CREATED DEC. 31, 2017
AN INTERMEDIATE GUIDE TO SHIPBUILDING
AUTHOR: "OZ"
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Now coming into this, one should at least build a brick that floats and have a general grasp on the game.




One of my first ships





This guide is going to explain the complexities of the various base building materials, how to effectively armor a craft, and a light amount of building tips to help those trying to get over the massive learning curve of this game.

I as the author have put in over a thousand hours into the game and it still boggles me so that there is still much to go. To those lacking time or just having trouble I've been there and as a result I decided to take the responsibility of making an explaination of many common armor mechanics that may or may not assist those struggling or just seeking more information.

Also look out for my designs on the workshop for reference in representation of the Ricandan Republic, a fictional faction that I personally made. (shameless plug ;-)

It should be self explanatory what these blocks do from their stats, but here is a basic statistic of these blocks with a few interesting facts:

Wood


Wood itself as an armor is very weak and as soon as resouces become more available you should make the transition to something better, but it is buoyant and has its uses with interesting features.




-Cheap
-Weak
-Low armor
-Floats
-EMP Resistant

Stone


Stone is an interesting material that hardly ever gets used mostly because its used for bases before metal is widely available for mass builds and as structural reinforcement, with high health and a decent cost, it is a very tanky block.



-Cheap
-Strong
-Low armor
-Sinks
-EMP Resistant

Metal

Metal is the go-to block for building everything, it has the best durability and armor for an affordable cost. Almost every ship, tank, space craft, and airship is made out of this as the next best material, heavy armor, is impractical to build entire craft with in cost and weight.



-Average cost
-Strong
-High armor
-Heavy
-Conducts EMP
-High radar profile

Alloy
Alloy is the lightest material, even lighter than wood while having even better stats in every regard other than cost which is equivical to metal. It is perfect if you need an extremely light material for aircraft, water skimers, and speed boats. The most interesting note is that it has the lowest radar profile of all but one block making this the best material for a practical partial-stealth craft.


-Average cost
-Average durability
-Average armor
-Very light
-Conducts EMP
-Low radar profile

Glass

Glass is impractical as a building material, but it has the perk of being transparent (white coloring added to glass in picture) and cameras can track ships through it. Unfortunately you can't make composite armor out of it as it doesn't reduce shaped charge warhead penetration in-game.




-Cheap
-Very weak
-Very low armor

Lead


Lead is the heaviest material and is cost efficient, making for a perfect keel. It has good stats as well so if one desires, it can be a heavier replacement for stone.




-Cheap
-Average durability
-Average armor
-Very heavy
-Conducts EMP

Heavy Armor
The best defensive material for all projectile based munitions and lasers, it has the highest health and armor but it has the highest cost, high radar profile, and is tied for lead in weight. It is impractical to build an entire ship out of this material for its cost, weight, and EMP susceptibility, but it is commonly used as an EMP router, vulnerability protection, and bases. (if your lined with gold)


-High cost
-Super durable
-Very high armor
-Very heavy
-Conducts and is damaged by EMP
-High radar profile

Now that we have a general idea of the basic blocks we are working with, there are a few special blocks worth mentioning.

These blocks are a bit different and they aren't building materials but in conjunction with the ship these can increase survivability or simply add convenience.

ERA Plating
ERA or Explosive Reactive Armor is a consumable block that when met with a shaped charge blast or fragmention round it will detonate itself and delete the fragments with it. It is expensive so it is best used to protect more vulnerable parts of the ship, and although its properties with an explosive round is nulled, a chemical round's effectivity is reduced drasticly and a kinetic round will lose a large amount of penetration.

Rubber Block

Rubber isn't very durrable and is very susceptible to damage, however it completely resists ship based colisions (not involving rams) and EMP. An interesting fact is that the rubber blocks have almost no radar return, so it can be used as a stealth coating to completely evade radar but this is not recomended.


Surge Protecter

The surge protecter is a very costly block per unit, but it is very valuble for protecting against EMP attacks from guns and missiles as it is the most conductive block and it trades health to protect electronic systems that keeps your ships running and able to "see" the enemy if placed near them.

