Something big

[Count Chocula]

Two words (yeah spam post warning): hot shit! I'm a semi-gifted amateur at Corel, but this...this makes me look like I'm in kindergarten.

EDIT: hey, page snipe! Yahoo.

[fractalsponge1]

Had these shots ready last night but couldn't be bothered to post them :

[fractalsponge1]

Some more stuff from this morning.

[Knife]

Any thought on what the dome like structure is? You've got it a couple times in that photo so I thought you either just like it as filler or have some use of it in mind.

[fractalsponge1]

I was thinking part of the fuel/engine coolant system, but really didn't give it too much thought.

[fractalsponge1]

So I've been doodling again. I was thinking of going through the list of unfinished ships in SWTC's catalogue, and blocking out a few of the designs a bit. (The customs corvette will be finished, but this snagged my attention a bit). No guarantees about finishing any of these in a timely manner, just throwing some ideas out. Once the corvette is finished I might go back to some of these and actually do a proper mesh.

Hoping to get some rough sketches of:
Tector, Dominator, Ecliptic/heavy frigate, light/medium cruiser, battlecruiser (Tagge/Wermis), carrier (Giel), battleship (Giel)

First up: anonymous star cruiser #1 ("Urbanus")





~3.15km long, a near match for an Allegiance actually - around 13 petatons per second output vs capacitor-fed alpha in the 14s for Allegiance (sustained ~12 petatons). This is balanced by a much larger fighter and troop complement; that and the Allegiance being barely destroyer-spec to begin with. I'm thinking triple heavy ion (240-teraton equivalent) and missiles in the brim notches, mass twin DBY827 70s as the rest of the armament.

Essentially a multi-role light cruiser in the same vein as an ISD. Additional ground and fighter supplement for destroyer squadrons it might expect to be leading. ~2-3 legion/battlegroup sized ground contingent, room for deployment of heavy armor. Fighters: Group scale, ~6 wings. Acceleration enough to keep up with destroyers, fast but not stellar; maybe ~3300g, vs 3500g for Allegiance and 3500-3700g ISD. About the same as the bare-bones Procursator light destroyer, a hair more than a Bellator.

[fractalsponge1]

Bit of refinement:

[fractalsponge1]

Oh, and here's a little something I put together this afternoon.

[Ekiqa]

Are those folding mechanisms on the wings?

I didn't know the Starwing did fold it's wings.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Oh, nice.

SWTC's Anon Star Cruiser I is about this length, and what I was using as the model and reference for what I called the Urbanus/ City class light cruiser; seen in the distance over Byss, the sloping superstructure probably could look like that up close.

I had been thinkng of them as significantly slower than that, somewhere around 2800 'g' in a more generalist role as opposed to Anon- III, with very low superstructure, having a generally lighter hull and being up around that range as a pursuit/interceptor type; but looking at that engine bank, yep, it's fast. Probably necessarily so, for a destroyer squadron leadship and long-ranging independent unit. (Which leaves poor Anon-III without a tactical role to fill. Oh well, it's not as if the Anon-IIIs were good looking ships anyway.)

Actually, looking at the notches in the brim trench, it is an Anon Star Cruiser I, isn't it? Same number and arrangement. Looking at my notes I had come up with a damned wierd armament layout which, well, I think I'll just wait and see- but which did make heavy use of that sloping, tiered superstructure to mount centreline turrets.

The Starwing, good- was the cockpit really that prominent, though? In TIE fighter, it had the same launch sequence as the TIEs, from a rack, the fins folded for that and unfolded after drop, and were always seen folding up again in the return-via-hyperjump cut scene.

This is good, good stuff.

[fractalsponge1]

Yep, that cruiser is supposed to be anonymous #1. I even called the file names urbanus I'm following your general arrangement of the SWTC catalogue, because it's the most plausible and structured one around. ECR - We need to swap notes - many ideas to pillage for ships . I will trade you a bespoke capital ship or something :p.

I figured that this design (urbanus), generalist or not, really needs to be fast to be able to keep up with destroyers. So at least 3000g if the ISD can hit 3500-3700g. I was trying for a Venator-style cylindrical nozzle setup with many secondaries. I figure this would be one of the heavier types built late clone wars to complement the ISDs coming off the line. The extra engines in the revision also make it look like it would actually be fast enough to keep up.

Anon 3 could still be a pursuit type, possibly just really fast for something that size, like proper destroyer 3500g speed, but trading a lot of the armament the hull could otherwise have mounted. Maybe still 13-14 petaton alpha, despite being even bigger than urbanus and allegiance. Possibly twitchy and unreliable, likely poorly balanced. Probably wretchedly hard to put down though.

Anon 2 would be a stolid medium cruiser design, heavy guns for heavy targets, designed for proper set-piece work and slower at 2500-2700g, meant to be tied to heavier vessels. Sort of like the cruiser equivalent to the Victory. A beast for its size; don't let it catch you.

Anon 4 and 5 almost pocket battlecruiser independent types. 20-30 petaton range. Fast, solid, no compromises, and expensive.

