Finally, after 10 or more attempts , I found a Desert Planet with my preferred Biom - The Large Crater. Yes, I know, large Craters can be always found BUT..not with some Water in it. So now I can start to build up a Base, an Air strip and than continue to construct the CV Augustus.
I have gotten so used to power status of on, off and partial when looking at the control panel that I had not noticed until today that weapons are listed as simply on or off. So when I switched off the gatling guns only and left the turrets powered, it surprised me at first. Then after making sure I was only flipping off the one set of weapons, I made the realization.
As I was looking at my efforts to simplify my collections, I had come to the realization that Dragonfly Industries (DI) had several starting HV that seemed to lack real variety. So I gave the Scout Nymph a second update and a new name. Now called the Green Abdomen, the HV is still unlock level 3 but now is two blocks longer and sports a whole lot more storage. Beefed up the hover engines to a total of 4 and some more rear S thrusters to accommodate volume and mass. The other update I did was to the what had been the Trike. I had moved that over from one collection I had decided to discontinue. Even without it, DI had plenty of starting HV. Now DI doesn't have much in the way of starting HV with turrets so this was different than the others. However, I haven't used the trike in my games in probably a year or so. Wondering how I could change that, I decided to actually borrow from the other DI starting HV and put a couple gatling guns on the mobile point defense HV. While I was at it, I also reversed the arrangement of the three turrets so that there was a better view while driving. Since all the HV, SV and CV for DI have names that somehow relate to dragonflies, well, I renamed this the Black Labrum.
Been thinking what I could do with my deep core mining facility that I'm making. Here's what I kind of had in mind for now: It will be on the ice giant planet. There'll be a Terran ship in orbit with a trader who says they are under contract to retrieve a cargo box from the mining facility and if you recover it for them they'll cut you in on some of the profit. The trader will be set to buy one otherwise unobtainable SV cargo box at like 250,000 credits. This cargo box can only be obtained in the POI. It cannot be crafted or even cheated in through the item menu. The mining facility itself will be an abandoned style POI. They drilled too deep and unleashed something terrible. It will be guarded by a bunch of Polaris defense that have gone haywire and will attack any vessel within range. The player can approach them under the cover of the sensor interference from the planet's harsh conditions and manually deactivate all the defense towers. Then the player can take their ship to the mining facility so they have a WiFi link for looting. Alternatively maybe you can't deactivate the defenses so you have to leave your ship safely out of range and walk the 500 meters in -230c temps. The base itself will be large and admin cored with custom loot. It will require you to clear multiple sections to advance and eventually find the special cargo box. Sell the cargo box back at the ship for your cut of the profits.
I salute your inventiveness of design and also of nomenclature. I confess I hadn't read the explanation of the dragonfly derivation before I started smirking at the thought of Green "Belly" and Black "Fibrocartilage". I then went to your workshop and saw a level of involvement that I only had an inkling of previously. No disrespect is intended. I was going to say that I was inspired to call my next BA, Isles of Langerhan and my next fighter, F-10 Cervix. But now that I am more informed, I'll pass.
Nexus Station update: I finished decorating the four control spires underneath the station. Tasteful deco, office spaces and labs. It's nice. I finished up the elevator towers too. I had moved those so they'd hook up with the subway station and deleted the luxury apartments/shops that were attached to them. I changed the deco in the shaft to something a little less gaudy and instead of having an open shaft the whole length of it I converted part of that space into a couple of two level apartments with a small restaurant sandwiched between them. Spoiler I'm working on updating the air traffic control towers now. Spoiler Old: New: Old: the room below that one. It was kind of a break room/equipment storage. New: I turned it into more ATC stuff with simulated computer consoles. I've also been strategically deleting npcs and animated computer consoles throughout the station which has really helped improve performance. The station is back to being useable again. Well, until you have a bunch of ships docked and players walking around. I've never really stress tested that scenario. I think parts of the interior might need a new paint job too. That's going to be a lot of work.
One of my favorites too. At first I was calling my SVs Dragonfly MkI, II, III and so forth. Quickly decided that I needed more variety in the names, so I created Dragonfly Industries as a collection and then researched the species a bit to come up with better names. I noticed that a lot of them used colors in their names, plus things like cruiser, skimmer, saddlebags, darter, darner, hawker, and so forth. So my Star Cruiser CV is either a really lame name for a starship, or a clever play on a dragonfly name. From there the bases became rests or bits of dragonfly fact, while HVs are named after the previous stage in the life cycle or other facts.
