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Tips for ship building


LordHavoc
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Here is an easy way I discovered to change the material type of specific parts on your ship using any XML editor...

Index "X"...

 

Very helpful. Thanks!

 

This list was incomplete, though. So, I spent the time to find the rest:

 

x= 4, 185, 186, 187, 188; Stone

x= 9; Framework

x= 10; Hangar

x= 11; Dock

x= 12; Turret Rotation Lock

x= 13; Directional Thruster

x= 14; Gyro Array

x= 15; Inertia Dampener

x= 60; Solar Panel

x= 61; Light

x= 170, 171, 172, 173, 174; Glass

x= 190, 191, 192, 193, 194; Hologram

x= 510, 511, 512, 513, 514; Rich Stone

 

Complete list:

 

Hull with Windows = index="1"
Hull w/o Windows = index="2", "100", "101", "102", "103" (cube + edge + corners)
Engine = index="3"
Stone = index="4", "185", "186", "187", "188" (cube + edge + corners)
Cargo = index="5"
Crew = index="6"
Thruster = index="7"
Armor = index="8", "104", "105", "106", "107" (cube + edge + corners)
Framework = index="9"
Hangar = index="10"
Dock = index="11"
Turret Rotation Lock = index="12"
Directional Thruster = index="13"
Gyro Array = index="14"
Inertia Dampener = index="15"
Shield = index="50"
Energy Container = index="51"
Generator = index="52"
Integrity Field = index="53"
Computer Core = index="54"
Hyperspace Core = index="55"
Solar Panel = index="60"
Light = index="61"
Glow Pieces = index="150", "151", "152", "153", "154" (cube + edge + corners)
Glass = index="170", "171", "172", "173", "174" (cube + edge + corners)
Hologram = index="190", "191", "192", "193", "194" (cube + edge + corners)
Rich Stone = index="510", "511", "512", "513", "514" (cube + edge + corners)

 

Materials:

Iron = material="0"
Titanium = material="1"
Naonite = material="2"
Trinium = material="3"
Xanion = material="4"
Ogonite = material="5"
Avorion = material="6"

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I feel as though we should update the OP to change/add information that was posted later.

 

There's a lot of good tips here, but I have a couple of corrections:

 

f) Avorion (tier 7) is strongest, less massive than Ogonite, so it should replace all other materials, except for availablity or cost issues, of course. However, it could be that Ogonite armor blocks would still be stronger (unconfirmed).
Trinium being the lightest material means it will always have a place in a build that values speed/mobility.

 

7a] Spinal mount your main thruster: I've found that making the main thruster the centre point (and the starting point) to your ship is a good way of determining your needs for the rest of the ship. Build to the speed that you want your ship to go to, and then add power/crew/manouvering thrusters as needed.
That hardly ever works. One, you'll get borked numbers because of crew. Two, even if the value was accurate at the moment of placement, it won't be by the time you're done. I haven't found that placing thrusters/engines first is ever practical.
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A few tricks I figured out.

 

Using c&p, it's possible to make non-standard thickness, like 0.07 for example. This way, it's possible to make very thin layered armor plates. First, put two pieces together, the first is the plate you're going to use, the second is the throwaway that's going to allow shrinkage below standard thickness. Start with 0.05 thickness blocks. Select the two pieces, c&p, scale it down, stick it somewhere, remove the throwaway, select the piece you're using, c&p it, use it wherever. Be aware that using the asd scale keys on this piece will revert it to standard thickness, so prepare the piece accordingly.

 

Layered armor, ablative armor, spaced armor. Use flat blocks, make either an H or T template, c&p, use it wherever, stack it. Game mechanics with regard to armor pen is per block, not per thickness. So, more blocks is better than fewer, even if they're super thin. Also, spaced armor is much lighter than full block armor so it can be used to build up a shape, then stick shaped blocks on top for esthetics. Spaced armor is very good against collisions, since only the first block gets blowed up, then the ships/objects react and move away from each other so no other block gets blowed up, and it's much cheaper to replace a very thin piece than a full sized armor block. Also, spaced armor just looks cool. Spaced/layered armor doesn't necessarily need to cover the entire surface, a grill-like configuration should protect from most attack angles except directly head-on, and it looks really cool too.

