Port Vandermier - progressive shipyard build

[Drybreeze]

this shipyard is really taking shape.. its looking amazing. you have a good eye for details

Thankyou that's very kind. I take inspiration from blending concept art I like, as many builders do. Then I put infrastructural beams etc inside it and let them naturally guide what can fit and how.

Not in server.cfg, but in StarMade/customBlockBehaviorConfig/customBlockBehaviorConfig.xml:

<BlockBehavior>
 ...
  <ShipYard>
    <BasicValues>
      <ShipyardArcMaxSpacing>50</ShipyardArcMaxSpacing> <!-- max distance between shipyard arcs -->
    </BasicValues>
  </ShipYard>
 ...
</BlockBehavior>

Oh bam! That's very useful thankyou very much. That gives me much more freedom when I get to that point.

 

[Drybreeze]

This evening I worked on the Sagitta turret housing (since it will be seen from below and I didn't want to have shield capacity modules hanging their big hairies out everywhere).

I'm also beginning to mount the spotlights on Spine Module #2.

As you can see these spotlights are paired and mounted on turret points so they can be manually rotated to the desired angle... it's a subtle effect but one that I wanted rather than having the lights all facing directly downward... I thought it was important to have them all face towards the mid-point of the shipyard area.

The Sagitta Class turret housing. This isn't necessary when the Sagitta is hull-mounted and the innards aren't visible, of course. However on Port Vandermier the underside of these top Spine Modules are visible, and therefore a housing is necessary to make it all perdie. There's two huge geared motors either side which control the rotation of the turret's base (the second motor also offers redundancy if the first fails).

The turret housing nestled in between the Main Quad Shield Tanks. The motors aren't readily apparent from this angle as they sit up behind the tanks, however engineers can still easily access them from within the Module itself. When I do a video soon I'll have a closer look for you, there's some pretty animated details to it I'd like to show.

The spotlights are being mounted currently... the ones that are already mounted are active. They'll be toggled by wifi modules which I'll have to hook up on each pair - that makes a total of 60 manual wifi-connections for just these lights... sigh.

Decals for the shield tanks have been applied. Once the Fermium isotope core is depleted in these (approximately every 3 years) they are removed and replaced.

The additional areas within the Spine Modules will contain a small pressurised area (accessed both from a small airlock as well as internal intra-station teleporters), which will house the engineering quarters and facilities, and adjoin two astrotech drones which are used to manufacture and repair vessels when the shipyard is fully operational. These drones will be tucked up out of the way within the volume of the module, but readily launched and accessed (no hangars, just docked). From this area engineers will also be able to access the hatch into the Sagitta turrets' Fissionable Materials projectile ammunition tanks docked on the upper portion of the wings of each module, so that they can be jettisoned in an emergency (they're a docked entity also). You can see these access points as yellow black hazard stripes on either side of the module, which corresponds to the hatch at the base of the tank.

There will also be a few other systems and a whole butt-tonne of cabling between all the high-power systems.

 

[Drybreeze]

I've tried out your three turrets. The Aegis is similar to one I use but I liked the small details of yours better. Works well as an AMS but as you mentioned, setting them to ANY makes them a useful turret to have.

The Incise is a great little turret too. I do have a slight issue with the off centre barrel design which is the profile doesn't lend itself to shoulder mounted pairs on a ship and a right handed version would be useful?

Finally the Sagitta. I was actually quite disappointed with it. I had hoped that the weapon would be largely self powered but I wasn't even able to fire a single shot. This has put me off digging a hole in my WIP ship whoc is a real shame.

They are however visually stunning.

I have created a Sagitta Class LR Cannon MkII to meet your requirements.
It is completely self-powered. It has a larger radius under-skin base, however it also has greater shields capacity since chances are that a ship that can't power the turret completely also is probably small enough to be more likely to fail shield coverage during a fire-fight.

The firepower remains identical - only the base has changed.

You can find the Mk II temporarily here. Let me know if you like it or think other changes can be made. If you're happy I'll release it as a different parallel version of the Sagitta for ppl that prefer turrets to not draw from the mother. With Port Vandermier I actually have a massive excess of energy production and capacity, so this was not a key design requirement for the Sagitta Mk I. (I'll delete the file from my drop-box in a few weeks, so this link will become obsolete at that time, and I'll upload it to Community Content section at the same time.)