Now we are actually getting to the part where what one does with the armor will effectively defend the ship, although these are not the best tecniques, they are important to know and can get very min-max like to some.


Cross plating is a free tecnique that simply involves placing a two layer wall with one layer being placed vertically and one placed horizontally. These next images will be color coded with green being external armor, violet being internal armor, and yellow being the internal of the ship. (you don't want to expose the yellow)


Regular Plating
Regular plating where every plate is either horizontal or vertical which leads to bigger holes, although it is simpler and faster to throw together. It is advized that it has a greater structural stability in that it doesn't weaken more armor around (i.e. armor is lost in the front and back plate, horizontaly and verticaly) and armor lost is localized to just those two blocks.



Cross-Plating
This cross-plate, although doesn't provide an overall bonus to the durability of blocks, does increase the survivability of the ship internals because in case of armor penetration the internal exposure is limited and with the spalling mechanics you can actually contain the spall effect somewhat. There are some problems with it though in which armor bonus from armor stacking is lost in a greater area (as mentioned previously) and explosions will still tunnel, just through a smaller gap, but if these become a problem then the ship is already in a bad state. Suprisingly this is a simple tecnique that not everyone knows even after months of play, it is just not thought of or concerning to many.

There comes a time when shields fail a ship and it is up to the armor of the ship to survive, here are a few ways to increase that surviveability: (yellow is generally internals)

Armor pikes and angles
This is more for tanks and less effective against chemical rounds, but against kinetic based munitions it reduces damage slightly and prevents armor penetration because the round deflects off the non-flat target in a "ricochet", but only if the angle of attack is too great for the round so on ships it is better to face the enemy bow-on. To summarize, if the enemy is using kinetic rounds go bow-on or angle the hull. Ask any W.O.W.S. player and they will agree. (except against BB Yamato in which case just run away)

Armor spam


The most primal and expensive way to defend a ship, but raw defence is best against raw attack being most effective against general purpose high explosive and kinetic rounds.




Perks- armor stacking increases overall armor on the external plate and is difficult for armor-peircing shells with pennetration fuses as it is hard to penetrate in the first place but even after the round gets through usually the round will detonate in the armor before it gets inside.
Weaknesses- Against specialized munitions this basic armor will have less effectivity against shaped charge and squash heads but also with bulk comes increased cost and weight.

Spaced armor


Spaced armor, also used mostly in tanks, can be effectively used in ships in defense against chemical rounds but in taking away a layer of armor and take away armor stacking, it makes it weaker to brute force attacks.



Perks- with spaced armor it reduces the effectiveness of shaped charge warheads significantly and squash head's spalling (and some frag munitions) reduced as the fragments can be stopped with another internal plate. It can also be used to help with flotation with a pump and can easily be modified.
Weaknesses- With less overall layers it is vulnerable to more basic offensive mesures and it is especially dangerous to go against large penetration-fused based CRAM shells, tread cautiously with the Onyx Watch and Grey Talons.
Sugestion- add some ERAs and surge protecters to increase survivability against chemical rounds and EMP respecitvely.

Anti-spall Armor


A combination of bulk and protection, this is especialy good against the squash head where the inner most layer of armor is the weakest to reduce the damage they do at the cost of slightly reducing overall armor.



Perks- the best armor profile for overall defense, there is a selection of materials to use as internal protection most commonly wood to increase defence spalling and EMP resistence or alloy for increased general munitions defence and lighten up the ship more than wood.
Weaknesses- many in specific situations, it is weaker against shaped charge warheads, the overall defense is lowered slightly, and flotation is still not as good as spaced armor. In addition to this, squash heads (what this armor is trying to defeat) must be combined with spaced armor and some added complexity in order to reduce its damage to its greatest effect. To armor against the squash head is to have a less armored exterior spaced plate or have better internal plate armor from the spaced plate as any kinetic round (in this case, frags from spalling) does more of it's potential damage dependent on how much armor it can or can't penetrate, up to full damage if AP value is twice the armor value. the fragments from squash heads generates twice the penetration value that of the innermost material's armor class from and air-gap, destroying any weak systems or armor of equal value (example: the exterior plate and the inner plate material are the same, the internal armor takes full damage as the fragment AP from squash head spalling is double that of the external plate and the frags now effectively have twice the AP as the internal plate). This is confusing and hard to grasp so don't be ashamed to read this several times to get a better understanding just realize that this armor isn't entirely necessary either.

