Good early game Ship to build

[Guest]

 

[Gameplayer]

There is another one of these that I found really handy as well.

 

 

Basically,

Ship Habitation Modules, are more than a 1x1, 1x2, 1x3.

These have different roles as well,

Example in the video shows that for relatively cheap you can put 2 Hab modules that contain the majority of the crafting workbenches on your ship!

 

I found that the "Living Quarters" hab contained a couple of infinate storage chests, also the captains habitat has a infinate storage chest as well.  Those literally dont count against ship storage limits!  Only issue is not having easy access at vender.

 

Another good point is putting multiple set of weapons in a group.  Example rather than having 1 or 2 lasers, 1 auto, and 1 missile, it is better to use at least 3 of these weapons per catagory of weapon.  Better firepower from just low level weapons when you have 3 or 4 twin linked lasguns going vs 1.

 

Also I was surprised how good the upgrades were and how cheap it is to do it, it can be done under about 40K credits.  Do not need any ship crafting skills either to make the Frontier a really effective fighting ship with a bunch more storage and onboard quality of life crafting workbenches.

[Zankobaka]

Taking over enemy ships -

ya need to pilot it to nearest point of interest on a plane-moon or a city or station before it is yours.

Your old main will autopilot to a shipyard so you can get it back later.

 

Don't upgrade taken over ships too much. my awesome supersize upgrade to a level 10 pirate ship broke and reverted to original looks after about 25 hours.

Ships are fancy space npcs based on leveled lists like raiders.

Sell, fly as is, or keep in shipyard.

There's a mod for keeping more ships.

 

I have not had any glitches on ships gotten from missions or shipyards.

[Guest]

On 9/5/2023 at 5:23 AM, Zankobaka said:

Taking over enemy ships -

ya need to pilot it to nearest point of interest on a plane-moon or a city or station before it is yours.

Your old main will autopilot to a shipyard so you can get it back later.

 

Don't upgrade taken over ships too much. my awesome supersize upgrade to a level 10 pirate ship broke and reverted to original looks after about 25 hours.

Ships are fancy space npcs based on leveled lists like raiders.

Sell, fly as is, or keep in shipyard.

There's a mod for keeping more ships.

 

I have not had any glitches on ships gotten from missions or shipyards.

Yes but you have to pay the port authority to register the ship before you can upgrade it..

And each port where there is a shipbuilder has different items available for sale.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Sir Bron

[Gameplayer]

So I ended up modifying the Frontier quite a bit, now it looks like a StingRay, in Black n Decker paint job or at least old BnD yellow an black.

 

Lift Off

 

Ship Builder View,

 

I used parts from planet Jemmison, the planet where the "Lodge" is located.

An some parts from "Straus-Eklund" Staryard.

 

The trick was created a single wide Hab column 3 high, attaching a Docking point to the bottom of that Stack!

This created a single spot with a ladder that allowed access to the 3 decks of the ship and the Dock port is at the bottom of the stack.

 

Used a Ship Ramp from Akilla planet, this ramp has an access door rather than a ladder like the ones found at Jemmison.

I wanted only 1 single ladder on the ship rather than the 2 or 3 found on some of the in-game designs.

 

Deck 3, Top Deck

-1 3x1 Engineering Station, Aft attached to the engines, grav drive, and reactor!  Really wanted that for the cool layout factor.

-1 2x1 Workshop station, on same level with Engineering made sense.

 

Deck 2, Main Deck

-1 3x1 Living Quarters, Straus-Eklund 

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Star Frontier Hab (original hab, no idea where to find another one!)

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Generic one on Jemmison

 

Deck 1, Ground Deck

-1 2x1 Infirmary, wanted doctor station at entrance for RP reasons.

 

Weapons compliment, 

-3x Particle Beam Weapons

-2x Missile Mounts

-1x Particle Beam Turret (back tail)

 

2x Cargo Holds

1x Rear gear legs found over on Akilla.

 

Altogether spent about ~180,000 credits over time on this project, and she is a real beast of a ship without actually being a very big vessal.

