 September 22, 2012 - 8:08am | Yo! I like writing stories and scenarios and have numerous ideas floating about in my somewhat balding nugget. The trouble is, I need graphics to augment and clarify the stuff I write. As far as problems go that is no small thing for a couple reasons: 1) I am no artists - in fact, I have difficulty drawing stick figures tyvm! 2) Since I am no artist I have absolutely ZERO exposure to and experience with drawing and/or picture manipulation programs. 3) When it comes to computers or technical stuff like that (deciphering software for example) it's pretty much all Greek to me - that's probably stating it mildly actually...it's more like Ferengi or something. :P My current project basically requires me to have a dozen or so maps (deck plans) and that one thing is pretty much holding up my whole project. So I went online the other day and spent several hours researching drawing software. In the free category I found three programs that seemed to be raved about the most (Paint.net, GIMP 2 and Inkscape) and downloaded them. In the pay category I found one that looked promising: Dundjinni, though I haven't bought that one yet - but am thinking about it. For terrain and world type maps I found AutoREALM (free) and Fractal Terrains 3 (pay). I've DLed AutoREALM and it seems pretty easy but can't be used for drawing starship deck plans. I haven't bought FT3 yet but am thinking about it. Now I've spent a couple days pouring over them all and have made absolutely no progress. If you can draw anything resembling deck plans with these progs I have no idea how. Seems like I've just wasted a colossal amount of time. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions? Is there some program out there that an illiterate gibbering baboon such as myself could actually use to draw some quality deck plans for SF starships? I don't have to outrun that nasty beast my friend...I just have to outrun you!  |
September 27, 2012 - 4:01pm | What Iggy said. :) I don't have to outrun that nasty beast my friend...I just have to outrun you! |
 September 27, 2012 - 4:17pm | The link didn't work. weird it works for me  All decks are an open oval room with some "terrain" being consoles and equipment crew quarters is something like an iris valve in the floor that opens to reveal a bowl shaped compartment that a middle caste sathar will sleep in- I thought it would be cool if PCs were exploring a sathar facility or ship and holes in the floor suddenly opened and up popped a sathar- they have no personal quarters or private property for that matter, they simply serve the "state" or overmind or collective or whatever it is There is an upper caste commander and he gets a private spherical cubical I was also thinking to do a spiral ramp between deck at the acute sides of the oval except that the ramp goes from one deck to another then you must cross the deck to the other side to take the next ramp up- this would be the worm equivelant of a ladder well but would require zig zagging up through the decks to reach the top deck. there is a central elevator as well. I like calling the one deck with the lab Prisoner processing instead of "brig" as that sounds more ominous. The shuttle bays are very large structures on the sides of the mini, and I'm taking a page from the corvette deck plans in that these structures dock launches, or boarding shuttles or landing shuttles. the stasis modules hold things like quickdeaths or other nastiness- they are essentially a storage class berth for large creatures- allowing them to be transported and not require much in the way for provisions. If the caste system mentioned here is new to you its something that's been developed in the sathar project. One projected change in version 2.0 will be the engineering deck will get bumped up one level so that the crawl tube to access the engines can be moved further forward and make more space to accomdate the shuttles in the bays. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 27, 2012 - 7:30pm | Those Deck Plans are nice Rollo! |
 October 1, 2012 - 8:15pm | Jedion, The link didn't work for me either and neither did the one @ the SF-un group. |
