Custom Ships for Critical Mass the game by Sean O'Connor
This page last updated on 26th December 2006
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Early in my Critical Mass flying career I hadn't a clue and produced some really bad ships. But in time I learnt that I was bad at working out where missiles would go and that I needed to focus on the Drachan (white) and Yatari (Cyan) missiles. Later, as I got better at predicting where missiles would end up (both mine and my opponents) I decided that better scanners enabled me to avoid missiles and I traded the Drachan (White) for Daycorn (Yellow) and I began to fly the Frog series.
I also realised as I got better at avoiding missiles that I could afford to have few or no shields (for early missions) provided I had plenty of command centres and repairs. The Bubble series became my favourite ships.
Later still as my ability to exactly line up on a target and predict where they would end up at the end of the following turn I began to work some Plectron (Magenta) into the mix. I added some Plectrons (Magenta) into the higher bubble ships and developed the Dragon series.
Although I've retired a lot of my earlier ships as I've outgrown them I suspect they are still useful to the beginner/intermediate pilot.
Some of my old retired ships can be found here
very low cost Wingmen
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| Almost the cheapest viable ship. Drachan missiles are safer (for you and yours) than the drones Plectrons. | A little cloaking and a few more scanners than the Mote, surprisingly resilient little wingman (given it's cost). | The EyePod has unusually good vision for such a cheap ship. Intended to be on the outside flank to watch for the enemy. | A low cost wingman; the SinkerFish has all round scanners and enough missiles to last the whole mission. |
Low cost Wingmen
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| This little wingman doesn't survive too many missions but really annoys the enemy while it lasts. | A more useful wing-man ship than the Lynx (while still being relatively cheap). | Slightly more firepower than the Penguin this was my favourite wingman for a while. | Better turning than the Vampire, much better vision and with more dog fighting friendly Daycorns (yellow missiles). |
Scanner ships; my 'Eye series'
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| More combat ready than the Observer/Watcher series. [Retired due to insufficient missiles, see BlackEye] | With more missiles than the SilverEye, the BlackEye trades shields and turning for Stealth. This makes it a much more useful ship. | The deluxe version of the BlackEye. Better manoeuvrability and more missiles. | Sacrificing some scanners in preference for repair and a third command centre; this is the last of the Eye series. |
My Bubble series (started with the Survivabubble)
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| A little bubble wingman. I find this ship regularly survives to run out of missiles. | People were requesting a 'bubble' that was cheep enough to fly right from the first mission. | The replacement for the Survivabubble, more missiles and another cloak replace the rear shield. | An experiment in repair over shields for the early missions. With 7 command centres and four repairs the Survivabubble takes the damage and has time to repair. [Superseded by the Serviceabubble] |
More of the Bubble Series
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| Reasonabubble | Respectabubble | ||
| The Survivabubble never felt finished. This version has more turning engines, more missiles a few more shields and one more cloak. [Superseded by the Reasonabubble] | The Survivabigbubble lacked the punch that a ship of its cost should have had. The Reasonabubble fills this cost slot better (frankly that rear shield just isn't worth it yet). | The respectabubble was designed to maximise the missiles / cost ratio. You can get a lot of Gold Crosses with this ship but it's not the Indestructabubble, you will have to run away to repair. | Adding lots of shields goes slightly against the idea of the bubble series but I wanted a tougher bubble. The name is not guaranteed to be true; but it is very hard to kill. |
A selection of ships; medium cost
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| Assistant | Typhoon | FlashRocket | |
| Intended as a high scanner wingman this ship seems to die a little more often than I would have expected. | With good speed and turning, this ship still has four command centres and slealth. | Not quite a graphical twin to the "Blakes7" Liberator. This is still a respectable mid-cost ship. | Almost an upgraded version of the Liberator sacrificing a little speed for more repair bots. |
The Dragon Series of Fighter bombers - presently my favourite series.
