100 dT Huntress model

[wbnc]

There was an article in JTAS #24 by Miller about jumpspace. Basically he states:
(1) The laws of conservation of momentum must be maintained, so civilian ships reduce their velocity to zero.
(2) Military ships don't, so they can have speed upon exit in the new system, directing their exit vector towards their destination. So they accelerate constantly in their departure system to they can decelerate in their arrival system.
(3) When the two systems have a high relative proper motion with each other this has to be factored into things when computing speeds and directions for when you arrive at the new system.

What's to stop a commercial ship calculating the correct vector to leave a system on to drop out of jump on course and at speed? Make it a damn sight harder for pirates to attack.

At the end of the day it's just math and astrogation/data. Just as we have charts of currents and depths for shipping these days I can see that information routinely in any ship's computer and updated automatically. Maybe as part of the berthing fees there's a data dump of the latest astrodata?

I'd say its more habit than anything.....a miltary trained pilot/astogator on a commercial vessel might be prone to doing a moving jump, while a team from a purely commercial background might see tht as inviting a misjump.

I know one old school pilot who always wanted to make a once around the airfield if he was allowed to.. just to make sure the runway was clear...he grew up flying off of some farmer's field...guess finding the runway blocked by a tractor , or cow, scared him


One of my workboat Captains wouldn't come into port for a while after a big ship left. He claimed they could stir up the bottom and cause debris stuck in the mud to float to the surface...and since I was only a deckhand I took his word for it

 

[Anonymous]

I'd say its more habit than anything.....a miltary trained pilot/astogator on a commercial vessel might be prone to doing a moving jump, while a team from a purely commercial background might see tht as inviting a misjump.

So you're average PC astrogator who think's he's God's gift to Astrogation is gonna be hitting jump at several hundred km/s for sh!ts and giggles and cos he can?

Being an astrogator just got to be fun!

 

[wbnc]

I'd say its more habit than anything.....a miltary trained pilot/astogator on a commercial vessel might be prone to doing a moving jump, while a team from a purely commercial background might see tht as inviting a misjump.

So you're average PC astrogator who think's he's God's gift to Astrogation is gonna be hitting jump at several hundred km/s for sh!ts and giggles and cos he can?

Being an astrogator just got to be fun!

Astrogator I cant say, but I have been the navigator on light aircraft...I have a death certificate to prove it..picked it up in an airborne radiological monitoring exercise.I forgot to allow for wind, and my search plane flew into the plume of a leaking reactor.(simulated of course)


My instructor thought he was above double checking his calculations,and leaving extra fuel in the Cessna he was delivering...at night, across Pisgah national forest...he got to test the claim you can "safely" land a Cessna 150 in tree tops..of course he did it at night, deadstick, lost and with no flight plan on file....not the thing you want to have to explain to the Civil Air Patrol Squadron in the building next to your office...he was the subject of the next three safety and training lectures at the squadron....so yeah people who think they are really that good, tend to be careless and get themselves into trouble.

 

[Condottiere]

1. If the fleet is synced during transition, the ships all tend to arrive at the same place and time.

2. What makes the SDBs dangerous is that during refuelling, the unauthorised ships have to hold a predictable course and speed, allowing aimed shots at the more vulnerable spots on a vessel.

3. It makes no commercial sense to detour to refuel at a gas giant.

4. Any insystem refuelling facilities would be destroyed the moment they look like being captured; and even if they were, probably don't have enough to fill up a battle squadron and escorts.

5. It's more like a strategic pit stop, especially if the system is not worth the delay fighting over it, and the time saved and the momentum gained in transiting deeper is worth the risk.

 

[phavoc]

1. If the fleet is synced during transition, the ships all tend to arrive at the same place and time.

2. What makes the SDBs dangerous is that during refuelling, the unauthorised ships have to hold a predictable course and speed, allowing aimed shots at the more vulnerable spots on a vessel.

3. It makes no commercial sense to detour to refuel at a gas giant.

4. Any insystem refuelling facilities would be destroyed the moment they look like being captured; and even if they were, probably don't have enough to fill up a battle squadron and escorts.

5. It's more like a strategic pit stop, especially if the system is not worth the delay fighting over it, and the time saved and the momentum gained in transiting deeper is worth the risk.

