How I design ships in AVORION (1.38)

1. Scope of design is PVE not PVP.
2. How to design by SPEC and have a good result.
3. I am not an ARTIST so my ships do not look like in the movies.
4. This is my way, as the title indicates, yours may differ.
5. My way in playing the game defintely influences the way of designing.
6. Constructive feedback is always welcome, I guess there is still a lot to learn.

Don't consider this an EXPERT guide and unfortunately steam does not have a spelling check (or I haven't found it yet).

21st Feb 2021 (Black Market DLC not included)

This Guide was done for 1.X, so some things might have changed in 2.X.

New guide for freighters in the making!

READ ME, FIRST!

Before doing anything, you should, definitely read the AVORION Wiki.
Of course not at once, but step by step, ideally in parallel to my writings here.

AVORION WIKI[avorion.gamepedia.com]

What did I learn from it?
Well, avorion is considered an EXPERT game.

This is a pro and a con.

CONs

A con is definetly if you don't educate yourself it will have consquences, that,
your design will not met your expectations.

This can result in the following:

• overpriced design
  
• uncessary high material level
  
• poor flight mechanics
  
• poor power supply
  
• poor gameplay

Also to achieve YOUR GOAL's you have to WORK hard and long!

PROs

You can custom design SHIPs and tune them towards your needs and gameplay.

YOU can determine:

• availability by price
  
• availability by material
  
• operating cost
  
• overall performance
  
• design

What to do NEXT?

Prior designing you need experience, that, I got for my part by playing the game.
If, you haven't already, you should do this first.

How to play when you haven't yet designed a ship?

Download it from the workshop, seek a collection which attracts you and try it!

Mine are:

• Thakard IRONWORKs and Thakard TECHNOLOGY with tested and proven designs in regards to gameplay
  
• The RepubIic of Thule which is a more recent faction

IRONWORKS: FALCON


Republic of Thule: Liberator

My Experience

I don't know how many playthroughs I made until now, but it should be at least 6.

My game time counts more than 2000 hours.

Other relevant Guides

In order to keep this guide to the original intent, which was a general guide,
I have moved the detailed ship specfic aspects to another guides:

• Freighter Design
  
• How I build the Dragon

Fleet Design: Build Strategy

When I design a faction, which sizes and roles do I need?

I for my part have come to the conclusion that you need the following 7 types and sizes, as shown in the table blow. Everything else is a bonus.

"Top Material Level" defines when you are in this region you can have this kind of ship, of course material upgrades are required later to stay competitive.

Role	Slot Size	Top Material Level	Explanation
Basic Miner	2	TITANIUM	get the game going by mining
Explorer	3	TITANIUM	scouting, asteriod capturing, advancing to the core
R-Mining Ship	3-6	TITANIUM	with cargo, higher efficiency mining
1st Combat Ship	5	TITANIUM	torpedoes are the easiest way to get damage, as good turrets are hard to find early, no shields needed, if armoured
2nd Combat Ship	7	NAONITE	torpedoes, maybe some cargo, shields. A slot-7 ship can outfight most oponents in the outer regions
R-Mining Carrier	9	XANION	even higher efficiency mining, with cargo & hangar, for outer and inner core
3rd and Final Combat Ship	15	XANION	inner core ship, cargo, hangar, torpedoes

Fleet Design: Cost, Material Level & Ship Size

Economy is a important part of AVORION.

To build a ship you need two things:

• Money
  
• Ressources

So your designs should consider these if you don't wan't to interupt your game flow, because you have to wait for either cash and/or material.

Also consider that you need money to outfit your ship with:

• crew
  
• upgrades
  
• turrets

Upgrades and turrets usually cost way more than the ship

So, what are the right sizes and costs related?

Maximum recommended ship size ein slots	Material Region	Credits
1-5	IRON & TITAN	-200,000.0
5-7	NAONIT & TRINIUM	-3.000.000,0
8-10	XANION	-35,000,000.0
11-15	OGONIT & AVORION	~100,000,000,0

Design Philosophy

This section basically explains which blocks I like and use frequently and why.
I also explain my design approach.

Minium Material Design - Accessability

I design each component in the minium availible material level.
So, I keep generators at a titanium level and armour even at iron level.
I wan't ships to be accessable as early as possible, even at the cost of relative performance.
Performance is not really lost, since, the ship is availible earlier.
Upgrading to the materials which has the player availible in abundance is easy, even for a non-builder player.

