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[Toriad]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How's this for a clamp design?

[SuicideJunkie]

Note that the clamp hexes are red, meaning not connected; the clamp will fall off.

A class 2 clamp like that requires a class 3 hull to be connected.
A class 1 clamp only needs class 2 hull.

You can fairly easily shift the capacitors to make room, swap the central hull 1 segments for a hull 2 segment, and then swap the clamp 2 for a clamp 1.  That will make the design functional.
Edit:
Oops, not quite.  You also need a cockpit or a computer or something to give you at least 1 pt of CnC.
The yellow background hints that your design will be debris.  Once you have CnC the background turns blue.
The "CnC 0 Actions per turn" just below your cost shows how much you get.  That text will be yellow if you don't have enough to fire all the guns and navigate at the same time, and yellow if you can do all that.

I would also recommend using strafe retros rather than straight-forward retros.  When you're holding larger chunks of debris, the retros will tend to get blocked.

With those two gyros, you've got overkill turn rate for a normal ship (2.01 CW + 2.01 CCW is enough to face any direction at any time).  However, when you're holding something heavy, you'll be very glad for the extra turn power

[Toriad]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Second design, added computer CnC and a type 2 hull. I'm not sure which engines are considered strafer engines, so I added some thrusters, albeit perhaps one too many 

Also, how do I save my designs? Or does it save them automatically? So far,, I've been hitting F2 and naming them, but I can't seem to find the files in the THANCS folder..

[SuicideJunkie]

Strafe engines would be ones pointed sideways (NE/SE, /NW/SW) rather than straight forward or back (N/S), as they allow you to strafe sideways.

Shift-'S' saves the design.  (L for loading)  (That's listed in the controls list when you press F1)

I should go and make F3/F4 smart and have them detect design mode so you can use the same keys to save both ways.

[Toriad]

I see, I've modified the design, now with strafe engines and all! Braking seems a bit.. slow but if it's enough i'll leave it as it is, if not i'll add more engines

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, what's the difference between a lvl 1 clamp and it's larger lvl 2 brother? Does it allow for higher speed harvesting? Clamping larger objects?

[Draxis]

Clamping larger objects, and being able to grab Level 2 structures.

[SuicideJunkie]

The class 2 clamp has 7 tiles of grab instead of just the one.  And it can hold class 2 hull components in the clamp rather than just one.

I should note that you have used a hinge 2 rather than a simple hull 2 ring...
That's more expensive, and there is no room to actually bend the hinge.
Also, due to that hinge's extra size, two of the four retro thrusters have a blocked line of sight; that's why your retro thrust is showing 49% efficiency.  If you swap the hinge2 for a hull2, you'll get twice as much retro thrust, and yellow/0.66 accel instead of orange/0.34.


Minor design efficiency tips:
You might also try moving the gyro to inside the hull2 where the computer is now, and rearranging the rest to balance the mass.
Getting the heavy stuff closer to the centre of mass (that white hexagon target wireframe thing pointing just below and left of your computer) improves the turn rate.
Moving the two retro strafe drives up/inwards one tile will align them better with the centre of mass and narrow your ship's profile by one more tile.  That will be more than enough to bump your acceleration from orange/0.49 up to yellow/0.6 or so.
Orange means you have to wait one turn after accelerating every time.  Yellow means you can do two accelerations in a row before having to wait.

[Draxis]

Sorry for the long delay; for some reason the game status doesn't go to green when I upload my plr, so I didn't notice the turn change and assumed we were still waiting on someone else.  Turn uploaded.

[SuicideJunkie]

Toriad; That ship of yours is pretty low on energy.  Did you start with the capacitor disabled or something?
You'll definitely want to dock it in the drydock and get it recharged from the base's power before sending it out again.

Draxis; I think that might be because you have the option of uploading an admin PLR still, and that particular PLR hasn't been received yet.

[SuicideJunkie]

Sorry for the lag in uploading my second turn.  I had the upload dialog open, and then my battery hit 0%.

[Toriad]

That's alright! On another note, it seems like I've accidentally disassembled my ship!

[SuicideJunkie]

Grabbing it by the gyro with a clamp will do that.

• gyros aren't a structural component, so when the base is holding the gyro, the gyro in turn can't hold the rest of the scavenger drone, and thus it falls apart.  If you want to use a clamp, it is best to design your fighters with a docking prong which is structurally safe to grab.
• the small clamp you used can only secure class 1 hull bits, and your scavenger has class 2 hull bits, so something was guaranteed to fall off even with a prong.
• any parts of the object being docked that collide with components of the base or scavenger doing the docking will fall off.  Anything that blinks red in the dockview will get knocked loose, but stuff that would get been pinched off by the fingers of the clamp extending will also get knocked loose.  ***This is handy for chomping chunks off the debris until it is in conveniently sized pieces.
• the drydock is your friend in this situation since it grabs up to class 3 everywhere inside the ring and you don't have to worry about breaking things.

[SuicideJunkie]

Sorry for the long delay; for some reason the game status doesn't go to green when I upload my plr, so I didn't notice the turn change and assumed we were still waiting on someone else.  Turn uploaded.

Pokety poke, same deal.

[Draxis]

This time I actually just forgot; turn uploaded.

That ship of yours is pretty clever.

[SuicideJunkie]

No need to get fancy when hauling stuff in straight lines.

The other trick was building the capacitor first and charging from the base reactor while waiting for cash to build the rest of it.