Lengthy and with narrow profile, despite being 842 mass units she can really scoot about very fast due to 4 engine mounts and an oversized reactor meant for larger vessels.

 

She lacks a brig module though for the true Bounty Hunter background but that is a 2x2 module, and I wanted to have a build that really was optimal about the space usage that expanded on the Frontier design I started with.  I had to hop around between three places to get all the parts for the build, although online I have seen people just use one staryard for their builds.  Did not need "Starship Design" just needed a ship to start with to mod it out and a decent amount of credits picked up from running repeatable quests from the Mission Board, mostly destroyed other ships or dropped people/freight off.

 

Edit,

Almost forgot!

The most important feature of this ship!  It has 2 whole restrooms, so when you really need to have a dump in space you may not have to wait in line.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Gameplayer

[sen4mi]

On 9/6/2023 at 3:37 PM, Gameplayer said:

So I ended up modifying the Frontier quite a bit, now it looks like a StingRay, in Black n Decker paint job or at least old BnD yellow an black.

 

Lift Off

 

 

Ship Builder View,

 

 

 

My current Frontier has lower mobility than yours, while also having slightly lower mass. But it's still class A with no levels of ship designer:

 

 

I will need to progress further into the game before I can upgrade it. 

 

But... so far, it has worked reasonably well.

 

Edit: components:

 

but, I have already changed it from the screenshots here, and the detail in the spoiner below (I tossed the white dwarf engines, replacing them with 6 Ares DT30 engines (and added a couple engine mounts), bumping my mobility up to 100. Also, I downgraded my shield to a Bastille S81 to free up a power unit, and changed my reactor to a 134mm reactor. Basically, tossing mass where I could, but accepting additional engine mass, all to gain mobility The Ares engines use less power, so I can mount more of them (and, for the same power I get higher thrust). I also had to upgrade my grav drive with all this extra mass, so now I have a R-2000 grav drive, with 17ly jump range. I can live with that.

 

    Viking CP-200 Cockpit (8 mass, has hard points for weapons mounts, plenty of crew stations and decent cargo)

 

    Equipment plate on top of cockpit for an extra weapon mount (1 mass, not really necessary because I have two unused mounts under the landing gear)

 

2x  Horizon Weapon Mounts on the cockpit (1 mass each, hold the electron beam weapons) 

4x  Atlatl 270A Missile Launchers (mass 2 each)

4x  Disruptor 3300A Auto Electron Beams (mass 1 each - I don't think I can mount these directly but I was able to upgrade to them from lasers)

    Original NG-6 Landing Bay

3x  StorMax 30 Cargo Hold (44 mass each - these, along with the 100CM Ballast Cargo Hold have the best cargo to mass ratios)

2x  100CM Ballas Cargo Hold

    Original Nova Galactic Frontier 2x1 (gallery, bed, etc.)

    360T Stellarator Reactor (20 power, 440 hull, 1.6 repair rate - I haven't found anything better for the a class A pilot without starship design)

    R-1000 Alpha Grav Drive (26 mass - I had an R-3000 for a while, but decided I did not really need the extra jump distance yet, and my mobility is low enough that even 2 mobility is an improvement)

    Titan 550 He3 Tank (purchased at paradiso, I could make do with less) 160 jump fuel, 21 mass.

    Deflector SG-30 Shield Generator (32 mass, needs 5 power for full shields, but ... 32 mass for a decent shield is nice)

4x  White Dwarf 2010 Engines (97 mass each, I have not tried playing with lower thrust, lower mass engines)

3x  Accu-Lander 11 Landing Gear (2 mass each, 2 lander thrust each)

    Deimos Infirmary 2x1

    Deimos Workshop 2x1

    4 portholes fore and aft on each of the above two habs - I like the view, I wish bethesda had done just a bit of additional work on the porthole views

    110DP Docker - Top (I haven't figured out anything better here)

 

2x 
 

I like the cargo space, since that lets me go for a good bit of time without hauling everything back to the lodge for storage

 

I have enough weapons to do well in most space combat. I do not really need a third weapon type, and do not have the power to spare either.