Sagitta MkI profile on the left.
Sagitta MkII profile on the right.

Sagitta MkI underside on the left.
Sagitta MkII underside on the right.

Looking forward to your feedback. And now back to the shipyard.

 

[Drybreeze]

This evening I spent some time doing up the interior of the new housing for the Sagitta LR Cannon. I have kept the MkI fitted to the station, as it draws from a heavy over-supply of power from the side modules.

I have filled the remaining space with an access tunnel from the corridor that will connect to the engineering section of the module... this is where engineers will work and access various systems, including the astrotech drones, the fissionable projectile munitions tanks, the connecting systems, and via an airlock can move out into the sky-walk and other areas of the Spine Module.

A brief tour of the interior:

The corridor leads through a narrow passage (normally blast door is closed at this point) into the interior of the turret base housing ahead.

The fissionable materials are shuttled along this munitions feed line, which is shielded from the engineering access walkway. This shield can be brought down to maintain or repair the line in an emergency, but special PPE is required to do this due to extremely high levels of radiation which is normally blocked by the EM shielding.

Under the walkway is visible a number of relays, power conduits, cooling fans and various systems required to maintain the turret's normal functions. This area can be accessed by removing the walkway flooring panels manually and climbing down. Standard operation does not require access to this area.

The Turret Control point. From here an operator can perform diagnostics on the Sagitta Class LR Cannon fitted to the Spine Module, as well as interface with the computer systems responsible for controlling the turret. Direct AI access is also possible through this interface, allowing the operator to take direct control of the turret if necessary. Please note: For turret to return to automated fire after manual control, this will require a manual reset of the turret's AI module, which is only possible by accessing the direct interface on the back of the turret. Use with extreme caution, especially while station is at battle-stations.

Keep hands and any loose items well clear of the ceiling, as this is part of the turret and while under Turret AI control it is prone to move suddenly and without warning.

Through-passage leads to the other side of the Spine Module, where the opposite engineering section is located. Traveling through this Turret Control passage is the most direct route between the two engineering sections, although there will also be other routes around the Sagitta turret's base housing.

The rest of the area inside the Sagitta base housing is filled with shield rechargers, which adds a further 75k/sec charge rate to the shields. This means that once all five Spine Modules plus the other 5 Side Modules are installed, the shield recharge rate for the station will be somewhere around 595k/sec recharge rate (not counting additional systems that I may be able to hide around the place).

This means that as it stands the station is anticipated to be able to fully recharge it's 63M shield capacity in around 105 seconds.

 

[Drybreeze]

cPho Corporation has finally outfitted Port Vandermier with her first Technician Drones... a core utility used in the building, maintenance and repair of vessels in the shipyard.

Introducing the Adjuitor Class Technician Utility Drone, installed 8 per Spine module hanging off a control module dedicated to each pair of drones.

The drone is an open-cockpit vessel, generally operated remotely by an operator that sits inside the airlock dock control tower.

This control module is attached to the main engineering module which in turn is attached on both forward and aft sides of the Sagitta turret housing, nestled in between the Main Quad Shield Tanks.

The entire control module is an airlock, so that a technician has the option of controlling the drone from within the module in a pressurised environment, or can seal off the module from the main corridor, and open the airlock bay door immediately adjacent to the docked drones to provide direct access to either maintain or manually pilot the Adjuitors racked there.

The main corridor branches both left and right to drone control modules.

The far end of the corridor has a small upwards chute access (via double blast doors) to the fissionable materials tank docked there as a munitions reservoir for the Sagitta Class Turret mounted on the top of the Spine Module.

The opposite side's drone control module.

The drone control operator's station.

Further into the engineering section, up a double set of stairs, and sitting underneath the huge motors that drive the rotation of the Sagitta turret, a small observation deck looks outward towards the Plasma Cycling Units nested in the far end of the Spine Module.

And further along a dark lit corridor where hissing black evil crouches in wait...

 

[splatthecat]

I have created a Sagitta Class LR Cannon MkII to meet your requirements.
It is completely self-powered. It has a larger radius under-skin base, however it also has greater shields capacity since chances are that a ship that can't power the turret completely also is probably small enough to be more likely to fail shield coverage during a fire-fight.

