Shipmaking exercises?

[Kaelis]

Heres an idea:

Given person posts a challenge to build a certain speedship. A speedship would be a small ship, no more than 60 sections or so, built in a short amount of time like an hour, without any fancy stuff like glows, moving parts, own sections etc. This challenge could be anything - a type of a ship or a style, a rule limiting or enforcing usage of sections, an abstract idea to interpret, whatever comes to your mind. Now, after the challenge is posted, over the course of, say, 5 days, people build their ships and post them. The person who posted the challenge picks the winner, and the winner gets to post the next challenge... and so on.

Obviously this is just a rough idea and needs polishing, but is it any good? Anyone up for it and willing to regularly participate?

[ArcaneDude]

I've had a similar idea some time ago. If we make a separate IRC room, and have some of the senior members act as "teachers" where they hand out excercises like this and then give points, we might be able to put some structure in shipbuilding improvement. Obviously just an idea, might not even be doable.

EDIT: I dunno, but wouldn't this belong in the general discussion forum?

[DarchZero]

Hm, i found this a good idea, except that i don't have an IRC, which is not in the topic. But better than that, a person could actually ask BSF Shipmakerpeoples to make a ship of their criteria (hence the challenge) to use it for...a purpose, or something? Yes. Then they could at least announce the winner, and put the ship to their own use, credits to the creator.

Or maybe to create a joint fleet? Grab a few people who have interests in uniform shipmaking, then give em criteria, let em post, mark em of their performance, filter em ships, make em fleet.

Am i talking too much for a third post?

[Raul]

this is a great idea! especially if you restrict the use to a specific section pack or soemthing. So obvious one would be a steampunk ship but alot of your other se tions don't get much use either kaelis.

other thing is that if you limit the size or section number you would end up with a bunch of ships or fleets that look from different factions but are all comperable size. The instruction from vets would really help too!

[Darkship]

I think that these kinds of exercises will help new shipbuilders greatly especially if the vets give feedback.
however i think it would be better to do these exercises on the forum itself, with each exercise session having its own thread (locked after completion).
These threads could then be archived to provide a reference of sorts for other people.

But yeah in the end I think its a good idea regardless of how it will be conducted if it goes ahead. I might participate depending on time constraints.

[Kaelis]

If we make a separate IRC room...

Id rather if it was a forum thing. Not everyone has an IRC client, not everyone can or is willing to use it, and having it on a forum is a much more solid way of doing it.

EDIT: I dunno, but wouldn't this belong in the general discussion forum

I was unsure myself, but since it pertains to shipbuilding...

Am i talking too much for a third post?

Huh?

Or maybe to create a joint fleet? Grab a few people who have interests in uniform shipmaking, then give em criteria, let em post, mark em of their performance, filter em ships, make em fleet.

I might participate depending on time constraints.

The whole point is to stay casual and spontaneous, to keep it as something that doesn't require a lot of effort. Otherwise people will get bored or tired quickly, i think.

[DarchZero]

I am so in if this BSF school was really set up.

@Kaelis: IMHO, sometimes we need a really shock project, like 'this weird theme in 24 hours GOGOGO'. So i do agree with the short part. But what if there's like an end-year project (omg i gotta stop using school terms), like 'make an awesome ship like mine in 168 hours GOGOGOGOGOGO i mean now fool GOGOGO' to actually TEST the newbies that they're not newbies anymore. Just an idea.

And maybe, you can actually release a pack of custom sections just to test the newbs out. IMVHO.

@AD: You be teacher? Cool!

Huh?

My bad.

I might participate depending on time constraints

Second that thought. And oh darkship, nice ship named on your behalf XD off topic kidding.

[Imperator Pavel I]

I like the idea.

God knows I need help on shipbuilding.