Tips for building my first battlecruiser

[Jappards200]

I am currently making preperations for building a battle cruiser, but I would like to know the following things:
How much time does it take for 1 person to build it?
How big are they usually(If I would multiplayer with a battlecruiser, I would rather not go too small)?
How much heavy armor is reccomended?

[SievertChaser]

I'll be listening in carefully, but here's the first three pieces of advice:

1. Spaced armour, i.e. purely decorative crew compartments, will improve your survivability far more than a simple heavy armour plate.
   
2. Have a damage control plan, including batteries and pre-arranged sequential power-down of non-essential systems.
   
3. Be prepared for improvized attack methods, namely gravity "torpedoes" and "nukes".

Last but not least: the Youtube series CapShip Combat 101:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icN8iS4ujWA&index=16&list=PLZX40gHfVdJeGrg-YPlFa7FizQ6lzR58X

P.S. Damn, I haven't yet mastered Steam's coding.

[123]

This is from my XP


Only 2 way to go.

High heel or Solider boot.

I see you say pvp so we go solider boot.

1. Max out on the server rule. My server is 10 turret max. Did not say anything about rocket luncher so its 10 in the front.

2. Gravity drive is a must atleast for front and back.

3. I only use 15 small reactor 5 in front 5 in mid 5 in back. (time when1/3 whole back of the ship is gone I still able to run away with turn off all thruster and only use gravity drive.

4. Gyro. If you battle ship cant turn like a small fighter you balltle ship is fail in my opinion.

5. If you can walk more then 2 step and still get to no where you ship is fail.
Open the duble door control seat is in the front. Two passenger seat on left and right. Look up is cargo look down is medbay.

Any 1*1*1 empty space is a fail of mass and ratio.

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

Originally posted by Jappards200:

I am currently making preperations for building a battle cruiser, but I would like to know the following things:
How much time does it take for 1 person to build it?
How big are they usually(If I would multiplayer with a battlecruiser, I would rather not go too small)?
How much heavy armor is reccomended?

1st: depends on if you do it in survival mode (very long) or creative mode (ship size).
Expect to spend 2 - 3 days at minimum.

2nd: size does matter, but don't make it too big. The bigger such ship becomes the more gyros do you need and even then the turn rate is rather slow. That also applies on thrusters: more ship, more thrusters, less flexible etc.

3rd: do use heavy armor only at important places, like your main reactor room for instance. I also use heavy armor as "basic grid" for my ships, which is not needed, but gives some nice extra touch.

Also I usually try to have two layers of light armor with space (1 "empty" block) between the outer and the inner layer. Usually that's enough to survive a full volley of missiles, but once the outer armor is destroyed, next full volley will get through and may damage internal structures.

4th: try to create "sections" and protect them by "bulk heads" of heavy armor. Internal walls don't soak up any damage and get destroyed quite easily. If the enemy manages to destroy a part of your ship, he'll try to push through that hull breach. Internal armor may soak up more damage and may protect more important parts of your ship.

5th: place less important sections at the ships outer sections (like crew quarters). Vital sections should be alway places in center of the ship. Also try to plan secondary systems, like a second bridge or a second reactor room in case one gets destroyed.

6th: and if everything fails install a fail-proof self destruction system which should destroy most important systems. Best idea is to destroy your gyroscopes and the bridge - without both the ship is basically crippled.

[a420Zombie]

All good advice, but in the end, the most important thing is to do what is fun for you. Ive spent months building giant ship sections and taking screenshots, and thats fun for me. I havent touched creative since we had nothing but a drill and stone asteroids, and i love it. So build quick in creative or spend months in survival, just have fun.

[Jappards200]

Thanks guys, I already started building and designing it, I also uploaded the small ships I am going to use on it to the Steam Workshop.

[SievertChaser]

I highly doubt that a battlecruiser should have any hangars or an embedded craft complement. Leave the fighters to the thin-skinned support vessels!

[Jappards200]

What is the advantage of making battlecruisers without hangars or embedded craft complement? Also: There are quite some battlecruisers out there with hangars in space engineers. There also some ships in sciencefiction series and games, for example: the prometheus(build by humans) in stargate has hangars on the sides:
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/1/1e/PrometheusSPace11.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081120062349

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

You still can give your battle cruiser an advanced point defense system (lots of gatling guns) doing the same job as your fighters. But if you really need a hangar, make it small enough so it won't eat valuable place of your ship you could use for different stuff. You won't need bombers and fighters, but you may need some small collector & miner & repair vehicle.

[SievertChaser]

Don't cite sci-fi ships, they are oftn examples of bad practices.

A hangar is a considerable vulnerability. To prevent the mass of fighters from causing torque, a hangar has to go through the centreline of the ship. BC304-style or BSG-styla hangars would make your ship difficult to fly straight when occupied.

Do you really want to have a hole through your battlecruiser?

Smaller internal volume = lower mass per given thickness of armour. Think tanks, not sci-fi ships.

[Daemn]

hanger on this typ of craft suld "only" be for trancport/resuply in my opinion.

[[Kartell]Captain Data]

Well, I bet if we had a R/L BSG the protocol would demand to launch fighters and bombers in a way the ship's mass center remains unchanged. So no "port/starboard launches" only.

Still: a large fighter hangar is a vulnerability you don't want to put in your battleship. You don't create 1.5 - 2km long starships after all, you'll rarely create one that tops 500m. And if you want to place a fighter hangar in that ship, even if it's just for one wing (6 fighters), you'll have to spend at least 100m of that ship for your hangars. That may even include the hangar opening. Needless to say everyone is going after that opening, throwing missiles en massé in that huge gapping hole, destroying internal systems and cutting your battleship in two.

A small supply hangar is okay.


------------

This is "just" a corvette and not finished yet (forward section is missing):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=379074407

Do you see any place for a hangar? That ship has three decks, one main deck spanning the entire ship and two smaller decks for support, bridge etc. I'm going to place a very small supply hangar in the forward section, but that's it.

[Jappards200]

I'm already not building hangars, I will leave that to the support ships, there also won't be an supply hangar. I am going to use connectors to resupply with a door on top.

Also: my progress at the moment:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380601776
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380601321
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380600626
Do note: Everything is subject to change

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Kiss My Rim:

If you battle ship cant turn like a small fighter you balltle ship is fail in my opinion.

Unrealistic expectations much? You're expecting an oil tanker to turn like an Ariel Atom.

[76561198169294552]

Those thruster banks/ control stations sticking out to the side look like they could be easily targeted and destroyed. If you could lower those closer to the hull, they would be safer and there would be less chance of them snapping off and becoming debris to tear the back half of your ship apart.

[SievertChaser]

It is completely acceptable to build a Borg Cube. Anything convex is by definition more easily armoured because its surface area per internal volume ratio is low.

Translation: do not build thruster sponsons.