Praises and Rants of a Shipwright

[Valiant70]

These are just some random thoughts about the game. Perhaps this thread belongs in General Discussion, or perhaps it belongs here.

• I really like how the HP update helps role-play ships (ships with pretty interiors) to avoid being at a disadvantage. They just end up being more armor-focused. Perhaps it's not quite ideal yet, but it's far better.
• Turrets are so much better with the rail update! now I only need two turrets for 360* coverage instead of at least three. They also don't get scrapped in every fight. They remain intact as long as the mothership's shields hold up at least 50%.
• EDIT: Missiles have been put in their proper place as secondary weapons and anti-missile turrets actually work now!
• I HATE CORES!!! I wish I could at least move the thing. I really want to have alternate flight control on my bridge and CIC, but nope. Flight control is tied to one immutable block. Furthermore, why the heck does my hangar door need a core? I want to remove the core and the radar blip. Functionally, it's part of the ship, not another ship.
• People still disappear into blocks when using them... yuck.
• Since ships are no longer instant casualties without shields, they have a much higher chance of coming home shot up. Shot up ships are usually very hard to repair.
• Build helpers don't help! They build hulls too thick and I don't know what else to use them for.

 

[Mork2]

My advice for the repair is blueprint ship before heading out. Salvage/reclaim all blocks off ship and add missing to replacement blueprint to rebuild it. There was talk about eventually being able to repair a ship to a saved blueprint....

With the new rails my ship designs are being far more complex with more entities in them and repairing is impossible.

 

[alterintel]

I HATE CORES!!! I wish I could at least move the thing. I really want to have alternate flight control on my bridge and CIC, but nope. Flight control is tied to one immutable block. Furthermore, why the heck does my hangar door need a core? I want to remove the core and the radar blip. Functionally, it's part of the ship, not another ship.

I couldn't agree with you more. I can only assume that this is temporary, and there are no plans for rails to go into Beta in their current form. As an idea maybe make a new rail docker type block that also acts as a core for a rail entity. Then make it so that entities with docker-cores don't show up on the radar?

And for Pete's sake, I need to be able to move the core. And shipyards can't get here fast enough. Shot up ships are too hard to fix.

Over all, this game is definitely moving in the right direction.
Thanks

 

[Valiant70]

I got annoyed trying to build a ship earlier, so I updated the OP and bumped this thread. I probably won't play much until we get either movable cores or a pilot computer/chair/whatever so I can fly from somewhere other than the center of the ship. Having to place the pilot's seat before building the rest of the ship and then not being able to move it is just frustrating.

 

[EMC007]

I feel like cores shouldn't be flat out deleted, they should for sure still be a crucial element for building ships, but If they just added different ways of controlling your ship like control panels or cockpits or something.

Maybe cores could be something you place after creating the ship, and it might need coolant or something.

Who knows, but hopefully it will be changed soon, but I will always keep playing whether or not they do.

 

[Valiant70]

I don't care what happens to cores as long as they stop being annoying. As they are now, they get in the way when I'm trying to figure out interior vs. exterior layout.

 

[sayerulz]

At least ships no longer turn around the core as if it were the center of mass...

 

[Zaphord]

There is an option to filter out docked entities in the nav menu if seeing the cores on your ship's doors and elevators bothers you that much. I keep it toggled off myself, some ships have lots of them and they clutter up the nav screen.

 

[Rixxan]

There is an option to filter out docked entities in the nav menu if seeing the cores on your ship's doors and elevators bothers you that much. I keep it toggled off myself, some ships have lots of them and they clutter up the nav screen.

I do that myself. A ship I'm making is essentially a mothership carrier, with elevators and about 150 fighters. Showing docked ships would be horrid for my GUI!

 

[Valiant70]

There is an option to filter out docked entities in the nav menu if seeing the cores on your ship's doors and elevators bothers you that much. I keep it toggled off myself, some ships have lots of them and they clutter up the nav screen.

I use that sometimes. I still think it's weird that my hangar door shows up as a docked "ship" though. It's a moving part of the mothership. That's the least of my worries about cores though. Not being able to move the pilot's station after I start building the ship is the real problem. If I make a tower bridge for example, I can't just copy the bridge and move it a few blocks forward. I would have to copy/paste the entire hull (and anything else attached to it). What I'd really like to do is put the core in the ship's engineering section and place a movable pilot computer on the bridge.