how do you come up with a cool ship design

[BREAD]

i have been just copying other peoples crap and i am mad i want to build somthing origanial and i just cant!! how do you people out there besign stuff like awesome big ships and fighters?

[Maus]

it is increadbly hard to make a ship that looks good and functions well on space engineers but the key is percavience i have 727 hours on space engineers and only 2 ships im pround of so no matter how long it takes stick with it

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

If asthetics is your primary goal make the hull first but plan whats going inside the ship. So if im building a survival ship biggest item is refinery.....so il start by placiing a few blocks. Then il tac a refinery on just for scale so i always see it and get the size correct.

While making the hull think about thruster placement, nothing worse than getting a nice hull shape and having no room for thrusters. So you should be constantly thinking about that while making it.

I never draw or scetch, just start building with a rough idea in my head and see where it goes. Sometimes it works sometimes not, alll good fun though.

Try to learn all the trasitions with 2x1 corner slopes and the 1x1 corner slopes. Lests you get really smooth flowing hull shapes.I got a few in my workshop that use these transitions lots, and i was really happy with the hulls, check out the Hood, Nomad and Pioneer if ya want some examples. Good luck :)

[Too Tall]

Don't be lazy. If you're lazy and you want to slap a ship together in an hour then it will look like junk. Expect to invest 60 hours on a large ship.

[Dracco0085]

Why are you necroing a thread that's been dead for a year?

[Poopenfartenfuhrer Shaky]

Originally posted by Dracco0085:

Why are you necroing a thread that's been dead for a year?

Because its fun and still relevant to others.




I just improvise. I made a ship once, started out with mods, then I rebuild the interior, made a hangar. After the addition of oxygen I made an airlock and used programmed blocks to lockdown breached rooms. Example of improvising. The first design looked like a penis and I only noticed when I began making the interior. In total from a huge space penis to an actual ship cost me around a month of 10 minutes building/planning every day for it. Even now it still looks meh.


Currently I´m working on a dreadnaught (aka huge ship, matching the size of a carrier with the function of a battleship(My standards at least, everything that is longer than 700m makes my pc melt)). I began with copying a ship from the lost legion faction in Borderlands, it was pretty hard to make because the best images were pretty bad of it and the only time to actually see one up close is when it is a pile of rubble.
So I began making the ship exterior, I noticed that theres too much room inside. I can't decorate everything on the inside and I'm not going to make a carrier, as that wasn't my idea in the first place. That's why I choose to learn to make a gravity cannon. As the ship length, height and width is around 520x60x60. Giving me the chance to make a 250x50x50 gravity cannon.

Of course, I know that the final version will take time, lots of time. I'm guessing it'll take me around half a year (10-15 mins per day) at least to make the final version on my own.

[wotan111]

"how do you come up with a cool ship design" hmm for me its just luck

my mantra is "form AFTER function"

[Bad Humour]

Well, for me, I have an idea of a concept lets say a torpedo frigate which fires player made missiles.

Then I come up with the specifications, which I write down as followed:

-Has to have 4 player made missiles
-Has to have onboard defenses to defend the missiles from fighters (therefore missile turrets are not necessary)
-Needs crew quarters
-Must be able to go without refeuling for 30 hours
etc

Then I think of an apropriate aesthetic for the ship or a core idea,
for example: As terrifying aesthetically as it is dangerous

Then I sketch the design out and draw inspiration from things: like a rib cage for example or a Jet Fighter or whales, but dont forget the function it has and how the shape of the ship will benefit its purpose, which will also guide you in how it will look.

Then just start.

I know other people have different ways of doing it, it depends what suits you the most. I also have 5 rules I use in all of my builds I post online:

-Aesthetics must reflect the function of the ship
-Must be usable and viable in survival
-Must be as user friendly as possible
-Has to be innovative in some shape or form in its purpose (hardest one to achieve)
-Must perform its purpose well.

These always help me design and create something but yours could be different.

[@MidLifeGamingGB]

Last large ship I built was just a huge refinery so it literally started with a landing gear and a line of refineries one side connected to a line of cargo containers that were sandwiched with another line of refineries. Added efficiency modules and everything else was built round them. Very little armour except the bridge. Not much need for conveyor tubes either. I never really built just from components before. Turned out well though. Was a nice addition to my asteroid eating ship. When connected together they would spin round and go crazy!

[WILDCATreactor]

My Lame Process

What does it do?
Which Blocks do that?
Which way do those block need to point to do that?
Which blocks help the ship use its primary tool?
Where does the cockpit go?
How does the ship refuel/rearm/unload cargo?

Does it need armor?
How much?
Should it be thicker or made out of heavy blocks?

Between each step ask yourself: how does this part look? does it do the job? am I having fun?

Right now I'm just working on a line of ships that use a docking mechanism based on paired/tripled connectors. I was inspired after seeing a demo of some planteray airship that held a bunch of microfighters, the author didn't leave enough space for the minifighters to disembark/reembark without major damage so I decided to do a reimagining and much bigger. Now it's turning into a whole orbit-to-ground-to-orbit fleet of small ships and I plan on making a fleet transport/superdreadnought asset based on the new Basestar designs from the BSG Reboot.

[Zulioner]

to be honest with ya making a good ship that is capable for survival is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HARD YOU WILL SPEND ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HOURS THINKING OF PROPER DESIGN. Also if you put any scripts on the ship - future uptades will completely ruin them. Builiding in survival mode is actually kinda weird... i want the ship to be 100% practical but it suprisingly looks good at the end.

[2000]

Think way outside the box - like this guy does XD


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=600589113