EVN - Delphi

Do you have other views? Maybe a view from 10 o'clock flat? But otherwise an amazing ship! Good detail! Just what one would expect from delphi! Keep up the good work!

Seems like factory production is up this month. The NDC officials will be pleased. I've come to a very comfortable meeting between salvaging old projects for parts and designing new material, and it's the reason I've been putting out so many interesting high-detail designs recently. Three is a lot for me in less than 30 days. Either way, I'm happy to present you with this beauty. I'm not sure what it's going to be called, much like the others, but I'd like to take advantage of its design as a regular-size cruiser, so that it's not too rare an appearance. Either way, I hope you like it. Here's two shots of the ship for dimensionality.

(Beauty Shot, Sort Of)

(EVN-ish Render Angle)

Just checking in to say good work, and keep it up! That ship's dynamite!

Well slap me in the mouth with a trout! That ship is glorious! I like the engine placement on the sides, that looks really cool! Its got a nice sturdy look to it.

The "top" of the cruiser looks like it has a carrier deck. I love carrier decks.

Well that's disappointing. Somehow using the edit feature wiped the entire post I made. Well, here it is again, typed a little more quickly than before, and albeit less replete with details.

New from the starship-forges of the Nova Defense Coalition is the Alexander Class Dominant, the largest vessel constructed to date. At 13 km in length, the Alexander is so gigantic that in most situations, it is incapable of being serviced by a conventional space station; the size alone preclude the possibility of docking. The ship's primary features are a pair of twin-linked Nichron "Annihilator" artillery cannons, a full complement of fighters, and a specialized navigational sensor array that negates the effect of ANY system interference. The vessel itself is very poor at maneuvering, but makes up for it by carrying enough turreted basic weapons that any ship coming within a few hundred meters is going to be incinerated. The only way to safely approach this ship is from the aft, where the bulk of the engine assembly precludes the possibility of heavy weapon placement, though light turrets do protect the aft quarter. Attacking from this angle would still be ill-advised, as heavy shielding and armor would make any attempt nothing more than a battle of attrition, as you simply hope that your cannons can pound through the ship's hull before its aft turrets turn you into a smoldering fullerene asteroid.

Note: The antenna-like device from the bottom of the vessel houses the communications and sensor equipment, which cannot be stored within the primary or secondary hull due to armor and refractor interference.

• Starboard Profile •

• 3/4 View •

• Undercarriage, Displaying Nichron Annihilator Configuration on Secondary Hull •

I really hope you enjoy this one. I spent eight solid hours working on it, and I'm so pleased with the result, that I can tell you outright that this will be the ship that represents my own character easter-egg in the game. Look for me!

There will also be another version of this ship in the game featuring a standard singular primary hull, instead of the split double one. Variety is the spice of life.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 16 June 2009 - 04:33 AM

QUOTE (Ianator @ Jun 15 2009, 01:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The "top" of the cruiser looks like it has a carrier deck. I love carrier decks.

Maybe it is; maybe it isn't...

I left a lot of the ship designs flexible so that I can make them out to be almost whatever I want. With a quick rescale, the ship you enjoyed is only one deck tall and holds a crew of three. Conversely, simply making the sprite bigger lets the same vehicle pass as a 500-man cruiser.

Admittedly though, crew sizes aren't a proper gauge of size estimation in the Delphi universe. Some of the largest ships have some of the proportionally smallest crews, because they're large simply by virtue of having thousands of tons of weaponry. The Alexander, largest conventional ship in the NDC fleet, still only packs a crew of a few thousand into that 13 km of length. Most of the ship is actually unlivable; for example, nearly 90% of the engineering sector (the secondary, lower hull).

I can promise you this though, I'll make sure not to skimp too much on the fighters, though I'm also expecting you to understand that some vessels will simply be incapable of holding fighters altogether despite their large size; certain structural components are integral to the integrity of the ship and cannot just be stripped out to make room for a bay. If the ship was built entirely around a cannon, you can't just rip it out and replace it with a hangar. To combat this though, there are going to be a wide variety of ships that serve in a number of capacities straight out of the shipyard, so you won't have to customize as many parts to get the perfect ship. I know that in Nova I've had ships with over 40 or 50 different upgrades, and then one well-placed enemy missile sees me floating in an escape pod, contemplating what to do now. I may even take advantage of an idea I had for a while where you "refit" the ship much like the Starbridge of EV Nova, so that you choose different weapon kits to begin with and then go from there. That way, a ship customized to support a fighter bay will have some of its gun hardpoints removed, and its turning slowed somewhat (can't launch little ships if you're spinning at 90° per second). It would also mean that I wouldn't have to put together such a complicated upgrade table; you could simply select the custom kit you want to start with, add the guns and turrets available for that ship, and select basic speed and maneuvering upgrades.

