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[Korbac]

A hint, Funk : Armour your bridge. As in, put armour over your engines, consoles etc. Or a lucky enemy shot will mean the entire thing becomes useless. 

[Boksi]

So I was inspired to try this game out, not by this thread but rather by /vg/(I frequent 4chan as well as this site). I gave it a spin, built a little ship out of iron, cobalt and hydrogen. While I was doing that, I also read this thread and was inspired to make a fighter. I got a bit... Overzealous, though. It can't really be called a fighter anymore, so I hereby unveil the Overzealous-class gunship!

Spoiler: Pictures (click to show/hide)

The test model is made out of light iron, but you could just as well make it out of medium aluminum, light titanium or light thulium-iron. It's clearly too big to be a fighter, and weighs in at almost 100 tons.

It sports eight turreted light assault cannons! But what's more impressive is that it was actually designed for eight heavy assault cannons. The power system has enough juice to support them, I just couldn't be bothered to get the required Thulium.

The back is literally awash with hydrogen engines. It's designed to roll so it can fire its broadside correctly, go really fast and strafe its target. As such, it features only roll engines and left/right engine clusters.

It is in fact possible to squeeze through this gap. This is the smallest gap a player can squeeze through - the reason being that the player is actually a sentient sphere with a diameter of 2 meters.

Inside we have this cozy little cockpit(for a given value of cozy). There's space here for an additional power block for a little redundancy, but I didn't add one.


And of course, we have the eight guns. The camera was installed sideways, but this is space so it's okay, we just have to alter the control scheme a little. Don't try to shoot to the side or you'll shoot a hole in the ship. That's why the blinds are there - they're a low-tech solution to tell you on what axis to move the guns.

[Girlinhat]

I've been debating the real classification of fighter and ship.  As it stands, fighters become big very quickly, even just installing basic gear.  This makes me wonder what a full sized ship will really look like, if a fighter is so big and agile, what will a slow ship look like?

I also think that you can't really make a fighter with full six-axis freedom.  I think more realistically, you'll get forward drive, clockwise and counterclockwise roll, and a strafing turn.  This would involve 7 thruster groups.  Drive, upper roll left, upper roll right, lower roll left, lower roll right, lower strafing engines, and upper turning thruster.  Normally when you design a ship, you give it counter-engines, you space the engines such that they give a smooth, "zero-motion" rotation, on a dime as it were.  However if you provide more engines on one side than another, then you end up with a scheme that leaves your ship 'veering' as it turns.  Corneroids respects direction of movement, and diving straight into the enemy and trying to turn aside at close range will crash you because you simply have too much forward momentum, and there's no aerodynamics to help your ship turn.  Instead you'd have to strafe it as you turn if you want to avoid slamming into the target.  Such a ship would be single-pilot, as the guns would be forward mounted and you'd use the ship itself to line up the sights.  If you started adding turrets, then you no longer need the strafing drive because you can fire from different angles, and then you quickly become a 'small warship' instead of 'complete fighter'.

[Funk]

The best way i can see to do classifications is by guns and layout.
each gun is woth a set number of points

Anti-Personnel Cannon = 1 Light Assault Cannon = 3 Heavy Assault Cannon =4 Anti-Corvette Cannon = 10 Anti-Frigate Cannon = 30 Spinal Cannon = 40

[Graknorke]

The best way i can see to do classifications is by guns and layout.
each gun is woth a set number of points

Anti-Personnel Cannon = 1 Light Assault Cannon = 3 Heavy Assault Cannon =4 Anti-Corvette Cannon = 10 Anti-Frigate Cannon = 30 Spinal Cannon = 40

But any of those guns could be mounted spinally. Unless anything with a spinal gun mounted on it should be classed higher, which would be unfortunate for fighters.

[GlyphGryph]

He's probably referring to the mod specific that uses that name.

Though it's a stupid name.

Anyways, I'mma finally going to be able to play this soon, and I have every intent of recreating all the Star Control ships. ^_^

Pkunk-ship ho! DEATH BLOSSOM!

[Korbac]

Girlinhat, if you look at my Gnat and Wasp fighters, they have full turning ranges with just four engines.

... They are a bit hard to steer, however.

Also, I've realised. Camera's may seem useful, but a lucky / targeted hit or two and you're flying blind. My next ship will use...

*GASP*

...Windows.

[Girlinhat]

I imagine a particularly hard-assed ship may not have any viewports at all, but rely purely on the HUD icons to find its target.  If we're able to launch sticky flares to make 'short-lived portable beacons' then that'd be an even better way to paint a target for someone flying blind.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Anyways, I'mma finally going to be able to play this soon, and I have every intent of recreating all the Star Control ships. ^_^

Pkunk-ship ho! DEATH BLOSSOM!

...

I too had the exact same idea. Now if you excuse me, I'm definitively not getting a head-start on construction.

[Funk]

i was referring to DarthNoxtItemset.

cameras are a risk you have to take if you want a good view, still a floating camera like you can see on my frigate forces any attacker to target just the camera.
and it give a great view you can see the engines working.

flying blind is not to bad it you have the time to take it slow.

im thinking of doing a fast attack craft

[Korbac]

I imagine a particularly hard-assed ship may not have any viewports at all, but rely purely on the HUD icons to find its target.  If we're able to launch sticky flares to make 'short-lived portable beacons' then that'd be an even better way to paint a target for someone flying blind.

If we could 'tag' beacons as friend, foe or neutral, then we'd have an awesome system.

Just tag all your bros as friends before combat, and tag anything moving at speed as an enemy. Then use HUD.

Only problem is you're unable to see damage on the enemy ships, i.e. when it's useful to change targets.

Personally I think windows are going to be more useful - yes they are much easier to damage than a bit of hull, but they leave you far less vulnerable in the long run than if you armour your hull and get your camera shot out (flying blind.)

A word of advice to all newbies as well - get the pack someone posted a page or two back, it makes all recipes free.

[Girlinhat]

Free stuff doesn't give you an idea of how difficult a design will be to use.  Only once you've mined it up do you understand that engines are irritatingly expensive and pomium is an expensive armor plating.

[Nelia Hawk]

exactly... i am actually happy this is more "playable" already with enemies, mining and all...

where scumbleship has more... ship material/inside equipment details, but no realy "playing" and just "building".

[Korbac]

Free stuff doesn't give you an idea of how difficult a design will be to use.  Only once you've mined it up do you understand that engines are irritatingly expensive and pomium is an expensive armor plating.

This is true, but if you use a bit of... well... common sense, you can pace yourself. You can see how expensive a ship is going to be just by looking at it, usually.

If my computer didn't lag and I could get a Redstonium Drill then maybe I'd consider doing things legit.

[Girlinhat]

In theory, but then you always see the Minecraft builds with solid gold block walls and it's like 'yeah, that's pretty, but come on man...'

Corneroids is going to be a game of real vehicle development.  Anyone can produce a massively powerful ship.  The key is, can you do so in a way that's economic and doesn't take you 20 days to complete?  Can anyone else build a similar ship or will this consume all the resources of 20 roids?  Prototyping and mass producing will be two very different things.