With all these "Space Opera" contest WIPs and spaceship models being displayed in the Forum, I guess it was inevitable that I would catch the fever too! I built this model in the "W" app, and I textured and rendered it in Bryce. I think I will UV map a version too, so I can more easily add faded insignia and markings. The ships design concept is to be a warship disguised as a rusty freighter. What looks like a slow old rustbucket is actually a heavy cruiser armed to the teeth with beam weapons and torpedoes. The ship is designed to patrol and capture or destroy pirates and raiders that prey on system shipping. The model is already around 30,000 polys, let alone the textures, so I may be limited as to how many nurnies and greeblys I can add for additional detail. I also intend to use the ship in an animation, so the simpler I keep it, the faster it will render the video, or frame seq. Any C&Cs are appreciated.

Here is a front view! Dont mind my star backgrounds. I threw together something quick & dirty in PS with Gitterato and UIC so I would have something to hang my models in front of.

Very nice cruiser, a freebie at some point?

Fer you Zhann? You betcha',lol.

this makes me wonder how they'd offload cargo in space. Teleporters are all very well, but small rustbuckets wouldn't be able to afford one. If they used cranes, hoists, A-frames etc........I wonder if they'd bother dismantling them between trips, or if they'd leave them in place by the holds. There isn't any friction in space, is there? So bits sticking out wouldn't cause drag? I really like the angle of the first shot - for some reason space-ships are usually shown from the top or side, this gives a real feeling of a huge ship looming over you. colour so close to the background it almost looks like camouflage. wonder what camouflage would look like in space. wonder if radar works in space. wonder if stealth technology works in space. LOL - first (super-strong) coffee of the day turns me into a brainstorming fool!

very nice. I like the shape of it. And the hangar doors are great. I think I forgot about that on my model LOL

Very cool ship, danamo. Pog - Some interestiong comments you made about the loading and unloading stuff. Keep up the brainstorming :)

You're right, the bits sticking out wouldn't be a cause of drag, unless your ship passes through something gaseuos.

I think camouflage would look largely black or very dark grey.. though having a dark silhouette moving in front of a "bright" star or star cluster would be a bit of a giveaway - maybe you'd need some sort of adaptive camouflage scheme (chameleon like) consisting of both colour and lights.

Radar works in space. As current stealth technology (I believe) is based on minimizing the radar cross section of the target, then current stealth tech principles should also apply in spaceship design.

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 03:45

guys, the whole idea of deep space ships having windows is a bit ridiculous. a spaceship travelling through deep space away from major systems or suns would have no reason whatsoever to have windows (or too many windows rather). everything would be done like in a submarine. i mean the whole idea of a space dogfight based on line of sight is ridiculous. just my 2,000,000 Romanian lei :) drac

wonders if drac is joking, because of the 20,000,000 windows in his Space Opera construction edit to add - yeah, I had one eye and half a brain on a Discovery channel program about stealth technology awhile ago, and it's to do with the angles of the plane's components - at a very shallow angle there's nothing for the radar to bounce back from.

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 06:29

Cool ship! Why don't you take a chance in the challenge too? As for windows... hey, maybe they like to take a peek outside from time to time ^_^ S.

Jeez! This spaceship-fever is a killer! LOL Nice going, Danamo!

Great Job! I love the Pov in the first one. :-D

When the London underground was first constructed they didn't bother putting windows in the trains, since there was nothing to look at apart from black tunnel walls. But there was an outcry from the people and London Transport relented and put windows in. People like to look out, even if there's nothing to look at. Great texture BTW.

Pog, there are always reflections, stealth, aside from RAM (radar absorbant materials) is based on controlling the direction of the reflections via surface incidence angles so as to 1. not concentrate or establish resonances or 2. reflect as minimal an echo back to the receiver as possible.
...and there is always friction, space is NOT empty and at relavistic speeds could been seen as almost soupy! (grin)

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 11:11

during the first World War, they came up with the idea of 'Q' ships; they were converted freighters, with hidden cannon, etc. An unsuspecting German submarine would approach, they'd throw of the tarps, and ..whammo..
Sadly, this didn't work in WWII, the subs just sank first and asked questions after..

AH! Lego Redux!!! It reminds me of something me and my buddies would hobble together in an afternoon of Lego Crafting...the ORIGINAL 3D Modelling tool. :D I love the massivity.

Incarnadine - yeah I was wondering about radar absorbent materials (I think the germans tried that idea in WW2 but I imagine its moved a long way forward since then)- do those materials just absord radar signals of a specific wavelength, or narrow band of wavelengths, or are they fairly broadband?

If I tell you, I will have to pay for a ticket to Australia so I can kill you (grin). Not sure, I believe there are varieties with different degrees of success by vavelength.

Yeah, thats what I figured, so that frequency skipping/hopping radar would see the target at some freqs but not at others. Something else I think the germans tried on their uboat conning towers to defeat radar detection was to put a wire mesh over it and run a small current through it (guessing that the size of the mesh was related to the frqeuency it would work against). Unfortunately, that while it sort of worked, saltwater and ocean waves crashing into it tended to make it unusable pretty quickly.

The simple rule of thumb is, if you want to catch a squiggly, the holes in the net must be less than half of the length of the squiggly. *squiggly = the electromagnetic wave. *the net = the wire mesh in the antenna.

Message edited on: 10/30/2004 22:28

Thank's everyone for the helpful comments and the interesting tangents as well,lol.

lol Incarnadine - now why couldn't they make radar theory sound that easy in the first place :)

I'm still giggling about that highly technical term "Squiggly"

Message edited on: 10/31/2004 20:26

If they could do that, why would they have to pay me the big bucks! It's a conspiracy by us engineers - don't tell anyone though. We'll deny everything of course.