Spacecraft Central- Pimp your Ride!

Hi there! A few people have asked if I could post some tips on building spaceships, so here I'll do my best to put down at least some of the stuff I think is important.

If you like, please post your own tips, questions, suggestions, and, of course, I'd love to see some ships.

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Now, without further ado, the meat in this sandwich:

►►Normally I try not to involve too many body or cockpit parts in a ship: The limits for scaling them are a pain and you can only place them in the middle of the ship. I swear by wings, weapons and second-page detail parts to give my ships their structures.


►►The other great thing about these parts is that you can stack 'em up: why make your wings out of 1 wing part when you can use 5? Combine a number of different parts until you have something you're happy with. Don't feel restricted to a certain set of parts, there are always new ways to make wings (and indeed bodies).



►►Got a little complexity left? Your wings missing something? Use Alt to clone a part at the root of a complex structure to clone the whole thing, then see what it looks like tweaked, rotated and moved to somewhere completely different! You won't know if it looks good or not 'till you've tried. Be careful of the morph handles on parts if you do, though: they can unexpectedly move parts connected to your current selection. If this happens, just press undo and redo, no problemo.


►►A closely guarded secret in the ship-maker's arsenal is the Jet-Setter wing: it can be the Knurl-Down of the spaceship editor if you get the morph handles right.

...But don't tell anyone I told you.


►►Sometimes it's good to sink a part into the rest of the ship a bit: maybe you want your wing to not stick out so much, or a detail part you're using as a cockpit to be more flush with the body. The solution's simple: Connect the part to a body part- you know, the kind I hate? :P- usually just a small cube no-one will notice, and move your cube so that it is completely hidden in the rest of your ship and the part connected to it is right where you want it.



►►Paint! Argh! You can spend more time stressing about this than building the ship- well, I certainly can- but here's my advice on painting: The textures on pages 7 & 8 of the palette are the ones I use the most, they're very tech. If you're stuck for ideas, use the 'paint-like' tool to try out someone else's scheme, tweaking colours and textures until you've got something almost completely different. Also: Black and white go with anything. Very important.

Here are some examples of the textures I use most often:






►►Picture it: You're so close to finishing the best ship evar, and what happens? The complexity meter fills up, and you are faced with the sad fate of scrapping parts of your ship to make room to complete your vessel. But maybe not: if you have a part placed along the center of your ship, and you don't intend to build on top of it, making it asymmetrical may save you that crucial bit of complexity. If you didn't know this already, it can be very useful.


►► A tip from the unparalleled vehicle creator Shattari, use with caution:
"So, yeah.... Ive been doing a lot of "freedom" creations of late. Some humans have been asking questions about it and so here is what I know. To turn it on hold down Ctrl Shift C then in the box that pops up type "freedom" do the same to turn it off. Build as normal but don't go too crazy, going past 4 or so of the little dots on the complexity bar will likely make it unable to share. IF you do go to far, and it uploads but is not on your spore page online, just go back into it and take a part off and share again, repeat until it shows up on your spore.com list. Over complex stuff will not show up in peoples games, though thats not really a bad thing, and in some cases the things you make may not look right in the game anyway. Why do I like the "freedom"? well I like it for things like mechs, they have a LOT of parts that need to be there to make it look right .. like a face, fingers, feet, joints in the limbs, and such. those things eat up complexity quick and just a nice looking skeleton can max out nor complexity. I dont much like it for creatures as they start to look piled on some of the times. Also for normal space ships I dont normally feel I need "freedom" "

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So, the floor is yours, GAC community: What else do you want to know? What's your advice when making ships? What are you piloting around the cosmos these days? Don't be shy now, I'll keep updating the OP with more if there's an interest.

Awesome! Thanks very much!

WOW! great tips! will be building a few SEROID things soon!

You seem to be really skilled in the ship editor. I, however, am not. So I have a request:

This is probably my best spaceship. What advice do you have for me to improve my technique?

Wow! Great tutorial! I'm gonna send you a spaceship of mine, and you will qritique it!

@Gelatino: It's a well put together little rig, the parts blend into each-other nicely and the wings have good flow.

