Stellaris: Ironclads
Long ago, and far away, on the comment section of some mod, someone suggested making a set of ships that look like mid-19th century ironclads.
So that’s it.
For now, I only made models for the military ships. The rest use mammalian models. If this catches, I will consider modding the rest of the ships and stations, but they will probably be shared with another mod I am working on.
As for the design of the ships, they are inspired by some of the steps of the evolution of the first riverine ironclads of the US civil war into the "modern" 20th century ship classes. The number of turrets in the Stellaris ship classes doesn’t fit well with the historical ships, so don’t expect too much historical accuracy.
Gun corvette: inspired by CSS Richmond. Originally it was supposed to be CSS Virginia, but the round turrets looked better on the flat slopes on the front and rear of the casemate of CSS Richmond. Close enough.
Torpedo corvette: inspired by USS Monitor.
Destroyer: inspired by USS Chickasaw.
Cruiser: inspired by USS Puritan, but then it drifted a bit far from the original.
Battleship: insipred by the French ironclad Devastation, and generally by the French-style central battery battleships.
Science ship: I used the same model as the gun corvette, with antennas instead of gun turrets, and a different texture. This isn’t just laziness. Fluff-wise, I like the idea that in the very early stages of a space-faring empire, the first military ships are exploration ships with guns and armor attached to them. Also, it was important to have the science ship replaced, because the game uses it as the thumbnail for choosing ship graphics when creating an empire.
Colony ship / transport: inspired by USS New Ironsides. USS New Ironsides (yes. That was the actual name of a real ship) was a heavy gun ironclad, not a transport. However, its large casemate and high water line gave it a look that, in my opinion, works well for a transport. The Troop Transport is smaller, and carries LCVPs, and the Colony ship is larger, and has biodomes.
The mod is purely cosmetic, it doesn’t change the game mechanics, and doesn’t replace any vanilla files.
As usual, have fun conquering the galaxy!
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Minor update: I made a patch which sets the Ironclads as the default ships for the colonial and 19th century American portraits (by Ofaloaf). This also makes it possible that an AI empire will use the Ironclads, if the random galaxy generator spawns an American AI empire. If this interest you, see this link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=975551618.
Also, if you are playing with downscaled ships, see this link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=975551883.
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
