Haha my ankle... yer awesome thank you
Yes I did consider the single platform per side or even per module, but in the end I figured that the effect was too subtle to be worth the effort.
Also, I was scratching my head how to make the spotlights connect to the Spine Module physically (ie: power cords). I could have explained it away with some internal nuclear generator or sth but I think I like the bigass power cords better... I'm a fan of greeble and "bits that look functional" on this kind of build.
Thanks very much for reading, I really stoked that people are getting something out of this, it really adds to my enjoyment of building it. I'm hoping that once it's finished it will be used in other people's universes to give their station collection a bit of an addition. I'm already considering the next few projects, but I want to make sure I don't hop from this to another, to keep up momentum. One at a time. I satisfy my "content release" bug by releasing a few small things from time to time... the next one coming is the Sentry Drone that will dock to the underside of each Spine Module.
I've just updated the first post in the thread, which I intend to have as a (reasonably) up to date progress report for any new readers, and also to give anyone a really quick easy way to find anything in particular they're after such as a particular video or content link.
Hello DryBreeze
Love your station so far. But I would like to ask you a dumb question, when will it be approximately finished? And will it kill your frames?
Hello DryBreeze
Love your station so far. But I would like to ask you a dumb question, when will it be approximately finished? And will it kill your frames?
Haha you posted just as I was posting... so I refreshed to address it before continuing my own post:
No question is a dumb question.
I'm stoked you like the station so far!
I don't have a schedule to finish it, but at the rate I'm doing it, I estimate that I'm approximately 50% complete. So that puts a completion date somewhere around late August. This is strictly an estimate. It depends on a lot of things, including how detailed I get with it, how much time I spend on other props and builds for it, and what is going on in my life between then and now. I can assure you though that in the time I've been doing it (since January) that I haven't slowed or had any reduction in motivation whatsoever... quite the opposite actually... I get more excited about it as I go and it takes form.
It has hardly affected my framerate at all. It depends on your computer of course, but if you can have any of the other larger ships I've seen built and released flying around (anything referred to as a carrier, destroyer, or cruiser) then this isn't that much bigger. It does, however, have a greater number of visible faces due to having larger surface area (not just a skin filled with solid volume), so that decreases the framerate a bit compared to similar size craft I suppose. I think by the time it is finished that it will be the equivalent in frame-killing as say a 1000 - 1500m ship... probably a similar graphics performance as Hibiscus, for example... I'm only guessing based on size and complexity of geometry. Proof is in the pudding, as they say... we'll have to wait and see.
~~~~~~~~~~
So today I spent some time building the security drone being outfitted to Port Vandermier, the Salus Class Rapid Response Drone.
The drone has a cockpit so that you can operate it manually if you wish - it's actually not a bad little dog fighter... (I've never been a huge fan of wings on things designed to fly in space where there's no atmosphere, but your mileage may vary).
The drone has a decent armour shell but is vulnerable to direct facing attack. It makes up for this with good maneuverability, an armour hood, some heavy armour parallax face shielding, and some very aggressive auto-cannons for a vessel of its size.
Excellent shielding all around includes heavy duty cowlings to protect the aft main engines without inhibiting the Salus drone's speed and maneuverability.
Four rapid-fire auto-cannons, (equipped with a set of auxiliary barrels in the event of the main barrels being damaged) serve to give the Salus RRD the ability to both hammer a target with intent as well as spray wildly in a high-maneuver dog fight and still have good odds of hitting a target with minimal aim options. Salus is versatile, inexpensive, and durable.
The docking point for the drone is centrally located on either side of main quad shield tanks... highlighted with yellow lighting and hazard stripes for maximum visibility when the drone is un-docked.
The underside of the docking platform is designed to be seen.
The upper side of the docking platform is designed to allow an astronaut to rapidly descend into the drone for... you guessed it... rapid response.
Ladder access. Try not to fall off the edge into freefall... the OH&S procedures require gigabytes of reports to be filled in, and rails risk damaging the drone's engines... so... just be careful, you idiot.
The Salus tucks neatly under the platform, nestled between the spotlights and the main shield tanks.
The Salus Class RRD as seen from below... above... uhm... yeah there's the drone tucked under the Spine Module.
The drone and docking platform as seen from on top of one of the nearest main quad shield tanks, and along towards the far end of the Spine Module to where the plasma cycling units are located.