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| For the early missions of "Attack fuel depot" and "Attack Transmitters" you need a bomber with a lot of clout that also won't die the first time it gets hit. | Filling all 32 slots, it's rare to have so many missiles on such a cheep ship. But lack of shields makes it vulnerable to a barrage attack. | A slightly better shielded version of the Thin_Dragon. | Heaviest bomber of all the Dragons, the Blue Dragon has six slots of heavy missiles. I'd have made it the Cyan Dragon (for Yatari) only it might have been too easily confused with a Merikon ship. |
More of the Dragon Series
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| Silver Dragon | Golden Dragon | ||
| Filling the missile slots the Brass Dragon replaces the Yatari (Blue) with Orik (Brown) for hitting those crippled targets that are fleeing allowing you to move straight on to the next target. | Avoiding the compromise between Yatari (Cyan) and Orik (Brown) missiles the Silver Dragon has both. It also has much better rear shields, making it a very effective ship for a cost of under 200. | The top of the Dragon series. |
Watery Eye series - After the 'always able to find the ?' bug was fixed I realised I needed a range of good cheap scouts
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| Watery Eye Mk1 | Watery Eye Mk2 | Watery Eye Mk3 | |
| The first of the Watery Eye series, I wanted something of similar cost to The Scout (62) that wouldn't die the first time it got hit. | The Mark1 was cheap but the Mark2 has a lot of benefits for a small additional cost, better left, right (and rear) scanners and the repair are well worth the extra 8 cost. | The Watery Eye series needed something with a little more clout. Directly competing with the Bear Paw and the Expendabubble the Mark3 can hit as well as scout. |
Other scanning ships
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| Half Nelson | |||
| A ship with asymmetric scanners for watching your left flank. While intended as a wingman it can be flown with success as your own. | I lost the Nelson and tried to re-design it. I ended up with a cheaper version, then when I recovered the Nelson I decided to keep them both. | This wingman scout wasn't expected to survive for too long. It's slow speed and poor turning should result in an early death but somehow it seems to survive, often! | A ship with asymmetric scanners for watching your right flank. Despite being more shielded than the Feltesey it seems to die more often. |
High worth ships
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| Varelse | Djur | ||
| The Sha'Ar was not intentionally designed to be a cheaper Varelse but it ended up looking like it. The full four repairs make its low shields less important. | Varelse: The true Alien with which no discourse is possible. | Djur: The wild beast. | Dire Djur: What's meaner than a Djur? This is! However it's so expensive it's rare to get anything more than a MoCB. |
If you would like to drop me a comment on any of my ships, please do so at
You can also see some ships created by other people at http://www.geocities.com/fighter_ace_bomb/cm_game/cm_share.htm
A table showing visible range (in pixels) for combinations of radar and stealth modules
Remember, while Radar only work in the direction of whatever side of the ship they are mounted on, Stealth objects work for the whole ship.
Critical Mass Roll Of Honour Reader
Ever wanted to see your whole Critical Mass RollOfHonour?
Wanted to see how many medals you got after 8?
or see those commanders from 14 to 30?
Its all stored in the Critical Mass Roll Of Honour file, if only you could see it. well now you can ...
Download this 33kb application CMROHR.EXE
It's a rather primitive DOS application at the minute but it runs on all Microsoft Operating systems
(95/95/Me/NT/2000/Xp). If enough people show interest I may improve it.
It's for Version 4 (the latest as of July 05) of Critical Mass, I suspect it won't work with the other versions.
Run it from the same directory as the RollOfHonour.dat file, don't run it while CM is trying to access it, CM might get upset to discover it can't access it because another application has it open! If you really must see in the file while CM is running, copy your ROH to a different directory and view the copy.
Critical Mass Game file Reader (for active commanders)
The CMROHR only lets you see the information on deceased commanders.
What about the active commanders? I wanted to know how many Gold Crosses they had attained (after 8)
Fortunately this information can be located within the "whomever.gam" file.
So I wrote the Critical Mass GAMe Reader (CMGAMR) to see the information on living commanders.
Download this 36k application CMGAMR.EXE
It's also a primitive DOS application but it runs on all Microsoft Operating systems (95/95/Me/NT/2000/Xp)
Don't run CMGAMR.EXE when Critical Mass is trying to look at the same file, CM won't be happy if it
can't write to the game file.
Do you enjoy Critical Mass? Try BoxZone or Sean's Other
Windows Games
