Wyrdysm Games

ASM's Tip

When building a realistic ship...

When picking the loadout for a ship, think about what the ship should actually do beyond PD, Carrier, Gun Platform. Does it work with other ships? If so what other ships? Very few naval vessels are meant to be used alone. Some ships carry long range weapons for bombardment, other carry short range weapons to fend off close attacks to other ships, still others carry weapons that are meant to kill other ships.

How far does it operate form base? If its far, you might add storage compartments for food and supplies. Also, smaller ships tend to operate from a larger mothership.

Often, asking a few questions can really help you make a better ship.

Edit: I didn't feel like cluttering this thread up with another post so I'll respond here. It is about aesthetics, a ship should feel and look it it is meant to do its purpose.

Feel free to delete it though, Arc.

Keep in mind this thread is for aesthetics/design, not armament/balancing, guys.

How to avoid visually bugged doodads (fine in sm3, tilted ingame)

Never use cloning or reparenting on any doodads, for now.

Also, keep in mind that doodads will AUTOMATICALLY be stretched/shrunk, rotated and flipped in the same manner as the parent section when created at the start.


Parenting lines and doodads suddenly disappearing in sm3

Select any random section and spam the DEPTH change key (A/Q) for while until the parenting lines/doodads reappear. You can also use this to temporarily view the HP of a section.


CPU friendly ships

Keep in mind each section, each doodad, each module and each weapon increase the processing power needed for a ship. A ship with 50 sections is about as lag-inducing as a ship with 16 sections, 14 weapons and 20 doodads (when both are idle). Modules and weapons will take additional power when there are targets to track.

Normandy's guide to color:

I know I'm definately not the most qualified person to write this, but someone has yet to respond to Arona Daal's request.

Introduction to Color:
Color is used to bring extra flavor and give a feeling of depth to any ship. Even as a small shipbuilder, one finds that proper use of color is incredibly important. Color also relaxes the viewer's eyes, since instead of taking in the whole ship at once, they are taking in small parts of it at a time, gradually processing the whole ship.

(eh, I'll finish it later.)

Since someone (who shall not be named, and the offending post was deleted for just being a restatement of an earlier point anyway) utterly failed at reading;

Arcalane wrote:Keep in mind this thread is for aesthetics/design, not armament/balancing, guys.

Malahite's tip #3
You can have multiple ship maker tools running at the same time. Maximalize one, and keep the second small - great way of checking weapons throughout the fleet and balancing them. Also, this way you can get a glimpse if the ships match each other, and look good together - before even launching the game. This way you instantly can compare any changes made, to see if it still fits the rest of the fleet.

Arcalane wrote:Keep in mind this thread is for aesthetics/design, not armament/balancing, guys.

This is a thread about good shipbuilding, and balancing is also part of it imo. Anna said he "won't be covering anything on weapon modification or ship balance, as those fields would be better covered by others", and thus I don't understand how a few good tips could not be in here.

Edit: *unrelated grumble about balancing still being part of shipbuilding, and questions since when someone was declared god all-ruler...*

Malahite wrote:This is a thread about good shipbuilding, and balancing is also part of it imo. Anna said he "won't be covering anything on weapon modification or ship balance, as those fields would be better covered by others", and thus I don't understand how a few good tips could not be in here.

Because I said they won't. :x This thread is for aesthetics. "Ship balance" is a completely arbitary thing anyway, and this thread and it have about as much to do with each other as water and oil.

Anna wrote:and this thread and it have about as much to do with each other as water and oil.

They're both liquids...

... I'll shut up now.

I myself would mistaken this thread for general ship building information, because the title only says "...Good Shipbuilding." For discussing only the appearance of ships, it could say "Guide to Good Ship Design," pointing out to the design of the ship only. It could even become as complex as making guides to weapon design / layouts, or a guide on ship balance with sections on weapon + module design and layouts; merely my opinion.

You know, when the creator of the thread says himself he wants this to be kept to aesthetics, you know, there's some sort of authority in that statement.

EDIT:

Anna wrote:Note that this thread is primarily concerned with shipbuilding aesthetics.

On the first post. Never edited.

Also, moving these articles to our new wiki ^.^. Credit will be given in a small list at the end.

EDIT3:
Scratch that, too lazy.

@ Norm: ...Wah?

Edit:
I Need a Description for this guide. Go Here to see what I mean. I also feel better if the Writter of the Guide gave it a description other than I.

Yeah, nm there TBE. I'm going to go edit it a little bit, a straight copy/paste doesn't work too well you know.

Also, you shouldn't make the name so large, and use something like http://bsf.wikidot.com/shipbuilder-guide:Anna for a page name. More categorical, more organized.

ChaosTheory's tip:

Too many weapons makes a ship look unrealistic. Limit yourself to a few very powerful weapons, it looks cooler in battle and in pictures. Secondly, always fit the weapons into your ship's hull. Common techniques are to place GatBlasters on round sections to look like turrets, or to have small indents in an outline to put weapons in. Be creative. A few integrated weapons that look epic are better than hundreds of dull pea-shooters.

[Edit:] Hmm, Master Chief deleted his post.

Wicky's Tip
Simple enough, and mostly a help to new builders since most people do it naturally now: Stack modules. Want 8 deflectors? stack them in two groups of 4 for symmetry. Want four nano repairers? Mod one to be as effective, with enough range to cover the ship. Particularly useful on smaller vessels, i.e. stock scale, though also very effective on larger ships.

Stacking modules helps neaten up ships, cleaning up internal lines and minimising that blue glow they give off so it doesn't interfere with your colour scheme/obscure details. Turn your modules into a neat aesthetic feature, not an all-obscuring eyesore.

This would have been helpfull if i had seen it before i laerned it the hard way.