Well, since I just spelled out my convention for my Dragonfly Industries, might as well as spell it out for you on my other two collections. FTB. Freedom Trade Builders actually comes from For The Birds. Hence, primarily named after birds. For example, the Steamer Duck HV got its name in part because I read that 3 out of 4 species of steamer duck are flightless but you don't mess with 4 out of 4... and the HV has 4 turrets. Inspiration Traders. These I try to name with positive, uplifting words such as faith, create, nourish and reverence.
I understand the dilemma. I've been using Greek gods & warriors for CVs, military combat aircraft names for SVs and military ground vehicle names for HVs. Bases are named for the phonetic alphabet. I, too, use MkI, II, etc., when its an upgraded variant as opposed to what I consider a major redesign or a new concept. I also use Sci-Fi books and game guides for ideas. Lastly, I have a star map on the wall for inspiration. Fortunately my fleet is not that large yet. Of course , now, I have to find somes entomological reference to find out what & where a dragonfly's labrum is.
"... the flap-like labrum, at the front of the mouth, can be shot rapidly forward to catch prey." As for the MkI, II, etc., well, I wasn't using them to represent proper upgrades to the SV. Instead they marked the order I created the SV, each being a whole new SV concept. Today, I worked on my replacement for the Nymph HV. As I said, my DI collection has a lot of starting HV and I want to further separate them from each other. So I decided to completely rebuild the Nymph and give it something unique among my starting HV. For this HV, I looked over my starting HV and realized that none of them have a cloning chamber. Adding the cloning chamber, I also opted to realign the HV with the medical division of DI. My plan is to also change the name so that all the medical "transports" will be darners. This will change the name to Ground Darner. I won't change the workshop name until I complete the transition. The original has six gatling guns but no turrets. Since this will have the cloning chamber, this will move the HV closer functionally to a mobile base, so the turrets seemed appropriate, but I am uncertain if I really want to include that change to the HV.
I... refueled my current CV project, fixed a heat bleed and... cleaned out the fur balls from my fridge? Been lazy of late, and away on the weekends getting my yacht ready for the water.
Finally decided to post an HV which I've been using and upgrading since A7, inspired by the A7 Husky from TK85. Mameluke A level 5 HV for long-range operations in hostile environments, with most mod cons, (no clone chamber or med bay) and 8625 SU of cargo capacity.
Thanks for the timesaver. I've been working on an idea I got from a book of conceptual art & design sketches for the original ALIEN movie. It was a rendering of a lifeboat recessed into the side of the Nostromo. To start, I modified a Cougar fighter, removing some weapons, fuel tanks and other non-essential stuff and added some survival oriented equipment along with 2 enclosed passenger seats. I also replaced landing gear with docking pads to lower profile. Then I tried to create as form-fitting a recess as I could. This is a mock-up of the lifeboat compartment (w.i.p.): outside, doors closed outside, doors open inside , doors closed inside, doors open lifeboat, weapons closed lifeboat, weapons open I am looking into an alternate LB design, but I kind of like this one. At present, I'm not sure how I will use this other than I have a personal scenario in mind. I don't know how to make scenarios for others to use at this time.
I think adding the turrets to this HV is starting to grow on me. Need to rerun the math to make sure the hover engines can handle the cargo capacity filled with promethium. 3k SU. To keep the unlock down, had to go with the shutter doors because standard HV/SV doors have a higher unlock. Which also meant I skipped the standard ramp and used a rear ramp made from blocks. There was a Star Cruiser CV parked not far from the site, so I confirmed that this could complete a 180 degree spin in the smaller hangar bay. Almost added a med station, but really wanted to keep unlock down to 5, so I instead use truss blocks in one of the walls to mark a spot for it.
As my preferred playstile is a nomadic one, the for me needed CV has to reflect it. In the last months i created parts of 4 really big CVs that can function as a mobile base and have more than enough space to live in, build and explore a large system. Looking at your wonderful one there, @ravien_ff! Finally i settled on this design and will now finish the outer hull and most needed interiors to begin with the voyage Front bridge, botanical gardens with something like 250 growplots, medical center and front hangar are almost done. Next ones will be the CIC, engine rooms, main hangar, production area and a few cargo holds. When that is all useable i plan to begin the fun exploration part and finish my mobile base as i go. edit: CV for sure.
