i like those ships and the detail is good. renders are much too dark though. i assuming that they are some kind of starship, if so remember that starships and water ships are quite different, for a start you MUST have turrets on the underside as well as the upper deck. overall i prefer the iowa class derived one as it looks a bit more like a spacecraft. if these are steampunk airship of some kind then you can get away with making themvery ship like, otherwise remember space is 3D the ocean is 2D.
Preaching to the choir, spacefighter. Most of the complaints I've gotten in feedback on this is that they're *too* symmetrical between the top and bottom half.
Since the other renders were dark, I made some new ones. Appreciate these, they're high res (right click and save should do it), and took between five and ten minutes each to render due to the Ambient Occlusion shader and being so close to the camera (I think that's it at least.)
Also, while I was rendering these, I made a zip file this ship and all its bits and pieces so whoever wants to can play with it for a bit. This is not a finished ship, there's bits and pieces floating around (the foremast in particular springs to mind) and a lot of detail is missing. The format is Lightwave 9.5, dunno how it opens in previous versions, and it will probably complain about a missing cache file when opened. Ignore that, report back to me if it complains about anything else and I'll fix it.
Looking good, although the upside down exhaust stacks seem pretty weird to me. Does the bottom half of the ship have its artificial gravity going the other direction? It doesn't seem quite right that the bottom structures would be exact mirror images of the top structures, otherwise . . . but that's just my own opinion. Keep up your good work and follow your vision!
Looking good, although the upside down exhaust stacks seem pretty weird to me. Does the bottom half of the ship have its artificial gravity going the other direction? It doesn't seem quite right that the bottom structures would be exact mirror images of the top structures, otherwise . . . but that's just my own opinion. Keep up your good work and follow your vision!
Thanks for the feedback!
I've been working on replacements for some of the "how does this work when upside down" stuff that don't look like they need an operator on deck today:
This is the replacement I'm using for the old Oerlikon pedestals - a remote weapon station I built while looking at a picture of the Typhoon system mounted on the new Singapore Navy frigates. I could only find one picture of this particular version, so I have no idea what the back is supposed to look like or anything, nor do I know what size the original is (as it's not in the official brochure), but it looked cool so I just rolled with it. The final version is a little squatter than this, as I'd gotten the proportions wrong. There are currenly more than ninety of these aboard my Iowa, and I'm not sure I've installed all the ones that I'm supposed to yet...
Another boring old overall shot, with all the guns in place. This was before I started on my next step:
Rebuilding the pedestals for the Bofors guns and their directors. I'm getting rid of the splinter shields (which looked ugly), at least for the moment. They might be back if I figure out a neat-looking design for them. In front of the Bofors mounts are a pair of the new Typhoon-style guns, you can see how tiny they are in comparison to the others. Also, as a scaling aid, look at the director pedestal on the right hand side of the image, and you'll see my friend the hardcore Navy Seal. (He's hardcore because he doesn't need a space suit to go EVA. He's had to learn how to survive without one because I suck at making them...)
The forward deckhouse has received some attention as well, with new pedestals and platforms, plus some goodies I cut-and-pasted from the North Carolina on top of the conning tower. I'll be replacing the bridge enclosure with one with vertical sides, possibly tonight - the current one is a pain in the ass to work with due to how it was built, so I'm going to do it all over. Again.
A new bridge enclosure, finished last night before I fell asleep:
Aside from the decks, which I cheated with, this version is completely made from quads, with not a single boolean hole drilled. And, unlike the other versions I've made, I didn't have to adjust the size of any of the window panes, they are all identical, as are the armored shutters that go with them (they're nearly invisible in the render but they're there).
Next up will be the "flying bridge", which will be a bit more involved but should still be doable with the same method.
I still have to light the insides, but I've got the consoles and seats all built and installed. I counted 51 chairs on the main bridge level, and I probably missed a few, and another twenty on the flag bridge on the deck below. Each operator has a pair of 24" MFD displays with buttons all around it. I'll need to come up with some interesting textures for the lot of them...
I finished up the lighting for the bridge (well, not really, I made a very provisional lighting rig that does the job but not perfectly, but I can work with it), and made some clutter and stuff to make it look like a real workplace. Then I pressed the render button and waited... for about 15 minutes. The result?
There are a few weird shadows due to the type of lights I used, but I can fix that later, or switch to a differnt type of light (that might actually render faster), but for now this will do. To make sure the light falloff works properly as well I made an external render:
As far as I can tell, the light stays where it's supposed to, which is nice.
