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[Delmonte]

This is a place to post sprites for ships, weapons, and factions that I feel could contribute to the core game. Over time, pencil sketches of ships and weapons of all shapes and sizes will pop up. Then I'll digitally paint them to make sprites. However, at this time I am much more comfortable drawing physically than digitally, so expect a higher ratio of penciled stuff to digital stuff before actual sprites.

Any sprites here are free to use in other mods, just make sure to give credit.

Faction & Ship Sprites

Spoiler

Fabrique Orbitale

Of all the mini-factions mentioned in the main game, this corporation is the most interesting. The name suggests a future fashion design firm, but because this corporation is posed as a rival to Tri-Tachyon, it could be a DARPA level design contractor. From the terminator drone description, these guys favor construction, so as an integrated faction, they will excel in producing ships that are architecturally impressive and ambitious from a hard sci-fi design sense.

Design inspirations:
- western european machine and weapon designs in ww2
- ambitious ww2 german projects
- hammerhead, apogee, the rebel blockade runner, the Richilieu, and the Bismarck
- blitzkriegs
- Lockheed

Colors:
- black
- deep gray
- pink (similar hue to Tri Tachyon blue)
- dark red?
- purple?

Design considerations:
- large ships for each ship type
- large crews for each ship to make up for lack of AI development = large supply demands
- ships seem imposing
- broadsides
- mid-high to high tech ships that would favor ballistic and energy weapons more than missiles
- more universal weapon slots than other high tech ships
- fortress and castle ships
- expensive like tri-tachyon
- slow engines, slow to turn
- front and omni shields, some rotating
- rounded block and rectangle style to the Tri-Tachyon's blob/oval designs
- capitalism, meritocracy, human direction vs AI

Fleet roster

Fighters:
Drone Interceptor - wing of 3, one weapon
Assault Fighter - wing of 2 fighters, 2 crew per ship
Phase Bomber - like modern stealth bomber, 2 crew per ship, wing of 2, high flux

Frigates:
Corvette Frigate - high tech scout ship
Broadside Frigate - fills similar role to wolf

Destroyers:
Mid-High Tech Destroyer - downgraded apogee
Phase Destroyer - not as wild as revenant, affordable upgrade from shade and afflictor
High Tech Munitions Destroyer - shielded high tech version of Rook

Cruisers:
Broadside Cruiser
High Tech Cruiser Carrier - astral version of heron, 3 fighter decks
High Tech Combat Freighter Cruiser

Capital Ships:
?

Total roster: 11 ships so far


[Unnnamed Second Faction]

A strategy that is currently hard to produce in SS is a fighter reliant faction, but this one will try. I imagine these guys as a Dominion expedition force or a band of colonies from the time of the Collapse that has recently encountered the Sector while drifting through space. Factor in some 200 cycles of prior development and you'll get a unique culture. With few resources and a lack of large autofactories, the fleet relied on further improving its small craft designs while its larger ships filled support roles. Now they have settled a system close to Valhalla, wary of the other factions.

Because of a fighter centric navy, this faction is a chance for SS to experiment with modern naval tactics as well as the escort and combat carrier tactics of the pacific during ww2. Also because these guys are from another part of space, I'll be using eastern influences, such as russian, chinese, korean, indian, and japanese science fiction in creating this fleet.

Design inspirations:
- russian and japanese military during ww2
- the pacific war
- battlestar galactica
- the zentradi, battle garegga, 1944 loop master
- mitsubishi zero, the hellcat, scorpion, f-15 fighter
- aquatic animals like crabs and whales

Colors:
- military green
- yellow
- orange
- red

Design considerations:
- largest array of fighters produced by a faction
- most carriers produced by a faction
- higher tech missile support than pirates
- playing this faction typically nets you a carrier as starter ship
- faction could be composed of subfactions, like Ludd: experiment with future communism and socialism, nanosocialism
- low to midline ships that would favor missile and ballistic weapons over energy (due to tech scarcity)
- more universal weapon slots than other midline ships
- compared to other factions, player will be seeking better carrier ships for flagship
- advanced sensors and communications
- logistical support
- front static shields and small rotating shields
- midline fighters with shields
- combat carriers and freighters are designed with more weapon slots than other midline vanilla carriers
- expect massive crew losses against large fleets, so upgrade character traits to get reduced crew sizes and losses
- I imagine other combat roles being filled by captured ships, so fleets encountered could have random assortments of stolen ship chassis

Fleet roster so far:

Fighters:
Midline Interceptor - wing of 5
Support Fighter - may use tesla gun or emp effect or rail gun
Multirole Fighter - wing of 3, may use needler with torpedo and autocannon
Midline Bomber - may use salamanders
Strike Bomber - torpedos and ballistic weapons
Phase Assault or Heavy Fighter - stole tech from corporation or hidden blueprint, high flux, expensive but fun

