Pob

quick question, could you do the same thing with colour/paint?

Thanks Haystacks, glad to hear you like it :) No avorion as I don't tend to build inner core ships, I'm still trying to find the last bits for the smuggler quest, once I finally get in there I'll probably make one. My tip for docking any large ship, esp a long thin ship like this one, is sideways. don't try to go in nose first, you can ether approach then rotate and strafe in or come in at 90 degrees from the port don't aim at the station but to skim it and remember to slow down. ;)

Well the first concept for the StarStrider 400 has not worked out :( and real life has got in the way of my ship construction efforts. I've been flying my Nebular class cruiser in single player and personally I'm loving the handling so far. If anyone is flying it around then I'd really love to get some feedback on it.

glad you like them :) try out the Nebular next ;)

Thanks. Using shit loads of templates because I'm a lazy fuck makes that task a hell of a lot easier. :) I think I'm going to have to steal the shit out of draw inspiration from the way you plate these with armour. ;)

Great post DerpSuper++ I'd like to add to "3. Practice." with my earlier post of using a sandbox game to build in, as you can practice in there more easily without so many of the games systems getting in the way, not needing to worry about credits, crew and materials, although you need to keep in mind that you'll have to get these thing in a live game so try not to go overboard on them.

For one, putting in 5 of the same module or 5 of the same type of turret (5 Chainguns, for example) will always yield the same thing, though the stats or details will be randomized. For another, there is a decent chance that some beneficial traits will be carried over, though this is far from certain. Negative traits can be carried over, too. What does seem certain, as far as turrets are concerned, is that the turret you end up with will use the worst material of the bunch. In my experience, anyway, I can put in four Naonite turrets and one Iron turret and reliably predict that whatever stats or traits the new turret has, it always seems to be an Iron turret. Even putting in turrets of the same material, I think you'd get more money by selling them separately as the increase in value is not that impressive. I'm more confident that holds true with modules - at least for most Uncommon and Rare modules. If you pay close attention to the buy and sell prices at Equipment Docks you'll see that 1 Uncommon or Rare module is usually worth less than 5 modules of one rarity lower. (I say that with some confidence because in my old galaxy I regularly bought out all the "cheap" lower tier modules of certain types in order to mix them at Research stations... that is, until I realized that I was spending more money that way than by just waiting to find a higher rarity module and buying it.) If there is any financial benefit to be gained from mixing stuff at a Research station and selling the result, there -might- be some merit to selectively mixing your cheapest, least valuable turrets you have because the result is randomized. You -may- end up with an especially good result. Might. That, or maybe mixing "Petty", the cheapest modules, because those are typically worth less than a thousand or so, anyway. Though, to get even one high rarity module would require mixing many dozens or even hundreds of Petty modules. Or, maybe it's worth mixing Exceptionals to get Exotics or mixing Exotics to get Legendaries? I don't have much experience with the really valuable stuff. And one would -hope- that that mixing a module worth over a $million should be worth the ingredients. Please note I put Turrets because they have a tech level where modules do not. My basic premiss here is the one thing that doesn't get randomised depending on what you put in is tech level, the tech level is always based on the tech level of the zone the research station is in, so take 5 iron white tech level 5 chainguns into a tech level 35 research station and you'll get an iron Green tech level 35 chaingun out, which on average will have far higher damage, and there for price, than the tech level 5 chainguns even if green. As to material, it's random based on what you put in, and by my understanding of the code, it does seem to be based on ratio, ie 4 Naonite + 1 Iron = 80% Naonite, 20% Iron chance. There might be some weighting I'm missing as my understanding of LUA is limited. This is only on found items, buying to upgrade to sell is another matter as buying price is always higher than selling price. I have bought white modules to upgrade but mainly because I wanted a specific type to use, mainly power boosters, because I wasn't finding that many of them, but I've also bought C43 object detectors because I wanted an exotic version as that gives whole sector range, again that was for use not sale. potentially you could make money by flying out the the rim, farming low level pirates for low tech weapon drops then flying back into the centre and upgrading them to increase the tech level, however compaired to just hunting pirates or trading the returns will not be great.

I love the looks and the continuity of design

I keep my mod usage fairly light, here's a list of the mods I personally use (find links in the "List of mods" thread http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,3190.0.html ) Find Station Detailed Turret Tooltips "Mining System/Module" Balance Changes. - Increases The Distance Spawn changer now you can set your spawn in the latest beta build, however the cost is too high IMHO which is why I've kept using spawn changer

in the base game no, the range on them is way too short, personally I use the "mining system/module ballance change" mod http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,845.0.html the Scanner range upgrades increase the range at which you get more details on a target, so the range where you see what a wreckage is made of and the range of how much material it's made of. Also the range at which you get the hp and sp numbers of a ship rather than the % and what if any cargo it has yes they do work, you'll get a message about something unknown detected when you jump into a system, or just before you jump into the new to be accurate (it's a bug showing the message before loading the sector). objects it detects are fairly rare in sectors with jump gates, they are more common in green and yellow blips which are not on the jump gate network and don't have stations in them. Again range is an issue but better than mining upgrades and at exotic level it's range is "sector" so all objects are highlighted. Nope sorry, the targeting keys is rather primitive I'm afraid, some wrecks can despawn but only those of npc trade ships that get killed by pirate/xsotan (again I think it's a bug and they jump out of sector as they normally would if not killed) Nope sorry, I wish there was a mod that changed this but there's not. :( As for force turrets, just sell them they are worth good cash

One thing I will note is when I skin my ships I find I tend to work back to front rather than front to back.

I suspect size is also an important factor, the larger a ship the easier outside first is Also reproduction ship ie a design from a different space ship, eg a reproduction star destroyer, you want to build these outside first as getting the outside right is more important. Personally I'm an inside out builder, I start with the core built from lots of cubes. then merge the cubes, as that makes it easier to replace or upgrade, then I'll skin it. This is the approach I've used for building dedicated cargo haulers, both the MegaBee and GigaBee where built this way. I've also been using the cross shape design for my StarStrider series.

Nice I do like those starter ships

Nice idea, however I personally think they need to be tuned down a bit to balance them. The Xsotan artefacts are already a bit op at +5 all turrets 0 energy cost, considering a standard legendary All turrets gives you +5 at a cost of 0.8-0.75GW they are already better and in many ways easier to get hold of. I'd say keep the turrests to All +5 and one only one other bonus at blue or green level. ie Teleporter Key 1 (Haatii) : All Turrets +5, Jump Range +5 Teleporter Key 2 (Research Station): All Turrets +5, deep scan +4

personally, I sell repair and force turrets, I'll also sell mining and salvage turrets below my current mining level, because the damage they do is based not only on the weapon damage but also the material difference. ie a naonite turret will mine/salvage iron faster than titanium, and naonit faster than titanium etc on top of that they cannot mine/slavage 2 material levels up, so the last thing I want to do when researching is turn 4 xanion and 1 iron mining turrets into 1 iron turret. when researching the material is randomly picked from the turrets you put in, so if you want to guaranty the material then you need to only put in that material. this is pretty much why I sell them, I don't want them in there and accidentally waste stuff when researching, same goes for repair and force turrets. The next thing to realise is that on average turret damage is based on tech level & rarity, material is also a factor but it's very minor compared to tech level and a research station always converts its output to it's tech level. So if you take a bunch of tech 10 turrets to a tech 35 research station you'll get tech 35 turrets out. The price of turrets seems to be based on type*damage*rarity, so converting low tech to high tech is usually good. As to which is better long term in money making, selling or converting and selling I don't know.