Components might be oversized in better materials, but, I have not yet experienced it as a drawback in the game.
In detail, the generator maybe generating way to much energy and you fly around "dead mass".
Yet, this is a real life effect.

Maybe, I include already higher material level ships in the workshop later, but, this will be not an addition to the minium material level for game convenience.

Power

Power is really essential to me, since, I dont wan't to waste a valubale upgrade slot for the generator upgrade.
Thus, if the design permits it, I aim for a max. base power consumption of 50%.

Hull

• Milliary ships are build in moste cases completly build out of armour
  
• Civilian ships use the normal hull with the edges, possible contact areas, armoured to minimize collision damage

Armour defintely reduces accelleration, but you can always boost to crusing speed, so I don't consider it a major drawback.

Engine

The size of the engine determines, accelleration and top "cruising" speed, as well as the "maximum" speed by boosting.

When you exceed a certain threshold of the engine size you will need additional Crew[avorion.gamepedia.com], Engineers.

So, it can make sense to have a smaller engine to safe crew and their salery and get the required cruising speed by having sufficient energy reserves either by storage (battery) or production (generator).
Also ships mostly flown by bots do not need big engines.
The same applies to ships which ususally move slowly, so pure mining ships.

Control (Thrusters, Dampeners & Gyros)

Usually, I prefer thrusters[avorion.gamepedia.com] over dampners and gyros, as they are more versitile.

Thrusters[avorion.gamepedia.com] can provide rotation and translation (movement), the later comes in very handy when docking.

Gyros[avorion.gamepedia.com] consume a lot of energy and you want to keep the base consumption of your ship as low as possible.

Same applies to dampeners[avorion.gamepedia.com].

However, when your ship exceeds a certain size and you want a certain performance you defintely need them.

My credo is:

Use thrusters first and fix the rest with gyros & dampeners

When you place thrusters and you are not certain whether uni oder directional, use the following guidline. The further away from the center of mass the more you should consider directional thursters, as they are more efficient.


For thruster layout I think there are 2 basic configurations:

• triangle (Arrow)
  
• bar (Raven)

Arrow


Raven


And to be complete our "pirate ship"

"Feel good" Agility

• pitch and yaw should be same
  
• roll should have a value equal or greater the pitch and yaw rate

DRIFT

AVOID excessive drift in any case!

Nothing, feels more sick than looking one way and moving the other in circles.

How can this be avioded?

• use enough thruster in up and down and sideward direction
  
• use inertia dampernes as last resort, they work in all directions

Unfortunately, the is no sideward acceleration value in the builder, so you have to flight test yourself.

Flight Test

Last and most important: fly every ship yourself to check whether it does the things you desired and whether it feels good.

Flight Mechanic's

For all the mechanically educated players:
Real life physics apply in this game!

Top Speed, Accelleration, Decelleration and Drift

• the heavier your ships is, the longer it will take to reach top speed
  
• the heavier your ships is, the longer it will stay in the motion it was, in any direction
  Sideward movement, "drift", can be pretty anoying. Meaning you look one way and move the other.
  
• the bigger the engine, the greater top speed and acelleration
  
• decelleration, "braking", can be achived through thrusters and inertia dampers

Rotational Movement

• rotation can be influenced by thrusters or gyros
  
• the further away a thruster from the center of mass, is the more effect it has
  So, a thruster far away from the center of mass can be smaller, since it is more efficient
  
• for the gyro the position has to be as closest to the rotational axis as possible, but the formula is not given

Block properties can be found in the WIKI:

Block properties[avorion.gamepedia.com]

Power: Introduction (WIP)

In cases you are still living at your parents place and they usually complain, that, you don't learn anything usefull by playing computer games, you may refer to this section to prove them wrong.

Power: Generation (WIP)

Generation is done by either solar panels or generator blocks.
For this example I use a 1x1x1 titanium generator block (the red block).
This block generates 82.5 MW or 0.0825 GW.
(subtract 500 MW base generator of every ship).

Power: Demand (WIP)

Basically you have:

• ship base power consumption
  
• ship upgrade power consumption
  
• boosting power consumption
  
• hyperdrive rechargeing

In order to make a good design you should be aware what the values are for the bullets above.
The first two to can be easily read or calculated. The latter have to be measured, at least to my knowledge.

So this is the base power demand of my example.



For the hyperdrive rechargeing you can simply make a jump and take the reading in the menu.
Since it is a constant value, its very easy.


Picture needs correction see formula below

So hyperdrive recharging is approximately 3.0 GW.
Hyperdrive cooldown is 53.1 sec.
During this cooldown time the hyperdrive has the increase energy demand.

