Well, I might not be able to play much for a while, so I'll leave you all with the current WIP picture of SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. I'll keep trying to work on her, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to.
Anyway, here she is.
I'd say most of the exterior is done, apart from some detailing. But the interior is still completely empty. Even though I haven't done the interiors on my dreadnoughts, I'm much more likely to do this one. An ocean liner's interior has to be a lot more interesting to build than the steel corridors of a battleship!
Since I'm using XtrablocksEE, I've got a lot of blocks to play with. If I get round to it, I'll see about texturing some porthole blocks to improve the accuracy of the exterior and actually let some light into the cabins.
I've still not done much more to the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. I tried playing a bit today, but minecraft was being tempramental. I think it's my combination of mods and textures slowing everything down, combined with the fact that minecraft is a poorly coded piece of...
*ahem*
Anyway, I'm probably going to have a massive PC upgrade fairly soon, which should make things run a bit smoother. When I find the time to do it!
Wow I could never make ships as good as that.. though I do make 17th century ship of the lines the best. I wish I could build like you! (Especially the sails!)
Your picture doesn't seem to be working. Have you uploaded it to an image hosting site like imgur or photobucket?
As for updates, work has taken me away from my gaming PC for large stretches of time so it's been a while since I've even touched minecraft. But I have had the chance to install the first component of my big upgrade - an MSI GTX 770. It's rather nice, and I imagine it will do nicely for displaying ships...
I really like your new style of ships, I've always found steam ships difficult to build. Have you thought about adding a section onto your shipbuilding tutorial specifically for battleships, with stuff such as the shape and what to put on it?
Also, you might be interested in this server which I found recently, called NavalBattleZone, where you can build your own world war style ships and sail them and fight with them!
Hey all. I love building ships. I thought I'd get that out of the way first. This is where I'm posting them all, to keep them all in one place and avoid cluttering up the forums with dozens of threads. Whenever I build a new ship, it'll be posted here.
There's a couple of different eras of ships that I build at the moment. I build late 18th century and Napoleonic era ships, the famous era of the ship of the line, and they'll come first in this thread. I also build early 20th century warships, the age of dreadnoughts. I'm going to try to keep the thread segregated by era.
My latest ship is the Imperial German Navy's SM U-20, which can be seen in the Early 20th Century group at the bottom of this post.
Age of Sail
"I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only that they will not come by sea"
- Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, First Lord of the Admiralty
I build as close as I can to Steve-scale, that is 1m per block. My age-of-sail ships generally work out a bit bigger than their real life counterparts, though, because of the blocky limitations. Aside from being a bit oversized, they're built around fairly realistic lines and most of them are inspired by real life examples.
I've got an ambitious plan to make a harbour city ~1800, and so I'm building ships that would fit in nicely together, a fleet of warships and assorted civilian vessels. I like to build every ship with a sails furled and a sails set version, so there'll be a mix of pictures here. World Edit is very handy for keeping several copies of each ship in different states of sail.
I'll probably reference the Royal Navy rating system quite a lot - that's the designations for different size of warship based on number of guns and number of gun decks. See - http://en.wikipedia....Napoleonic_Wars
I've written a walkthrough/tutorial of how I build ships, using WIP shots of my 6th rate frigate as an example. You can read that here >>> http://www.minecraft...lding-tutorial/
The Ships
Open up the spoiler!
I'm going to post these in the order they were built, starting with the newest ship and finishing with my very first ship down at the bottom of the post.
So, here goes with my newest ship in this category, which is -
3rd Rate Ship of the Line - Audacious (74 Guns)
Audacious is the second 74 that I've built. I think she's a big improvement on Vanguard, and I've since edited Vanguard's stern to match better with Audacious. This is also the first ship where I've taken the screenshots for this first post with my fancy modified textures for the stern.
The reason I built a second 74 is that the 74 gun third rate really was the mainstay of most European navies in the late 18th century and Napoleonic period. If I'm going to have a fleet, I want to have more than one 74 template to work from. This ship I based on some of the more 'heavy' 74 designs, which were typically a little longer and carried 24 pounders on the upper gun deck instead of the more usual 18 pounders. She also carries more guns in total than Vanguard, due to the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle, which aren't included in the rating.
Smuggler's Ketch - Northwind
I'd fancied doing a smuggler's vessel for a while, and a ketch seemed like a nice one to go for. Often their ships would be even smaller than this, perhaps like my cutter further down in the post.
This is the first ship where I've modified the texture pack so that I can have tanned sails - treated so that they last longer. Though from the point of view of these smugglers the main goal is to make their ship less noticeable to the customs men.
