[Ship][WIP] The Federation Mining Vessel Xypherus

[Mars Dreamer]

Hello fellow FTL fans.

I'm fairly new to all of this and this is my first mod, so I guess I'll just kick it off right away.

[Preface]
This is just the idea I had that prompted me to try and make this ship. If you don't care about lore or fluff, feel free to skip ahead, this is just simply my own personal inspiration and a little reasoning behind why the ship is the way it is.

On the outskirts of Federation space, a lone mining vessel goes about it's routine, struggling to make order quotas in light of the rebellion. Suddenly a badly damaged Federation scout ship jumps into the sector where the Xypherus is conducting it's operations. Desperately the scout ship's captain sends an encoded text only message with a data file attached.

WARNING! INCOMING REBEL FLEET
FLEE IMMEDIATELY
KEY TO FEDERATION SURVIVAL IN YOUR HANDS
...
GOD SPEED.

The reactor of the scout ship goes critical, letting off a brilliant blue light as it's torn apart from the inside out.

[The Ship]

The Mining Vessel Xypherus.

The idea behind this ship was a small and poorly equipped, non-warlike ship having the fate of the Federation thrust into their hands. They have but one defensive laser, a mining beam, and their mining equipment (Hence Augment: Scrap Recovery Arm).

Eventually I will (first I need to learn) rename the Mini laser and try to add more finishing touches, but here are a couple screen shots for the overall ship design and floorplan.

Hull Design


Floorplan


Well, there it is; obviously it still needs a little work (anyone know how to get the engine flares to function?), but considering this is my first ever mod (for anything) i'd appreciate some feedback.

Thanks for reading!

>>Mars out.

[UltraMantis]

Looks very neat and clean. Good work.

I don't remember the deal with engine glows. I know i chose ships that didn;t have those to avoid problems. Only Kester and Federation use them.

[kartoFlane]

It's impossible to add the engine flares - they're hardcoded as far as I know. I learnt it the hard way :(

But a very nice ship nonetheless, I really like the graphic. It's obviously stitched from parts of other ships (is it?), but you did a good job at it, it's very in-line with other vanilla ships.
Oh, and it looks like you've got the mirror flag wrong for your minibeam mount :P

[DryEagle]

engine flares are indeed hardcoded. i'd suggest adding some to the hull graphic; if you have such big obvious engines then it probably looks better for them to be always-on, rather than off. see my descent mod for an example.

[Mars Dreamer]

Thanks for the replies and critique!

i'd suggest adding some to the hull graphic;

That is a very good idea, -- I'll at the very least add some glow, perhaps a blue to give off a sort of reactor energy style of engine (Think Star Wars-ish)

I really like the graphic. It's obviously stitched from parts of other ships (is it?), but you did a good job at it, it's very in-line with other vanilla ships.
Oh, and it looks like you've got the mirror flag wrong for your minibeam mount

Yes, it is stitched from the Kestral, the Federation Bomber, and the Federation Scout (I think, I piled through a lot of graphics ). Although I did some of my own very minor additions in paint/Gimp for shading, arrows, Airlocks, etc.

Ah yes! The laser does indeed look funny, however in the editor the weapon mount is showing the correct direction -- Could just be a glitch, I'll fiddle around with it tonight as well as tweaking the power level of the ship. Right now it's a very weak vessel, which is intended, but it's excessively underpowered at the moment.

Thanks for reading,

>>Mars out