position of dock bay doors next to engines means no manouvering when open unless you want fry'd wee ships...
could rotate the hanger 90 degrees and move the bridge forwadr
also massive bay doors like this would leave contents open to attack...maybe move the engines back a bit and add a heatsheild/defensive armoured wall that could be raised or lower when in battle but would still allow small ships to manouver out
I think you should try adding some bigger shapes to the back to give it a stronger butt. And are those intakes at the front of the engines? Shouldn't need intakes in space. Also if you want to be realistic it would need some propulsion at other points so it can maneuver properly.
i see you are giong for an translation of classical ship design into a space theme. which really cool.
Besides the already mentioned hints there are a few other things that bother me:
The front turret: I don't know why but to me it feels missplaced. Maybe its because of the angle it is connected to the hull.
For the front I could imagine some kind of Front radar-Cone sticking out, while the turret can be placed somewhere else. Although I have to admit I'm not sure where it is suited properly. Top / bottom or on both sides seem nice fo me.
Like the design, and plausible approach. There are theorys that spaceships if they are unchained from gravity would be more spherical in nature.
I dont think the fuel hoses would be unprotected, they would likely get damaged from just floating debris.
I doubt a smoke screen would work in space, it couldnt be simple water, it have to be particles of appropriate mass, and the spaceship would have to carry alot to make a cloud of the size. Dispersing the cloud uniformly like that would be extremely difficult. Also its range of movement behind the clould would be so limited, the enemy would know where there going anyway.
latest iteration. added a tiny search radar, more junk, and laser turrets on the rear hull.
@slave_zero yeah, i'm trying to merge star wars, modern space and modern battleships.
i try finding some good reference for radars, but end up reading about the different radar systems, radio communication methods, electronic countermeasures, and all that stuff.
:P oh well. the curse of being a military buff and detail freak.
i put the turrets on the angles on the front mostly to try and counter the big deadspace you get on the front of the spaceship. it looked a bit unfamiliar at first, but i've sort of started to like how it looks.
the smoke screen isn't for hiding the ship behind, but to reduce the effectiveness of beam weapon attacks, like lasers. the idea is to make it work like IR-smoke grenades for tanks.
since its space, the smoke cloud will float along with the ship, and additional smoke grenades can be fired to keep the cloud up. or thats the idea.
the fuel "hoses" aren't really hoses, but 20mm triple-hardened steel+20mm ceramic backing+20mm air+20mm steel backplate tubes. which should be able to take care of most space debris, and the occasional armour piercing rounds.
Not as water vapour, anything you fire as smoke would become to diffuse to be useful as a smoke screen. To deflect laser fire effectively you'd have to use something like small shiny pieces of metal. You would need a lot they would be heavy. They would also continue to move in the direction you fire them at the speed you fire them, dispersing them very quickly and making them next to useless.
Or perhaps you could fire them at the start of the battle then create an electromagnetic field to orient/control them and keep them with the ship. Depending on how many and how thick they could even be used to deflect projectile weapons or at least lessen their energy. It could be a dynamic shield moving the field and particles in the directions of threats. It could even be used as a weapon to strike at missiles or close range ships.
Dont know if it'd really work but it sounds plausible.
Well, yeah it's not like it will just disappear suddenly on exit you can still introduce new elements into a vacuum it just won't last long unless you're continuously pumping it out.
Need more radar dishes at different angles. Radar is going to be your primary means of navigating and detecting threats, but you are currently setup to track objects only along one plain with nothing covering the top or bottom of the ship.
Youll also probably want some adjustable thrusters on the front of the ship to help with maneuvering and orientation.
well, i added a bunch of phased array radar plates all over the hull, similar to the USS arleight burke class destroyer. there's one in the nose, one on the belly, one on both the left and right lower side of the nose, close to the hangar bay, and one just behind the rear gun turret behind the bridge.
those boxed up 6x arrays are actually the ship to ship-to-ship missiles. the big boxes above them are the smoke screen dispenser boxes.
updated the smoke greande clusters with more detail:
also, thought about how the smoke grenades might work:
if the smoke particles are pushed out slowly, then the smoke screen is going to last longer than if they are pushed out rapidly. the drawback is that the smoke screen is slower to deploy. maybe if there is a combination of slow firing and fast firing smoke grenades, it might work.
