Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: Raven Night on March 05, 2014, 04:05:43 PM
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Here is the next one in the que, the Warhammer. This is a large BOP, not as large as the Nethak of course, but around 340 meters. This vessel was designed for combat, not transport (since that role was already filled by the Nethak) and carries troops and supplies but very little cargo. It is intended as a replacement for the "King Kvort".
She has heavy armor, strong weaponry (especially in alpha strike capacity) and a powerful cloak. The cannons in the wings are actually 4 standard medium range heavy disruptors, like on the Courage, packed into a single cannon build. This allows a powerful rapid fire barrage from each cannon, with almost constant fire, or a very powerful single shot. She also has front and rear torp launchers and a strong compliment of medium and defensive disruptor cannons.
It is likely more weapons will be added to the ventral hull. The wings have 3 positions...cruise (as shown), combat (15 degrees minus Y axis) and warp/landing (15 degrees plus Y axis). The wings do not move that high for landing, so a wide area is required to land.
So far I have made a few notable changes to the original mesh...I have altered the coil assemblies on the wings so that the bulk of the coil is part of the wing and rotates inside a socket in the hull. I also altered the fore armor a bit, and extended/modified the Impulse drive area to give the ship a bit more "balance" in appearance. The wings are my next focus.
Here are the pics.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/1z5ng9k.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2wgyoh2.jpg)
(http://i57.tinypic.com/211vubc.jpg)
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Very cool design RN. Is that a small shuttle bay on top of the drive section?
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Yes. Originally I designed it as a deflector, but then realized I had no place to put a shuttle bay due to the rear torpedo launcher...so I decided to place the deflector above that area instead and make the larger door the entrance to a bay.
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Nice!
Glad you raised the 'coils' (what are those things supposed to be anyway?) up a bit. A bop doesn't feel like a bop without that sort of structure. It's one of those little design traits that characterise them.
Looking forward to see where you take the wings!
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awesomeness again dude :)
those bits that lord tribble mentioned... are they ejection hatches? for a Klingon warp core? (but i guess doing that would not be honourable lol) or something like that... maybe they open for maintenance of engine components :idk:
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I'm not sure what bits you mean. If you could be more specific I could probably let you know. Thanks for the compliments guys.
An update to share...didn't like the fact she really didnt have any kind of rear storage bay access at all, so I moved the blister and torp launcher and added a bay with a rear hatch.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/wcd6v5.jpg)
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sorry I meant the "spare tyre" bits
edit: just found this, its the parts labelled "Main reactors"
(http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/schematics/klingon_birdofprey_dorsal.gif)
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I was referring to the bits labelled 'radiation baffles' on that image
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I was referring to the bits labelled 'radiation baffles' on that image
:doh:
yeah kind off realised after reviewing the thread. sorry lol
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I see that they are marked as radiation baffles, which I think is another way of saying warp coils. Like the coils inside a warp nacelle, just much thinner and exposed to space. As to the "spare tire", that would be the port and starboard reactors used to power ship systems and the impulse drive.
I believe, if I am not mistaken, that the core is only used to charge the coils for warp travel, and it was explained that the moving wings increase efficiency or increase shield effectiveness, depending on position. Low is higher shields, high is more efficient warp.
So the "spare tires" are the reactors, port and starboard, and the coils are the warp coils for warp travel.
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Ok, made quite a few notable changes to the mesh. First, I redesigned the impulse drive to be similar to the Courage...I think it's a better "BOP" like impulse drive. I also moved the "spare tire" to the wing, added an assembly around it, and cleaned up the side of the impulse drive. I also altered the forward torpedo launcher to have a more traditional BOP launcher look.
The biggest change was the reshaping of the wings. I decided to go with the more swept BOK wings instead of the originals...I think the shape is much better, and the BOK still has quite a few details to set it apart from this ship, so I think it works.
Overall I think it gives it a better profile and makes it look much more aggressive.
(http://i60.tinypic.com/120pm2u.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/20g16c3.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/27zdqwm.jpg)
(http://i59.tinypic.com/34hyvlx.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/2mmhlb5.jpg)
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Sorry about all the pics, have the smoothing completed. She is ready for textures. By the way, I forget to answer the comment earlier about the thick wings...I realize they are thicker than normal, but I had to make them thick to support the massive cannons on each wing tip.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/33cactj.jpg)
(http://i61.tinypic.com/28mrgg.jpg)
(http://i61.tinypic.com/2jbqe82.jpg)
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That is logical!