I like the design of the ships, but the mirrored bottom of the ship to me doesn't make sense. What about making it more like a Battleship Yamoto style? With just a hull, sensors and maybe some anti missile/fighter defenses?
This whole project originally started because I thought most of the ships I'd seen thus far were lacking in ventral armament. I mean, space is 3D, why are they leaving half of the ship mostly undefended?
Most of the mirrored parts are either armament, targeting sensors, or the support structures for the above. I've already left off the bridge, and on several of the smalller ships I've replaced the smokestacks with a large fin, though I've held off here because I'm trying to figure out how to make one that fits all of the battleships.
As for the gravity, the internal gravity is all in one direction, but both external decks can generate their own gravity as well. This is part of the reason why the deck height is so large (5 meters!) - to make room for the gravity generators and inertial compensators etc. Artificial gravity in general is usually turned off when in an external gravity field, but there's no reason beyond that (and disorientation/vertigo) why a crewman wouldn't be able to walk on the bottom of the ship even while flying in an atmosphere... the exception is the wings, where the main repulsors/propulsors are located - those are responsible for keeping the ship flying, and attempting to walk there will get you propelled very swiftly into the ground.
the inside of the bridge looks good although you may wish to site such an important and vulnerable part of the ship deep in the hull, it is right to have defences and weapons below and this is much more plausible than space battleship yamato's design. i would not see a reason for smoke stacks on a starship, if any smoke is produced you want to direct it out of the back at the highest speed possible so it provides some thrust. maybe redesign the underside so that artificial gravity can act in the same direction across the whole ship, this means editing the shapes slightly and basing the smaller gun turrets more on ball turrets from world war 2 bombers, the large turrets should remain the same shape but if you model their insides make the "roof" of the turret the "floor" on which the operators stand. and by the way, what are you burning that you need smoke stacks for? isn't the ship nuclear powered, even if you are trying to make it quite retro remember that the first nuclear submarine the nautilus was put to sea in 1955 only a decade or so after the iowa class on which your ship is based entered service.
The external bridges are just the visible parts of the command and control facilities, and not even the combat use parts. The "main" bridge here is used as a control center for docking and deck ops, and as a place to show off to dignitaries and press when doing port visits. Most of those people will never have been to a warship, but they might have been on civilian ships and having a bridge with windows is kind of expected.
In combat, the external bridge spaces are evacuated and the armored shutters lowered, and command is transferred inside. Helm control is handled in the armored conning tower (which the bridge is built around), and combat functions are handled below the main deck in a dedicated CIC.
Out of universe, the smokestacks are mainly there because they're a primary recognition feature for the real-world ships - they're part of how you tell the difference between the various ship classes. In universe, I'm still bouncing around ideas for what they're for. They don't emit smoke or steam, at least. Right now I'm thinking of them as air intake/filtration/separation systems for when the ship does an atmopshere dip, with the fin on the bottom (not built yet) being for cooling and liquid intake.
The ball turret thing has potential, I've actually been thinking about it for the Bofors equivalents. The problem is making them squat enough, though I think I can do that with a little work. They'll function more like oversized FLIR turrets with guns in the nose than regular ball turrets, though.
what part of the render do you want comments about?heregoes all my thoughts on it:
background turrets are too boxy for my liking but i do not think that maters on a ship that is already very unaerodynamic.
guns in those turrets are nice but i cannot get a good look from that distance.
windows are perhaps too big, remember they would cause structural weakness and smaller windows are still adequate for allowing the "bridge" crew to observe outside the ship.
like the yellow glow in the portholes, also sensible no corners shape for a starship's windows as it will minimize stresses to avoid the problems the dehavilland comet airliner suffered.
think fencing on decks is a bit stupid, why would a starship's crew wander around on deck? are there force fields to protect them(pretty vulnerable) or must they faff around to put on spacesuits when they need to go between turrets? or are they only for use in safe breathable(or atleast not hugely harmful) atmospheres where there is earth sea level air pressure? seems unneccesary.
liking the overall imposing nature of your ship.
rounded turret is good but i cannot see how the guns change elevation(no slits above and below the barrels) or does the whole ball rotate( which is probably a good idea).
little sensor array thing behind that turret is alright but maybe make the mounting for it larger and the ball part smaller.
don't see why there is that (cannot remember correct nautical term)"thing" for wrapping ropes/chains around on the lower of the decks in your image or do the ships use chains/cables/ropes to assist in docking. box of sensors/targeting equipment protruding from left hand side of turret at forward end of picture is a good feature.
liking overall positions of decks and shape of area below bridge.
