Last updated on 08/09/99

Welcome to the

Star Empires Customized Ship Design Drydock

Latest News and Changes (as of August 9, 1999):

• The carrier hull type has been restructured to eliminate loopholes and bring the construction costs of carriers more in line with similar designs implemented on other hull types.  You can try the new demo spreadsheet now.  The specific equations on the carrier and carrier design pages have also been updated.  Thanks for your patience during the rework of the carrier hull type.

Latest News and Changes (as of July 27, 1999):

• Ship Design has been added to the GUI (since last week) - but don't trust me, download the GUI and see for yourself!
• A discussion of why and how to design your own starships has been added.

Other recent changes (as of July 19, 1999)

• Carrier design has been totally updated in response to some good feedback from potential SE-3D players - Thanks!
• Frigates have been removed from the Medium Combatant Hull Type and incorporated into the newly developed Large Combatant hull type
• Missiles have been split out of the Drone hull type into a hull type of their own.  The biggest change from earlier discussions is that missiles will be MOVE=0 by design.
• I'm putting together a page especially written for players new to the game about how they might consider approaching custom ship design.  Watch for the acutal page to be posted in the coming days.
• Mailto Links within Ship Design have been shifted over the the SE-3D gamemaster to preserve player anonymity in the pending SE-3D game (Hey, isn't everyone but Earl a potential player?).

• Customized Ship Design

Using the Ship Design Calculator (demo here) tool available from the GUI, players may design their own classes of ships to be added to their empire’s ship table. Each newly-designed ship will be built from one of the basic hull types listed below. The existing starship classes are shown for each hull type.

 

From within the Ship Design Calculator, players will be able to input parameters such as Guns, DP, Move, Scan, and Racks. The general characteristics of a given hull type, and how much a player departs from those characteristics, will dictate the Cost of the of the newly designed starship. In general, the farther a ship-designer gets from the central theme of a given hull type, the more expensive the design will be. 

• "Why would I want to design my own starship anyway?   How do I go about designing a great starship?

Several potential players have asked, just how do I go about designing a great starship to use in the SE-3D game?  I've put together some of my own thoughts, along with comments and observations from other veterans of the last Star Empires game, in one place especially tailored for players new to the game.

 

• Hull Types

The seven basic hull types from which players can design their own starships are: Large Combatants, Medium Combatants, Carriers, Small Craft, Drones, Missiles, Orbital Constructions.  The following table shows how the existing starship classes fit into those hull types.

• Details on Specific Hull Types

  For more information on specific hull types, review their specifications:

  • Large Combatants

  • Medium Combatants

  • Carriers

  • Small Craft

  • Drones

  • Missiles

  • Orbital Constructions

• Go Straight to the Calculator Demo

contact the Game Master with questions