It's beautiful! Thank you
Adam
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By the way, I forget to answer the comment earlier about the thick wings...I realize they are thicker than normal, but I had to make them thick to support the massive cannons on each wing tip.
Fair enough, still looks cool ;)
Might I make a suggestion regarding the wings? Perhaps try a little more of a bend between the main wing and the gun eg;
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3133/13093340625_87232594f7_o.jpg)
Again, just one of those little characteristic bop profile things
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It's promising to be a beauty!
My unique suggestion, is to make the neck a little longer. ;)
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Ok, I'm not sure if I did it or not, but here it is with the adjusted weapon angle...it does have a more "BOP" kind of shape to the wing with the adjusted angle.
Tell me what you guys think. This is the lowest wing position, the "combat" position. I think it might need a bit more adjustment, it doesn't look quite right at the moment.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2yyt7ae.jpg)
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were the other pics the combat position?
If so, maybe leave the wing rotation where it was or put it somewhere between the two.
The weapon angle looks good :thumbsup:
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in wouldn't bend the wing as tribble sugested, but cant point out why :idk:
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The other pics are the cruise position. I should have put up pics for all positions. Here you go.
You have combat, then cruise, then warp/landing...I had to push the landing angle up 15 degrees to Y30 to clear enough for the landing gear...since the cannons are now angled lower.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/2ia4ww0.jpg)
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i wouldn't bend the wing as tribble sugested, but cant point out why :idk:
I also like the original version better. The more angled pods look like the ship uses inline-skaters instead of weapons.
Regarding starship's suggestion, I'm not sure. Flight position looks great with the neck as is.
Can we see a side view with wings in attack position, please?
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I would only angle them if that kink were smoothed out. The harsh bend just looks awkward.
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Ah, I assumed the first pics were combat mode pics since they looked a somewhat downwards. Perhaps the bend I suggested isn't necessary, could we see the original shape in all three positions?
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I agree that the original looks better as well. It just flows better with the overall design of the ship, to have weapons that are in the same angle plane as the wing itself.
Here is a set of pictures from the original wing configuration. It's worthy to note that the the Warp/Landing position for the wings is much more shallow with the normal cannon position, because the weapon position is shallow enough to allow proper clearance for the landing gear. Otherwise, if I angle the weapons more I have to raise the wings higher to compensate, which looks odd to me.
Here you go.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/iw6qh2.jpg)
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Yeah, that looks perfectly fine to me :thumbsup:
Though I always liked how, in the original bop design, the wings raised right up with a bend in them made the ship look like a vulture
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I could do that in this case, but the problem there is the way the wings are connected to the main hull. In this case they have a common pivot that runs through the Y Axis rotating the coils inside a sheath in the hull. This means that about 20 percent or so of the wing moves in opposite axis to the wing, causing the edge closest to the hull to drop when the wing rises, rise when it drops (as seen in the picture).
Now...that means that, in order to have the "Vulture" high wing position, the inner wing pivot would be pointing down at an angle, and it creates an odd imbalance in the overall appearance IMO.
That is why I keep the north position of the wing as shallow as possible, so I can have that inside section of the wing as flat on the plane as it can be.
I have added new weapons to the ship, dual cannons on each inner wing tip, as well as a single cannon on the port and starboard side of the ventral hull, underneath the wings. This ships weaponry should be formidable considering it's role and class.
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That's cool ;)
That last image is the landing position right? It still looks like they need to go a bit higher for it to park, there's still a good deal of space between the bottom of the guns and the hull. Unless I've missed something?
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No, your right...this ship, when landing has high ground clearance. That means part of the landing gear has to be long and large. I decided to set up the gear a bit different...a combination of short gear in the wings, and two gear legs fore and aft along the centerline of the ship.
(http://i60.tinypic.com/v7azhy.jpg)
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Not sure about the landing gear retracting from wings ... It would mean the ship needs a hell of a landing zone, if it's supposed to be fairly small vessel it should be able to land almost everywhere ... but then again wings configuration won't allow for that anyway :P
still I think landing gear retracting from underside of "radiation buffles" / warp coils and one from the connection to the head would be the best option and it would be kept in BoP style ;)
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Well, It's a good point, but keep in mind that this ship is 340 meters long, 485 meters or so wide when the wings are in landing mode. So the landing area needs to be rather huge anyway.
