Imperial ships and a query for help in fixing them.

[number31]

Hello, everyone. I've lurked in the forums for about 2 weeks, and have built a few ships from the tips and tricks that everyone has very kindly contributed to the newbies. While the ships I'll be posting aren't original content (taken from WH40k's Battlefleet Gothic) nor have any lightballs or custom sprites, I guess they work nonetheless.

First off, the biggest and most recent:
The Overlord-class Battlecruiser:

3rd largest kind of ship. 9 total armored (3000 health) sections from the front if you want to get to the core, 4 from the sides (2500 health, and 2 from the rear (2500 health, but the stern never faces the enemy!)
A big mass of explosive weaponry on the sides. The front has some alpha 0 torpedoes. The spine has 6 modified twin beamers - using the core sprite, with high damage, high cooldown, and low beam duration. Wings are relatively flimsy, carrying the thrusters needed for most of the ships turning as well as a few front facing guns.

The color scheme used the basic shipmaker's tool. Bright red prow, bright red spine and command deck. Will try to get the gist of properly shading (and possibly making my own) sections as I make ships.

Any criticisms? Don't hold back - I'm old enough to take it. Just make sure I can use it to make it less of a floating pile of junk in space )

I do promise to improve over time (especially with coloring ships!) along with actually making original ship ideas. This 40k thing be a phase.

[Lukasmah]

The ship suffers from a severe case of weapons clog, and it's a bit bricky.

[Doogie12]

I see what you're trying to accomplish, and I applaud you for not just covering your ship in weapons. However, it still needs to have a lot less of them. Here on Wyrdysm we value aesthetics exclusively. Try practicing more and lurk around to see what others have accomplished.

Otherwise, I look forward to your future shipmaker endeavors.
Welcome to the forums!

[Necrontyr1998]

Hey hey, aside from the weapon clutter the shape is sound. WH40K Terran ships are pretty difficult to replicate as I found myself (see my 'Necrontyr Industries' thread). Keep trying and you'll get there!

[jwa8402]

*turn off parenting
*Depth weapons so we can see more of the ship and they stick out like they are supposed to.
*Give it some other color instead of green.
*Fix that red section since it isn't centered and looks stretched.
*depth the engine modules and use sprites to make them look like engines.
*I can't tell for sure, but looks like a few sections are stretched. Be very careful of doing that.

I love WH40K ships, though top view shots are pretty hard to find. I was pretty happy with my battle barge but even that didn't approach the detail of the real thing;I can't believe people actually model these in 3D. Keep it up!

[number31]

@jwa8402 That is one sweet battlebarge.

@necrontyr Yeah, it was really hard to make a top down representation: I only got the free BFG rulebook from Games Workshop and then I tried to imagine what the ships would look like top-down. The simplified illustrations in the rulebook helped a bit, but most of it was "okay it has this set of guns. now wat"

So for now I'll try to stick with the default section sprites, modifying them as needed. (I want to get used to using mostly simple sprites before downloading the utterly magnificent ones from this forum)
I'll work on a destroyer - smaller and easier to beautify. I'll cut down on the weapons, or at least make them invisible (representing them with sections would be interesting), although I still do want to send a storm of metal via weapon battery.

What would be the best way to literally make clouds of explosions and bullet fragments when they shoot? I can modify burst, range, explosion size, and damage (cutting down the gunspam!), but would twin autocannons and repeating artillery be the best modules for this purpose?

Thanks for everyone's advice!

[Ristyo]

So I'm back, and my first comment :
Dat weaponspam
(Well atleast the spam looks good)

To make ships look good when shooting, use lasers (or custom bullet sprites)

[number31]

Sword-Class Frigate

Fire support of the Imperial fleet (alongside the wolf-packs of Cobras), the Sword-class covers all angles with anti-ordnance and heavy batteries of fire. Equal range as most of the cruisers, yet much more maneuverable in order to cover the sterns of the heavy ships (for the stern never faces the enemy!)

My second trial took the helpful advice of the forum:
Weapon spam replaced by 4 turrets, each a plasma cannon linked with rapid artillery. I haven't added a driver to make the wing-mounted cannons to have recoil.
Turned it grey, with a blaring golden aquila in the dead of space.
Thrusters all around to represent its lovely ability to turn extensively.
I haven't tried to make filled in sections yet with shading, so default sections still
Can't layer worth a damn yet, sadness.


...and then my friends prompted me to make...I shall not speak of this matter anymore please forgive me

[calvin1211]

Well, you still need depthing. Make the sections meant to be on the top brighter and those on the bottom darker to give it a sorta 3D feel.
And the prow section doesn't really look much like the typical imperial armoured prow, it's too curvy.