United Colonial Corps Shipyards and Fleet

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Some egghead in Classified Tech Research and Development thought this beast up but the top brass did not approve of the line for mass production. The UCS High Council does not feel comfortable giving AI control over this amount of firepower. Drone Class ships are designed to be operated by a minimal crew of engineers to maintain drone systems and a single commander. They only offer sparse living arrangements and no creature comforts. The weapon systems include *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* *Error illegal attempt to access classified technology information.*

I really have some mixed feelings about this ship, most of the shell I am really happy with but a few areas still bother me. The engines are cut and pasted from the Scycle and Longsword so I may attempt to re-do the back of the ship when I have more time. The nose also didn't come out as good as I hopped but I am okay with it overall. It was more or less a scaled up attempt of the nose I did on the prototype ship. I had the ship plastered with turrets at one point too but decided to remove them. If it turns out missiles are a problem during Blood and Steel I'll have to add some AMS turrets back. Given I built the entire ship in one evening I'd say it turned out rather well.

I have already applied some of the shelling techniques used on this ship on a few of my other ships. While my shells will never be as lavish as others, I do want to improve them as much as I can. I like simple clean lines, these ships should feel like strong, armored tanks. I feel some people are so worried about not having flat panels they over decorate and make the ship look messy and unrefined, noisy.

Things I need to improve on:

• Antenna:
  I need to dedicate a weekend just to messing with antenna. I've tried many different designs but am still not 100% comfortable/ happy with them. This ship is considered a drone so I wanted an impressive looking array.
• Engines:
  While I am happy with my overall engine design I am having a lot of trouble with integrating them seamlessly into the distinct posterior all my UCC ships have. This problem will only get worse as my ships scale up.

 

[Keptick]

Drone ships: the perfect RP excuse to a very small interior. (no worries, I use it too)

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Drone ships: the perfect RP excuse to a very small interior. (no worries, I use it too)

Damn and i thought I was being original, lol. Yeah it is a good way to fit combat focused ships into my otherwise full RP line. I'm trying to expand on my lore as well.

 

[Keptick]

Damn and i thought I was being original, lol. Yeah it is a good way to fit combat focused ships into my otherwise full RP line. I'm trying to expand on my lore as well.

The way I rationalize 100% combat ships is by calling them AI controlled with a manual override (a small core room). The explanation also fits pretty well with my non-human looking ships.

I advise that you add visual sensor arrays or stuff like that. That way it becomes fairly obvious that the ship is partly or fully AI controlled.

I like the ship btw :p

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

That was a good tournament. Here are the WIP shots

Spoiler: The Proof Of Concept:

Spoiler: The Prototype:

Spoiler: Journey Of The UCC Conflagration

(T-10:29) The Frame

(T-10:23) Add in all missile cubes

(T-10:10) Determine how far I can space out my redundant clocks before wires become exposed

Dinner Break

(T-8:21) Start Installing logic, red lights indicate connected circuits. I tried three times to do all three clocks at once but after having to start over repeatedly I did one clock at a time.

(T-7:12) Logic Finished with a cube of power tanks for test firing each clock independently to verify logic integrity.

(T-7:07) Hull finally taking shape.

(T-6:58) Front view of all installed weapon systems. From here on it was tunnel vision building and no more progress shots were taken.

During this time I ended up over mass and had to trim a lot off the side, I attempted to build engines but in the end went with copied engines from another similarly sized ship. Animated launch doors were also scrapped.

(T-49) Final fire tests

(T-0)

 

[Panpiper]

A work of sublime beauty.

I really appreciate seeing the construction process pictures.

 

[Tacotown99]

nice nothing beats a swarm if missles

 

[Panpiper]

nice nothing beats a swarm if missles

I would have liked to see how Drakkart's 'Scimitar' would have fared against this swarm. He had a really good set of point defense turrets, among other things.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

nice nothing beats a swarm if missles

Except an invincible home-base shield or massive debris field.
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I would have liked to see how Drakkart's 'Scimitar' would have fared against this swarm. He had a really good set of point defense turrets, among other things.

We could make that happen on Star Squadron.

 

[Spartan-089]

Seeing the build process gives me an even greater appreciation for your ship building skills. I really enjoyed watching your matches and I'm saddened I didn't win my semi final match to face you. Hopefully in the next Blood and Steel ill get my shot and I'm greatly looking forward to seeing what improvements you'll bring to the table. That last match where you faced down a veritable mini fleet of ships and almost won was the stuff of legends.