 

Angle block is key for turret placement for several reasons. First is field of fire, next is rotation when sweeping across center line, then there's independent targeting especially for salvaging. Field of fire is obvious, if the turret is on top, side or bottom, and firing front, its field of fire only goes to center line horizontal/vertical. If it's on a front mounted angle, its field of fire is up to 45d past horizontal on the narrow side, whichever orientation the angle is set. Rotation is a problem with front mounted turret on a flat block when sweeping across center line. When on an angle block, the turret can sweep much quicker.

 

Independent targeting for salvaging works best with this setup:

 

3 IT turrets, with 2 doubles and 1 single, to create a 5 point cross for chasing tiny bits

2 angles front mounted, 1 at 90d cw/ccw from the other to create 2 different fields of fire

turrets must be a little bit mismatched in range, something around 100/200m

the doubles should be the same configuration to create the 5 point cross, where 1 is rotated 90d from the other due to its angle block

each double is placed on its own angle block, 1 straight, the other at 90d from it, and away from each other on each side

the single should be placed with one of the doubles, so you'll get 1 double and 1 single on one side and 1 double on the other side

install orientation should be forward for all turrets

 

My goal with the above was to create this 5 point cross to work around the problem of chasing tiny bits, but then I accidentally found that this is the way to make all 3 turrets behave independently with regard to target acquisition, even when chasing tiny bits. They no longer chase tiny bits all at once forever. Instead, they target bits independently until destruction. Their targets do not reset all at once, they keep firing until their respective target is destroyed, then each will switch accordingly. They go for the big wrecks first as well. It changes the whole way to salvage. And in the event they do chase tiny bits all at once, they take care of it more quickly due to the 5 point cross made by the 5 beams.

 

We can't stick blocks - like flat armor for example - on the angle side of an angle, but there's a way around it. Build it up on an inverted template with smaller blocks and angles, then c&p this template and stick it on some throwaway block just for that purpose. Once stuck, throw away the other block, the angle is now covered with armor. Or, stick a flat piece on the side of the angle, then build up the pieces on that block.

 

We can make slanted blocks, like those on shipyards, using angles. Use a long angle, stick it somewhere, rotate another one 180 on its end, stick that one under the other, voila. We can also make a slanted arm with the ends perpendicular to the length so that it appears to be a genuine block but slanted a bit, it takes 6 (3 pairs of same respective dimensions, 2 mains, 2 smaller ends, 2 much smaller finish) angles of the same proportions, using a similar method as with 2 angles. Scaling with Q and W should allow to shrink and keep proportions, methinks.

 

Framework does not allow integrity field to reach whatever is stuck on it. I learned that by making thruster pods, I had to stick extra fields on the pods. However, framework covered in spaced/layered armor should be much more sturdy and lighter than just framework or just armor, so we can make long arms to put weapon/thruster pods on.

 

Fields spread linearly across their thickness, so the thicker it is, the farther it reaches, and conversely the thinner it is the shorter it reaches.

 

Big blocks for internals for easy material upgrade, smaller blocks for exposed surfaces for ablative protection. Select box, and template save, are your friends for bunches of blocks to upgrade material. Also think of an easy way to access internals for that purpose, so some single piece somewhere well protected but easy to remove and stick back on. Or just use the xml trick on the ship's file.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Hi Warrax;

 

Have you tried InkScape?

 

Inkscape is opensource, so a person wouldn't need an Excel license.

 

 

Hey :)

 

I am trying Inkscape now.  Thanx for the tip.

 

By the way, in my Creations thread, i posted a pic of the colour coding, before i put the armour on.  This step is not necessary for everyone, but if someone is still sorting your design options, the colours make for easy editing and adjustment.