The plasma exchange conduits with the sky-walk, showing the currently under construction elevator from the drone's docking platform up to the airlock leading into the engineering section where the technician drones are operated from on the other side of the main quad shield tanks.
Haha you posted just as I was posting... so I refreshed to address it before continuing my own post:
No question is a dumb question.
I'm stoked you like the station so far!
I don't have a schedule to finish it, but at the rate I'm doing it, I estimate that I'm approximately 50% complete. So that puts a completion date somewhere around late August. This is strictly an estimate. It depends on a lot of things, including how detailed I get with it, how much time I spend on other props and builds for it, and what is going on in my life between then and now. I can assure you though that in the time I've been doing it (since January) that I haven't slowed or had any reduction in motivation whatsoever... quite the opposite actually... I get more excited about it as I go and it takes form.
It has hardly affected my framerate at all. It depends on your computer of course, but if you can have any of the other larger ships I've seen built and released flying around (anything referred to as a carrier, destroyer, or cruiser) then this isn't that much bigger. It does, however, have a greater number of visible faces due to having larger surface area (not just a skin filled with solid volume), so that decreases the framerate a bit compared to similar size craft I suppose. I think by the time it is finished that it will be the equivalent in frame-killing as say a 1000 - 1500m ship... probably a similar graphics performance as Hibiscus, for example... I'm only guessing based on size and complexity of geometry. Proof is in the pudding, as they say... we'll have to wait and see.
~~~~~~~~~~
So today I spent some time building the security drone being outfitted to Port Vandermier, the Salus Class Rapid Response Drone.
The drone has a cockpit so that you can operate it manually if you wish - it's actually not a bad little dog fighter... (I've never been a huge fan of wings on things designed to fly in space where there's no atmosphere, but your mileage may vary).
The drone has a decent armour shell but is vulnerable to direct facing attack. It makes up for this with good maneuverability, an armour hood, some heavy armour parallax face shielding, and some very aggressive auto-cannons for a vessel of its size.
Excellent shielding all around includes heavy duty cowlings to protect the aft main engines without inhibiting the Salus drone's speed and maneuverability.
Four rapid-fire auto-cannons, (equipped with a set of auxiliary barrels in the event of the main barrels being damaged) serve to give the Salus RRD the ability to both hammer a target with intent as well as spray wildly in a high-maneuver dog fight and still have good odds of hitting a target with minimal aim options. Salus is versatile, inexpensive, and durable.
The docking point for the drone is centrally located on either side of main quad shield tanks... highlighted with yellow lighting and hazard stripes for maximum visibility when the drone is un-docked.
The underside of the docking platform is designed to be seen.
The upper side of the docking platform is designed to allow an astronaut to rapidly descend into the drone for... you guessed it... rapid response.
Ladder access. Try not to fall off the edge into freefall... the OH&S procedures require gigabytes of reports to be filled in, and rails risk damaging the drone's engines... so... just be careful, you idiot.
The Salus tucks neatly under the platform, nestled between the spotlights and the main shield tanks.
The Salus Class RRD as seen from below... above... uhm... yeah there's the drone tucked under the Spine Module.
The drone and docking platform as seen from on top of one of the nearest main quad shield tanks, and along towards the far end of the Spine Module to where the plasma cycling units are located.
The plasma exchange conduits with the sky-walk, showing the currently under construction elevator from the drone's docking platform up to the airlock leading into the engineering section where the technician drones are operated from on the other side of the main quad shield tanks.
God damn, you are just on fire here. I have not seen that many other shipyards as dedicated to their work as this one.
That's interesting that you get more motivated with time, (I'm the opposite), and I'm glad you do, that's a great trait to have when doing this sort of thing.
Take your time, even if it takes you until September I'm sure many people will be downloading and enjoying this amazing station. Great work (once again).
God damn, you are just on fire here. I have not seen that many other shipyards as dedicated to their work as this one.
That's interesting that you get more motivated with time, (I'm the opposite), and I'm glad you do, that's a great trait to have when doing this sort of thing.
Take your time, even if it takes you until September I'm sure many people will be downloading and enjoying this amazing station. Great work (once again).
