[WIP] LordChicken's Space Engineer's Star Trek Quest

[LordChicken]

Greetings again! As I mentioned over in the introduction thread, I found this forum looking for TMP ships to build in a game called Space Engineers. I am currently building ships and modding the game to add those missing Star Trek pieces. I have been doing this since August 2014 and I honestly thought I would have been done by now. I failed to realize how much work and planning goes into this project and am not sure when I will be done. I have also been toying around with the idea of doing some Klingon ships as well, but we shall see.

I have three specific goals I am trying to meet with this project:

1. Ships and Mods have to be performance friendly.
2. Mods must fit with in the Star Trek and Space Engineers art style.
3. The ship or station should have a purpose and function with in the Space Engineers game.

After ships and mods are complete I will move into doing missions and scenarios for the game along with the original purpose of this project, mastering programming (C#)!

Anywho, here is the list so far of ship classes (class variants are also included but not mentioned) I plan on building:

• Loknar
• Belknap
• Venture (Inpayne)
• Churchill
• Oberth
• Carolina (Demon Renegade Studios)
• Constellation
• Detroyat
• Excelsior
• Knox
• Sngurochka
• Rhine
• Okinawa
• Soyuz
• Laevatein (Madkoifish)
• Ranger
• TMP Defiant (based off of a TOS DS9 Defiant I found on DeviantArt. Ortho 1, Ortho 2. A surprise for a friend)
• Various types of bases and defensive structures

These are the ships that are "under construction"

• Constitution
• Miranda
• Akyazi
• Abbe
• Kobayashi Maru/Mughi (not able to find the ship class, also a Madkoifish design)
• Dry Dock

I am open to suggestions for more ship classes to build, but I do try to follow these rules when picking out a design.

Here are some current screen shots of the builds:

Constitution


Miranda


Akyazi



Abbe



Kobayashi Maru/Mughi


Drydock


And lets close this now lengthy post with a few quick screen shots of a few mods I am working on:

Antimatter Containment pods and base of warp core


Hallway


Bridge


There is more, a lot more but I am going to stop here for now.

And as a side note, thank you for all of the kind words so far!

 

[CABAL]

Very nice! I'm looking forward to more.

 

[LordChicken]

Thanks!

Edit: I forgot to add auxiliary craft as well! Shuttles, worker bees, etc...

 

[Hellkite]

Nice little fleet you have there Colonel

 

[LordChicken]

Thank you. Currently I am working on finishing the warp nacelles.

Docked in space dock

 

[Majestic]

Looking cool mate.

Is it bad that I know each of those designs even the fan design from memory?

 

[LordChicken]

Thanks! And I would say no because I to know them to from memory.

 

[LordChicken]

I was working on the Abbe last night and looking at various reference pictures and blueprints I have collected, and it would appear some have a hangar door on the end of the secondary hull vs some that do not.

Unfortunately with the nature of the game I'm building these in there is not enough space to include a large enough hangar for shuttles or small craft there, but I could place an apparatus for deploying mines.

I'm trying to build these with actual fleet roles and combat performance in mind. But I'm worried that this ship might become too over powered with 8 torpedo launchers , 12 phasers (which brings me to another thought, I haven't noticed in any of the reference material I have if she has phasers protecting her rear), and a mine deploying apparatus.

What do you guys think?

 

[Majestic]

I put a hangar in my model as I felt all Starfleet ships should have at least a hangar for a single shuttle. Notable exception being the Oberth.

 

[LordChicken]

After some more research, thought, and experimentation, I have decided to forgo a bay of any kind at the end of the ship. I do agree with you, Majestic, about Starfleet ships having a hangar and I think I am going to try and match Jackill's original design to have the hangar in the primary hull. Its going to be tricky but worth it I think. There, in theory, is enough room to have a decent sized hangar to hold more then one shuttle. I'll post some pics once I get it figured out.

 

[LordChicken]

Alrighty, these are still rough, but this is the simplest way I could get a hangar on the Abbe. I know in the Jackill's design the hangar is between 90° and 135°, but for simplicity I put it at 90°.
Shown below in blue:

Bay open with a Henry MK1 for scale. (It is a fighter from a YouTube series where these guys play this game):


Interior hangar:

And then a Henry for scale:


I forgot to turn the HUD off on some of these, but that's ok. They are just for illustrative purposes.

The hangar door measures 10m x 17.5m

The hangar measures 32.5m wide, 17.5m long, and 7.5m tall. Each "alcove" area 7.5m deep. Its not huge but is currently the best solution to adding a hangar to this ship with out getting super crazy with custom parts. Even though I am building mods for the game I don't want to just make a custom mod for every ship I build. Also I don't feel that this ship needs a huge hangar area, and there is plenty of space for at least two shuttle craft and perhaps something else.

The sand colored blocks are the back wall of the Sickbay.

