Wyrdysm Games

Adding a little bit of something of my own.

Facts about ablative armor plating.

I'll cut to the chase. Ablative armor plating is in place for two things, both or only one. Looks and combat effectiveness. You can possibly have both but heres the facts.

Larger pieces = Best for large ships and I mean LARGE ships. Like Velvet Hammer sized warships. Because these ships have naturally high HP anyway, they won't need ablatives near as much. However, keep in mind larger pieces are no where near as combat effective as smaller pieces. They will be sheared off way quicker. Always keep this in mind.

Smaller pieces = THE BEST ABLATIVE ARMOR PERIOD. Especially when it comes to combat effectiveness and with some savvy you can make them look great. Smaller pieces are harder to sheer off then larger pieces. Thus they are the best for when you want your ship to take a major beating.

Best example I can give you for ablatives is this fleet I made. It's loaded with small combat-effective ablative plates:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... sc&start=0


ALSO keep in mind that Ablatives will not stop every shot. Believe it or not, Railguns are not the only weapon with some penetrative properties. Even a simple blaster barrage could penetrate them. And plasma charges are hell for ablatives.

Lizzie wrote:ALSO keep in mind that Ablatives will not stop every shot. Believe it or not, Railguns are not the only weapon with some penetrative properties. Even a simple blaster barrage could penetrate them. And plasma charges are hell for ablatives.

OT: This is technically due to the way collisions are handled. Also, don't forget tachyons.

An important note for ablative armour is not to layer it too close (collision handling reasons), and to ensure that your ship is still close to it's original design/purpose. Ablatives can easily expand the footprint of any craft and make things very ugly if done incorrectly, so be careful when using them.

If you're doing multi-layered ablatives, make sure you do each layer in the correct order - going back to fix errors on the earlier layers is a pain in the ass, let me tell you!

I think its possible to get nearly anything to skip over ablatives now, you just have to have the right amount of speed.

So, any guides any of you wish to request? Just because the senior members of this forum (me included) eat anyone who piss us off doesn't mean we're unwilling to help the willing soul.

By the way, larger/smaller pieces have nothing to do with slowing down your FPS rate. It's the amount of piece you have. Make a small kinetic missile with well OVER HUNDRED pieces and place two at a screen while you watch your FPS rate go down dramatically. Just increasing the HP of a piece rather then Ablative armoring does well keeping that frame rate high and happy.

Trying to keep the flow of the posts... What is the damage factor for kinetic missiles? How do you make an effective mine? How the heck do you make grey areas look grey instead of all glowy brown in the playfield? What is the requirements needed to pierce through deflectors/aegis (The piece that has the effect on itself.)? How do you change the bullet color for blaster (I tried changing it to Yellow. It still looks red.)?

Well, they themselves are more of a question rather then a suggestion for a guide, but, what the hell.

Damage of a kinetic missile is determined by the amount of HP each segment has (The more HP, the harder, denser, more painful and more damaging a piece will be) and the number of pieces. One of the most powerful missiles made features 1001 segments, all but one having the maximum HP allowed.

You cannot "pierce" through Aegis or deflectors, no weapon ignores them. This includes railguns. The only way to slip through them is to have a projectile going so fast it "skips" right over it. This is more of a exploitable bug than a feature, though, so be aware. To bust through Aegis/Deflectors, you must hit that section with a damage at least as much as the section's HP in a very few number of frames. In other words, you must one shot kill it, though it doesn't have to be from one weapon.

I suck at writing guides. I might make a miscellaneous-things-to-know guide someday, though.

I just had to have Arcalane remove unrelated shit from this Guide earlier. Don't make me do it again. Balancing and weaponsbuilding and other such things have no place in this guide. Zero. None. This is all about aesthetics. Take your questions elsewhere, Madgamer. Despite the fact that I can answer some of them, I will not, simply because you posted it in completely the wrong thread. :x

This is a major help for someone who just started working on shipbuilding, got over my overuse of the same part, and it adds a depth effect. I might have the Terakuran fleet done if a week or so!

Malahite's Tip #1
While designing, take a pencil and a piece of paper. A rubber if you want. Draw on it the outlines of your ship. Start playing with it, adding here or there. This way you'll save time, seeing that something doesn't look good on the paper, rather then noticing it after building it in the editor. It's actually a quite quick way to find the shape you're looking for, rather then trying out every idea in the ED.

Malahite's Tip #1B
Sometimes really good ideas come to your head while you're rather far away from the PC. I usually grab the nearest pice of writeable equipment near me and draw them or write them down.

Malahite's Tip #2
Look at other peoples ships. It can be a large inspiration. Also, look on other ships that don't come from BF - you just might find that 'thingie' you were looking for for your design.

And most important, have fun. Stop doing a ship when you feel you're making yourself do it. Take a break, blast some aliens ;3, watch TV.

Auriak's Tip

Explore different creative mediums. For Malahite, pencil and paper. Me, I use lego, bionicle parts, and modelling clay. Once you have an initial design, build it in different ways, change some things, let the ship evolve. Ships are so much better when they have a "soul" imparted into them from the evolution and work you performed on them. My best ships are results of such a technique.

Normandy's Tip:

There are 29 pieces for a reason.


Normandy's Real Tip:

Some pieces go extremely well with eachother, and some pieces go horribly with eachother. It is always helpful to find what these combinations are. I could tell you some, but that'd be revealing my trade secrets, eh?

Thank you, Malahite, Auriak and Normandy. Those are very helpful contributions. If anyone has more, specifically related to aesthetics, please feel free to add them.

Lizzie's tip of the day: Use darker colors on pieces a lower depth then the Brighter/higher pieces to create a greater sense of depth.

I could use a color / fade color guide. My ships always come out looking like puke.

Master Chief's tip:
Don't just chuck lots and lots of (repetitive) weapons and modules onto your ship (unless you really feel like it), instead use different types and try to keep the hull of the ship outstanding without cluttering it up. Also, try a bit of weapon modding...the results can be spectacular.

Master Chief's proper tip:
Use your common sense. Would you like everyone to laugh at the absurdity of your ship's shape and colour scheme? Try your best to find the right fit of colours and sections. There are people on the forums who have created magnificent ships and are extremely useful in creating your own ships.