Liquid Systems Nano Yard (LSNY)

[Loadout]

Alright, the day has started off a bit rough but so far so good. Posting this from my phone cause internet is being annoying... again.

The docking port is fully functional and even opens and closes when modules are attached. It's not 100 percent idiot proof but about 98 or so. only way to break it is by attaching a module while the back door is open.

Having said that, the modules are going to be reworked slightly so they can attach and detach rapidly without nasty collisions. Which will hopefully fix the abovementioned bug. Also it'll be much faster when swapping out. Which is something that, I think, is important.

Hopefully going to have tower version 2 and maybe rocket pods done later tonight. Already have the rocket turrets lying about, just need to mount them.

That's about all for now... oh, changing the idea of mini drones to a hover tank, it'll look cooler, but im not sure how feasible it is to build ground ships, i may end up swapping it all for mini beam turrets.

 

[jzimmerman4]

I feel so inspired to start building drone carriers after looking at this thread.

 

[Loadout]

Updates:

The Drop Bunker

I Built an armored Bunker for the Cricket. It turned out in the end that building ground AI ships is simply not a wise choice. After spawning several waves of enemies on the ground most ships ended up shooting either into space or digging a hole into the core. So I decided on turrets instead...

This little pop can is meant to hold back hostile lifeforms planet-side while the player either mines or establishes a base.

Spoiler: Drop Bunker

Wait... huh?

I forgot to mention, the new "arms" holding these attachments are now a separate piece. And that means they can be hotswapped!

Currently: Experimental. As fauna is not presently available to test it on.

After reviewing my earlier posts I realized I've yet to show off the inside of the Cricket as well. So without further ado...

Spoiler: Inside the cricket

Hope you enjoyed the view.

Next Project; Bombardment turrets.
Followed by; Moving Legs!

and then... something to do with all of these!

 

[Loadout]

Two more attachments to present today. First up is the,

Mortar

The mortar is designed for planetary bombardment as well as medium ranged combat. It offers a twin rocket turret complete with explosive side effect.

Note: I may change the rockets to lock on missiles down the road. Currently rockets have terrible aim, which isn't likely to improve.

Spoiler: Mortar pics

The Drill

Are you looking to remove a planet? Perhaps you need to carve a hole in something that won't be soon forgotten. Then we've got your point, or rather, several of them.
The drill has been specially designed to spectacularly remove large chunks of salvageable material. As an added bonus all materials collected are accessible from inside the storage room within the drill.

Spoiler: The drill

It doesn't store away quite well, but if turned on in this position, it will still work effectively facing downwards.

The "motor" housing

Drill to the heavens!

Interior shots...

Storage room in motion.

 

[Loadout]

So it's been a little over two weeks now and I think I haven't touched my "battleship" in over a month now. It's honestly tough to come up with things that inspire me to build that ship. I do have several thoughts regarding my up and coming carrier that will replace the Savannah altogether. In addition to this I've been mucking about upgrading my old drones to make them lively again, adding new colors, a few different shaped blocks here and there... truckloads of weapons updates.

Hence I have here a few photos of the newly updated Kuwaga Heavy Support Drone. With a much improved Stop effect and some heavy duty standard issue beams for no non-sense straight up slugfest brawling.

You'll notice I've got 3 color choices here. Really can't decide which to go with, I like the classic black w/red. But black w/yellow is pretty awesome too. Not to mention I tried a few tri-color schemes and the best of the bunch was an Orange base, black stripes, and red crystals.

As for the new carrier my ideas actually run along the following train of thought... Savannah was built first > then plateau >then redid the Savannah to add the nose piece and touch up a few things. Using that same pattern I could build a larger carrier, base the Ocean off that, and then retweak the carrier as needed to add a few final touch ups. Reason why I would start a carrier vs a battleship, carriers have a large base component (drone racks, hangars) that make it easier to build off. I don't really have those sorts of components in a battleship, they don't have hangars or large drone racks.

If anyone has some suggestions about large base components needed to build Battleships I'm all ears. So far all I can come up with is turrets, and I'm not really one to make large sized turrets.

 

[Loadout]

Another update, although I should have chronologically posted this before the one above...

