Small Ship Storage, and Other Ideas Regarding Smaller Ships

To repost from the minecraft forums (I originally wasn't going to do this, but I don't like quiet forums) My recommendations for fighter (and other small craft storage)

How will you store small craft in larger motherships?

If you have not decided, I see several ways of doing it:


Compact Storage: Fighters would be stored in a special storage bay where they would take up considerably less space than in an open hangar; The fighters would then be transported to the launch hangar or tube by some automatic system.

Advantages: Allows you to store many more fighters than any other method.
Disadvantages: Would be slow to reload fighters into launch bays and would limit how quickly you could launch fighters.


Open Hangar: A large bay in the middle of the ship where you park fighters and other small craft on the floor, walls, and in catwalks on the ceiling.

Advantages: Allows the launch and landing of a large number of fighters at once.
Disadvantages: Takes up much more space than any other storage method; Depending on the size of the exit, there could be traffic jams while launching and landing craft.


Outer Hull Docking Ports: A large number of docking ports would be installed on the outside of the ship, where fighters would dock.

Advantages: Allows the launch and landing of every fighter at once without traffic.
Disadvantages: Fighters would be open to attack before they could be armed; Because the fighters aren't in one place, it could take longer to get pilots to them.



As for launching, docking, and other craft things that didn't fit into storage, but still regarding small craft:

Landing


Bay: A large hangar that allows small craft to dock inside large craft

Advantages: will accommodate any ship that will fit inside it.
Disadvantages: Some ships will be too large to fit in small bays.


Docking Ports: Hatches on the outside of craft that attach to docking ports of the same type.

Advantages: Will accommodate any craft with the same type of port; good for larger craft
Disadvantages: can only fit one craft at a time; craft has to have the same type of port



Launch of Craft:

Launch Tubes: tubes leading from the inside the ship that accelerate craft inside as they leave

Advantages: Will make fighters launch at top speed out of the craft decreasing the chance they will be hit as they exit.
Disadvantages: Can only handle 1 fighter at a time; can only accommodate 1 ship type


Launch Bay/Hangar: An interior hangar that ships fly in/out of under their own power.

Advantages: Can accommodate any craft small enough to fit inside.
Disadvantages: Can get traffic when large amounts of ship enter/leave at once.





Other than that...I'll post more Ideas later

I don't think we've gotten that far in our development. We're still hacking away at the very basics, knocking the easy stuff like items and new ores out of the way first before we tackle the really enormous (main) ideas of the mod, so that we won't have distractions and can focus all of our attention on those particular hurdles one at a time.

Is there a place where you post what you have dome so far?

If not, then there should be, it would let people know about where you are so that you don't get more posts like mine.

What about contacting Flan to see if some of the code from the Planes mod could be used for the smaller ships? Storing craft would be easy (just put them in chests) and it would save a lot of time and effort. As for BSG-style launch tubes, I don't know. I think traditional hangars would work just fine.

Hangars may work fine, but launch-tubes would be cooler. (maybe in a later release)

Starrider543 wrote:

Hangars may work fine, but launch-tubes would be cooler. (maybe in a later release)

True, but they are somewhat impractical. Why launch one ship at a time when you could be scrambling every fighter and bomber in your carrier's hangar almost all at once? Also, I think the docking system is a good idea, but with a couple changes:

1. Fighters and bombers would be too vulnerable when docked, so they should just go into the hangars anyway.

2. Small ships like corvettes and frigates should be able to dock with larger ships, ie. carriers, battleships, and dreadnoughts, because they act as escorts, so giving them the ability to pull out of battle, dock, quickly rearm, and reenter the fight would be ideal.

Hmmm.... I thought I already posted here..... Whatever
I have an idea for a ew ship, a Harvester ship. This ship can fly both in space, and in the nether. THe harvester is 250-500 blocks large, and at the front, has a 4 gold blocks that define the area that will do the harvesting. When the ship is first powered up, the 4 gold blocks form an outer layer that can destroy stone and ore blocks when they touch the harvester for 2 seconds. They are then put into the ship core, which MUST be directly connected to at least 1 chest, and all collected materials are filtered(or not) to chests that contain alike materials. Example, the Harvester core is connected to three chests, one of them contains flint, gravel, and dirt. All flint gravel and dirt go there, and the others contain ect ect ect... This will minimize the mining time required to make bigger ships, and the ability to ue this ship in the nether allows easy glowstone access.