The firepower remains identical - only the base has changed.

You can find the Mk II temporarily here. Let me know if you like it or think other changes can be made. If you're happy I'll release it as a different parallel version of the Sagitta for ppl that prefer turrets to not draw from the mother. With Port Vandermier I actually have a massive excess of energy production and capacity, so this was not a key design requirement for the Sagitta Mk I. (I'll delete the file from my drop-box in a few weeks, so this link will become obsolete at that time, and I'll upload it to Community Content section at the same time.)

Sagitta MkI profile on the left.
Sagitta MkII profile on the right.

Sagitta MkI underside on the left.
Sagitta MkII underside on the right.

Looking forward to your feedback. And now back to the shipyard.

I have tried out the update but I have a problem with my install and it doesn't seem to cause anywhere near the damage I would have thought.

I need to do some more tests on performance, however, I do have a couple of minor issues.

1) No rail Docker on the base?

2) Self powered it can fire about 5 or 6 shots before the power is depleted and you have to wait a few seconds before it can be used again. Not major once installed but I'd be concerned if I have several of them draining power from the ship/station.

3) Barrel in odd position when spawned and you need to reset it before it will move. Again, not a major problem but worth checking out.

Thanks for the update though and your continued and inspirational work on the station.

If this project has an eventual end I would LOVE to see a feature length RP style build video from start to finish.

 

[Drybreeze]

Hi Splat (love that name)

The rail docker is embedded about 2 blocks below the mother skin's surface (see pics in this thread of the docking point). I did this to enable me to operate the turret from below by having the core there, and also because I wanted the docking hinge to be just under the turret itself. This will be a universal attach point for medium and large turrets for cPho corporation, allowing multiple future turrets to be fitted to the same point(s).

I was able to fire an undocked Sagitta endlessly without it dropping energy levels at all so I'm not sure what's going on there.

It will inherit the position it is last saved in. My recommendation is that you fit a second docker under the core module (which I put at the base to allow easy access into the turret from the engineering section as shown in this thread), reposition the turret to your desired spawn-in angle and if you wish add more power blocks, then save it. Either over the top of mine or as a MkIII or something. It will then spawn in to your exact requirements. I will take another look at it soon and see if I can see what's going on with the power situation... ate you using the latest release version of starmade or the dev version or what? Maybe they vary in power output for some reason. ..?

 

[EMC007]

Wow, I mean, wow.


I must say, this is one of the best looking station-well, really, one of the best looking ANYTHINGS I've seen in this game.

I mean, seriously, the level of detail I have seen you put on these ships and that cool as hell station is incredible, and I really do not know how you do it. I consider myself to be a decent spaceship builder but DAMN, these ships are looking a hundred times cooler than anything I've built before.

I especially like the "Messis" engineering ship you built, and it gave me a few ideas for a cargo ship in the future.

But I will be watching this thread now that I've quickly gone through it to see all the awesomeness, and I cannot wait to see what the finished station will look like.

Good luck to you.

 

[Drybreeze]

Wow, I mean, wow.


I must say, this is one of the best looking station-well, really, one of the best looking ANYTHINGS I've seen in this game.

I mean, seriously, the level of detail I have seen you put on these ships and that cool as hell station is incredible, and I really do not know how you do it. I consider myself to be a decent spaceship builder but DAMN, these ships are looking a hundred times cooler than anything I've built before.

I especially like the "Messis" engineering ship you built, and it gave me a few ideas for a cargo ship in the future.

But I will be watching this thread now that I've quickly gone through it to see all the awesomeness, and I cannot wait to see what the finished station will look like.

Good luck to you.

Well you just made my week. Thank you very much that's very generous feedback.
I'm glad you like what I'm building - I'm having a great time doing it and I'm also looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

EDIT >
You say "I don't know how you do it" - my answer is probably this:
A lot of tears and swearing and cursing when a day's work disappears because I didn't save it and then some idiotic error causes an entire section to delete and I can't click undo because docked modules that are now drifting out of control prevent the blocks being re-pasted back in and I don't have any razor blades to slit my wrists so I just need to scream and yank hair out and... yeah ... it can be frustrating for sure.

