Ship Building Planning

[Drumboy168]

Hello, fellow shipwrights. I have a legitimate query as to the methods you as individuals use when constructing a ship. My question is largely as follows: when designing a new ship, do you calculate the power the individual systems will consume and design the ship accordingly, or do you just design as the requirements crop up?

I've mostly followed the second school of thought, and while fun, it can lead to insurmountable issues, such as turrets draining power from the main gun. If you do calculate power draw for subsystems, how exactly do you do so?

 

[Groovrider]

Although not very popular I generally start with the power, capacitors, shields and then engines...generally. All the while I'm keeping in mind a general shape but not bing too definite. That usually forms the solid state part of the ship. Then its habitation and control: allocating rooms, doors and pilot nest. I then look at the available package and decide on weapon systems, logics and prospective turret placement. This is the point where I layout a wireframe of the hull and begin adding internal armor sections and turret hardpoints. Last is full enclosure and thrust/power balancing/tweaking phase. It's only after all of that, unfortunately, that I then begin to consider aesthetics. To me, looking good is looking effective.

 

[Drumboy168]

Although not very popular I generally start with the power, capacitors, shields and then engines...generally. All the while I'm keeping in mind a general shape but not bing too definite. That usually forms the solid state part of the ship. Then its habitation and control: allocating rooms, doors and pilot nest. I then look at the available package and decide on weapon systems, logics and prospective turret placement. This is the point where I layout a wireframe of the hull and begin adding internal armor sections and turret hardpoints. Last is full enclosure and thrust/power balancing/tweaking phase. It's only after all of that, unfortunately, that I then begin to consider aesthetics. To me, looking good is looking effective.

Interesting! How do you balance power and draw?

 

[jzimmerman4]

For power I normal just put up to the soft cap in recharge then add as my weapon systems start to demand more. This is for larger ships however.

 

[Tunk]

I prefer to pre-plan power requirements since I use the reactors for laying down the keel and its a pain in the bum to add more after the fact.
Most weapons, turrets or turret groups have their own dedicated power supply, so that usually means weapons are pre-planned around their power requirements as well.

Additional and dedicated reactors isn't a thing that only big ships use, smaller ships can benefit from it as well (a 6k destroyer can quite happily use 2.5m regen, or a 60 mass drone use 800k cap!).

 

[Parameter]

For small ships, I like to rough in the hull shape with a skeleton/frame of blocks, then lay in power reactors. This gives me a basic hull shape, and a basic power supply for the design. I'll often save a blueprint at this point. Now, I can determine weapons that fit my power budget, and strike a balance between weapons vs. shielding vs. support systems vs. RP space. I'll usually adjust the frame a few times as I'm laying in systems, but about halfway through I'll flesh out the frame into a real hull. I'll then go through the inside and remove extra hull blocks from the frame, then finish the rest of the systems and RP decor.

I've recently began taking the finished ship and removing all internal systems, leaving me with a hull and power. I can save this as a blueprint for making ship variants.

In larger ships, I'll rough-in RP space before I lay in power, so I don't have to run corridors and rooms in weird spots.

 

[Groovrider]

For small ships, I like to rough in the hull shape with a skeleton/frame of blocks, then lay in power reactors. This gives me a basic hull shape, and a basic power supply for the design. I'll often save a blueprint at this point. Now, I can determine weapons that fit my power budget, and strike a balance between weapons vs. shielding vs. support systems vs. RP space. I'll usually adjust the frame a few times as I'm laying in systems, but about halfway through I'll flesh out the frame into a real hull. I'll then go through the inside and remove extra hull blocks from the frame, then finish the rest of the systems and RP decor.

I've recently began taking the finished ship and removing all internal systems, leaving me with a hull and power. I can save this as a blueprint for making ship variants.

In larger ships, I'll rough-in RP space before I lay in power, so I don't have to run corridors and rooms in weird spots.

