I think you're forgetting Verasi I-5, Ryan. Sure, it uses standard station components, but being built in to a giant asteroid does qualify as a slight visual distinction.

I like the station - though agree entirely with Scuba's point about it desperately needing detail texture - but don't get the sense that it's a shipyard.

It's clearly a big, cap ship oriented station, but I think of more of an open, all around the ship structure when I think of a station dedicated to the construction of new capital class ships in space. See, e.g.:





or



Still, progress is progress.

can we hope to see all the existing stations be replaced with such colossal stations? somewhere down the line?

It's hideous. I don't think there is a texture artist alive that could save it. Can it build cap ships yet?

Heh, well, I guess I'm happy there are a lot of people who like it. It is definitely very different from the visual style of all our existing content, so I expected it to be divisive. It is also not finished, but is rather a prototype of what I can get done right now, without pulling Ray or Michael from other projects, so we can move forward with capship content while also keeping up business-critical deadlines on the Android side. The color of the various glowing plates and greeble details are intended to be dynamic, so that will look different by faction and so on.

I've mentioned before that there are significant technical challenges and trade-offs in making physically large-scale content that is viewable by a wide variety of hardware, and is relatively small in downloadable size, while maintaining at least a somewhat interesting visual look across all hardware. I did not want to add more than 10MB or so to the total download size for this stage of the project. So, I'm experimenting with a route that derives most detail from polygons, but will use detail-textures when close-up (not yet in the current version). Plus, I ended up going with a drastically simplified version of my original vision, just to get it out on a reasonable timeframe. I actually bumped up against a couple of engine limitations in the process of making these, but re-working the 3D engine isn't something we have time for either, at present. I think the actual patch size on this whole addition was about 5MB.

Lastly, the actual arrangement of the objects is not the most exciting right now. This was a simple test, just to see how well it ran and what the problems were.

That all being said, I think when detail textures, illumination maps and lights are added, along with more component-types making for more intriguing arrangements, these will be the building blocks of some pretty fascinating (and gigantic) space-landscapes.

Lecter: I take the point of it not being very space-shipyard-like. But again, this is only the first pass at four component types. Consider how many component types we have for the normal stations.

Tehrunner: More like mixed with the existing stations. I intend these objects to augment them in some cases, not always in the same areas. Think industrial vs suburban regions.

Good progress, I am impressed by the scale of the thing. I rather liked it in fog, the different parts only hinted at . Perhaps have some things, like warning beacons or entry arrows visible at longer ranges than solid parts and detail textures.

I was flying about it for a while, 20 players in sector, and I had no issues with lag or fps. I think these will look very impressive when decorated.

Open-space shipyards are not a rule. Indeed, it only make sense if you are building spaceships larger than available facilities. Like unique ships. They are visually impressive, but not efficient.

For an space-based, long-term culture, it makes more sense to have pressurized assembly lines, inside stations like that. Makes whole operation cheaper and more effient and confortable to produce series of ships.

So, just add existing components to those facilities, like residential modules, and make the docks retangular. And add a dense fog inside it, so cappies (dis)appear gradually.

I really appreciate the long, flat modules. Just look earth`s existing factories. They are not meant to be pretty.

I look forward to seeing more stations in this style populate the universe! I thought it was most intriguing in the fog without the wireframes, though.

I'm underwhelmed by the dissapointing new shipyard station, visually and in terms of design.

A day late and a dollar short.

Let's see how long 'till the first Capships, which were announced a while ago, but never materialized. I'm not holding my breath.

Eddy, keep in mind that the station is currently missing basically all of the things that make the rest of the VO models pretty (illumination, lights, detail textures, etc), plus the color and the design/arrangement of the components is temporary.

Awesome! That almost made me re-sub.. then i saw the pics. Still, will definitely re-sub for capships and completed capship stations. I do like the slapped-on look of all the red bits, very factory-esque

+1 Davejohn's idea to have really large beacons for the capships, like an airports lights guiding the plane in at the right angle from a long distance.

The stations should work like assembly lines, with docks all over coded in someway that a mission would guide you to deliver the right parts to the right section to get your capship assembled in the right phases/

I think once these stations are given a more interesting assembly line look, people will appreciate their simplistic look on the outside a lot more.

For an space-based, long-term culture, it makes more sense to have pressurized assembly lines, inside stations like that. Makes whole operation cheaper and more effient and confortable to produce series of ships.

I don't think you've thought through what you're suggesting. The thermal expansion issues alone would make me want to assemble heavily armored space ships in space, to say nothing of the ease of construction/maintenance of the facilities themselves.

Chances are, "real' giant-ship construction would be all done by big swarms of robots in space, in a non-pressurized environment. But that would be complex to render in a game, and a lot of polygons ;).

Simpler to draw a box and say "the sheep you asked for is inside", har har.

But, anyway, I think we can split the difference with some interesting station component configurations too. Before we go too far down the path of arguing how it would be in the "real world". I want to make ships larger than the HAC, so there will have to be some shipyard facilities to handle that sort of thing.

One thing to consider, Inc, is at least perforating the docks. As Alloh learned the hard way last night, the inside of those things as-is equates to a death-trap for a fighter because they have nowhere to go or dodge.

This is simply outstanding.
I will buy another month of gameplay this week just to check it out.

(However the station itself looks like crap actually, you seriously need some artist)

The new "capship station" is only a prototype and does not represent the final, intended artwork or content. There will be some development time before these new objects are fully realized.

Not that people, you know, read.

And then you are wrong again, Lelector, on both comments. We even duelled inside the dock, enough room for maneuvering. But when you attacked me there was a TRUCE valid on sector, and I was AFK... easy prey...

Then, again, termal dissipation is much better handled with airflow, not in vacuum. So, again, having a pressurized hull makes more sense to a "ship factory" than open shipyards. But if you are building a unique ship, a larger prototype, or something as the unique, 6km long, GTVA Colossus, the open space shipyard becomes a requirement. But all smaller ships, like the tens of GTC Aeolus, 272m long, are produced in pressurized shipyards, so humans can work on it without bulky spacesuits.

Just compare with the HAC's 733m. Other VO's 'capital' ships have no length in vo-wiki.com.

Simple rule: We build 'inside' if we have an installation larger than ship being produced. Only larger ships are built out there...

It makes more sense for them to be built on planets.

"termal [sic] dissipation"

You really don't get it, do you? Think about assembling a complex series metal parts, composed of different alloys that all have varying expansion coefficients, at one (very warm) temperature and then toss it out into space. See what happens.

And you bounced all over the inside of the dock before exploding quickly; I'd hardly call that a duel.

I changed/added some pics to my post in the first page of this thread.