Frigates:
Midline Corvette Frigate - high burn with at least three weapon slots
Mini-Carrier Frigate - low-tech avalon with combat role, may have sensor drone, 1 flight deck
Troop Transport Frigate - gotta make use of assault pods
Munitions Frigate - a smaller rook or similar to a cerberus but with a munitions support subsystem

Destroyers:
Missile Support Destroyer - like sunder but with a large missile hardpoint and ballistic weapons
Combat Carrier Destroyer - laser gemini with one or two universal slots, 1 or 2 flight decks

Cruisers:
Combat Carrier Cruiser - combat version of heron, 2 or 3 flight decks
Combat Freighter Cruiser - better than mule, faster than circe

Capital Ships:
Exodus-class Command Battlecruiser - capital ship version of castle from ss+

Total roster: 15

[close]

Weapon Sprites

Spoiler

Standard Weapons

These are new weapon ideas that would mix well with the vanilla lineup. Bought from the store.

Some short thoughts for now:
- low to mid tier ballistic energy guns
- kinetic missiles
- kinetic torpedos
- more torpedo options
- more mines
- more bombs
- large point defense ballistic weapon
- spread shots (like in shmups), mainly for energy
- laser with fragmentation damage

Standard Ballistic Additions:

The Anti-Phase Particle Gun
Currently, the only weapons that can hit phase ships reliably before they use up their flux are laser weapons. This is a fast, one or multi shot energy cannon that can successfully hit a phase ship before it shifts out. There may be a particle trail for effect. A good illustration for the speed and precision is how sniper shots are portrayed in ww2 rts games. The way the target is found and instantly shot (with the shot trail) is what I would try to achieve when programming this weapon into the game. Energy damage type.


Standard Missile Additions:
...
Standard Energy Additions:
...

Exotic Weapons

The equivalent of unique equipment from quests, or legendary weapons found near the end of an RPG. To get them, once your SS character reaches a certain level, unique fleets appear in the universe, either in hyperspace or a system. They will appear from time to time only to be beaten once, and are composed of elite ships and a unique boss flagship. The flagship will typically carry them, the weapons only obtainable after destroying it and surviving the fight.

Sometimes there are only two or three obtainable, and sometimes only one. Depends on the size of the weapon.

The list below will carry all ideas proposed so far and their sprites.

Exotic Ballistic Weapons:
...
Exotic Missile Weapons:

The Big Boy
It's the Hail Mary. The Plan C. The N2 Mine. If there is any large missile weapon missing from the core game, it's the nuke. Obtained from a distant, dormant Dominion station, this cruiser missile can be fired from a very long range to deliver colossal damage in a wide area, obliterating ships with weak shields. Very high OP cost, 1 shot deal. HE or Energy damage type.
The main problem with using this will be how to target specific ships for the AI. I may make three stages to mimic the VLRM sprite found in the vanilla graphics folder.

Exotic Energy Weapons:
...

[close]

[Midnight Kitsune]

OK I'm gonna tell you this right now: You are going to have trouble with the AI using your first faction... Three things really screw with the AI and or balance: Long narrow ships, broadsides and lots of mounts.
The AI has trouble hitting long narrow ships because of how the game sets up collision bounds but that is going to be partly fixed in the next update.
The AI has always had trouble with broadsides
As for the weapon mount numbers... The more you add, the more unbalanced the faction becomes, doubly so with universals. Sometimes there IS such a thing as overkill.

Also, welcome to the forums!

[Delmonte]

Thanks Kitsune. Shame the mechanics don't work well for those types of ships. I'll have to experiment with other mods to see what works best here. Primarily I'm interested in long thin ships for Orbitale, which will only be slightly larger (10 to 20 pixels larger) than the largest vanilla ship of a type lengthwise. So an Orbitale frigate will be 10 to 20 pixels larger than a Vigilance (110~120 vs. 101), a capital Orbitale will be larger than an Odyssey (420 vs. 400). I guess their width and number of edges will determine how well they handle with AI.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Luckily the length part will be fix partly in the next update
If you want to look at vanilla balanced mods, look to Starsector+ and the mods it supports

[HELMUT]

Quite a few interesting ideas but as MK said, there will be possible issues with the game, at least in the actual version. Currently, this is the problem with long ships:

Spoiler

[close]

(It's from the Ironclad thread) The collision radius around a ship is a circle, if there's an empty distance of more than 150 pixels in that circle, it will cause issues. Alex said he have been working on oval collisions radius to reduce the effect of this problem. If your ships are just 20/30 pixels longer than the longest vanilla ships, there shouldn't be too much trouble.

Also, funny thing, at one moment i tried to work on some low-tech WWII fighters "in space" similar to your unnamed second faction. Never had enough time to toy with the idea to get satisfactory sprites however...

Anyway, i'm looking forward to see what your pencil sketches will look like.