She carries a single boat amidships so that the crew can carry their illicit cargo back and forth between the ship and shore, and two short sternchaser guns in case the customs men give chase.
5th Rate Frigate - Arethusa (38 Guns)
This 5th rate is based on the 38 gun desgins that became a fairly standard layout towards the end of the age of sail. She carries 38 long guns and 10 carronades. Interestingly, this gives her 4 guns more than my 5th rate Razee, but a lower rating since many Razees had their carronades included in their rating.
5th rates were the quintessential cruising frigate, fully capable of operating alone on wildly varying assignments. They were considered a great assignment for a crew because of the prospects of a lot of prize money.
This one's taken from the poop deck of my razee-
2nd Rate Ship of the Line - Barfleur (98 Guns)
A 2nd Rate was a common type of ship in the Royal Navy, but not so much in other fleets. A 3-decker like the 1st rates, they generally carried 90 to 98 guns. Really the main difference between a 1st and a 2nd was that the 1st rate was of a heavier construction and the cannons tended to be heavier. They would usually both carry 32-pounders on the main gundeck but whereas a 1st rate would carry 24-pounders on the middle gun deck a 2nd rate was usually restricted to 18-pounders.
This meant that their firepower wasn't all that much more than that of a 74, and they tended to sail poorly. But they had the advantage of height in a battle, being able to fire down on an enemy two-decker. Enemy captains would often mistake them for a first rate as well, leading to them avoiding what they thought was a far superior enemy. The Royal Navy often used them as flagships on distant stations where 1st rates were considered too valuable to send.
This ship is inspired by, and named after one of the real workhorses of the Royal Navy, HMS Barfleur. She saw long service, and if there was a major battle there was a good chance that Barfleur would be there in amongst the action.
3rd Rate Ship of the Line - Vanguard (74 Guns)
Finally! I'd been meaning to do a 74 for a long time, and I've only just got this one finished. The 3rd rate 74 was the mainstay ship of the line in the late 18th century and the Napoleonic period. They combined potent firepower, rugged construction and decent handling and sailing qualities to make the perfect all-rounder. More firepower than smaller ships, cheaper and better handling than the 3 deckers.
This ship is roughly based off Sir Thomas Slade's Arrogant class. They were designed at roughly the same time as his Ardent class 64 gunners, which I used as the basis for my own 64 a few ships down. So naturally they look quite similar apart from the fact that this one has slightly more cannon. The major change is that I've come up with a better way of building the bow, and since it was a model of HMS Vanguard (1787) that helped me, I've named this ship after her.
Barque Trader - Arcturus
A barque is a vessel where the foremast and mainmast are square rigged, while the mizzen is fore-and-aft rigged. This meant that it could sail into the wind a bit better than a ship-rigged vessel, and needed fewer men. The downside was that it wasn't quite as fast at running with the wind behind it.
I've built this to be a sleek, fast vessel. She's completely unarmed, though her sides are painted to try to fool other vessels into thinking that she's lined with gunports. Her defence is speed, with a large sail area and a relatively narrow hull to cut through the water. The sail plan means that even when the wind is unfavourable she can make decent headway.
The large cargo hold takes up most of the central space -
Brig Collier - Wolfe
A collier was a ship that transported coal. They were normally coastal ships, travelling from a nation's coalfields towards the expanding cities - cities that were always hungry for fuel. The 'brig' part of the name simply means that it's a two masted, square rigged vessel.
I've built it so that the coal bunker is pretty much the entire width of the hull in between the masts, apart from a couple of walkways. To the rear of the mainmast, most of the free space is given over to other cargo, resulting in a ship that has very little room for the crew. I've left the coal open to the air, but in bad weather it would be covered over. A couple of the screenshots are from above so you can see it.
Gaff Cutter - Ermine
A cutter is a small ship with a single mast. This is probably a coastal boat, sailing between ports up the same stretch of coast. Or along wide rivers. Perhaps it even carries a harbour pilot to guide larger vessels into port.
5th Rate Razee - Inexorable (44 Guns)
So, what is a razee? It's a ship that's had some of its upper decks removed. The reason for doing that is that it would make a ship sail better. So, older two decker ships of the line would often be razeed by removing the upper gun decks, resulting in a ship that classed as a heavy frigate. But, because of its origins as a ship of the line it still had that heavy construction and the ability to carry heavy cannon.
I made this one by modifying my 64 gun third rate Diomedes, using World Edit to take a copy and literally razeeing the upper decks off it, making slight alterations to the stern and bow, and then rebuilding the masts. It carries 44 guns in total, 26 long cannon on the gundeck, 12 long cannon and 6 carronades on the upper decks.
