hey all, was fiddling around in photoshop today and came up with a “new” ship sprite, and was wondering what you thought
I made two versions, the first is more my original vision of the ship, and the second came about with a bit more fiddling, lol
i’d like to take these into completion and get them in game, but i’ve never done that part before
Greetings DragonShadow and welcome to the Forums.
A most impressive start with your first post, I quite like the “Star Destroyer” -esque look of these two new reble ships.
As for taking them into completeion into the game, it is not a difficult process, but can take awhile on your first run.
(After while you will get the hang of it and it will take no time at all).
For some “light” reading i suggest that you stop by here viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5220
There are some how to guides which should prove useful.
Side note: if your running GSB on a PC, then you will want to enable the ship editor
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6693&p=52064#p52064
As I tell everyone and anyone who will listen, we have a community which is very friendly and helpful.
So if your ever stuck or need help, feel free to ask.
Very cool ships. I think the second design has a bit more “punch” to it - those forward lobes make it a bit more menacing to me.
As darkstar has said, help is all around you. Ask and you shall receive. 
(As a suggestion, once you’ve wrapped your brain around the ship completion process, why not consider doing both designs? I could see the first design as a smaller version, and the second as a “super-dreadnaught” class. Food for thought.)
Thanks much, means a lot coming from one of the greats, haha. 
I envisioned it as an extrapolation of the Minotaur, the Super Star Destroyer to it’s Imperial SD, if you will.
Thanks also for the links, especially the ship editor thread; I dreaded searching for that again, I just set up a new pc and forgot to keep the editor shortcut, lol
Ironically, it came purely by chance as I was moving a cutout piece across the bow of the ship, then I thought “Hold on! that looks sweet!”. I came around to thinking of version 2 as a sort of Hero/Flagship version, or a Mark II. And once I’d finished number two I knew I was doomed to make a double-feature.
edit: lol, it’s been too long since i dabbled in modding this game. I see dear ol’ Cliffski added that bullet texture override everyone begged for, haha
Speaking of one of the greats, Archduke Astro has created a set of Classic Dreadnoughts for the 4 core races. If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend stopping by and having a look for 2 reasons:
Quite welcome - That ship editor is a very useful tool.
Ah, but those would be one of the inspirations, hehe. Gotta love it’s well-balanced implementation and seamless ship designs. Besides, I was under the impression that GSB would systematically obliterate your computer without Classic Dreadnoughts installed 
On that subject, while I love the implementation of CDN, i’d also wondered what a larger supership might be like…both to control, and more importantly, to fight >:). These, as opposed to functioning as a heavy main battleship, would be the tip of the spear and could function solo against smaller fleets. Preferably, a well designed moderate-large fleet would take this out. But balance is for another day, first i gotta finish the sprites XD
Welcome to Gratuitous Modding!
My preference is for the first of the two sprites. I enjoy its clean uninterrupted converging lines. The profusion of turret foundations is rather scary, but considering this vessel’s intended role I suppose it’s par for the course. We’ll see if it can fulfill that role.
Thank you for the kind words, mate. I agree that my CDN mod is a very useful ruler indeed for a project such as DragonShadow’s new effort.
As for the lore, well…there’s still far more than what I’ve posted to date; it continues to guide my own closely vanilla-inspired modding, as well as the refinement of future lore to come. Some of which you’re already aware of. 
My tales of the Classic Dreadnoughts are not yet finished, nor is the mod itself.
It’s very nice of you to say so! [-takes a bow-]
Vanilla, un-modded GSB won’t crush you if you don’t have my Classic Dreadnoughts on your side. I can’t say the same if you’re fighting against some other player-created mods, though. Several of them are synonymous with the phrase “Wagnerian bombast”. 
I’ll leave it to you to explore further; after two and a half years of making mods, we must have close to a hundred (or more!) fully fleet-sized ones to choose from.
The general idea of so-called “lone wolf” megaships comes back into the GSB forum limelight now and again, like Halley’s Comet. Certain aspects of this game can make it quite difficult for a single mighty unit to take on a number of smaller adversaries, though. Defenses don’t always scale to the same extent that your weapons do.
