Misticblade7's Construction Log

Sunday, June 24th, 2012

Decided against resuming work on the Cruiser, at least for now, as it's just too big for my current taste. I have, however, come up with a fairly simple ship which strikes me as being a very good base for many types of functions. The SC-1 (Service Craft 1) "Turtle" is a skeleton of a craft with absolutely nothing in its walls. Once I'd finished building the ship's exterior and lighting, I'd decided that a great deal of functions could be added to its interior. Originally, I'd thought to build another fighter-deploying aircraft, similar to the intended main function of Bulkwing. After constructing what was at the time the hangar, I'd decided to put the cockpit slightly lower and in front of the hangar. Upon building the entry to the cockpit, I figured that another hangar would look good underneath the initial one, and built another hangar into the ship. The auxiliary hangar could be adapted into a simple bomb bay, or both could be made into cargo holds. There are a great many possibilities for me to explore with this model.


TODO:

-Work on aesthetics
-Perhaps add more auxiliary chambers for purposes such as crew quarters
-Create and take screenshots of this craft furnished for specific purposes.


Screenshots (9):

Spoiler:

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012

Back from a five month hiatus, going to finish the Cruiser up, then make a new map (flatlands?) with a few mods to improve ship construction. Planning to improve ship aesthetics as well, though I might sacrifice them (as seen with the Bulkwing Frigate) to pack some more functionality into the spacecraft.

Next ship will likely be either a Battle Cruiser or a Frigate. I might want it to be a Frigate so that I may get back into the swing of things, but we'll see.


Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Fixed yesterday's update, now has 21 images of the Cruiser as a work-in-progress. Read Tuesday's entry for more information.


Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Alright, I'm not a huge fan of uploading pictures of incomplete ships, but you guys showed an interest in seeing how my Cruiser is coming along. Today I've completed the wings, and added two bridges along the ceiling of the hangar. One is for defensive purposes, to have higher ground against enemies who might somehow get in, and the other is to better facilitate movement between the various parts of the ship. The hull remains largely incomplete until I figure out what I'll do about the control room, as I don't want to finish the hull only to decide I have to change it up quite a bit when I figure that out.

Originally I wasn't too sure about having the rounded ceiling for the hangar, but I decided that it looked fine with the wing design (rather interesting one, if I do say so myself). At the moment, the ship is entirely empty space, and entirely iron blocks, with some glowstone. I will likely make more use of gold and diamond blocks to bring more life to the design, like I did with the floor of the hangar.

Please note that the entrance to the hangar is the back of the ship. The front is largely incomplete, as I must figure out the control room design before much can be done there.

The abundance of space (unlike my previous craft) will allow for me to have space for around ten crewmen to live comfortably, and still have plenty of space for bomb bays, cargo, or other useful wartime things. It will mainly facilitate rapid launch, repair, and refueling of fighters during combat.


Here are the pictures so far! (21):

Spoiler:

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

I've been working on some ideas for how I might design my ships when the time comes. I'm mainly focusing on compact designs for now, so there's not much open space on the ship, but just enough for it to accomplish what it's designed to do. I'll likely move onto bigger projects as time progresses.


Today I've completed my first acceptable prototype of a ship concept. By concept, I mean a design that's unfit for FutureCraft ship plans, but can (hopefully) be easily adapted to work with the systems that will be implemented. Prior to this, I'd built a tiny, hideous craft designed to hold a pilot and some gunmen, and another designed to be a mobile aircraft hangar. With the BF-1 (Bombardment Frigate), I hope to have a frigate-sized ship capable of dropping a small payload and deploying a single fighter, while having the capability to open fire upon enemy fighters.

This first prototype has the following features on board:

-7x5x12 hangar capable of housing one Flan-type Airplane
-Two five-slot bomb deployers
-Four Anti-Aircraft Guns easily reachable by crew
-One control room with access to hangar, and capable of dropping bombs, as well as (almost) closing off the bomb hatch (Had to change the system a tad, and have two open blocks for TNT to drop through, as otherwise it would get stuck and explode in ship.)
-Four small cargo storage areas
-Six beds for crew

Images (10): (There was a slight problem with frontal symmetry in the design, it has been fixed, but not in the images.)