 

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,2539.msg13054.html#msg13054

 

 

 

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Layered armor, ablative armor, spaced armor. Use flat blocks, make either an H or T template, c&p, use it wherever, stack it. Game mechanics with regard to armor pen is per block, not per thickness. So, more blocks is better than fewer, even if they're super thin. Also, spaced armor is much lighter than full block armor so it can be used to build up a shape, then stick shaped blocks on top for esthetics. Spaced armor is very good against collisions, since only the first block gets blowed up, then the ships/objects react and move away from each other so no other block gets blowed up, and it's much cheaper to replace a very thin piece than a full sized armor block. Also, spaced armor just looks cool. Spaced/layered armor doesn't necessarily need to cover the entire surface, a grill-like configuration should protect from most attack angles except directly head-on, and it looks really cool too.

 

Spaced armor? what does that mean, like when you have railings on the outside of the ship that are .5 away from the inner hull, like a cow catcher on a train or a roll cage on a jeep?

 

Also, what do you mean by 'ablative'? spikes poking out like curb feelers so that they break off?

 

 

Angle block is key for turret placement for several reasons. First is field of fire, next is rotation when sweeping across center line, then there's independent targeting especially for salvaging. Field of fire is obvious, if the turret is on top, side or bottom, and firing front, its field of fire only goes to center line horizontal/vertical. If it's on a front mounted angle, its field of fire is up to 45d past horizontal on the narrow side, whichever orientation the angle is set. Rotation is a problem with front mounted turret on a flat block when sweeping across center line. When on an angle block, the turret can sweep much quicker.

 

Does that apply for all angles, such as angled side-mounted front-facing turrets, or only for something like a front slope? and for, say, a top-mounted laser, does it's 'arc' cover the whole 360 degrees horizontal by 180 degrees vertical  visible? Or does it have a 180 degree 'facing'?

 

Independent targeting for salvaging works best with this setup:

 

3 IT turrets, with 2 doubles and 1 single, to create a 5 point cross for chasing tiny bits

2 angles front mounted, 1 at 90d cw/ccw from the other to create 2 different fields of fire

turrets must be a little bit mismatched in range, something around 100/200m

the doubles should be the same configuration to create the 5 point cross, where 1 is rotated 90d from the other due to its angle block

each double is placed on its own angle block, 1 straight, the other at 90d from it, and away from each other on each side

the single should be placed with one of the doubles, so you'll get 1 double and 1 single on one side and 1 double on the other side

install orientation should be forward for all turrets

 

Could you please take a screenshot of this configuration? Your explanation is a little confusing. I am very interested, however.

 

Framework does not allow integrity field to reach whatever is stuck on it. I learned that by making thruster pods, I had to stick extra fields on the pods. However, framework covered in spaced/layered armor should be much more sturdy and lighter than just framework or just armor, so we can make long arms to put weapon/thruster pods on.

 

If you cover the framework with armor, as long as the armor is touching both the intergity field structure and the pod, shouldn't the integrity field spread to the pod through the armor? Or does some vagary of the framework prevent this?

 

Big blocks for internals for easy material upgrade, smaller blocks for exposed surfaces for ablative protection. Select box, and template save, are your friends for bunches of blocks to upgrade material. Also think of an easy way to access internals for that purpose, so some single piece somewhere well protected but easy to remove and stick back on. Or just use the xml trick on the ship's file.

 

I have also noted that it's easy to submerge your base block at the bottom of a 'pit' and cover the top with a thin layer of armor. When you are ready to upgrade size (or material) Area select the entire ship, then control+center click the root block to deselect it.

ctrl+c to copy your ship except for the center block, then delete it... ctrl v to 'ghost' the copy, make sure you alt-select the bottom of the 'pit' and then you can change the material with the drop-down or alter the size of your ship... If you make it bigger, your root block can easily fit at the bottom of the pit where you stick it to the bottom of your root block.

 

Just replace the armor and viola! new size/material of your ship.

 

If you are upgrading from low-end materials, different materials have different things they can make. You may have to upgrade to a lower material first (Ogonite cannot make things like hyperwarps, and (trinium?) cannot make armor) and repeat the process to make everything that can be made out of ogonite, and then repeat again so that everything will be made of the lighter material, but the Ogonite armor will remain. A good way to make a hard shell that doesn't behave like a slug.

 

the 'plus' side though is that sometimes materials are lost in translation a little bit, so the in-between state can be tiny... just flop a little 2x2x2 copy of the 'in between' state on top of your root block, copy it and delete it again, and then rescale it for your 'full sized' ship of the new materials!

