yeah, I was thinking something like "Terrasphere 8" in the middle of your outpost, with the interior ship-docking berths removed. Keep all ships docked externally to the feet of the station.
The rest of the space along the external surface of the legs facing open interstellar space are escape pods, workbee storage, jeffries tubes/junctions, torpedo turrets / phasers, labs/classrooms (for Exobiology, Cryptozoology, etc.)
The uppermost module of the station is the "Promenade", "Observation Lounge", and "Op's". The internal side of the legs facing "park/arboretum" are the dorms/apartments, etc.
I like Hellsgate's idea. It would fit well up there. It certainly doesn't have to be on the scale of the Terrasphere!
Think of this, in the "daytime" the inside surface would be blue sky, and at night the illusion goes off and you can see out into the stars, and the four docking arms encompasing it.
So if you did that, that large arboredum on top of the station could serve another important purpose... a farm. No matter how common replicators are or how cheap energy becomes there is something soul-satisfying about tilling the soil with your own two hands. Live plants scrub the air. Scientists could run experiments, grow seeds and starts for far flung colony worlds, or grow algae for energy purposes. Or it could be a large cetacean tank.
One point unrelated to trees and granola. I really like the idea of scaffolding and such hanging off the sides of the station. Its logical, and I'm sure there is a way to make it look elegant. Go for it!! You know the interior of Earth Spacedock, all the spokes and pipes on the floor of it, I always thought was a sort of swiss army knife. Mechanical arms, manipultors, fuel booms, lights, scaffolds, any number of things could fold away neatly there. I don't know how you could do that with your design but I like the idea.
Well, all interesting ideas, but I'm pretty happy with the overall design at this stage, since it is the design I've been playing with for so long. Maybe another space station in the future, but the internal docking is one of my favorite aspects of this station. I will have greeble detailing and such on some of the underside portions of the station btw. Pipes, tanks, moorings and other extrusions will be placed strategically along the surface, but it will be conservative.
Just got back from my cruise, and have just started up the ole Lightwave again yesterday. I've started working on some more of the detailing and some landing bays here and there on the piers.
Posted some stuff on my blog but thought I'd put some up here too. I've started more details, placing more hanger bays in the lower sections, sprinkling docking rings throughout the piers, and modeling windows into the large pylons. There are quite a few more windows to stencil though. I've even begun the large spherical fuel tank placement towards the nadir of the station.
I've also added more detailing to the main docking gangways which I think is what I will concentrate on next. Have to seal the deck this weekend, but I think I will have some spare time to tinker with it. I've pulled some elements from previous model work to incorporate into it; the dry dock gangway with it's accordion like airlock, and the docking ring from the TMP style shuttle and travel pod will come in handy. I'll probably work on some of the larger docking bay interiors next since a number of the interior details will affect the eventual exterior facade.
Valkyrie: Yes, I'm stenciling the shapes in and smooth shifting the cut polygons back a tiny bit. Only the pylon windows and a few on the pier are cut like that though. The long stretches of windows along the circumference of the pier are still in the first blocking stages. They all look rather bland currently since the receded windows are just a glowing light blue shader. I'll eventually make them transparent and create some textured boxes to simulate interior environments. I must stress they will be low-level detailing as there are 92 decks (with windows) in those pylons alone.
I'll try to get some more images of the docking port up later this weekend. I just got my Ron Jones Next Generation soundtrack collection in today. With that and my deck seal looming, I might be a little preoccupied for a day or so.
Interesting. Though I was thinking there should be a through-deck fighter hangar in a cylindrical tower right straight down through the center of the station. Pop out torpedo / phaser emplacements, rcs thrusters, escape pods, subspace antennae, etc. A few fighters, freighters, etc. circling the station awaiting permission to dock.
Well, I am still in the early stages here. There will be RCS thrusters, escape pods, subspace antennae, as well as defensive armaments, however, some of those may not be readily visible. This station is being designed as more than a purely utilitarian station. There is some measure of aesthetics going on in its overall construction, though nothing lavish or opulent for its own sake. I suppose it has something to do (at least partially) with the symbolism of the station itself as a Federation port facility; It's a hub of diplomacy, commerce and trade, and it offers support services for Starfleet Command. It is not necessarily a frontier outpost, though any station of the class could be used as such. I've just devised and expanded this concept of Star Station India using the tiniest morsel of information from Trek lore.
I actually don't want anything extending down the center of the internal docking area however, and I really have no interest in through-deck fighter hangers. Individual fighter craft rarely enter into my Trek fiction notions, though I don't rule the concept out, especially with some evidence for such activities sprinkled throughout Star Trek Canon. Some of the hangers that have been constructed on the piers however, will have though-deck capabilities.
