Working on My First Capital Ship, Any Advice?

[1adog1]

Hey guys, I know I'm relatively new and not incredibly well known around the forums, but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm working on a new Capital Ship that will use the new weapons added in the recent update, as well as the new FTL drive that's set to come out soon.

It'll be the largest ship I've ever made by FAR, and I was wondering if anyone could give any advice on how to effectively build this thing in any good amount of time. I've created a cross section for the main part of the ship and I've started to extrude it out but it's an extremely slow process. By my calculations without interior decoration it will end up being about 800,000-1,100,000 blocks, and will have 9 decks. The majority of the work is simply extruding the cross section I made. Is there any way to make this easier or go a bit quicker? I would like to stay away from SMEdit if I can, just to keep it as legitimate as possible.

Anyway, any advice?

Here's some update images:

Day 1

The length of the main capsule. Semi circle arms (Radius 25) and the 4 main guns will be added once the main hull is finished.

The Power generation hall which also contains the core.

The Cross Section that I'm slowing extruding. There are 9 total decks including the core hall, but the majority of the ship's space is in it's systems. The shield penetration damage beam is surrounding the core hall, and will do 250,000 damage a hit with it's ion effect when complete. The larger cylinder and it's internals will eventually completely cover the smaller one, then the bridge, thrusters, nose, and main guns will be added.

Day 2

Half of the center of the 3 layers of the outer cylinder is done. I set the ship up so that the outer hull would have 2 layers of hardened hulls with a layer of shield generators in between. Changed the power systems a bit for efficiency (By a bit, I mean I cut the amount in half and am still producing 100,000 more power than I was). Total production at the moment is 1.6 million e/t. Total Power Storage is at 26 million energy, and shields are around 18 million power. The main gun is done, but it looks like it's only going to do 100,000 damage a hit with ion effect. I might add a bit more to it later.

 

[whiterhino16]

Estimate how many blocks the entire ships will have, then get that many hull. Stations are a good source of it.
Also, make a small cube of hulls with an opening to a ship core. Basically this:
1=hull 2= ship core _= nothing
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
__2 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1

Put it in the catalog and buy a bunch. Shot a core, salvage the hulls. Repeat until you get bored of doing it, build more, repeat. Its less tedious to eat stations for them. Also, get weapons power and thrusters every shop you find.

Also, I would try to make a large ship instead of a huge one first. As in the size of one of those big tubes on stations

 

[Jerry_Brinefield]

Hello,
I like to consider myself to be a fairly good ship builder so I thought i'd give my two cents. It seems like you know a fair bit already so I won't bother with the basics. The quick answer to your question is that there really is no way to speed it up. The best thing you can do is to always use advanced build mode and symmetry as much as you can. You should also build the ship in singleplayer using admin commands to spawn in items as to not waste time. Always be mindful of where you are and do every measurement twice to ensure you don't have to rebuild half the ship because you put the symmetry a block over.

The next bit of information is the most important.
SAVE.SAVE.SAVE.
I have gotten screwed over so many times because I forgot to save. Whenever you do any major altercation save immediately afterward. Also, try and put temporary shields and power so you don't get killed by pirates when all you have is a frame (guilty as well). Starmade is in alpha so constantly make backups and saves. Also, smedit hasn't worked with starmade for the past few updates so don't worry about that temptation.
If you have any more questions or feel that I missed something feel free to tell me.

 

[1adog1]

Estimate how many blocks the entire ships will have, then get that many hull. Stations are a good source of it.
Also, make a small cube of hulls with an opening to a ship core. Basically this:
1=hull 2= ship core _= nothing
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
__2 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1

Put it in the catalog and buy a bunch. Shot a core, salvage the hulls. Repeat until you get bored of doing it, build more, repeat. Its less tedious to eat stations for them. Also, get weapons power and thrusters every shop you find.

Also, I would try to make a large ship instead of a huge one first. As in the size of one of those big tubes on stations

I should've specified that I'm new to the forums, but not the game itself. But I'm not gunna lie I've never tried your buying and salvaging technique before, might be a good idea for future projects, thanks.

I've got all the supplies I need to build the ship (and the money to buy more if I think of something else). I'm using hardened black hulls for the outside, so the station technique wouldn't apply to me anyway. I've built relatively big ships before, the largest has a mass of about 11,000.

What I more need, is advice on building techniques. Little things can make a large project move a lot faster, and that 11,000 mass ship took me a good part of 3 months to fully complete. I just don't want my 110,000 mass ship to take 30 months lol

 

[Jonj57]

Well, there's the advanced build mode that allows you to place a ton of blocks at once. Aside from that building out the frame so you can rapidly place panels in adv build mode is about the best I can offer.

 

[Krazykat]

have a plan, start a frame, allocate your space.

are you focusing on looks or funcitonality?

 

[1adog1]

Well, there's the advanced build mode that allows you to place a ton of blocks at once. Aside from that building out the frame so you can rapidly place panels in adv build mode is about the best I can offer.

