Such a simple yet so effective shape.
Granted it's somewhat ugly compared to other frigs, but in that case it's a feature
I'll try to get my hands on the drawing, get it cleaner and scan it to you, but really, the shape is merely a detail, the "good" part of the idea is more the big-ass aerospike that make it take off and land in vertical position.
personally I find the shape quite suitable. I've always favoured function over form and the design is very practical. The retro rockets look very cool.
It's raining fit to frighten Noah here in Florida, so spending the day inside dorking out and seeing if I can't knock this out this weekend. Thanks as always for the comments guys, I really do appreciate. As far of the shape spacefighter, one of the things I consciously strive for is to not make every ship 'good looking'. I think anyone, well, almost anyone, can design something that is sexy and badass, but it is much more interesting to go for something ugly but pragmatic and functional. Just so you see where I'm coming from.
Anywho, here is an update. How about the idea of the front ridged section of the hull being some sort of super long range sensor system? As it's supposed to be a fleet defense frigate it does sort of fit.
So the entire front is basically one huge planar array? Interesting, how would it scan to cover the flanks though, unless perhaps some of those panels "below" the centrifuge were also sensors. You've got rain huh, we've finally got some decent weather here in the NE coast of Blighty. I swear we has hail the other day. On the plus side work is picking up, I spent most of today selling BBQs, paddling pools and lawn mowers to optimists
Anywho, here is an update. How about the idea of the front ridged section of the hull being some sort of super long range sensor system? As it's supposed to be a fleet defense frigate it does sort of fit.
DO IT!!!!!
Could have a base patrol version with a regular sensor suite, and an upgraded escort version that takes advantage of the big flat front to install massive phased array radars.
Not bad idea, IMHO. Thou it leaves the ship almost unprotected from frontal attack. Also - first hit will, most likely disable the main sensor suit. Those were the thoughts, that prevented me from designing one huge laser with propulsion system behind.
@ Tombo; I could add some flat panel arrays to the rear hull I haven't detailed yet so no prob there. @Khay; 2 different versions sounds good. @Stonecold;Perhaps the massive sensor could have been an over-ambitious idea that proved less than ideal in operation, leading to later hulls being built as the more pedestrian ship Khay came up with.
Well, if you want to have that good frontal sensor system, assuming the technlogy is the same, it would have to be that large and exposed, whatever the hull supporting it is. So the same thing wouldn't be any more protected on another ship. Although a bigger ship might have better offensive means to proactively defend the sensor, if it is envisionned as an escort ship there is a fleet around it to protect it, and it might be better to have frigs with the sensors that can fall back, maneuver, see from a distance, and "short-sighted" (well, normal sensor package) but highly armored battleship to be put in a more risky position, than the contrary with short-sighted frigates that can't take hits and battleships with overly exposed sensors that can't take the risk to move forward.
Moreover, in the old Kapitolo Class battleship sheet you described them as individualy modest but always working with support, the idea of such a frigate being a quite specialised fragile "super-eye" for the fleet gives a nice feeling of inter-ships synergy.
On a pure technical note you might also be able to mitigate the effects of a hit by using plenty of small sensors working together instead of one big one, so that if some of them are damaged the rest can still be fonctionnal. Depending of the post-processing algorithms you may even afford to loose a significant portion of the sensors before noticing any adverse effect on the overall quality of the data. I personnaly like the idea of that super sensor slapped on the front hull being the child of necessity.
EDIT: and you can even replace the offensive charges of the missiles by sensors feeding data to the ship by laser or something! You can put sensor mini-ships on your sensor ship!!! The sensor craze knows no limit!!!!
EDIT 2: actually, if you consider the system to be a collection of small sensors, a bigger ship can spread them on a larger surface, mitigating the risk of a critical hit damaging a lot of the total sensor-effective-surface at once. But since the larger ship surface means better chance to hit it, i'm not sure that's much of a factor, the logic of having it on a smaller specialised ship might still stand.
I like the idea of specialists and generalists. I'd like to expand on the idea and do a whole round of specialists down the road.
So here is the last update for the day. Got the front basically done and am playing around with what the overall color will be.
I'm pretty pleased with how the paneling panned out on the nose. Should look good with the name and registry on it. Makes me jazzed to do an olde tyme ship with a heat shield. I do worry that adding too many more chachkies to this one will make it look too busy. In fact I'm worried about it having too much going on right now. I'm thinking about redoing the radiators and making them square at the end, I also idiotically made all the cylinders with 96 segments, so they are really making my CPU drag.
