Greetings citizens! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH82JO_Ubbg We are pleased to announce the second official StarMade build contest! In the coming months we will be focusing on fleshing out the universe, factions, NPCs and more. When that time comes we will need plenty of assets to help populate your universe with other alien races and factions that you can encounter and interact with. This is where you come in! We are asking you to create a set of small ships that we can use for the final release of the game. These assets will be piloted by the generated factions of the game. We have an infinite universe, and we simply cannot build it all ourselves. This is a great opportunity for you to contribute something to the universe of StarMade that everyone can experience. There are rules of course as well as some guidelines, which will be outlined below. Rules

• A single submission should consist of a few ships. These ships should visually match each other in style. We ask for a minimum of 2 ships and a maximum of 5 ships per submission. Quality over quantity.
• Individual ships should be no more than 140 meters in any direction. As part of the contest, community-voted winners will get the opportunity to expand on their submissions with larger ships.
• The ships of a single submission should have a consistent style evident across all of them. Vastly different ships with no clear style will not be accepted.
• Create interiors for your vessels. Eventually, we will have NPC’s in the game and so this is practically mandatory. Drones are exempt from this rule.
• We will not accept builds that represent vessels from other works of fiction. Please create something original.
• Your submission needs to be uploaded to the community content section on the official SMD forums. Please dock all of your ships to a single object, a rack of sorts, so that all your entered ships are saved as one ship blueprint, making it easier for us during the selection process.
• It is best that you upload the file as a sment file.
• You must name the file using the following format: “Username’s_Fleet_Submission_1”.
• You may upload and enter more than one submission for entry, hence the 1 at the end of the naming format shown above.
• Lastly, we ask that you post a direct link to the community content download page in a comment in this thread. We will not actively search for the submissions if they are not posted in that thread on the StarMade Forums.
• This contest will end June 20th, 1:00 AM UTC time. Part way through the contest we will evaluate whether we need to extend the deadline for submissions, depending on what the community response is.

That covers the rules. These are a must if you want your submission to be accepted. It makes it easier for us to go over the builds when we take a look at them. Schine will determine what submissions will make it into the game, according to factors such as quality, economic balance, etc. We want as many submissions as possible; we're not setting a specific limit to the number of entries that will make it into the game. This will give us the necessary control to ensure that accepted submissions fit into what we have planned for the future. As an additional reward, anyone who submits ships in this contest that makes it into the game will also get a SMD badge as acknowledgement. These are small ships however, and we will eventually need larger ships. When we have determined which submissions will make it, we will open a round of voting to the community. Your vote will determine which builders may expand on their fleet with larger ships, and maybe even space stations for that set of ships. Details on this vote will be released in a separate thread after the contest deadline. In the spoiler below we have also written up a few guidelines including a couple things that are mandatory. This should help your submission stand out, and ensure it makes it into the game. Include a faction module. Drones should also have a bobby AI module. We have three factions that are already defined by their own style. Please make your first submission it’s own unique style. If you want to create a second submission intended to be utilized by the Trading Guild, Outcasts, or Scavengers, we are willing to consider it. Make note of it on the download page if that is your intention. Bare in mind that we reserve control here and will utilize the assets as we see fit. We care more about the looks of a vessel than the performance. Obviously we need it to fly, but we don’t need a super powerful ship from each submission. In fact, quite the opposite. Giving ships weaknesses is just as important as giving them strengths. Maybe your set of ships belong to a faction that focuses on exploration or cargo transport. Not every submission needs to be combat oriented. The more diverse the better! Schine may adapt the systems of your submission to fit within our in-game asset plans. To add to that, ensure that your submission is not completely comprised of a single material, regardless of cost. All of the Trading Guild ships we have completed so far fall under the same restrictions we are applying to this contest. We have drones, fighters, frigates and transports, and together they form a unified style. It is a great example of what you can accomplish with a variation of shapes, sizes and roles. Refer to them if in need of reference. We suggest you avoid docked reactors or other internally docked entities such as shield generators. If found we will simply replace / fill docked reactor space anyway so it’d be a waste of time setting those up. Turrets, drones, elevators, hangar doors, etc. are perfectly acceptable. Of course you may credit yourself by placing your name somewhere on a submission. Keep any display module text lore neutral. Don’t include information about player factions, etc. These rules are subject to change so refer back to this post over the course of the contest to ensure you do not miss anything. We will also be releasing a video explaining the same rules soon. If you have any questions please ask them! Good luck and happy building!

[ 2016-04-24 22:38:01 CET ] [ Original post ]