1 Joule = 1 Watt * sec.

Accordingly, total energy consumption is ~160 GJ.
(GJ is the unit of the Battery)

To measure energy demand of boosting you have to hit the throttle and monitor the time dependend non-linaer power demand (switch to building menu) and the game is paused.

As can be seen the earlier picture on the left has a significantly lower consumption than the later picture on the right, at the same speed.




Picture needs rework

Definitions

• The current value of energy in GW demand is a point on the line.
  
• The area below the line is the energy consumed in GJ.
  
• The triangle is the engergy demand increase by boosting.

Power consumption while boosting seems to be the follwing:



So, if your engine has a base power demand of 1 GW after 1 sec boost it would consume 5 GW

Time to battery use by boosting seems to be the follwing:



So, if your engine has a base power demand of 1 GW and you would have an idle power excess of 5 GW you could boost for 1 secs until the battery would have to be used

Maximum time of battery use while boosting seems to be the follwing:



So, if your engine has a base power demand of 1 GW and you would have an battery of 20 GJ you could use it for 6 secs.

If, the above stated is true, that the engine boost consumption is dependent on the base consumption of the engine, the following quote from the wiki would gain a little bit more of importance.

Operational Engines have a base power up keep of 400 MW per unit of volume, which is decreased by 5% for each more advanced material they're made out of.

An Avorion engine consumes 30% less energy than a iron engine, which would result in a 20% longer boost time with the same battery.

Engine Material	Engine Base Demand	Battery Usage Time
IRON	100%	100%
TITANIUM	95%	103%
NAONITE	90%	105%
TRINIUM	85%	108%
XANION	80%	112%
OGONIT	75%	115%
AVORION	70%	120%

Engine power recovery time seems to be equals boost time. So, even the engine does not provide thrust anymore it consumes energy. This energy consumption begins with maxium power demand of last boost and decreases linearly.

Power: Storage (WIP)

Storage is acomplished by the battery (blue), 1x1x1.
The blue battery has a capacity of 0.82 GJ.
So fully charged it could provide the same amount of energy like the generator for 10 secs or 10 times the energy of the generator.

Power: Generation versus Storage (WIP)

Generation vs Storage

Lets take hyperdrive recharing as a example. A fully charged battery would have to have a volume of 195 blocks which is a cube with 6 edge length.
(160 GJ / 0.82 GJ = 195 and the 3rd root of 195 is 5.8)

In order to recharge the hyperdrive you would need a generator of 36.
The equals to a cube of 3.3 edge length.
(3.0 GW / 0.0825 GW = 36 and the 3rd root of 36 is 3.3)



As it can be seen the generator has double the cost of the battery and the battery nearly has double the material requirement of the battery.



A 1x1x1 generator cube costs 600 credits and 50 titanium.
Or 880 credits.

A 1x1x1 battery cube costs 53 credits and 18 titanium.
Or 154 credits.

So, with a titan value of 5.6 credits the following prices are reached:

• 31,680.0 credits for the generator (36 volume)
  
• 30,030.0 credits for the battery (195 volume)

So the battery is 1650 credits cheaper than the generator.

Which could buy a generator of 1,875 volume which equals to 0.155 GW production (0.0825 GW * 4.9). This generator would charge the battery in 1032 secs (160 GJ / 0.155 GW) or 17 minutes.

Not really convincing so far?
More ship volume required and loading is also pretty awful.

No idea where is is heading just investigating while writing... but I still think batteries have their usefulness in short peak power.

Also mistakes may be still be included

Target Values

This section lists some base numbers which I found usefull in terms of ship design.

I only PVE, thus, I am not aware what the latest PVP trick is.
Yet, fell free to comment, I am curious.

Size does influence performance in Avorion:

• Possible engine thrust gets better with ship size
  
• Possible agility gets worse with ship size

Of course material level does influence performance as well.

Target Values: Crew

Early on, your relations with factions might not be so good that you get access to higher qualified personel, such as commanders and generals.
Accordingly, you should avoid needing those.

Crew Type	Need	Maximum untrained crew without commander	Total crew without commander
Crewmen	as required	119	132
Sergeants	1 sergeant for every 10 employed crewmen	11
Lieutenants	1 lieutenant for every 4 sergeants	2
Commanders	1 commander for every 3 lieutenants
Generals	1 general for every 3 commanders

Target Values: Cargo Space

Here you should distinguish between mining and freighter ships.
Miners need less space than freighters.

Why is that so?