 

Typical energy distribution looks like this (I power down the grav drive because I prefer having additional power for everything else, but I have to it power back up for grav jumps, of course - for that, I usually reduce the shield until I get to the next system):


 

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by sen4mi
describe construction and notes on updated build

[Guest]

On 9/6/2023 at 2:37 PM, Gameplayer said:

So I ended up modifying the Frontier quite a bit, now it looks like a StingRay, in Black n Decker paint job or at least old BnD yellow an black.

 

Lift Off

 

Ship Builder View,

 

I used parts from planet Jemmison, the planet where the "Lodge" is located.

An some parts from "Straus-Eklund" Staryard.

 

The trick was created a single wide Hab column 3 high, attaching a Docking point to the bottom of that Stack!

This created a single spot with a ladder that allowed access to the 3 decks of the ship and the Dock port is at the bottom of the stack.

 

Used a Ship Ramp from Akilla planet, this ramp has an access door rather than a ladder like the ones found at Jemmison.

I wanted only 1 single ladder on the ship rather than the 2 or 3 found on some of the in-game designs.

 

Deck 3, Top Deck

-1 3x1 Engineering Station, Aft attached to the engines, grav drive, and reactor!  Really wanted that for the cool layout factor.

-1 2x1 Workshop station, on same level with Engineering made sense.

 

Deck 2, Main Deck

-1 3x1 Living Quarters, Straus-Eklund 

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Star Frontier Hab (original hab, no idea where to find another one!)

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Generic one on Jemmison

 

Deck 1, Ground Deck

-1 2x1 Infirmary, wanted doctor station at entrance for RP reasons.

 

Weapons compliment, 

-3x Particle Beam Weapons

-2x Missile Mounts

-1x Particle Beam Turret (back tail)

 

2x Cargo Holds

1x Rear gear legs found over on Akilla.

 

Altogether spent about ~180,000 credits over time on this project, and she is a real beast of a ship without actually being a very big vessal.

Lengthy and with narrow profile, despite being 842 mass units she can really scoot about very fast due to 4 engine mounts and an oversized reactor meant for larger vessels.

 

She lacks a brig module though for the true Bounty Hunter background but that is a 2x2 module, and I wanted to have a build that really was optimal about the space usage that expanded on the Frontier design I started with.  I had to hop around between three places to get all the parts for the build, although online I have seen people just use one staryard for their builds.  Did not need "Starship Design" just needed a ship to start with to mod it out and a decent amount of credits picked up from running repeatable quests from the Mission Board, mostly destroyed other ships or dropped people/freight off.

 

Edit,

Almost forgot!

The most important feature of this ship!  It has 2 whole restrooms, so when you really need to have a dump in space you may not have to wait in line.

Nice! I like the portholes on the front of the Habs too.

Thanks for explaining how you went about it too.  

Edited September 8, 2023 by Sir Bron

[sen4mi]

I've restarted my character (after removing some mods - which do not touch ship building) because I hit some game breaking bugs. And, consequently, I have refined my idea of what to look for in an early game ship:

 

(1) Equipment you cannot supply power for is dead weight, and

(2) Mobility matters a lot (you need a rank in piloting to use it, of course).

 

Having high mobility often lets you break out of being surrounded, and lets you pick off other ships while taking less damage. Sometimes you can even escape enough to let your shields recover (or maybe just repair your hull). So having fully powered engines and high mobility matters a lot to me. But you will probably also need level 2 pilot to escape. So try to gather extra ship parts so you can survive until then.

 

Also, like in my earlier ship choices, unless I've got turrets (which I do not have, early in the game), I do not have the time (nor the power) to manage three sets of weapons. 

 

So... here's a relatively early "new atlantis shipyard" upgrade of the frontier:

 

 

Specifically:

 

I replaced its reactor with a 124mm toroidal reactor. This gives us 18 power. You do need to gain a few levels before the shipyard will sell this to you. The shipyard has a 16 power 340T which provides a stronger hull which you can get earlier.