I save versions of everything I've done before making ANY major edits (like copying and pasting a module for example). I also find that it helps a LOT to move on from things that are becoming tedious or frustrating, and go for some other "low hanging fruit" - ie: something that delivers rewards faster... until I have enough patience built up to re-tackle the tedious thing I left behind... right now interiors in the drum are in that category... I have some great plans for it, but I already spent about a week doing it and then had it disappear when my last laptop's HDD fried and I haven't had the heart to tackle it again just yet.

It also helps a LOT to have a good plan in place before you start building it... and helps even more if you allow yourself to use the plan as a guide only and deviate from the plan when a new idea comes in... that way you're always following the path of most excitement/creativity... and for me as a creative person that really is what it's all about.

Plus I feel that the game needs a lot more big and time-consuming stations. There are some REALLY nice ones now... but I want to be able to spend days looking around them, not minutes or even hours... days... to discover all they have to offer. That is why I wanted to make this one.
< EDIT

So far it has worked out quite well - I'm just now starting to move into some interior stuff which I anticipate will take as long as the exterior overall. Once I've decked out the interior (or at least the decks) in the drums of the existing side modules, then I'll mirror those across to the other side and start working on details to differentiate each module from the rest.

Then I'll work on a transporter system to link them all together.
And finally I'll paint the surfaces with logos and numbers and so-on.
Not necessarily in that order.

When it is completed I will release it for download.

 

[Drybreeze]

A recent breakthrough and early development of shield enhancements has caused cPho Corporation to consider it viable to replace a series of turrets (beginning with those mounted on the Spine Modules, and then moving to those mounted on the first array of Side Modules) with upgraded designs...

As a result the turrets on the majority of the Spine Modules have been sent to the now fully functional workshop sub-floor of the shipyard's hangar to be refitted, and will then be re-mounted on the modules.

All Spine Modules now have a full Main Quad Shield Tank set up, along with the plasma cycling units at either end of the module, and the engineering sections and technician drone control towers and docks.

Currently CCV Messis is collecting the remaining technician drones necessary to outfit the shipyard, and these drones will assist the current compliment of Construction Utility Drones and Inspection Drones in completing the build. This is predicted to increase productivity by 468%, even taking into account the increased costs of housing and life support for the 39 technicians and 14 support personnel (galley staff, android technicians, etc) required to operate the drones.

Port Vandermier has also been rolled 67 degrees along it's spine axis, which has granted it better lighting on the top surfaces of the Spine Modules while they enter the final stages of being built.

Kornastone Corporation has settled with cPho Corporation for an undisclosed amount in return for a gag on all details of and evidence from the 5 Flit-Class scout raiders 5 months ago. cPho Corporation's shares continue to climb, and Kornastone's shares have stabilised in the wake of the announcement.

In the midst of the litigation process and media typhoon the contract for the manufacture of the upcoming 10 Vigilant class sentry drones was quietly awarded to the Bra'ktis'lha Guild, a well developed privateer collective of races on the Beta outer arm. These drones have already been completed and are due to arrive with Messis's next payload. cPho Corporation has engaged Bra'Ktis'Lha for other R&D work as a result of their prompt production of the Vigilant drones.

All shield tanks and plasma exchange systems are now fully fitted and operational on all Spine Modules.

Spotlight arrays, turret defenses, technician drones, and sentry drones still need to be fitted to Spine Modules #1, #3, #4, and #5.

Armour plating on the base of the crew living quarters still needs to be fitted on all Side Modules.

The now fully operational shipyard is capable of sheltering, repairing, and docking large vessels. If it's resources weren't occupied with building itself, it could potentially be used in it's current state to build new large-scale vessels as well.

While the Spine Modules are currently without their previous compliment of turrets (while they're being refitted) the station is now by far at it's strongest point since it was started, with shields that would require a sustained attack from a fleet of destroyers or capitals before it was in any true danger of being damaged. The only real threat at the moment is large-scale raids from smaller ships targeting worker drones and other less defended vessels, however such a fleet would itself sustain great losses in a raid and so is currently calculated as being a 1:3,200 chance of occurring.

