Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

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!

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CheesyErwin
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Post by CheesyErwin »

For small craft, it's generally better to create your own sprite and put a single section over the core and hide the weapons by setting their alpha to zero. That way, you can have small craft that both function and look appropriately. If you don't know how to make custom sprites, you could always just a number of low-hp small sections in packs like Kae_Small or whatever.
I think the answer is so obvious.
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Adm. White Haven
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Post by Adm. White Haven »

Except that is exactly what I already did. Well, minus the custom sprite part. But I found one that works well enough.
vidboi
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Post by vidboi »

i think that you should spent some more time thinking about the design of your ships before you start building them. right now they all look too symmetrical, you should try and give them a direction. also add some more variation to the shapes and sections used
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25000st
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Post by 25000st »

I suggest you change to TSA sprites and use Kaelis' sections. You section placement on your newest ship isn't half bad. Using the newer sections may help it look better.
Now I'm debating whether you're a troll or not. I see you can actually do parenting...
I want to know how posting ships can be considered trolling. Especially if you're new and didn't realize that BSF was a ship-building program rather than a strategic game.
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Post by Droid »

25000st wrote:
Now I'm debating whether you're a troll or not. I see you can actually do parenting...
I want to know how posting ships can be considered trolling. Especially if you're new and didn't realize that BSF was a ship-building program rather than a strategic game.
Oh, but it has happened before.
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Post by Chiiro »

Droid wrote:
25000st wrote:
Now I'm debating whether you're a troll or not. I see you can actually do parenting...
I want to know how posting ships can be considered trolling. Especially if you're new and didn't realize that BSF was a ship-building program rather than a strategic game.
Oh, but it has happened before.
Way more often than you'd like to believe, too! D':
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Post by 25000st »

Droid wrote:Oh, but it has happened before.
That wasn't my question. I know it has happened before. I want to know HOW it is considered trolling.

I mean, it really isn't your place to decide which ships deserve to be posted on the forum or not.
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Post by Droid »

25000st wrote:
Droid wrote:Oh, but it has happened before.
That wasn't my question. I know it has happened before. I want to know HOW it is considered trolling.

I mean, it really isn't your place to decide which ships deserve to be posted on the forum or not.
I was suspicious because the topic initially appeared to hold resemblances to past instances of trolling. Where have I ever said that they don't deserve to be posted? I merely stated I was wondering if it was troll or not. Everything else is up to your interpretation.

PM me if you find the need to continue this discussion, let's not derail this topic further.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by Adm. White Haven »

Haven't posted here in a while and thought I'd share some of my new/improved designs.

I'm still working in the same general paradigm as before (which I'm sure isn't going to make me any more friends here), so I thought I'd briefly explain, for the people here who don't know the series I'm basing these ships on, why the ships are designed the way they are.

In the series, ships use focused bands of gravitic energy above and below the ship for propulsion. These bands, together known as the "impeller wedge," are impenetrable to all known weapons. Because of this useful property, ships (particularly military ones) generate somewhat weaker bands of gravitic energy along their port and starboard sides called "sidewalls"* as shields against enemy weapons. Closing off the fore or aft aspect of the wedge with a bow or sternwall kills a ship's ability to accelerate, meaning that until the idea of "buckler" bow- and sternwalls occurred (that is, ones that didn't touch the edges of the impeller wedge), those aspects were more vulnerable to enemy fire.

For various reasons, the technology used to create these focused gravitic fields dictates a spindle-shaped vessel - thicker in the middle and tapering toward the ends. Military vessels, not having an exemption from physics, follow the same overall model, but with the addition of "hammerheads" at the bow and aft to make more room for chase weaponry. Because of the structure their drive technology forces them to adopt, virtually all military vessels fight broadside to broadside, both because it allowed them to benefit from sidewalls, and because the broadside offered more space to mount weaponry.

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Invictus II-class Superdreadnought (Podlaying). With only short-ranged energy weapons in its broadside armament, it relies on the missile pods it deploys from its aft launchers to provide long-range combat capability.

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Minotaur II-class Carrier (Light Attack Craft). Intended mainly for ferrying LACs to and from battles through hyperspace, a few missile launchers loaded with multidrive missiles allow it to contribute to battles while remaining well back from the main fighting.