Structurally, I'd suggest fleshing the wings out- you may be surprised how many extra parts you can fit onto it if they're low-complexity, like wings and details. I know that when I made CRS style creations the Air Shark wing was my favorite- it's so sleek yet elegant when morphed as long and narrow as possible. Same goes for the bicycle seat detail part (second page). Those are really good for putting on the tips of wings to make them that little bit more sleek.

As far as paint is concerned, I might suggest trying some more complex textures to contrast with the smooth shiny ones in places- perhaps the page 7 & 8 ones I mentioned.


@Glass: The paint on this one is great, and I can see you've put some effort into it. My problem with it is the overall shape- it's sort of round and bulky. I put it down to the wide variety of body and cockpit parts, especially that wyrm rider I see poking out of the back- darn things don't scale well and murder the complexity meter in the drawing room with the lead pipe.

In general I'd suggest keeping bodies and cockpits to a minimum and capitalising on wings and details instead. I personally find them a lot more versatile.

Ok! will think about that next time i make a spaceship!

I've edited a new tip to the OP on a use of the asymmetry key- a simple one, but it's been a boon to me for a long time. Find it at the bottom of the list.

Awesome Tips! You sure know the spaceship editor! You have inspired me to make some ships with you excellent tips.

I don't need tips, i'm already good.
*spits on Delta's ships, then scratches them with a set of hover-car keys*
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Ok, i'm joking. Here are some of my Spaceships.
Destroya ContressGunship

Destroya ContressDx- Bombers

Destroya ContressDx- MarkIII(Starfighter)

YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW THE NAME!!!

^^^^Comedy! You don't really have to rate on this one. I just wanted to put it^^^^



Give me a good review or i kill you! :E:

Those are good Razz!

But i dislike the color though...

Glasspinne wrote:

Those are good Razz!

But i dislike the color though...

YOU DIE TODAY GLASS!!!! NEVER INSULT ME!!!!

Razorator_O wrote:

Glasspinne wrote:

Those are good Razz!

But i dislike the color though...

YOU DIE TODAY GLASS!!!! NEVER INSULT ME!!!!

Lol. Good luck with that.

Don't insult an Mod.

your not a mod, your a 13 year old kid who's addicted to a forum with nothing about adventures! I quit! I thought this forum would be about talking about adventures! Or making group adventures! I must have thought wrong...

WELL then. ok then quit. you have 30 minutes to decide not to, or i will IP ban you.

Razorator_O wrote:

your not a mod, your a 13 year old kid who's addicted to a forum with nothing about adventures! I quit! I thought this forum would be about talking about adventures! Or making group adventures! I must have thought wrong...

LOL! We don't only talk about adventures!

And i'm not addicted. I have a life you know.

@Camelfox: you can't ban me. Because i'm going to erase my account. BTW camel, i hope you remember my words. " I thought this forum would be about talking about adventures! Or making group adventures! I must have thought wrong...".

I might join again whenever this place starts talking about adventures and not "RANDOM PICTURES, CHECK 'EM OUT" , " ZOMG I WAS DOWNRATED HELP ME " or "RATE ME PLEASE"

@Glasspinne: If i doesn't talk about adventures then why is called Galactic Adventure Club!? Why not call it CLUB.

that's what IP banning is. you CANT make another account. well sorry. youre DONE.

camelfox wrote:

that's what IP banning is. you CANT make another account. well sorry. youre DONE.

Bye Razz.

Razorator, you need to think about what you say before you post it.
The G.A.C ALLOWS an off topic section, it does not prioritise it...

And Glasspinne is a mod.
Something you can't be because you overact when something isn't your way.
If you don't like this forum, you are free to leave, but there is no need to insult people.


I thought you were a good person Raz...

he's perma banned. he won't be allowed on again to read that.

camelfox wrote:

he's perma banned. he won't be allowed on again to read that.

He can still come as a guest can't he?

yeah, but why would he? plus he cant post. i banned HIS COMPUTER, not just his account.

wow, it takes all kinds I guess...

er... back on topic, great tips delta, now we need to know how you make great sigs ;)

camelfox wrote:

yeah, but why would he? plus he cant post. i banned HIS COMPUTER, not just his account.

But I think he can still come to the forum, he just can't make an account. I might be wrong though.
And to be on topic: Really good tips, I'll use them asap!