And since I mentioned Sickbay, I have added a screen shot of the sickbay.

 

[LordChicken]

I have been quite busy with life for the past week and have not gotten much modding or modeling done. Which is sad Starships are not going to build themselves.

But anywho, I am sort of sitting here thinking about all the different mods I have started and what I should try and work on and finish this weekend. All I can think of is "I really should work on phasers." I started modeling these back in March and worked on them from time to time but never got them past trying to figure out where I should go with them.

I figure I should make three types of phasers: light, medium, and heavy. This is an image of where I was going with the phasers and perhaps I will continue to go, but I am unsure.


The heavy phaser would have a muzzle break like on a howitzer or a sniper rifle. I originally was going to try and keep it in line with the current weapon types that exist in the game which would be a gatling gun, an auto-cannon and an artillery cannon.

I have not done any experimenting yet but I think is possible to create actual phasers like on Star Trek from looking at other mods that add phasers and disrupters to the game. However to my knowledge none of these are turrets which is what I would need. All of those mods are all ship mounted, ship aimed weapons.

I am also thinking about my warp core mod that I have been working on, specifically the part I am calling the 'tee' (pictured in the screen shot below from Blender, for some reason I do not seem to have an in-game screen shot), or where the intermix chamber flows into the horizontal plasma conduit.
I am thinking of making this an in-game warhead (I know, sounds crazy but wait) for the soul purpose of adding self destruct or a warp core breach. I could make it have a huge blast radius so it would obliterate everything around it making it an oh sh*t get out of range type of ordeal. Which would be cool I think. It would also add an additional layer of role play to scenarios, if you wanted to try and take a Federation ship by force you would have to be careful not to accidentally detonate the warp core. Or if you are under attack and you are loosing the conflict you could try and take one or two of the enemy out with you, aim your ship at them turn on self destruct, engage impulse drive and escape in an escape pod or beam off the ship. I can see lots of potential ways this could be useful. The downside would be that everyone would know you could just blow the 'tee' and take out your ship.

On another note, so far I really like this forum. Everyone has been really positive, polite and respectful and that is awesome. On the official forums for Space Engineers things tend to get out of hand and I have never been comfortable posting there because of how rude some of the members are. Without going on about the problems with that community I just want to say thank you to everyone for letting me post my random non-Star Trek game Star Trek project here and the kind words so far.

 

[CABAL]

I have not done any experimenting yet but I think is possible to create actual phasers like on Star Trek from looking at other mods that add phasers and disrupters to the game. However to my knowledge none of these are turrets which is what I would need. All of those mods are all ship mounted, ship aimed weapons.

I'm pretty sure that the TOS phasers were turret mounted rather than the strips used on TNG and later.

On another note, so far I really like this forum. Everyone has been really positive, polite and respectful and that is awesome. On the official forums for Space Engineers things tend to get out of hand and I have never been comfortable posting there because of how rude some of the members are. Without going on about the problems with that community I just want to say thank you to everyone for letting me post my random non-Star Trek game Star Trek project here and the kind words so far.

 

[Majestic]

Wow that's some good quality stuff.

On another note, so far I really like this forum. Everyone has been really positive, polite and respectful and that is awesome. On the official forums for Space Engineers things tend to get out of hand and I have never been comfortable posting there because of how rude some of the members are. Without going on about the problems with that community I just want to say thank you to everyone for letting me post my random non-Star Trek game Star Trek project here and the kind words so far.

I think that is one of the most important aspects about this site. The community and the way they all conduct themselves with respect to everyone.

 

[LordChicken]

Thanks

And oh noo.... I ment to go to bed an hour ago and I accidentally started making USS Strider as modeled by Lt Kevin Riley and Basill
Only the top of the primary hull is mostly shaped. I had to make it slightly thicker due to the medium I am making this ship with, and of coarse more screen shots once I get more done with it. But for now I really should go to bed.

Thank you .

And oh noo.... I ment to go to bed an hour ago and I accidentally started making USS Strider as modeled by Lt Kevin Riley and Basill

Only the top of the primary hull is mostly shaped. I had to make it slightly thicker due to the medium I am making this ship with, and of coarse more screen shots once I get more done with it. But for now I really should go to bed.

Ok, lets try this again



There we go, no database errors.

I decided to get some more work done on the Strider tonight and this is where I am leaving it. I still have a ways to go before any of these are complete, but I have grown tired of modeling mods and coding them all the time so now I am just enjoying building a new ship.

She has two tiny shuttle bays, like the Ranger Class (which she is, I had embellish some of the proportions to get it to work right), a sick bay, a transporter room, a small crew area, Engineering and the Bridge. That is all I could fit into her tiny hull.



And because of how tiny this Federation scout is I decided to line up all the ships I have for some screen shots for size.