The issue isn't the way you detail it, it's the way it presents itself. Take the linked image and view it at 75% size or thereabouts. There's lot of artifacts around the more-detailed areas.
This is the size it would be on the sheet. Obviously I had the contrast dialed up way high on the render to see the details. Plus I rendered it as a ray tracing rather than a path tracing which gives much better results in Raylectron. It's not bad, but it's not good either. I'll noodle around with the depth of the panels and see what shakes out. Thanks for pointing it out Borkless!
I've got to get better at doing composite shots so I can show larger images of the models...
Almost every element is a separate group, so dialing down the details will be easy enough. I have gotten detail anxiety with this model for some reason. I guess like many things in life, it is better to have it and not use it rather than needing it and not having.
What do you all think of this as a possible replacement for the radiators?
It's also great for barbeques.
96 segment cylinders, ouch. if you're referring to the number of sides the circle it is based on has then i usually use 24 for large objects, 12 for smaller details, and 6 for pipes and very small narrow stuff. as i have said i really do not like the overall shape, it is kind of realistic but it is hideous but the details are staggering. the glow on the latest radiator image is a good effect but i think i preferred the old shape for them. weapon pod and panelling details are amazing how many megabytes is the sketchup file?
Since there should be no air drag and no dense debris flying around, I`d say additional frame isn`t necessary and it looks awesome. Color, somewhat strange, thou. IsvDiagram16.jpg
Try matching to this, somehow... Seems to be most "realistic" IMHO.
That's the first time I've seen that ship's radiators in detail. I always thought they were solid blocks, never noticed the piping before.
Edit to avoid double-posting.
I've just realised that the same overall design could also be used as a basic light freighter. Think about it - strip out the weapons and sensors, empty the forward hull of everything but the hanger and a small bridge and you'd have a decent amount of internal space for cargo with the bonus that the (much reduced) crew and passengers would have a gravity section to help them stay healthy.
The Yan-class frigate could also be turned into a cargo ship of sorts since that long central hull section could fit a few cargo containers, and the CEGD doesn't like scrapping a ship if they can get a few more years service out of them
I like this new radiator shape, particularly the removal of the big external frame.
Thanks to both of you guys bbzw2 and stonecold for the answers about the lasers on the other thread, btw.
@Tombo: indeed, the Yan with its long shaft section seems to be made to attach payload. Transhab-styles inflatable modules filled with coolant or reaction mass would look nice as well. The old Han class could do it as well as long as you don't retract the habitat arms.
Finished the 'eurotrashcan' and it's is rendering away. Started working ion the next round, civilian ships. Think I might break it into 2 parts, passenger and cargo with 4 in each group; interface, orbital or vacuum, interplanetary and interstellar. Here is what I'm going for with the ssto passenger shuttle. Want it to look like the sort of shuttle everyone back in the 80's thought what we would be using today
Damn, that looks a little like something I've been working on.
Mine is just an exercise really, a moment of boredom. I was going for a Johnny Quest spaceplane of the 60's vibe with some obvious influence from the XB-70 Valkyrie.
Those are both sweet looking shuttles! They both have a sort of retro vibe to them. God I wish they'd built proper spaceplanes back in the eighties, the Shuttle was a fantastic piece of kit but I wish I could just hop on a British Airways flight to low orbit and visit the moon on a weekend.
@colbs; 58m. carries 60 passangers and 4 crew. @sojourner; thats a great looking shuttle! @Tombo; Yeah, I personally think the shuttle killed the NASA. I think if we would have just stuck Apollo we would have been on mars by now. @Stonecold;
That's very inspiring indeed!
The thick trailing edge and flat butt would make for a hell of a drag, particularly towards the "fat" end of the wingtips with plenty of nasty turbulences. Not sure if you have engines that take space that far away from the center to justify the thickness. But "it looks cooler that way" is plenty enough justification for it to stay that way, of course ^^
I already asked for some Chris Foss inspired stripes at some point, but this one seems to be made for a Planet Express green paintjob ^^
good, i recognise this design somewhat as the aurora stealth plane prototype and it also shares some features with the HOTOL spaceplane concept. this model is really nice and aerodynamic.
that looks amazing, what a shame nothing of that kind has been built yet.
