Ship and Station Best Practices

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    If there a source to find best practices for uniform ship construction and station construction? Obviously some artistic choices will vary, but I mean things like standard ranges of length, width, height, weight of hull, of hallways, of rooms, etc. I don't even know what systems should go on a ship, and have struggled to find easy to understand and digest discussions on which weapons systems are best.

    And I haven't seen much in the way of discussion on best practices for stations. For example, I started building my first station (to hopefully make a BP and to buy on a server). I am left asking "Every noob should know that a good station should have ____"? and don't really know where to go. I have a pretty shell that I've made, but I'm uncertain how to make hangers, access corridors, how medbay's work, what shapes make what furniture, etc.

    Can someone point me to these sources, or perhaps start them?
     
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    Well ... it depends.
    First of all, Cannon-Cannon is always an excellent fallback for destruction. It's an excellent weapon for DPM, and it can shoot down missiles on its way to the target. If it's a small setup (total size in the hundreds of blocks), Overdrive is an excellent way to boost FIREPOWER at the expense of POWER. It is more space-efficient than simply adding more cannon modules (cannot go past 100% effect though) but it takes 6x more power than they do.
    For large cannons (thousands of modules if it's Cannon-Cannon, because the Cannon secondary reduces damage) explosive effect is a good way to spread damage to surrounding blocks. Just watch out - when you build this giant cannon, it CAN overpenetrate targets and go right on through, not expending all its damage.
    Missiles are good. Missile-Missile combo is heatseeking - no good if there's anything friendly in the area besides the shooting vessel/turret. Missile-Pulse-Explosive is generally called a nuke. At 100% Pulse effect, it can take a full minute to reload, but at lower percentages it takes less time - dealing less damage. Explosive effect tertiary increases the radius of damage caused, and is a must for large missiles to cause real damage. Also, Missile-Beam is a very longranged weapon and it tracks, moving quickly too - an excellent weapon. Loads far faster than a nuke but slightly slower than straight missiles. I think. Missile-cannon is only useful if you're on a ship and you get up close and personal. Then ... well, Idk, but it seems effective. Missile-Beam and Missile-Pulse track, so they require little effort on the part of the shooter. Point, wait for the reticle to start flashing, and click. Also, AIs don't have to wait for a "Lock" - they get it instantly.
    Beams have the longest range. Beam-Beam engages far out of the ranges of other weapons, so is an excellent sniper weapon, though it lacks in hull damage. Beams have excellent shield damage, however. I haven't tried them too much, however, because cannons seem to be better all-round weapons on the small vessels I've built so far. But you know, try and find out. Build a block - literally. Armor chunk in front, some random system blocks in the back. Very, very thick on both. Test your weapons on it.

    So ... every noob should know that on a station, you place shields. Ridiculous, absurd, stupid amounts of shields. My probably mid-sized (the size of a pirate station, different shape and denser in systems blocks) has 10.5 mil shields and 1.45 mil regen. If you're building small, you won't fit more than a few million shield cap and half a mil regen if you go ridiculous on it. This is because they cannot run away, cannot be repaired via blueprint or shipyard, and cannot maneuver to dodge fire.
    Second, you need AMS turrets. Cannon-Cannon setups. One module each is a usual. Just pours fire out.
    Third, it must have a factory and refinery setup. And cargo storage. It's absolutely necessary - because you have the room, you're expected to use it. And there's no point not having that stuff on a base.
    A small shipyard is also a good idea for a smaller station. Or a big one, whatever. This lets you build ships easily on-site. And repair them easily. And ... well ... glitch them into holograms long after you've built them, delete them entirely from systems away, fling turrets int- let's not get into all that. Mind the glitches.
    Fooouuurrrtthhh.... Turrets!
    More turrets!
    Furniture is restricted, currently, by most people, to wedges. Yep, that's it. Wedges sitting like big chairs on the ground. That's it. You can go fancier but really, do as you wish. You can only sit on wedges and cubes, keep that in mind though.
    For medbays ... Functionally? A room, any room, with "Medical Cabinets" or "Medical Supplies". Decoration? Beds, curtains, operating table with lights, anything else you can imagine. Body disposal chute.
    Access corridors? Usually, 3x3 blocks wide, mostly with wedges on the inside corners to give a rounded feel. It's nicer than a straight wall.
    Hangars? Well, build one to suit whatever small ships you've built. Decoration can be gantries made out of scaffold or Alloyed Metal Mesh, random boxes, consoles, whatnot, storages (with practical purposes too lol), other small docked vessels, anti-intruder turrets (yeah ... highly recommended), anti-intruder mechs (See Dr. Whammy's shipyard), All-Heck's-Goin-Loose-Drop-The-Drones Button near the door ... use your imagination. Or it could just have bare racks to hold tons of TIE fighters to rain death and destruction on the good guys - I mean opponents of order, integrity, corruption, and crue- whoops, slipped again.
    Use your imagination. Build whatever. We won't laugh for too long if your flamingo-shaped turret blasts a Titan out from under us. Not once it starts blazing rockets or whatnot.
     
