The 13th Tribe Book II: A Symphony of War

[DKeith2011]

Dreadnaught update, I'll pass replies along to the artists asap.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5HA153iXX6smTBdh9

My thoughts;
Proportions look about right.
What is visible of the engine array looks good.
Not sure about the bridge stack.
The weapons trench definitely needs to be opened up full length through those midship boxes.
I think a Battlestar style chin recess for the big guns would look better than the blunt nose.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Dreadnaught update, I'll pass replies along to the artists asap.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5HA153iXX6smTBdh9

My thoughts;
Proportions look about right.
What is visible of the engine array looks good.
Not sure about the bridge stack.
The weapons trench definitely needs to be opened up full length through those midship boxes.
I think a Battlestar style chin recess for the big guns would look better than the blunt nose.

Looking good! Proportions look good, as does the trench size, but yeah, the trench should be full-length all the way along The bow should be narrower as well, to allow the forward groups of turrets on the flanks to fire forwards. If he pulled the bow in so it's no wider than that slightly raised section it should work nicely. And yeah, a Battlestar-type chin recess for the main battery would work better. The engine array is looking great, as for the bridge stack, I'd say it needs to be a little taller and a bit further forward

[DKeith2011]

On the bow do you mean the out or inner raised areas?

[Eternal_Freedom]

The innermost, most raised area.

[DKeith2011]

How about the chin recess going back to the forward edge of the little sunken area over the trench?

Make the bridge stack about half again taller and move it forward to the center of that rectangular area?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yes to both

[DKeith2011]

Ok. I'll get all that turned in for changes now.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Excellent

[DKeith2011]

Hows the detailing of the other Tau'ri ships coming?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Slightly stalled. I can more-or-less see the outline of the American Yorktowns but I can't quite decide on some details. As for the Russian Auroras I just don't know.

[DKeith2011]

Maybe this will help with the Americans - http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Spaceshi ... S-210.html

As for the Russians....

Let me think.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's a model we considered before, I like the overall look but I'd like to make it less like a Battlestar with separate hanger-pods

[DKeith2011]

I keep looping back to the mental image of the Russian ship being not too different from a massively enlarged boomer sub.

Take the Red October and feed it some steroids and we're good to go.

[Eternal_Freedom]

While the idea of a giant Red October flying through space with Marko Ramius at the helm is hilarious...it's a bit far even for me

For the Russian ship, I was actually thinking of something a lot more skeletal - the 304's have large, heavy hull panels, as does the Dreadnought and (most likely) the Yorktowns. But the Russian ships are true battlecruisers, relying on speed, shields and heavy missile batteries, so having hull armour seems unnecessary.

[DKeith2011]

Are we talking Macross Missile Massacre here or what?

[fnord]

While the idea of a giant Red October flying through space with Marko Ramius at the helm is hilarious...it's a bit far even for me

Seems like it would fit perfectly, but the Shchorpia Shchoolmashter (Colonial remixsh) mosht likely went down shwinging with hish battleshtar.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Are we talking Macross Missile Massacre here or what?

Pretty much yeah. I'm thinking that the Russian ship will have heavy PD armament, perhaps one twin plasma beam or twin heavy coilgun turret like Dreadnought carries, and the rest will be missile batteries, in a variety of sizes - from swarms of AA missiles to anti-ship missiles to the really big heavyweights like the Colonial groundstrike missiles (the ones with eight 50 gigaton warheads, shields and ECM gear).

Essentially, I envisage it as a real-world Kirov class missile cruiser...IN SPACE.

Also, fnord: honestly I haven't really considered what my Mikhail Kirov looks like, but since his stated accent is effectively Russian, I will simply envisage him as Marko Ramius and leave it at that

[fnord]

Would be giggleworthy (to me, at least) if Kirov mentions Ramius en passant, perhaps as a teacher or mentor - you might be running a little short on shout outs.

[DKeith2011]

Random question for the crowd, has anyone here read Axis of Time books by John Birmingham?

[DKeith2011]

This might not be a bad start for the Russian boat

American supercarrier inspiration?

Gratuitous guns!!!

[Eternal_Freedom]

The torpedo destroyer and super/battlecarrier models are interesting, though I was more envisaging the Yorktowns as being like, well, those Fifth Element ships but with longitudinal landing decks on the centerline, probably four or six, entered from the bow and lateral hanger/launch bays underneath - so two/three port and two/three starboard landing decks, with a layer of hanger, maintenance and launch bays outboard of each - but unlike Battlestars, this is all within one big armoured hull. No elegance, no streamlining, just flight decks, point defence mounts and maybe one or two heavy turrets. The command/bridge tower would be kept though.

Basically, I want it to look like a carrier but not follow either real-life carrier design exactly or Battlestar design - so lateral launch bays but no separate pods, longitudinal landing decks but approach from forward, like a Venator Star Destroyer. While the Kobolians have helped with the design, these are still RN/USN/Russian - designed ships.

The Russian battlecruisers I envisage as being quite skeletal but also quite modular - they'd have a substantial engine section, a forward command section with some energy/coilgun turrets, but the middle would be modular missile batteries - perhaps 6 or so on each axis (port, starboard, dorsal, ventral) - the idea being that whole batteries can be "swapped out" either for reloading back at Elysium Base (or from Nidavellir or Safe Harbour) or for different mission profiles. So a "General purpose" loadout for running solo would be, say, 3 AA batteries per axis and 3 anti-ship, but if they were running with anti-air support, you might take all anti-ship. Or if you were fighting a fighter-heavy enemy (like the Wraith) and had, say, Dreadnought along to handle enemy capships, you might swap out for 5 AA batteries and only one anti-ship battery per axis, or some variation thereof.

[DKeith2011]

Lets see...

Chunky engine section - Check

Forward command section - Check

Thin, modular connecting structure between them - Check

That sounds an awful lot like Babylon 5 Omega Destroyers and Nova Dreadnaughts

[DKeith2011]

The Poseidon class fits the bill for the Yorktown pretty well too, just drop the spin section.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You're right, both those designs are pretty close to what I envisage, though set at the (standard for Tau'ri capships) 1600-metre length range.

[DKeith2011]

Cool. They can be used as a starting point for the next pics then.