 

[EMC007]

Well you just made my week. Thank you very much that's very generous feedback.
I'm glad you like what I'm building - I'm having a great time doing it and I'm also looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

EDIT >
You say "I don't know how you do it" - my answer is probably this:
A lot of tears and swearing and cursing when a day's work disappears because I didn't save it and then some idiotic error causes an entire section to delete and I can't click undo because docked modules that are now drifting out of control prevent the blocks being re-pasted back in and I don't have any razor blades to slit my wrists so I just need to scream and yank hair out and... yeah ... it can be frustrating for sure.

I save versions of everything I've done before making ANY major edits (like copying and pasting a module for example). I also find that it helps a LOT to move on from things that are becoming tedious or frustrating, and go for some other "low hanging fruit" - ie: something that delivers rewards faster... until I have enough patience built up to re-tackle the tedious thing I left behind... right now interiors in the drum are in that category... I have some great plans for it, but I already spent about a week doing it and then had it disappear when my last laptop's HDD fried and I haven't had the heart to tackle it again just yet.

It also helps a LOT to have a good plan in place before you start building it... and helps even more if you allow yourself to use the plan as a guide only and deviate from the plan when a new idea comes in... that way you're always following the path of most excitement/creativity... and for me as a creative person that really is what it's all about.

Plus I feel that the game needs a lot more big and time-consuming stations. There are some REALLY nice ones now... but I want to be able to spend days looking around them, not minutes or even hours... days... to discover all they have to offer. That is why I wanted to make this one.
< EDIT

So far it has worked out quite well - I'm just now starting to move into some interior stuff which I anticipate will take as long as the exterior overall. Once I've decked out the interior (or at least the decks) in the drums of the existing side modules, then I'll mirror those across to the other side and start working on details to differentiate each module from the rest.

Then I'll work on a transporter system to link them all together.
And finally I'll paint the surfaces with logos and numbers and so-on.
Not necessarily in that order.

When it is completed I will release it for download.

Hey thanks man, I appreciate that advice.

That's a good idea too, I've found that on multiple occasions I just get really sick of building a certain ship or part of ship, and I end up just abandoning it for a while and go off to start a new project, which I will get sick of too and then abandon and so on and so forth.

But "going for the low hanging fruit" might help me get a bit more motivated for my current project, so thanks for that.

Hope you release that engineering ship with it too, (though of course you don't have to) cause it's pretty damn cool.




EDIT:


Actually, quick question, and I apologize if this was stated earlier, but, would you happen to know the current mass of the station? Or rather, how many blocks it has?

 

[Drybreeze]

Hey thanks man, I appreciate that advice.

That's a good idea too, I've found that on multiple occasions I just get really sick of building a certain ship or part of ship, and I end up just abandoning it for a while and go off to start a new project, which I will get sick of too and then abandon and so on and so forth.

But "going for the low hanging fruit" might help me get a bit more motivated for my current project, so thanks for that.

Hope you release that engineering ship with it too, (though of course you don't have to) cause it's pretty damn cool.




EDIT:


Actually, quick question, and I apologize if this was stated earlier, but, would you happen to know the current mass of the station? Or rather, how many blocks it has?

I will be publishing Messis once I've finished off a couple of details, yes.

The current mass of the station (which is ONLY of the station's 1,486,633 blocks) is 173,266kg.
The overall block count including all docked entities is currently 194,650,406... so it'll probably end up being somewhere around 350,000,000 - 375,000,000 blocks when done.

 

[EMC007]

194 million blocks?

Good lord. The combined block count of every ship I've built in starmade EVER would probably amass to MAYBE 300 million, but to put all of those blocks into ONE station is crazy (to me at least).

Maybe this is just something people normally do though? I personally don't think I've ever thought of starting a project that would require over 50 million blocks to be put in it, but maybe that's just me.

Oh well. Good luck to you, hope it doesn't get so laggy that either your computer can't handle it or you can't build any more because it's dropped to 1 fps or something (I know that's happened to me on multiple occasions).

Great job so far.

 

[Drybreeze]

194 million blocks?

Good lord. The combined block count of every ship I've built in starmade EVER would probably amass to MAYBE 300 million, but to put all of those blocks into ONE station is crazy (to me at least).

Maybe this is just something people normally do though? I personally don't think I've ever thought of starting a project that would require over 50 million blocks to be put in it, but maybe that's just me.

Oh well. Good luck to you, hope it doesn't get so laggy that either your computer can't handle it or you can't build any more because it's dropped to 1 fps or something (I know that's happened to me on multiple occasions).