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    A few guidelines I usually use while building:

    - Use a variety of materials, tinker with builds, try out new stuff and build, build and build. Building experience and skills will only get better if you keep building stuff, tinkering, testing, ****ing up and trying again. There are a lot of builders in starmade and they are good at it because they kept doing it again and again until they got it right (or at least got confident enough to decide what fits them).
    - Every builder has his own standards and building methods, they share and steal ideas. So don't be afraid to do your research, find references, watch videos. There is no right or wrong way to build, there is only your way, and as a ne builder you have to find it.

    Technicals and systems:
    - Power reactors should not be laid in massive clumps, instead use lines or 90-degree branching. The lines or branches work more efficiently if the lines do not touch each other unless they're part of the same branch or line.
    - Power Capacitors work best in large groupings.
    - Shield blocks don't have any significant groupings.
    - Using C and V to connect computers to their modules is easy, for bigger groups, use Shift + V to connect whole groups of modules to computers. C and V can also be used to slave computers together (C on master, V on slave) or connect lighting to computers (C on compute V on light) for colored weapons.

    For Salvagers:
    - Salvage beams benefit from being waffled or checkerboarded in lines that do not connect. This means that you can have multiple beams in an array, and can mine a larger area at a time. For 100% area coverage, use two staggered arrays (meaning that the rear array fires through the front array gaps. The longer arrys the better, and consider using Cannon slave for salvage beams, since this allows for a near constant beam. To save space, lay the cannon slave modules in the gaps between salvage modules in an array. In this case, the rearmost array will fire through the front array. This does not damage the ship in any way. When firing, use secondary fire (right Mouse button), this does not focus the beams on a single point and allows salvaging more efficiently.
    - Salvagers also need cargo storage on board. The larger the salvage arrays are the more storage space you need, in order to avoid running back and forth between base and asteroid field, when storage is full. Use C on salvage computer and V on Storage module to connect cargo to salvagers, this allows the salvager to gather materials to the connected storage. Name Storage module for access in Pilot mode. Always add carco modules connected to the storage module, to make sure you have more than 100 units of storage onboard (C on Storage, Shift + V on cargo module groups).
    - For a secondary weapon, consider using stop beams or cannons. This can be useful if you bump into an asteroid and it starts moving, you can use the stop weapon to stop the asteroid and go back to work.
     
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    Longest range weapons are.
    1. Missile + Beam (100%) maxes out at 9600 meters
    2. Cannon + Beam (100%) maxes out at 6000 meters
    3. Beam + Beam (100%) Maxes out at 3000 meters
    4. Pulse + Beam (100%) maxes out at 75 meters.
    Good combos are cannon + cannon, Cannon + Beam, and Missile + Beam.
    and then whatever extra system you want for added effect.
     
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    Bladeriker, is that default sector size? Just remember the configs that mean half the values you can give :mad: are no good to anybody else.
     
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    Thank you for the pointers!

    I think my station is roughly 100 or so blocks wide, and may be about 60 blocks tall. I don't have an HQ yet, and am trying this out. The design is basically a globe, sliced off from the middle third, with a smaller dome on the top, and I'm not sure what else on the bottom. It looks like it will be 3-4 floors on the main interior, and about 2 floors on the dome on the top. I'm thinking ships may dock underneath, or I may design some modules of sorts attached off the top and bottom.

    If I save a blueprint of a station, does it save with all attached entities as well?
     
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    Best way to build a station is to make it look nice. You can add things like rings (Great place for weapons) or other shapes apparently orbiting the station, if you need systems space.

    A space station is an immobile target. Also, it's obvious (Visible from several galaxies away) and valuable (Can claim territory), so either home-base-protection it or give it lots and lots of shielding. And weapons.

    Step Zero: Build station and all interior.
    Hangars can be accomplished by building a box, wherever you want the hangar. Build the box big enough to hold as many vessels as you want in it. Then, decide how the vessels must be docked in order to accomplish this. Place these vessels into your box, dock them, then shape the hangar's inside (Add gantries, maybe curve/angle the walls, whatever you want. Make sure you can physically access the cores of all the ships. Be awkward to have random ships stuck in your hangars). Then shape the outside. Maybe try adding a curve, or angle the corners.

