As one might anticipate, the ship itself is the basis for all greebling, decoration and tomfoolery.

There are plenty of ways around building a ship from the ground up, but that's not what this guide is for. However, using filler blocks and shapes is a great start to making a good-looking ship! Curves, bows, slopes, you name it! If your ship already looks good without decor, it'll look even better with it!

An amazing example graciously swiped provided to us from Erblington is his uninspiringly named Ironclad I. A fantastic example indeed!






As this Ironclad I additionally demonstrates the next point of objective, we will swoop to it right away.

Amour! Using composite armour is not only good for the survivability of your ship, it looks good as well! You can selectively up-armour the important modules, make the engineering deck iron to signify it's engineery-ness, or use belt armour as demonstrated above.

Decor, also known as greebling, is important for making a good-looking vessel. Most new players skip over it right away or add minimal decorations. But after taking this guide to heart none of you will be considered 'new' anymore! Muehehehehehehehe

Now, let us take a look at the ship shown in the previous section. Erblington's now decorated Ironclad I.


A great difference indeed. Decor helps to keep flat surfaces interesting, and paired with unarmoured modules look even more amazing! Keep in mind, unarmouring modules is not a good idea for actual combat. How to greeble? You can either go to decorations and go wild, or take a look at the insides of your vessel. Give the repair bay some tools, the sails a jib, the suspendium chambers some devices... Not only will you not have to worry about greebling block, but your vessels will nearly greeble themselves!

Our good old friend Erblington is a particular fan of a combination between technical and ornate looks. Many rivets and panels can be spotted between the ornate decks and gold leaf.

This section is provided by Kinny himself.

Don't forget that holding space allows you to place greebles behind everything!

Ever wanted to make a line of turrets but cant due to those pesky forward restrictions? Well its possible as shown here:


How are these made you ask? Simply get a light sponson:


Unarmour the front


Select the curve 1x3 bottom back filler block, press N to switch it to its smaller variant and place it on the back of the light sponson, like so


Select the stained glass window frame, color it gray and place it on the unarmoured block while holding space (Which places it behind everything, a very useful tool)


After that select the 1x1 slope panel, press N to get its reinforced variant and place it in the same place, without pressing space. Then place a metal dish in the middle


And that right there, is an example of unarmouring + greebling, a powerful tool to be using in making wonderful looking ships.

Most people forget about painting less than decor, because holding the left mouse button and going zig-zag over your ship is much easier than combining many greebles to form a bootiful exterior. A good example is Teddybeat's building, he used black and red colours to great effect of depth;




Another example is our stern friend Tatourmi, whose skill with colour schemes is admirable;




Kinny doesn't know much of paints, so I'll guide through this personally.

Use Coat of Arms for patriotism and darker shades of wood or cendree to make shadows.

Almost done!

Here you can see both the classic and the new Invidious. Take note!

Brought to you by Kinny.

Landships, pretty much the only thing I ever design, glorious legged and tracked machines that are almost useless in the meta...but they look nice ok...

This will be mainly tips on working with legs and tracks...so if you don't care about them, you can happily ignore this bit

Tracks

Tracks are a pain to work with, not just because they get stuck on slight inclines...but because they look different in the editor compared to what they look like ingame. You see, tracks have suspension, which only kicks in when the game starts. Which means tracks will always be lower than they look. Here's an example: (Note that this example uses no restrictions in order to achieve the deckgun and is therefor not vanilla)


Then, when put ingame and unpaused...


You might find this minor...but for me at least, it broke an otherwise wonderful landship...so how did I fix this? I pushed the tracks up a block


It may get stuck on terrain more easily, but it looks a whole of a lot better


Basically...don't be fooled by how tracks look in the editor. They aren't where they say they are.


Legs

Legs are what I use the most landship wise...and although they really need a visual update (They look like tiny sticks holding up a massive walker, where are my thicc hydraulics) they have their charm. Their biggest problem however, is their massive bottom restrictions, which both force you to place them on the bottom AND make your landship's ventral side barren and flat...which I hate. (Although it is useful to note that Zarkonnen, the dev, has said he would look into removing the bottom restrictions)

How do I get around this? Sadly...mods, I use the No Vanilla Restrictions mod to place legs in all sorts of weird and wonderful positions

Hey, Kinny, I told you no mods!

Kinny get away from the land- I'm warning you, Kinny!

blam

KINNY!!

I- Uhm... caff caff

I'm afraid we'll have to reach our conclusion here. Ofcourse, if we were to try and encompass ALL of the different combinations, techniques, and specialities, we'd be here for another 40.000 years. Regardless, we hope that you learned something, and please leave a comment! If you have any questiong I'll try to answer, and if you want to engage in discussion we welcome you to the discord communities with open arms

https://discord.gg/79w897H
https://discord.gg/m6Aa8aK

As to apologise for any... euh... permanent damage... I'd like to offer you one free Invidious in return for you not telling anybody about Kinny. Not a word, understood? You'll find your ship here;

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2469525778&searchtext=invidious