It makes it an additional challenge. The same way that you can’t connect every piece to every other without restriction.
And while it might be a single-player game, we live in a time where every game is streamed and clips are shared for the world to see. Stupid-looking characters and vehicles have the potential to harm your game’s reputation. If I were a dev, I’d care.
Considering how famously mod-friendly Bethesda’s games are, I doubt “stupid looking characters and vehicles” harming their brand is a major concern.
You have a point about the mod system making the concern about appearance irrelevant.
I still think that the inability to clip gives it a fidelity that some other games lack, and I like that.
I’m sure someone will have a mod to make shipbuilding more flexible if it doesn’t already exist.
Let’s see who knows the reference for this one:
Always thought that was a fantastic name for a gunship.
Thanks to you, and the others who have offered advice. I’m going to get Targeting Control next. I had no idea it slowed down the action as well, I just thought it let me target subsystems.
After that, I’m going to get another rank or two in piloting. I’ll visit the simulator to help with completing the pre-req’s for leveling. I also want to rank up Piloting so I can buy and fly/steal better ships. The Mantis ship is fun, but it doesn’t hold much crew or loot.
The particle weapons sound like a good idea. I’ll keep turrets in mind as well.
I have a weird issue where, when I try to repair the ship, often it puts me in Photo mode. What’s the deal there, do they share a key? I even changed the key binding for Repair, but then it pulled up the Photo mode again. Frustrating, particularly when you come out of warp and you’re ganged up on by a half-dozen ships.
Still enjoying the game! Hope the tips I got here will help with some of the space battle issues I’ve had.
Thanks!
I started playing a few days ago, when I’m not looking for exobiology samples in Elite Dangerous. Haven’t done much yet; Sarah and I are about to head for Cydonia.
I don’t mind the game’s spaceflight mechanism; reminds me of playing a Star Wars total conversion for Mount & Blade.
You can add cargo modules to have more space for goods, and change the habitat types or cockpit to add more crew. My Mantis holds up to 5 crew.
I am also currently in a situation with just too many enemies. I was on a mission from the mission board to destroy a pirate but what I think happened is I jumped into a high-level system that’s run by pirates. As soon as I jumped into the system there were a dozen or more ships gunning for me along with space turrets and a station that I never got close to. Since you can’t hyperjump while in combat (or maybe you can and I’m somehow trying to fast travel instead which isn’t allowed in combat), my best idea so far is full power to engines and fly away. When I quit I was 20km from the station and the pirates were still sassing me.
Anyway I think on the galaxy map when you click/hover over a system it will say what level it is, I suspect the high-level systems will kick your butt.
That is a great ship, looks like a Corellian Corvette had a baby with a Star Destroyer. Looks like all one level so no ladders?
I also use that sort of Rebel Alliance color scheme for my fleet. So far I have only modified ships, haven’t built any from scratch. But my current ship has a lot of mods.
Anyway, renaming a ship is really weird. Go into the Builder, then run Flight Check. There you can rename the ship. 
Yeah I had to Google it, it’s one of many things that is neither intuitive nor explained in the game.
I started with the Frontier, then earned the Razorleaf via a mission. Then I captured a pirate ship and refitted it for my own use, and it started out with no name at all! (I ended up calling it Ravager.)
Here’s a quirk I found in the game for ship building/upgrading… Sometimes you’ll end up with a ship that has parts above your skill rating (in my case I don’t have the Ship Building perk yet which is a prerequisite for some parts). I can’t add a part that’s beyond my perks, and can’t duplicate it either (which is just another way of adding it). But I can still fly the ship with that part attached, and even move it around on my ship. I just better be careful not to remove it or I can’t add it back!
I’m still flying the Frontier, slightly elongated and thicker as I added some cargo capacity and workshops.
Last night I boarded and captured a really cool pirate ship, but sadly it was of a class I couldn’t pilot.
Have you tired flying in third person mode? I find it gives me a much wider field of view, making tracking the enemies much easier.
I second this. I always fly this way. Plus it lets me admire my ship. 
It works a lot better than third person mode on the ground.
Heh heh. Yeah, no ladders (except the entrance one, which you don’t have to actually climb). I hate ladders.
I don’t think I can pack much more into it without negatively affecting something else. I can fully power all the guns/shield/engine, and the guns rip through absolutely everything. I might reevaluate if I ever put points into aneutronic fusion (free reactor units). The bottom part does have room for cargo pods if need be, but for now the >2k cargo is enough.
I’d actually wanted to build something like a B-2 bomber, but there are no pieces with a shallow angle. The pieces I used would have been great if I could rotate them 90 degrees, but that’s unfortunately not possible. So, had to go with more of an arrowhead shape instead.
Killing Time.
Culture ROU.
Yep. Torturer-class ROU, more specifically. Fantastic pun.
Always liked the idea that the Culture uses words like Torturer, Murderer or Psychopath for their warship classes, essentially to remind you that that they are not friendly things, and only to be used as a last resort. Rather different from Star Trek, where they like to pretend that their warships are really just peaceful exploration vessels.
I don’t know this one and honestly have gone to some effort to find good spaceship names in case I need a lot of them.
“Perihelion” is not gonna be a well known one, I don’t think.
You can’t go wrong with the list here:
If you are completely out of ideas, just come up with something based on a lack of gravitas. Absolutely No Gravitas Here, All Hat and No Gravitas, Gravi-What?, etc.
Murderbot Diaries? I actually had to look that one up, despite reading a few of the books. I guess the name didn’t stick.
I haven’t had cause for spaceship names but I did name an explosive double barrel shotgun that I slapped some mods on A Pair of Explosions
I liked Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath