Back on this site after more than one year...
After beeing busy with many different projects I started this one. The background is a German TV Show from 1966. Yes, the same decade as "Star Trek" was starting. The show was called "Raumpatrouille Orion" and lasts only seven episodes (in black/white). The "Orion" was the main starship in this show and was looking very exciting for this time. For me it is an interesting challenge to build this ship new. That means: A variation of the 1966 based design with modifications from today.
Maybe I will create an fitting environment ( Launchbase, Spacestations, other Ships ) for it too. Lets see...:)
Posts
Well...the spikes...:)... They are added at the new ship too. The "Lichtwerfer" ( Lightblaster ) are necessary to keep the original shape of the design. But the new ones are looking more solid, are retractable- and you will see how they blast the enemies away. In fact of the low quality of the special effects at this time you never saw them working in the tv show.
Yes, some parts of the ship are looking strange on the point of view from today. Thanks god, I will only build the exterior of the ship. Not the interior with the "ironing tool" and the ice cream spoons. Also on the outside are some parts for changing. So I will give the ship a direction- It means, that I will add details for recognizing the flight direction. In the tv show it is hard to explain in which direction is the front- or the rear of the ship. I also will change the shape of the fins at the underside and some parts at the landing telescope are needing work. If all works well, I got a new old ship.
I always thought that any "broad" weapondry (as in mass weapons, weapons the ship has as standart, like the Lichtbatterien) are located in the rim, where they have the greatest coverage going both dorsal and ventral. Becasue in the end, weapons mounted at the "topmost" end have a very limited range and arc.
Besides, I think ou mean we never see the weapons-fire. Because we saw them blowing up a couple of Frog-ships at the end of Desserteure after the Orion destroyed their base at AC-1000. We also saw EAS VII blow up one ship during Invasion, also with no visible weapons-fire. But the Frogs do have weapons fire.
Technically, that means someone was wise enough to realise that a Lichtwerfer really is invisible as light itself cannot be seen.
That also means that the Frogs use a non-light weapon that is stronger than those of the humans.
And yes!!! The one who has created the firing of the Lichtwerfer must have a master in phycics. Basically you cant see any lightbeams- or laserbeams in space because there is no atmosphere. But, in my opinion, imagine a Star Wars or Star Trek Movie without this- and correct: Also without sound....Snore,snore...:) By the way: The use helmets in space with holes big as a fist on top of that to breathe in space...Is this strange too? OK, I will turn to serious mode now and go on with my work...
Thanks again!!!!
Any plans to upgrade the Hydra as well?
But it is a good idea to do this. After the Orion I will study the design of the frog ships. I cant tell, do I like the design or not. It is very....extraterrestial. But I will modify those ships too. Really, I never thought before to spend so much time in some models of the tv show!!!!
The spikes are no weapons. They are too limited in firing arc, but would make good sensory antennas, or general signal-antennas (for communication). The seen effects of the Overkill projectors give us a few hints to how the weapon works. When blowing up the Harpalus crater, it's like a giant jet of rock. That means the weapon somehow manages to dislodge the atomar gravity and unbind the atoms themselves. They require more space and thus erupt. Effectively, this would put the Overkill weapon intot he range of Disintegrators. We could assume it's the spikes, but as said, they wouldn't make much sense, you'd have to finetune the ships positioning towards the target everytime you want to shoot, and as we can see fromt he one scene where they blow up the Flog-ships after AC-1000 fell, they didn't.
The Lichtwerfer must be some kind of laser weapondry, and we know from a statement, that the Orion is originally equipped with 4 Lichtwerferbatterien. That'd also disquialify the 3 spikes.
As per the whole concept of locomotion, you can speculate on 3 common forms of engine.
Anti-gravity (or Magnetkissen as they called it - magnetic cushion as I translate it), which they use when landing on a planetoid or other smaller object before extending their landing tower. This can either be the fins on the lower area, or the bright lines you sometimes see (I think they're metal linings).
Subspace-engine. According to a (fanmade but based upon the production records) Orion manual, it's a photon engine that works much like a giant flashlight propelling photons away and thus bringing the ship to speed. Since the rim is always lit, we can presume that this is where the engine/nacelle/generator sits, this also explains why the Orion is always seen flying around horizontally, even when landing or going upwards.
Hyperspace engine. Well, we can only speculate, but that'd be pretty much like the StarWars/Stargate system of hyperspace... Personally, I presume this to be the central spire with the rotating light. Why? Dunno, it just seems reasonable that a disk-like ship bores itself through the fabric of space.
My personal thoughts on this is as follows: The rim has the sublight-engine, but puctured are pockets of weapons, one battery every quadrant. Since we don't know how many Lichtwerfer aare in one battery, this can mean that every 1 meter, or every 5 meters, we encounter one such weapon. Likely sitting before the actual engine, which, being a radial engine, would not be hindered by a few weapons cowering before it.
I'll watch this thread closely !
S.
The spikes are really a complicated thing. I have constructed them more solid than the original ones to make it visually clear : These are cannons. They are retractable now and can move nearly completed inside the hull. Yes, I have thought about this "Lichtwerfer" theory too. But I dont take this too serious. Yes, they also can be antennas...who knows..? I have done some researches about the ship too. Long before I was starting to construct it. The facts are- There are really no facts!!! Most parts of the informations- also on the fanpages, are speculations. What I want to say is : Dont take this thing too serious! It will be a nice ship ( I hope so ) and it will be something we have to talk about! The next update will follow soon. I have some ideas about the cannons at the rim now (maybe these can be the four "Lichtwerfer"?). Weekend is coming...:)
While being old enough I actually was not aware that there was a card deck (for a German variant of the game Go Fish) that was apparently used as the foundation for one of the pics.
It's good to see that old Baby fly again after so many years.
Thank you for posting this link! But...you guess it...I have seen it before. But it is not bad to do this because there is not much about this ship in the internet and I be happy to get much information as I can about it! So it was a very good idea!
I hope too that the baby will fly again. I try to keep the memory less so I can do some animations with it. Today I was busy with a different model but tomorrow I will go on with the "Orion 9"!
Have a nice weekend!
I was in a library and there were these old late 70's early 80's books on what spaceflight was to have looked like by now. Filled with images. A little kid hit me over the head with a book and afterwards went over to an internet kiosk.
Good suacer for other uses too.
But it's not really reliable since back in those days they simply determined the element size by what looks good.
@ Kuckuk333 : I will post a picture from the ship together with a human dummy soon. I am working on different parts, also on the landing telescope. The shape of it will be different to the original one. And it will be important for the whole size of the ship because it will have doors.
Meanwhile you can take the advice from Lennier 1 ( Thanks too ) .
@ Starship : Wow, I never heard of this before. This is very interesting! In Germany we had only 7 episodes of this tv show. I always thought no one outside from Germany knows about it! Thank you for this interesting information!
Something was in my mind too: In the old show you can see the vertical start of the ship. Is it not easier and more realistic, if the ship is starting like an airplane? In my opinion is a vertical start very hard to handle because the air resistance is very high.
Something to think about...;)
As per the vertical liftoff, that's what I actually loved most about the Orion. Think about it: They have those robots that can hover, and obviously have a anti-gravity system that allows them to park their ships right above ground like that while extending the landing shaft. How, if you have such an anti-gravity field that keeps you in place at a certain density/emmiter-strength, why not overpower the output? You'd skyroket literally with little to no resistance.
Thanks again for inspiration!!!;)