Airships: Conquer the Skies

**Xiahou** · 01-05-2017, 20:07

I came across this on GOG maybe a week ago and resisted buying it for just a few days before giving into the urge. Design your own 'steampunk' airships and send them into battle? Sold!

It reminds me of some of the old-school 90s era games. It lacks polish and has some shortcomings- but what it does well is amazing. I love designing an airship and pitting it against other airships/landships/fortifications, seeing how it performs and then doing iterative redesigns to try and perfect it. The campaign mode is fairly simplistic, but it provides some needed variety and forces you to make "practical" designs- that is, affordable ships that can actually function in battle.

If anyone else is into this, I can share some of my ship designs, etc.

**Hooahguy** · 01-06-2017, 02:30

This actually looks really good. Like something made in Windows Paint and then brought to life. Will definitely keep tabs on it as it progresses in development.

**Hooahguy** · 01-06-2017, 17:26

I too succumbed to my urge as well and bought it last night. Did the tutorial and made a few ships. Im having an issue with getting coal to my engines and such, I keep losing lift.

Link to ship

**Xiahou** · 01-06-2017, 17:32

Yeah, it looks like your suspendium chambers have no direct route to the coal bunkers. Crew probably has to tote coal throughout most of the ship to get it there- it's running out faster than they can get it there, and you lose lift.

Click the "Overlays" button in design mode. The Path overlay and Coal overlay should make the problem obvious. There's a surprising amount of depth to designs.

**Xiahou** · 01-06-2017, 17:47

Here's one of my favorite designs. I called it the Overlord - Heavy because the original Overlord was a very fragile zeppelin-type affair. The idea was for it to be a heavy cannon platform that stays high and way back from the thick of battle. When the dust clears, it's supposed to be there to finish off any stragglers and to sit there and pound enemy fortifications into dust.

The first one was only marginally successful because it's suspendium dust envelopes were so prone to puncture and explosion- even at a distance. That eventually led to the "Heavy" variant, which is actually cheaper to build and carries 4 heavy cannon instead of three. It's held aloft by internal compressed suspendium dust tanks, so it uses no coal to stay airborne. It's covered with steel wall plating, with steel armor over the cannon, keel and engines. The rear is all engines, coal, dust tanks, and a 'just in case' gatling gun on the tail. The front is all cannon and ammo stores. On top is the crows nest, bridge, bunks,a repair bay and supply hatches. The bottom has a layer of fire door corridors under the dust tanks just to try to provide another layer of protection.