I really dont think that would work. For a cloud of gas to form it needs stuff to impede its momentum it needs an already dense atmosphere(or it needs a large gravitational field) so that the atoms of the gas can fly around and bounce of one another. When fired from the cannon at whatever speed they would fly like pellets from a shotgun, and continue on there direction without interacting with one another. No matter how slowly, I doubt it would form any sort of gaseous cloud that you could see or would be effective in any way.
Also we already have lasers that are able to compensate for atmospherics, the gas cloud would have to be extemely dense, unless they are metal mirrored fragments.
Sorry not trying to put a dampener on your idea, its fiction you can do what you want, its just fun to think of this stuff.
one thing i spotted.... thoes 2 bay doors.... i would never have anything functional so close to thrusters..... just an idea
i think it would b best to move the thrusters higher or low than the bay that way u wont kill all ur crew....
one thing i spotted.... thoes 2 bay doors.... i would never have anything functional so close to thrusters..... just an idea
i think it would b best to move the thrusters higher or low than the bay that way u wont kill all ur crew....
Thats actually really funny, you go to scramble the fighters and whoosh, you're defenseless.
Actually the smoke screen defense system against beam weaponry is a great idea and totally plausible. You don't need metal fragments. Any reflective substance would do. Lunar dust, crushed gypsum, or even beach sand would be fine. Controlling the density and spread of the field is a function of emission angle and speed. Longer coverage would mean longer deployment time, but it's doable with computer controlled munitions.
Lasers are focused a lot more than what shows up in cartoons and movies, and a bit of dust in the way could make a very large difference in target damage.
one thing i spotted.... thoes 2 bay doors.... i would never have anything functional so close to thrusters..... just an idea
i think it would b best to move the thrusters higher or low than the bay that way u wont kill all ur crew....
yeah i already fixed that. look further down in the thread.
The smoke screen might sound like a good idea on first glance, but it is really next to useless, even if it works as you proposed...firstly it would impede your own beam weapons at the same time...but, more importantly, it wouldn't follow any delta-v...in a space battle nothing is more important than maneuverability...if a kinetic projectile (anything sufficiently accelerated) hits your ship, you're done...to defend against that you need point defense weapons (mostly lasers, useless in your smokescreen), a random course controlled by a computer/AI and rapid course corrections with high G (also controlled by an AI)...beam weapons are harmless in relation to kinetic projectiles...they loose effectiveness with range (1/r²), are easily reflected by conducting materials (conductors short-circuit the electric field) and take their time to do real damage...
But nice ship design...the only thing that bugs me, is the bridge...you wouldn't want such an exposed position for your commander, unless you want to climb up the greasy pole ...especially since all information he could possibly need can be relayed by cameras and sensors...remember...windows are structural weak points...
Windows are structural week points indeed but also necessary for humans to not suffer from various psychological issues (Claustrophobia, depression etc..).
The bridge would probably be the equivalent of how tanks opperate nowadays, the ability to look outside while in safety and optical/telemetry feedback when in combat.
Might be cool to make the bridge so it could move up and down with blast doors closing on top of it to protect it from harm.
eyes vs screen. depth perception. the bridge with windows could also be used for manual precision manouvering, in case of a few computer failures.
also with a screen you don't get the full range of vision you get with the binocular mk.1 eyeballs. whereas a computer screen you're limited to about 60-70 degrees of vision, a human has a field of view of 130 degrees.
most military vehicles nowadays has a number of backup systems.
tanks for example still have handcranks, to turn the turret, and elevate the gun, and a ww2 style emergency auxillary sight, in case the primary sight gets shot out.
oh and the windows just looks cool.
actually any hatch, weld, seam, or bolt-on plate in armour are weakspots.
Seriously...if your target is near enough to be seen through a window, you can as well not bother aiming and prepare to be boarded...
that depends on how the windows are made.
but having depth perception is useful if your computer systems have been destroyed by a round passing through your mainframe, and you're trying to manually dock the ship on an asteroid base for repairs.
also, if the windows have a transparent OLED backing, the windows could relay information from the radars onto the windows like positions, distance, speed and heading of enemy ships.
You could easily get depth with a view screen, we are making such tv and cameras now.
