Woah! That's a big bugger! Nice job!

Yup, it's a big borker to be sure.

Nice planning on the feet and engines. Practical-looking overall design, Phil.

I like the way you've created size w/o the usual grebbles and small lights. The sense of scale is immediately conveyed.

I really like it. Wish I could make ships like that... I guess I should download Wings to at least try huh?

Nice level of Detail there. Are you settign up different areas for different textures. Makes for a more interesting look.

Now that's beginning to look awesome!!!

Phil, i like it but i have one thing that i need to point out that doesn't look right. In the image where you have the landing gear down and engines turned around ready for landing/take off it looks like the engines would be sitting on the ground well before the landing gear would. Now i'm not one for picking fault with someone elses work cough, you might have left this minor detail out to see if someone was really paying attention to the model or just posting after having a quick glance at it ;) Other than that..Man that is one big mother ship..oooh i nearly said something else there ;)

Great looking ship, its really big, nice work :)

ooh now i can pick at it again :p I'm glad it is only a model cause if that thing was real it would tip forward when it landed.. CD (Just getting you going Phil :))

Er, there's no way a ship like that could land. It would not tip, it would break. This looks like your garden-variety deep-space ship. But a very nice deep-space ship.

How to get Phil out of a jam! Move the midsection engine config to the end of the gantry, just abaft of the disc and 3 pods. These would remain in orbit while the engines and gantry landed to pick up cargo.

Sheesh, some people have no imagination. The weight is mostly in the rear. Engines are heavy. Saucer section is not. Notice also that the sections are all reinforced with lattice work making it very sturdy. Like I said, "Nice planning on the feet and engines. Practical-looking overall design, Phil." :^) John

Thanks tjohn. (Sci-fi crap imminent warning....) The cobalt hyperdrive engines use a very dense anti-matter core which actually constitutes over half the weight of the ship. This means that the centre of gravity is balanced perfectly between the forward and rear landing gear. As for breaking, the reinforced grid work is made of an alloy not found on earth. It was given to the humans as part of a trade agreement from a very advanced culture and allows the ship to be incredibly long and still support it's own weight. It could actually be twice as long between the landing gear without undue stress being caused. AND is so well balanced it could almost get away with just one landing strut. AND (nearly done) the antigrav generators are used in combination with the landing struts to support the craft when it's on the ground. Jeeze guys, have you never heard of science fiction? You should get a life and stay in and watch more Star Trek! Wait, that's not right is it? ;-)

I thought the anti-matter engines balancing out the ship was obvious, but didn't realize the struts were an alien alloy. I thought they were just linearly fused poly-carbon nano-tubes, that's how we build ours.

Star Trek, science fiction? Bwahahahahaha! Next you're gonna tell me Star Wars is science fiction... :-)))))))) But seriously, that ship is made for space, really. There's something quite similar in Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton. I've toyed with the idea to model it for about a year.

Well, it sure ain't science fact.

Phil: I've heard some bollocks in my time.........!!!! ;-)

You guys are great. I am more of an art fan than a sci-fi fan... but I love the back story justifying the design of the ship. Isn't that a big part of the attraction to 3d modeling and sci-fi... using your imagination.

Phil, your ships amaze me. Thinking everything detail-wise to justify the design of the ship is something you persist in completing and makes all your crafts that much better!

Trust me, both of them have quite little to do with the real science fiction.

In the real science fiction, there are no audible explosions in space, nor spaceships make "vroom" in the vacuum.

Lucas had the excuse of creating a space opera, but Rodenberry is possibly one of the main suspects for giving the SF a bad name.

</rant>

Message edited on: 06/26/2005 17:09

Not all sci-fi is star wars. Not all of it is space. Some of it can be done without space or explosions.

I personally like what you have done; the design is very imaginative and really has a good balance to it. Keep at it!!! Just my 2 cents.

You're all gonna hate what I've done now.... I've added windows!

In Bryce no one can hear you scream!

Lol@Bryster!

Eek! Windows! (hides under bed) Can't wait to see it. This model is superb beyond surpassing excellence. =)

OK another design vs. function debate. You designers have no respect for engineers who actually have to build your wild machinations. 1) If you've added Windows, you're sure to ensure this ship never flies. It'll crash and burn upon first engine ignition. I'd use Linux as the OS if I were you. ;-) 2) So you've gone with the cobalt hyperdrive. Yeah, ok, its powerful, but its also incredibly inefficient! It requires 62% of its thrusting power just to reach EV. I would've gone for a Quantum Singularity reactor in a tri-Duranium tetra-adamantium core. Its almost as powerful but has 6 times the thrust to weight ratio that your hotrod cobalts do. Furthermore, it'll fit in your existing design. No need to change your engine config. Although, the landing struts will need rethinking. 3) Secret alloy my butt! Every zeno-engineer knows your talking about polyberylium carbide. Those aliens you so fondly speak of, were commisioned by the joint alliance of the Capital Republican Alliance for Peace (CRAP) and Society for Cosmic Relations of Alien Peoples (SCRAP) to develop that alloy. And they charged a hefty price of galactic proportions. I've never been in favour of that Alien make work project. I can't believe how much of our tax dollars are funnelled through CRAP only to be used for SCRAP projects.

Aye, I think it's a pretty cool model! Quite clean, too... What'cha going to do for a final render, I wonder...? Asteroids? Stars? LASERS?!?

Just a small point. The engines look like jets. I always make it a point if I do spacecraft to not make any intakes on the engines. (Yes I know they do that in Star Wars) I guess I am just picky after having worked at fixing jets for about 14 years. It is up to you after all George Lucas saw fit to make the X wings with intakes. Just a tech point. the overall design is reminiciant of the discovery from 2001.

They are jet engines. I even modelled blades in the intakes. Those engines are purely for take off, landing and flying in an atmosphere. The main engines are in the rear of the ship and kick in once it gets high enough. NEXT.

OR How about the intakes taking in hydrogen (or something) for supplemental fuel? Thing is, it ain't real.

Thats one cool ship Phil !! Hats off for the modeling !! WOW!! Joe

LOL @ Phil. Nice explanations! :-) BTW, in case you didn't know, there are spaceships using interstellar hydrogen as fuel - ramscoop ships. But the scoops should be vast arrays in front of the ship. I modelled something like one when I started with Rhino 2.5 years ago, IIRC, and it's not fit to wipe the airlocks of your ship. :-) The pic is still somewhere here in the forum. It looks like an eggbeater. :-)))) Furthermore, it was a cross with an Orion, a spaceship using atom bombs for liftoff and propulsion. Both types swiped from SF novels, I hasten to add, although Orion was a real project: www.unmuseum.org/orionproject.htm

Atomics for propulsion? Now THAT'S dirty...

The only place it was used was in a novel where they didn't mind it cause they had to remove the alien invasion of the Earth. Niven & Pournelle's Footfall. Nice and entertaining reading, although not as good as their Mote in God's Eye.

Very good-looking design Phil! I'd love to see it animated. @Erlik- I aqree; those are both good reads.

Message edited on: 06/27/2005 19:42

Aye, Erlik, I loved that book, but never finished it... I've never heard of anyone else having read it. I'm gonna have to go find it again somehow.

I think the 'ramscoop' design is actually a BUZZARD drive. see 'Tau Zero' by P. Anderson.

:-) Bussard ramjet. An idea/design proposed by the physicist R.W Bussard in 1960. Larry Niven used a ramscoop ship in World of Ptavvs, 1965. http://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/1031 And a "Bussard ramjet" in World Out of Time, 1976. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=324

I stand corrected!