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Agamemnon-class Battlecruiser. Nearly the size of a battleship, this large battlecruiser's MDM launchers are capable of remarkable off-bore firing, allowing it to unleash a powerful double-broadside missile barrage from very long range.

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Nike-class Battlecruiser (Podlaying). Like the Agamemnon-class design, it is very large for a battlecruiser, nearly battleship-weight. Unlike the Agamemnon but like the Invitcus II, it is designed around a hollow core in which missile pods can be stored, allowing it heavy long-range firepower without sacrificing its impressive energy broadside.

(A moment before I continue - I expect somebody is going to yell at me for the aegis-spam around the cores of the battlecruisers. However, there is a reason for it. I was introduced to this game by a friend, and we have been trading and comparing our respective designs via combat. Initially, my battlecruisers fared extremely poorly in energy range against his vessels, often exploding within seconds of starting to take enemy beam fire. With the sections surrounding the core fully aegised, their survivability has increased without resulting in an undefeatable design, due to the ability of beam weapons to penetrate/bypass aegis shields under some circumstances.)

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Fearless-class Cruiser (Armored). Ships smaller than large battlecruisers lack the internal volume to carry missile pods inside a hollow core, so as with the Agamemnon, the Fearless design attempts to strike a balance in its broadside between MDM launchers for long-range combat and energy mounts for close-range fighting. It carries a capital-class, spinally mounted energy weapon as its forward chase armament.

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Valiant-class Cruiser (Light). Carrying four tightly clustered MDM launchers per broadside, this vessel is the equal of the Fearless design in long-range combat, but at the price of its energy armament - it mounts only three-fourths as many broadside energy weapons as the Fearless.

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Javelin-class Destroyer. A significant downgrade in combat power from the Valiant, the Javelin mounts only 2 MDM launchers per broadside and only 4 energy weapons.

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Osprey-class Frigate. Considered an obsolete ship type by most established naval powers in the explored galaxy, the RMN has recently begun experimenting with frigates again after a few were commissioned by their new allies, the Kingdom of Torch.

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Ferret-, Katana-, and Shrike-class Light Attack Craft. Though extremely fragile and once considered obsolete, LACs are making a comeback thanks to low manning requirements and new technological advances. The Ferret class carries single-drive missiles for light anti-ship missions; the Katana class is armed with the modified Viper countermissile for space superiority and anti-missile defense roles; and the Shrike class is built around a capital-class energy weapon for heavy anti-ship attacks.

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The Apollo Missile Pod comes in two varieties: the virtually immobile system defense variant, and the standard design, which incorporates limited mobility so as to accompany its parent ship and its consorts. These advanced missiles have an FTL control loop made possible by the interaction of gravitic waves with the interface between normal space and the alpha band of hyperspace, which greatly extends their effective range.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by guilee186 »

You still lack a sense of aesthetics, my friend.

First off, no one builds a spindly thin ship, then fills it with the same weapon over and over again. It's just not done. Maybe back in 0.84 or before you might have a chance, but now, with all the custom sprites and different ways to build a ship, this simply cannot do.

Suggestions:

-Weapons can be edited, you know. You can make one beam take on five just by rigging the firepower and the health of it.
-It's not impossible to move sections so that they don't just look it a horrible wall.
-TSA sections would greatly improve the aesthetics of the ship, even looking like a giant "I".
-Weapon depthing can be done with the 'W' key, as long as there's a section of higher depth over it.
-It's possible to cover everything with the appropriate sections and skills.
-There are ways in which you can improve the overall design. I get the idea that these are broadside ships, but still, nothing explains why you can't arrange your sections to give you a 'feel' of the ship.
-Thin Aegis shields don't normally work out well when it comes down to combat. Please note an Aegis'd section will blow up if it takes it's section health in damage in a one frame.
-Also, section overlapping isn't very pretty. Please use some sprite to cover up the areas of overlap or it will look terrible.

EDIT: Error corrected, Thanks Arc.
Last edited by guilee186 on Sun Jul 25, 2010 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by Droid »

Even if you insist on the shape (which is frankly boring), you should still make an attempt to fill it better, as in, not tiling the same section so many times. 'specially that spine, with the horrible mirroring.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by Arcalane »

guilee186 wrote:You still lack a sense of aesthetics, my friend.