The Gryllos is finally updated, oddly enough this is the first time I've actually had to update this particular drone as it has been my most carefully balanced and powerful drone to date.
This new revision of the Gryllos adds in some new colored armor, as opposed to basic hull. The addition alone increases total survive-ability by ~250%. There is also better weapon ratios, although they remain mostly unchanged, improved power generation, shields, and thrust is now Greater than 1:1 making this an extremely agile drone.

As always it's primary armaments include twin punch guns(Cannon - Pulse in purple) and Quad Shotguns(now in blue). The new colors let players know which weapon is firing, so enemies should avoid the purple shots unless they want a nasty 5k smack in the face.

Old model on the left, new is on the right...

A bit harder to see in this photo but many of the running lines have been slightly altered to be more or less angular. In effect, the shape of the drone is less smooth and boxy and a bit more jagged-insect.

The engine pods have been completely revamped without changing the internals. End result, more awesome with no loss of power/shields/thrust.

As I have tomorrow off, expect to see this guy and the Updated Kuwaga under Community Content soon. I'm also writing up the report for the Cricket and it's modules which should be finished tomorrow hopefully. Depends on how perfectionist I get about it all... x)

 

[Loadout]

Working on the new carrier to replace the Savannah and I'm starting from the inside out. I'm doing this cause I'd really like to get a nice RP interior going, so by all means tell me what you all think of the new hallway design...

View from the bridge...

Recessed lighting in Orange (Towards the Bridge)

Forward Station 1:

Kitchenette:

Major Kudos for anyone who figures out what's special about this door. ; )

Recessed lighting in blue (towards core)

Core Workstation:

Emergency Medbay:

What a view!

View from where the core will be...

As you may have noticed I'm color coding which end of the hallway is which. This should allow easier travel throughout the vessel. This is also not a standard hallway, it's but one of four, and all will be slightly different from each other depending on where they head.

 

[Megacrafter127]

This door is rail-docked.
This is apparent due to the lighting and the fact that 2 wedges are in 1 block.

 

[Loadout]

So aside from work today I spent most of the morning working on different parts of my up and coming ship, which I've still got a ton of work to do on. The outside is barely even a wire frame at this point...

anywhoooo....

Spoiler: the core room...

Only 3 of the hallways leading up to this room are actually completed, I have yet to begin the fourth as it leads to the airlock, however... I have begun...

Spoiler: The Bridge!

This intersection still needs a bit of work but the blue metals will be where the hallway ends and this room begins.

Having shown you all that, I have yet to do the ceiling of the bridge, or the front wall. Reason being I'm debating on whether or not to add either an extra layer of armor blocks on top of basic hull or just going straight to the armor.

Either way it will decide the standard for making the 3 other hallway rooms. In addition to those I have 4 more main rooms to do that are yet to be assigned anything except 1 barracks and 1 weapons/engineering.

Some options include;

• Splitting weapons and engineering into 2 rooms
• having a special storage bay hangar
• a scanning or minerals room, for science!
• A hospital or a Brig or maybe both! cause... why not?
• A "Green" Room fer all ye land lubbers!
• A bar, cause that's where me rum goes...

 

[Loadout]

Updated the Kabuto finally, been weeks now since I've gotten a chance to work on it and I finally finished remodeling the hull so it can fit the new systems.

Kabuto "Rhino" version

Let me preface by saying I've skipped a version here because version 5 was just an armored edition of version 4 with some minor power/damage tweaks. As is noticeable below...

Top: version 5
Bottom: version 4

Not much of a difference but I never released the version 5 so I decided to leave the numbers behind.

Spoiler: pics

new horn, new arms, new EVERYTHING! (mostly)

Note the missiles on top, more on those below.

Underbelly is still easily recognized.

The back has completely changed.

New paint job as well! :O

The arm pods are now much larger and carry weapons to match!

Legs now match the gryllos mk2 and Kuwaga version... I forgot at this point. But the legs are very much the same style now.