[Delmonte]

Thanks Helmut, this is really helpful. This type of problem would only come up with the capital ships I had in mind for Orbitale, but it's nice to know the restrictions to work around this problem. For now, I'm going to work on the second faction while I do more testing for Orbitale (playing mods).

What's great about the second faction is how quick it will be to churn out sprites. Fighters are the core portion of the force, so once the designs have been finalized and sprited, they can be tested to see if the faction is viable.

Currently the fighters are being designed around what low tier weapons have not been used in the vanilla lineup. Here's a list of what is currently used in the main game:

Vanilla Fighters:

Spoiler

Name: Ship Size, Weapon
-------------------------------

HEGEMONY         

Talon Interceptor: S, Vulcan Cannon
Broadsword Heavy: M, Swarmer SRM / LMG x2
Thunder Multirole: M, Harpoon MRM (S) / Swarmer SRM Launcher / Ion Cannon
Warthog Assault: M, Light Assault Gun / LMG x2
Gladius Heavy: L, LDMG / IR Pulse Laser x2   
Claymore Bomber: L, Annihilator Rocket Launcher x2 / LMG x2
Halberd Support: L, Vulcan Cannon x2 / Swarmer SRM Launcher x2

TRI TACHYON

Wasp Interceptor: S, PD Laser
Claw Assault: M, Pulse Laser
Dagger Bomber: M, Reaper Torpedo
Longbow Support: M, Sabot SRM (S) / Burst PD Laser
Trident Bomber: L, Harpoon SRM (S) x2 / Atropos Torpedo (S) x2 / LR PD Laser x3
Xyphos Heavy: L, Phase Beam / Burst PD Laser x2

CORE

Mining Pod Heavy: M, Mining Laser
Piranha Bomber: M, Standard Bomb Bay / LMG

[close]

This is what was changed or added in SS+ (* notes change or addition). Other than the weapons, their stats have been improved as well, but I won't post those here.

SS+ Fighters:

Spoiler

Name: Ship Size, Weapon
-------------------------------

HEGEMONY         

Talon Interceptor: S, Vulcan Cannon
Broadsword Heavy: M, Swarmer SRM / LMG x2
Thunder Multirole: M, Harpoon MRM (S) / Swarmer SRM Launcher / Ion Cannon
*Warthog Assault: M, Light Assault Gun / Light Autocannon x2
Gladius Heavy: L, LDMG / IR Pulse Laser x2   
*Claymore Bomber: L, Annihilator Rocket Launcher x2 / LMG x2
*Halberd Support: L, Vulcan Cannon x2 / Swarmer SRM Launcher x2

TRI TACHYON

Wasp Interceptor: S, PD Laser
*Claw Assault: M, Pulse Laser
Dagger Bomber: M, Reaper Torpedo
*Longbow Support: M, Sabot SRM (M) / Burst PD Laser
Trident Bomber: L, Harpoon SRM (S) x2 / Atropos Torpedo (S) x2 / LR PD Laser x3
Xyphos Heavy: L, Phase Beam / Burst PD Laser x2

CORE

Mining Pod Heavy: M, Mining Laser
Piranha Bomber: M, Standard Bomb Bay / LMG
*Sentinel Support: M, Proximity Burst Launcher

[close]

Reviewing the list, these small weapons are still unused by fighters in the main game:

Light Autocannon
Dual Light Autocannon
Mortar
Needler
Rail Gun
Tactical Laser
Antimatter Blaster
Sabot SRM (M)
Salamander SRM (M), an (S) version would be nice though

If a fighter centric faction is going to work, there needs to be at least one fighter for each damage type (Kinetic, HE, Frag, and Energy) which could deliver that damage role reliably during battle before its wing runs out of backup fighters. All of these unused weapons are pretty useful en masse, so the challenge is coming up with fighters that are balanced against the other aircraft in interesting ways.

I have some drawings that I'll post soon. One is of an antimatter blaster fighter, the Dagger of the force. It has a few charges to dispense before needing to reload at a friendly flightdeck. 

[Delmonte]

Sets of fighter concepts:





The spikes you see on fighters in the first and second pictures act like tasers or lightning rods for an EMP effect. The last three of this set are concepts for a pirate assault fighter with dual light autocannons. It's inspired by Harley-Davidson bikes, cause pirates need a space hog.

The rest are just mixes of needler and autocannon/LMG concepts.

[HELMUT]

Those are pretty rough sketches. To be honest i can't really discern what is what, so i'll wait for a sprite before saying anything about them.

[Delmonte]

These are just half-inch thumbnail sketches blown up so you can see them easily. None of these have any roles yet, but they're just examples of the sketches I do beforehand, cause I like sharing everything I put into a work. If there are any questions you have, just let me know.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Shouldn't this be moved to modding?

[Erick Doe]

Shouldn't this be moved to modding?

Since it all looks more theoretical and focussed on discussing sketches and potential factions, I'll just leave it here for the moment.

On second thought, since the idea is to offer up sprites for modding, I'll move it afterall.