To me, probably the biggest difference between this and a purpose built 5th rate that I might have built is that this one has a full, flush spar-deck running from the bow to the poop deck.
3rd Rate Ship of the Line - Diomedes (64 Guns)
The third rate was the standard ship of the line, formed the backbone of most fleets and usually took the brunt of the fighting. Solid, dependable and powerful with their two gun decks, and they tended to sail much better than the larger three deckers. This is a 64 gun version that takes inspiration from Sir Thomas Slade's Ardent class.
The 64s eventually gave way to the ubiquitous 74 gun versions, and I plan on making one of those too. After they were surpassed by 74s, a lot of 64s were razeed and turned into heavy frigates, and that's one of the reasons I've built a 64. I razeed a copy of this ship, and the result is my 5th rate frigate, Inexorable.
For this one I'm back to the colour scheme I've used on my 1st and 6th rates to make a coherent fleet. I also made the choice to use smaller topsails and large topgallants.
Brig-Sloop - Goshawk (18 Guns)
A Sloop-of-war was the general name for ships that were too small to be 'rated', sitting just below 6th rates in the rating system. They could be roughly divided into two groups - the three masted 'Ship-Sloops' and the two masted 'Brig-Sloops'.
This vessel is loosely based on the Royal Navy's successful Cruizer class of Brig-Sloop. This was a flush decked design (meaning no raised fore or stern) that was armed with 18 carronades. The carronade was a type of short cannon that fired heavy shot but with a short range. Because these ships didn't carry any long guns they would be at the mercy of a ship that could outmanouevre them, but they could bring tremendous firepower to bear at close range.
They were unpopular with crews because of how small and cramped they were, but they were popular with the navy because they were surprisingly powerful for the amount of men needed to crew them, and the navy was struggling with a shortage of trained seamen.
This ship is so small that even the captain has to settle for a small cabin below the waterline.
East Indiaman - Amelia
An East Indiaman was the largest style of merchant vessel of the era. They were designed to carry a mix of cargo and passengers as well as being able to fight off attackers. They were surprisingly heavily armed, and often painted to resemble rows of gun ports to look as though they were more heavily armed than they really were. Some were even purchased by navies and converted into warships, normally as 4th rates.
Mine has been built so that it could be configured as a 4th rate of 50 guns, and looks like it carries that many. But at the moment it carries 36 cannons. The space under the forecastle is divided into small cabins for paying passengers, and the gunports form their cabin windows. There are 53 beds for passengers in total. Naturally, the crew sleep wherever there's space, usually slinging hammocks on the gun deck.
The stern cabins are divided into a captain's cabin, officer's mess and 4 cabins for senior officers. The orlop is divided - in the middle of the ship the deck is removed to form a large cargo hold and there's a large grating on the upper gundeck for the loading of cargo into the hold.
With the sails for this one, I decided to model it at right angles to my first two ships. This meant that the wind would be blowing almost abeam of the ship, so plenty of jibs and staysails seemed to be the best choice. Most of the square sails remain furled.
Cargo Hold -
6th Rate Frigate - Palatine (28 Guns)
The 6th rate was the smaller rating of frigate, of 20-28 guns. Frigates were the general purpose ships of a fleet. Too small to fight in major battles, they performed just about all of the other duties - scouting, patrol, commerce raiding, harrying the enemy. Towards 1800, 6th rates were gradually being replaced by the heavier 5th rates.
This is a 28 gun version, so it's one of the larger 6th rates. It carries 24 cannons on the gun deck and 4 on the quarterdeck. The single stern cabin is used both as the captain's cabin and the officer's mess. The fore and main masts have their royal sails set for extra speed in favourable winds.
1st Rate Ship of the Line - Royal Sovereign (108 Guns)
The 1st rate was the largest type of warship, carrying 100+ cannons across three gun decks. They were sturdily constructed, but fairly slow and cumbersome. Because they were the largest and most expensive type of warship, they were prestigious and few in number and normally served as flagships.
Mine carries 100 cannons on the gun decks, 34 on the lower gun deck, 32 on the middle and 34 on the upper. It also carries two bowchasers and two carronades on the forecastle and four carronades on the quarterdeck for 108 guns in total.
The stern cabins are a bit more spacious than the other ships - the top one is given over entirely to a large captain's/admiral's cabin, the middle one is an officer's mess and the lower is divided into five officer's cabins.