New features list;

• heavier more armored body provides additional structure, nearly doubling base health
• Increased armor by almost 2x
• Shields increased by ~7k
• DPS is stabilized and doubled!
• new paint job, new hull shape, new thruster design to match other recent showcases
• Thrust is now nearly 1:1 allowing better maneuvers at high speeds

The new weapons on the Rhino version are 4x Lock-On missile launchers, each dealing 5.4k damage per missile. As well as 8 spine mounted light-pulse missiles(missile - dp, ~45%) for area removal. In recent tests these pulse missiles are able to strip clean large areas of internal structure with minimal effort, resulting in a rather messy but far quicker kill.

Originally I had intended to just use the quad missiles with some extra explosive effect, but this setup skips the effect for a faster albeit odder way of dealing with internals.

In addition to all this, like the version 5, the Rhino is rail compatible as with all my newer updates/releases. Like my other Ironclad drones the Rhino has a "Larval mounting" system allowing it to hang like a cocoon from it's docking rack. A very insect like way of docking things if I do say so myself.


Stats Chart:

*Note the Kabuto version 4 is unstable in it's power supply. Subsequent updates after it's release broke the delicate balance it's ancient power core once had. The version 5 and Rhino, are both power stable and able to maintain their dps indefinitely.

Edit: Forgot to mention this, The Gryllos mk2 and mk2_c variant are both available for download under CC. Please check them out at your earliest convenience.

 

[Loadout]

Did some testing with the Kabuto Rhinos earlier. Here's some pics of the results against Thalanor 's SCF Procyon rev6.

 

[Thalanor]

Oh you have been busy! <3 RP hallways!
My ships seem to be a benchmark But the power of drones is as such that they get ripped into pieces.

 

[Loadout]

Oh you have been busy! <3 RP hallways!
My ships seem to be a benchmark But the power of drones is as such that they get ripped into pieces.

I've been using your Procyon ship as a benchmark since revision 1? A Long time now X). While it usually kills more then a few(originally it was quite good at killing drones), this time it only destroyed 5 drones and the damage to others was minimal (a few blocks at most) my Ironclads are constantly evolving though. Can't wait to see your replacement for the Procyon, should be fun shredding it. :D

Also, been prepping an update to the Procyon to bring it up to snuff on rails and whatnot, though I doubt I'll do much besides trying to give it rail turrets. Maybe dropping some shields or something so it can shoot more <_< it always seems to run low on power when it uses it's main-gun.

 

[Loadout]

So I reworked the SCF Procyon to update it to rails and give it some more time to fire it's weaponry. In the end I managed to add the rails with minimal interference to the outside of the ship, and after reorganizing some of the internal weaponry managed to get it to be mostly power stable.

The new turrets hover a little bit higher than they did originally but otherwise keep much the same visual style.

The only other thing I changed was the lettering, not that I really think it needed it but one side was bugging me...

Top is before, Bottom is after. Just flipped it around to make it not... backwards. Otherwise the ship remains a hell of a fighting machine and functions even better than before.

Now that its done I have a real platform to test my latest drones against. Honestly nothing really stood a chance before, and this ship's latest revision was the best I could get my hands on. Now that it can fire nigh-indefinitely, fixing it's only major weakness in the process, it's going to be a much tougher fight for the drones. Of course that means natural selection, just got a whole lot more Fun.

Thalanor if you'd like the copy I re-purposed here just ask and I'll send it over to you

In other news..

I'm working on my latest carrier design and came up with a massive Ion Cannon turret. Deals about 24k shield damage every 3 seconds. Perfect for mopping the floor with just about anyone's shields. There will be either 2 or 4 of these on the Carrier, leaning towards 2 so I can use the other 2 slots for vertical missiles.

So once I've finished the turrets all that's really left to do is;

• 4 tallish internal areas
• refurbishing drone launchers
• exterior detailing
• Airlock segment & hallway

The hardest part will be the exterior details. To be honest I have minimal inspiration for flat surfaces and need to reshape the outer hull to make it work... at all. Probably gonna have to do this for the drone launchers anyways but it's always a pain either way.

 

[Thalanor]

I think after the procyon was decomissioned, there was some change to power consumption, but most importantly, the ship was never made to fire all weapons simultaneously like the AI does - but instead, to provide weapon solutions for different situations Nice that you refactored it into an AI vessel for drone testing. I have a rails turret version of it started somewhere, but then decided to decomission it as with rails, I wanted to make something entirely new. You can repurpose my uploads for anything, just no reuploads on SMD pls : )

Now looking forward to see your carrier come to life - drone R&D usually sees alot of drones, but very few completed carriers! Even though rails made that much easier to achieve.