 

Oh, and do NOT forget to remove all upgrades/turrets before you start, or they will go flying around for a while... and if you don't want all your crew to die, you have to do it QUICKLY.

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@Brigadon

 

Spaced armor is a tank term (learned that in a tank game, hehe) meaning that there is space between armor plating and hull. Ablative means just that, it will shed as it takes damage, keeping the hull underneath intact, as opposed to being an integral part of the hull and this gets damaged too. Game mechanics allow ablation of thin plates of armor, but not of thick blocks because of wreckage chance, i.e. several blocks attached to each other break off from the main assembly with the weakest block popping instead of the block that takes the initial hit. In other words, armor must be weaker than what's underneath in order to shed and protect internals, rather than to remain intact and transfer damage to internals.

 

Field of fire for turrets is a half sphere, where surface plane tilt determines field of fire tilt. If turret is on an angle, its field of fire is tilted according to angle tilt, i.e. 22.5d, 30d, 45d, etc.

 

Imagine we cut a sphere in half on horizontal plane, then tilt it forward. That's field of fire 1. Now imagine we rotate this half sphere clockwise 90 degrees. That's field of fire 2.

 

Ya, the framework/field thing, I'm not too sure anymore. I think it's a matter of the field itself, i.e. is it strong enough to spread across the framework blocks? They were farthest than other blocks, and the field block was pretty small, so I could have been mistaken about that.

 

Found another trick to change internals easily. Zoom inside the ship, then click select, it should indicate selection on the bottom right, also allowing to change the block. I just did that with my current ship. Easier than to remove a bunch of armor templates, but then I also did that cuz I wanted to revert to 0.05 plates instead of 0.1 plates. We can also focus on an internal block we selected.

 

A trick to scale whole ship, if you keep same ship across several scaling as you progress through materials/size. Remove all armor plates, save ship, then scale. Once scaled, put on armor plates. Otherwise, armor plates also scale, they get thicker/heavier as you scale up. Also, since internals are exposed, it's quicker to adjust once scaled, cuz not everything scales equally, i.e. thrusters for example.

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so, using armored plates to simulate the 'bumpy' surface on a star wars style ship, is actually very strong defensively, because those little plates break off rather than allowing the weak interiors to break and create big chunks of your ship floating off.

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Ya, that's pretty much it.

 

We can't put flat blocks at an angle, but we can put a series of thin angles instead, this would be the grill style rather than the spaced style. I'm hoping we'll see some creations that use grill/grid style cuz when done right it's awesome.

 

Shame there's no framework angle, I'd be all over that stuff (come to think of it ima suggest it right now). In my experience, the most effective was a framework/armor angle complex template with thin framework plates acting as the armor plating. It's weakest so it pops easily, lightest and cheapest to replace. And it looks really cool to have a bunch of framework plates in a spaced config covering the front, top and sides, especially if it partially covers thrusters and lets their exhaust through, i.e. some plates are omitted for that purpose.

 

But, it adds a huge number of blocks so I guess that's the down side. To illustrate, the save file for my current ship without armor plates is 30kb, and 150kb with armor plates. Biggest save file on an earlier ship was around 800kb, most of it spaced armor plating/complex.

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I still wonder what the real effect of spaced / ablative armor might be, since you ships HP still take the same hit, if the part breaks off or not, so why not just use a Intergrity Field and have NOT break off the additional armor plates (or at least 10 times less the breakoff) until HP reach 0?

 

I like the conceptual idea behind, and if this game was more like Robocraft, where your vessel is only destroyed if the coreblock gets destroyed, ok, i can see the use of spaced and ablative plates to protect the main body, but in the system we ue in Avorion? Maybe its just me confused?

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I use fields as well. Recently, I don't know what I did different but in spite of plates popping, ship takes a whole lot more damage from astroid collisions. So now instead of single layer, I'm doing 3 layers where most impacts occur. I'll see what gives. Either way, it still looks cool.

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There's little point to ablative/spaced armor except maybe for collisions. If we forget about collisions, then losing blocks is the worst that can happen because it can't be repaired by mechanics, so it's going to cost you.

