[Couple of newbie questions]

 

Yes you can, but only one by one.

Select the block with the new material.

Then "Transform block tool" and click at the block you want transform.

But careful, you basicly could transform your Tritanium crew quarter into a Naonite armor.

 

I wouldn't be able to transform a crew quarter into a nap items armor block, because at least in my client the armor blocks etc does not exist for me in naonite, the base armor block nor the armor corners or armor slope exist I'm my building mode, but I've seen enemy ships with them.

 

He meant Naonite hull.  Naonite doesn't come in armor blocks.

[The System Upgrade Meta]

As I mentioned at the end of my post, I find that the only toxic part of the current meta are the turret control systems. In my own game, I currently have six slots, four are permanently fixed to turret controls, one of the remaining two is permanently hyperdrive, and the remaining is a 'flex' slot I change based off of what I need. Even with that, I was toying with the idea of replacing the permanent hyperdrive with another turret control because I needed more firepower, but I just unlocked Trinium so decided to go for bigger ship and some computer cores for more slots.

 

That is why, at the very least, I suggested adding a turret control block.

 

PS:

 

One of the things I did notice is that hull blocks have absolutly no purpose at all aside from aesthetics and the occasional weapon mount for materials lacking an armor plate equivilant. Maybe adding turret slots can be the hull block's purpose?

 

Fair point.  I need to give this some more thought.

[Couple of newbie questions]

Mining and Salvaging lasers both have an efficiency rating which is literally the percentage of materials you get when you destroy a block with them.  If you have a mining laser and salvage laser with the same efficiency rating then mining is going to get you raw materials a lot faster.  That being said sometimes the RNG hands you much better salvaging lasers than mining lasers.  Depending on how many you have and the stats on them salvaging can be just as good as mining if you have significantly higher quality salvaging lasers than mining lasers.  You even get systems and turrets to boot while salvaging.  You can use weapons to wear down a block's HP and then last hit them with a salvaging laser to get all the stuff.  So you can get away with only having one really good salvaging turret.  I've found that asteroids are highly resistant to weapon's fire.  So to pull the same trick with mining you generally have to use a bunch of mining lasers.  Then you turn off you low efficiency mining beams at the last second and use your high efficiency mining turrets to get the maximum amount of materials possible.  Another thing to do while salvaging is to aim for blocks like shield generators, power generators, and other soft blocks that are easy to destroy but worth a lot of materials.

 

I find that you start out salvaging to get turrets and systems and then when you've gotten enough good quality mining turrets you use those to stockpile raw materials till you're ready to build your next tier of ship.

 

Also mass =/= volume.  If your convert a ship to Trinium, which is super light, the mass will go down a lot but the volume will stay the same.  Meaning you don't lose any system slots for building with lighter materials.

 

Mass doesn't increase hyperspace jump range, but it does increase hyperspace cooldown times.  Larger ships take longer to jump.  There are hyperspace core blocks you can add to your ship starting at Trinium level that increase hyperspace range.  The best way to increase you jump range is with hyperspace system upgrade cards.  These with give you increased range while often times reducing cooldown letting you jump to the next system faster.  Is needed to counter act the increased cooldown of larger ships.

[DeDiKills Exhibitor [5th The Howl]]

Cool.  I like your visual style.

[Cockpit/Camera block]

I like the third person camera.  Though, it certainly would be nice to have the option of going first person.

[Shipsizes and classes]

My guess is the system is based on volume in some way.  The NPC ship classes get harder and harder to kill as they go up in class.  Which speaks to me of them being made out of larger more healthy blocks.  Though it's a bit odd since they don't always look that much bigger.  But, I guess that could just be my eyes tricking me based on perspective and exact ship construction.

[Larger thrusters = less thrust?]

I think the combination of surface area and volume solution makes the most sense.

[The biggest danger = small chunks]

What material is your ship made out of?  Because, I literally use ramming to clear fields of small debris and suffer very little damage in the process.

[deaths from enemies: 1, deaths from crashing when trying to dock: like 10]

Um.  Don't try to dock at high speeds?  You have to approach docks slowing and ease into position.  Like in real life.

[The System Upgrade Meta]

I just got this game for early access, and one of the things I noticed immediately was the usefulness of system upgrades varied wildly, and the big, core question behind the usefulness of them ended up being the question "Can I replace the functionality of this module with more blocks?"

 

Generally, the most useful system upgrades in the game tend to have features that cannot be replicated by blocks. There is no block to increase turret count, no block to increase deep scanning range, as a result, system modules are your only way of enhancing your capabilities at that and the game very heavily pushes you in that direction.

 

Because of the limitation of systems, and the fact that blocks are not likewise not limited, this enforces a meta where you want to replace system modules by blocks in every situation you can. This destroys the usefulness of the cargo, engine, battery, shield, and generator boosting system upgrades. The Hyperspace module would also likewise be in the same boat, were it not for the fact that it reduces hyperspace recharging time, which is invaluable for larger ships.

