Spaaaaaaaace (StarDrive AAR)

[Dowly]

So, I picked up this cool game and thought to do an AAR. StarDrive is a 4X
space RTS which heavily concentrates on designing your own ships, ranging
from small 10 slot shuttles to 1300+ slot Dreadnoughts.

http://www.stardrivegame.com/

Word of warning: The game is in full release status, but it's pretty much in
beta stage atm. Haven't had any big problems with it yet, though.

Settings
(I also set in-system FTL speed penalty to -60%)


Home Sweet Home. Earth, orbited by my flag ship, Perseverance, and 1 colony and 1 scout ship.


I'm going to allow AI to handle most tasks, from colony management to constructing subspace projectors (space roads!) and managing freighters.
So, first thing I need to do is design a freighter and a colony ship!

Here's the small freighter hull I am going to use.
I = internal module
O = outer module
E = engine
IO = inner/outer module


The vanilla design is virtually the same as what I came up with. Only two differences are cockpit location (vanilla has it towards the front, out of power)
and 4 small engines instead of 2 small engines and 2 warp engines that I used. Colony ship design is the same, except there's a 2x3 colony module in the front
part of the ship.


While I'm here, I also switch the second small engine to a warp engine on the scout ship design.


For starter research I pick:


I lack the technology to build Biospheres needed to make use of planets that are mostly barren (everything but Earth in Sol), so I order two more scout ships
to help explore the other systems and hopefully find a nice first planet to colonize.

I got a bit of time before the construction of the scouts is finished, so let's look at the fleet design.

In StarDrive, you can design fleets by freely placing ships on the fleet design screen. Once done, you can order the fleet to be constructed. The way you place
the ships in the designer is the fleet's default formation they use. Want to have them move in the shape of a middle finger to mock your enemies? Go ahead.
If the fleet suffers losses, you can use the fleet screen to order reinforcements to be build, so all in all, it's pretty handy.
There are also settings to tell the fleet (or invidual ship in the fleet) what you want it to prioritize.


I only have a Vulcan fighter to start with, using the same shuttle hull as the scout ship. (unnamed module is nuclear reactor)


I end up designing a 14 fighter fleet.


To be continued...