[Mod] The Traders [WIP]

Very nice. This reminds me of some of my tankers from the Antares Expanse. So I assume we are both doing something right.

I can see a few spots where you could add some additional turret bases. Part of it depends on whether you are going to use the mountings on the Tribe bits - which is largely dependent on the scale of the ship. I wouldn’t remove the external tanks, but the Tribe parts need at the least some additional connections to make them look more like part of the ship. I found that some of the straight girders from Imperial ships give a good industrial feel to this type of ship.

I look forward to your finalized tanker - including the paint job.

Alright I’ve been tweaking it a bit.
The Edmonton Fuel Tanker carries staggering amounts of fuel, sometimes enough to refuel a battlegroup. But transporting it takes lots of power: propulsion, support systems, and (most importantly) maintaining the fuel tanks. When you get paid by the drop, you don’t want to use up your cargo. To avoid this the ship utilizes a more efficient (although slightly more expensive) power generation system. The production produces a dazzling display of UV light, however races such as humans see only a strong purple. The light is most visible in the areas it provides tank shielding.

The cargo of the Edmonton-class is also its greatest weakness. The ship’s cargo can produce a major explosion when the ship’s critical systems fail, with reports suggesting the chance of a radius larger than normal vessels of the same size.

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Summary:
This thing’s a major powerhouse of the traders. In a literal way. It will likely have negative base stats, countered by a special mandatory boost module which will give it a high power, but much of that being “stored fuel”. It’s final version may be designed with extra space on the edges, similar to bomb units, just much less. The “UV” around the tanks are pulse glows, the in-game version does not have it. The UV actually resulted from difficulties with other regions when I changed the body colour, and I just rolled with it after thinking about the blacklight-like effect produced.

I like this a lot. The one thing I might suggest is a few yellow and red highlights similar to your Vancouver-class (I’ve got a few ideas of where they might look good, but I’ll keep quiet for now).

Fooling around with the Order’s colors is a twitchy proposition all right, thanks to their glowy windows that aren’t easy to edit nicely. When you say the in-game version doesn’t have the glow, do you mean that you aren’t including the pulseglow at all? Because I think this would make for a really cool effect that would definitely scream “Stay away from this ship if you don’t want to grow extra limbs!”

By in-game version I mean the pulse glows are separate from the hull image and are pulse glows.

The Trader Engineers have assured me that most of the glow is light, with most of the harmful radiation converted to energy. Most of the remaining radiation is UV-A, so I’m told the ship is great for getting tans.

The Confederation is the flagship of the Traders; one of a kind and used only by the top admiral of the fleet. You would be lucky to even see it in action, let alone use it. While superficially identical to the Vancouver-class, the Confederation is over twice as long, dwarfing even a leviathan. It is rumoured to have powerful systems, including seperate secondary systems, shields included.

It’s cargo capacity is greater than you and your fleet will probably make in your entire lives. Combined. If one was to engage this ship it would be highly beneficial to capture it rather than destroy it.

In the one time chance you may get to engage this ship you will need to quickly destroy the escorts and eliminate the Confederation’s turret defences. Your fleet will know not to eliminate the capture target.

Yes, I am designing a capture scenario. The massive target must have its escorts and turrets neutralized. The interesting part is the command ship you are engaging cannot be destroyed. Fully defended, and completely neutralizable, but the ship itself cannot be destroyed. It will require some fancy coding, but it should be interesting.

Very interesting. I am honored to be the provider of your measure for scale.

I like this mod more and more. Are we going to get more peeks at Trader hulls, or will the majority of their fleet be kept back as a surprise?

Ah, yes. Forgot that was yours. I needed an existing hull as a trade station.

Generally I post them here for feedback as I make them, just a little slow getting designs right now. The Ottawa Commerce Station has been giving me some trouble, and I’ve been spending a lot of time on that. It will have plenty of docking platforms, perhaps a bay for smaller craft (and fighters). Problem is trying to find the right parts to those. Order has many of them, just the asymmetry… shudders

I know what you mean. I have used a lot of Order parts around my various kitbashed ships, and they are not always the easiest things to work from. As a suggestion, if the asymmetry is a problem, try mirroring some of the parts. It works better in some places than you might think.

Definitely difficult to use. For the Edmonton I had to use mirroring a lot, and even had to shift some parts to fix centering. I even started a file just to keep my symmetrical Order parts. For the main station I may not even end up using symmetry, having one arm for small craft/fighters, one arm (maybe two) for general transports, a dock for superfreighters, etc.

Work has begun on my next two hulls, a mining platform and mining transport. (hopefully I don’t steal anything from you, Ace.)