Great job so far.

Hmmm now that I think about it, 194M with docked versus 1M without docked doesn't seem right. There's a dot in there that I mistook as a comma.... here's the screenshot of the info...

Perhaps it means that the rail is an ADDITIONAL 194k? Not sure. Anyway, there's the current stats.

The computer gets laggy if I set up shadows to full, and block resolution to really high, and when I first spawn in while it loads, but when it's in and loaded it performs pretty much the same as it does without the station. I suspect that I'll need to prune some NPCs soon... or I'll just respawn the station into a new universe and start with base NPC ship counts again...

It also lags like hell when I'm pasting a huge chunk of the station, but I've counteracted that by turning off the block preview option under graphics and just carefully counting the paste-in point (plus a little bit of trial and error paste undo).

 

[EMC007]

Oh, ok. I see now.

I think what it's saying there is that in TOTAL (with all of your docked entities in addition to the original station), you have a mass of 194,650.

So, that would mean that the docked Entities have added about 20k mass to the station itself.

Had me worried there for a second. That's a pretty good amount of shields though, 44 million, there's not a lot that's gonna be able to take that down easily.

And yeah, my computer lags pretty bad at the start of the game as well. I've also noticed that if I turn off bloom effect I get around 1800 fps, as opposed to 200 with it on. And of course, recording gif animations brings it down to 20, so, lots of things'll cause lag. I haven't really messed around with the shadows or rendering or anything like that, most of it is pretty high just by default.

I didn't realize that turning off the block preview for pasting actually helped the FPS though. I was pasting a couple of massive fuel tanks and had a similar lag problem, so that might be a good idea to turn off before pasting something big like that now that I think about it.

 

[Drybreeze]

Well thanks largely to your encouragement, EMC007, I have decided to publish CCV Messis. I should point out that I'm nervous about how it will be received because I'm still very me to this game and there's some really high standards set by other builders from what I've seen.

I ran around her this evening patching up a few holes (like making the blast doors both open and close from the same button - at the door end at least... still individual buttons on the bridge).

She's not perfect, but I like her... any feedback is very welcome.

The containers can hold a massive amount of matter.

Navigation lights were carefully placed to make them as navigationally accurate as possible (ie: what angle they're seen from etc).
It's a shame that when you put crystel under glass or any other transparent surface that it does stupid things, or the hologram of the ship in the bridge would be great... as it is it's a bit disappointing. But I left it in anyway because the visual bug of transparency clipping other transparency behind it might eventually be removed from the game and the hologram would work well. If you like, you could remove the surface glass and have rails around it instead...? I just wanted something under the floor... oh well.

Anyways, here she is, and I hope you like her.

Gnite all!

Full Picture Folder here. (Lots of pics with thumbnails - choose for yourself what you view)
There are a few pics included in the Community Content publication also.

 

[Blodge]

Well thanks largely to your encouragement, EMC007, I have decided to publish CCV Messis. I should point out that I'm nervous about how it will be received because I'm still very me to this game and there's some really high standards set by other builders from what I've seen.

I ran around her this evening patching up a few holes (like making the blast doors both open and close from the same button - at the door end at least... still individual buttons on the bridge).

She's not perfect, but I like her... any feedback is very welcome.

The containers can hold a massive amount of matter.

Navigation lights were carefully placed to make them as navigationally accurate as possible (ie: what angle they're seen from etc).
It's a shame that when you put crystel under glass or any other transparent surface that it does stupid things, or the hologram of the ship in the bridge would be great... as it is it's a bit disappointing. But I left it in anyway because the visual bug of transparency clipping other transparency behind it might eventually be removed from the game and the hologram would work well. If you like, you could remove the surface glass and have rails around it instead...? I just wanted something under the floor... oh well.

Anyways, here she is, and I hope you like her.

Gnite all!

Full Picture Folder here. (Lots of pics with thumbnails - choose for yourself what you view)
There are a few pics included in the Community Content publication also.

Dude, you need to submit this here

 

[Jake_Lancia]

Okay, HOW have I NEVER seen this thread until now?

...

wow. Just, wow. The sheer amount of detail going into the shipyard, along with all the other assets, is astounding. I like the Messis engineering ship too.
The RP direction is also pretty neat, and really adds to the overall experience.

