Mongoose 2300AD Progress Report

[middenface]

Thanks Colin... look what you have made me do..

http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/traveller-2300-bridgeport-swift-songbird/

Not quite the Warbird version yet...got a bit carried away on the detailing.

Apologies for the post hijack Colin..

http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/traveller-2300-bridgeport-swift-warbird/

 

[middenface]

'Dammit Jim, I'm an artist not an engineer'

Yup pretty aware it has got it's fault, but it looks nice. You should have heard the comments when I posted the Luki on SciFi Meshes.... things about recoil and hover tanks...

It's a coil gun. Recoil is much less than a CPR gun with the same muzzle energy. (Or, well, a little less... )

Just for fun, less profile and those side mounted missiles..
http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/traveller-2300-m9-hover-tank-w-missiles/

 

[silburnl]

However, of the four power plants, the MHD system requires smaller radiators as it is dumping a significant portion of its waste heat as exhaust.

Following that through to it's logical consequence, ships with MHD systems will have a higher passive signature since they'll be laying out a bright plume of hot exhaust gasses along their line of flight...

Regards
Luke

 

[silburnl]

BTW I like the snippet about Pentapod Shivas up near the top of this thread. They put me in mind of the drones used by the Rorschach entity in Peter Watts' Blindsight.

The distinction Watts draws is between intelligence and sentience (ie self-awareness or conscious thought). The human First Contact team in the book eventually conclude that the Rorschach entity is highly intelligent, but non-sentient (also extremely hostile as it happens, but that's 'just business').

Strongly recommended, but deeply depressing if you take Watts' suppositions to heart.

Regards
Luke

 

[aelius]

BTW I like the snippet about Pentapod Shivas up near the top of this thread. They put me in mind of the drones used by the Rorschach entity in Peter Watts' Blindsight.

The distinction Watts draws is between intelligence and sentience (ie self-awareness or conscious thought). The human First Contact team in the book eventually conclude that the Rorschach entity is highly intelligent, but non-sentient (also extremely hostile as it happens, but that's 'just business').

Strongly recommended, but deeply depressing if you take Watts' suppositions to heart.

Regards
Luke

I recommend all of Watts' work. And they are all deeply depressing... :shock:

 

[Colin]

However, of the four power plants, the MHD system requires smaller radiators as it is dumping a significant portion of its waste heat as exhaust.

Following that through to it's logical consequence, ships with MHD systems will have a higher passive signature since they'll be laying out a bright plume of hot exhaust gasses along their line of flight...

Regards
Luke

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[middenface]

Just for fun, less profile and those side mounted missiles..
http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/traveller-2300-m9-hover-tank-w-missiles/

http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/traveller-2300-m9-hover-tank-shit-kicker/

The sh*t kicker.. M9 Hover Tank part of 2/1 BDE US Marines.
(the Sh*t Kicker was a MOX/MAX battlesuit in Aliens: Tribes)

 

[Colin]

What about a tilt-fan ground attack aircraft?

 

[middenface]

What about a tilt-fan ground attack aircraft?

Let me see what I can do... I like a challenge.

 

[GamerDude]

What about a tilt-fan ground attack aircraft?

Hammer's Slammers. Command Car, Combat Car, Tank etc.

 

[Ishmael]

Mind if I take a shot at it?
http://fluffy-tiger.deviantart.com/art/tilt-rotor-attack-craft-WIP-213881531?q=in%3Ascraps%20sort%3Atime%20gallery%3Afluffy-tiger&qo=2

edit; did an update at that link.
I changed it a bunch to get a better 'military' feel instead of all smooth flowing lines.
At first I was going for something like a souped up attack copter, but I decided to make it more aircraft like.
I'm sticking with tilt-rotors instead of tilt-fans because tilt-rotors would have greater lift at hover due to the much larger actuator disk.
I still need to make a FLIR for the chin, and a chaingun/40mmgrenade belly turret/mount.
And the tilt -doohickeys and GITS-style 'feather flaps'.

 

[rust]

Mind if I take a shot at it?
http://fluffy-tiger.deviantart.com/art/tilt-rotor-attack-craft-WIP-213881531?q=in%3Ascraps%20sort%3Atime%20gallery%3Afluffy-tiger&qo=2

Looks very good.

 

[middenface]

Mind if I take a shot at it?
http://fluffy-tiger.deviantart.com/art/tilt-rotor-attack-craft-WIP-213881531?q=in%3Ascraps%20sort%3Atime%20gallery%3Afluffy-tiger&qo=2

Nice, that Blender ? Try Tilt Fans.There is a nice example here..
http://www.oocities.org/timessquare/arcade/2303/best/gr54.htm


Kind of what I originaly though one would look like... A10 meets Tilt fan... I'm trying not to copy it... ..just trying a few plugins I don't usually use..