I tried to align them all on the gangway docking port.
Closer size comparison:

And with that, good night.

The long awaited release of planets came out for Space Engineers today. The first thing I do? Crash the Enterprise into a mountain and watch it roll down hill.


Coming in hot!


Almost! Impact!
Rolling Starts..
Things were going great till the flip And this is where I landed after being ejected from he bridge after it was torn open (center left side, I'm upside down)

 

[CABAL]

My God, LordChicken... what have you done?

 

[LordChicken]

Survivability testing

I did make the 'warp core tee' a warhead today. Apparently the explosion radius is capped at 100m which is sad. And an unintended side effect is I can not pass materials through it as if it were a reactor which means fuel into the core will not flow. So no warp core breeches using the 'tee' I might just hide warheads all over the ship, who knows.

I have been taking a break from modding and making starships in general for the past few weeks. Decided to get back into it and make an Oberth. Been putting off making this one because of the wired shape of the ship. It is super tough to get everything init that is needed. Especially with those hangar doors. I tired to stay true to these deck plans:
http://www.coldnorth.com/owen/game/startrek/universe/ships/oberth.htm
She has the basics, transporter, crew "quarters" (basically a small room for everyone), main engineering, sickbay and a bridge.



The test shuttle in the hangar. It fits! I started to work on shuttles but stopped because trying to get the shapes right using the default pieces are not going to work so I need to come up with a different solution, but for now this is the correct size of a shuttle.

The hangar and cargo bay aboard the Oberth!


I have not returned to much modding yet, I am going to try and finish up the corridor mod before the new year.

But I have started to work on classifying the fleet, so to speak. I have been reading Wikipedia about Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, and Corvettes, attempting to start to build a solid understanding on how to classify these ships. This is what I got so far as a working draft:

Three main cruiser categories: Battlecruiser, Heavy, and Light (for the purpose of this exercise I am simplifying the classifications).

Battlecruisers - a long range, long endurance, high speed ship capable of solo or fleet operations. Usually armed with large sized weapons.

Heavy Cruisers - a long range, long endurance, high speed ship capable of solo or fleet operations. Usually armed with medium sized weapons.

Light Cruisers - a long range, long endurance, high speed ship capable of solo or fleet operations. Usually armed with small sized weapons.

Destroyers - a fast and maneuverable long endurance ship capable of engaging small targets. usually armed with small sized weapons.

Frigates - long endurance vessel usually used for escort missions. Not as heavily armed as a destroyer. Small sized weapons.

Corvettes - a high speed, low endurance vessel usually used for patrol missions. Small sized weapons.

How do these generalized classifications sound to you guys? I do intend to build a fully functioning fleet and I feel this will help with that.

Speaking of fleets, I have been thinking about how to identify them. Should I go with sequential numbering? (1st Fleet, 2nd Fleet...) Odds? (1st Fleet, 3rd Fleet...) Evens? (2nd Fleet, 4th Fleet...) or Other? (Location/Region Based?... something else?) Suggestions are welcome!

 

[CABAL]

Sounds pretty good to me, though when cruisers were still in use destroyers were generally escorts. Though, they have started to fill a similar role and sci-fi shows have a tendency to have destroyers as the biggest and baddest ships around. The only thing I would really recommend changing is Battlecruiser to something more "Starfleet," like Exploration Cruiser.

As for fleet identification, you have a lot of room to work with. DS9 had numbered fleets (Second Fleet, Third Fleet, etc.) and numbered groups of particular ship types (Destroyer Unit 1, Galaxy Wing 9) in addition to the Seventh Tactical Wing while Nemesis had Battle Group Omega and TOS had something that was an alphanumeric string (Unit XY-75847).

 

[LordChicken]

Over the holidays I have been working on refining my classifications. I do plan on having one Carrier class (Midway Class from Starfleet Command) and one Battleship class (Carolina Class from Demon Renegade Studios). I just have not worked on classifying them because it is obvious what those ships are. Here is where I am at now and think it is pretty good at the moment.

I am using more of military classification and less 'Starfleet' classifications because for what I am doing. I am trying to have keep apple to apple comparison. The ships will have each 'role' within the fleet. So Constitutions are Heavy Cruisers, but since their primary role is exploration they are often referred to as Exploration Cruisers.

Cruisers: A medium sized starship capable of high speed, long endurance, and is lightly armoured. This classification includes a number of sub classifications:​

• • Battlecruiser: A Cruiser armed with Heavy Weapons
  • Heavy Cruiser: A Cruiser armed with Medium Weapons
  • Light Cruiser: A Cruiser armed with Light or Medium Weapons and does not contain a secondary hull. Usually assigned a specific role and/or general purpose.

Any Classification at Heavy Cruiser and above is considered a Capital Ship.

Destroyer: A small, fast starship with light armament, smaller than a cruiser, but bigger than a frigate.