For exterior detailing: if you need to make flat surfaces look ok, making it look "plated" is usually an easy way to do that. What looks good is if about half the surface on a ship is low-detail, and the other half high-detail (the former to provide eye rest, the latter to instill awe).

 

[Loadout]

I think after the procyon was decomissioned, there was some change to power consumption, but most importantly, the ship was never made to fire all weapons simultaneously like the AI does - but instead, to provide weapon solutions for different situations Nice that you refactored it into an AI vessel for drone testing. I have a rails turret version of it started somewhere, but then decided to decomission it as with rails, I wanted to make something entirely new. You can repurpose my uploads for anything, just no reuploads on SMD pls : )

Now looking forward to see your carrier come to life - drone R&D usually sees alot of drones, but very few completed carriers! Even though rails made that much easier to achieve.

For exterior detailing: if you need to make flat surfaces look ok, making it look "plated" is usually an easy way to do that. What looks good is if about half the surface on a ship is low-detail, and the other half high-detail (the former to provide eye rest, the latter to instill awe).

Naturally, I'd only upload this on your request and probably only in a message to you as the original author. I found that with so many high powered weapons it was pretty obvious you only intended it as a player operated vessel. Although there's really no AI vessel out right now I can think of that does nearly as well as this one.

Rails only complicated carriers IMO, now you've gotta figure out your launchers before anything else. While that does give a sense of direction in building it can take up alot of space if you're not careful.

I've been trying my hand at making plates, but I usually can't make anything look good. I find it difficult to have segmented armors (something about my spacing bugs me, not sure what yet) which in my case makes plating a difficult task. My previous attempts usually end in disaster so I'm trying to find a pattern that isn't plated but works in large areas, so far recessed circles seem ok, and I'm testing some patterns with those more than anything else. I do appreciate the advice though, especially since your plating was inspirational for some time. :P

I'd say this carrier is pretty small for a carrier but still far larger than any of my other designs. I'd love to go even bigger but I can't reasonably do that without feeling the need to do more internally than I already am(already stretching my limits on the insides). Currently using about 30% of internal space for RP purposes. If this works out though, I plan on making a Titan Carrier based off this design. As of right now it holds over 100 drones and I'd love for a titan version to hold 250+ as well as some sweet weapons.

It just comes back to that detail, as a taller ship, tall details are tough.

 

[Loadout]

So I'm trolling the internet for inspiration photos today and came across the Kiev class Cruiser/Carrier. Thinking this a novel idea I laid out a miniature of my own version based on this Cold war era ship.

The goal of this intermediate vessel: To produce a combat capable ship that is neither carrier nor cruiser but somewhere in between, filling in the roles of both ships in a smaller fleet.

This was basically where my Dune, and Heli-Destroyer projects were originally heading, but were of course never realized. After all this time I felt as though I'm better enough at ship building to go ahead and design a vessel that fills this role.

Spoiler

The glowing crystal represents a docking point, the weapons indicate what type of weapon will be on that turret/point

Underneath the side arms and potentially in the "chest" of the ship will be the drone racks. After extending out the arms they will deploy.

On the opposite side will be some sort of stabilizer fin/wing with another set of turrets for additional firepower. I anticipate these to be much smaller though. Possibly AMS like the conning tower turret.

Aside from using the Kiev as a design launching point, I'll also use the cricket for it's industrial style to make the ship a little more... edgy? I can't think of a term to fit what I'm thinking but I suppose sharp, angled, edgy all work in some sense.

In other news, thanks to this process I've been able to get enough inspiration to also build numerous bits and bobs that will go into the detail phase of my larger carrier. I mentioned earlier it holds 100 drones, but I forgot to mention those are Kabutos, not phaser fleas. It'll be around 11,000 mass worth of drones when it's finished. :D

 

[Loadout]

So I think it's time to start showing some photos of the outside of my newest carrier. Mind you it's still in wireframe for the most part but that'll change quickly once I've worked out the launch mechanism for certain. That one part alone will account for about 50% of my surface space.

