Overview
Part one of an in-detail guide at FtD building. This series of guides aims to get players who know the fundemental mechanics of the game into building detailed and quality crafts that are both effective and polished. This section covers the core princples to building a strong creation and how to get there.
Introduction and Forewords
To really get everything out of this guide, you should have a good understanding of how building works and some mechanical knowledge (I go in detail about how stuff works, so you’ll get more out of it if you know the basics).
FTD is not easy. This game is notoriously complicated and hard to understand. Even “experienced” player’s creations can lack the polish that sets apart the good creations from the amazing. A lot of people who put 30-40 or even 100+ hours have an idea of how to build functional ships, but lack the know-how to add detail and beauty to make to the next level. I spent my first 300-400 hours trying to figure this out, but once I discovered and realized a series of tips and tricks, I became much better and was able to really up my level of quality. The point of this guide is to save you that time, because I believe with this sort of knowledge and a bit of practice, most people can get a lot more out of this game without having to reinvent the wheel.
This series focuses on a particular style (semi-realistic with functional/non-functional detailing), but the core principles are applicable no matter what thing you build. Most of all, I encourage you to not give up and keep building, even if something doesn’t work. The experience is what counts.
Copy Everything and Take Notes
No matter what your style or what you are building, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of copying and studying the work of others. The single most effective way of upping your quality is to increase your exposure at what others have made and steal what you like.
At first this may be literal. You may find yourself taking parts off of other people’s creations, but as long as you pay attention and deconstruct to the way it works and why it works, you will eventually gain knowledge about that system or mechanism and the skills to make your own.
One source of always updated knowledge about in-game systems are the various in-game factions. You can always find reasonably up-to-date machines that will reveal ways of doing things by several different authors (the perk of player made content).
The other obvious source is the workshop and official forums. Looking through recent submissions and curating them to pull the best ideas of many can lead to a ship that may have otherwise lacked some sort of functionality or flair that may of otherwise been missing.
For our purposes of semi-realism, we will also be taking into account real life concepts and ideas and fit them into FTD. This may sound a little daunting or stupid at a glace, but you would be surprised how well some things translate.
The Devil in the Details
What makes an outstanding craft in comparison to say a functional one? While you might say that could be any number of attributes (armor, firepower, speed, game performance efficiency, effectiveness) I believe that it is into the small things that make a craft great.
Without a general approach and focus on detail, our crafts often become utilitarian and bland in their feel. Yes, a meta-influenced craft can take down any enemy in the game, but it lacks much of the personality and feel that makes the building in this game so addictive. To create something beautiful and aesthetic while still aiming to be effective at its core should be at the heart of it all.
When we focus on the small things (the way the bridge looks, the non-functional anchor, or the distance in between main-battery turrets) we can create blueprints that are truly exceptional as well as being fearsome.
At the end of the day, not all blueprints need to be all awe-inspiring, but an effort into the look and feel of a blueprint is what makes those certain few outstanding.
Importance of Planning and Inspiration
This is something that may not be immediately obvious, but there is a rule that most popular and well received blueprints follow.
That rule is that good creations come from somewhere.
What doesn’t matter however is what that original inspiration is. It could be a thought you had messing around in the designer, looking at real-world examples, on break at work, or that you had eating breakfast this morning. As long as whatever you’re building comes out of a core concept or idea, you are on the way to making a good creation.
The next step is to obviously build and this is where many don’t succeed. Often the translation from idea to life is flawed and filled with problems. There are plenty of ways a great idea gets stuck in the mud and sometimes not even the best of us can pull it out. While we can never truly rid ourselves of this problem, there is something we can do that will help.
The prototyping stage is the answer. In a prototype, you can answer fundamental problems, address important questions about a craft, and discover weaknesses and flaws before fully committing to a scale build. Most importantly, the final product will be better because of the revisions you probably will make.
For those of you wishing to continue with this guide series in particular, this is the stage where we can still change fundemental parts of a warship without having to gimp other areas. Often in designing scale warships, sections like height of individual decks, main battery locations, engine placement, and armor arrangement cannot be changed without huge and painful alterations to a ship. Prototyping avoids this while saving time.
Conclusion
By following these basic principles, any seasoned player should be able to create something that we can all look upon and agree is stunning. In general, putting the time and thought into blueprints will spit out a better product, and when this is done over time and with the influence and ideas of others you will be able to make crafts worthy of hundreds of downloads or clicks. This is especially true for building something that aims to be real. With enough skill, technique, and detail you can build crafts in FTD that look replica and have the function to back it up.
In part two, we will cover the basics of design and prototyping stage when trying to build a realistic ship. Stay tuned.
Crafts used in this guide (not in order of appearance):
Honmaru by アボカドの種: [link]
Linz Class Cruiser by Evily: [link]
Roon Class Heavy Cruiser by Evily: [link]
TR Centroscyllium by SovereignCataclysm: [link]