First off, have you tried opening the picture in a new window? The render is 1920x1080, so it's not like the picture is really as small as the forum software makes it out to be... Also, whitespace and capitalization? Please?
The background turrets are based on the USN 5-inch/38 twin mounts, and yeah they're a bit boxy. They're also not as detailed as they're supposed to be, but this whole thing is a work in progress. We're still going places...
The windows on the bridge are not just big, they're actually absolutely huge. They're 1.46 meters tall by 1.96 meters wide (essentially, a 1.5 x 2 m rectangle beveled 20 mm to form a frame). I could shrink them some, but it would be a pain in the ass because I'd have to rebuild the whole bridge enclosure if I want the windows to be narrower. (Essentially, the whole thing is made up of welded together plates which I had made holes for a single window in...) Changing the height of the windows could be done easier, but I've already shrunk them quite a bit and if I make them even squatter the proportions will look off, to me at least.
The portholes are provisional right now, they're only staying until I start making the interior of the superstructure decks beyond the bridge, and then the current portholes will be replaced by actual holes with glass in them, lit from behind by interior lighting. I actually came up with a trick for making portholes that were black when in the sunlight, but lit up yellow in the dark - basically, I set the diffuse value to a negative. I'm not using it right now because the effects sometimes becomes very weird, like when a porthole is half in shadow. It works best at a distance. Also, round portholes are due to the source material - I just rolled with that.
The railings are, shall we say, a sop to tradition or something? In space, every surface you could concievably stand on has its own gravity, including the sides of the hull, but in an atmosphere that's usually turned off to focus on keeping the ship hovering. Going outside then is possible, and actually common in some circumstances, so the railings are there to prevent accidents.
Yes, when operating in a suitable atmosphere, the crew *will* be doing stuff like swabbing the decks and painting the sides in a traditional naval manner. Because it's the navy, and it's tradition, dammit. For the same reason, the ships have actual flags (that are made from metamaterials that mimic flapping in the wind even where there is none...). If naval engineers had come up with a way of powering a shuttlecraft through muscle power, you can bet there'd be rowboats somewhere as well...
If you think this single ship is imposing, you should see the fleet of them together. I have basic models for all of the 1940s US battleships and cruisers, and three destroyer classes, with individual models for all the battleships and several of the major variations of the cruisers and destroyers. I've just been working on details on them for a year and a half or so, with an occasional new ship started when I need a break...
I have a closer look at the new round turret for you here:
Like a FLIR turret, the center section of the turret rotates in elevation. I've not decided whether it's manned or not (it's big enough at least, at 6.6 meters in diameter!) but if it is, this section has its own gravity that follows the rotation of the guns.
I've redone the director, as I thought the ball-on-a-stick looked a little large and heavy, I'll be reusing that as a smaller model mounted on top of the bridge, I think.
Thanks for the comments. Oh, and by the way, check out this place for the pictures I'm using as a reference while building, and you'll see why certain things look the way they do:
You wouldn't by any chance happen to be in China, or behind some corporate firewall? I host my stuff on Dropbox, and you seem to be the only one who's complained. (You did that once before, IIRC). I can try switching to Skydrive, but that's about as far as I want to go, as this manual upload crap takes way too much time and is subject to size limits, random recompression and resizing, and occasional culling. Ick to that.
It's very weird that you can't even view public files on dropbox, that doesn't require an account or anything, just a https access... I've had trouble myself a time or two, but it usually clears up on its own in a few minutes.
I'll upload my stuff to my photobucket account, but good luck getting the full size pics from there since the change in UI...
All the guns are in place, and I've tinkered a bit with the directors. I loaded up the North Carolina for comparison purposes, going to start on Iowa's mast next and I'll be using NC as a parts source.
Last render before I went to sleep last night, just loaded up the whole set of battleships to check which ones need more work most urgently (and which can be fixed up to the latest standard the fastest...) I'll probably not use the same model of light gun for any of the other ships, the newer ones will get twin mounts and the older one will get older versions of the Typhoon deck mount, to show some design progression.
Foremast in place, just need to set new endpoints for the stays and flaglines. Mainmast is a work in progress, it's more different from that on the BB-55 than the foremast and I'll have to go hunting for references...
