Here is the saucer shuttle from below.

I named this shuttle The Osprey. It is of a class of saucer ships that I've named a Nimbus Class. These shuttles are assigned to either a space station or larger interstellar vessel. In this case, it is part of The Perception, a research ship from a class of ships that I am calling the Copernicus Class.

On the left side, the airlock hatch can be opened planetside to extend a ramp. The very center has a docking ring for connecting to The Perception or other vessels or space stations. The twelve glowing disks are meant to be some sort of magnetic propulsion thrusters (the side thrusters are more for steering and course correction, not liftoff or acceleration). They were made using one of the sun symbols that come with Cosmographer. And the six metal disks are meant to be places where retractable legs can extend when on planet.

The text labels on the right are for toggles in the FCW file. They are off the map border and normally don't print, but I wanted to show it to you. They are mostly on/off toggles, but the Tractor Beam is a little more complex, which I will get to. Here is the syntax for the thrusters, as demonstrated in Remy @Monsen's recent Village Battlemap tutorial. It toggles between hiding and unhiding the layer called "Symbols - Thrusters".

GOLAYER BACKGROUND
TOGL Symbols - Thrusters
NULL

As Remy's tutorial explains, the GOLAYER line is done to make sure you aren't on the layer you're trying to hide, because active layers cannot be hidden. And the NULL line is to make sure that toggling a layer is not your most recent command.

Here's the map with the center docking ring open:

The docking ring is actually two separate symbols, with the closed hatch symbol on top of the open hatch. The "Docking Ring" toggle hides or unhides the sheet that the closed hatch symbol is on, allowing the hatch to go back and forth between open and closed.

In addition to using the center hatch for docking with other vessels, a tractor beam can be activated to lift cargo or specimens into the shuttle (like cows or battered pickup trucks in the deserts of Nevada). Here is the tractor beam activated (it's one of the varicolor suns):

The toggling of the tractor beam was a little tricky. I suppose I could have made it just be on top of the hatch symbols, but I decided to make it as separate "on" and "off" options. Clicking "on" simultaneous hides the layer that both docking hatch symbols are on while unhiding the layer that the tractor beam is on. Here's the syntax for turning it on:

GOLAYER BACKGROUND
HIDE Docking Hatch
SHOW Tractor Beam
NULL

Clicking the "Off" link reverses this, hiding the tractor beam layer and showing the docking hatch layer.

On to the Habitat and Engineering decks!

I've never really used Cosmographer much, other than borrowing starfield bitmaps or planets as backgrounds for other maps. Here is the beginnings of my first spacecraft.

It's a small saucer shuttle, 50 map units in diameter. (I think the map units are in feet but not entirely sure.) My thought is that it's capable of flying through a solar system but not capable of interstellar flight. Usually attached to a space station or larger interstellar vessel, used for getting a closer look to study planets, entering the upper atmosphere or even landing planet side, collecting flora and fauna for closer study.

So far, I've just done the outside from above and the top-most deck -- the Command and Scientific Research deck. There will be two more decks: the Habitat deck in the center, and Engineering & Cargo on the bottom. I will also do a view from below.

From Above

Here it is from above, with windows shuttered and dome closed, defensive shields activated.

Windows unshuttered, dome uncovered:

I did a lot of experimenting on the windows, including experimenting with using Blend Mode. That worked out, but I ended up settling on using a Color Key cutout (of course) -- but instead of using the traditional magenta color (#6), I used the light blue (#5) and set it with a 20% opacity. I figure it's slightly tinted.

Here it is with retractable thrusters out:

Those gray discs are meant to be retractable hatches for weaponry and sensors. Here it is again with the four weapons (two lasers, two torpedo weapons) and four sensors out:

Top Deck: Command and Scientific Research

I was going to divide this floor into separate rooms, but it looked funny with the "skylight" windows. I suppose it makes sense for a research shuttle to allows the scientists and command crew to be together, since the scientists will really be directing the mission.

I played around with different stair options but didn't really care for them. I ended up settling for an elevator lift on the southern side, with an emergency ladder shaft on the northern side. Command/flight stations on the eastern side, scientific study stations elsewhere. Labels to come.

That's it for now. The other two floors and the bottom view still to come.

This is great. I have a couple of large cities that I’m planning to do, and have been pondering approaches. Using separate layers for each neighborhood sounds like a good idea, and I will study CA129. I think I may do one in SS5 and the other in Darklands City. Any tips — anything you wish you had done along the way or before getting started?

And not that we had any reason to think Winter Trail/Winter Village would be different, but just for fun, here's a sliver of an alpine village.

Added the path to the well and the hitching posts (not stocks), and made some other adjustments. Working on the basement (but I have a recent urge to design a small research vessel in Cosmographer, which I've never really played with so I might get hijacked).

It's fun having a chance to use Mike Schley's latest symbols.