Thats what I imagine tvs to be like in the future, like looking through a window.
right. in future vehicles, you could possibly put 360 degree spherical CCD camera
receiver thingys, or whatnot on the outside of the ships, which gives 1:1 image information to an OLED wallpapers inside a protected control module, that gives you 360 degree situational awareness.
alternatively, you could be neurally wired to the ship itself, and after training yourself, the ship basically becomes an extension of your own mind, reacting to every
command you give it at the speed of thought. taking it to even further extremes, you could basically be a "brain in a jar", like ghost in the shell, where the ship has built in life-support systems to nourish and sustain your brain, and the spaceship is basically a cyborg body of sorts.
but as it is, thats not the direction i'm taking this ship, and the bridge stays where it is, windows and all.
When I first saw your frigate and the design your approaching I immediatly thought of the great spaceship designs of Steve "Coolhand" Tyler.
You should have a look at his gallery an his ships. They are awesome and he does an incredible job to combine future spaceship design with common design elements of naval comabt ships.
Its comming together. I like your progress on this.
At the Moment the engines look quite vulnerable. They could use some armor-Plating to partially cover some of the pipe-areas.
Also: What are you planning to do on the underside of the ship? It screams for some awesome landing-gear system. But also You might consider to place some radar, Guns and CIWS und the underside because otherwise the frigate will be quite vulnerable from below and will have problems spotting enemys underneath it self (radar shadow etc.)
You also could think of a big hangar-bay entrance und the bottom side. because its awesome.
Replies
could rotate the hanger 90 degrees and move the bridge forwadr
also massive bay doors like this would leave contents open to attack...maybe move the engines back a bit and add a heatsheild/defensive armoured wall that could be raised or lower when in battle but would still allow small ships to manouver out
Nice though, I dig the naval style bridge.
it also has bay doors in the bottom now. hmm. i'm thinking maybe i could do the doors at a 45 degree angle as well.
yeah, butt needs some hours put into it, its basically just a big block currently.
i added some graphics to show what is what on this thing.
Besides the already mentioned hints there are a few other things that bother me:
The front turret: I don't know why but to me it feels missplaced. Maybe its because of the angle it is connected to the hull.
For the front I could imagine some kind of Front radar-Cone sticking out, while the turret can be placed somewhere else. Although I have to admit I'm not sure where it is suited properly. Top / bottom or on both sides seem nice fo me.
a big radar-array behind the bridge could improve the silhouette in my opinion. SOmething like this:
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2007/issue2/graphics/contents/a1b.jpg
Also you could add some kind of ciws-system beside the smokescreen elements you've talked about.
http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/4913/newciwsapr242on3.jpg
Because I think it will harder to communicate to the viewer that a few of those pods are countermesaures / a few are missles.
I dont think the fuel hoses would be unprotected, they would likely get damaged from just floating debris.
I doubt a smoke screen would work in space, it couldnt be simple water, it have to be particles of appropriate mass, and the spaceship would have to carry alot to make a cloud of the size. Dispersing the cloud uniformly like that would be extremely difficult. Also its range of movement behind the clould would be so limited, the enemy would know where there going anyway.
@slave_zero yeah, i'm trying to merge star wars, modern space and modern battleships.
i try finding some good reference for radars, but end up reading about the different radar systems, radio communication methods, electronic countermeasures, and all that stuff.
:P oh well. the curse of being a military buff and detail freak.
i put the turrets on the angles on the front mostly to try and counter the big deadspace you get on the front of the spaceship. it looked a bit unfamiliar at first, but i've sort of started to like how it looks.
the smoke screen isn't for hiding the ship behind, but to reduce the effectiveness of beam weapon attacks, like lasers. the idea is to make it work like IR-smoke grenades for tanks.
since its space, the smoke cloud will float along with the ship, and additional smoke grenades can be fired to keep the cloud up. or thats the idea.
the fuel "hoses" aren't really hoses, but 20mm triple-hardened steel+20mm ceramic backing+20mm air+20mm steel backplate tubes. which should be able to take care of most space debris, and the occasional armour piercing rounds.
Or perhaps you could fire them at the start of the battle then create an electromagnetic field to orient/control them and keep them with the ship. Depending on how many and how thick they could even be used to deflect projectile weapons or at least lessen their energy. It could be a dynamic shield moving the field and particles in the directions of threats. It could even be used as a weapon to strike at missiles or close range ships.
Dont know if it'd really work but it sounds plausible.
Well, yeah it's not like it will just disappear suddenly on exit you can still introduce new elements into a vacuum it just won't last long unless you're continuously pumping it out.
Youll also probably want some adjustable thrusters on the front of the ship to help with maneuvering and orientation.