Spoiler:

Future Plans: Central Bomb Bay, more compact wing design, central frontal cannon, hangar capable of storing two fighters (potentially a new ship design entirely).

From the outside it looks hideous, but this is made up by the fact you managed to back so much into such a little space. Make the design a bit (lot) sleeker, it doesn't matter if it becomes too big for the current class of frigate, all that is going to change.

My advice: keep up the hard work!

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

From the outside it looks hideous, but this is made up by the fact you managed to back so much into such a little space. Make the design a bit (lot) sleeker, it doesn't matter if it becomes too big for the current class of frigate, all that is going to change.

My advice: keep up the hard work!

Yeah, I've considered nicknaming it "Bulkwing". I plan to make the larger craft designs a lot less ugly. I may begin work on a craft of Battle Cruiser size next, but I think I should work on more smaller craft before that.

Actually, I'll start working on a wider, but shorter (height-wise) ship with the same gadgets, and a frontal cannon now.

Misticblade7 wrote:

Yeah, I've considered nicknaming it "Bulkwing". I plan to make the larger craft designs a lot less ugly. I may begin work on a craft of Battle Cruiser size next, but I think I should work on more smaller craft before that.

Actually, I'll start working on a wider, but shorter (height-wise) ship with the same gadgets, and a frontal cannon now.

Not wider, longer. And also, in Futurecraft, (with the current ship system) a rapid laser turret is worth 2 turret points, so is a bomb bay (each individual bomb dispenser, like the one from SDK's mod). The frigate has a maxium of 20 turret points, so bear that in mind.

Just began work on a Cruiser. I made the floor of its hangar, placed an Airship Controller from the Zeppelin mod, used it, and the floor was already half the size (in blocks) of the BF-1 Prototype 1. I'm expecting to have a 4-5k block craft when complete.

Use the "analyse" function on MCedit to find out how big your ships are. Just subtract the air blocks from the total.

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

Use the "analyse" function on MCedit to find out how big your ships are. Just subtract the air blocks from the total.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

And attempting to build a large ship bottom is a tedious task.

Okay, built over 3000 blocks of my ship today, I've got a medium-sized hangar with a rounded ceiling, and the makings of two lower levels of the ship. I plan to work on the wings tomorrow. Hopefully it'll look considerably better than the previous showing.

Finally worked out an interesting wing design for my Cruiser. Still have no idea what I'll do for the control room.

And I'm not sure one can fully understand how huge spaceships will be until they take the time to build one. There's a huge difference between a Frigate and a Cruiser.

Misticblade7 wrote:

Finally worked out an interesting wing design for my Cruiser. Still have no idea what I'll do for the control room.

And I'm not sure one can fully understand how huge spaceships will be until they take the time to build one. There's a huge difference between a Frigate and a Cruiser.

Mind posting pictures of your semi-completed ship?

You'll get great advice from A) the Doc, B) ectrimble, C) the community, and D) people like pictures.

TheLordofError wrote:

Misticblade7 wrote:

Finally worked out an interesting wing design for my Cruiser. Still have no idea what I'll do for the control room.

And I'm not sure one can fully understand how huge spaceships will be until they take the time to build one. There's a huge difference between a Frigate and a Cruiser.

Mind posting pictures of your semi-completed ship?

You'll get great advice from A) the Doc, B) ectrimble, C) the community, and D) people like pictures.

I'll finish the wings, add a bit of stuff to the hangar, and post a few pictures tonight.

Great, I can't wait to see how it looks!

I just like pictures, I can't design a space ship to save my life, I just make giant rectangles to prove points about scale and size.

ectrimble20 wrote:

I just like pictures, I can't design a space ship to save my life, I just make giant rectangles to prove points about scale and size.