Many goods you can produce yourself early on take up allot of volume in comparison to their value, thus to make a profit you have to haul a lot of them.
Freighter cargo hold values are not that fixed as miner cargo holds, since, here you have more variation.

Mining takes a lot of time and a big cargo hold does delay the return of your efforts even more.
Refining is also correlating to the ammount of material you are processing, so oversized cargo holds do not make sense.

For mining the cargo hold values are also connected to the mining techniques such as:

• R-Lasers (the reason you need a cargo hold)
  
• R-Laser material level (the better in comparison to the rock the more you can mine in a given time)
  
• R-Mining Fighters (takes mining to the next level, since you can mine asteroid fields quicker due to serveral reasons)

All values below suggestions:

game stage	miner cargo space	freighter cargo space
EARLY	0-2.000	500-2000
MID	5.000+	5.000-10.000
END	-20.000	25.000+

Target Values: Hangar Size

Here you should know that the maximum ammount of fighters any craft can base is 120.

Accordingly, with a maximum fighter size of 8, the maximum hangar space you need on any craft, ship or station is 960.

In additon, for stations, only 20 Cargo shuttles can be used to ferry goods.
The rest will be simply in the hangar doing nothing.
So, if you want cargo only the maximum usefull size for a cargo shuttle bay is 160.



The following needs confirmation:

I have been told fighters can be based by total hangar space, regardless whether all blocks have an exit.
All fighters can exit the ship if at least 1 hangar has an unblocked exit path.

Target Values: Upgrade Power Consumption

The following types of upgrades exist:

• Poor (Gray)
  
• Common (White)
  
• Uncommon (Green in colour)
  
• Rare (Blue in colour)
  
• Exceptional (Orange/Yellow in colour)
  
• Exotic (Red in colour)
  
• Legendary (Purple in colour)

The basic dependency is the higher the tier of the upgrade the more effective it is (example genrator upgrade) or the more energy it consumes.

Tier	Power Consumption
Poor (Gray)	up to 0.75 GW
Common (White)	up to 0.90 GW
Uncommon (Green in colour)	up to 1.0 GW
Rare (Blue in colour)	up to 1.5 GW
Exceptional (Orange/Yellow in colour)	up to 3.0 GW
Exotic (Red in colour)	up to 3.0 GW
Legendary (Purple in colour)	up to 4.0 GW

Of course these are max values and depending on the type of upgrade it hugely varies.
So, these consumption values may be halved for power design.

As a baseline I would sugest the following consumption values by ship type:

Ship size in slots	Starting tier of upgrade	Power consumption of upgrade per slot	Total estimated power of upgrades
1-2	Common (White)	0.5 GW	0.5-1.0 GW
3-5	Uncommon (Green in colour)	0.5 GW	1.5-3.0 GW
6-7	Rare (Blue in colour)	0.75 GW	4.5-5.25 GW
8-10	Exceptional (Orange/Yellow in colour)	1.5 GW	12.0-15.0 GW
11-15	Exotic (Red in colour)	1.5 GW	15.0- 22.5 GW

Target Values: Battery

Here I would suggest at least 30 sec boost capability.
Remember also that a hyperdrive may also suck a small battery quickly empty.

Target Values: Agility

In genral, I classify the follwing turn rates (Pitch, Yaw and Roll) the following:

Agility	P-/Y-/R-Rate	Example
excellent	1.0	Lightning
very good	0.75	Drone
good	0.5	Yoshida by Spooky
satisfactory	0.3	Mars
sufficient	0.15	Winghead

Here of course one should destinguish between millitary and civilian what is good and bad.

Target Values: Acc- & Decelleration

I think millitary ships should have at least 50% decelleration of the accelleration.
Unfortunately, there is no sideward value in the builder.

For civilian ships the deccellaration should be doubble, yes, doubble of the accelleration.
The accelleration does not have to be big, that is the exlanation.

Accelleration while Boosting

Seems to be tripple the normal accelleration.

Target Values: Crusing Speed & Top Speed

Accoring to the wiki Engine Block [avorion.gamepedia.com] the maximum velocity of engine volume is:

Max Velocity = 150 * LN(Volume + 5) - 166.4 of the engine block volume.

What this means is depicted below.




So a top speed of in access of 1000 m/s can be pretty costly.
Remember the Slots per volume as shown below.



So if you would always dedicate 10% of the ships volume to the engines you would reach the following cruising speeds.
14 Points, Slot is Point number +1, last dot is the 15 Slot.