I've added some raised panels to the wing's upper surface (I've held off on the lower ones, they'll be a different color and have some different details to represent the main repulsors, if I can come up with them) and some maneuvering thrusters. The latter could use a bit more work, but the principle is sound so I'll be adding some of these to the sides forward and aft as well.
Then, we come to the angle I've been avoiding showing in renders for a week, as it looks so dumb. It's not just merely bare, there's really nothing there! But the basic shape of the engine block things was sound, so I rolled with it. Oh, and notice the flags in place on the mainmast and flagstaff (aft). I found a picture showing the Iowa entering port with a jack at the jackstaff (bow), a three-star admiral's flag at the top of the foremast, and an ensign at the mainmast and aft. Now I know where to put all those things .
Voila, the new main thrusters. now it's starting to look spaceworthy again.
I agree they look blank, but I'm not sure what to add. Part of me wants to say that the wingtips would be *excellent* places to put docking ports since they're the part that would come closest to any ship or station, but then there's the problem of having a docking port of all things right in the middle of where the enemy is aiming. Then again, there's precedence for that (the real ships really do have their docking facilities right smack dab in the middle). So... I think I'll go with the docking, or at least refuelling facilities.
A couple of people on another forum complained that the ball turrets clash horribly with the rest of the style. I wasn't sure what to tell them, other than this:
And that the ship's underside looks much less strange with the new turrets. I'm actually almost done getting away from the need to have artificial gravity on the outside decks at all - topside, planetary gravity will do when the ship is in atmosphere, and for EVA there's magnetic boots, same as on the Enterprise.
This is where the main replenishment ports for water and liquid air will be located. I have some old docking collars that I'll be using for this. I'll be building some form of winch structure to help guide the flexible hoses in place, though making the hoses themselves will be problematic with my present skill at such things. I think. It might turn out to be really easy...
The battleship has two of these apertures per side since it can also be used to replenish smaller ships (similar to how a carrier nowadays carries fuel for her escorts, as it needs none for herself). Destroyers and cruisers will only have a single bay per side, and the destroyer bays will be smaller (by neccessity, the wingtips aren't big enough...)
Posts
Preaching to the choir, spacefighter.
Since the other renders were dark, I made some new ones. Appreciate these, they're high res (right click and save should do it), and took between five and ten minutes each to render due to the Ambient Occlusion shader and being so close to the camera (I think that's it at least.)
Also, while I was rendering these, I made a zip file this ship and all its bits and pieces so whoever wants to can play with it for a bit. This is not a finished ship, there's bits and pieces floating around (the foremast in particular springs to mind) and a lot of detail is missing. The format is Lightwave 9.5, dunno how it opens in previous versions, and it will probably complain about a missing cache file when opened. Ignore that, report back to me if it complains about anything else and I'll fix it.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70565045/battleships/BB-61/BB-61.zip
Cheers!
Thanks for the feedback!
I've been working on replacements for some of the "how does this work when upside down" stuff that don't look like they need an operator on deck today:
This is the replacement I'm using for the old Oerlikon pedestals - a remote weapon station I built while looking at a picture of the Typhoon system mounted on the new Singapore Navy frigates. I could only find one picture of this particular version, so I have no idea what the back is supposed to look like or anything, nor do I know what size the original is (as it's not in the official brochure), but it looked cool so I just rolled with it. The final version is a little squatter than this, as I'd gotten the proportions wrong. There are currenly more than ninety of these aboard my Iowa, and I'm not sure I've installed all the ones that I'm supposed to yet...
Another boring old overall shot, with all the guns in place. This was before I started on my next step:
Rebuilding the pedestals for the Bofors guns and their directors. I'm getting rid of the splinter shields (which looked ugly), at least for the moment. They might be back if I figure out a neat-looking design for them. In front of the Bofors mounts are a pair of the new Typhoon-style guns, you can see how tiny they are in comparison to the others. Also, as a scaling aid, look at the director pedestal on the right hand side of the image, and you'll see my friend the hardcore Navy Seal. (He's hardcore because he doesn't need a space suit to go EVA. He's had to learn how to survive without one because I suck at making them...)
The forward deckhouse has received some attention as well, with new pedestals and platforms, plus some goodies I cut-and-pasted from the North Carolina on top of the conning tower. I'll be replacing the bridge enclosure with one with vertical sides, possibly tonight - the current one is a pain in the ass to work with due to how it was built, so I'm going to do it all over. Again.
Cheers for now, see you all later!