Aimed shots aren't allowed. And even agility isn't allowed. The rules have never made it clear why a refueling ship is at such a disadvantage in combat. With no shields you have to depend on armor. Plus nothing has ever been discussed regarding how much "hiding in the clouds" is actually worth a damn. If you can't see into the clouds, how do you see out of them? And if you are IN the cloud, how does someone else see you? There are many, many issues here and nothing to justify the statement (though it sounds cool and everything. Just nothing has been done about it, so you can't apply it with game mechanics).

For the most part, I think you are right. It's cheaper to pay for your gas at the main planet than flying days to get it for "free". Time is money. The only exception would be when the primary port or major port is orbiting a gas giant. Then it makes more sense (but I still don't see the larger commercial ships doing it, just smaller free traders and such).

Fueling facilities have never been covered, but if you treat them like old-style coaling stations or ports specifically designed to support a fleet, then yeah, they could refuel an entire squadron, assuming that was part of their original mission. Just depends on the size. It might be that nobody gets full tanks, just get topped off. Depending on the tech and other things, it may not be feasible or practical to have a refueling station that isn't in orbit around a gas giant - at least for ones expected to refuel large combatants.

The history of the frontier wars had Imperials fighting delaying actions in some systems that weren't strategically important, but mostly because of how they had their fleets arranged and it took time to bring the main ones up from the rear. But what you posit is more or less normal battlefield tactics (unless you are a certain small german man with no common sense and refuse to yield a place called Stalingrad).

 

[dragoner]

JTAS has covered a lot of things over the years. I am constantly rediscovering things by reading the back issues. You can purchase the entire set (up through the Challenge issues) from FFE for $20.

You are right, maybe I should read up on them, I do have both the JTAS and Challenge disks, but mostly I have just been going from memory of the old issues I bought back then.

 

[Bardicheart]

Did get a lil bit of work done this evening. Working on adding some small details, conduits and other bits and pieces. Just trying to fill in some of the empty spaces with "clutter" that looks like it has some function, creating visual interest.

 

[dragoner]

That is great work!

 

[Bardicheart]

Thanks, not 100% happy with it yet and I'm thinking of deleting all the conduits and redoing them. This is one of the reference images from the ISS I'm using for reference and inspiration.

I want to get that general feel of... I dunno... gizmos here that does important stuff.

 

[phavoc]

You should be looking more at aircraft than the ISS. It doesn't have to go up/down in atmo, but your ship does. So anything on it needs to be streamlined, or something like a grab-bar or bulky thing that's kinda, sorta aerodynamic.

Your Huntress is going to be faster than a ship that can only make 100-200kph due to its design.

 

[Bardicheart]

See that's part of my problem in general. I look at the S Type scout, the Huntress and others and they're just not streamlined, not at all like an aircraft. My first version of the Huntress was a lot more streamlined than the current version, but the current version is a lot more faithful to the official drawings. So there's a lot of "handwaving" going on there already. If it were me I'd make most of these look a lot more like the J Type diplomatic barges from Star Wars. Those things were aerodynamic and looked like something that could do a few 1,000 kph in atmosphere without problem; but that's not what we have.

Just the shape of the Huntress or the Type S scout, that big back end; you'd get a huge amount of drag from that which would tend to slow the craft down. Not to mention all the dips and bumps on the hull surface that would create additional pockets of turbulence and drag. But there it is and that's the official design we have to work with. This is part of why in my assumptions about such craft I was leaning towards limiting them to transonic speeds rather than allowing supersonic; just because you've got thrust powerful enough to push it to supersonic speeds does not mean the craft can physically handle it. How fast could it go, dunno, I can't put this thing in a wind tunnel and do any tests (though theoretically Blender's physics engine might be able to simulate high speed air flow, but not the structural affects... not that I know enough about that part of Blender to even attempt that at this point).

NASA's X-43, which I mentioned previously, managed to hit over 13,000 kph... at which point its liquid cooled, titanium-nickel hull began to melt and peel off followed by a catastrophic failure of the craft. Its another reason I've pondered just how much heat the hull can handle and at what point heat shielding is actually required. There's nothing official on all this so I'm kind of stuck trying to take what I have and make it look good and interesting while keeping it somewhat believable... and what is plausible is highly dependent on the viewers assumptions which will vary.

So far as the conduits in my test renders, I think after a nights sleep the thing that's bugging me most is they aren't secured. I've got them just sort of stuck where ever (and making all those bendy bits was kinda fun) but they should probably be secured to the back panel, neatly routed and arranged. Its also worth noting that panel is on that big flat back end of the ship where because of the shape its not going to affect streamlining and you've already got a huge amount of drag.