I would make those smoke screen generators into boxed up ship to ship missiles like these bad boys : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/C-802_anti_ship_missile.JPG.
those boxed up 6x arrays are actually the ship to ship-to-ship missiles. the big boxes above them are the smoke screen dispenser boxes.
updated the smoke greande clusters with more detail:
also, thought about how the smoke grenades might work:
if the smoke particles are pushed out slowly, then the smoke screen is going to last longer than if they are pushed out rapidly. the drawback is that the smoke screen is slower to deploy. maybe if there is a combination of slow firing and fast firing smoke grenades, it might work.
Also we already have lasers that are able to compensate for atmospherics, the gas cloud would have to be extemely dense, unless they are metal mirrored fragments.
Sorry not trying to put a dampener on your idea, its fiction you can do what you want, its just fun to think of this stuff.
i think it would b best to move the thrusters higher or low than the bay that way u wont kill all ur crew....
Thats actually really funny, you go to scramble the fighters and whoosh, you're defenseless.
Lasers are focused a lot more than what shows up in cartoons and movies, and a bit of dust in the way could make a very large difference in target damage.
I thought about the metal because thats the only thing lasers seem to have the most trouble cutting through.
yeah i already fixed that. look further down in the thread.
But nice ship design...the only thing that bugs me, is the bridge...you wouldn't want such an exposed position for your commander, unless you want to climb up the greasy pole
The bridge would probably be the equivalent of how tanks opperate nowadays, the ability to look outside while in safety and optical/telemetry feedback when in combat.
Might be cool to make the bridge so it could move up and down with blast doors closing on top of it to protect it from harm.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#laser
eyes vs screen. depth perception. the bridge with windows could also be used for manual precision manouvering, in case of a few computer failures.
also with a screen you don't get the full range of vision you get with the binocular mk.1 eyeballs. whereas a computer screen you're limited to about 60-70 degrees of vision, a human has a field of view of 130 degrees.
most military vehicles nowadays has a number of backup systems.
tanks for example still have handcranks, to turn the turret, and elevate the gun, and a ww2 style emergency auxillary sight, in case the primary sight gets shot out.
oh and the windows just looks cool.
actually any hatch, weld, seam, or bolt-on plate in armour are weakspots.
that depends on how the windows are made.
but having depth perception is useful if your computer systems have been destroyed by a round passing through your mainframe, and you're trying to manually dock the ship on an asteroid base for repairs.
also, if the windows have a transparent OLED backing, the windows could relay information from the radars onto the windows like positions, distance, speed and heading of enemy ships.
make it super high poly now!
heh, thanks.
love everything you do btw
Thats what I imagine tvs to be like in the future, like looking through a window.
right. in future vehicles, you could possibly put 360 degree spherical CCD camera
receiver thingys, or whatnot on the outside of the ships, which gives 1:1 image information to an OLED wallpapers inside a protected control module, that gives you 360 degree situational awareness.
alternatively, you could be neurally wired to the ship itself, and after training yourself, the ship basically becomes an extension of your own mind, reacting to every
command you give it at the speed of thought. taking it to even further extremes, you could basically be a "brain in a jar", like ghost in the shell, where the ship has built in life-support systems to nourish and sustain your brain, and the spaceship is basically a cyborg body of sorts.
but as it is, thats not the direction i'm taking this ship, and the bridge stays where it is, windows and all.
I'm digging the design. Very Wing Commander, I think. Crank it out!
You should have a look at his gallery an his ships. They are awesome and he does an incredible job to combine future spaceship design with common design elements of naval comabt ships.
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=2327&title=predators&cat=2
or even more screens:
http://www.scifi3d.com/wip_details.asp?intGenreID=20&intCatID=45&key=128
For the lazy ones and due to the fact that scifi-meshes is a bit messy here are some great screens:
but i got some work to finish before continuing on this.
added some new doors on the bottom which exposes a cooling plate array.
At the Moment the engines look quite vulnerable. They could use some armor-Plating to partially cover some of the pipe-areas.
Also: What are you planning to do on the underside of the ship? It screams for some awesome landing-gear system. But also You might consider to place some radar, Guns and CIWS und the underside because otherwise the frigate will be quite vulnerable from below and will have problems spotting enemys underneath it self (radar shadow etc.)
You also could think of a big hangar-bay entrance und the bottom side. because its awesome.
Nice work so far. keep it up.