That's awesome, Dino!!!

Xanion? Avorion!?!
The good CASKET's are made from low-grade iron!

Well yeah, but I'm not exactly at that level anymore (made it in Avorion, converted the other ones)

Might use that when/if Silver manages to get a server running

Dinosawer wrote:Well yeah, but I'm not exactly at that level anymore (made it in Avorion, converted the other ones)

Might use that when/if Silver manages to get a server running

Well I still need to find a worthwhile service.
/me wonders if the Google Cloud offering would work...

Cornflakes_91 wrote:Xanion? Avorion!?!
The good CASKET's are made from low-grade iron!

Here you go: https://app.box.com/s/cvq4flc415h8wb0toped35vds68ewm5x

Sure, iron has no special blocks so a lot of useless hull blocks in the middle, but you wanted iron

I found out today that it's possible to order a ship built at a shipyard which is even smaller than the mining drone, and too small to fit a single turret.
This adorable fellow has one hp, and employs a single diminutive mechanic. His thruster flares are bigger than he is, hehe.
Made him with the seed 'Josh Parnell'.
That's my main ship in centre (supports a crew of 8).

Wait, there's crew?? I need more details.

You need crew to run your ship - mechanics to keep it in shape (repair if you have them, slow HP loss if you don't) and engineers to run it (your ship runs and turns slow if you don't have them) proportional to ship size, gunners to run your turrets or they don't work (amount increases with turret tech level), miners for mining turrets, pilots for fighters, boarders and defence forces for a yet to be implemented boarding mechanic, and several ranks of officers you need as your crew grows.
And finally the captain, which allows a ship of yours to be piloted by the AI when you're using another ship.

Aside from that, there are untrained and professional crew members. Untrained ones can do anything (except for certain high-ranked jobs such as high officers, captains and pilots), but at an efficiency of 1 per crew. Professionals can only do one job, but they start at 1.5 efficiency and level up to gain more efficiency as time goes on.
And if your crew doesn't get paid on time or is put in quarters that don't fit them, they grow unhappy, stop working, and eventually abandon ship.

It's not a super deep mechanic atm (though it's getting better with the recent addition of professionals, happiness and levelling), more of a requirement and money sink (and ship building thing, as you need crew quarters to house them). Though you can add more crew than needed to increase efficiency of the job done (faster repairs etc)

For reference, my battlecruiser currently has a crew of 510 or so

Dang! I never knew about the crew requirement.
So do you make money in Avorion, Dino?
Is mining worthwhile? Or do you go for more unsavoury methods?

FormalMoss wrote:Dang! I never knew about the crew requirement.
So do you make money in Avorion, Dino?
Is mining worthwhile? Or do you go for more unsavoury methods?

How do your ships not explode after 5 minutes then without mechanics?

Mining might be worthwile if you build a fleet to do it for you, but I couldn't be bothered. I made my fortune by bounty hunting, pirate exterminating (and selling the loot) and some fortunate trade routes. Got enough money now that I don't really need to worry unless I want to do something big (like make a new battlecruiser)

Dinosawer wrote:

FormalMoss wrote:Dang! I never knew about the crew requirement.
So do you make money in Avorion, Dino?
Is mining worthwhile? Or do you go for more unsavoury methods?

How do your ships not explode after 5 minutes then without mechanics?

Mining might be worthwile if you build a fleet to do it for you, but I couldn't be bothered. I made my fortune by bounty hunting, pirate exterminating (and selling the loot) and some fortunate trade routes

AI Controlled ships are pointless, they don't work at even 20% the rate the playership can.
Load up a mining boat till you can afford salvagers and get shields.
Then load up a fast salvage tackler, fly into battles, steal components that get dropped, and salvage the enemy ships. Let the NPCs kill each other, and take the free goodies from it.

They're decent for combat now, actually. Not nearly as good as I am, but still decent. (AI improved over patches, also has a speed bug that will improve things when fixed)

Dinosawer wrote:They're decent for combat now, actually. Not nearly as good as I am, but still decent. (AI improved over patches, also has a speed bug that will improve things when fixed)

The Speed bug is probably the issue.

But I am thinking a salvager with a good armored pointy nose cone, and all the valuable bits at the back, flying at high speed through combat situations would make a good penny.

Oh yes, most likely, especially with the new faction wars event.
Though I prefer to speed up the process by blowing the ships up myself

So I got Avorion, and proceeded to make an utterly crappy starting ship. I made the mistake of making it too big, so it braked like a cruise liner on an ice rink. Not good. The armament was hilariously OP, but it left me too broke to fix things. I then went out, shot up a bunch of pirates, and added enough upgrades that my life support failed and killed my crew. All in all, I survived longer than I was expecting without failing utterly!