Commander Beta reporting.

arne20beta · Post by **arne20beta** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:30 pm

Greetings! It's about time I showed my face here. I've been playing BF for quite some time now, and here are some of my own creations. Feel free to comment and suggest!

BC-L17 Stratus. An all-rounder, good for dogfights.

BC-F32 Hornet. The main frigate of the Maktarian Interplanetary Navy (MIN). Only little beamers, but loads of particle weapons.

BC-C01 Titan. The MIN's flagship. Bristling with railguns and beam turrets, this ship can take care of small fleets on it's own. It's only weak point is the rather unprotected backside, which also provides direct access to the ship's vulnerable core pod.

The Alcyon. An older ship (SM3), little bit of a deflector spam here XP.

The Mercury. Another older one. Mercury was my first capital ship.

A size comparison of them all.

Billy Joe Bob · Post by **Billy Joe Bob** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:48 pm

I love the flagship, its only slightly weapon spammy, and I think you could stack some of the deflectors to clean it up a bit.

Wicky_42 · Post by **Wicky_42** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:57 pm

You should definitely put more deflectors and guns on the larger ships, I think there's a few pixels left uncovered :p

Weapon-wise your first ship is great, but as they get bigger, the spam increases. Do you really need 28 deflectors on the Titan? Plus nanos? Does it even begin to die?

I quite like the outlines of your larger ships, particularly the Titan, but all the weapons make the internals look like a mess, and the sections are all a bit of a jumble out side of the core area on that ship. The Mercury's not too bad, but it's lacking the flair of the Titan, again has too many weapons, and there's a bit of botched layering 2/3 towards the bow.

Don't like the Hornet's design - it's parallel nacelles and bulbous nose don't really fit with the fleet's flow.

Keep up the work, and keep refining things; you've got potential just... neaten up the interiors, keep a nice flow from section to section, and loose the weapon spam, or look at Spoot's ships to see how to do it properly

arne20beta · Post by **arne20beta** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:05 am

Thanks for commenting, I do appreciate feedback :)

Kanosint · Post by **Kanosint** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:02 am

Hola kerel, van Geel? Heh, ik zen van Diest :3

Anyways, good ships, nothing too awe-inspiring, but they're good, definetely a good start.

arne20beta · Post by **arne20beta** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:14 am

Kanosint wrote:Hola kerel, van Geel? Heh, ik zen van Diest :3

Anyways, good ships, nothing too awe-inspiring, but they're good, definetely a good start.

Nog nen Belg zienek! De wereld is klein soms eh? :P

Anyway, back on topic: Thanks for the comment.

MelvinVm · Post by **MelvinVm** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:22 am

The flagship is well done, get a beer!

Yet less weapons, and a nice color scheme would make it.

Tyrael · Post by **Tyrael** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:04 am

I'm not going to give to much advice, as I'm not good. Just going to point out some stuff that I like or dislike

Love the basic designs of the ships
Color is pretty nice though I Suppose a little more color on the smaller ships, though that's coming from a guy whose ships are all gray -.-
little or no noticeable section-spam on the 3 first ships

While deflectors are nice, if you really want to keep them all I say spread em out all pretty-like.
To many weapons on the titan.

Thats all I Can really say awesome work better then me

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:01 am

color choice needs help: most of your color highlights ARE the weaponspam in red/blue. You need a more definitive highlight, though you have one on the large capitol.

The outline of the ships are good. But the effect is ruined by the weapons: take them all off. Either craft weapons yourself, or craft pseudo weapons yourself.

I disagree about the hornet; it works with the smaller ship to larger in terms of overall design, and fits. Just find a good highlight, and remove ALL the weapons, replacing them with customs, and you'll be good.

Also, not counting said highlight, your color toning is good. It follows contours and 3Ding guidelines. The shapes are great, and your understated use of Aegis in contextually relevant areas is also very good.

In short, I like them, myself. Keep working on them. You'll do much better once you start depthing those weapons.

Neroman · Post by **Neroman** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:05 am

I like your first ship and your flagship. Try reducing weapon spam by using modded weapons.
Also move the weapons into the hull more, They can be easily shot off by enemy fire and its not very appeasing.

Elias_The_Crimson · Post by **Elias_The_Crimson** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:19 pm

I really love the shape of the first and the third, but overall I think all ships have too much weapons/modules.

the mulletron · Post by **the mulletron** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:16 pm

Hmm, some pretty good ships for a newbie. The general shape looks nice, and the design concept is good (if not quite uniform across the entire fleet). The colour scheme is OK too (it may not be fantastic, but I've definitely seen worse on the forums).

Something I will point out, is that although on first glance the larger ships look impressive, the closer you look at them, the less cohesive your sections look, especially in the internal areas of your ships.

Also, I will echo what the others are saying about the weapon/module spam. There are simply too many weapons on the larger ships. Weapons like the railgun, sabot cannon, and twin laser are very powerful on their own, so why do you always feel the need to pair them up every time you use them on your ship? And what is up with all of those deflectors!? You could do with removing half of them, at least!

To summarize, its a good start, but could do with some more work.

DoomBringer · Post by **DoomBringer** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:00 pm

Cool I like the spikes along the sides and the gaps in the ships. but one word....Spamage

arne20beta · Post by **arne20beta** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:04 am

ok, I took regard of everyone's advice (the spamming problem in particular), and set out to create some other ships. This time I used a more organic style, and I think it worked out pretty well. One thing I did notice was that as I made larger ships, they got very cluttered inside, so for now I'm sticking to smaller ships and frigates. Anyway, here's the result:

Tain. A small patrol craft.
Armament: 2x custom blasters (they shoot cyan blue :3)

Karashe. A slightly larger patrol craft.
Armament: 2x custom blasters
1x missile launcher

Mahaiin. One of the main battleships.
Armament: 3x laser
3x gatling pulse cannon
2x deflector module

Mahasor. Similar to the Mahaiin, but has mini-missile launchers instead of lasers.
Armament: 3x mini-missile launcher (2 shots per cycle)
2x gatling pulse cannon
2x deflector module

Tephinar. The largest frigate. (as a measure for power, this ship can take on Nagaya's first ship on it's own, sustaining minor hull damage. All weapons but the lasers were gone after the fight though).
Armament: 2x laser
4x custom blaster
3x flak cannon
2x deflector module
2x aegis deflector

Umbeor. Light carrier. Used for long-range support. (picture's a bit dodgy, I know)

Armament: 8x demeter
4x flak cannon

the mulletron · Post by **the mulletron** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:23 pm

I have to say that these ships look much better! I do like the floating sections, it gives your ships a unique touch.

A small tip: When taking pictures in Shipmaker, use preview mode (press F11) to take your screenshots. It gets rid of those unsightly section highlights, and the circle around the ship.