First Ships! (WIP)

zero-saber · Post by **zero-saber** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:38 pm

Hello all! I'm new to BSF, and so also the Ship Maker.

These two are ships I've been working on over the past day or so. The first one is the EF Artemis. My ultimate goal with her is to be something between a Battlecruiser and a Destroyer. She's supposed to be well-armed, maneuverable, and relatively speedy. Something approximating turning slightly slower than a Hestia, but going about 1.5x maxspeed, with half the acceleration.

I plan to add a few pulse cannons, and increase the firing arc of the main beamers. My problems thus far:

1. I cannot get my ships to "float" while they move. Again, the Hestia as an example.. it doesn't just start and stop. It takes a half a second or so to get moving, and then it takes a half a second or so to stop. I want something proportionate to the Artemis' size.

2. Her A.I. behavior is strange. I want her to attack with the main cannons up front, but if she's passing her target, I'd rather she fire with her other, closer weapons before starting to turn. As it is, she will pass entirely, turn around, and attempt to attack with the main battery up front.

The second design I've started is the EFC Delena. The Delena is a small, fast cruiser, designed to bring down enemy capital craft. She is not, however, without defenses. The two Flak Gun arrays and two Particle Guns provide adequate defense against incoming fire, and allow punishing damage if turned on her opponent. I cannot decide whether she should be equipped with a Dieterling at her rear, or another heavy weapon like a Plasma Charge.

Problems:
1. Again, I have the movement issue. I'm not sure how to resolve this.

2. The Delena is supposed to be fast, but I want her to turn a little bit slower, so that she has to come around again before bringing her main guns to bear. I understand decreasing the turn rate should fix this, but I would like some other pointers.

C&C wanted and appreciated. I hope to provide some quality ships in the future!

(EDIT: Pics added.)

Chuck · Post by **Chuck** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:50 pm

can't see shit capn.

2ndly change the files to jpeg not bmap

FIREST0RM000 · Post by **FIREST0RM000** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:54 pm

may I suggest photo bucket. that site doesn't seem to allow you to link from it. overall not bad ships, but some better pictures are priority #1

zero-saber · Post by **zero-saber** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:03 pm

Pics added. Also, how can I shrink the weapons? The normal shrinking controls effect the firing arc when dealing with weapons.

Danny420Dale · Post by **Danny420Dale** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:05 pm

Chuck wrote:can't see shit capn.

2ndly change the files to PNG!!! not bmp

Baka! He's using MSPaint, which means JPG will destroy whatever there is to see into compression-artifacts and blobby nothingness. Now if he's using Irfanview, it might be okay.

In fact, Zero, just get Irfanview anyway.

FIREST0RM000 wrote:may I suggest photo bucket. that site doesn't seem to allow you to link from it. overall not bad ships, but some better pictures are priority #1

It's called Rapidshit for a reason. It's a file-hosting service that goes through epic gyrations to monetize free-access traffic, which is a fancypants way of saying if you're not a paying sucke^H^H^H^H^Hcustomer, it will try its damnedest to be a slow pain in the ass that demands constant attention while you wait for a countdown and possibly a CAPTCHA at the end of that; spewing ads at you the whole time. It is NOT an imagehost!

Oh, and ImageShack? Fuhgeddaboudit!

FIREST0RM000 · Post by **FIREST0RM000** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:07 pm

Pics added. Also, how can I shrink the weapons? The normal shrinking controls effect the firing arc when dealing with weapons.

weapons can be resized with 'Q' and 'A' as well as the 'shift' + 'A' and 'shift' + 'Q'

most questions can be answered with the f1 help menu.

and I almost forgot. welcome to the forums

Wicky_42 · Post by **Wicky_42** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:07 pm

The acceleration value affects how your ships speed up and slow down - high enough values stop your ships on a dime, a value of zero puts your ship on ice. Higher value works better with higher speed.

zero-saber · Post by **zero-saber** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 3:26 am

Thanks guys. And thanks for the welcome as well XD

This might be more appropriate for the weapon thread, but is there a way to make a deflector that targets other ships?

T-002 · Post by **T-002** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 3:40 am

zero-saber wrote:Thanks guys. And thanks for the welcome as well XD

This might be more appropriate for the weapon thread, but is there a way to make a deflector that targets other ships?

Not as far as I know.

Why'd you wanna do that? Unless you want allied ships, but creating a big shield works for that too.

zero-saber · Post by **zero-saber** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:26 am

I was thinking of a frigate or cruiser-sized vessel that exists soley to be a shield generator. It has a few point defense guns, but other than that it's a huge shield projector.

T-002 · Post by **T-002** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:28 am

zero-saber wrote:I was thinking of a frigate or cruiser-sized vessel that exists soley to be a shield generator. It has a few point defense guns, but other than that it's a huge shield projector.

Sadly, I don't think this is possible. What you could do, is make large forward shields, very wide. Hide ships behind it, presto.

This is, of course, quite different from your idea. But play around with it if you want.

FIREST0RM000 · Post by **FIREST0RM000** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:30 am

well then try the flux projector. the only thing you need to mod is the energy regen. leave everything else alone except maybe the range.

zero-saber · Post by **zero-saber** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:18 am

Wouldn't that make a huge damage-null area, though? I guess I could just go back to my original idea of using nano-matrices.

I've changed styles a little bit, and I think I'm going to stick with this way.

The EFC Camaria. One of the heaviest Cruiser-class vessels in the fleet, the Camaria is the flagship of her class. No shielding on her, she's just a tough bitch. In-universe, she's an older design that was never tried until recently, when the rebellious Planetary Defense Coalition discovered Earth Fleet shield codes.

FIREST0RM000 · Post by **FIREST0RM000** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:45 am

Wouldn't that make a huge damage-null area, though? I guess I could just go back to my original idea of using nano-matrices.

well, it doesn't shield against beam weapons or plasma nukes. the other option,the large front shields would block everything and never run out of juice.

The EFC Camaria. One of the heaviest Cruiser-class vessels in the fleet, the Camaria is the flagship of her class. No shielding on her, she's just a tough bitch. In-universe, she's an older design that was never tried until recently, when the rebellious Planetary Defense Coalition discovered Earth Fleet shield codes.

it's a pretty nice ship, but that 16 in the middle doesn't look good when stretched that much, and whatever is under it looks even worse. of course, that's just my opinion.

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:48 am

Ya shield ships like from homeworld would be nice, but your only choices here are a literal shield ship that pysically stops projectiles, or using the flux projector.

Good job for building small and detailed, thats how we like em to start! Probably don't need as much point defense, and try using shift +arrow keys to adjust stuff. I like that you've obviously looked around to try some of this stuff, so I look forward to seeing more.