I feel like a complete idiot, I always thought advanced build mode was just for block rotation. Welp my life just got a ton easier... Thanks!

 

[Jonj57]

No problem, bro. By the way, you going to make a thread on your ship? I always enjoy watching builds progress.

 

[1adog1]

have a plan, start a frame, allocate your space.

are you focusing on looks or funcitonality?

I'm focusing on functionality, I was never good with aesthetics. If it goes like I plan, it'll still look pretty cool though.

 

[1adog1]

No problem, bro. By the way, you going to make a thread on your ship? I always enjoy watching builds progress.

I'll add update snapshots here, I just wanted to get a bit into building first to make sure everything worked out right.

Edit, just posted them for day 1

 

[whiterhino16]

I should've specified that I'm new to the forums, but not the game itself. But I'm not gunna lie I've never tried your buying and salvaging technique before, might be a good idea for future projects, thanks.

I've got all the supplies I need to build the ship (and the money to buy more if I think of something else). I'm using hardened black hulls for the outside, so the station technique wouldn't apply to me anyway. I've built relatively big ships before, the largest has a mass of about 11,000.

What I more need, is advice on building techniques. Little things can make a large project move a lot faster, and that 11,000 mass ship took me a good part of 3 months to fully complete. I just don't want my 110,000 mass ship to take 30 months lol

Probably too late, but before building the main body draw it in real life on a sheet of "paper" (whatever that is). You don't need to be a good artist, just do it to the best of your abilities. And use a ruler. If you have a plan, it's a LOT easier.

Also, make the parts with cubes then wedges. Wedges take a bit of thought (i'd say it's tedious if I knew a way to improve it) and best to do in one go.

 

[1adog1]

Probably too late, but before building the main body draw it in real life on a sheet of "paper" (whatever that is). You don't need to be a good artist, just do it to the best of your abilities. And use a ruler. If you have a plan, it's a LOT easier.

Also, make the parts with cubes then wedges. Wedges take a bit of thought (i'd say it's tedious if I knew a way to improve it) and best to do in one go.

Already had a plan before I started My last project turned out to look like crap cause I didn't plan it out. I'm hoping this one will turn out a lot better now that I do have a plan.

 

[Renegade Dalek]

When i read all this answers I cannot believe this is a forum of a space game. When you build a ship what is the first thing you must do?
-Power generator: wrong
-Shields: wrong
-Structure: wrong
-Interior: wrong
Every well constructor of ships know that the most important part of a ship is the autodestruction system. How do you think a ship can fly whitout one of that?

 

[Lecic]

When i read all this answers I cannot believe this is a forum of a space game. When you build a ship what is the first thing you must do?
-Power generator: wrong
-Shields: wrong
-Structure: wrong
-Interior: wrong
Every well constructor of ships know that the most important part of a ship is the autodestruction system. How do you think a ship can fly whitout one of that?

At first I was going to be mad at you but then I laughed.

 

[Keptick]

The best advise I can give: MAKE A FRAME FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is what I mean by frame (the back part):

If it doesn't look right it's much easier to change a frame then to change the entire hull and systems. Planning out the ship takes 0.1% of the time it takes to remake a failed, unplanned section.

 

[Jerry_Brinefield]

When i read all this answers I cannot believe this is a forum of a space game. When you build a ship what is the first thing you must do?
-Power generator: wrong
-Shields: wrong
-Structure: wrong
-Interior: wrong
Every well constructor of ships know that the most important part of a ship is the autodestruction system. How do you think a ship can fly whitout one of that?

Darn, I always forget the autodestructor! That's why all my ships look terrible...

 

[Rhyssia]

Im...ok at building. And your power generators are TERRIBLY inefficient.

Please refer to... http://www.starmadewiki.com/wiki/SD_HCT_xm3.4_Power
Also you should try to connect your power tanks into one solid group
http://www.starmadewiki.com/wiki/SD_pc1.3_Power_Tank

 

[1adog1]

Im...ok at building. And your power generators are TERRIBLY inefficient.

Please refer to... http://www.starmadewiki.com/wiki/SD_HCT_xm3.4_Power
Also you should try to connect your power tanks into one solid group
http://www.starmadewiki.com/wiki/SD_pc1.3_Power_Tank

Thanks for the advice, I seem to recall 1*1*x lines to be the most efficient design in my experimentation. I'll try that with some system (probably shields) to fill in the gaps.

P=Generator
S=Shield Generator

PSPSPSP
SPSPSPS
PSPSPSP

EDIT: Instead of redesigning the power tank system along with as the generators, I'll live with the 25 million power they're already storing lol

 

[Rhyssia]

In case you dont know there's also a soft cap on power regeneration at 1,000,000. It is possible to bypass the softcap with a turret/power drain beam setup.

 

[Keptick]

Just link all the power tanks together, even if it's only with a tiny line of blocks. It will probably double your power capacity.