    Step One: I recommend that you start with power lines. Power your station to the 2 million e/sec soft cap, using the most efficient reactors lines you can in the station you've built.
    Next step: Fill in the biggest power draws. Make your factories and weapons and other power-drawing appliances.
    Third: Decide whether or not you need extra power capacity or regen. Remember to save ~2 million e/sec extra power for shields. If you need extra capacity, fill your capacitors in in one large group to take advantage of grouping bonuses.
    Fourth: Shielding. If, when you're done with this step, there is still empty space in your station, you've done it wrong. Please return to step 3 (For safety) before proceeding again to step 4.
    Fifth: Make a blueprint of the station. DO IT NOW! If not, you'll be sorry.....
    Sixth: Use the (If you're building this on SP) admin tab on the blueprints menu, click "Mass Spawn Ships", choose the strongest vessel you have, and spawn one or two or three or four of them, depending on how strong they are. Set the faction number to (And this is very important) -1. You got that? Negative 1. Then, click "OK" and hide.
    Step 7: If these pirates have damaged or destroyed your station, find out why. Did your weapons run out of power? Did your shields fail? Could your turrets simply not kill the pirates? If not, skip to step 10.
    Step 8: Fix the above problems.
    Step 9: Return to step 6.
    Step 10: Double-check the small details. Is there a place to dock larger vessels? Can you access the faction block and a build block? Can you open your hangars and what not?
    Step 11: Build station wherever you want it.
    Step 12: Succeed.
     
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    Every Noob should know you need space to park your ships at your station. Also, include an undeathinator, and I'd get a shop module in there so you can buy blueprints on site. And a faction module, with appropriate permission blocks as they seem... Appropriate.

    Make sure there's plenty of cargo space, chances are you'll need a lot more than you think. It seems kind of pointless not to get some factories, even if it's just a defensive post. But then, I love complex factory setups. And power, shield, etc.

    Those are the things I include on every station I build. As for corridors, 3x3 is a good width, and that fits USDs as well. Any discussion on room size is subject to change once quarters are introduced, but for aesthetics I'd say 2x2x2 is the absolute bare minimum, and I go 2x3x3 min personally.

    Lastly, I honestly couldn't tell you which tutorials were most helpful to me, but there are several on YouTube that helped with things like salvage array set up and power systems. The wiki has been the most useful for weapons and crafting. And turrets are definitely a thing I learned how to do, I couldn't say where from. Good luck.
     
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    I've seen large factory set ups. Does someone have a noob friendly factory tutorial?
     
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    Well, a noob friendly tutorial, eh:

    1. Place factory (basic, standard, advanced, cap refinery, micro assembler)
    2. Add a stack of factory enhancers.
    3. Add a stack of cargo blocks (the ones actually named cargo).
    4. Add a Build Block.

    This is the most basic setup for a factory. To use it, you just enter the build block and hot-swap fac enhancers and storage to the factory unit you need (C on factory, Shift + V on stacks). Or you could just build dedicated storage and enhancer stacks for each and connect them permanently (this makes expandability a bit wonky, especially if you build an actual factory unit and sleeve all the needed stuff in one dedicated unit). Larger factories are basically built just like small ones, they just need more factory enhancers and storage. It is literally that easy to have a factory setup.

    Fancier setups have added features, like output storage, elaborate sorting systems and activation of all factory units via logic, as well as lights to tell you if the factory is in use, but those are a matter of personal preference, and they're not necessary for basic fnctionality.
     
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    This may be a silly question, but are there any restrictions on how many shipyards you can have on a single station?
     
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    There used to be a glitch concerning multiple shipyards, but as far as I know it's been fixed. So, no, no restrictions on shipyards/station.
     

    Lukwan

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    This ship was made as a guide for players who are literally on day-1 with Starmade. It was made before the tutorial was expanded and was meant to reside docked to a spawn-station or spawned in a SP (creative) game. There are many ways to approach this game and this represents my personal biases. I hope it might be of use.

    Basic Day-1 Tutorial Ship

    Regarding stations: I like having a gravity-elevator shaft near the center of the base. The Gravity blocks are worth incorporating for fast travel around a sprawling base.
     
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    If possible use USD1's (Universal Standard Dock) seems to me, to be the most common. Also the more that use it the more useful it is.

    USD Type-1

    Borrow/steal ideas and adapt them to your design.