I wish you luck in continuing the project.

 

[EMC007]

Well thanks largely to your encouragement, EMC007, I have decided to publish CCV Messis. I should point out that I'm nervous about how it will be received because I'm still very me to this game and there's some really high standards set by other builders from what I've seen.

I ran around her this evening patching up a few holes (like making the blast doors both open and close from the same button - at the door end at least... still individual buttons on the bridge).

She's not perfect, but I like her... any feedback is very welcome.

The containers can hold a massive amount of matter.

Navigation lights were carefully placed to make them as navigationally accurate as possible (ie: what angle they're seen from etc).
It's a shame that when you put crystel under glass or any other transparent surface that it does stupid things, or the hologram of the ship in the bridge would be great... as it is it's a bit disappointing. But I left it in anyway because the visual bug of transparency clipping other transparency behind it might eventually be removed from the game and the hologram would work well. If you like, you could remove the surface glass and have rails around it instead...? I just wanted something under the floor... oh well.

Anyways, here she is, and I hope you like her.

Gnite all!

Full Picture Folder here. (Lots of pics with thumbnails - choose for yourself what you view)
There are a few pics included in the Community Content publication also.

Don't worry. I have only seen a couple of bad reviews and they were because the ship was genuinely terrible and it Really deserved some serious feedback.

With a ship as good looking as this one, and the fact that you have stated that you are new to the game (which I cannot believe with how good these ships are looking), I think you should be fine. And if I am wrong and SOMEHOW it gets a bad review, then I will be shocked, because this community is really not known for doing that sort of thing.

But, to be honest, it might be helpful too. If they do give it a bad review, they better damn well have a good explanation for doing so, and then you can grow and improve based off of that.

I'm going to go explore it a bit, and I'll edit this post once I have some good feedback.



EDIT:


Alright, now, I'm going to be completely honest here. There were some problems with this ship.

Primarily, it's thrust. With all three docked cargo containers, it got a thrust to mass ratio of 0.1, which would likely only get worse if the cargo containers were full.

Also, maybe I missed it, but I couldn't find a way to undock them from the ship. There were plenty of other options (opening up the cargo arms, turning on pilot and nav lights, and opening and closing the blast doors), but I could not undock the cargo containers.

These problems seem easily fixable though, as you have left plenty of open spaces inside of it to fill with systems, and you could easily get enough thrust by filling those up.

What I'd also recommend, is to add some systems and stuff to the bottom of the back portion of the ship, because it was rather plain and flat back there.

Overall though, pretty good ship. Loved the display blocks and the hologram, and the lights were pretty cool too. There were a couple of bare spots in a few other places, but just a few material changes would probably do for those.

Very nicely done.

 

[Drybreeze]

Okay, HOW have I NEVER seen this thread until now?

...

wow. Just, wow. The sheer amount of detail going into the shipyard, along with all the other assets, is astounding. I like the Messis engineering ship too.
The RP direction is also pretty neat, and really adds to the overall experience.

I wish you luck in continuing the project.

Thanks very much Jake, that's awesome. I always add an RP element to any game I play - it adds a new level to it that triggers the imagination and immerses you in it... far more enjoyable that way I feel.

Don't worry. I have only seen a couple of bad reviews and they were because the ship was genuinely terrible and it Really deserved some serious feedback.

With a ship as good looking as this one, and the fact that you have stated that you are new to the game (which I cannot believe with how good these ships are looking), I think you should be fine. And if I am wrong and SOMEHOW it gets a bad review, then I will be shocked, because this community is really not known for doing that sort of thing.

But, to be honest, it might be helpful too. If they do give it a bad review, they better damn well have a good explanation for doing so, and then you can grow and improve based off of that.

I'm going to go explore it a bit, and I'll edit this post once I have some good feedback.

I welcome constructive feedback, I'm the first to admit I've got a lot to learn. The new blocks that Schine has added since I played back in 2015 have really added so much to the game... jump drives, LOD blocks, rails, and (I've yet to experiment with these)... TRANSPORTERS... srsly that's a great concept I can't wait to include them and make some nice little transporter rooms with quarantine and security attachments and whatever else... maybe some direct-to-brig transporters and ... well the imagination goes wild really. Why not just jettison bad-guys straight out into space?? Heh heh.