Ship Project 1 - Command Cruiser

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    After playing a while in a boxy piece of junk that was a basic "learn how to play the game with a ship that will serve this purpose" ship (though I did like the hexagonal cannons I gave it) and building a space station up to a usable level of progress, I decided to make a proper vessel.

    Here's where I am at so far: http://imgur.com/APerV0i

    It's not finished yet, but according to these classifications lists it's a...
    • Blitzwing: Titan
    • Nameless: Battleship (likely to be a Dreadnought when completed)
    • Calbirian Complexity Scale: Duke
    • Euro-Corp Syndicate: Battle Cruiser (Tellurium?)

    I'm just going to call its class type Command Cruiser. With a currently about 5:1 TWR, it's pretty fast, and it houses me, the commander. Command ships, at least in the US Navy, are not really all that big, and are capable of some landing operations, though not as much as a specialized landing craft. For that part of the role, I'll add some hangars to the back for small craft that can go onto a planet, seeing as to how that giant ring will not be helpful in landing.

    Speaking of the ring, it's an Alcubierre Drive. Since we don't have warp drive blocks, it's loaded with a checkerboard pattern of rows of power generators and thrusters. Now, I am aware that the ring may look suspiciously perfect in its roundness, but that is because I used http://www.minecraft-craftingguide.com/calculator.html to determine where to place the blocks for the inner and outer outline circles, then built the ring out from those outlines once they were complete.

    The grey and red-striped structure in the middle of the pillars is a containment building. Within the hardened hull and shielded structure is this thing: http://imgur.com/DEEckXi. The empty-looking space is actually water blocks, which I have noticed are used in StarMade as a ballistics gel. The spherical core is made from power tanks, with the purple-tinted plex glass filtering out the yellow part of their green glow, to create a more blue-ish glow akin to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Advanced_Test_Reactor.jpg. I had also placed a few ice crystals around the sides to try to help with the blue glow, but I'm not sure how well that worked out. Since the view from the walkway to the core is limited, the back half of the reactor is shield block moderated for functional purposes. While the pipes imply they carry water, they actually hide more power storage and regen blocks.

    Inside the ball is a power regen reactor made like , but with shield blocks in between instead of empty spaces or more power storage, to protect the core that they surround while building the reactor. Thruster blocks would have worked well there given the same sum-of-dimensions rules, but I didn't want pirates shooting my reactor. The faction module is also accessible there.

    Since the core room is a nuclear reactor, I built http://imgur.com/owi7hsG to help fit the immersion aspect. This room has little functional purpose, aside from being more hull to shoot through. These pipes carry shields, and are designed to look like they leave the room to go back to the reactor.

    The turret docks shown in the first picture are placeholders, showing where I intend to put the actual point-defense structures once I get more of the ship built. The grey hull used currently is a shaping hull layer, and an aesthetic layer will be added over that, to make multiple-depth hull designing easier. I'll figure out how I want the rest of the shape to form once I get more rooms built for immersion-type stuff. Spaces in between rooms and blocks not visible from inside will be shields and/or more power regen.

    For offensive armament besides the planned turrets (both side-mounted point-defense and deck guns on top and bottom), the ship is armed with three forward-facing main cannons, as seen here: http://imgur.com/hMoBOfc. They're capable of laying down heavy damage over a kilometer away, with scapel-like precision. In addition to them will be a pair of shotgun arrays to lay down a wall of bullets against any smaller ship that flies in front of it, and a few missile launchers to bring on close-range heavy-duty demolitions against large opponents if necessary.

    I still haven't figured out exactly where the bridge will go; I've been making this thing up as I go along. I might place Astrobeams on the panels to the sides of the main cannons, to break up that grey with a pattern that will also be functional.

    Don't mind the wreck in the first picture behind "Press SPACE;" I decided to do some weapons testing on my space box.

    I've built on the cruiser off-and-on since the previous post, mostly on a crew-capable interior. With the new blocks brought in by update 0.14, that interior will need revising and so I won't post that just yet. Following the update, I haven't done much of anything with the ship, instead playing multiplayer when logging in SM.

    Overall progress pic: http://imgur.com/pHdixlk

    One main thing I can show is on the back of the ship. http://imgur.com/LboIFyf
    This is the first hangar added to the vessel, and will be nestled in the middle surrounded by the craft to protect them from all but the most powerful missiles (or a sufficient barrage of weapons).

    Each of the pods has the following defenses:

    - Sensor Jamming: With a radar jammer installed, the pod can hide its nav diamond, protecting them from BB missiles and non-visual spotting and identification.
    - Size: Being only 4x3x3, coupled with the radar jammer, makes hitting the pods more difficult for an enemy, especially if there are other ships still shooting while this one is evacuated.
    - Speed: They're easily able to hit the server's max speed, and can quickly turn to dodge incoming danger.
    - Shielding: While not much by ship standards, these pods' shields are sufficient to protect it from stray shots or a brief attack by a light interceptor.
    - Strong Rear Armor: Just beyond the rear center shield block is the pod's faction module, which provides its sturdy defenses to the jammer and core against attacks from behind.

    While the core is exposed in the front, the point of the pods is to fly away from the fighting, so the pod would be oriented so the hostilities are behind you.

    The arrows lead the pods out of the ship through the launch tube located behind the ring. http://imgur.com/USEiIUW

    Two things I noticed after taking screenshots: 1. It doesn't catch the new skybox. 2. F5 screenie doesn't catch the GUI either, so I'll need to manually input the stats below:

    Mass: 24,832.4 (Blocks: 247,964)
    Length: 191m Width: 151m Height: 151m
    Power: 10,020,000.0 (Regen: 2,623,000)
    Thrust: 67,637.2
    Turning: 1.0x, 1.0y, 1.0z
    Shields: 983,005 (Regen: 23,057), Blocks: 42,532, Recovery: 4.0

    Yes, the 0.14 update, that some reported giving their ships super thrust, nerfed 40% of my ship's.
     

    therimmer96

    The Cake Network Staff Senior button unpusher
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    Very nice. well done :)
     
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    Yes, the 0.14 update, that some reported giving their ships super thrust, nerfed 40% of my ship's.
    It nerfed mine as well because I had all my thrusters in a block. I redid them all though with just the xyz axis' and I've almost doubled my thrust using only a third of the thrusters.
     
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    I'm very impressed with the over all design. I had found one of the hardest things to accomplish is coming up with a unique ship design. Many of my attempts have been far less successful. However it does sound as though you have been working on this project for quite some time. The size alone tells me how much effort has gone into it. I find the complexity of the work goes up geometrically with the size.