If it were me, all that stuff would be underneath a cover panel (with maybe only that exhaust fan, turbine, thingy... er... whatever it is... sticking out); but then like I said if it were my own design you'd have a much more streamlined design overall (the turret and lot of other stuff would all but disappear, the guns would disappear inside the turret with only firing ports, the "wings" would have a more aerofoil shape, and it would just about be a complete departure from the official design :lol: ). But, the original drawings and model indicate there's a recessed area there. Why? Beats me, no idea why but its there. Filling it in with "gizmos" is a way of communicating a purpose for that recessed area.

 

[Anonymous]

I for one would be very interested in Traveller ships reimagined to be in line with the kind of comments you're making. Stuff that fits what we know about science now and what we can hand wave as believable for the future.

Short of some kind of field around the ship to manipulate airflow, the laws of aerodynamics aren't going to change between now and the 57th century.

If it's streamlined, make it so!

It doesn't need to derive lift from it's shape (and I'd imagine it would be too heavy to glide even if the shape could generate lift)

That's the difference with adding aero fins, a shape of hull that generates lift. As mass isn't part of the design process we can ignore it! hahahaha

 

[Bardicheart]

I for one would be very interested in Traveller ships reimagined to be in line with the kind of comments you're making. Stuff that fits what we know about science now and what we can hand wave as believable for the future.

It would be an interesting project, and also probably pretty tough. I can imagine there would be a lot of "debate" about what should and shouldn't be changed. After all, look at how much just changing the turret got attention... and I actually thought you guys would like it! LOL That's the tough thing anytime you do something that has an established fan base and working on this project has been educational for me in that regard. You really have to work at getting a sense of what the audience's assumptions about things are. But hey, if I ever land a job with a studio working on Star Wars or something (as long as I'm daydreaming!), might be a little better prepared thanks to you grognards! :wink:

I do think we're reaching a point where sci-fi designs and artwork are going to start changing and some of these older "concepts" will disappear as newer concepts replace them. I'm seeing more examples of recessed energy weapons, for example, starting to replace the older "blaster cannon" style. That's because we're now getting to the point where some of this stuff isn't just sci-fi; some of it is at least seriously theoretical and in a few cases there are even some early real world examples. Came across this just this morning... primitive beam laser tech.

Germany's Got A 4 Barrel Laser Gatling Gun

Anyway, here's what the the rear Mechanicals Bay A (figured I'd give it a technical sounding name while I was making stuff up :lol: ) looks like. Deleted the conduits for now and added in a bunch more gizmo modules and some more lights... because... I like lights. Also lights help indicate something is happening here, stuff is doing stuff even if we don't know what that stuff is (its why even to this day sci-fi movie computers have blinking lights on them, not as much as in the 60s and 70s but they still have some. Its a way of communicating to the audience "the computer is now computing.").

Its a lil ironic that I'm spending way more time on these small details than I did the main hull. But that's typically how it goes, its always the details that in the end make or break the project.

Just for a better sense of scale on these details

Oh an WBNC, if you see something and wonder "how'd he make that shape" ask an I'll see if I can explain. Most of it wasn't really that complicated to make, not even that fan thingy.

 

[wbnc]

Oh an WBNC, if you see something and wonder "how'd he make that shape" ask an I'll see if I can explain. Most of it wasn't really that complicated to make, not even that fan thingy.

I was looking over the hull shape and a few bits and pieces, playing with he shapes in my head. I am very curious how you get eh slight rounding to the hull, I tried some proportional scaling, and got ...ewww...and subdivisions surfaces ...ickkk.


I am thinking the fan assemble was a bit of bevel magic...but not sure at all without playing around a bit

 

[phavoc]

Spacecraft with anti grav and fusion don't need the same kind of streamlining like airctaft, but there are going to be some similarities. Drag is an issue for aircraft because of fuel concerns, which aren't the same for spacecraft.

But the other issues related to drag on the hull and structural failures are. So those are the things you are trying to address with the design and looks of your ship.

We really don't know what the issues might be for starship magic armor that can shrug off micrometer impacts. So the heat from normal ops may not be an issue as much. And we really don't k Ow what kind of flight envelope characteristics we would have to be concerned about using that sort of tech. I would imagine a number of issues could be side stepped entirely, and maybe a few new ones cropping up when you start playing with gravity.