 

If we DO consider collisions, then the question is "does the damage transfer?" If it does transfer, then there's no downside to having an integrity field covering the part that hits a surface. If it doesn't transfer, then it's better if it breaks off because the integrity field multiplies the base HP of the part by 10, but draws the damage from the total HP pool of the ship, meaning that your ship will suffer up to 10 times the damage overall and you might still lose that part.

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Oh? I always thought Damage from Collisions is first substracted from the ships HP, depending on mass and speed (thats where the big wrecks with little to no visible damage come from)... if you are still alive now, then your blocks might break, depending on individually blocks HP (10x if protected by IFG)... not sure where on the forums i've read that info tho...

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Ya, I read the same thing, though I don't think that's how it works exactly.

 

If it's just a block and it gets damaged equal to its HP, it pops, simple as that. Ship takes no other damage.

 

If it's just a block and it gets damaged greater than its HP, it pops, excess dmg transfers to whole ship. This is true only if there's no other damage model, but I've seen some weird things so I think it's not entirely true.

 

If it's in a field, damage equal to its HP is absorbed by the block only, nothing else happens.

 

If it's in a field, damage greater than its HP, block remains intact up to 10x its HP, excess above 1x transfers to whole ship. Also only true if there's no other damage model.

 

If there's another damage model where dmg pens only a certain number of blocks depending on total damage incurred, it changes the whole picture of ship building with regards to collision protection for example. There's already the wreck chance thing so in a group of blocks that takes damage, or in a group where one block in the middle takes damage, there's a chance that the group detaches from the ship and the block that took the hit pops. There's also the chance that the whole group pops and no wreck remains. We can see this when salvaging, where often a group of blocks pops instead of separating into its constituents.

 

A ship is a group of blocks, therefore wreck chance always applies. The question is how do we build ships to account for this? I thought I figured it out with spaced armor, but now I think it's more than that. Next I'm going to revert to more smaller internals and see what gives cuz it's getting annoying to fix a ton of damage from seemingly weak collisions.

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You're probably right since I normally play with reduced or no collision damage at all, I'm not too experienced with those mechanics. One thing I do know is that collisions tend to induce some rotation which may lead to more impacts. Not sure if blocks breaking help reduce rotation.

 

I dunno, I'm rambling at this point, but in real life, depending on angle, speed and structural integrity, you might break off bits and keep flying (and you'd prefer that compared to having those bits survive but transfer damage to the rest of the structure). If we apply an HP system to this, then what I explained earlier makes sense.

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OK, never posted a screenshot in my life. Let's hope I do this right the first time, ya?

 

 

cpPku2s.jpg

 

 

Two top weapon pods house mining and salvage lasers. Each pod houses two angles, one upright, the other rotated 90d cc/ccw. The salvage turret configuration in the ss is:

 

2x pairs, each pair has a different range

1x 1.6km upright left side

1x 1.6km rotated right side

1x 1.4km rotated left side

1x 1.4km upright right side

 

This should create 3 unique fields of fire, with the two uprights sharing the same field, i.e. they're both tilted at the same angle on the same axis/plane. That's why I put identical turret pairs, one on upright, the other on rotated, on different sides. The combination of different fields of fire and different ranges should, and does, create a genuine independent behavior with respect to target selection of individual turrets, except when starting on a group wreck and when there's only a few pieces left to salvage.

 

Spaced armor config should be obvious. The present config has about 1,300 armor blocks (all blocks total about 1,800 blocks), all 0.05 thick, all a simple two-piece template, all framework/armor combo, 8x2x0.5 dimensions, layered/stacked/staggered, except the sloping arrangement directly in front of the top weapon pods. This is a big ship, 56 mill m3. In spite of the disproportionately huge number of armor blocks, the amount of armor on this ship requires only 2 extra mechanics (total mechs required 1,082). I could probably make the plates thinner with the template scale trick, but it's just so tedious already, I mean, let it go, ya?