Same. I currently have 4-5 different skeletons that go from p 700k e/sec to 7oook e/sec and use them for a base to build from.

 

[Gasboy]

For small ships, like fighters, I tend to build about 90% of the hull before I start putting in power and shielding and weapons. The hull will have specific spots for these systems to fit into, and anything extra I decide the craft needs will get added into a general space I've set aside. I then start doing some testing to see how she performs, and I'll modify things to taste. Once I am satisfied with testing, I'll finish the hull, and tell the shipyard to construct the ship. More testing and tweaking will take place afterwards, and if I have to, I'll build a version 2 with these improvements made.

For bigger ships, I'll build the basic hull shape, and enclose the sides, top and bottom. I leave the front and back open, and start putting in systems. I've found it is much easier to build an effective larger ship than it is to build a small one. Generally I put too much power and I have to tone it down. Basically, if I go to test it, and the weapons are not even causing the power to drop a smidge, I tone down the power and boost the weaponry/shielding. I don't usually have to do a whole lot of testing to get something that is satisfactory.

 

[amimai]

my current construction theory:
1. i build the internal spaces (ie crew quarters, computer rooms, central logic, core room, ect)

2. on this i mount the power generation systems

• docked power, usually in the excess of 10 separate systems
  
• these pump power back into (1) wich will contain its own reactor and masses of capacitors
• my current 200m ship is set to have near 12 million power generation for some perspective

3. i dock another thing onto (1) which i simply call the beam

• the beam runs the entire length of the ship, and is almost entirely shield recharges (1:1, recharge:capacitance)
• the beam is usually the inner most part of the ship, and this practically impossible to hit
• the beam protects the power (2) and internal spaces (1) and is for all intents and purposes a blanket that covers those 2 areas in its shield recharges

4. onto the beam (3) i start docking turrets, weapon systems, jammers, salvaging, ect.... basically everything that does not need to be attached to the main ship core

• this lets it drain the beam for shields (and the beam itself never runs out)
• all docks are inside the beam itself, preventing silly things like turrets popping off because a stray shot hit the turret dock

5. i select the beam (3) again and build the first (or inner most) layer of hull blocks, these basically hug evry internal system and are the last line of defense vs hull damage via shields

6. onto the beam (3) i dock 4-8 seperate entities, each entity has a ion, punch through, and piercing effect, as well as their own high capacity/low recharge shield

• these are what make up the external hull of the ship
• computers are placed inside engineering space inside (1) and can be manually turned on from there
• contains own power to run systems
• makes for insanely tough outer armor

7. add cosmetics, docking bays, retractable observation deck, drone racks, ect as needed


that's my design theory for my current generation adv cruiser prototype
i usually keep in mind the bounding box of the ship, but i build armor to match systems rather then vice versa

currently im up to stage 4, it takes a while to build the necessary hedgehog of turrets, missiles, ect...

 

[Drumboy168]

Capital, gentlemen (and ladies, perhaps!), simply capital! I must admit however that I was hoping that someone would have a black-magic, voodoo, systems calculator.

 

[hzzzln]

I guess most people just trust their guts and experience from past mistakes. Also, power generation can be different from server to server and it also gets buffed/nerfed from time to time to (hopefully) balance it.

My suggestion would be to build a doom brick with roughly the dimensions of the ship you want to build, add the weapons and systems you intend to use and experiment with how much power systems you need. When you find a good setup, you can start from scratch, but at least you know exactly what you will need in the finished ship. And pray there are not any balance changes to the game while you build.

 

[Drumboy168]

I guess most people just trust their guts and experience from past mistakes. Also, power generation can be different from server to server and it also gets buffed/nerfed from time to time to (hopefully) balance it.

My suggestion would be to build a doom brick with roughly the dimensions of the ship you want to build, add the weapons and systems you intend to use and experiment with how much power systems you need. When you find a good setup, you can start from scratch, but at least you know exactly what you will need in the finished ship. And pray there are not any balance changes to the game while you build.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I often make the ship, and make the power sufficient to fire it's weapons-and then add turrets and balls the whole thing up.