 

I replaced the Frontier's engines with White Dwarf 1010 Engines. These provide 2535 maneuvering thrust each, and I think maneuvering thrust is the figure of merit for engines.

 

I got rid of the Cowling above the cockpit and moved the missile launcher to the hard point underneath the landing gear. (This is slightly tricky from a user interface point of view, so maybe it's easier to delete the missile launcher and re-add it.) I got a second launcher so I have two Atlatl 270 missile launchers under my landing gear. I tossed the canons (and I do not think I will be using ballistic weapons, so that saves me some skill points).

 

I replaced the Docker with a Hab and put a slim docker on top of that hab. This gives a little extra hull without reducing mobility. (I am using the Nova Galactic 2x1 Workshop hab, with portholes added on each of the four open mount points on the front of the hab.) I don't really care about the workstations - it's easy enough to travel some place with workstations. Nevertheless, I with this design I have every workstation except for the pharmaceutical lab (since the Frontier already comes with a research lab).

 

I've left the lasers alone - they seem to be adequate for now. I've left the landing gear alone - I want to replace that, but I do not yet have the option of buying better landing gear. I've left storage alone - for early game, I am prioritizing mobility.

 

For this early in the game, I don't think I can do much better than this.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by sen4mi
grammar

[Z0mBieP00Nani]

On 9/6/2023 at 12:37 PM, Gameplayer said:

So I ended up modifying the Frontier quite a bit, now it looks like a StingRay, in Black n Decker paint job or at least old BnD yellow an black.

 

Lift Off

 

Ship Builder View,

 

I used parts from planet Jemmison, the planet where the "Lodge" is located.

An some parts from "Straus-Eklund" Staryard.

 

The trick was created a single wide Hab column 3 high, attaching a Docking point to the bottom of that Stack!

This created a single spot with a ladder that allowed access to the 3 decks of the ship and the Dock port is at the bottom of the stack.

 

Used a Ship Ramp from Akilla planet, this ramp has an access door rather than a ladder like the ones found at Jemmison.

I wanted only 1 single ladder on the ship rather than the 2 or 3 found on some of the in-game designs.

 

Deck 3, Top Deck

-1 3x1 Engineering Station, Aft attached to the engines, grav drive, and reactor!  Really wanted that for the cool layout factor.

-1 2x1 Workshop station, on same level with Engineering made sense.

 

Deck 2, Main Deck

-1 3x1 Living Quarters, Straus-Eklund 

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Star Frontier Hab (original hab, no idea where to find another one!)

-1 2x1 Living Quarters, Generic one on Jemmison

 

Deck 1, Ground Deck

-1 2x1 Infirmary, wanted doctor station at entrance for RP reasons.

 

Weapons compliment, 

-3x Particle Beam Weapons

-2x Missile Mounts

-1x Particle Beam Turret (back tail)

 

2x Cargo Holds

1x Rear gear legs found over on Akilla.

 

Altogether spent about ~180,000 credits over time on this project, and she is a real beast of a ship without actually being a very big vessal.

Lengthy and with narrow profile, despite being 842 mass units she can really scoot about very fast due to 4 engine mounts and an oversized reactor meant for larger vessels.

 

She lacks a brig module though for the true Bounty Hunter background but that is a 2x2 module, and I wanted to have a build that really was optimal about the space usage that expanded on the Frontier design I started with.  I had to hop around between three places to get all the parts for the build, although online I have seen people just use one staryard for their builds.  Did not need "Starship Design" just needed a ship to start with to mod it out and a decent amount of credits picked up from running repeatable quests from the Mission Board, mostly destroyed other ships or dropped people/freight off.

 

Edit,

Almost forgot!

The most important feature of this ship!  It has 2 whole restrooms, so when you really need to have a dump in space you may not have to wait in line.

 

Cool! Looks a bit like a dragon fly.