 

[phavoc]

Spacecraft with anti grav and fusion don't need the same kind of streamlining like airctaft, but there are going to be some similarities. Drag is an issue for aircraft because of fuel concerns, which aren't the same for spacecraft.

But the other issues related to drag on the hull and structural failures are. So those are the things you are trying to address with the design and looks of your ship.

We really don't know what the issues might be for starship magic armor that can shrug off micrometer impacts. So the heat from normal ops may not be an issue as much. And we really don't k Ow what kind of flight envelope characteristics we would have to be concerned about using that sort of tech. I would imagine a number of issues could be side stepped entirely, and maybe a few new ones cropping up when you start playing with gravity.

 

[Bardicheart]

I was looking over the hull shape and a few bits and pieces, playing with he shapes in my head. I am very curious how you get eh slight rounding to the hull, I tried some proportional scaling, and got ...ewww...and subdivisions surfaces ...ickkk.

Your first option is to change from flat shading to smooth shading, that'll give you a very slight and subtle rounding. Switch to object mode, select object and on the left its the button under Editing > Shading

Your second option is to apply the Subsurf modifier with only 1 level of subdivision.

A third option is to go in and edit the sharpness of individual edges but that gets really fiddly and time consuming.

I am thinking the fan assemble was a bit of bevel magic...but not sure at all without playing around a bit

I made the fan turbine thingy by starting with a circle and then using I)nset to add a loop cut. That gave me a ring of faces I E)xtruded out to form the outer sides. Another I)nset scaled down gave me the what I Extruded out to become the center axis / post. Some more I)nsets on the front of the outer wall gave me some loopcut rings that I used to create the extra bit of surface detail on the front edge. To emboss the center axis I used I)nset again about 6 times to give me a set of concentric loop cuts. I then turned on Proportional editing and selected the half circle (circular) fall off, grabbed the very center pixel and pulled it out on one axis while scaling down the fall off bubble until I had the nice round embossed shape. I used the same proportional editing tool to create the raised ring on the outer shell of the turbine casing, just made a bunch of circular loop cuts, then selected one of center edges, used Cntrl+E to select the Edge Ring and then used proportional editing with the fall off bubble scaled down to pull the ring out until I had a nice rounded shape.

That gives us the casing.

For the fan blades, while in edit mode I selected an edge on the inside of the outer wall and an opposite edge on the center post and then used Shift+S to move my 3D cursor to Selected, this puts it half way between the two edges and centered at the mid point. Then I added a cube (which will be added centered on where ever the 3D cursor is at the time), scaled it down until I had a squarish blade shape (kind of a elongated trapezoid) which I then rotated on its long axis until it was at an angle I thought looked good. Last step was to use the Spin button (Edit mode, left side tool panel under Add right below the Duplicate button), set it to 360 rotation, set the number of copies to 32 and viola, instant set of perfectly spaced fan blades.

Here's a wireframe to hopefully help you figure all that out. Note that the fan blades vertices are not directly connected to any of the casing vertices, they don't have to be in this case. You can let the blades just "float" there. Because everything was added (the cube that became the fan blades) in edit mode its still technically one mesh. You couldn't do this in an organic model, but hard surface models are more forgiving in this regard.

That's it. Took me less than 10 min to make start to finish. Once you get used to the short cut keys and some of the tools that generate this stuff it really does go quick. I spend more time figuring out what I want to make than I do actually making it most of the time.

BTW, proportional editing is something you'll probably want to play around with, its kind of fun and you can get some really interesting shapes with it.

 

[dragoner]

Short of some kind of field around the ship to manipulate airflow, the laws of aerodynamics aren't going to change between now and the 57th century.

You mean like a plasma field, like this? - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/future-00o.html

 

[wbnc]

That's it. Took me less than 10 min to make start to finish. Once you get used to the short cut keys and some of the tools that generate this stuff it really does go quick. I spend more time figuring out what I want to make than I do actually making it most of the time.

BTW, proportional editing is something you'll probably want to play around with, its kind of fun and you can get some really interesting shapes with it.

Thanks for the advice, will give it a try and see what I can do with things

 

[wbnc]

Okay switched this one over to smooth shading and got nice results with one tab....did a cycles render to it to show a bit more detail....now if I can get textures to stick in cycles render LOL.

the lines flow better for sure...