Nevertheless, the model is not complete, so all the buzzing activity of shuttles and vessels-in-waiting (besides the docked starships) has yet to be realized. The ships that I have placed were mostly meant to give the station some scale as well as give me a chance to display a variety of vessels. But considering some of the ships have yet to be completed, it's really just a tease.
I didn't have an ounce of strength left after we sealed our deck this weekend, so I don't have any updates ready to go. Hopefully I can retreat to my corner this evening and get some work done in the virtual world.
If I remember correctly TMP drydock also had mooring lines. There are just a lot of things you can stick into those piers to make them "full service."
Keep it up!!
I actually don't want anything extending down the center of the internal docking area however, and I really have no interest in through-deck fighter hangers. Individual fighter craft rarely enter into my Trek fiction notions
I can see that. Even though such things wouldn't be needed with antigravity and impulse drives, I could still see a space elevator subspace antenna dangling from the center to a planetary surface--say a planet with an atmosphere that acts as a technology dampening mist...
Publiusr: I hate to say it, but I really have no idea what you're talking about.
For a brief intermission, I'll put up some images of the Abbe class as I've tried to replace it entirely with elements of my own construct instead of using stand-in saucers and engine nacelles.
I haven't touched this ship in years until I pulled it out recently for this station and the Northampton test shots. Now I've finally begun work on the primary hull and her impulse engine cowling. Her impulse engine is especially interesting because of the way it is spread out due to the ship's interconnecting pylon structure.
in an attempt to see how others have interpreted Eric Kristiansen's design, I've been studying Enterprise-E's Abbe class model as well as some pictures of a resin kit from Thomas Models I downloaded a few years back. The only other reference I have is the first book the ship was listed in, before some impressive upgrades were made.
Nice, the panelling effect on the top section looks good! You're probably burned out, but you should get back to the Akyazi/Akula, as that was shaping up impressively!
The more I look at that gangway, the more I like it. It might not be "realistic," but it's large enough to be seen at a distance in a scene, and it says clearly "this is where the ship attaches to the station."
You mind if I swipe the basic idea for my station, Basill?
Thanks. Didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked this weekend, but I did make some progress. I replaced the low detail gangways with the slightly more detailed version I began modeling separately. That unfortunately became a memory nightmare when I had to replicate it over 40 times (and they are not even fully detailed), so I will probably keep those in an independent file for rendering purposes and stick to the low-detail stand-ins while modeling the station. I began replacing the "reservation spots" for the ring docking ports with modeled structures. I added even more pylon windows (but still not enough) and some landing bay details, but I got stumped when I began serious work on the concourses and maintenance bays that line the long piers. That was the conflagration Sunday turned into. I fried my brain looking up reference imagery and I just ended up organizing my image files.
We've known since the deHaviland Comet incidents of the 1950s that square windows on a structure subjected to changes in pressure lead to metal fatigue at the corners, which is why modern airliners have rounded corners. All the spacecraft I can recall seeing on Star Trek also have rounded corners.
Love this one. I'd love to see someone do a pencil sketch of the "Op's" Center or see Flanker do an M.S.D. of the "Lotus-Class" star station. Is there going to be a couple of Danube-Class runabouts rising-up on Runabout pads? Where's the phasers and torpedos at Red Alert going to come from?
Weapons (in my opinion) should be around the outermost edge of the central hub, both top and bottom. Gives you the most coverage for effective fire, I guess.
And there wouldn't be runabouts, but perhaps shuttles. Although a couple of shuttlebays probably wouldn't even show up very well in the grand scheme of this beast. I'd say a good spot would be in the middle of those dark gray spaces where all the windows are, right down near the bottom.
It would be amazing to see an animation sequence with a couple of those ships moving around and doing things, along with some docking procedures or cargo transfers going on.
Posts
The rest of the space along the external surface of the legs facing open interstellar space are escape pods, workbee storage, jeffries tubes/junctions, torpedo turrets / phasers, labs/classrooms (for Exobiology, Cryptozoology, etc.)
The uppermost module of the station is the "Promenade", "Observation Lounge", and "Op's". The internal side of the legs facing "park/arboretum" are the dorms/apartments, etc.
Think of this, in the "daytime" the inside surface would be blue sky, and at night the illusion goes off and you can see out into the stars, and the four docking arms encompasing it.
So if you did that, that large arboredum on top of the station could serve another important purpose... a farm. No matter how common replicators are or how cheap energy becomes there is something soul-satisfying about tilling the soil with your own two hands. Live plants scrub the air. Scientists could run experiments, grow seeds and starts for far flung colony worlds, or grow algae for energy purposes. Or it could be a large cetacean tank.