As value

slot numbers of ship	cruising speed [m/s]
2	179
3	267
4	375
5	499
6	632
7	767
8	903
9	972
10	1041
11	1089
12	1136
13	1178
14	1226
15	1274

These numbers should help you in specifying the right engine size for your ship.

Top Speed

Is just 4 times the cruising speed.

Maximum Sustainable Boost Speed

Target Values: Docking

I have to find an appropriate designation, here I want to give some values for movement perpendicular to the forward axis.
Unfortunately, the builder does not give any values here

Target Values: Torpedoes

Ammount of Launchers

You dont loose anything for having more launchers.

Furthermore, launchers are free storage, see further below.

You should have at least:

Game Stage	Ammount of Launchers
EARLY	2-4
MID	4-6
END	8-10

Ammount of storage per launcher

You should habe at least 30 torpedo storage for each launcher in the late game.

Material of launcher

The higher the material level is the bigger the "ready tube" is.
But consider you need to distribute the torpedoes evenly to get a good volley.

24 torpedoes can be/are loaded in 4 IRON launch tubes.
So you can fire 4 torpedoes at once.

24 torpedoes can be/are loaded in 1 Avorion launch tube.
So you can fire only 1 torpedo once a time.

material	additional storage slots
Iron	5
titanuim	8
naonite	11
trinium	14
xanion	17
ogonite	20
avorion	23

However, the ready slots are free torpedo storage as mentioned above.

So, this can benefit you, if you manage to distribute the torpedoes evenly.
See, the pictures below, 0 torpedo storage but loaded tubes (creative mode).

But in order to buy and stow them you need a little storage.
So 1.0+, depending on torpedo size.
Set the autoloader to load the specific type buy and its stowed automaticly.

For early ships this can be hugely benefical, since you don't need a big torpedo storage.

Target Values: Armour

In the later game there are a lot of weapons which either do more damage to shields or have a chance of completly bypassing them such as:

• plasma weapons
  
• lightning weapons
  
• tesla weapons
  
• pulscannons

Therfore good armour is very important, of course at the expense of agility, yet, with good turret operating angles this ain't a big problem.

The onboard mechanics also repair the ship slowly, so after a battle give them time to fix the ship for FREE!
This fact I myself ignored in my first game and wasted a lot of ressources this way.

Below you find my recommended armour values.

game stage	recommended millitary armour thickness
EARLY	0.5
MID	1.0
END	2.0

Ship Design: Making a Specification

First

1. Having a clear idea, a definition, what you want, makes reaching your goal easier.
   
2. Having priorities makes it even easier
   
3. Not all theory will end in reality

2. The VISION

A word often misused in cooperations, the affected will know.
But this is a game and luckily life is easy here.

The vision is a basic idea which formulates your goal.

For examples JFKs We choose to go to the Moon[en.wikipedia.org] Spech.

However, "Visions" work best if you know or have an idea what could be possible and where to push the/your boundary.

In Avorion let me have this example, my latest Vison which ended in a project was the following:

"I wan't to build an early game pirate ship"

Well, I thought this will be a fun idea.

For this instance I use this as the baseline example.

3. First Basic Definition

So, a pirate ship, how does that have to look?
What do pirates do?

Well, acutally I did not check the wiki but there is actually a guide Know-how: Being a pirate[avorion.gamepedia.com]

For me it was just an relative fast small warship with a cargo hold which should aslo look dashing.
For gameplay enjoyment it should be well powered, and have a reasonable space for upgrades.
It should be a improved design, size and modellwise, of one of my earlier designs the
Lightning.



Furthermore, it should have clearer lines.

4. Numbers and Reality Check

To get a feeling what is possible I use the simple block design method.
So playing with bricks back and fourth to see whats possible and where I am heading.
Usually I ignore the effect of armour/hull on inertia.

I estimate the slots by volume and increase by the current values given in the build menu and the values of the Upgrades Section of the AVORION Wiki[avorion.gamepedia.com].

Also consider all other relevant Block Statistics[avorion.gamepedia.com].



This resulted in the following:

Pirate/Raider Ship Specs (EARLY)

After some simple block design I would aim for the following:

1. 4-Slots
2. Top Speed 450+
3. Power 2.5+ GW
4. Cargo ~100
5. ALL IRON
6. All Axis Agility P/Y/R 0.5+
7. All armoured of course
8. maybe 1 torp launcher with -10 torps

You will see that rule No. 3 of the first section will come in effect, but, it doesn't really matter, this a game and fun is the scope and not meeting a customer specification.