As for the starwing:
The cockpit here is actually less obvious than the hangar cutscene from tie fighter. That one had a much shorter body and a bigger snout. This version is also a bit bigger, 19-20m long.

Size comparison:

[Teleros]

I haven't seen the original pictures, but looking at the Urbanus images it seems to have too many engine nozzles - there are what, 19 on it in all? I'm just wondering if having fewer, larger nozzles would look better (or perhaps get rid of some of the smaller ones and replace with some of the usual bits of machinery)...?

[fractalsponge1]

Hm, I think ECR may have been right about the cockpit. Here's a bit of re-scaling. I think I have the dimensions down now. Also some light plating/rivets etc.

[fractalsponge1]

bit more panel

[Vympel]

I didn't know the Starwing did fold it's wings.

Course it does. Watch the launch sequence in TIE Fighter.

Re: ship bridges - have you considered rendering something different from the usual ISD style? Maybe something along the lines of the bridge of the Acclamator or Venator?

[fractalsponge1]

The Starwing does fold, well, all its wings. Must be a bitch to store in the context of the regular tie racks though. Though since it doesn't look like TIEs are stacked on on top of the other, I suppose it could use the same rack slot as a bomber, just with different attachment mechanisms and hanging down much farther.

Re the second point:
Well, I haven't really done a ship small enough to warrant that module type

I was thinking of doing the combat version of the acclamator, but it's a bit too close to the original for my taste. Odd ship, actually, there must be some massive changes to the internal arrangement compared to the acclamator itself, but only marginal (ventral at least) external changes. The Rand Ecliptic, on the other hand, would be a fun thing to try. That or a modernized variant thereof, based roughly on the acclamator hull, but with a similar bridge module arrangement.

[fractalsponge1]

Yes, the Starwing assault gunboat from the X-Wing series games.

Some more work: (very boring flat surfaces)

[fractalsponge1]

Another angle:



next up, updates to the guns.

[TheMuffinKing]

Wow! Fantastic ships, I am jealous of your modeling skills.

[fractalsponge1]

Updated the upper cannons, and cut insets for the wing actuators:

[Alan Bolte]

Looking good. I'll be interested to see how you decide to do the missile launchers: bare missiles, tubes, etc. It always seemed a bit odd that the ship had 12 missile tips exposed, but could fire 16 missiles, or various numbers of other armaments in the later games.

That's an interesting interpretation of the folding-wing concept, a bit more like the Lambda than than the original, though the actuators are much less robust-looking than the Lambda or X-Wing. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you'd fit bigger actuators into a space which is already supposed to contain the missile launchers and engines. I'm not sure how the original ship's wings were supposed to fold. The artist apparently overlooked the necessity of actuators.

[Alyeska]

I love the Assault Gunboat, always have. The games always portrayed it short on the missile capacity. With such few guns but such a large missile arrangement, the Gunboat would make a frightful strike platform.

[fusion]

Amazing as always.
The question is what will make you work faster because I want a custom corvette....

Anyways, why is the last render more realistic than the rest? Or is it me?

[Lord Revan]

Amazing as always.
The question is what will make you work faster because I want a custom corvette....

Anyways, why is the last render more realistic than the rest? Or is it me?

probably as most these seem to be "work in progress" so the last renders have all the details that make them look "realistic"

also correct me if I was wrong but didn't the assault gun boat 2 guns "top" and 2 guns "side"?

[fractalsponge1]

Looking good. I'll be interested to see how you decide to do the missile launchers: bare missiles, tubes, etc. It always seemed a bit odd that the ship had 12 missile tips exposed, but could fire 16 missiles, or various numbers of other armaments in the later games.

That's an interesting interpretation of the folding-wing concept, a bit more like the Lambda than than the original, though the actuators are much less robust-looking than the Lambda or X-Wing. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you'd fit bigger actuators into a space which is already supposed to contain the missile launchers and engines. I'm not sure how the original ship's wings were supposed to fold. The artist apparently overlooked the necessity of actuators.

The artists overlooked many things - but they probably also had like a 100 polygon limit :p.

Here are the missile launchers:



Soft covers for warheads carried internally.

The only way the warhead load makes sense to me is to have a modular system based on multiples of 12. The X-Wing torpedoes from ANH are actually rather small compared to what a gunboat can mount (which are something like 18" diameter warheads - how amusing is that number?). Larger diameter and also longer, stacked two deep per launcher. A "heavy rocket" would just be a double/triple length missile with more warhead space than engine space, so you get the twelve that appears in the TIE Fighter games. Concussion missiles, might even be quad-packable, depending on type, but usually two deep like proton torps. Less weight for slightly better performance, which makes sense since a concussion loadout would be for space superiority or intruder missions, not full-on strike. Take the launcher system out (and I imagine it can be slid out fairly easily), and you can replace it with racks for free-fall proton bombs or seismic charges for heavy ground attack.



Also some wing detail, including a patch of exposed radiator (looks better this way than the odd slash color markings from the games, imo)

As for the wing cannons, patience will be rewarded These won't be pea shooters either, but rather heavy deals - just wait for them.