Dont know, if something like this is good. The bird was supposed to fly with nuclear thrusters. In atmosphere... Spaceport would look like Chernobyl zone, I guess
Posts
Granted it's somewhat ugly compared to other frigs, but in that case it's a feature
I'll try to get my hands on the drawing, get it cleaner and scan it to you, but really, the shape is merely a detail, the "good" part of the idea is more the big-ass aerospike that make it take off and land in vertical position.
Anywho, here is an update. How about the idea of the front ridged section of the hull being some sort of super long range sensor system? As it's supposed to be a fleet defense frigate it does sort of fit.
DO IT!!!!!
Could have a base patrol version with a regular sensor suite, and an upgraded escort version that takes advantage of the big flat front to install massive phased array radars.
@Khay; 2 different versions sounds good.
@Stonecold;Perhaps the massive sensor could have been an over-ambitious idea that proved less than ideal in operation, leading to later hulls being built as the more pedestrian ship Khay came up with.
Moreover, in the old Kapitolo Class battleship sheet you described them as individualy modest but always working with support, the idea of such a frigate being a quite specialised fragile "super-eye" for the fleet gives a nice feeling of inter-ships synergy.
On a pure technical note you might also be able to mitigate the effects of a hit by using plenty of small sensors working together instead of one big one, so that if some of them are damaged the rest can still be fonctionnal. Depending of the post-processing algorithms you may even afford to loose a significant portion of the sensors before noticing any adverse effect on the overall quality of the data. I personnaly like the idea of that super sensor slapped on the front hull being the child of necessity.
EDIT: and you can even replace the offensive charges of the missiles by sensors feeding data to the ship by laser or something! You can put sensor mini-ships on your sensor ship!!! The sensor craze knows no limit!!!!
EDIT 2: actually, if you consider the system to be a collection of small sensors, a bigger ship can spread them on a larger surface, mitigating the risk of a critical hit damaging a lot of the total sensor-effective-surface at once. But since the larger ship surface means better chance to hit it, i'm not sure that's much of a factor, the logic of having it on a smaller specialised ship might still stand.
So here is the last update for the day. Got the front basically done and am playing around with what the overall color will be.
I'm pretty pleased with how the paneling panned out on the nose. Should look good with the name and registry on it. Makes me jazzed to do an olde tyme ship with a heat shield. I do worry that adding too many more chachkies to this one will make it look too busy. In fact I'm worried about it having too much going on right now. I'm thinking about redoing the radiators and making them square at the end, I also idiotically made all the cylinders with 96 segments, so they are really making my CPU drag.
Almost every element is a separate group, so dialing down the details will be easy enough. I have gotten detail anxiety with this model for some reason. I guess like many things in life, it is better to have it and not use it rather than needing it and not having.
What do you all think of this as a possible replacement for the radiators?
It's also great for barbeques.
IsvDiagram16.jpg
Try matching to this, somehow... Seems to be most "realistic" IMHO.
Edit to avoid double-posting.
I've just realised that the same overall design could also be used as a basic light freighter. Think about it - strip out the weapons and sensors, empty the forward hull of everything but the hanger and a small bridge and you'd have a decent amount of internal space for cargo with the bonus that the (much reduced) crew and passengers would have a gravity section to help them stay healthy.
The Yan-class frigate could also be turned into a cargo ship of sorts since that long central hull section could fit a few cargo containers, and the CEGD doesn't like scrapping a ship if they can get a few more years service out of them
Thanks to both of you guys bbzw2 and stonecold for the answers about the lasers on the other thread, btw.
@Tombo: indeed, the Yan with its long shaft section seems to be made to attach payload. Transhab-styles inflatable modules filled with coolant or reaction mass would look nice as well. The old Han class could do it as well as long as you don't retract the habitat arms.
Mine is just an exercise really, a moment of boredom. I was going for a Johnny Quest spaceplane of the 60's vibe with some obvious influence from the XB-70 Valkyrie.
Yours is much sleeker.
Actual Soviet SSTO designed back in USSR time. Maybe will give you some inspiration.
@sojourner; thats a great looking shuttle!
@Tombo; Yeah, I personally think the shuttle killed the NASA. I think if we would have just stuck Apollo we would have been on mars by now.
@Stonecold;
That's very inspiring indeed!
I already asked for some Chris Foss inspired stripes at some point, but this one seems to be made for a Planet Express green paintjob ^^