The original BOP landing gear, for the "brel" class at least was simply two gear legs that were in the middle of the ventral hull, extending out from the sphere bulge on the ventral aft area of the ship. One assumes the ship was balanced on set of gear, but it was an odd setup (and looked unstable to me).
I designed both the MavQ and the qajunpaQ (blade and courage) to have a more sensible "tripod" landing gear configuration, which would give them more stability. The problem here is, frankly the wings.
I decided to make the wings very large, very thick and sturdy to give the ship a certain profile, especially from a dorsal or ventral view, but then that poses problems for a "tricycle" gear kind of configuration. The wings are so low in the highest position that giving the ship a tricycle gear setup would probably not support the massive wings properly.
In space the size of the wings is not a problem. On a planet, however, the mass of the wings would pose many problems...problems shared with the Nethak. One way to solve these problems when the ship is at rest, without having them collapse under their own weight without a constant SIF running is to give them support by placing smaller gear directly under the wings.
For modern ideas of wing support you could look at a B-52 or U-2...in both cases they have large wings that need support by placing gear close to the wing edge.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/iv8eav.jpg)
So here is my idea...one gear for the rear, but then two on the wings.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/aoqihj.jpg)
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Might I suggest four? The craft coming to mind are the B-52 and Harrier - both have four gear. I was thinking what would look cool is if the bridge area had a combined gear/boarding ramp, perhaps for quick troop deployment.
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Something like this?
(http://i.imgur.com/ScpkC9h.png)
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Preferably much less shovel-like, but in that placement yes.
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There is a ramp both in the forward crew module and to the rear just behind the rear launcher. The existence of both ramps is what caused the problem of the single landing gear in the middle in the first place...I could make the forward ramp a landing platform of sorts, but having it always down...not sure about that.
Let me play around with it a bit and see how it turns out.
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Well the ramp doesn't have to always be down like the Millenium Falcon's for example. Perhaps it'd be best if I put my idea in sketch form.
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I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
In the mean time I will continue the early texture work and mess around with the landing gear ideas.
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what if the wing landing gear was simply the some of the bottom panels of the gun units that extended slightly on chunkier supports?
something a bit like this;
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7311/13165316293_755582ae49_o.jpg)
I'd also maybe angle the wings up just a little more (not to the extent we talked about earlier) to get the main bulk a bit lower to the ground.
Your positioning makes sense to me given the size of the design, it's just the tall spindly supports that look a bit too frail to me.
Also, for the middle one, check out how samus's ship lands in metroid prime 3; http://youtu.be/3BZdxI2mmlU?t=2m19s
something similar could work pretty well for this I think
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what if the wing landing gear was simply the some of the bottom panels of the gun units that extended slightly on chunkier supports?
something a bit like this;
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7311/13165316293_755582ae49_o.jpg)
I'd also maybe angle the wings up just a little more (not to the extent we talked about earlier) to get the main bulk a bit lower to the ground.
Your positioning makes sense to me given the size of the design, it's just the tall spindly supports that look a bit too frail to me.
Also, for the middle one, check out how samus's ship lands in metroid prime 3; http://youtu.be/3BZdxI2mmlU?t=2m19s
something similar could work pretty well for this I think
Not bad, but placing the wing gear right under the cannon puts all the stress of the wing weight and the hull on the arch in the wing, so I think that would not be practical.
The idea of bringing them inboard slightly, but angled outward, pushes out on the wing, putting stress on the pivot, right where it should be. This way all the stress of the weight is either on the gear or on the pivot.
I could bring it closer to the ground, but making the guns more shallow like they were originally. I can also improve the wing angle by leveling out the inboard wing more if needed.
Perhaps I have to play with the wing design a bit more.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/5zpide.jpg)
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I won't pretend to understand how it makes a difference to the stress but I'll take your word for it. There's clearly a lot of thought put into what you're doing ;)
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Probably far too much thought. I figured all this out just to decide where to place the details on the hull for the landing gear. It's a ridiculous amount of calories burned for a detail that most folks will never notice or care about.
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Sorry guys, I got a bit sidetracked messing around with a few ideas for the Ares class Battleship. I'll get back to this mesh shortly.
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Probably far too much thought. I figured all this out just to decide where to place the details on the hull for the landing gear. It's a ridiculous amount of calories burned for a detail that most folks will never notice or care about.
Still, must fun figuring out all the details of a personal design