That would definitely be the hard part. The size of a ship this big makes it exceptionally vulnerable to fighter swarms (especially with missiles or torps), and even a plasma launcher would probably smack the thing with regularity. If I’m right, I’m pretty sure most cruisers could fly within the shield radius. I suppose that could be considered a balancing factor, but it shouldn’t be that easy. I’ll probably have to figure out some special modules to give it decent defenses against ships waltzing through the shield without making it invincible at the same time.
Then again, it might be better to leave such modules out. While a properly outfitted hull could function as a lone wolf by packing less punch, it should work better as the core of a fleet; it would just need escorts to fill in the gaps in it’s defenses.
Not sure which is the better route: add modules to make the ship stand alone, or make it rely on support ships to be effective.
Just a sugestion here, Find out how large the shield bubble will be and then make a fast fire decent damage gun that WILL only fire within the shield bubble. For example
cost = 20000
crew_required = 10
damage = 4
description = "A system made for the large super-cruisers, The Autocannon system is made to help provide close in firepower to help take out anything that gets in under the shield bubble."
fire_interval = 10
salvo_size = 100
salvo_interval = 1250
guiname = "Cruiser Anti-fighter Autocannon"
hitpoints = 200
min_range = 10
max_range = 400
name = "cruiser_anti-fighter_autocannon"
optimum_range = 200
powerconsumed = 10
shield_penetration = 20
armour_penetration = 20
tracking_speed = 2This is GREAT against both fighters and frigates and its limited range makes it to were it can not get overpowered.
greetings…Dragonshadow.
First off as a modder who is usually relegated to the “copy and paste” method of splicing parts together to make an entirely new ship let me say that BOTH your ships are very impressive. Darkstar and Archduke are right: you’ve got a LOT of talent and potential
Second off: Forgive me putting my proverbial 2 cents in but I much prefer the 2nd of your two designs…it looks slightly LESS star destroyer-ish and IMO that’s kind of a good thing.
Third off: As darkstar said…we have a REALLY good, and close-knit community of modders and support here. If you have a question…SOMEONE who knows the answer will respond…that’s how I got started.
Concerning balance…I’ve always preferred a kind of “common sense” approach. As one stat goes up, another one goes down at a 1-1 basis.
The most basic example would be hull integrity and speed…as integrity goes up so to, logically, does the mass or density (and by extension, weight) of the hull…and as weight goes up, speed drops.
I also like to think size is inexorably linked to shield strength and power. As ship SIZE increases the shield bubble has to spread out over a wider area and the shield isn’t as strong. However, the bigger the ship the bigger the power core can be.
I hope this was not overstepping my bounds here but I wanted to see this ship in action and I took the first one. I set the size to 600 and the hardpoints are 11 standard and 16 weapons It is a mean ship but yet can not stand alone in a fleet even with a group of escorting fighters. I have used a few of my heavy weapons on it and it ended up around 15000 alone, and incomplete 3 squads of fighters to go along. It beat out the first mission completely but got owned in the second one.
Here is the 3 hulls i made, the sprite, damaged and hulk forms.
And now a picture of an armored version, if you wished to I can get a picture of the layout for the ship to see what is were. This was also a rush job so things are not perfect.
wow, looks like neat stuff happened while I was gone, lol!
hmm, looks good, I’ll have to try it out
Why thank you! 
I agree, once I put the extra Rebel-ish detail on “version 2” i fell in love with it partly because of the departure from a simple elongated triangle shape.
for balance-y stuff: since reading your post I’ve been thinking about the armor/shield ratio, and decided it makes sense for it to have heavy armor rather than heavy shields. Speed is already a nonfactor on something this bulky, and the shield would need tremendously expensive power generation. Maybe light shields to supplement, but armor would likely be the core of defense (aside from weapons, of course).
Not at all, in fact I’m quite flattered. I think the modded sprites are sweet (I especially like the hulk you made).
I know some in various modding communities can get pretty strict on usage, but I’m very laid back and have always chosen a free-release policy. Play with as you will! XD
Sorry about the delay in posting, I’ve been busier this past week than expected with some schedule changes at work.
This all looks rather cool, I may have to publicise this a little bit 
That is great news Cliff, I am wondering If i should go ahead and do up the second ship and post it too just so people can take there pick. It looks great in picture but having it in combat is oh so much more shinny!
