Ship pics

If you set this to TRUE in the mod's Mod_Definition.txt file (Standard SE5 "mod" has one too), all empires will use the same ship slot layout (nice and rectangular):

Override InvConfiguration Slots := TRUE

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If you want to have a real challenge, then select the green organic looking ship set. Only 2-4 armors per deck and only few inner hull sections.

Best regards,
Pit fiend

So which shipset has the most armor?

I believe you are referring to the Drushocka ships.
They have organic tech, which means they get organic armor (30kt each, regenerates), and guns as big as 40kt, and they are a bit on the agressive side from what I've seeen, so they are probably not as adversly affected by less slots for armor and other components.

If you want another odd ball, I'm using the blue semi-crystalline looking ships of the Sergetti, and their Battleship has to much space (90 slots total), their Dreadnought has WAY to much space (100 slots total), and the small Space Station (62 slots total) has much more slots than the larger Starbase/Baseship (48 slots total), causing some problems when it comes with trying to manage space in a 3400kt Starbase while the smaller Space Station has a lot of space to spare.

Overall, I kind of like how each race has their own look at feel, and it can provide a nice challenge for some if they want to try and play the game with handicaps of some sort, such as by using ships that have limited space or limited armor capacity.

Another difficulty. The EEE shipset has too little space on, for example, it's lihgt cruiser. I actually had to use most of all three decks, whereas the Sergetti shipset had plenty of room.

Mind you, I was doing the Flying Shotgun ship design, where you load it up with meson blasters. Just not enough slots.
____________________
I'll make one later.

What I'd really like is a set of standardised layouts - effectively, each ship gets the InvConfigurationslots := TRUE feature, but they're nicely arranged.

Maybe one day, if I find I have a lot of spare time, eh?

Whats wrong with rectangular grids? You aren't going to be able to reconcile matching the hull portrait shape and an equal number of slots in the layout for all, unless you go with a really low number of slots for the lowest common denominator...

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It would primarily be an exersize in aesthetics. Even if the grid is somewhat larger than the target vessel, at least one could make it look roughly the same outline.