You see what I mean?

Screwed up on updating the OP, will fix tomorrow with 21 additional images. Maybe I should just link to my imgur album?

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

ectrimble20 wrote:

I just like pictures, I can't design a space ship to save my life, I just make giant rectangles to prove points about scale and size.

You see what I mean?

Well, just to prove my point, I updated to 1.0.1 to get the flat map generator and build a quick ship. It looks like pooh, some one else needs to build ships for me. I'll go dig holes or something for resources. Although I had lots of fun with the new spawn eggs, I built a giant wall of TNT, then spawned a butt load of villagers in it, then set it off, no more villagers! woo! I love TNT.

ectrimble20 wrote:

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

ectrimble20 wrote:

I just like pictures, I can't design a space ship to save my life, I just make giant rectangles to prove points about scale and size.

You see what I mean?

Well, just to prove my point, I updated to 1.0.1 to get the flat map generator and build a quick ship. It looks like pooh, some one else needs to build ships for me. I'll go dig holes or something for resources. Although I had lots of fun with the new spawn eggs, I built a giant wall of TNT, then spawned a butt load of villagers in it, then set it off, no more villagers! woo! I love TNT.

So, you mine to stuff, the other 3 guys up top build you a cruiser. Total cost including time and expenses: $0

Added twenty-one images of the Cruiser-in-progress.

It might not look too great, but it's beautiful compared to my frigate. Maybe the hangar looks too chunky.

Misticblade7 wrote:

Added twenty-one images of the Cruiser-in-progress.

It might not look too great, but it's beautiful compared to my frigate. Maybe the hangar looks too chunky.

It looks like a tin can with wings. Make it longer and
sleeker. Also, add contrast, the all white look is not good, but I personally
don't think gold and diamond blocks work with iron. Add Netherrack or obsidian
or Glowstone trimming.

And for God's sake man, make it sleeker!

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

Misticblade7 wrote:

Added twenty-one images of the Cruiser-in-progress.

It might not look too great, but it's beautiful compared to my frigate. Maybe the hangar looks too chunky.

It looks like a tin can with wings. Make it longer and
sleeker. Also, add contrast, the all white look is not good, but I personally
don't think gold and diamond blocks work with iron. Add Netherrack or obsidian
or Glowstone trimming.

And for God's sake man, make it sleeker!

-is now pondering how best to sleeken the ship-

And I've considered obsidian trim (perhaps coating), but figured I could leave that for the finishing touches.

In practice, the gold and diamond are a bit impractical because of cost.






P.S. How did you upload the pics? Just wondering.

daman200 wrote:

In practice, the gold and diamond are a bit impractical because of cost.






P.S. How did you upload the pics? Just wondering.

imgur, most reliable image host in my opinion.


So, the main problem with my design is the fact that it isn't very sleek, and the ship isn't long enough to please the eye. I've decided to add more space to the ship around the front, and the front of the wings to smoothen the whole thing. I've also removed the top layer of blocks from the hangar. Not much change, but it's a start.

Misticblade7 wrote:

imgur, most reliable image host in my opinion.


So, the main problem with my design is the fact that it isn't very sleek, and the ship isn't long enough to please the eye. I've decided to add more space to the ship around the front, and the front of the wings to smoothen the whole thing. I've also removed the top layer of blocks from the hangar. Not much change, but it's a start.

Okay, let me know how it goes. I may post some pictures of my Dreadnought...

Dr. Mackeroth wrote:

Misticblade7 wrote:

imgur, most reliable image host in my opinion.


So, the main problem with my design is the fact that it isn't very sleek, and the ship isn't long enough to please the eye. I've decided to add more space to the ship around the front, and the front of the wings to smoothen the whole thing. I've also removed the top layer of blocks from the hangar. Not much change, but it's a start.

Okay, let me know how it goes. I may post some pictures of my Dreadnought...

That'll be awesome.