After providing basic comments yesterday (which I won’t repeat), I wanted to walk through in detail my experience of designing a new ship.

The basic design is simple: a bridge section, a central spine, a drive section at back, and both static and rotating sections.  This description does not include the trial and error to find the right part, often made harder by having to find a part with the right hardpoints.

1. I started by using the “Cargo Starter” part, then added the bridge (Drengin Model 27) scaled to 115 using Proportional Scaling.  I Offset the part by -2.5 on the Y-axis to hide the Cargo Starter part (have I mentioned that I LOVE Offset).

2. I then added the central spine (10x Terran Model 111 stacked end to end).  The first spine part is Proportionally Scaled to 80 and rotated 90 degrees on the X-axis with a -1 Offset on the Y-axis to center it on the bridge part.  Easy so far.

3. Next I add the drive section (Dregin Model 37) scaled at 100 and rotated 270 degrees on the X-axis (Note: the game changes this to 269.9 for some reason).

4. Now to prepare the spine for the counter-rotating effect of the habitation rings:

   1. Spine part #2 is scaled to X=80, Y=46 (because mouse drag likes this number), and Z=80.  This creates a shorter part to act as the attachment point for the ring spokes.

   2. Spine part #3 is set to X=80, Y=106 (again, mouse drag likes this number), Z=80.  This part is meant to be static and serve as an attachment point for stationary cargo-looking parts.

   3. Next, I have to repeat this sequence down the spine.  In GC 2, to “copy” a part’s settings (size), I would click on an existing part in the design, then select that part from the menu.  The selected part would have the same size as the pre-existing part.  That doesn’t work in GC 3.  That means I had to manually adjust the setting for all 10 parts of the spine.

   4. The last part in the spine (#10) matches spine part #1 (80, 80, 80).

5. Next, I add the supposed-to-be static cargo parts (Drengin Model 09) Proportionally Scaled to 179, rotated 90 degrees on the Y-axis, and attached on either side of spine parts #3, 5, 7, 9, and 10.

6. Habitation spokes come next (Terran Model 75) Proportionally Scaled to 33.  I tried to use Symmetry here but the rotation is wrong.  Instead of rotating in the same direction, Symmetry caused the parts to rotate in opposite directions.  Not a good effect for spokes.  So, I had to create 2 spokes, one on either side of the rotating spine part.  No copy feature meant having to manually adjust each spoke on spine parts #2, 4, 6, and 8.

7. I added the counter-rotating habitation rings (Terran Model 82) Proportionally Scaled to 106, rotated 90 degrees on the Z-axis, and offset -1.2 on the Y-axis to center them on the spine, attach to spine parts #2, 4, 6, and 8.

8. Okay, now to make them rotate.  This was easy in GC 2.  Set one part rotating one way, then set the next part to rotate in the opposite direction at the same speed.  This didn’t work as expected in GC 3.

   1. I set spine part #2 to Rotate/Speed -20 on the Y-axis.  I tried to set spine part #3 to rotate +20 on the Y-axis to cancel its rotation and create a static part.  When I did this, I could not get spine part #3 aligned in its original position (cargo parts and spine “stopped” rotating but were canted at an angle).  Nothing I tried worked until I discovered that I could manually rotate the part (on the Scale/Rotate/Offset menu) by entering the value 148 degrees on the Y axis for spine part #3 (the game changed this to 147.8).

   2. After that it was lather, rinse, repeat.  Spine part #4 set to rotate at +20 on Y-axis to create the counter-rotating effect, spine #5 set to -20 on Y-axis and 111 (game changed to 110.6) Rotate on the Y-axis on the Scale/Rotate/Offset menu, and so on.  I had to manually adjust the Y-axis Rotate on spine parts #3, 5, 7 (98 degrees), and 9 (98 degrees) to make them static and properly aligned with the ship.

      1. Now here’s a kicker.  After saving the design and then selecting it again (Use Design) on the main Ship Designer menu, spine parts #3, 5, 7, and 9 were all rotated at odd angles.  Changing the values back to 0 Rotate on the Scale/Rotate/Offset menu aligned them perfectly along the spine.  Had I known this it would have saved time and frustration.

9. Finishing touches—

   1. A Colony Module attached at the rear of the bridge Proportionally Scaled to 42.

   2. 2x Hyperdrive Modules set on either side of the drive section  scaled to X=54, Y=192, Z=84 with Z Offset of +1.2.

   3. 1x Hyperdrive Module set inside the drive section (centered in the back so that it sticks out the same distance as the side-mounted Hyperdrive Modules) same scaling with -6.7 Y-axis Offset (part was attached on top and “sunk” into the drive section).

   4. 2x Environmental Support scaled X=45, Y=44, and Z=42 at the top and bottom of the drive section.

And that’s it.  A basic colony ship with counter-rotating habitation rings and stationary cargo modules.  Hope this helps with some of the strengths and challenges of the Ship Designer.