Ship Design: Firing Arcs & Operating Angels

In only distinguish between the following:

• offensive ship weapons
  
• defensive ship weapons
  
• Unarmed turrets

Offensive Weapons

Offensive weapons include:

• guns
  
• torpedos

I for my part aim to mount all offensive weapons forward facing and guns in particular in turrets.
Turrets can be turned, yet, I only optimize the fwd firing arc.

How can you achive a good firing arc?

Mount them:

• in good spots for example hull, pods or wings
  
• make them superfiring either by hull construction or turrets

Defensive Weapons

Defensive weapons need to cover all arcs. I recongnized two basic principles for hull mounting:

• rhombus
  
• square

By my taste, I find the square in general more effective, especially on big ships.
Yet, can not really proof that, it is more a feeling.
The hull configuration also matters in this respect.

Excellent firing angles can be achvied by making sponsons.
So you get more with less turrets.
For Example the Blue Phoenix.



Now the really important question:

How many?

• small ships are fine with 2 mounts, for example top and bottom
  
• big ships need up to 4.

Unarmed Turrets

Unarmed turrets are:

• Mining turrets
  
• Salvaging Laser
  
• Repair Turret
  
• Force Turret

All turrets of the same type have should be mounted in close proximity on the ship and forward in the ship, otherwise the AI will not use all of the or will not be able to use them at all due to insignificant range in the latter case.

to be continued

Ship Design: Docks for Ships

So docking offers a lot of new possibilities.

My first thought was:

"lets build a mobile attachable hyperspace drive"

And then I build the blocks for a 50 sector drive and it turned out to be 70,000,000.0 credits.
So much for that.
So range has to come from the upgrades not from the blocks.





So, besides of moving stations, gameplaywise a longboat for storage improvement of the mothership and trading to get materials for quest and turrets and salvaging ships are most likely the best use.


"Big Jackdaw" Longboat.



Scouting is also a good use. Remember hyperdrive cooldown depends on ship size.
So using a big ship to get into a quadrant and then deploying the smaller "longboat" and check all surounding green blips is easily possible.

If, trouble appears you always can call in the "big brother".

If, you have found other usefull applications, let me know in the comments below.

Ship Design: Making a Sketch

Prior to jumping into the builder and just begining to build you shoul bring your "Vision" on paper.
That is much easier than in the builder and saves you a lot of time in the end.

So, as seen previously this sould be the pirate ship.

Ship Design: Lessons Learned

When desiging the pirate ship I already knew some things, however,
I recently upgraded some old models and was surprised how much impact these can have.

Cargo

When you download the pirate ship (later) you will notice one thing:

Cargo is one big block.

That might be coincedental with the size of the ship, yet, it was also with purpose.

Cargo compartements are moste efficient, they bigger they are, since they have a certain "dead space".

See the Cargo (Avorion Wiki)[avorion.gamepedia.com] for details.

same applies to hangars & torpedo storage

Torpedos

TORPEDO storage consumes vast ammounts of ENERGY, when torpedos are stored.
If the hold is empty consumption is 0.

That is a bug and happens only in creative mode.

Firing torpedos:
In this game, torpedos are not launched from the tube forward like in an submarine, they are more "dropped" like from a jet or an old WW2 PT boat.

By the way, did you know?
JFK was commanding a PT boat in WW2 and got rammed and sunk by a japanese destroyer.

You can always fix this by pointing them downwards.

Here see my Dragon, before and after.

Turret models on mounts and block merging

The following needs confirmation.

I don't know whether this is only my problem, yet, a merging operation somehow removes custom turret models from the build.

And I mean not merging two mounts. I happens when you merge to many blocks other than the mount.

patched in the meantime

Ship Design: Evolution

Keep upgrading older models, its an easy way to make nicer ships!

Ship Building: Creative Mode and Methods in the Builder

I guess all the big names in the community can tell you a lot more about this, in particualar all building menu tricks.
So, this is only a short summary of my methods.

Creative Mode

This was essential to know for me and took me some time to figure out, so I think this can not be overstated.

How to get there?

Start a new game and check the little box "creative mode", then you are not limited by credits or materials. I simply have a game called "DESIGN" where I design and test everything.

Framework Method

This method was used for the "pirate ship"

Basically, you fix all important items on framework and replace it, step by step.

Section Build

Build the ship in sections. Make clear selectable parts and save them even in a sub folder.
Just select them "STRG+C" and go in the sub folder and save them.
So you can recyle them later for anything.

Here I build a corvette the Arrow.


I saved the turret.