 

In this particular build, I put up two complete templates of 4 wide bottom, 3 wide second layer, 2 wide third layer, then 1 wide top layer, all top layers staggered to center. One template with the struts length-wise, the other with the struts width-wise. Then I selected parts of those templates (either a side or some top layers) to extend complete templates where necessary, or where a full template didn't fit, i.e. 6x8, 4x8, 2x8. I think a couple hours to do. Anyways, that's the general idea of spaced armor.

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Hi - A quick file management system that seems to be working well for me.

 

As many as you likely know, on game openning, your files in the build mode are accessed alphabetically.  After game openning, i "think" the slots are presented sequentially - until you stop and restart the game itself. 

 

What i routinely do now is, my "keeper" files are saved with the file name starting with "A".  While in game, i do not delete a files starting with an "A".

 

Even if i am replacing an "A" file, i do it out of game, and keep the file in an archive folder.

 

Hopefully i did not confuse everyone, lol

Cheers

;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, I did the thing I fear most, slapping together a bunch of alphabets, to help some random dude on the forums. I was asked by Fox to post this here so it would be easier to find. I've also added, and might add more extras in the future. So... Here goes.

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[bEWARE ALL YE WHO ENTER, COLOSSAL WALL OF TEXT AHEAD]

 

This is just my personal opinion, but it takes several elements, but mainly attitude, patience and practice. Trust me when I say that my first ship isn't anything pretty to look at either.  I'm not one for writing super long essays because I'm lazy to structure them and all, so I'll just list a few tips based on my workflow right off the top of my head:

 

General Tips:

 

1. Refer.

It won't hurt to look to the work of others for inspiration. You don't need to make an exact carbon copy, you can just pick out simple elements in them that you find interesting, or look for common elements that make their design appealing (shape, silhouette, colour, arrangement of elements like the engines, etc.). You may not feel the effects immediately, but you'll slowly get a sense of design.

 

EDIT 1: Recently, I've found out about Sketchfab, which is a fucking godsend. Here's a bunch of links:

- https://sketchfab.com/edgecasegames (personal fav)

- https://sketchfab.com/aberrator2000/collections/starships

- https://sketchfab.com/saphires/collections/sci-fi-vehicles

 

2. Patience.

This can apply to the overall process, as you won't suddenly get all the Dragon Balls get good overnight. Be prepared to take hours to work on a build, especially in your earlier builds. I can spend anywhere from 1-8 hours (usually around 2-4 hours) on a single build, just to get it both functioning well and looking good enough. You may start out slow at first, but your later builds will eventually get better and be done faster as you develop a sort of 'sense' for it and your own workflow.

 

3. Practice.

This is pretty self explanatory. The more you do something, the better you get at it. Best thing is that you'll get better without even knowing it. This is one of my earlier ships. It looks like a bunch of random shapes slapped together, but... well, you get the idea:

 

MV82thq.jpg

 

 

gPELEy2.jpg

 

 

jE5VhLQ.jpg

 

Give yourself some time, and you'll eventually end up being able to pull off shit like the stuff you nerdgasm over on the forums.

 

4. Attitude.

This is probably one of the biggest factors. What we usually see is the result of someone's success, but not their journey to get there. If you see a really awesome looking ship (or any other outcome for that matter, from artwork to businesses and so on), be sure to know that the creator put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, money, food, house mortgage, reproductive fluids, his/her marriage and sacrificed their first-born child and time into it. You should DEFINITELY NOT be berating yourself for being incapable of doing such things because that just starts that vicious cycle of you being unhappy because you eat, and you eat because you're unhappy hating yourself because you can't do that thing so you hate yourself because you can't do that thing so you hate yourself because you can't do that thing... etc. And then you give up.. Instead, try to look at it like... You can do that, just not yet. Other people can do that? Well, you just let them do their thing, you work on yours. (Plus, it doesn't hurt to be a little competitive, you know, the friendly sort)

 

Furthermore, you have to be prepared to completely scrap a project if things seem to be going nowhere. Accepting that this will inevitably happen and being ready to just burn everything down to start over will take a huge load off your mind.  Trust me when I say that forcing it will more often than not just back you more into that corner you're stuck in. Though, this won't mean you've failed since you've still gained experience from it. Which you'll apply in the future anyway, whether you want to or not.