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"
- Vice-Admiral David Beatty, Battle of Jutland, 1916
Like my Napoleonic Era stuff, these ships are built at Steve-scale, 1m per block. The difference here is that I'm building them specifically as replicas (or close to it) of real life ships. My sailing vessels are inspired by real ships, but these dreadnoughts are built off the blueprints of real ships.
The Ships Open up the spoiler!
SM U-20 (1913)
U-20 was one of the 4 U-19 class U-boats built in the years leading up to the First World War. Famous for torpedoing the liner RMS Lusitania in 1915, she sunk a total of 144,300 tons of shipping. She was grounded off the Danish coast in 1916 after suffering engine trouble and was blown up by her own crew.
SMS Derfflinger (1913)
SMS Derfflinger was the lead ship of her class, a group of battlecruisers which marked a large improvement over the preceding SMS Seydlitz. They were also the last battlecruisers completed by Germany.
Derfflinger took part in most of the naval actions in the North Sea during WWI, including Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was heavily engaged at Jutland, delivering heavy damage to the British battlecruisers and taking a beating in return. She limped back to port for repairs, She was interned at Scapa Flow with the rest of the German High Seas Fleet after the armistice, where she was scuttled by her crew.
HMS Iron Duke (1912)
HMS Iron Duke was the lead ship of her class of battleships, successors to the King George V class. Beginnng with the Orion class a few years before, the ships started to be considered "super dreadnoughts" due to their general advancements and superiority over the first generation of dreadnought battleships.
Iron Duke served as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe at the Battle of Jutland, where she landed several hits on SMS König. She served with the Meditteranean fleet after the war, before being paid off in 1929.
This is really cool. You should have a download for this world.
I really like your new style of ships, I've always found steam ships difficult to build. Have you thought about adding a section onto your shipbuilding tutorial specifically for battleships, with stuff such as the shape and what to put on it?
Also, you might be interested in this server which I found recently, called NavalBattleZone, where you can build your own world war style ships and sail them and fight with them!
I hadn't given much thought to expanding the tutorial, but I could quite easily expand it to have a dreadnought style ship - it just might take a while to type up! And it would have to wait until the next time I build one so that I had the chance to take any step by step screenshots. It's been a couple of months since I've touched minecraft due to work commitments, and I'm not sure when the next time will be when I'll have the chance to build one, but I'll keep it in mind.
Can you send me each and every single map...please...I beg of you
I like that reaction!
None of it is up for download at the moment, but they might be in future. The main problem at the moment is that my most recent ships use edited textures, and now even use the Xtrablocks mod, so they're not really conducive to somebody just downloading and playing without first modding texture files or getting the mod set up that I have. I suppose I could just put up the ships that don't need edited textures at some point.
Your ships are awesome! Those sails... They are so good I wonder why you're Minecraft didn't crash of epicness.
I know the thing is really realy big, especially on Steve scale, but...
Any plans on making the USS Enterprise or any other aircraft carrier? :3
Thanks. I haven't got any plans to do an aircraft carrier - they're a little bit after the timeframe I've been going for with my steamships. It's the dreadnoughts that capture most of my interest.
I'm liking these new 'Age of Steam' ships. Makes a nice change from sailing ships.
Cheers. Yeah, I was doing very similar ships each time. I had a reason, wanting a united fleet, but I wanted to do something different after a while.
----
I've found some time today to work on SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Not that much, but enough to add some more touches to the exterior and to put her in some water. I still mean to do an interior on this one. Probably fairly cramped, because she's a smaller ship than the more famous 20th century liners, and probably mostly out of my own mind. Still, I expect it will be much more interesting to do an ocean liner interior than a dreadnought's. Espeically since I've got the Xtra blocks now.
Nice! These ships look are very complicated and it looks like you have worked your butt off for these ships to look amazing. My favourite ship is the 3rd Rate Ship of the Line because to me, it has the most unique shape out of all the ships. Have fun building any other ships that you have in mind, and GOOD LUCK!
Hey folks. Long time, no shipbuilding, but I've got an update for you.
I've built a new ship, the Royal Navy's armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur (1906). I've added her to the first post, and SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse has found her way to the first post too.
The Minotaur looks great. I'm not really a fan of 20th century ships, but I can tell that you've made this ship quite well by comparing it to some pictures. Well done.
Cheers. I really like the sort of 1890-1920 period in ship construction. I'm not sure why, but once it hits the 1930s, there's something not quite the same any more. I guess it makes my builds a bit unique - normally whenever I see battleships in minecraft it's the WWII era ones like Bismarck, Missouri and Yamato. For whatever reason, I just find the WWI dreadnoughts to be that much cooler. Probably something to do with the fact that it was the swansong of the fleet engagement before air power took over.