First off, no one builds a spindly thin ship, then fills it with the same weapon over and over again. It's just not done. Maybe back in 0.84 or before you might have a chance, but now, with all the custom sprites and different ways to build a ship, this simply cannot do.
Welcome to the wonderful world of "ships that really aren't any good for making as fanships, but people will do it anyway."
guilee186 wrote:-Thin Aegis shields don't normally work out well when it comes down to combat. Please note an Aegis'd section will blow up if it takes 2X section health in damage in a very short time.
1x actually, not 2x. If it takes as much damage as it has health in a single frame, blam, it's gone.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by ArcaneDude »

You do realise there are sections out there specifically made to be used as shields, yes?
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by Anna »

Okay, I'm gonna restruction this entire post to have me being less of a dickhead, because I over-reacted and said harsh things that were unwarranted. First: These ships aren't really great. They wouldn't have been considered very impressive by most two years ago, well before the advent of custom sections. The reasons for this are several, and I'll try to explain them as best as I can in a positive and non-assholey manner, because I'm feeling like an idiot right now.

1) They're basically stock-like. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it won't impress anyone here. Stock-like ships haven't impressed people for a long time, because they just aren't that interesting, really. If you choose to build your ships in that style, that's fine, but you likely won't get much praise for such.
2) They're all one colour. This is incrediboring, even more stock-like ships.
3) They are slathered with guns. That's not interesting to look at. That hides anything potentially interesting on the ship, and detracts from the over-all everything. Guns can be editted to be more powerful. Why have twenty weak guns when you can have a handful of more powerful ones without burying the ship's hull in weapons.
4) Your mirroring is poor. Sections don't overlap right, and that's kinda nasty.
5) Tiling the same section over and over again is generally frowned upon, as it looked quite boring.
6) The shields are ugly. I can understand your reasons for them, from a fluff point of view, but they could have been a lot better. There are custom sprites which you could have used that could have made the shields look far more interesting.

Moving on:

Image

There's NOTHING THERE that you made, so why post a picture of it? Especially a picture so stupidly large. It's one section. One section that anyone can pick as the default core for a ship. Posting a picture of it serves no purpose, as it doesn't show anything that you actually made. More than 99% of that screenshot is blank space as well, which is just silly.

All of these statements were made under the assumption you built the ships largely for aesthetic reasons.

Now, if you made these ships for gameplay purposes, you're probably doing it wrong still. Slathered with guns as these things are, they certainly wouldn't be balanced against stock ships, and with permanent aegis shieldwalls they're likely invulnerable to anything other than each other, with the exceptions of the tiny gaps in the corner. And the most important reason why they're no good for gameplay purposes: You didn't post a download. You just posted pictures of your ships that are, by the current standards, just not very attractive.

I hope this advice was helpful, and I recommend you scout around the forums, look at some of the stuff other people have made, etc. If you want to stick with making stock ships, that's fine. I dig that, but you could still quite easily do better than what you're making right now, I think, and I'd say you've probably taken this concept as far as you can.

Edit:
(A moment before I continue - I expect somebody is going to yell at me for the aegis-spam around the cores of the battlecruisers. However, there is a reason for it. I was introduced to this game by a friend, and we have been trading and comparing our respective designs via combat. Initially, my battlecruisers fared extremely poorly in energy range against his vessels, often exploding within seconds of starting to take enemy beam fire. With the sections surrounding the core fully aegised, their survivability has increased without resulting in an undefeatable design, due to the ability of beam weapons to penetrate/bypass aegis shields under some circumstances.)
If your ships exploded too quickly, then the obvious answer is that he was making his weapons too powerful, or that you were setting the HP of your ships too low. Beams pretty much never bypass aegis sections unless the section itself is really thin, or unless bugginess occurs to make the beam skip a section. Instead of merely escalating things, you should have smacked your friend over the head for slapping so many guns on his ship that it could tear through your own like hot butter, or upped the HP of your ship appropriately. Or hell, used non-aegis deflectors, because at least they're not always active... but I digress.
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Re: Ships of the Royal Manticoran Navy

Post by Latooni »

I like them, except the last two.

Retro is awesome man, don't let any haters keep you down, including the mods.

You've about mastered the "long straight array of guns" thing, though, so why not branch out?

Last two are pointless, though, so don't use them.
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