The shape of ships to come... ship shape.. or whatever that quote is....

[EnochTheRed]

So I have been passive in this forum but been looking at many designs and tried a few of my own - no where as well put together as many here - but did mine to test out concepts of the actual shape of the ship affecting play.  Specifically combat and weapon firing arcs.

 

Just to open up, i have found that the long "needle" shape of ships that are generated by the game are quite effective in this sense.  Other than the relatively thin aspect of the ship itself, a turret slightly raised off the needle will have a very large available firing arc and therefore require the ship to do minimum pivoting/turning for all turrets to hit a target.

 

But if we look at the much more appealing player created ships, the bulk and facets of some of these ships make some very sub-optimal weapons platforms...  Dont get me wrong, I really do want these wonderful designs, but what are the best practices to ensure maximum weapon on target capability.

 

In short I believe the following...

1.. Either design (and then fly) for stand off combat where you have a large-ish blunt face on the ship that holds all fwd facing turrets AND acts as a shield wall in nose forward strategy.  This of course only works when you can keep most of your enemies in one direction as the front face will then limit the turrets from firing on many other arcs.

2.. Incorporate  several principles that bring max weapons on target.

-- Arched spine, where the front is lets say say 45 deg and the spine then curves back. this can be on both top and/or bottom

-- relatively thin body side to side. knowing that the lovely big-but of the ship will ultimately create blinds spots.  depending on the size of the ship and the scale of the weapons it will mount, the max thickness of the face of the spine should be enough to accommodate the size of the turret.

-- these first two practices can be turned on its side so that the narrow/tall become flat/wide.

-- weapons placed on the spine only... avoid on the side.  spine mounted weapons will have full front facing capability, strong side to side and even up/down capability and fire will only be limited to where the body of the ship is.  If mounted on the side of this fictitious ship they  will NEVER fire to the other side of the ship.

-- Bulky ship bodies are less good

 

At the end of the day I am sure there are creative ways to modify this body of thoughts, but the same principle holds true...if you limit the number of turrets that can fire on target other than forward, you are that % less capable.  This is even more true as you progress, getting into heavier ships that turn slower AND facing multiple ships that flank all around you.

 

Thoughts.. other successful strategies?  In the end my objective is to find the best "shape" of the ship to then incorporate into pleasing designs.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Ancient Demise]

My first couple (weaker) starting designs relied on several cheap layers of ablative armor on the nose so I could ram most enemies, then the turrets mounted on top. Another option is to have turrets on top of towers to give them more range to fire, but you need to be careful to both armor the sides of the towers and to keep the turret on the central hull piece so that if the armor is shot off, the turret isn't destroyed too.

 

Now that I have shields I rely less on nose armor but keep my ships somewhat narrow to avoid fire while picking thing off either from long range or on high speed runs.

[KooperChaos]

i usually take a 'naval' ispired aproach. the ships are roughly the shape of a boat. They are usually heavy reliant on shields due to me using a lot of farings instead of armor. i usually only cover the front in amor plating

http://imgur.com/KNUBUcj

 

http://imgur.com/8o3nnes

 

when it comes to weapon placements i put them on the spine on top and on the bottom... that gives you good firing arks when it comes to headon and broadside battles.

 

The issue i havc ewith sticks is that (besids the visuals) a shield penetratinground could easily rip a ship like that i half not to say what happens if you lose your shields...