With me it's often the same also, but I'm finding that by breaking up the build with smaller builds and by moving to different areas rather than bogging myself down in large monotonous tasks, that I'm getting enjoyment from each phase. It also helps a LOT when I get such great response from you guys. Seriously, every single person that has commented and posted a like in here, you have my sincere thanks for being so very cool about this... it really helps keep me motivated. Never underestimate the power of positive peer review.
But at the moment I have a gripe. A true first world problem. Allow me to share.
The new spotlights in the upright position hard-wired in are causing me a wtf.
For some reason the beacon haze is not showing on them from time to time... I haven't pinned down yet what turns it off, but I have found that by replacing ONE beacon in ONE spotlight's middle that all the rest turn on. See?? A wtf.
Any ideas what the go is?
Dunno why, but something makes the beacon haze turn off ONLY on the main station's lights... docked entities stay beacon-hazy. In this picture the Spine Modules at the top of the image as well as the vertical tower spotlights at the bottom of the image are both part of the same actual mother station entity, while the angled spotlight arms in the middle of the image are first-generation docked entities (ie, docked directly to the main station).
On a side note, I'm pleased with the way the illuminated sections of the Spine Module up inside it are silhouetted by the drones and walkways and stuff... it reminds me a little of Homeworld ships' hangers and stuff... an effect I really like (even though it's much more subtle in this model compared to any Homeworld stuff).
As soon as I knock out just one beacon in any of the spotlights, the haze instantly returns to all of the spotlights on the entire mother station entity... and stay there after I replace the beacon block with a fresh one... but at some point (which I have yet to identify) they all go out again... what's the go??
Well fark that's quite a statement, thanks very much!
Tonight I packed a bunch of power generators and storage into the ends of the Spine Modules... about 5 deep.
I then covered over it, and worked on a few bits of greeble to make the wall look a bit more interesting. I'll do the same with the sides, shortly, and that will very nearly complete the Spine Modules...
Nitrogen tanks are embedded in either end of each Spine Module, which is used in the atmospheric re-processing facility. Between the nitrogen pipes in the middle is the pressure-relief system. This automatically blows excess pressure into a controlled environment in the event of over-pressurisation of the system. Think of it as a fuse, designed to fry before the more expensive infrastructure does. Pressure released from these vents has been recorded at 150PSI, so it's vital that the area is treated with respect. When fully operational this portion of the engineering section is caged off to prevent accidents. First hazard control is elimination, second is substitution, and the third is engineering. In this case... cages around the hazard.
To the side of the atmospheric processing area is where the Nanite production facility is located, which produces all of the nanometer-sized robotic nanites used in seamless fabrication to stitch advanced armour together at a molecular level. These guys are very tightly regulated due to the potential threat they represent if they fall into terrorists' hands. There are no nanites present on Port Vandermier just yet, but when there are there are strict security protocols, including an automated purge safety which blasts the entire area with an EMP designed to completely destroy every nanite should it escape or go rogue or other emergencies befall the system.
The area has no need to be well lit, it is largely automated. Technicians needing to access the area can set up their own portable work lights if in the area for extended periods, or can use their suits' inbuilt flashlights.
With me it's often the same also, but I'm finding that by breaking up the build with smaller builds and by moving to different areas rather than bogging myself down in large monotonous tasks, that I'm getting enjoyment from each phase. It also helps a LOT when I get such great response from you guys. Seriously, every single person that has commented and posted a like in here, you have my sincere thanks for being so very cool about this... it really helps keep me motivated. Never underestimate the power of positive peer review.
But at the moment I have a gripe. A true first world problem. Allow me to share.
The new spotlights in the upright position hard-wired in are causing me a wtf.
For some reason the beacon haze is not showing on them from time to time... I haven't pinned down yet what turns it off, but I have found that by replacing ONE beacon in ONE spotlight's middle that all the rest turn on. See?? A wtf.
Any ideas what the go is?
Dunno why, but something makes the beacon haze turn off ONLY on the main station's lights... docked entities stay beacon-hazy. In this picture the Spine Modules at the top of the image as well as the vertical tower spotlights at the bottom of the image are both part of the same actual mother station entity, while the angled spotlight arms in the middle of the image are first-generation docked entities (ie, docked directly to the main station).
On a side note, I'm pleased with the way the illuminated sections of the Spine Module up inside it are silhouetted by the drones and walkways and stuff... it reminds me a little of Homeworld ships' hangers and stuff... an effect I really like (even though it's much more subtle in this model compared to any Homeworld stuff).
