Original Universe Cruiser

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2004-05-18 06:05pm

After fooling around 3DS Max for some time, I've decided to model a cruiser used ona story I'm working on right now. Notable fact: I came up with the hull shape more than ten years ago using Lego bricks.
It is still a Work-In-Progress, and I'm working on it very slowly, on and off, I'm still afraid to tackle texturing the bugger...

Anyway, here's a small treat:

The3/4sview in a larger image.

Ass shot.

Up the lady's skirt.

Zooming in on the ass! A good view of the radiators, engines and secondary turrets (not to happy with these, though).

Close-up on the main turret. (Along with the refueling ports.)

A better view of the bow. Shows the 3 missile tubes, hangar door, more secondary turrets, and communications array.

Well?

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-05-18 07:57pm

A little on the plain side, but I like it. Good all-round firing arcs.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2004-05-18 08:28pm

Stick some missle launchers on that baby.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-05-18 08:30pm

Not bad.

You used GI in this shot, right?

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2004-05-19 05:41am

Thanks a lot, guys! The story happens several thousands of years in the future, I'm not too precise with dates in order to give me a lot of flexibility, and I tried to make it as close to real as possible, there's a lot of fairy dust in it, but I follow the good-writing rules!

Some back story on the starship:
Presenting, the Lion second-class cruiser!
The original design dates back more than 500 years, with over a hundred hulls built in that timespan. It has been involved in every Human conflict since the first hull was laid down, including the Great War, just a hundred and fifty years ago, where they suffered heavy losses against the alien Azulam (basically, because they were the most able to handle. Nowadays, about forty are still in existance, and with the introduction of more modern and powerful designs, it has been relegated to Reserve Fleets (hence it's reclassification as a second-class cruiser).

@ Frank: well, I'm still modelling it on weekends, I already have some more details on it, but I still need to put a lot of sensors on that baby, though I don't want to greeble it too much (that is, put all those small details like SW ships have), aside from shields, this baby has a lot of armouring!

@SintaxVorlon: it uses beam weapons as its main armament, missiles went out of fashion a few thousand years before, but due to advances in propulsion only recently has it come back. Those tubes were tacked one during the last stages of the Great War, and only post-war constructions have them built as part of the design.

@ Shinova: yup! One Skylight at 0.5 intensity, and a spotlight at 1 intensity. Some of those shots took 50 minutes to render on my poor little laptop, but I like the soft shadowing provided by GI.

Comosicus · Post by **Comosicus** » 2004-05-19 05:47am

The rear arc looks a bit undergunned. Unless it has a good maneuvrability, if a big ship comes from the back it's gonna be nasty. You could place a big turret on the back too. Or maybe some missile tubes.

Also the engines look too small for me. And all the exhaust would have to hit the sides of the ship and could cause interference with the rear sensors or turets. Maybe you could move them a bit to the edge so that the exhaust comes free int space.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-05-19 11:38am

Awesome! Looks like that weirdo fish.

Add a single moderately large turret at the back since it's quite undergunned at the rear.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-19 12:02pm

It is very nice looking with all those turrets and torpedoes.

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2004-05-19 01:47pm

I'm not happy with those secondary turrets (the hemispherical kind), I really need to give them a better look, though they will stay hemispherical!

Comosicus wrote:The rear arc looks a bit undergunned. Unless it has a good maneuvrability, if a big ship comes from the back it's gonna be nasty. You could place a big turret on the back too. Or maybe some missile tubes.

There is no room for big turrets there, although it might seem that way, the engines take up most of the rear quarter, and the four reactors that power these engines occupy most of the top and bottom "sail". As a way of measure, let's just say the center of mass for the whole ship is more or less in the middle of the engines...

Another way to put it: turrets occupy space, do a check on gun turrets in "wet" navy ships, they are tens of storeys tall, normally, we only see a part of the whole system, where the gun barrel and firing mechanism are located inside the armoured shell, but it extends inside a ship, all the way to the keel. That is what happened here, I intentionally only put 4 turrets because I say there is no room for more, if I ever post a side view, you will notice the bottom front turret is put slightly more towards the stern (athwardships, I think is the term) because of the hangar. The hemispherical turrets are a more modern design and consequentially they can be carried in higher numbers.

Also, space combat is more about getting that first shot without flipping to brake, so most designs emphasize heavy frontal armament...

Also the engines look too small for me. And all the exhaust would have to hit the sides of the ship and could cause interference with the rear sensors or turets. Maybe you could move them a bit to the edge so that the exhaust comes free int space.

Yeah, well, I put them there for the coolness factor, too far back and the shape wouldn't look so balanced.

As for the exhaust, magic-tech does wonders! I've modeled 4 deflector plates, three of them would open like the ones seen in modern jets, but the fourth is attached to the hull and only shapes the stream in order to prevent it to touch the armoured hull...

So, the stream would come out as two-dimensional, not causing much trouble to the sensor arrays that will eventually be modeled on the sails. As for protection, those 4 turrets are more than enough against any foe smaller then a cruiser, and usually there are always friendlies around covering your ass.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-05-19 03:31pm

Quite nice, I like the spartan desing. I'd suggest that you make the base of the superfiring turrets less ornate and add something in to the aft deck, some added detail on the superstructure would also be nice.

Comosicus · Post by **Comosicus** » 2004-05-20 10:04am

I get your point. Actually I was thinking to something simillar to the submarines rear torpedo room. You can create some terraces on the top and bottom sides of the rear and have the space for 2 medium turrets (one on top and one on the bottom) or one terrace for two missile tubes.

Or you could enlarge the sides of the rear, put the engine nozzels on the new elevations, place the radiators on the top and the bottom and the rear end could host one medium or even heavy turret that would cover all the rear arc. This last posibility would also eliminate some of the 2 dimensional look of the ship.