Advise needed in hardpoint placement of a shipyard

posted on April 24th, 2014, 6:05 pm

Hi there, I need some advice.
Currently I am working on two federation shipyards for Armada2.
They resemble the federation Drydock Type1 and Typ2 that you can see on the ex astris scientia website.

Problem I have is the position of the repair hardpoint.

I have 3 possible placements
Each position has its advantages and problems.


a) on the side (either left or right) like it is in Armada2
looks a bit awkward as the ship is at the side of the yard for repairs, but is accessible the easiest should the ship get stuck

b) on top of the yard as it is in Fleet Ops
Looks better and the ship is relative easy accessible

c) inside the yard at or close to the position of the build hardpoint
Looks the best, ship actually goes into the yard for repairs, a neat freaks dream. But looks strange when a new ship is being build at the same time. And ship cannot be accessed easily should it get stuck.

As a neat freak myself, I would prefer solution c but as a realist I guess it has either to be a or b for game play reasons.
But what would be better?

posted on April 24th, 2014, 6:51 pm

I personally think on top is nice as the station doesn't need as much room and there isn't odd clipping. I assume the yard is shaped kind of like a lower case n, correct? If so, you might also try having a shorter u shaped portion on top for repairs to make it look like ships are actually supposed to go there rather than just sitting near the station.

posted on April 24th, 2014, 8:32 pm

I agree with Cabal for the top of the station. It has a solid top more or less and would give the repair area more of a base if you will to work off of. If you could model in some light on top to give the impression that they light the underside of the ship then all the better, but that's just eye candy.

I don't necessarily think the side repair is all the odd, but probably just because we are so used to it.

posted on April 24th, 2014, 11:29 pm

Both yards are modeled to represent the yards as the could be seen on TV and the movies.
So they have some “deckhouses” on top as well as some truss girders.
If I place the repair hardpoints on top, I guess it could be a good compromise.

With the lights, I have to stick with the effects that Armada allows. The texture already has a light map so there is no room for tinkering there. So there are just some blinking lights possible.

posted on April 25th, 2014, 1:43 am

I'm sorry I must have confused with my lights statement. I just meant you know how the model looks like it has lights built into the girders? I just meant perhaps in the texture on the top of the model make it look like it has lights built in similar to the under side to give the same effect. Still not sure I'm saying that right?

posted on April 25th, 2014, 2:25 pm

Why not use C and have repair yards as a separate station? Worked for Command & Conquer.

posted on April 25th, 2014, 6:50 pm

Hi Tyler. Nice idea, problems I see are that you will need four slots in the build menu of the construction ship. (But that’s manageable easily.)

Also placing 4 high polygon count yards may be a bit much for smaller systems.
But if you are a neat freak like me it is worth it. Than your main base will look like Utopia Planitia very fast.

Speaking of poly counts: the large Drydock type 1 has 18174 polygons the smaller Drydock type 2 has 10736 polygons.

Perhaps you see my problem. My system can handle high poly models, but not everybody has a large system..


Perhaps publishing 2 Versions is the answer one with the repair hard point on top the other with a build and separate repair yard. Than people can chose.

posted on July 3rd, 2014, 8:48 pm

Hi there,

the yards I have been posting about are now on armada2.filefront.
If you want take a look.