Aside from the decks, which I cheated with, this version is completely made from quads, with not a single boolean hole drilled. And, unlike the other versions I've made, I didn't have to adjust the size of any of the window panes, they are all identical, as are the armored shutters that go with them (they're nearly invisible in the render but they're there).
Next up will be the "flying bridge", which will be a bit more involved but should still be doable with the same method.
I still have to light the insides, but I've got the consoles and seats all built and installed. I counted 51 chairs on the main bridge level, and I probably missed a few, and another twenty on the flag bridge on the deck below. Each operator has a pair of 24" MFD displays with buttons all around it. I'll need to come up with some interesting textures for the lot of them...
There are a few weird shadows due to the type of lights I used, but I can fix that later, or switch to a differnt type of light (that might actually render faster), but for now this will do. To make sure the light falloff works properly as well I made an external render:
As far as I can tell, the light stays where it's supposed to, which is nice.
Most of the mirrored parts are either armament, targeting sensors, or the support structures for the above. I've already left off the bridge, and on several of the smalller ships I've replaced the smokestacks with a large fin, though I've held off here because I'm trying to figure out how to make one that fits all of the battleships.
As for the gravity, the internal gravity is all in one direction, but both external decks can generate their own gravity as well. This is part of the reason why the deck height is so large (5 meters!) - to make room for the gravity generators and inertial compensators etc. Artificial gravity in general is usually turned off when in an external gravity field, but there's no reason beyond that (and disorientation/vertigo) why a crewman wouldn't be able to walk on the bottom of the ship even while flying in an atmosphere... the exception is the wings, where the main repulsors/propulsors are located - those are responsible for keeping the ship flying, and attempting to walk there will get you propelled very swiftly into the ground.
In combat, the external bridge spaces are evacuated and the armored shutters lowered, and command is transferred inside. Helm control is handled in the armored conning tower (which the bridge is built around), and combat functions are handled below the main deck in a dedicated CIC.
Out of universe, the smokestacks are mainly there because they're a primary recognition feature for the real-world ships - they're part of how you tell the difference between the various ship classes. In universe, I'm still bouncing around ideas for what they're for. They don't emit smoke or steam, at least. Right now I'm thinking of them as air intake/filtration/separation systems for when the ship does an atmopshere dip, with the fin on the bottom (not built yet) being for cooling and liquid intake.
The ball turret thing has potential, I've actually been thinking about it for the Bofors equivalents. The problem is making them squat enough, though I think I can do that with a little work. They'll function more like oversized FLIR turrets with guns in the nose than regular ball turrets, though.
How's this?
background turrets are too boxy for my liking but i do not think that maters on a ship that is already very unaerodynamic.
guns in those turrets are nice but i cannot get a good look from that distance.
windows are perhaps too big, remember they would cause structural weakness and smaller windows are still adequate for allowing the "bridge" crew to observe outside the ship.
like the yellow glow in the portholes, also sensible no corners shape for a starship's windows as it will minimize stresses to avoid the problems the dehavilland comet airliner suffered.
think fencing on decks is a bit stupid, why would a starship's crew wander around on deck? are there force fields to protect them(pretty vulnerable) or must they faff around to put on spacesuits when they need to go between turrets? or are they only for use in safe breathable(or atleast not hugely harmful) atmospheres where there is earth sea level air pressure? seems unneccesary.
liking the overall imposing nature of your ship.
rounded turret is good but i cannot see how the guns change elevation(no slits above and below the barrels) or does the whole ball rotate( which is probably a good idea).
little sensor array thing behind that turret is alright but maybe make the mounting for it larger and the ball part smaller.
don't see why there is that (cannot remember correct nautical term)"thing" for wrapping ropes/chains around on the lower of the decks in your image or do the ships use chains/cables/ropes to assist in docking. box of sensors/targeting equipment protruding from left hand side of turret at forward end of picture is a good feature.
liking overall positions of decks and shape of area below bridge.
The background turrets are based on the USN 5-inch/38 twin mounts, and yeah they're a bit boxy. They're also not as detailed as they're supposed to be, but this whole thing is a work in progress. We're still going places...
The windows on the bridge are not just big, they're actually absolutely huge. They're 1.46 meters tall by 1.96 meters wide (essentially, a 1.5 x 2 m rectangle beveled 20 mm to form a frame). I could shrink them some, but it would be a pain in the ass because I'd have to rebuild the whole bridge enclosure if I want the windows to be narrower. (Essentially, the whole thing is made up of welded together plates which I had made holes for a single window in...) Changing the height of the windows could be done easier, but I've already shrunk them quite a bit and if I make them even squatter the proportions will look off, to me at least.