Hence without further ado I present the newly revived...

Canyon

Spoiler: pics!

The frontal angle, As a much taller than normal structure the canyon needed some details running the vertical length.
I'm planning to use hovering Armor plates to cover most of this but not all, so it won't appear as though it's completely vulnerable.

This one shows off what one rack is like when fitted inside the canyon. With 4 of these racks armed with Kabutos(not shown) they'll carry 11,000 mass of drones ready for one fell swoop.

Sadly I haven't much more to show of the exterior yet, really not much there right now. Most of the time so far has been interiors, hallways, rooms, and what have you. Also that launch mechanism is a bitch to get right, I may yank it out and simplify the whole thing further on. Having said all that here are some bits and bobs that I've been slowly working on...

Spoiler

Exhaust vents

Power conduits & Terminals

Supply Lifts and the receivers for them.

Brackets

Angled Thrusters for said brackets

Supersized Main thrusters, also on brackets

Some of the details on top in a better view..

Progress so far has been pretty slow, but with at least something on the front of this ship I can finally feel like I'm moving again and start rolling a little bit faster than I have been. Though I may pause at some point and begin working on the new as of yet un-named drone cruiser hybrid. I have some theory stats I'll share below, but not much besides that mini I showed off yesterday. Kind of excited about it though, it's a real 50-50 mix of warship and carrier, which should make it a great backbone of any fleet.

DC planned stats;
Power ~ 1.2 million needed for high powered weapons and the like
/Regen ~180k again, for weapons. x)
Shields Aiming for ~ 3m while hoping to get at least 50k regen - mostly likely wont happen but you never know

Drone Capacity, arguing with myself over what's gonna fit in this ship. So far I've agreed there should be no more than 30 and no less than 12.

Turrets; Have laid out about 6 on the mini but I'm actually hoping to get about 8 large-ish(300 mass?) turrets on here.

When all is said and done I'd like the size to be pretty close to the Savannah, which I feel is pretty reasonable for a modestly sized ship.

Other news; Doing a write up for the Cricket Dropship, and pre-pre-preparing to update the Kuwaga and Kabuto in CC.

 

[Loadout]

Some late night restlessness comes in handy sometimes...

What is this you ask? It's a working 3 story elevator with safety doors, and call buttons! oh yeaaah!

 

[Loadout]

Warning: Wordy Blog Incoming

Work is moving along slowly on my latest carrier builds. On the one side the larger carrier is all but halted in it's progress, at least until I come up with a great idea for the drone racks. Right now as it stands the racks are incredibly slow to launch, each of them taking a full 30 seconds (@120% speed) just to move into position. I'm thinking about rotating them inside the ship so it takes far less time to reach optimal positioning. But there's also a couple of other ideas I've got bobbing around inside my head.

Such as, it'd be nice to have a single super rack to end them all but it just doesn't seem like that is going to work. Making a super rack is not only challenging but committing to a single entity for drone launch for the rest of time. I guess since I hesitate so much on this, I must have some fear of commitment or something. lol.:p

On the other side of things I have made some great progress on my carrier/cruiser. Including a working project name! I'm calling this a Droosier(drew-zer) mostly cause it's a DROne carrying cruiSER. So with that done, I can think up a proper name later, a land feature will probably be chosen as it usually is for my larger ships. Otherwise I need to get a drone launcher chosen for this ship, it needs turrets, a hull, and some systems. I already have the internals pretty much done, the elevator looks great, and the rooms inside are pretty spiffy as well. Perhaps not my best works, but they still look nice.

Hmm.. what else is there to mention...
Droosier needs;

• turrets (30% one kind is done, need two more)
• hull (5% planned, waiting on launcher)
• launcher (?% so many ideas not enough direction)
• systems (0%)
• airlock (5% planned)
• Some touch ups on the interior (85%)

Canyon Carrier needs;

• airlock (5% sharing design with Droosier)
• systems (0%)
• more hull detailing (15% bits and pieces are made just need to be placed)
• better launchers (?% possibly sharing launcher with Droosier?)
• odds and ends plugged into their proper places (15% as with detailing above)