Stealth coating


An odd choice as this weakens overall armor for decreased detectability from radar, more usefull for smaller crafts that you want to increase the chance of evasion.




Perks- decreased detectability from radar to decrease accuracy and detection range of radar based detectors.
Weaknesses- overall decrease of armor and also (most likely) the weakest armor is externaly mounted, potentially leading to higher repair costs.

General layer amount recomendations based on ships: (D- deck armor, B- belt armor)
Destroyer escorts/Frigates D-1, B-1 to 2
Destroyers D-1 to 2, B-2
Cruisers (light/heavy) D-2, B-2 to 3
Battlecruisers D-2 to 3, B-3 to 4
Battleships D-3, B-4 to 5
Carriers and Battlecarriers should be based on the cruisers respectively and usualy carriers are conversions from cruisers and some battleships.

One of the hardest Parts of FTD is puting a ship together in the first place. Now that you know how to wall a ship and you may have an idea of what to throw into the thing, We can look at how I personally observe ships being built and it is in layers. There are three recognized layers: base, systems and internals, and finally walls. It is noted that there are three common ways to put these layers together for different reasons. The order of assembly in the pictures are: red, blue, green.

Efficiency Build

The efficiency build is exactly what it sounds, the one I personally use, and is based off of late U.S. world war two designs where the ship is based around its parts. it is expected that one makes the parts and the ship is built around said parts for minimum size and cost.



Pros- as mentioned previously, it is very cost and generally size efficient. It is also one of the more easy ways to build a ship as it is simpler to build the ship around the parts rather than the parts around the ship.
Cons- this building tecnique puts all of the eggs in one basket where everything is put very close together and is recomended to wall each section off for increased protection. it is also noted to space guns and ammo magazines away from vital components and each other to prevent a chain-reaction failure.

Design Build
A tecnique based building style for the more advanved amongst FTDers where looks become priority and is usually the first mistake that every newbie does. It is not efficient nor cheap (most of the time) but this is where you go to the workshop and realize that if you are going to build this way then whip out the booze cause' its gonna be a long night.


Pros- if done correctly, you will have a masterpiece of a ship, whether effectivity is of any concern is on the creator, and if it is effective then it needs to go on the workshop as you have beaten FTD as far as the community has gone.
Cons- it is very difficult and requires a great amount of time to pull off somehwat successfully, and even more experience to make it work in a combat scenario especially when very minor details can ruin certain aspects of the design (effective and rotating turrets, enough power, detail innaccuracies, etc.). Best to have a few weekends freed up for it.

Requirements Build
The traditional building way combining parts of efficiency and design build, but easier than the latter. This comes from a point-of-view where everything is slightly planed out where ship dimentions and component requirements are first, also making this way the easiest way to standardize a fleet or navy, sometimes making parts of different ships easily interchangeable.


Pros- build a ship to exactly how you want it plus have a somewhat standard and unified navy where each ship plays to what is required of it.
Cons- its a little demanding as this usualy means and requires that you already have a set of things and a plan to follow which is boring and tedious, to the point where its like a Lego(tm) set but its a DIY set so making a plan around those parts can get a bit complicated.

Keep in mind this just a suggestion of what order to build in, not how to build. This should help those struggling or want to try something new with building traditions that varies from person to person.

I hope this guide shed some light on some of the mechanics of the game and that any future designs after those reading this improves in survivability and style respectively. This game is difficult and to those continuing I wish the best of luck to even though I personally don't believe in such things.

I request to have feedback on this guide whether it be changes or add-ons, be critical of it because this is to accurately and definitively help newcomers and those experienced alike so we can stop being styled on by the veterans of the workshop (and if one of you are reading this, I'm looking at one day besting your designs) so please, any and all information and tidbits are useful.

This is Oz from good ol' U.S.A. building on. Good luck my fellow armorers and smiths!










Tried and true
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