First ships (Updates on first page)

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Thu May 14, 2009 7:44 pm

I'm new here, so any constructive comments and criticism would be appreciated for my newbie ships.

EDIT
The SSD, Lucrehulk, and Olympus have been removed.

Darter class long range missile destroyer

Zeus class assault cruiser

Ion cannon in action

Independence class missile frigate

Trade Federation class merchant

Scimitar class dreadnought
Based off the British Nelson class with its triple forward pointing main turrets

Scythe class battlecruiser

Other ships:

Top to bottom:
Nomad class merchant, Viper class strike fighter, Raptor class strike shuttle, Warspite class pocket battleship/very heavy cruiser, Retribution class carrier (flagship), Wrangler class AA destroyer and Resistance class fleet destroyer.

Alien Battleship codename "Vengeance"

Basically very good anti-capital ship, mediocre-poor at regular small ship combat and totally lacking in anti-fighter defence.

Aaganrmu · Post by **Aaganrmu** » Thu May 14, 2009 8:59 pm

The images don't seem to be working, this is (I remember hearing) caused by question marks in the image url. Replace them by urls of this form for it to work:

Code: Select all

[img]http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu215/Chancellor_Palpy/SMscreen02-1.png[/img]

(you can get this url by right clicking the image, and then choosing 'image properties' or 'properties')

EDIT: Looking at ships now

MOAR EDIT:

Olympus Class

-There are huge holes in it, it looks like you forgot to fill out some of the inner body.
-The turrets confuse me. It looks like the gun barrels went of for a walk. Unless you are going for a concealed weapons look, or it are torpedo launchers of some kind. It isn't very clear for me now.
-You know there are more sections you can use, right? Use 1,2,3 and 4 to access the other ones. You might need to press tilde (~) first. You can also drag and drop the custom sprits from the aptly named custom sprites folder into the shipmaker program.

Lucrehulk

It has the general shape of a Lucrehulk, but it is indeed very rough. I see you used different sections here, that's good. The HUMONGOUS engines don't look good at all, don't stretch things that much.

Eclipse Class

This is a ship that's hard to recreate in BSF. The sleek lines* are mostly vertical, and from the top it's just a wedge. So it isn't surprising your build looks like a piece of pie. I see some sections that are even more stredged than your Lucrehulk's engines, the big blurry blob in the middle to front center being a prime example. You can't have one single section make up half of the hull of a battleship. Luckily you covered most of it up.

Epsilon Class

I have no idea what the Epsilon Class is supposed to look like, so I can't judge your ships faithfulness. But I guess it isn't supposed to have hullplates overlapping asymetrically in the center (also known as mirror errors). Also, some baaad stretching on the engines and back fins. The dark band at the back of the ship doesn't look very good to me.

Overall, some of your ideas are nice, but there's room for improvement. Look around at ships on these forums, read some comments and learn. You have the creativity to make some great ships, but you need more practice.

*I think it's a butt-ugly ship, even worse than the Skipray

EVEN MORE EDIT: you fixed the links, but the Lucrehulk image isn't right.

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Thu May 14, 2009 9:33 pm

Thanks! :

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Thu May 14, 2009 11:24 pm

The ssd is a pile of junk internally. There is just no structure to it. Unfortunatly lots of people have tried, and just can't seem to get it right.
As for the others, I do like the station, but in general you need to not tile the same section more than two or three times and definitely not use a blocky section to make circles, unless you think it out better than you did here.

I think your first ship can actually be refined the easiest. I'd start by fixing gaps, annoying corners sticking out, and expand the section use.

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Tue May 19, 2009 5:46 pm

I've modified the Eclipse in an attempt to show the bridge better along with the blisters along the hull. The thrusters have also been repositioned, and a bubble shield added.

Superlaser firing

Steampunk version of Olympus

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Tue May 19, 2009 9:55 pm

Internal structure is definitely better by comparison, although it might be said that you are spamming sections a bit. Also very dark but maybe look up how to do outlining and try that to differentiate the levels so there is no need to spam between them. I think your getting it though.

The steam punk Olympus is decent for a start, though there are lots of gaps in the hull and you could definitely use the fine movement setting to fix most of them. Do the pistons move?

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:05 pm

Yes, the pistons move.

I don't see how to strike a balance between part spam and over-stretching for large surface areas like the hull of the Eclipse. Any suggestions on how to remedy this?

MelvinVm · Post by **MelvinVm** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:12 pm

My guess would be to drop the SSD for now, completely, scrap it, and start on smaller ships first to drop section spam and stretching.

Wicky_42 · Post by **Wicky_42** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:50 pm

To avoid spammage whilst covering large areas requires skill at using pieces to give adequate detail whilst not making it too busy. Or big custom sections. But yeah, do drop the SSD, it's not very pretty or interesting, stick to your own medium-sized ships and work on section usage.

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Wed May 20, 2009 4:32 pm

Dropping the SSD, I've made a ship that resembles the Venator class.

[/img]

Crude fire-breathing eagle

ArcaneDude · Post by **ArcaneDude** » Wed May 20, 2009 4:52 pm

With 'drop the SSD' people mean stop making massive ships with similar shape for a while. Section usage is better, but needs a lot of work still. It's equally spammy and equally repetitive.

Build some smaller, original ships first, then move on to bigger ships when you've got the hang of it. This sort of thing takes time, but you'll see the results 'll be more than satisfactional.

Chancellor · Post by **Chancellor** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:20 pm

Darter Class Long Range Missile Bombardment Destroyer

MelvinVm · Post by **MelvinVm** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:21 pm

No colors, and theres lotsa dark stuff.

EriErin · Post by **EriErin** » Wed May 20, 2009 10:32 pm

A bit lifeless, but could be considered better than all your previous crap. I can't aim any particular complaints at it, other than the fact that the nose has an odd shape.

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Wed May 20, 2009 11:09 pm

Better. I like the engines. Now keep refining it and making each area look like it has a purpose. You could replace those two pieces making up the nose with something like This, or I think theres a better one out there now.