WIPS: New Project (Antares Class)

[TChapman500]

Nice.

[Darkthunder]

Here goes for my opinion on the ship:

By the 27th Century, ships would've moved further into having the nacelles integrated into the ships hull. Take a look at the 29th Century Wells Class for a suggestion of what to "shoot" for. Having the nacelles on struts like you have, makes it more like the 24th Century ships we all know. The nacelles themselves doesn't look too futuristic either, since if anything it would be an evolution of the design shown on the Enterprise-J (26th Century).

Parts of the ship look pretty well detailed such as the cannons (looks vaguely X-Wing:ish), and the bridge area. The ships hull on the other hand looks extremely LOW detailed, and the entire ship is way too flat. Even if it's supposed to be a futuristic Defiant-type ship, I doubt human beings would've "de-evolved" into being only 0.5-1 meter tall. You need to take into consideration the aesthetics and overall architectural layout of the ship. Taking into account that most ships have a deck height of 2.5-3 meters, and then spacing inbetween decks for conduits, EPS transfer lines etc. The ships hull looks "paper thin" in some areas at current.

I realize you are anxious to complete the model, but it would be better to spend additional time making the ship more detailed, and actually put some thought into how things would seem, if you were inside the ship. Having windows in the ceiling for example, or corridors being only a meter in height, aint very appealing to me.

I apologize if this comes off overly harsh, but that's just the way I think about this ship. The idea is sound. I would love to see more post-Nemesis type ships, and people trying to bridge the divide between the 24th Century and the 29th Century. But in my honest opinion, for this specific ship, more work is required before -I- would've considered it "finished".

[TChapman500]

I would also expect the nacelles to be embedded into the hull, especially for a combat ship.  Extruded warp nacelles would create huge blind spots on the ship that would need to be covered by additional phaser strips.

Also, for a combat ship, a 1.85-meter ceiling and 1.22-meter wide corridor should be a good design.  You want a combat ship to be as compact as possible so that you don't use as much materials when armoring it.  The armor would be the heaviest part of the ship.

That's my opinion for combat ships.  Sorry if it sounds a little cramped.

[Captain_Licard]

Okay, hows this?

[Darkthunder]

A definite (major) step in the right direction. Now if you could make the nacelle-areas more integrated into the ship, you could use the area in the front left-right for bussards.

[Captain_Licard]

How about make it an experiment  for the 27th century, no bussards

[King Class Scout]

save that last tweak for a fighter design

Chapman #3: 1.85 wouldn't fit a 20th century person, let alone the era your calling for.  only admiral janeway could walk down those corridors without scraping hair.  and I wouldn't like having a 10 cm/4 inch clearance above my head.  1.2 M width?  you have GOT to be kidding, that's the scale for a 19th century person, not for adequetly fed humans with no growth stunting factors anymore.  plus, there's plenty of proof that the federation starts picking up a LOT of species in the future.

[Darkthunder]

Based on the DS9 Tech Manual, the Defiant had 4 decks, and a total height of aprox. 30 meters. Personally, I would say it was less for actual crew space, with some of the height being attributed to the nacelles of the ship (which ends lower than the main hull), as well as the deflector area which is slightly lower than the main hull.

So a 24th Century ship with 4 decks, had anywhere from 2.5-5 meters per deck. Worf (as a Klingon) was able to walk upright in the corridors without the need for crouching. Most Klingons are slightly taller than Humans.

[Captain_Licard]

The ship, like the defiant, is a war ship with a crew of 36. it has three decks plus the bridge in the forward sections. The main warp/slipstream core expands to the entire height of the ship. the shuttlebay only holds two type 6 styled shuttles. This aint the enterprise as its only about 21% bigger than the defiant.

[Darkthunder]

Only 21% bigger than the Defiant? On your 2nd pic, clearly the length is more than double the size of the Defiant.

[TChapman500]

The dimensions I mentioned are 6 feet by 4 feet.  I said 1.22 meters, not 1.20.  I can move around just fine in a hallway that's just 0.92 meters wide (3 feet).  A 1.85 by 0.92 is probably the dimensions of a corridor on a submarine.  Actually, 1.83 meters is closer to 6 feet than 1.85 meters.

A 2.5 to 3.0-meter ceiling is what you'd expect on an ocean liner, not a compact battleship, which by the way, looks great.  4 decks seems reasonable for a ship 30 meters high, assuming that most of the space is taken up by equipment an armor, and not 5 to 7-meter high decks.

As for the position of the nacelles, they still create a small blind spot behind the ship, but it seems small enough that it would be hard to exploit it.

[Captain_Licard]

Only 21% bigger than the Defiant? On your 2nd pic, clearly the length is more than double the size of the Defiant.

The length is only due to the nacceles. the ship itself is about 21% bigger

[Darkthunder]

The Sovereign Class is 680 meters in length, of which a large portion is the nacelle length.

The length of your ship is clearly more than twice the length of the Defiant. Your ships mass on the other hand may or may not be "21% bigger". But at the same time, you've already said it's not, since this ship has fewer decks than the Defiant. Which doesn't quite compute if it's both longer, has more mass, and less decks than the Defiant.

EDIT: After double-checking in Photoshop, the following seems true:

The 27th Century ship length (minus nacelles) are almost twice the total length of the Defiant. Including the length of the nacelles, the 27th Century ship is nearly three times the length of the Defiant. The total length of this ship + the suggested deck count, makes this seem like a very "paper thin" ship.

[Starforce2]

IMHO, the nacelles are a bit overboard.

[Captain_Licard]

The Nacceles are a bit long on purpose, it helps accent the overall design of the ship. as far as length, no. of decks, and height goes, I'm just guesstimating.

I just got my hands on a copy of Max so I'll import it into their and continue working on it.

[Captain_Licard]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A IMPORT ISSUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[eclipse74569]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A IMPORT ISSUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks more like a smoothing issue...have you tried smoothing it?  And if that doesn't work, try welding some vertices and see if that helps!

[Captain_Licard]

Looks more like a smoothing issue...have you tried smoothing it?  And if that doesn't work, try welding some vertices and see if that helps!

Great, I do that how?

[eclipse74569]

Great, I do that how?

For smoothing, just go into the modifier list on your right and select Smooth, it'll give you an option to "auto smooth" and "Prevent indirect smoothing" I would just hit autosmooth and see if that works to your taste.  If you want to go the route of welding verts (to get to that click on the three dots in the modifier window), just select a group of vertices and click on weld.

And I might add, try smoothing first!!!!!!

[Captain_Licard]

For smoothing, just go into the modifier list on your right and select Smooth, it'll give you an option to "auto smooth" and "Prevent indirect smoothing" I would just hit autosmooth and see if that works to your taste.  If you want to go the route of welding verts (to get to that click on the three dots in the modifier window), just select a group of vertices and click on weld.

And I might add, try smoothing first!!!!!!

nothing happened