Hello all, I'm going to be creating deck plans for my group (and I'll also post them here and other places). For my first project, I've decided to bite off way more than I can chew. I'm going to be designing the deck plans for a Raider Class Corvette. I know there are already two that have been done, and they're both great, but there are issues with them that don't match up with the ship that our group has acquired. One only has one floor (ours has 3), and the other has an extensively modified interior (ours is "stock" with the hangar bay modification).

So, I'm thinking of using GIMP for my design program. It's free, and... free. Are there any other good options that any of you suggest? I've looked at a few others and they're either not free, or dedicated to making maps for playing VTT's (MapTool, Dungeon Painter).

Is there anywhere I can get some free art assets with futuristic elements? That'd be a big help (I'm creative, but not good at drawing).

Finally: are there any tips you can give me when it comes to designing deck plans? I appreciate any help; thanks in advance!

I've made a couple deck plans with Paint.net ( here and here ), and I think it's a phenomenal program. If you like what I've done, I have a lot of tips I can share.

Paint.net is free, user friendly, easy to learn, and really versatile. I strongly, strongly recommend it.

I do all of my deck plans in Adobe Illustrator. It’s vector based, and is ideal for this purpose. Below is a set of deck plans created in that program.

If you want a less pricey version of Illustrator and are using a Mac, the app "Graphic" is pretty good. It's also vector based with plenty of other tools, and allows you to create a background scale grid at any scale from millimetres to kilometres. I can't say my stuff looks as good as @Tramp Graphics but it does the job and is easy to use for a non-artist like me.

For free art assets, you can use the starship geomorphs originally designed for the Traveller RPG, found here. Just paste the pieces together.

http://travellerrpgblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/starship-geomorphs-20.html