And reused it on the quick and dirty Station Ship

Half Model

When you have a symetrical ship this saves you have the work.
Build it in half and mirror it when close to finish.
But don't forget to merge the blocks when you have the full model to save computational power.

Example with my Hammerhead (not cleaned to be frank)

Scaling

Scaling is a good technique to either make a entirely new modell or make a bigger similar version of a existing modell.

The purpose of the small model is to get the porportions right.

Finding the right porportions seems to be easier with smaller modells than bigger ones.

However, consider that properties change when things becone bigger or smaller so you have to adjust some things.

Scaling factors are also important to consider.
What does that mean?
Well, I for my part like to work with the following block base sizes:

• 0.25
  
• 0.5
  
• 1.0

So, when I would scale something with 123% and a base block is 1.0 I would get 1.23 afterwards.
That is not a convinient size to work with after scaling.
So, usually I only use 150% or 200%.

Here we have an example project where I used this method. I made a small fighter template the Buzzard, scaled it up and then replaced the big blocks by smaler ones and the Slot 7 cruiser Falcon - Bird of Prey resulted.

Ship Building: Color Selection

Recently I made some quality improvements for some of my older models two CargoMiners, Hammerhead and Winghead.

I wanted to reposition the containers with all the relevant different blocks in one instance.
There this tool came in very useful, so I thought I share it, since, otherwise this would have been a difficult operation.

Ship Building: Integrity Field Generator

For obvious reasons you ship should be projected by a Integrity Field Generator.

See the Wiki for details (Integrity Field Generator[avorion.gamepedia.com])

• Blocks inside integrity fields can now take 20 times as much damage before they explode.
  
• Block and Ship damage from integrity-protected blocks reduced by 50%.

I have seen multiple ships designs with scattered generators over the ship.

I also have done this, however the best way to protect your ship by such a generator is one central big block.



Why?

Because

One single block of integrity field generator protects more ship volume than for example two seperate blocks of equal volume. The gap shown in the picture below would have to be filled by another generator. Of course ship shape does influence the effectiveness in finding the right shape of the generator.

Meaning you can also save:

• material
  
• power consumption

by making one big block.

On the left, 2 Blocks in red (1x1x1) on the right 1 block (2x1x1).
The framework bars in blue and green the same length.

Ship Building: Stacking

There is a technique called "stacking".

Stacking is a method to fit more blocks into the same volume.
However, the ship volume does increase proportionally with the volume also of the stacked blocks (here I was wrong previously, so you gain the benefits of more slots).

Accordingnly, it is a volume saving technique or an abuse, depending on the personal view.
On some multiplayer servers it is therefore not allowed!
And rightfully so!

So, what can be achived with stacking?

• reduction of inertia
  
• reduction of surface area
  
• improvement of agility
  
• improvement of speed and ac- and decelleration
  
• general improvement of block performence

Important to remember is that the following characteristics also increase porportional with the block densitiy:

• price
  
• material cost

My opinion

When people compete there are always people who want an edge over their oponents.
In some real life scenarios it might be appropriate to have a unfair fight, but this a game.
It should be 80-90% balanced.

Personally, I am not very fond of people who outinvest their opponents by:

• knowledge and abusive use of unintended game mechanics
  
• money
  
• excessive dedication

It should be all about skill and fun.

To make a expample for avorion what I mean by that, altough, its is mainly a coop-game and this case never happend to me:

Building a 15-Slot endgame ship which has the agility of a slot 1 ship and the hitpoints of an asteroid combined with shielding to withstanding the death star laser multiple times and harssing noobs, wiping all their belongings from the galaxy map which took them 50-60+ hours to build and they don't have a fighting chance because they dont have stacked ships - is not ok!

However, making a cool ship design and pushing its performance so that it is playable and actullay gives you the right immersion - this is the way!

Ship Building: Overlaping

As I learned recently people distinguish between stacking (putting more in the same) and overlapping.

Overlapping is an overlap of blocks by 30% (?) max and is not considered an abuse.
It allows to create shapes which can't be made by one block only.

Dont consider this section complete.
I put a picture in when i have one.

Ship Building: Mulitple Turret Placement

In normal build mode, not turret build mode, do the following.
The turret which I placed can be found within Thakards TURRETs.

1. Select all turret bases to place your turret



2. Go to your saved turret designs & select



3. Apply



4. Result

Ups & Downs

Creating something is difficult and takes a long time, keep trying, all beginning is though.

