Hello Josh,

When reading this bit of your log today...

Josh wrote:To really nail procedural ships, it's going to take many more days like this. Not because I think procedural ships are particularly hard, but because I'm no artist/modeler, and I don't even know how to make a ship by hand, much less with formulas. Still, I'm going to cling to that belief that all things are simple until I can't cling any longer (and by that time, hopefully I'll have found the secret to ships). I did make some good progress today, and developed a few new tricks and insights that will help me in the end. I still don't have a good structural understanding of ships, but I'm getting there.

It made me recall my own interest in spaceship design and how I have attempted to understand it more myself. I wanted to share with you some tips based on how I have been learning! Even though I am sure you probably already do all of this.

So...
1) Observe and study as many ships as you can. This may be painfully obvious, but if you find yourself stuck on what you know now, try going out and playing a space sim you have never tried before. Or...
2) To be quicker, try looking up spaceship art on the internet; I recommend DeviantART.com. This is a valuable resource for gaining inspiration on anything art related. Just searching for the keyword "spaceship" with the filter set to "popular all time" gives you a massive (if you scroll down and hit show more) list of interesting and intuitive designs. If you start to compare them all, you might see some reoccurring themes in most of them, and I know that's the kind of thing you need to look for with trying to code in ship design.
3) Ask a friend who might be good at drawing ships to make some sketches for you. Even with the above two methods, the best ship I ever designed was based on a friend of mine's quick sketch.

Like I said I have no idea if this helps, and I'm sure you know what you're doing Josh. I just wanted to take part in the feedback process and this is the first subject I feel I had some valuable input for. I hope reading this sparked an idea! And as always, keep up the good work!

If I might also piggy-back on this, since I'm not sure where else we can discuss or respond to specific dev log entries:

PS ~ I finally broke my cycle of nocturnalness today, and it felt great to see some daylight while working!! I think not ever seeing daylight was depressing me a bit

This is very likely, you might be experiencing an effect along the lines of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Humans are dependent on getting a good amount of sun to keep us going, with your body making vitamins from it, as well as regulating various systems. Some people experience SAD during the winter, especially as you approach the poles, where they get more and more depressed as the night gets longer, since their body isn't getting sufficient amounts of light (light coming into the eyes is also a key aspect, a common therapy for it is to get specialized lights that emit large amounts of light imitating sunlight levels and frequencies, and to turn them on for a certain amount of time in the morning where the eyes can capture it).

Do take care of yourself, and I would recommend going outside in the sun when you can, or letting a lot of light come through the windows when you work. You'll likely also benefit with increased cognitive capacity (is that even possible for you, just from looking at the amount of work you do? ). The counter-point that can be cause from not enough light being getting more depressed, reduced energy and reduced cognitive capacity.

In short: Not getting enough sunlight can actually literally depress you. Make sure you get enough

FireryRage wrote:If I might also piggy-back on this, since I'm not sure where else we can discuss or respond to specific dev log entries

By all means!

FireryRage wrote: In short: Not getting enough sunlight can actually literally depress you. Make sure you get enough

I can't agree with this enough. I've always made sure to do all my sleeping during nighttime because I simply cannot get enough sunlight. It improves my mood greatly and I actually often do get depressed as the sun goes down.

That reminds me, depending on the ship editor, can we have it export to an easily accessible file format for 3d printing?

TheSkyIsUp wrote:because I simply cannot get enough sunlight. It improves my mood greatly and I actually often do get depressed as the sun goes down.

I easily get depressed when the sun is shining since it reminds me I should be outside doing stuff instead of sitting inside in front of a screen working, browsing or playing games!

Ixos wrote:I easily get depressed when the sun is shining since it reminds me I should be outside doing stuff instead of sitting inside in front of a screen working, browsing or playing games!

Identifying the source of a depression is an important step.
You can now look for solutions, such as painting all windows with a "rainy day sky".