I have started, but I thought I'd finish this off 1st. A French AVCI-3 in use with the 1st BDE US Marines.

http://biomassart.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/traveller-2300-avci-3/

 

[middenface]

Not sure... very WIP... still I just found a plugin that lets me draw on curved surfaces.....

 

[BP]

Very nice! 8)

Tilted (V up) tail fins closer to body/attached would look more futuristic IMO (or make another scaled down rotor embedded in a tilt-able tail assembly).

Also, pulling wings back a bit (more delta) and maybe 30% wider would balance the look (beef it up). On that note - the body/nose canon is asking to be BIGGER!

The rotor casings could use double the segments - hopefully separate components so this is easy? (This faceting is my biggest dislike of Sketchup... have a mind to make a plugin to allow changing # of facets after sketching.)

 

[GJD]

I dunno about tilt-fan attack craft. Those fans are awfully big RPG magnets.

I think jump-jet/xwing gunship (see the Whispercraft from the Arnie flick Sixth Day for a good interpretation of X-wings - well, I-wings in this case) are much more likely. Tiltfans look good for transport and utility to me, but not as a gunship.

 

[middenface]

Very nice! 8)

Thanks, no plugins used too.. (except create Dome)

Tilted (V up) tail fins closer to body/attached would look more futuristic IMO (or make another scaled down rotor embedded in a tilt-able tail assembly).

Possible, I was thinking of better looking wings, and fitting the fan into the wing more, with the rotating bit nearer the body, missile and other stuff can sit on stubby body mounted hardpoints or launched from inside.

Also, pulling wings back a bit (more delta) and maybe 30% wider would balance the look (beef it up). On that note - the body/nose canon is asking to be BIGGER!

'I maybe ugly, but I'm well hung' -A10 Moto.
Aye those wings where rough and quick - it was getting late.

I quite like the design of the FMA IA 58 Pucará - think mine needs a better cockpit.. I got some ideas from that. Also like the OV-10 Bronco - how about a tilt fan craft with the same tail as that...

The rotor casings could use double the segments - hopefully separate components so this is easy? (This faceting is my biggest dislike of Sketchup... have a mind to make a plugin to allow changing # of facets after sketching.)

Yep, components, so its an easy fix, alas I was doing a quick job.

The key is to change the segments of the circle that created the ducted unit. 24 is the default 30+ is alot smoother... to be honest the fans where very easy.

That'd be a good plugin. ! (Changing facets)

I don't use many plugins, just spent part of sunday looking at some, the one where you can draw, lines, circles and freehand etc on a curved surface is very nifty, I can paint camo schemes....

 

[BP]

...
That'd be a good plugin. ! (Chaning facets)

I don't use many plugins, just spent part of sunday looking at some, the one where you can draw, lines, circles and freehand etc on a curved surface is very nifty, I can paint camo schemes....

Not inclined to use many myself - Sketchup seems prone to crashing all by itself and the developers don't worry a bit about breaking 3rd party stuffs either

However, a curve one is a must have. The Fredo collection is really useful - I assume you are trying Fredo's Tools on Surface plugin.

I've noticed one can select connected edges easily enough (like an arc) - so I'm thinking a tool that would simply double the edge count using midpoint subdivision might be best (in combination with attached facets) for one connected edge at a time (could handle beizer curves this way as well). Multi-selection seems a real gotcha of special cases and reducing facets might create connected geometry problems - so, I'd pass on that. Hopefully I'll have some time to work on this in the next few weeks.

Anyway - keep up the show and tell!

 

[Schütze]

>However, of the four power plants, the MHD system requires smaller radiators as it is dumping a significant portion of its waste heat as exhaust.

for an MHD that would primarily depend on whether it was running in closed (power only) or open (thrust) mode .... just like the fission and fusion reactors IF you include the thrust option for them.

An MHD should probably need to vent some exhaust even in closed mode (which wouldnt provide effective thrust while under stutterwarp)

the difference should be that an MHD signature is directly related to output, configurable from 0-max MW turn by turn while the reactors would have a delay in heat output change plus a base level of heat (unless shutdown for maintenance)

 

[Ishmael]

minor update

I'm sticking with tilt-rotors instead of tilt-fans because tilt-rotors would have greater lift at hover due to the much larger actuator disk.
I still need to make a FLIR for the chin, and a chaingun/40mmgrenade belly turret/mount.
And the tilt -doohickeys and GITS-style 'feather flaps'.

One problem is that weapon pods can't fire missiles/guns when the rotors are in the lowered position, so this will have an internal weapons bay, much like the F-22, with missile racks.