Anyhow, I probably won't start on another ship straight away. It's going to take me at least a week or two to decide which one I want to build! I'm thinking of branching out and trying something not British or German - perhaps one of the French Bretagne class or the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya class. Or maybe a pre-dreadnought, something that fought at Tsushima perhaps...
Anyway, here she is.
I'd say most of the exterior is done, apart from some detailing. But the interior is still completely empty. Even though I haven't done the interiors on my dreadnoughts, I'm much more likely to do this one. An ocean liner's interior has to be a lot more interesting to build than the steel corridors of a battleship!
Since I'm using XtrablocksEE, I've got a lot of blocks to play with. If I get round to it, I'll see about texturing some porthole blocks to improve the accuracy of the exterior and actually let some light into the cabins.
Don't have much to add, but I thought your thread was deserving of a bump :P.
I've still not done much more to the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. I tried playing a bit today, but minecraft was being tempramental. I think it's my combination of mods and textures slowing everything down, combined with the fact that minecraft is a poorly coded piece of...
*ahem*
Anyway, I'm probably going to have a massive PC upgrade fairly soon, which should make things run a bit smoother. When I find the time to do it!
Your picture doesn't seem to be working. Have you uploaded it to an image hosting site like imgur or photobucket?
As for updates, work has taken me away from my gaming PC for large stretches of time so it's been a while since I've even touched minecraft. But I have had the chance to install the first component of my big upgrade - an MSI GTX 770. It's rather nice, and I imagine it will do nicely for displaying ships...
Also, you might be interested in this server which I found recently, called NavalBattleZone, where you can build your own world war style ships and sail them and fight with them!
I hadn't given much thought to expanding the tutorial, but I could quite easily expand it to have a dreadnought style ship - it just might take a while to type up! And it would have to wait until the next time I build one so that I had the chance to take any step by step screenshots. It's been a couple of months since I've touched minecraft due to work commitments, and I'm not sure when the next time will be when I'll have the chance to build one, but I'll keep it in mind.
I like that reaction!
None of it is up for download at the moment, but they might be in future. The main problem at the moment is that my most recent ships use edited textures, and now even use the Xtrablocks mod, so they're not really conducive to somebody just downloading and playing without first modding texture files or getting the mod set up that I have. I suppose I could just put up the ships that don't need edited textures at some point.
I know the thing is really realy big, especially on Steve scale, but...
Any plans on making the USS Enterprise or any other aircraft carrier? :3
Thanks. I haven't got any plans to do an aircraft carrier - they're a little bit after the timeframe I've been going for with my steamships. It's the dreadnoughts that capture most of my interest.
Cheers. Yeah, I was doing very similar ships each time. I had a reason, wanting a united fleet, but I wanted to do something different after a while.
----
I've found some time today to work on SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Not that much, but enough to add some more touches to the exterior and to put her in some water. I still mean to do an interior on this one. Probably fairly cramped, because she's a smaller ship than the more famous 20th century liners, and probably mostly out of my own mind. Still, I expect it will be much more interesting to do an ocean liner interior than a dreadnought's. Espeically since I've got the Xtra blocks now.
Screenies.
-My Twitter- https://twitter.com/SpongeHED
-My Google- https://plus.google.com/u/1/103321313437118714924?tab=wX#103321313437118714924/about
Have a nice Day
lookare very complicated and it looks like you have worked your butt off for these ships to look amazing.My favourite ship is the 3rd Rate Ship of the Line because to me, it has the most unique shape out of all the ships. Have fun building any other ships that you have in mind, and GOOD LUCK!
I've built a new ship, the Royal Navy's armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur (1906). I've added her to the first post, and SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse has found her way to the first post too.
Here's a pic of the Minotaur.
As ever, there's more in the first post.
Cheers. I really like the sort of 1890-1920 period in ship construction. I'm not sure why, but once it hits the 1930s, there's something not quite the same any more. I guess it makes my builds a bit unique - normally whenever I see battleships in minecraft it's the WWII era ones like Bismarck, Missouri and Yamato. For whatever reason, I just find the WWI dreadnoughts to be that much cooler. Probably something to do with the fact that it was the swansong of the fleet engagement before air power took over.
Anyhow, I probably won't start on another ship straight away. It's going to take me at least a week or two to decide which one I want to build! I'm thinking of branching out and trying something not British or German - perhaps one of the French Bretagne class or the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya class. Or maybe a pre-dreadnought, something that fought at Tsushima perhaps...