 

[amimai]

the trick to turrets is to put power generation in them, unless you build like i do and have enough power generation to run 10 capital turrets easy and still have plenty spare

 

[Rixxan]

If I'm building from a set design or a cannon recreation ship I build the hull, weapons, ect and then see what my power generation needs are. If It's just out of my own head, power is the first thing I look at.

 

[Edymnion]

I usually build the hull first, then reactor line it to soft cap, interior skin it with capacitors, then install weapons. If the weapons draw too much power, I add more capacitors. If soft cap isn't going to be enough, I dock reactors.

Shields, engines, and tertiary systems like jump drives and scanners go in last.

 

[Panpiper]

Power. Everything your ship will be capable of ultimately depends on power. Any construction I devise will have it's essential power layout planned before I put down a single block. That known, I will plan turret placements, again before putting down a single block. I will have a clear idea of what turrets I will place where so as to maximize their effectiveness. Generally then, I will build the turrets before I build the ship, else I will not know the precise dimensions of the turrets. (My turrets are always 100% self powering, and I have some 'big' turrets. See spoiler.)

Spoiler

Once the turrets are built, I will then lay down the power systems, though I might build the bridge first, as I want the core on the bridge, and I can't have power lines inadvertently running through my bridge space. I will place any docked reactor systems and then, typically using thrust modules, I will construct a skeletal outline of the intended ship. I will mount the turrets to this outline, making it very easy to move turrets around and restructure the ultimate final configuration at this early stage. Once the turret placement is done, with the power systems finished, I will then build the exterior structure around the turrets whilst slowly adding other essential internal systems. I leave room for RP space adjacent to the bridge for filling in as the mood strikes me.

 

[Drumboy168]

Fascinating.

 

[KingofCalamity]

I plan out the main weapon systems, secondary systems, passive systems, thrust systems, and finally turrets. This is all on paper, then using my cheat sheet I calculate it's estimated power consumption a second and calculate how many blocks of power I need to meet 2x minimum (4x preferred). After all of this I calculate the number of blocks I need for each system. Using these numbers I get a rough size estimate using no hull or accounting for RP space. This is how I build all my ships.

On a note, three ships I've designed will likely never be made as they all need a space exceeding, in length alone, over 1.6 km. The largest at nearly 15 km with a main weapon fired with logic that will crash any server it's fired on (1/4 size test, of just the weapon, showed lag load high enough to crash my computer at home on mouse click). I'm working on a calculator but for now it's just a sheet of paper in the front of my design journal with a lot of equations on it.

 

[Keptick]

I plan out the main weapon systems, secondary systems, passive systems, thrust systems, and finally turrets. This is all on paper, then using my cheat sheet I calculate it's estimated power consumption a second and calculate how many blocks of power I need to meet 2x minimum (4x preferred). After all of this I calculate the number of blocks I need for each system. Using these numbers I get a rough size estimate using no hull or accounting for RP space. This is how I build all my ships.

On a note, three ships I've designed will likely never be made as they all need a space exceeding, in length alone, over 1.6 km. The largest at nearly 15 km with a main weapon fired with logic that will crash any server it's fired on (1/4 size test, of just the weapon, showed lag load high enough to crash my computer at home on mouse click). I'm working on a calculator but for now it's just a sheet of paper in the front of my design journal with a lot of equations on it.

Tbh you should just downscale them, most ship designs can be build just as well at smaller sizes.

 

[KingofCalamity]

Tbh you should just downscale them, most ship designs can be build just as well at smaller sizes.

I'd thought of that, but for some reason unless it's a large project I can't bring myself to bring it to completion. I'm working on a smaller 150m heavy assault class ship now. It was designed much larger but the idea for the ship itself can finally be done because of rails. Once I work out on the modular armor and figure out how effective the modular shielding and power are in the current release It'll move more towards completion.