As soon as I knock out just one beacon in any of the spotlights, the haze instantly returns to all of the spotlights on the entire mother station entity... and stay there after I replace the beacon block with a fresh one... but at some point (which I have yet to identify) they all go out again... what's the go??
The beacon haze thing turning off has been a problem for a long time, Its some bug the Neither Schine nor Schema know the issue to. Just a heads up on why it was being a problem, Anyways Continue the good work!
I frequently trace along lines in build mode to find the blocks in a button relay chain for example. That's usually how I run lines within hidden surfaces. .. I connect strings of buttons where each button is like a pylon in a power line. .. in this way I can very specifically control where each line of logic runs. Your logic fires a signal to one end of the string (even as an output from some logic process like a clock) and all buttons in the string fire up and then off in that string simultaneously...
This is how I run power behind walls and then feed them through the little passage between modules and so on. You can find examples of this where I've run logic lines from the Con Tower of Messis to doors and linked switches etc.
It takes a bit of time but it's easy enough and I think the results are worth it for players that don't switch off logic lines in their graphics options.
Definitely! Whenever I have routing to do, I generally use activation blocks instead of buttons (as they'll still blink on and off if buttons are sending the original signal, whereas chained buttons will alter the behavior if an activation block originates the signal), but otherwise quite similar.
The beacon haze thing turning off has been a problem for a long time, Its some bug the Neither Schine nor Schema know the issue to. Just a heads up on why it was being a problem, Anyways Continue the good work!
The lights load fine the next time I load the universe, but tonight I wasn't even able to get them to blink on by removing an old one. Fortunately for the recording/screen images it was a freshly loaded universe so they worked fine - yay!
Definitely! Whenever I have routing to do, I generally use activation blocks instead of buttons (as they'll still blink on and off if buttons are sending the original signal, whereas chained buttons will alter the behavior if an activation block originates the signal), but otherwise quite similar.
That's useful information, thank you. I've been converting the signals to and from blinking switch signals - but yes obviously a permanent activation block string would also work - thanks!
~~~~
So tonight I spent a fair bit of time setting up some scenes and doing some video recording - it's been too long since I released a flick, figured it was time. It's not ready yet, I want to do a bit more work, maybe even have a few different states in the same video...
But I have done some "cover art" for the flick so thought I'd share it as a bit of a teaser... I anticipate the video will be completed in the coming few days... I want to feature a few of the things I've screenshotted already (plus stuff I have yet to build), because stuff I've screenshotted looks WAY hotter when it's seen by a moving camera to show the depth and how illuminated surfaces play behind darker silhouettes and stuff like that. I'm pretty excited about the current steps - we're just now starting to bring down the starboard side of the overall shipyard structure... so things are really going to start taking shape very soon... w000t!
Here's a cover art teaser (half size just to annoy you) :P. See yas soon!
Okay, Well, its some bug still that needs to be fixed but can't... Idk, it might have to deal with something that you have to up the sprites on... I currently don't know, nor am i really that awake to know...
Heh. I just wanted to keep the full-size for the flick that gets released... might get confusing if the same image appears multiple times in the thread... I have attached those opposite top spotlight arms now, and cPho Corp technicians are currently welding up the first two of the opposite side modules. With a half compliment of Adjuitor Technician Drones all crawling around welding up stuff as well as many Work Utilities the station is now coming together at break-neck speed.
Okay, Well, its some bug still that needs to be fixed but can't... Idk, it might have to deal with something that you have to up the sprites on... I currently don't know, nor am i really that awake to know...
I also can't duplicate it being switched off - it seems to be when you climb into a raw core but that could be coincidence... no matter, it's clearly a bug and will therefore eventually be fixed, so I'll plow on with the build and ignore the lack of haze from time to time. So far it's playing nice in all my published images.
Sorry to see that. Happend to me as well just 4 days ago on my own station, but I also had huge chunk errors where entire 32m parts were missing. Luckily the admin was so kind to respawn it within a day and clear the sector.
You do save blueprints of progess often, do you?
I have a pretty simple saving format, I use v15, v16 etc and v15a v15b for work on the same day or not very significant changes.
