WYRDYSM GAMES

Trying to come up with something for the beauty pagent. its ok to post and get criticism first right?what do ya think?
Backstory:
The Independent Colonies of Mars battleship is one of a kind. It began life not as a warship but a ‘Kochi’ class deep space mining freighter based out of Ibis colony port, just above the newly terraformed equator. Captained by Lieutenant Nicholas Reed, the ‘Hawthorn’ was often away on missions for a year or two at a time. Thus when they left port on April 7th, in the year of our Empress 2119, they were only vaguely aware of the growing political tension.

Although Mars and her twenty-seven colonies had declared independence from Earth over fifty years earlier, there had been almost no resistance in letting go of the colonies. At the time Mars was a significant drain on the Empire’s resources, drawing massive supplies to support the domed mining towns, and even more man power to replace the lives lost to constant accidents. However once free the colonies gradually began to prosper and were eventually able to complete the terraforming process Earth had begun. Earth, with its darkening skies of smog and calcified oceans grew jealous of Mars success and began to hunger for it’s resources.

Because of their success Mars was blind to the problems on Earth. Because of the bloodless ease with which they gained their so called independence, they were deaf to the ever more threatening overtures emanating from the Royal Court. The Empire had never really considered the colonies free though, just self dependent, and on December 7th, 2119 they chose to reclaim their assets. Initial broadcasts for cooperation were met by confusion and amusement by the colonists. Demands for surrender with outright disdain. When the Commander of the Royal Navy lost his patience and began shelling the cities, there was….nothing.

The Hawthorn was on the outer edge of the system mining asteroid fields when the first broadcasts of the massacre came in. Lieutenant Reed decided to prevent further transmissions to the stations in that area by towing a massive asteroid into the line of signal. Thus one of the Home system defense stations missed the order to detain all Mars vessels on sight and execute the crews. After some careful planning in stark contrast to the rage in their hearts, the crew modified the ship to look heavily damaged. They approached the station while broadcasting distress calls and the unsuspecting guards allowed them to dock for temporary repairs. What followed is best left unwritten but suffice to say the station was not long crewed by members of the Empire. Their blood rage temporarily sated, the crew began modifying the Hawthorn again, but this time for a different purpose.

The design of the Kochi class freighter was comparatively simple and ugly design for it’s time. Essentially a large U with three massive engines strapped to the back; the the ‘arms’ silos for ore. Mining drones carried ore to three silo doors on each arm or towed larger rocks into the middle to be cut up by powerful lasers. If it is too big, the ship is equipped with two ‘nutcrackers’, powerful rail guns able to penetrate to the rock’s core. Strategically placed powerful energized hull plating allowed the ship to cut through asteroid fields to the rich areas, much as the ice breaker ships of centuries earlier were reinforced to cut through ice. The generator is dangerously exposed to weapon’s fire in the center of the ‘U’. The ship maneuvers with eight main thrusters, and has a high but heavily armored bridge to allow full supervision of an operation.

The first modification the crew made was to strip all the armor off the base and reinforce the ship’s structure. What once would have been considered a rich load was dumped from the silos to make room for six pairs of the station’s anti-ship guns. They even managed to fit a berserker turret designed for taking out capitol ships. The Hawthorn already carried anti-fighter turrets for dealing with raiders, but the crew opted to switch to the station’s supply of explosive rounds. The Station's military grade jammer was installed, since Reed had no patience to the taunting and threats favored by the Royal Navy. Knowing they were running out of time, the last modification was to rename the ship as the Independent Colonies of Mars first battleship ‘Maliciously Indebted’.

Already Imperial forces had been dispatched to investigate the station’s silence. The Maliciously Indebted detached from the station and blew it apart with it’s ‘nutcrackers’. All drones were launched from the ship with orders to attach to every rock they could find and accelerate them towards Earth. A snail’s pace perhaps but nothing in the system was likely to be able to stop that many asteroids. With a small formation of ships in sight Reed ordered the cutting lasers, designed to pierce far tougher materials than naval armor, trained on the lead destroyer. “FIRE!”

