I spent several hours today, around 6 so far, designing this prototype barge or orbital station. I work offshore, so some of the inspiration is obviously from that. That said, I started out just making a base on a nearby planet. Getting a small base ready for survival. I started messing around and added a crapload of large hydrogen thrusters to bottom of my would-have-been-base and eventually used the voxel hands to remove the land encasing part of the structure. I added more directional thrusters, and eventually, with just thrusters, hydrogen, a reactor, and a flight seat, flew it out of the atmosphere to space.

The large size and over-use of large thrusters caused me some framerate issues, so I reduced the number of thrusters. This lead to other changes, such as adding the main deck that sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s a literal brick. I had a single gyroscope initially, then 4, then 20, until I had covered the sides of this construction brick completely in gyroscopes. I think I had somewhere around 120 gyroscopes on this ship just to make mouse turning slightly easier. (In this game, for those that aren’t familiar, turning is a PITA if you don’t use a gyroscope.)

Below the construction area, there’s a space completely packed with hydrogen tanks and reactors. This is a large station-sized ship, so it’s much larger than it appears. What started as something silly, I’m now excited about designing version 2 sometime in the next few days. It has something like 400 batteries, 4 jump drives, 40 oxygen tanks, 60+ large storage containers, 40+ small containers, 18 reactors, 70+ hydrogen tanks, the shitload of gyros, 2 flight seats that determine movement directions, 11 bedrooms, a small suite of weapons, and 3 other decks that are actually empty. In the picture above, the ship on the right has been converted to a station. It will not move despite being parked in empty space. I was sharing resources from the “station” to the mobile station.

Each room has a cryopod in it, couch, bed, toilet, corner desk, console, lockers, and kitchen. I went overboard and spent as much time fabbing the cabins as I did the other parts of the station. I was going to add a crane system to it, but I don’t think I’ll add it to this prototype. I can’t wait to spawn this for a survival mode in the future. Or, at least, the one of the next versions of it.

(I haven’t uploaded this to the Steam Workshop because it’s quite a brick. Plus, it’s not “optimized” at all with a ton of unnecessary components. The next version should solve some of these issues, and maybe add a sexy form factor on top of that.)

UPDATE

After spending the last 4 hours redesigning and actually planning, I’ve actually finished the second version of my OCP project. I haven’t saved it to blueprint yet, but it definitely has something of a shape right now. At least, it’s not a brick completely. I still wanted all the work space in the rear, so the area stayed squared. The front, I split into a normal crew cabin/captain’s quarters/bridge area. Note that the crew will have to exit a pressurized environment to get to the cabins and cryopods. I haven’t completely set up the pilot chairs and controls yet, but it has 4 positions currently. I wanted this to be a carrier vessel and construction dock for my needs in survival. *NOTE: Thruster damage needs to be disabled or it’ll shred the ship in to 5-6 large pieces.*

Pilot’s Seat: For actually piloting the vessel. This will control thrusters, lights, and other elements useful for piloting. Primary control point, and also handles docking directly unless delegated to Weapons or Life Support.

Emergency Pilot Seat: Located directly above the main bridge, this secondary bridge faces the construction deck.

Flight Command: In times of war, a second seat above the bridge can coordinate flights to and from the construction deck. (Will not be set up to accommodate for multiple docks. Player can customize upon building/spawning.)

Weapons Seat: Sets up the weapon systems in the event that the vessel is under siege. This vessel doesn’t have much, only 4 missile turrets and 4 gatling turrets all forward-mounted above the Bridge. Can assist with docking operations.

Navigation: Once I’ve added the jump drives to the vessel, this seat will plot jumps and plan recharging of the drives. I plan to get no less than 4 drives on this thing, though I’m hoping for at least 10.

Life Support: Cryopods and other smaller functions. Due to the construction of the vessel, will be able to turn air vents on/off in the event of decompression. Can also assist with navigation.

I’ll post a walkthrough of everything once I’m finished, but I have to finish installing various components and setting up toolbars for all the stations.