Ready to Retrofit

by Phoenix | Jul 13, 2022 | Journal, Space Engineers

More like completely rebuild. I don’t know why these ships always look and feel so much bigger on the inside than the outside, but the effect is exaggerated with the hull mostly stripped out.

Grayish ship on the right is a Town Class Cruiser (WIP)

I’m probably not going to rebuild the carousel hangar from scratch, so it’s likely staying right where it is with few to no modifications.

That’s all there is to show for the most part. I just wanted to finish stripping it down today. I’m not going to start rebuilding the interior until I’ve fully mapped out the new design. The new version needs to make sense for both fighting purposes and for the crew. No more CIC sitting directly behind Bruno turret or a gymnasium right next to the reactor room.

To Be Continued

Stripping Out the Hipper

by Phoenix | Jul 12, 2022 | Journal, Space Engineers

I’m not finished yet, so I probably won’t have pictures or the like until tomorrow at the earliest, but the reason I’m doing this is because I realized I can get the interior and exterior combination I want without starting from scratch.

That’s not to say I didn’t try. The trouble there was that I’d already come off that inspiration high I mentioned last week. By then I was just struggling to follow a specific interior pattern and it left me flailing while trying to figure out the exterior. I didn’t have any real direction, basically. Once I started chopping off pieces of the original Hipper to fill in the blanks, I knew I was on the wrong track.

The original Hipper’s shape is more or less right. The internal layout is the problem, so we’re stripping the whole thing out and rearranging everything to be more sensible, navigable, and just that bit more practical for actual fighting. Anyway, that’s the plan on that. There’s plenty of other things going on, but this is the only thing worth mentioning right this minute.

Recording Finished

by Phoenix | Jul 11, 2022 | Journal, WoWs

It took most of the afternoon but I managed to get all twenty WoWs games recorded. Read some Dune and poked around at some other things in the ‘sit and wait’ time. Now that that’s taken care of, I’m ready for the next update.

We’ll see how the rest of the week pans out.

Swing and a Miss

by Phoenix | Jul 10, 2022 | Journal, Space Engineers, WoWs

World of Warships

We didn’t have enough people available for this last night of Clan Battles, so there’s nothing to report there. On the other hand, I did get some new ‘media’ for my hypothetical Arpeggio event article. Yeah, still planning on finishing that at some point. So that’s part of what I spent the last four hours working on.

Space Engineers

The other thing I was working on was the Admiral Hipper. I was worried I’d have a much harder time rebuilding the ship once the week got started and I was unfortunately right. I’m either going to have to strip out the old version and rebuild the interior, or build a new, sleeker frame and start from there. Either way it’s going to be a big challenge.

Plugins

Featured Image from URL (FIFU)

Use an external image/video as featured image/video of a post or WooCommerce product.

I’m also going through plugins here and there to find new and useful ones while ditching the unused ones. That’s a bit of an ‘all week long’ process, but this plugin’s going to save me quite a bit of space on the backend.

Closing

Since Clan Battles wasn’t a thing, I have exactly 20 replays from this season I have to record by Wednesday. I’m probably going to knock them all out tomorrow. Tuesday at the latest.

M.A.S.S. Builder New Story Mission Level Design

by Phoenix | Jul 9, 2022 | Blog, MASS Builder

WIP: 0.9.0 New Story Mission Level Design

Welcome back to another WIP update from M.A.S.S. Builder. As we’re reaching closer and closer to the 0.9.0 update, we would like to introduce something that’s not multiplayer which is the single player story missions and its level design.

The preview plugin’s on the fritz again, but that’s not going to stop me. The new map’s looking great so far.

It’s another one of those large free roam areas, so that’ll be fun once the update’s finished. It’s definitely accommodating to my run and gun playstyle.

Weekly Shot of Inspiration

by Phoenix | Jul 8, 2022 | Journal, Space Engineers

Don’t you hate it when the inspiration hits and hits hard and you can’t immediately act on it? I’m not sure why exactly, but this is what Friday evenings are like for me. As soon as the sun goes down, my mind just opens up.

Anyway, that’s enough whinging.

While I try to sort out Chapter 2 of LGT I’m going to start practicing with my XP-Pen again and possibly reconstruct the Admiral Hipper. If I do commit to a total rebuild, I probably won’t be able to enter the Xebon rebuild competition. I’m still probably going to convert that ship into a carrier sooner or later, just not by the competition’s deadline. I’ve got a much clearer and more ‘harmonious’ layout in mind for the Hipper hulls and want to implement it before my brain formats itself again.

As for the digital art, I’m not sure what I’ll try first. I might just find an art streamer I like and follow along for a few hours. We’ll see. Once I’ve got something I’ll show it off here. Might even make an art section to go along with the video section once I’ve got a good number of pieces.

Found It

by Phoenix | Jul 7, 2022 | Adobe, Art, Journal

I found the pens for my XP-Pen monitor. No idea where the glove went, but I’m sure it’ll turn up sooner or later. Now I just have to break into Adobe Illustrator. I’m sure something like SAi would be better for someone at my skill level, but Illustrator comes with my Adobe subscription, so I’d rather not let that value go to waste, even if there’s a bigger learning curve starting out.

Now I just need to work this into my ‘schedule.’ Good luck, me.

The Praedian Records

J.G. Phoenix

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