Ships have a variety of defensive, offensive, utilitarian systems that are essential to understand if one wants to design warships.
Different warship sizes fight and operate differently, and their recommended systems reflect this.
| Info | Starfighter | Gunship | Corvette | Frigate | Destroyer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended Minimum Size | 350 | 1012 | 3582 | 6500 | 9702 |
| Maximum Size | 500 | 2000 | 4000 | 8000 | 12000 |
| Shield Amount (at max size) | 1 | 3 | 6 | 11 + 1 Cheth | 16 + 1 Cheth |
| Minimum BPS (at max size) | 33 | 24 | 22 | 19 | 17 |
| Primary L. Weapon | 1 Plasma | 2 Pulses | 3 Pulses | 3 HTs | 4 HTs |
| Secondary L. Weapon | N/A | 1 LT | 1 LT | 1 LT | 2 LTs |
| Primary H. Weapon | 2 Torpedos | 1 HL | 1 TT | 1 Phaser | 1 Phaser |
| Secondary H. Weapon | N/A | 2 Torpedos | 1 HL | 1 TT* | 1 TT* |
*TTs are critical for maintaining dps at distances outside phaser range. Unlike some of the secondary weapons, these are not optional.
This guide will be divided into 6 sections, as follows:
Some steps can be done in a different order, but doing so may make the process more challenging.
For all steps here, only work on either the right or left side of the ship, as you can use worldedit to //flip it later.
a) Identify the ideal armaments and shields of your ship, as well as the intended size.
b) Construct a hollow shell of your ship, keeping in mind turret and weapon placement as well as the final size. Use other ships nearby as size reference or just use your intuition.
a) Almost all ships use box shields due to their extreme configurability and their ability to eliminate overlap. If you intend to use sphere shields, use //sphere <block> <radius> to see the size. 0.8 and 0.8i shields have a radius of 9.5 using worldedit.
b) For box shields, construct a 2d grid of rectangles above your ship using colored wool or glass,keeping all shields with odd-number dimensions and minimizing overlap with nearby shields.
c) Locate the center of each rectangle, and place a marker block at each point.
d) Build shield multiblocks inside your ship with the sign block placed directly below each marker block from the last step. Write the dimensions based on the rectangles above the ship, and using 21 as the height dimension. Name each shield something descriptive.
a) For all weapons, especially on larger ships, redundancy is important. Redundant weapons allow for firing in strange directions or when some weapons are destroyed.
b) Around the outside of the ship, find locations with large amounts of visibility and wide arcs for stationary weapons and turrets.
c) At each of the points on the top and bottom of the ship, install turrets, ensuring that the full amount of turrets can fire in all available directions. Ensure that when placed, the turret multiblock and its sign don't interfere with existing systems.
d) For the points on the sides of the ship, Install your stationary weapons. Like the turrets, make sure the weapons don't interfere with other systems, or with themselves after the ship is flipped at the end.
a) Now for the inside of the ship. Using [node] signs, assign your weapon groups descriptive, yet simple names. For turrets, names like LT, HT, TT, or AT are often used because they're easy to type with the /st <node> command. Often people combine weapon groups for manual weapons, like Phasers and HTs on frigates, allowing the pilot to control both heavy and light weapons without switching weaponsets.
b) Install a Hyperdrive, Navigation Computer, Gravity Well, and Magazine. The NavComputer should always be advanced except on some fighters, and the Gravity Well is optional for typical use but strongly encouraged.
a) In order for the ship to actually fly, it requires concrete. Starting from the center of the ship, start placing large chunks of concrete by hand or with worldedit. Try to keep blocks separate from the outer shell, as this distance decreases the damage dealt once shields drop. Depending on the current size and your planned size, this may not be possible.
b) Periodically place a jukebox and re-detect to check up on the size of the ship.
a) Thrusters are saved for last due to their reliance on mass, which you can only really know once a ship is complete. If the ship hasn't been flipped with worldedit yet, do it now.
b) Starting with 15-25 afterburners, try adding or removing them and checking the cruise speed. Try to get the lowest number of thrusters possible that still gives you your maximum speed.
c) Add some [weaponset], [cruise], and [powermode] signs to the bridge/cockpit of your ship. If you have macros, you can use those instead, but the signs are useful if you're sharing your ship with others.