 

So, we have a situation that for general-purpose ships half of the modules in the game are mostly vender fodder, which is not an ideal situation.

 

The only solutions I can think of, however, are to either add blocks for all stats, such as turret control blocks and sensor blocks, or add features in all system upgrades that cannot be replicated by blocks, for example, the cargo module system upgrade might shield your cargo bay from NPC scans. This would still make it specialized, but at least, situationally useful in certain circumstances.

 

I do believe that adding a turret control block would enhance the system upgrade diversity a bit, at least, since, for the average general-purpose ship, turret control upgrades end up dominating a player's system upgrade list because of how necessary the extra turrets are. The game even acknowleges this, since the Xsotan upgrades are all Legendary Turret Control Systems in functionality.

 

I find this isn't the case at all.  I have to leave all my turret systems in place, of course.  But, other than that I'm constantly switching out other systems depending on what I need.  Yanking out every available slot and replacing them with hyperdrives when I need to go somewhere fast.  Replacing those with shield and power boosters when I'm fighting a boss, I don't always need to bother when I'm fighting normal pirates.  Replacing those with scanning systems while mining or salvaging.  Even using a mix of deep scan radar and hyperdrives for shorter range sector exploring.  If I was using blocks for all that I'd be giving up a lot of my ships internal space to have systems that I then can't switch out with any degree of ease.  I'd lose a lot of power and versatility.  I feel like the hyperdrive blocks are best used on ships in your fleet that you aren't controlling.  Letting you hard wire certain capabilities into them without having to tie up your precious high rarity system upgrades that you'd rather be using on your own ship.

[Figuring out block stats]

Do players even use Framework blocks? What are they even used for, aside from just making a ship physically bigger?

 

Framework blocks are dirt cheap in terms of both credits and materials. They don't appreciably add to weight, either. As you said, they are incredibly fragile and provide virtually no increase to HP. The upside is that they do not increase the number of required mechanics.

 

If they were actually worth using, I think one could work around how fragile they are. All that would require is building them near the core of your ship and protect them with integrity field generators and armor plates on the ship's surface.

 

I was hoping that adding enough Framework blocks would unlock more System slots to add more modules. Sadly, this is not the case. :( They don't contribute towards more turret slots, either. So, I can't imagine myself ever using them.

 

I use them to create arms that I mount thrusters on.  Early on it was a cheap way to place thrusters really far away for the ship's center.  Other than that they are used for visuals.

[AmaroKai Shipyard (NEW: Maquis Peregrine Class)]

Now it looks like something straight out of Star Wars.  Nice.

[Proximo Ship Yard]

That's tons of detail.  How many blocks is this beast?

[Sofa's Art Orifice (IMAGE HEAVY)]

This is fantastic.  Such amazing variety.

[Energy Expenditure and other Gameplay questions]

Might be problem with the demo.  The repair feature fully fixes everything in full game.

[How to salvage wrecks?]

Yes.  There are salvage lasers used to harvest wrecks.  I guess it's just bad luck you haven't gotten one yet.

[LordHavoc's Shipyard - keep checking back for updates]

Nice job.  I know it's a pretty crazy looking design.

[free camera movement in building mode]

A big +1 from me.

[Rotating or Piston block]

Moving blocks are great for "action features"  that look cool.  But, their addition as a useful gameplay mechanic can be pretty dubious.  Even if there weren't an engine limitation this one was probably best left to the modders anyway.

[Seclude´s Hangar - Star Trek based]

dynamic shaping system. .

 

Plz explain

 

You can resize blocks right?  Made them thinner, longer, bigger, and what not.  That's dynamic shaping.

[Resize Starting Block]

1. Add the block you actually want to be your starting block.

2. Turn off Safe Mode.

3. Delete the iron block the game started you with.

4. Profit!

[Additional ship statistics]

I have gone ahead and split the old topic about the volume number. This thread now has the posts with requests for additional ship statistics :)

 

I think my post made more sense in the topic about volume.  Though I understand the reason for the split.  Keep up the good work man.

[Should Avorion come with a few ship designs?]

Agree with a lot of what you are saying.  The game From the Depths every NPC ship was designed by a player and submitted on the forums, evaluated, and added to the game as official content.  This created a lot of variety without the dev having to design everything.  I have an idea for a ship style that can easily be templated and I wonder anyone else has come up with the same thing.  I see the use for some starter ships.  I don't always feel like designing a ship from scratch.  The procedural generation works well for NPC ships.  But, not so much for ships I want own.

[Seclude´s Hangar - Star Trek based]

They're a bit square.  You should be able to get some better curves using the dynamic shaping system.  Also you can use glow blocks for the bussard collectors, deflector dish, and other glowing bits.

[LordHavoc's Shipyard - keep checking back for updates]

Good work so far.