Frigate: Smaller than a destroyer, usually assigned a specific role and/or general purpose.

Corvette: A lightly armed and armoured long endurance starship, smaller than a frigate and assigned a specific role. (Like a scout ship or planet surveyor)
​

I was trying to define how big a fleet should be and how many ships I should make because I planned on making decals for all of them. I still want to do that because it would be awesome, but I am not going to worry about making fleets at this time. I will just focus on making sure I have enough ships of each type to cover a wide array of tasks and then build out however many seems right for a run. So far I have estimates of about 500 ships or so.

Anywho, your thoughts?

 

[Hellkite]

Over all great work Colonel Sanders

 

[LordChicken]

Thank you

 

[LordChicken]

I was trying to finish my corridor set before the new year but I didn't make it. What happened was I got a boat load of Christmas money and Steam had an amazing sale. One of the pieces of software I picked up is Substance Painter by Allegorithmic. I am a fairly technical guy that dabbles in 3D and 2D art. But I wouldn't consider myself an 'artist' (even though I have a Graphic Design Degree among others). I can do texturing ye old fashion way and texture paint in Blender, but why do all of that when I have free money to buy kickass software that does it on sale! So when I have had the time I have been playing with and learning Substance Painter. Sort of wish I got the whole bundle when it was on sale, they also make a material design program called Substance Designer and a texture generation tool that generates textures from photos. But I didn't want to spend that much on software for modding.

Anywho...

The first thing I textured:

I spent a lot of time getting this one just right:
It is the Captain's Chair from my Bridge Mod I have made that I need to texture and bring into the game. It also doubles as the other chairs on the bridge sans the armrests.

Here are some pics of the bridge set. I still have some more work to do.

The first image is from the impulse thruster set that also needs to be textured and brought into the game.
That is all of the pieces of the set assembled into one big engine. I can make all of the required shapes for federation ships with it. I used Pheylan from foundation3d.com impulse engine design as guide for these blocks. I really like how he did them.

http://www.foundation3d.com/forums/showpost.php?p=274144&postcount=339

 

[LordChicken]

That was longer than I intended. I should have also mentioned that the chairs look the way they do because I modeled them after the default chair in game. I am trying to mash Star Trek and Space Engineers art to keep it somewhat unified in style.

http://i.imgur.com/HLAn9q5.jpg

Link from internet that shows default chair

 

[LordChicken]

And because I really should go to bed


A size chart of most of the ships I plan on building. There are some subclasses not listed. Like for the Baker class. I am also going to make some subclasses for the Okinawa class as well. I also need to make or find more corvette sized ships. and a few more frigates. According to my spreadsheet I have almost all light cruisers. Anyways. I am really going to go to bed nows.

 

[CABAL]

I'm really liking that bridge! Even the purple seats, for some reason. Also, are you running Vista?

 

[LordChicken]

Thanks! I am trying to keep it modular and general enough to represent any ship. Also that purple color represents the recolorable parts of the models. I am using Windows 7. I was using 10 when it came out but it was doing things I didn't like so I went back to 7.

 

[LordChicken]

I found this ship earlier this week. I might have to add it to my list of ships to build.

http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=67671
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-prettiest-kitbash-ive-ever-seen.273587/

Yep. Its gonna get built. Have quite a few cruisers already, but one more wont hurt.

 

[LordChicken]

I haven't had much time to do modding, with moving and starting a new job and all. I have started a few weeks ago to try and get back into the swing of things. I started making a hangar floor tile set so I can add lines to hangar floors without having to paint the whole block in my game a different color. Got most of the way through that and then got on another tangent, using Google Docs to make modding easier by creating a project tracking spreadsheet (One for each mod). I haven't finished filling out all of the spreadsheets yet, but the stats I have gathered so far are impressive. I have 13 Star Trek themed mod sets in the works and 16 generic themed mods. I have 127 Star Trek themed blocks and 218 blocks across all of those sets for a total of 345. These numbers will increase as I finish filling out the spreadsheets. During the creation of these sheets I also started to refit my RCS thruster mod to use fuel, because when I originally created them the game did not have fuel for thrusters.



A week or two ago I got the urge to try and finish some doors I started and I still have more work to do to 'finish' them, they are functional and in game.



Bulkhead Door


Workspace Door


Airlock and Gangway Door





Inner Gangway / Airlock Door. Might make the airlock inner door differently.

Now I took inspiration / more or less copied Basill's design he posed on his blog, https://starstation.wordpress.com/

Edit 1: I have altered the way the hangar floor tiles work, so I don't have any screenshots of them.

Edit 2: I also forgot to mention they are re-colorable.

 

[Hellkite]

That is some fine work you have done there Colonel Sanders

 

[CABAL]

I really like the idea of doors to different things being shaped differently. Should cut down on the accidental spacing.