Building/Ship Acamarian Protectorate (learning to build stuff!)

I was kinda thinking a loading crew would simply offload the cargo and carry the next pile of stuff through the hatch. Not sustainable long term, but for a fledgeling port (and a colony full of people that is completely lacking in logistics specialists) it kinda gets the job done. The design is probably better for people transport though via replacing the storage with seating... a little bit too early for any sort of tourism to or from this planet though.

Though it is certainly a fair point, just trying to think of how to get in the big hatch and manage to get the primary engines on there without changing the overall shape of the craft too much. The last ship I saw was yours and if I'm not careful I'll have a different version of the same ship xD I have a swooped design in mind with the central storage area with two tiers, one lower for the purposes of loading, but I'm thinking that one is going to be a light freighter (LFr-1 'gull' class) so I'm also trying to not mess with that design either. Perhaps a design shaped like ">" with a lower cargo area and an upper room for the engines and rest area? Then again that was the idea for the heavy planetary freighters...

Trying to avoid signs of this vessel being capable of deep space trips as well, thinking of setting up a 'pilot and crew hotel' type structure near the spaceport instead of having a captain's rest area, no engine room because everything is accessable from the outside, though I probably should switch to the smaller engine in that case, and the like.

End of conscious stream xD

 

Well, I think the image and shape of a ship can tell the story of what it is for. As you saw with my little Froghopper ship, a smaller engine, a small cargo hold with smaller boxes and minimal crew amenities work to show the ship is for short, low quantity trips between planets.

For shape, I just picked a theme and coupled it with the functionality I wanted. In the last ship, I wanted to follow an animal track with my Hylotl theme. I then choose the smaller engine for short range, small cargo bay and set the cockpit above the door to get the unique shape.

I'm doing another larger ship that will be dubbed "leatherback transport". That one will use the shipping containers and is shaped like a turtle.

I would just push for a theme based on your character and function and see where it goes.

 

Ah, makes sense. I'm definitely lacking for a theme at the present, minus a log-cabin / chateau kinda thing for the buildings, but that's primarily because of available materials early on. I really like the pressurized set, but they're impossible to get in the numbers I would need to actually build a city of out them without resorting to the /admin command. I really like the cleanliness of certain aspects of the human set in the game, but everything has a military/bad-government feel to it that isn't appropriate for the average building I feel. I kinda like how the xs-2 feels, but I've tried doing buildings with that theme in the past and it just feels too... cold.

Perhaps it would be better to switch to smaller boxes and crates for the lack of a cargo door to make any amount of sense. That should either enable me to create a room especially for cargo (not going above the 64 item limit, kinda love how those big crates feel) and a small passenger area, making the XS-3 effectively a small colony ship instead, perhaps bringing the higher technology of the homeworld along with techs to maintain it in addition to the supplies.

Another option might be defining the role of particular kinds of storage. I think a forest planet is the next step because of the current needs of the homeworld (fruit!) so the only real need for transport is going to be the foods that the lush world provides and returning with fruit which really doesn't need a big cargo crate in the first place I guess.

 

Also remember that the first transport ship is YOUR ship. You need to have a shipyard to even build a ship...

It's a different mode of building. Gotta build that starting town up before one can get going with spaceport a and all that.

 

But...but.... its shiny....

 

Well keep it, but make a shiny factory for it to come out of

 

Too late... there's an apex-style factory sitting on top of where it was now >.> It's probably more modelled off of a Cuban Cigar factory more than anything, actually. Scouting has reported significant clay deposits on Acamar II-b so I think I'm going to use a brick style for the city itself as I work up the tech tree. Might be interesting to give the initial town/village a sort of historical district that way.