 

[Drakkart]

I would have liked to see how Drakkart's 'Scimitar' would have fared against this swarm. He had a really good set of point defense turrets, among other things.

we shall check that out on the server...

 

[Tshara]

It’s a very interesting concept and very effective as we have seen. I wonder how to test against an AI opponents with it since they can’t push buttons. Perhaps a long delay and then jump in your own ship.

 

[Panpiper]

It’s a very interesting concept and very effective as we have seen. I wonder how to test against an AI opponents with it since they can’t push buttons. Perhaps a long delay and then jump in your own ship.

Would it not be possible to change the logic such that it is always on, save the blueprint that way, then spawn the ship as a pirate for testing? Obviously this would 'only' be for testing it as an AI ship, but it should work.

 

[JimmyJamba]

Big congrats Sven on your showing this weekend in the tournament! I think you just proved that you're one of the best builders in Starmade.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

It’s a very interesting concept and very effective as we have seen. I wonder how to test against an AI opponents with it since they can’t push buttons. Perhaps a long delay and then jump in your own ship.

Yes a long delay clock would work. Activate the delay and save the ship. The ship should be loaded in with the countdown running and will fire after it loads. This is the method I used for my derelict proof of concept before I realized it was much easier just to use a simple clock in a protected zone.

Would it not be possible to change the logic such that it is always on, save the blueprint that way, then spawn the ship as a pirate for testing? Obviously this would 'only' be for testing it as an AI ship, but it should work.

Yes if the ship was saved with the system in an on state it would fire after a short delay once it loads. There seems to be an inherent delay in logic when ships load.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I actually worked on the hammer last night. Besides some logic tweaks this is the first time I've worked on it. I was only planing on updated the hanger circuits with the optional bits I went over in PL9.5 but I ended up working on other things as well... Applying new techniques I've learned from other builders. She is still a long way off being fit for duty but at least I got some grind out of the way. She still hasn't been fully refit with new weapons and doesn't have shield recharges properly installed yet.

This is what the logic-closet looks like now.

That is only 2/3 animation circuits and their respective auto shut timers. The running lights blinker is behind the camera. Each hanger door currently installed can be locked open from multiple points and these switches will override all the automatic inputs from the hanger. The launch hanger door opens from an area trigger at the edge of the runway or if a ship un-docks from any of the forward auxiliary docking clamps. The rear hanger door can be opened via activator panel and this door will auto shut after 7 seconds currently however the panel can be hit again to reset the timer. The door will also auto close once a ship docks or hits the runway area detector, this is in case a ship is under fire while docking so the doors are not left open for longer than they have to be. If multiple ships are docking the door should be locked in the open position via one of the two docking control centers.

Additional logic tweaks include modifications to "General Quarters". All exterior lights will shut off including running lights, additional doors cover other light sources as well, and a combat shroud partially covers the three shield emitters.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I've decided I am going to finish and upload the my Hive Mode prototype ship, she's too beautiful not to.

Drone Class Frigate: The UCC Wildfire

She is already a more finished ship than the Conflagration so it won't take long to add those polishing touches to make her a complete. She is only about 1/3 the size of the Conflagration but actually fires more missiles, 120 more to be exact. These additional missiles were added to help with shield damage. Currently her missiles are red so I am debating converting them to standard UCS orange.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I was bored today so I decided to build a new turret. I tried to make a new L5 class but scrapped it in favor of a bigger gun.

The L15-5 Cb1000 Railgun

This frictionless railgun fires a projectile at tremendous speeds and has enough kinetic energy to easily overcome most shields. She is a heavy 15-5 class gun so she can be used to replace any standard 15-5 artillery assuming the ship can support the extra bulk/weight.

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I really need to beef up my current 15-5s as I still like them so I don't want to abandon them but they are quite pathetic compared to this new gun. The old artillery is quite stubby in the rump so I can easily extend them and give them a shield boost which is the area they are lacking in. I'll try to spruce up the shell as well as the design was my second turret ever built so it's fairly dated.

 

[hzzzln]

You probably explained it somewhere, but I'm missing it... what is the logic for? Does it fire the swarmers automatically?

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

You probably explained it somewhere, but I'm missing it... what is the logic for? Does it fire the swarmers automatically?

Yes the Conflagration and Wildfire have a clock that fires a set of swarms every half a second.

The logic on the hammer controls the animated hanger doors.