One point unrelated to trees and granola. I really like the idea of scaffolding and such hanging off the sides of the station. Its logical, and I'm sure there is a way to make it look elegant. Go for it!! You know the interior of Earth Spacedock, all the spokes and pipes on the floor of it, I always thought was a sort of swiss army knife. Mechanical arms, manipultors, fuel booms, lights, scaffolds, any number of things could fold away neatly there. I don't know how you could do that with your design but I like the idea.
Just got back from my cruise, and have just started up the ole Lightwave again yesterday. I've started working on some more of the detailing and some landing bays here and there on the piers.
I've also added more detailing to the main docking gangways which I think is what I will concentrate on next. Have to seal the deck this weekend, but I think I will have some spare time to tinker with it. I've pulled some elements from previous model work to incorporate into it; the dry dock gangway with it's accordion like airlock, and the docking ring from the TMP style shuttle and travel pod will come in handy. I'll probably work on some of the larger docking bay interiors next since a number of the interior details will affect the eventual exterior facade.
EDIT: I love that swiss army docking port!! never know who's docking!
Valkyrie: Yes, I'm stenciling the shapes in and smooth shifting the cut polygons back a tiny bit. Only the pylon windows and a few on the pier are cut like that though. The long stretches of windows along the circumference of the pier are still in the first blocking stages. They all look rather bland currently since the receded windows are just a glowing light blue shader. I'll eventually make them transparent and create some textured boxes to simulate interior environments. I must stress they will be low-level detailing as there are 92 decks (with windows) in those pylons alone.
I'll try to get some more images of the docking port up later this weekend. I just got my Ron Jones Next Generation soundtrack collection in today. With that and my deck seal looming, I might be a little preoccupied for a day or so.
I actually don't want anything extending down the center of the internal docking area however, and I really have no interest in through-deck fighter hangers. Individual fighter craft rarely enter into my Trek fiction notions, though I don't rule the concept out, especially with some evidence for such activities sprinkled throughout Star Trek Canon. Some of the hangers that have been constructed on the piers however, will have though-deck capabilities.
Nevertheless, the model is not complete, so all the buzzing activity of shuttles and vessels-in-waiting (besides the docked starships) has yet to be realized. The ships that I have placed were mostly meant to give the station some scale as well as give me a chance to display a variety of vessels. But considering some of the ships have yet to be completed, it's really just a tease.
I didn't have an ounce of strength left after we sealed our deck this weekend, so I don't have any updates ready to go. Hopefully I can retreat to my corner this evening and get some work done in the virtual world.
I'd love to see some flood lights like TMP drydock (folding away into the pier like a pocket knife)
And manipulator arms (again, folding away like a pocket knife)
More pics of Enterprise's drydock:
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/enterprise-drydock/
If I remember correctly TMP drydock also had mooring lines. There are just a lot of things you can stick into those piers to make them "full service."
Keep it up!!
Here's a little something on the gangway as it comes along.
I can see that. Even though such things wouldn't be needed with antigravity and impulse drives, I could still see a space elevator subspace antenna dangling from the center to a planetary surface--say a planet with an atmosphere that acts as a technology dampening mist...
Publiusr: I hate to say it, but I really have no idea what you're talking about.
For a brief intermission, I'll put up some images of the Abbe class as I've tried to replace it entirely with elements of my own construct instead of using stand-in saucers and engine nacelles.
I haven't touched this ship in years until I pulled it out recently for this station and the Northampton test shots. Now I've finally begun work on the primary hull and her impulse engine cowling. Her impulse engine is especially interesting because of the way it is spread out due to the ship's interconnecting pylon structure.
in an attempt to see how others have interpreted Eric Kristiansen's design, I've been studying Enterprise-E's Abbe class model as well as some pictures of a resin kit from Thomas Models I downloaded a few years back. The only other reference I have is the first book the ship was listed in, before some impressive upgrades were made.
someone on here done a bang up abbe class.. Awhile back! i'll look and see if i have the images somewhere
You mind if I swipe the basic idea for my station, Basill?
We've known since the deHaviland Comet incidents of the 1950s that square windows on a structure subjected to changes in pressure lead to metal fatigue at the corners, which is why modern airliners have rounded corners. All the spacecraft I can recall seeing on Star Trek also have rounded corners.
Just a stray thought... not picking nits.
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
And there wouldn't be runabouts, but perhaps shuttles. Although a couple of shuttlebays probably wouldn't even show up very well in the grand scheme of this beast. I'd say a good spot would be in the middle of those dark gray spaces where all the windows are, right down near the bottom.
It would be amazing to see an animation sequence with a couple of those ships moving around and doing things, along with some docking procedures or cargo transfers going on.