No matter what, save every big progress. For stations I even use a daily safe format: example: _sSyntic170413. _s stands for station. For figthers I use FGT, Corvettes CRV, Turrets TUR, Supply things like Containers,Test Targets or USD port extenders get SPL, Miners SLV, scouts like stealthers or jump ships get SCT...So my stuf is somewhat organised and I know what this or that blueprint does.
The version we are currently playing has many bugs, a very common one is about chunk errors, where complete chunks are missing. I recommend to just respawn a station and empty the sector with commands before.
Yes I save often.
This wasn't a server problem, it was intentional - well an experiment really.
Due to the role-playing method of building this where I have "states" of build-progress for modules, I work on one or two of the modules, and then copy these states over onto other modules to update them, to make it look as though they are all being worked on progressively.
So if I'm working on for example Spine Module #3 and get it to a state I want to update #1, #2, #4, and #5 to, I erase those (which of course leaves all their docked entities floating in position) and then paste in the most up-to-date version of #3 into the space where they were.
If the turrets and drones and such are left in position, they will prevent the new state of the module from pasting in properly (blocks missing around the turrets)... so the now free-floating undocked entities need to be deleted and replaced after the new module is pasted in.
This time around rather than deleting them I experimented with pushing them up out of the way a little bit by bumping them, and then re-docking them afterwards. I'm nearly finished re-docking them now... so it takes slightly longer this way than re-spawning turret racks in and re-docking new ones...
I could speed up the process by pushing them more gently rather than smacking them and sending them tumbling some hundreds of meters away.
However I am fairly confident that further work on the station will be block additions - I don't think I'll need to delete any blocks from now on... so that means I can simply paste the new modules straight over the old ones and only the new blocks will paste in... this will completely eliminate the need to undock and redock turrets at all.
This is only a problem because I'm building it in an RP "progressive build" method... normal building you'd dock turrets last, of course. I'm just simulating a real world build by attaching turrets as soon as possible to defend the site... there'd be no need to undock and redock them repeatedly in the real world... so it's the price I'm paying for making it a more "realistic" build process. I'm ok with that.
Your method of saving is a good one. Similar to what I use.
I don't know how to put it into other words: The ammount of turrets is a too high. Maybe in a year Starmade is able to compute this ammount of entities. If they fire all at once the server just freezes. I mean ofcourse this is RP, yes i understand that. But even in RP I often like to attack stuff with some rp designed ships. I am not sure if this station can ever get into a combat scenario, because it might be beyond the limits the Starmade engine can handle with fps loss. Did you try that out: To activate all of them and let them at some spawned in pirate? :D
But for design, looks and feel the amount and concept of the turrets is great. It feels like in real life, where I never see a few mega turrets on ships or tanks, they are often even hardly to notice. I like that. I know the size of the turrets, I downloaded one of your railguns.
I don't know how to put it into other words: The ammount of turrets is a too high. Maybe in a year Starmade is able to compute this ammount of entities. If they fire all at once the server just freezes. I mean ofcourse this is RP, yes i understand that. But even in RP I often like to attack stuff with some rp designed ships. I am not sure if this station can ever get into a combat scenario, because it might be beyond the limits the Starmade engine can handle with fps loss. Did you try that out: To activate all of them and let them at some spawned in pirate? :D
But for design, looks and feel the amount and concept of the turrets is great. It feels like in real life, where I never see a few mega turrets on ships or tanks, they are often even hardly to notice. I like that. I know the size of the turrets, I downloaded one of your railguns.
You think this is too many turrets? I have spawned in several pirates a few different times now, and they all fire at them (most I spawned so far is 7 pirate ships). There is not any lag that I can see...? The biggest thing that slows my computer down is when I'm pasting huge modules in.
I will do another pirate spawn like I did in my last video, but with all these top spine modules also, and post it as part of my next video so you can see how it performs. The computer I'm on has no GPU, so I figure if my laptop can handle it then most other PC's (especially gaming PCs) will have no problem with it.
Currently working on greeble on the outside of the station, to break up the surfaces a bit more...
The tower of the hangar module on either side of the station is primarily responsible for the processing and redistribution of the fluids and atmospheric life support systems. While most of the system is heavily armoured, some of the less critical systems can be seen between armour plating.
Emergency atmospheric venting system enables the rapid decompression of the system in the event of an emergency. Obviously there's some very hefty security protocols surrounding the system.
All Spine Modules are now completed with only a few small internal details still necessary.
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