Building Decrotive ships ( Screens and tips ) Share your own as well!

So I built a little "Repair yard" planet then got into building little prop ships to set in it. I thought i would share the idea as i think y'all could do better than i can but I thought i would share to spark some ideas.

The first thing i found is that building engines really adds character and conveys the sense that it is a ship. Have a casual glance at the ships you find in space and look at their engines to get ideas but don't be afraid to add your own touches. Also think of the function the ship would serve and add little features that hint at it. I fine using the Panel blocks and giving them a conical or pointed shape an engine is pretty clear. Notice my first pic has 2 engines, one on top and the other on the back of the ship. The top one conveys that it is an engine much more clearly. But feel free to experiment with both.

This First one is a Refurbished USCM meduim personal carrier. I tried to suggest a side door that could open up and troops could fire out of as well as seats and a small area for cargo. It is armed with a chin mounted cannon.


To suggest more primitive Ballistic weapons it is a good idea to use pipes as barrels and have few glowing or lighted bits. To suggest a turret that can move a single silver screw does a nice job suggesting it can rotate.

The next little vessel is an old but advanced little one ship with a more advanced looking turret. The Shape able blocks like panels can add interesting shapes that appear more like housings for weapons. The simple cheat to making the weapon look more advanced like an energy weapon is glowy bits. Everyone loves glowy bits.
For the engine i tried to integrate it into the hull some what and make it sleek and glowy. This looks Kinda ok but experiment with it more and you can most likely make it more convincing.


This last Vessel is an incomplete cargo runner with large side opening doors. The interesting thing about it is since this is a multi person vessel i added manned turrets. To suggest this add either screens ti suggest targeting consoles, or what i did here, small blocks of glass in a band that suggest viewing ports. Here even though i used glowing elements on both guns they both have a different feel to them. Play with combinations to fit the aesthetic you are aiming for.


For the chin mounted cannon i went a little nuts and tried a bunch of everything. The parts that give it good suggestions of being a gient energy cannon are a Lab light and an Industrial light at the tip to convey some sort of emitter.


Well there are some basic ideas. I hope you have fun and share your creations!

 

I'm going to give it a shot in frackin universe, though it is going to take a considerable amount of setup, storage, and tearing away the foundations.

 

I liked

 

The Cargo ship is finished. It was the last thing i finished legit before i just turned on Admin mode and started going crazy building a monster vessel.

 

For more outlandish looking engines like this funky gravity engine, mix and match blocks. A lot of sci-fi has Crystal based tech, so adding geode blocks or crystal blocks goes a long way. Notice the over use of silver screws as they have a nice vague machine look.
The Pod lights add to the vaguely tech look but they can only sit on floors or flat surfaces. I used admin mode to make this so some things like the electric doors may not be regularly makeable.

 

I made this a few months ago
just pretend the wood is glass ;-;

 

May i ask how you got the engine effects?

 

Do you mean the blue flames?

 

yes the blue flames

 

Photo editing software

 

ohhh...

 

I spawned them in and placed them. They're called like boosterflame or something.