Fighters should be stored in an open hanger, and the hanger should have a force field of some sort that allows vehicals and troops in and out, but not weapons.

My Battle Cruiser will now have a medium-sized hangar taking up most of the lower ship, with a large opening at the back of the ship. I'll have five of my laser turrets around that opening to shoot down enemy spacecraft, and provide covering fire for allied craft.

Thank you for calling this to my attention.

Actually, seven laser turrets.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I deleted the previous post; it had nothing to do with this topic, and was a bad idea besides.

In my cruise ship, I have storage for two fighters, one in each of the pods (on either side). They are only just big enough to accommodate the fighters they carry. When activated, the fighters will roll out of the ship on rails, and once out, use their own power to accelerate. On return, they will very carefully move backwards into their allocated pod.

In my battle cruiser, the system is a bit more interesting: there is storage for 8 fighters. When I fighter is activated, you simply need to press the forward button, and a complex rail system will take it out of its bay, down a ramp, and out through the hangar doors, at a fair speed. On return, they will need to come in on reverse thrusters, drive back up the ramp, and will need to steer themselves back into position, taking more time then launching.

Also, the rails which fighters are not like normal rails. Besides looking different, you can have up to four-way junctions, meaning that you don't have the problem I did with normal rails of fighters always trying to enter the same pod, even with steering.

Oh, and don't get excited, I don't actually have fighters, I just know exactly how they will behave due to the fact that they are my design, and I ran numerous simulation with mine carts to approximate their behaviour.

Launch tubes sound like fun. Let's do it.

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Launch tubes sound like fun. Let's do it.

Does this mean the fighters will look like vipers from BSG?

ACH0225 wrote:

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Launch tubes sound like fun. Let's do it.

Does this mean the fighters will look like vipers from BSG?

That is literally exactly what I was thinking.

The funny thing is, I'm watching Batttle Star Galctica right now, and got a perfect sequence with the launch tube...


If we use the rails, you will able to make launch tubes, or a hangar, it's your choice.

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

The funny thing is, I'm watching Batttle Star Galctica right now, and got a perfect sequence with the launch tube...


If we use the rails, you will able to make launch tubes, or a hangar, it's your choice.

Launce tubes, definently, they give a sense of anticipation and general sci-fi coolness

ACH0225 wrote:

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

The funny thing is, I'm watching Batttle Star Galctica right now, and got a perfect sequence with the launch tube...


If we use the rails, you will able to make launch tubes, or a hangar, it's your choice.

Launce tubes, definently, they give a sense of anticipation and general sci-fi coolness

Well, that was an anti-climax.

The only problem with launch tubes is if the enemy gets off ONE lucky artillery shot, just ONE, they could destroy a good portion of the launch system and render the fighters useless.



But then again, in the words of the Ranger Halt, "Battles are won by taking risks. How do you know which are the right risks? You wait till the battle is over and see if you won."

Just put a shielded blast door on the exit, problem solved. Oh yeah we'll have blast doors. No more overly complicated redstone contraptions for us, no sir.

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Just put a shielded blast door on the exit, problem solved. Oh yeah we'll have blast doors. No more overly complicated redstone contraptions for us, no sir.

Hooray! I can put my redstone to a better use now, a giant mechanical ship maker!

ACH0225 wrote:

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Just put a shielded blast door on the exit, problem solved. Oh yeah we'll have blast doors. No more overly complicated redstone contraptions for us, no sir.

Hooray! I can put my redstone to a better use now, a giant mechanical ship maker!

*facepalms*

daman200 wrote:

ACH0225 wrote:

fr0stbyte124 wrote:

Just put a shielded blast door on the exit, problem solved. Oh yeah we'll have blast doors. No more overly complicated redstone contraptions for us, no sir.

Hooray! I can put my redstone to a better use now, a giant mechanical ship maker!

*facepalms*

*Slaps and burns under construction wool dreadnought*

I really am getting a hard time for that wool fleet.

daman200 wrote:

I really am getting a hard time for that wool fleet.

You bet! :p
Why would you want a wool fleet anyways?

I NEEDED A COLORFUL FLEET! SHUT UP!

daman200 wrote:

I NEEDED A COLORFUL FLEET! SHUT UP!

Use lapis for blue, gold for yellow, diamond for light blue, iron for white, cactus surrounded by glass for green, and beds for red. Like a boss, using random junk for a spaceship! Also, with the leftover redstone from my ship maker, I can make a giant alarm system in my spaceship core room!