This post is intended to be used as a reference by the Design Team to follow when designing ship sections.
I sincerely doubt everything is covered here, so expect edits as the Design and Story Teams have their say.
Kerberos Productions wrote:One of the main design philosophies we follow is the amount of turrets per section is determined first, this is the main structure for the lay out of the section. From that you determine areas around the turrets for mounting brackets, ammo storage etc. After that you can make choices on areas more dedicated for crew and other facilities necessary for the sections functionality. This sets it up so theres not wasted areas of the ships. Creating a model and then adding weapons on top is a lil' hodge podge, its a good idea to consider every thing thats needed behind the Turret door.
The recommended min/max poly count for ships depends on the ships size. A couple 1–2K per section for Destroyers is a good rule of thumb...higher for the larger ships.
For creating the ships we generally start out with a standard, armor, fission, after that you model with the other 2 sections so you can be aware of the ships composition and balance.
I also recommend having all your turrets in the model file as well for proportion. Not going to know if that turret and barrel will clear for sure unless you actually have it supported there.
The more Hit Points a Section has, the less crystal should show through on the section.
This should not only scale across each ship size, but through the sizes as well such that DN class ships don't have much exposed crystal surface.
Story-wise, the metal is used to protect the more vulnerable crystal, both because the layered (composite) effect works better and because the metal is easier to replace.
The lower the Power Tech, the more crystal exposed.
Fission drive crystals should be more exposed than fusion, with antimatter drive crystals the least exposed.
Part of the advances in Engine Tech could also be alterations to the Crystal sheathing.
Story-wise, the more advanced Power techs produce the required power over less exposed crystal area, allowing for better armoring of the drive crystals.
Tri-flore Design
The baseline DE engine we have seen shows this off well. It can flow through into the other sections as the previously concepted Armor section shows.
I anticipate Cruiser designs utilising twin tri-flore interlocking across a horizontal parallel, while Dreadnought designs would utilise 3 tri-flore "basics" interlocking rotationally parallel.
How, even if, the expansion of the Tri-flore to larger ship sizes is done needs to be thought through by the Design Team.
