New ships under development

[Shipbuilder]

Firstly I would like to introduce myself as a new member of the Oolite forum and to thank everyone who has contributed to this fantastic game (I hope that this post is not too long).

I had spent many months playing the original Elite back on a 32k BBC Micro, (tape version), and feared that my Elite playing days were sadly in the past. I came across Oolite earlier this year and have spent many hours playing since.

What, however, I feel is the most impressive aspect is that the many, many hours spent by so many people writing the game and producing the many expansions has been done simply through people's interest and is made available to anyone completely free of charge.

This in turn has inspired me to look to contribute to the online community and to that end I have been busily reading through many forum posts to learn how to create expansions of my own. As you may have guessed from my username my main interest is in ship designs.

I have a number of ships which are now almost finished (some I had finished but as I have learnt more and become more able I feel I may revisit my earlier designs to bring them up to a better standard).

To give you an idea of what I have been working on please note the following descriptions of the ships under development and almost finished (I have tried to design a variety of different types of ship): -

1) Lightning Mark 1 - Fast interceptor with good manoeuvrability and speed but no cargo capacity.
2) Mark 1 Cylon Raider from the original 1970's Battlestar Galactica series Now released - see my signature strip for the download link
3) Mark 1 Colonial Viper from the original 1970's Battlestar Galactica series Now released - see my signature strip for the download link
4) Siren Mark 1 - Multi use trading vessel with a 60T cargo capacity and reasonable manoeuvrability and speed.
5) Gorgon Class Freighter - A 160T cargo freighter with limited speed and manoeuvrability.
6) Chimera Gunship - A vessel specifically developed to carry a large number of pylon mounted weapons. It also has a limited cargo capacity of 5T (Extendable to 20T) Now released - see my signature strip for the download link
7) Mantis Scout Ship - Mixed use vessel but limited cargo capacity.
8 Apache Class Heavy Freighter - A 200T freighter with limited manoeuvrability and speed but armed with 2 plasma turrets in addition to the usual 4 gun mounts.
9) Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser - Basically the USS Enterprise from Star Trek 2 and 3 Now released - see my signature strip for the download link

Once complete I will start to release them for general use (I may need to ask some questions about how I go about making them available when I get to this stage if that is ok).

So again thank you for everyone who has contributed and I look forward to begin contributing myself in the very near future.

[Cody]

A good day for new members... welcome aboard, Shipbuilder.

[pagroove]

Welcome to the Ooniverse. Got any teaser shots of your designs?

[Shipbuilder]

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes I have some images of each ship.......But you'll have to forgive me I'm literally just working out how to use the forum !

If you can advise me how I attach images I'll happily post a picture of each (I'm sure it's easy but I've not got that far).

[Cody]

Host the images somewhere (if you haven't already - photobucket is free and good, there are others), then copy either the thumbnail or the image link from there and paste it into a post. It's pretty straightfoward.

[Cody]

Oh yeah... max image width for the forum is 1000!

[Shipbuilder]

Hopefully i've now worked out how to post teaser images of the ships I have currently in development (With a little help from the board). If so please enjoy.

1 - Lightning Mark 1


2 - Cylon Raider Mark 1


3 - Colonial Viper Mark 1


4 - Siren Mark 1 (Definately needs some additional texturing)


5 - Gorgon Class Freighter


6 - Chimera Gun Ship


7 - Mantis Scout Ship


8 - Apache Class Heavy Freighter


9 - Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser (As per USS Enterprise from Star Trek)


Hope this works !

[Cody]

Ha! You've done a good job on those, Shipbuilder. I'm not one for 'other' universe ships, but I quite like the Mantis. All working fine!

I'll edit your post if you like, so they display directly? Or better, just go to edit your post, highlight each link and click on the image (Img) button above the edit pane (one by one), then preview then submit.

[Shipbuilder]

El Viejo glad you liked the Mantis - (Still a lot of work to be done to get the texture finished and some flashers to be added).

I have a few ideas for new ships but have decided to get these completely finished and release first so that i don't just have a collection of partially completed oxps. After all what good is a shipyard if it never released any ships ?

Thanks for the guidance on how to upload images on to the forum (I've edited my previous post to show the images of the new ships now - I keep learning a little more each day !).

[Smivs]

Hi Shipbuilder, and welcome. Nice to see another denizen of the murky East Midlands here.
Nice work.
If I have a concern it is regarding scale. Are you aware of the idiosyncracities of scale in Oolite? To give an example, that (very nice) Colonial Viper, if scaled as per the TV series could be smaller than an Oolite cargo pod!
Dimensions of all the 'core' ships can be found here via the wiki 'ships' page, and there is a link to a comparative size chart at the foot of that page as well.

[pagroove]

Some good designs! I like the Mantis and the Gunship and the freighter also .

[Lestradae]

Very nice ships all!

Right On!

[Shipbuilder]

Thanks for the welcome and I'm glad the new ships seem to be going down well and will aim to start releasing them soon.

Smivs - With regard to ship sizes luckily I came across some threads while I was researching how to make ship oxps so upsized them to suit but it was definitely a good point to be made and certainly worth mentioning.

With regard to the sizing the Colonial Viper is the smallest ship that I have designed as it is intended to behave as a small one man fighter craft perfectly suited as a carrier based ship however I have up scaled the size from that shown on TV to make it in keeping with the smaller Elite craft such as an Adder.

A brief specification is provided below (I have been keeping a record of the specifications of my ships so that I can keep a track for easy reference)

Specification: -

Size (metres WxHxL) 19 x 12.5 x 30
Standard cargo capacity None
Cargo Bay Extension N/A
Maximum speed 0.375 LM
Thrust 50
Manoeuvrability Roll 2.3
Pitch 2.1
Hyperspace capable Yes
Energy 250
Energy recharge rate 3.0
Gun mounts 1No (Fore only)
Missile slots 0
Fuel scoops available No
Tech level 7
Base price 140,000cr

Thanks again for the feedback

[pagroove]

The Cylon Raider looks a bit like the Chopped Cobra.

[Smivs]

Smivs - With regard to ship sizes luckily I came across some threads while I was researching how to make ship oxps so upsized them to suit ...

I'm glad to hear that...it has caught people in the past. Keep up the good work