 

Other Tips:

 

1. Get schooled

Yes, I know... Studying, ugh. But you can take my word for this, getting the basics down can go a very, very long way. In this case, learn about design elements and design principles since you're, you know, designing ships. Keep those in mind whenever you build, and you won't even need to think about it eventually as it becomes second nature. (You don't need to think about how to use a spoon, right? You just... know. Same shit, different task.)

 

2. Design direction.

Establishing a theme or concept to direct your design, it can be anything as simple as "triangles" or "chunky" or something as verbose as "has a lot of cheap, repetitive, copy-pasta armor plate thing-a-majigs that's actually just a cheap, lazy son-of-a-bitch way to make things look good" , will help you tremendously, such as speeding up your workflow and guiding your train of thought when designing.

 

3. Templates. Templates. Templates.

It's not being lazy, it's a way to speed up your workflow, improve efficiency and also help maintain unity (the design principle, not some magical friendship crap) and the continuity of your certain theme. Also, do you really want to manually build every single one of those repetitive, repeating bits of your ship? (PROTIP: Select the blocks you want by using Ctrl+mmb or the other 2 methods in the builder > Ctrl+C > click the '+' at the right side of the bottom toolbar > select a blank space in the list of templates below> Ctrl+V . You've just saved a template. Additionally, holding "W" resizes a block or template uniformly whilst holding "Q" resizes them whilst maintaining the same proportions. )

 

4. "Build an ugly brick, then make it look pretty."

This one is more of my personal method of building than an actual set-in-stone method. I just slap a whole bunch of blocks together, in roughly about the shape I want, adjusting as I go, until I'm happy with the stats, then I start putting on the "skin" or "make up" for the ship. (REMEMBER:What matters more is the end result. People like eating sausages, not knowing how they're made.)

 

Example:

 

Comparison GIF of with and without panels:

 

vr6RZEy.gif

 

 

Mid-Stage foetus:

 

vmXelyz.jpg

 

 

A real life example, sort of, is if you peel off the trunk cover of a Zonda R...

 

 

Pagani%2BZonda%2BR.JPG

 

 

You get this:

 

Pagani-Zonda-Revolucion-26-1200x750.jpg

 

 

5. "Observe. Obliterate. Renovate."

Not in a literal sense. This should tie in with the first point from "general tips", but I decided it can also be a point on its own. As already mentioned, picking out details in your references is one thing. How to pull off those details is another. In the context of building from various references, you have to take the time to observe your reference, think about how you are going to break it down and translate it to constructing it in this game, or any other for that matter. There's already a few observable techniques here in the forums from building the exterior first, to using frames as scaffolding, but I'll use my technique in point 4 for example. For my technique, I've actually developed it by observing how the ships were modeled in Fractured Space, more specifically, Zarek and TDS vessels. I realized that there's some semblance of "realism" in their design, whereby a similar approach to how things in real life are built are applied, with systems and all that fancy, fragile techy bits on the inside, held up by some form of support structure, and surrounded by a protective covering that in most cases, also serve to hide the not-so-pretty insides. That's how I thought "I'll just do the same thing and slap pretty plates on ugly bricks". Though, this isn't THE way to develop a technique, as there's more than one way to skin a nekomimi cat. Also, there's a lot of experimentation, trial and error and FAILURE to get to this point, so be prepared.

 

 

 

 

Well, that's about it. Hope it helps... Or not, it doesn't matter to me.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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  • 1 month later...

( Long time lurker  :o- first time poster )  Would it be possible for a demonstration of the 'plating' I have seen many awesome ships that have 'smooth' arches, and when looking in the ship builder I can see the 'bits' they are made up of, but I cannot figure out how this is made/accomplished. @DerpSuper - your gif of the on/off plates is exactly the style that I am looking for. I have myself been a longtime builder in Planet Explorers/Space Engineers etc. so the concepts are not foreign to me. ;D I am just not familiar with the toolkit yet in Avorion, but it does look to be really robust in the freedom that I have seen people creating things under.

 

 

EDIT: I post this then immediately find OHM's video..... ( >.< )

 

-Kaatoz

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  • 1 year later...

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