This was my very first ship (just for reference):

Lightning Prototype

Theory and Reality

As mentioned earlier, I am not an artist, maybe I lack patience or talent, or both.
Yet, this should encourage you also to keep going!

So, I list some of my creations below, comparing inital idea and finished ship.

Lightning

Lightning

Arrow

Arrow

Hammerhead

Hammerhead

Raven

Raven


AND OF COURSE THE

Blackbrid

Blackbird

Here the Spec (from the beginning):

Pirate/Raider Ship Specs (EARLY)

After some simple block design I would aim for the following:

1. 4-Slots
2. Top Speed 450+
3. Power 2.5+ GW
4. Cargo ~100
5. ALL IRON
6. All Axis Agility P/Y/R 0.5+
7. All armoured of course
8. maybe 1 torp launcher with -10 torps

And the end result:

Pirate/Raider Ship Specs (EARLY)

After some simple block design I would aim for the following:

1. 4-Slots (achived)
2. Top Speed 450+ (achieved)
3. Power 2.5+ GW (achieved)
4. Cargo ~100 (achieved)
5. ALL IRON (achieved)
6. All Axis Agility P/Y/R 0.5+ (not achieved)
7. All armoured of course (achieved)
8. maybe 1 torp launcher with -10 torps (not achieved)

Uploading in the Workshop and Presentation

Well, this is a "lets make the world better" - section.

I would love to see the following basics with every workshop upload, if they matter:

• Cost
  
• Stats

People will most likely have a look if they are well informed what the ship is about besides your cool design.

See the pirate ship as one way to do it.

[YismirGoldFingers]

Amazing work my man

[Uthael]

"The following needs confirmation:

I have been told fighters can be based by total hangar space, regardless whether all blocks have an exit.
All fighters can exit the ship if at least 1 hangar has an unblocked exit path."

I can confirm this. I like to optimize my ships too. Fewer hangar outlets means less vulnerable surface area, but also slower fighter deployment and collection.

[The Sack Sniffer]

You think your ships looks bad? I literally just strap all the internal parts i need together then slather some titanium armour over them. Granted I don't think I'm making particularly big ships yet.

[H1N1ger]

so colossal work! awesome. Thx a lot dude

[Sineme]

sorry, I messed up, I don't know how but I must've looked at the wrong stat when stating a 1x1x1 cube has a processing power of 4 as you get 1 porcessing power per 1 dam³, your table is completely correct

[Thakard]

Since this is a 1.X guide and I am not maintaining this anymore, please do not comment any further.

Thank you all for reading, commenting and subscribing!

AVORION was a great game in 1.X and I hope you will have fun with 2.X.

[Thakard]

@Sineme

Its been a while, but, when I did the guide I made some ingame fact checking. I usually back my theories up by testing, since the math in avorion is not transparent.

So, what I noticed, although I have older savegames with 1.0 the physics of them are changed with the 2.0 update. But I have screenshots of my older 1.0 builds.

The statement which I made is still true the which is the Slot dependend cruising speed (falsely designated as top speed, still).

[Thakard]

The blue screenshot witm m^3 of the slots was from a older wiki version. I never myself mentioned a unit. And they changed the wiki page. I dont recall exactly how it was with the processing power, I think the only blocks which did not add up much more volume were frameworks, but they also had a lower volume.

To prove my point I picked a random ship the Tiger (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2225861983)

The ship has a volume of 9.82 Mio cubic meters and 7 Slots. If, you compare it to the blue table there is some factor missing. 7 Slots is somewhere between 5000 and 12500. Thats your cubic decameter 10^3.

[Thakard]

Sticking with the Tiger, the engine total volume is 768.000 m^3. So hacking in the 768 cubic decameter it results in 831 m/s crusing speed in 1.X Avorion. Which exactly is the displayed value.

So, my table states a ship with 10% of its ships volume dedicated to the engine has the following speeds:

7 Slots 10% of minimum volume -> 767 m/s
8 Slots 10% minimum volume -> 903 m/s

That sounds about right with 831 m/s and 9 820.

And since its an Guide for 1.0 we should leave it there. I am not planning on updating it, since I have moved on as a gamer.

Maybe you can take on the torch for a 2.0 Guide?

[Sineme]

Sorry, will do so next time.
The wiki entry hasn't been changed since it was created and I think it is still the same in 2.0 afaik. And iirc the processing power per cubic decameter of hull (now smart hull though) hasn't changed either, so I think it's wrong for 1.0 also.
Apologies for my wording, I have reread my comment and I think my language was out of place. Using exagerations ,etc. was completely unecessary and stupid.