To be continued…

I don't think you can enter a ship into the contest that you've posted anywhere else here.

This ship isn't bad, it isn't too boring. It needs color, and preferably at default zoom.

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Orelius's Hopefully Decent Ships!

As for the ship itself, it's alright.
There is a mirroring/centering errors which is obvious around the center of the gap.
The outermost, forward-facing guns look stuck-on and don't flow well.
Some parts look bad and squarish, especially around the launch areas. (I'm assuming they're launch areas. I mean the spot with the yellow light.)

The use of those "shiny" manifold type pieces is iffy. Are they all for engines? If they aren't, then I'd rethink using them for two functions. If they are, then the higher, center set look funny next to the rest because of the dst sections on either side while the others don't have them. In fact, the shiny and dst clash there regardless. I recommend doing away with one or the other in that particular spot.

Other than that, it's fairly good. I wouldn't say it "needs" color, maybe just some better shading to make it look more interesting.

edit: Thanks arc, I'd have caught that in a moment.

Thanks for the clarification guys.
@Kiltric: Ooh I like your avatar! The cetner error is cuz some sprites aren't centered and I was mirroring manually using the coordinates. Fixed. ill try to fix the gun and some of the boxy areas but I'm hoping the color and shading helps. Those weren't dst bits but i just removed the center engine because your right. Think thats everything, hope this is better.

The back looks cut off; expand it to some sort of Venator type tail?
Get rid of the detailed sprites just forward of the blue spot.
I agree with Kiltric about the section guns on the outer rear third sucking. Can you just add another of those round gun ports, the one with Cycerin's cannon?

changed some stuff

This ship isnt too bad... it looks like a specialist ship such as a Beam Cannon class ship... make sure that this ship has no flaws and seek the advice of experienced ship builders... regardless the ship is rather nice and something to be proud of if this is an early attempt.

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Roses are RED,
Violets are BLU,
In Soviet Russia,
Sandvich eats you.

Gamertag: SpectreX027

overall i have to say i like it. although it isn't the most original design out there it's not that often that the "flying tuning fork" gets pulled off nicely. personally i can see bits on both the original and the recent updates that appeal to me

firstly the detailed shading on the updated version on the "prongs" is really nice. The only problem is that the railguns are blocked it a little and breaking up the consitency, making it look a little off. personally i'd remove the railguns as they are blocking soime of these details. to add interest in their place you could add some flashing doodad's or something, like they're containers for some time of advanced propulsion fuel/munitions/cargo

however i think it was a mistake to remove the central engine at the back, as the ship now looks stubby. the engine looked fine as it was (although the manifold pieces needed some depth contrast between the middle - highest - and the outer two) so i'd replace that and do something with the outside engines, perhaps turning them into auxilaries or some part of the main engine itself

moving back onto weaponry issues the new huge vulcan sprites for the side turrets look odd. i preferred it when they were the original autocannon sprites, as right now they just look too large and offputting

a couple of colour issues, the red looks a little too bright as it is, you could do with reduces the saturation so it doesn't look out of place. The engine glows also look odd as they're a bit too birght as well, and the blue clashes with the red. perhaps changing them to a yellow or something like the glows on the top would look better

other than that i think it's a really good ship. good luck with the pageant!

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There is no OP, there is only more boosters...

@Vidboi: Thank you, its nice to get detailed criticism like that.

i think ive done all I can to this ship. Ill post it in the bp thread as well but the backstory is too long so it gets posted in the first post of this thread.

Love the drones, they work just so well. The back story is good too, a nice read. Put this up against 3 of my BP entries and it was the most entertaining thing I've watched in BSF for a while, all of them obliterated by those lovely lasers and not a scratch on this beast.

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"Damn hippies with their slippers and mesh bags looking for "adventure" or friggin' nerds who hasn't held anything but a microscope in their girly little hands. Such posers don't last long here." - Wolf (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.)