Blogging because... REASONS!

Hello!  This blog has been set up as a place for me to record the process I go through when building ships for the game Space Engineers.  Ideally it will be a place I can go to and see what worked, what didn't, and what other people think will work more effectively.  The goal is to create a forum to debate design philosophy and see if any consensus can be reached on the variety of topics relating to ship design and combat in S.E. 

For example:

• Is heavy armor effective on small ships, and if so how much?
• Is there an ideal thrust-per-mass ratio in designing ships, and does it vary depending upon the size or role of the ship?
• What are the ideal armaments for fighters?  Should rockets be mainly used for striking heavier targets?
• What design concepts work and which don't but are worth it just for the sheer fun value of doing it?
  

Some of the initial questions this blog will answer, via methods which are as empirical and scientific as Mythbusters (experiments and explosions!), will be:

• Does armor between components significantly reduce damage to adjacent systems?
• Do different armor configurations have superior protective qualities?
• Can SAGE's gravity container technology be used (in conjunction with mass blocks) to hold torpedoes in their tubes (without touching the sides or producing premature detonation) prior to launch?  And used again as a firing mechanism to launch these weapons?  
• Can constructed weapon systems (i.e. inertial torpedoes or similar) overcome the effects of Gatling turrets to remain effective, and if so how many Gatling turrets are required to provide an adequate defensive screen against attack?  Can constructed weapon systems demonstrate a level of cost-efficacy which is competitive with current weapon systems?
• Can the conveyor system be combined with gravity propulsion to form an effective weapon?
  

For those of you wondering about the name, Avernus Laboratories is the fictional (copyrighted) villain of a table-top RPG source book which I am currently writing for use with the Savage Worlds RPG system.  They are an utterly amoral agency whose research and experimentation frequently pushes the boundaries of human scientific understanding and show no regard for proper ethical conduct in their quest for knowledge.  The ends justify the means, after all.  Of course, none of the research or prototyping done in Space Engineers will be of the deeply unethical kind (at least not the parts I tell you about!).


Now, let's get out there and build something!