So, instead of this, all picked by hand one at a time:

Starbridge
-> RCS Boosters (2)
-> Acceleration Upgrade (1)
-> Light Blaster (2)
-> Medium Blaster (1)
-> Medium Blaster Turret (1)
-> Escape Pod (1)
-> Auto-Eject (1)
-> Civilian Radar Jammer
-> Gravimetric Sensors
-> IFF Decoder
-> Radar Missile Launcher
-> Radar Missiles (20)
-> Marines (3)
-> Carbon Fiber (2)

You could have this, instead:

Alexander Class
-> Planet-cracker Refit (2 nichron artillery guns, 1 fighter bay, 5 fighter squads, 4 enhanced pulse turrets, 4 nichron cannons, escape pod, auto eject, IFF, mass sensors, captain's-bar with hired dancers, etc.)

-> Top Speed Increase
-> Maneuvering Increase (2)
-> Enhanced Pulse Turret (2)(making 6 in total)
-> Undercarriage Rapid-Launch Fighter Bay (replaces stock version)
-> Impeller Upgrade (multi jump)

You could still remove items from the refit, but it would make for a good starting off point, and the presence of already-refitted ships in the game world would mean that the player's ship doesn't always have something like a 300% advantage over ships identical to theirs simply because of a ridiculous number of upgrades. You could purchase the stock version and still run into a refit variant twice as powerful as yourself, much like the IDA frigate and the different generational models with stronger or weaker guns.

Either way, yeah. Its an idea.

I almost forgot to mention, there will be certain ships in the Delphi storyline that could be considered "keystone" ships, as they play heavy parts in the plot and/or backstory. The N.C.S. "Winter Eclipse" is one such notable ship, of the Alexander hull design. Each time I design a solid ship that I'm sure will make it into the game, I'll be sure to mention any and all current "legendary" ships such as this one.

The Winter Eclipse is notable for having defeated a formidable blockade placed over Tirach, one of the game's starting worlds. Despite taking heavy damage from the Enclave fleet and losing nearly two thirds of its crew to explosive decompression and other battle-related injuries, the commander of the Eclipse was courageous enough to fly the crippled ship point blank into the enemy command vessel, smashing its bow and disrupting enemy fleet communications, allowing the remaining NDC forces to take advantage of the chaos and break the blockade. By the end of the battle, the Eclipse was adrift and disabled. The burning wreck of the dominant had to be towed from a deteriorating low orbit over Tirach to avoid colliding with the planet - an endeavor that required the assistance of 16 other ships over the course of two weeks - and though the captain was killed during the battle, 244 crew members survived the confrontation, and resumed active duty on the Winter Eclipse after a lengthy three-month repair and refit. Service aboard the craft is considered one of the most prestigious career postings in the entire NDC fleet. It is currently the mobile dwelling and transport of choice for General Bryan Edselor, head of military intelligence. The ship is currently slated for another 14 years of active duty before decommissioning, barring possibility of destruction.

I would like it noted that I've been posting as frequently as I have because I am once again, totally stoked about this plug. I had a long dry spell in the middle where I actually considered scrapping the project and just going back to writing the novels, but the discovery of my new ship-building technique has re-fueled the vehicle of my imagination.

That cruiser blew out my eyes when I saw the starboard profile. But after I stuck them back in and saw the 3/4ths view and the undercarriage view, they blew up. So did my brain, after absorbing all that epicness.

You, my friend, have got yourself a follower.

This post has been edited by king_of_manticores : 16 June 2009 - 11:28 AM

I like the Alexander-class, but it almost looks like a double-barrelled pistol. The split upper hull design is very intruiging, and I think it makes it look very menacing. I'm just not sure why it's split, though? If you were in the front of the port hull, to get to the starboard hull, you'd have to run all the way to the end of the hull and back around, instead of down a corridor. It just seems very inefficient. Otherwise, it looks freaking sweet. Nice work!

Walking distance aboard NDC ships isn't so much a concern, both because most of the ship is not normally habitable, and because of advanced in-ship transit systems such as rapid lifts, trams, and even "riptide" FTL personal transport units. The gigantic ship is designed in a split so as to allow one "arm" to provide covering fire for the other, in the hopes of mitigating damage done to external systems such as turrets and shield generators. If the ship were designed in a straight line, then a turret placed behind another can be blocked from firing upon an oncoming attacker, giving the approaching assailant the opportunity to disable the forward turret and therefore reduce the combat effectiveness of the ship. The breadth of the ship gives it a permanent flanking stance, so no matter where you are attacking from, your port or starboard side will almost always be under fire, or both, should you make the foolish decision to fly right down the center of the Alexander. This tactical construction dissuades smaller ships from trying to slip through the fleet and cripple the dominant, which would usually be given fleet communications duties, due to both its defensive rating and its high-powered communications array. The array itself, a tempting target, is situated toward the front of the vessel's underside, as a sort of "anglerfish" approach to try and draw unsuspecting enemies into the forward arc where the guns on either arm of the ship can pulverize them. Generally, this entire construction approach keeps smaller craft away, reducing the number of potential threats to only the largest of enemy ships at artillery range, which happens to be the method of combat the Alexander excels at.

In game, this will all be true. The ship, while large and slow, will have a number of point-defense turrets on either arm, meaning that a small fighter flying over one and being missed by the guns' tracking speed will likely be annihilated by the weapons of the other, for which it'll be nearly a clear shot. It's like an entire fleet in one ship; focused fire from two sources is always more accurate than spread fire from one.

Either way, that's my explanation. In truth I really just like how it looks, but it's tactically sound, as well.

Wow, I'm dumb. I just re-read most of my posts and realized I slated the ship at 13 km in length. I must have been drunk at the time, which is strange, because I don't drink. That's way too big. I just pictured the thing in space and realized that it doesn't matter how many hundreds of years we may have had to build it; that's just impractical for a production-line vessel. The technology being built would be 100 years outdated by the time the ship is done. Let's say I readjust the length to perhaps 5 km? Still gigantic, but a little more believable.

Good enough for me. Nice work!

Oh dear lord Delphi, I think you out did yourself this time. That ship is just gorgeous. Its wow. Insane. Also, I love the refit idea. Would save me SO much time. Every time I buy a new ship, I always end up dragging myself around the galaxy trying to find the upgrades. That would help tons. I am so glad you are excited about it again, its taken so much work and I would hate to see it slip into the ether. Either way, I am very excited as well.

Good lord, I'm almost starting to wish I'd actually learned to texture instead of going for raw material detail. The Alexander has more than 102K faces and just creating a test spin took an hour of render time. I've got the full-size sprite rendering as we speak, with a completion time slated somewhere around four hours from now. After that is the mask, and the running lights, and the engine glows...

This could take some time, but I finally got the lights and the materials just how I like them. The ships have the faintest cobalt tint, and it makes them look a gorgeous pale blue on black in the sunlight. I took the lighting tips from Pipeline and placed a primary source at a 45° angle up and to the left of the model, as well as an opposing weaker light for backlighting on the model to keep shadows looking natural. It's fantastic. I'll upload the spin itself in a while when it finishes, so you can take a look at the detail I've achieved without the use of any fancy textures. It looks near hollywood quality, I swear it.

I won't go pestering him with a PM, but I think the only thing that would make this latest endeavor complete would be to receive some input from Pipeline himself on the finished model, once it's rendered. Here's hoping!

Once the would-be graveyard of the Winter Eclipse, the dusty skies of Tirach lie safe under the watchful eye of the same ship that years ago nearly paid the ultimate sacrifice to ward off an Enclave blockade placed over the mining world. With the Eclipse in orbit, only the foolish and the daft would risk an attempt on its sovereignty.

This shot was trimmed directly from a screenshot taken in-game. I hope you like both the planet graphic, and of course, the beautiful ship!

Full speed ahead. Thrusters on maximum. Reactors stable.

Yes, I know I haven't changed the sidebar yet. I'm still trying to pick an arrangement for the shield and armor indicators. I really enjoyed what UT did with SFA during the Excelsior era, with the upright status bars, so I may go for something like that. I also thought of arranging them vertically up one side, since all they need are x and y coordinates to be drawn by the game engine. Actually, that'd work really well for the shields in the game, because they're designed to block certain amounts of damage outright and recharge quickly, not just chip away over time. If the shields were visually connected on top of the armor status bar, then you could actually see the impact of each shot depleting the shields' capacity and eating into your armor.

Beautiful Delphi! But one thing I notice, there isn't much engine glow, for a ship that big, wouldn't it have huge engines? Also, do you have the graphics for the nichron cannon in? Could we see it firing?