The portholes are provisional right now, they're only staying until I start making the interior of the superstructure decks beyond the bridge, and then the current portholes will be replaced by actual holes with glass in them, lit from behind by interior lighting. I actually came up with a trick for making portholes that were black when in the sunlight, but lit up yellow in the dark - basically, I set the diffuse value to a negative. I'm not using it right now because the effects sometimes becomes very weird, like when a porthole is half in shadow. It works best at a distance. Also, round portholes are due to the source material - I just rolled with that.
The railings are, shall we say, a sop to tradition or something? In space, every surface you could concievably stand on has its own gravity, including the sides of the hull, but in an atmosphere that's usually turned off to focus on keeping the ship hovering. Going outside then is possible, and actually common in some circumstances, so the railings are there to prevent accidents.
Yes, when operating in a suitable atmosphere, the crew *will* be doing stuff like swabbing the decks and painting the sides in a traditional naval manner. Because it's the navy, and it's tradition, dammit.
If you think this single ship is imposing, you should see the fleet of them together.
I have a closer look at the new round turret for you here:
Like a FLIR turret, the center section of the turret rotates in elevation. I've not decided whether it's manned or not (it's big enough at least, at 6.6 meters in diameter!) but if it is, this section has its own gravity that follows the rotation of the guns.
I've redone the director, as I thought the ball-on-a-stick looked a little large and heavy, I'll be reusing that as a smaller model mounted on top of the bridge, I think.
Thanks for the comments. Oh, and by the way, check out this place for the pictures I'm using as a reference while building, and you'll see why certain things look the way they do:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/61d.htm
I'll upload my stuff to my photobucket account, but good luck getting the full size pics from there since the change in UI...
Also, I used photo bucket for a while and I agree, the UI sucks. Now Imgur's my go-to photo host.
Here's a link instead: http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/sebastianp/2ndIW-2/BB-61/bb-61_048.png:original
All the guns are in place, and I've tinkered a bit with the directors. I loaded up the North Carolina for comparison purposes, going to start on Iowa's mast next and I'll be using NC as a parts source.
Last render before I went to sleep last night, just loaded up the whole set of battleships to check which ones need more work most urgently (and which can be fixed up to the latest standard the fastest...) I'll probably not use the same model of light gun for any of the other ships, the newer ones will get twin mounts and the older one will get older versions of the Typhoon deck mount, to show some design progression.
Foremast in place, just need to set new endpoints for the stays and flaglines. Mainmast is a work in progress, it's more different from that on the BB-55 than the foremast and I'll have to go hunting for references...
Cheers for now.
I've added some raised panels to the wing's upper surface (I've held off on the lower ones, they'll be a different color and have some different details to represent the main repulsors, if I can come up with them) and some maneuvering thrusters. The latter could use a bit more work, but the principle is sound so I'll be adding some of these to the sides forward and aft as well.
Then, we come to the angle I've been avoiding showing in renders for a week, as it looks so dumb. It's not just merely bare, there's really nothing there! But the basic shape of the engine block things was sound, so I rolled with it. Oh, and notice the flags in place on the mainmast and flagstaff (aft). I found a picture showing the Iowa entering port with a jack at the jackstaff (bow), a three-star admiral's flag at the top of the foremast, and an ensign at the mainmast and aft. Now I know where to put all those things
Voila, the new main thrusters. now it's starting to look spaceworthy again.
A couple of people on another forum complained that the ball turrets clash horribly with the rest of the style. I wasn't sure what to tell them, other than this:
And that the ship's underside looks much less strange with the new turrets. I'm actually almost done getting away from the need to have artificial gravity on the outside decks at all - topside, planetary gravity will do when the ship is in atmosphere, and for EVA there's magnetic boots, same as on the Enterprise.
This is where the main replenishment ports for water and liquid air will be located. I have some old docking collars that I'll be using for this. I'll be building some form of winch structure to help guide the flexible hoses in place, though making the hoses themselves will be problematic with my present skill at such things. I think. It might turn out to be really easy...
The battleship has two of these apertures per side since it can also be used to replenish smaller ships (similar to how a carrier nowadays carries fuel for her escorts, as it needs none for herself). Destroyers and cruisers will only have a single bay per side, and the destroyer bays will be smaller (by neccessity, the wingtips aren't big enough...)
Good question. I'll have to make some and see how they fit in.