Well, my small mining station (as well as a large number of the related ships) was actually previewed here: http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6647&start=105 It’s maybe half a dozen posts down. My oh-so-giant refinery isn’t there, but it uses the same design aesthetic. I expect there may be some similarity of structure, but at least we know the paint jobs will be significantly different.

I didn’t get the mining ships done, as I came up some other stuff. Today I got 2 things to show you.

First up, the Winnipeg Radar Station. Radar might not be the best term, but I couldn’t think of a better one. Approximately 150m in length, this frigate-sized station serves as a major long-range communications post for the Traders. Below are the coloured and uncoloured versions.

As for this, I’ve decided not to reveal everything ahead of time. Ignore the Confederation in the background, it’s unrelated. All I will say is that sphere is 1000m across.

As for the Confederation, Order officials salvaged information from a destroyed Vancouver-class Superfreighter.

Confederation has a defensive grid with 18 primary turret zones, 11 located on the cargo modules and the remaining 7 on the ship’s turret emplacements. Each turret zone is independently controlled, powered, and even shielded. The turret used are some of the toughest in the galaxy. Most systems are powered by the main bridge, however primary defensive systems are powered by control bridge located near the center of the ship. This includes a primary shield, control of a network of standard secondary turrets, and the ship’s impressive interior defenses. This bridge must be destroyed if one was to attempt capture of the Confederation While claiming to have the fastest hyperdrive in the galaxy, its sublight engines are comparatively weak. A design flaw leaves the ship nearly immobile for several minutes when switching between FTL and normal speeds, a perfect window for ambushes.

In unrelated news, multiple Order systems in that sector are suffering from trade shortages, with “supply shortages” and “combat-related delays” cited as reasons. Merchants are assuring clients the timing is purely coincidental, and should be resolved soon. Also unrelated, reports are also surfacing that have caused several Order officials to be charged with various financial-based offences.

I like the look of this station. If it is a communications post, perhaps calling it a Relay Station or Comm Repeater would be more accurate. Or Ansible, if you’re into that word.

You’re obviously getting very creative in using the existing game mechanics to achieve your ends (from your description, I suspect I have an idea of how you are planning to do the Confederation capture scenario); never an easy task. I wish you minimal hiccups in accomplishing it. This is really good stuff!

oh crap there’s a giant sphere flying straight towards us! extend the giant bat… was my first thought

Alright, I’ve made a new hull. It’s size is that of a shuttle or small transport, and could be of either the fighter or frigate class. As you can see, the main emphasis of this craft is speed, transporting small, valuable cargo and outrunning pursuit vessels. Exact speed was withheld, though it’s many engines allow speeds over 20% higher than standard. It is not currently named.

More a fighter “size” at my opinion cause of the two big “windows”
It’s a cool design anyway!

I was leaning that way. In terms of size they are larger, my current number being 42m. (No reference, hadn’t even noticed)

Due to Mediafire’s recent copyright crackdown, the Traders will be using the Federation music, or (if I can get it to sound right) possibly a modified version of it. Considering their origins and the fact half the vanilla races use it as their music, it seems most fitting.

I designed a new ship.

Then I decided to have some fun. (Triple may have L and R bridges redone.)

As a small thought on the creative process, this started off as a destroyer. Then those sections started looking like cargo holds.

EDIT: Oh, and I’ve been putting together an image with all Trader ships to scale. Far from finished, but here’s what I’ve got so far. This one’s scaled, current full size is 2048x2048.

I’m sorry to report that the multiple-hulled freighters give me headache-inducing eyestrain. The “modular ship” concept is interesting, though, and hopefully we may see more designs founded upon that idea.

I’ve been doing some work on some various areas.

Firstly, main post has been overhauled. Currently known operation vessels have been in included. While their location is unknown, the region believed to contain their territory has been posted.

I had some work done on a several hulls, specifically the beginning of a starport hull, which included a hangar that could contain a Vancouver, and then some. Sadly, it seems it was not saved. Fortunately the design will be easy to repair, and I have a general idea of how to complete the design. An operational idea may prevent it from being used by players.

Work has also begun on the scenarios, forming a story arc. 4 scenarios have been outlined so far, and I hope to add several more. I won’t go too into detail yet, but you can expect capture scenarios, a starport assault, and some serious anomalies.

A breakdown of hulls could be written as this:
Cruisers - Trade vessels
Frigates - Destroyers
Fighters(L) - Small transports
Fighters(S) - Interceptors/Patrols/Escorts

I have recoloured the Edmonton-class tanker.

planning is also underway for a large survival mode map. By the point in the scenario storyline you’ve raided their capital system, demolished their merchant fleets, and stolen their prized ship and its valuable cargo. They aren’t happy. Oh, and you aren’t the only admiral who wanted that cargo.