Archives for ships and fleets. 'nuff said. Most of the ships here are very very old and will not work in current versions of BSF or SM. You have been warned!
Top-left is Heavy Cruiser Dacia; top-right is Cruiser Rubikon; bottom is Cruiser Debrecen.
I'm obviously in love with the rail guns. My next ship will probably have a strong broadside, or maybe even be asymmetrical like the UEF cap ships in Sins of a Solar Empire.
Will post blueprints on request.
And quick question: How the hell do I change a piece's parent? It pisses me off when I screw up parenting and have to go back and do a group all over again.
Last edited by Caesius on Fri Oct 24, 2008 5:53 am, edited 8 times in total.
Select the piece that you want reparented and right click on the piece you want it parented to then click "Set As Parent".
I say that they're moderately good for noob ships. Though I suggest you move the weapons on the Debrecen's sides further inwards. And try to fill in the empty spaces. The shapes faze me though. Try for a start to look around and see other people's ships. Then find one that you like and try to copy it, then refine and add your own stuff in.
Debrecen was my first ship; the empty space is deliberate so as to emphasize the disjointedness, though I might plop a piece on top of the little bit that sticks out on the back pieces (looks like a hole for a screw or something). For all of them I had a stock ship in mind when I made them (before I knew about this forum); for the Debrecen and Dacia, it was the Athena, and I originally intended for both of them to be broadsiders though I changed direction towards forward firepower early in both designs. For the Rubikon it was the alien dreadnought (which, ironically, was what I had in mind for Debrecen to counter since it pisses me off so much in Graveyard, which I have yet to complete).
What exactly is it about the shapes that bothers you?
Also, any suggestions on how I could keep myself oriented on a broadside and not subconsciously switch to forward firepower 10 seconds into making the ship?
Yeah, my next ship is probably going to have engine blocks; Dacia was going to have them (see the blue sections) but I plopped down the white sections underneath them instead for added firepower (and also to keep straight angles).
I've seen some really cool engine blocks but don't know how to get the effects that they're using.
Edit: As to sections, I generally try to pick sections that fit together well as they are; I avoided changing the shape of the sections up until Dacia because I don't like how they look when stretched.
Last edited by Caesius on Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Now that I look at them, they probably use boosters and aegis shields; the idea of making tactically useless shielded/boosted sections doesn't sit well with me as I try to make my ships functional, but I'll see if I can get them to improve my ships' aesthetics.
Edit: Though now that I think about it, using aegis shields to protect the thrusters is a pretty interesting idea...
Edit2: And about thrusters; the modules guide says that a ship with 0 or less acceleration will effectively become a ping-pong ball; so does that mean if its max speed is 0 but it has acceleration it will still be able to stop? And if its turn speed is still >0 it'll still be able to turn? How exactly does the math for thrusters work anyway? If I have 10 thrusters and each of them takes off .1 for every attribute when it's destroyed, then will destroying all 10 thrusters bring all attributes down 1 or will it bring them all down to 0? (Not sure if thrusters work on a 0%-100% scale or a 0-value scale.)
As for the last thread, in the second picture, how does he get such a wide, coherent beam?
Last edited by Caesius on Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Actually it's a hextet of beams, he used the beam layering technique found in the Advanced Weapon Modding Thread. And as for the engines, they're doodad sections, here read this: http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2923. The second one.
Greetings Caesius, and welcome to Wyrdysm Forums. Frankly speaking your first few ships aren't too bad for a first try, but I'll recommend you read through all the linked threads here before you try anything else. Also, browse through the Custom Ships forum for inspiration or just to look at other works by more proficient shipbuilders - it'll help a lot when you really get to work on shipmaking, you'll be better at spotting your own mistakes and creating better ships in general. I've got no doubts that if you can improve from what you have here it's possible for you to excel at this art. Rest assured, you're not the worst noob we've encountered, and considering your first few posted ships, there definitely is potential and room for improvement.
@MC
Good to see you Master Chief, things aren't really going well. Cortana did her best but we really don't stand a chance.
[OT]Can I provide some examples?[/OT]
A list would be best; I'd be surprised if nobody's compiled one yet. But go ahead with the examples, especially if you can point out an easy way to tell if a piece has been mirrored correctly without having to zoom all the way in and squint at the pixels.
Anyway, bed time for me.
Edit: Out of curiosity I've uploaded the ship blueprints to the database; I'd be interesting to see what little tweaks could be done to improve them.
