view of the Bridge prefab

Frontal shot of the bridge

Underside of the bridge, still planning on adding some work stations down there.

This block is going to be a dual floor block. Much of the hull will be these, although I plan on adding actual stuff into each room. Right now this is blank but it'll eventually be a med-bay on top with a galley down below. Hallways will be based on this but with some added bits of detail.

Engineering pics, where the core currently is on the main ship. Behind those forcefields. Kinda neat how you MUST be directly adjacent to the core to enter. Sort of a security feature if you will...

Numerous workstations are along the bottom of the engi bay...

Forcefields all around the core block(pictured here it's empty space)

Some systems cubes and an external framework to hold them inside. They're separate so they can just be filled as needed.

The ship is eventually predicted to look somewhat like this...

And also there is...

A New drone launcher, seems like every new ship has a new launcher too.

This particular launcher rotates then fires off a single drone, magazine style. This delays the launch so it won't lag out an entire server if say..... 200 drones were to fire off all at once. It'd only be doing 50 at a time with this style. The rack is actually expandable and can hold an number of drones; 1, 2, 37 & 1/4. The logic behind it is fairly simple but took a bit of work to nail down flawlessly. As is, it can be repeated endlessly. Want to launch a ring of 284 drones in groups of 1 or 2 at a time? This framework can help set that up.

 

[Loadout]

Was sitting here thinking about the Ocean and came up with an idea...

 

[Loadout]

Working on the Ocean some more today, progress is slow but steady. I find it very difficult to find inspiration for large sections of the ship. Smaller pieces come naturally but the large bits remain rather.... bland.

Small bits i've worked on so far...

These are the "fins", they don't really serve much of a purpose but I'll probably use the insides as extra thruster storage. Considering how dark the inside of each of them actually is, you'd never see it... unless you had a flashlight.

Nose bits so far...

I hesitate to call these done aesthetically. I'm 100% certain they'll change at some point, but for now the moving "hood" over top of them is more of a concern.

Interior shots...

The interior could use a bit more color, but otherwise the decor/functional blocks are ready to roll. For the most part I think some alternate lighting and maybe a few secondary color hull blocks would spruce it up quite nicely.

 

[Loadout]

So, after trolling about looking for inspiration I decided it was high time i make a civil ship. After alot of scumming through the community content I got the idea for a dropship. I don't make a lot of planet-side ships and that's probably cause gravity sucks. Not to mention there's almost no landing space to be found anywhere on most planets.

Thus the Cricket Utility Systems Ship was born. CUSS for short. This ship features anti-gravity tech to help smooth out the rough landings but what's truly impressive it's extended landing tower. Yes, TOWER. Take a peek and you'll see...

Spoiler: The Cricket

Oh and yes, the front thruster pods do rotate, and those beacons do flick on/off depending on whether the landing tower is down or not.

I am thinking of shortening the tower later and maybe adding some kickstand style true landing gear. That however would be a bit more difficult and would interfere with my design for a drill that can replace the landing tower.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Trolling

CUSS

Someone has a dirty mind!

 

[Loadout]

Someone has a dirty mind!

Name of the Faction is LSD. We(I) own the Nano-Yard, you're a bit late to the party

 

[Loadout]

two new things to show today, first is a new version of the flea, and the second is a new attachment for the Cricket.

Scrap Flea

Seeing a pressing urge for a low altitude harvesting ship, our engineers took an old phaser flea that was lying around and flossed it's ai. We then stripped the weapons of the now harmless critter and added the scaffolding needed to support a modestly sized salvage array. With that done, we realized we had enough space for an anti-gravity system as well and so we stuffed that in there too. The end result was a small harvester with a storage unit and anti-gravity field that allows it to safely hover over even the most dangerous planets in relative safety. Assuming the anti-gravity drive doesn't implode and turn you into space dust.

Spoiler: Scrap Flea

The Pod Cricket attachment

High atmosphere deployment system for the Cricket. The Pod allows a pilot to hover safely above a dangerous or unknown planet, and then deploy a harvester or exploration unit to the surface below. All without needing to worry about any nasty face eaters or belly-bursters climbing aboard in their absence*. The Pod's aero dynamic design allows smooth entry-egress from a planets atmosphere with minimal drag.

*Note: The Pod does not protect against aerially transmitted diseases, bacteria, or other flying creatures of ill repute. The Pod will also not protect against anything already in the stomach of crew members. Please remember to screen all crew prior to leaving the atmosphere.

Spoiler: The Pod

 

[Loadout]

A few hours later and I have another attachment and a few more in the works as well. Seems my cricket design is quite adaptable to these and it fits a large number of roles both on and off the battlefield.

The Launch Pad
Cricket Attachment

This design was made in anticipation of the Fauna update. As worlds will more than likely have hostile lifeforms it would only make sense for a Drop ship to have some means of dealing with said lifeforms. Hence I have added four tiny cube drones with the express intent of eliminating said hostile critters.

Mind you this design is far from final and will remain experimental until after the release of the Fauna update.

Spoiler: A little peek..

Terrible photos I know, but there's really not much to show.

The following is a list of planned or already built attachments for the cricket.

Built, Planned, Experimental

* The Tower - landing pad meant for easy planetary landings in areas with minimal flat terrain. Mountains, rolling hills, etc.

*The Pod - Remote salvage and reconnaissance unit for high atmosphere operations. Useful for scouting and salvaging unknown/unexplored planets. Will more than likely dress this up a bit more, it's kinda bland right now.

*The Launch Pad Drop Bunker - Hostile life-form removal. Small seeker drones turrets will attempt to clear out infestations on targeted planets. Actual launch mechanism may be implemented later as opposed to pure gravity drops. Currently may be dropped onto a planet, used above one, or docked to a planet/station for defense purposes.

*Rocket Turrets - Planned for anti-facility operations. Turrets will be small but powerful enough to provide bombing runs in support of other armed craft.

*Salvage Rig - Planned for removal of asteroids and other harvest-ables in range of the Drop ship.

*Tower Version 2 - Planned to eliminate the drawbacks of the original, namely the top heavy aspect. Hopefully this will be done with the use of extendable legs, or at least that's the plan. Fitting them properly however has been challenging, if successful they will add the extra support needed.

*Docking Port - Less of an attachment and more of a clear and easy method to enter/exit the ship while docked. Currently it consists of a teeny door at the back end of the ship. I'd like to enlarge/replace/or just make it more awesome in some way. Hopefully this can be done without a terrible amount of extra work... though I get the feeling that will happen anyways...

That's all for now, although I'm sure more will come. This ship is planned to be a workhorse of the fleet and it looks to be shaping up that way quite nicely. =)

Update: Docking port has been finished, Pod and Bunker are currently available for hot-swapping. Tower will be converted over shortly and tower v2 will also use this new framework. All attachments will be made available via group download alongside the Cricket.