Starline 2500 Gorns Walk on the Wild Side
- Thread starter Jean
- Start date
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Yes, for the DD, CL, BC, BCH and DN. The pre war ships with decoration. Not the war era BDD, HDD, CM as they are fast cheap built units with no time or money for fancy decorations.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
H said:
My thinking is that the machinery isn't in place. The pre war ship yards would be making a few ships a year. The war years result in an increase in ship yards, factories and so on to produce the vast numbers of ships needed. The new yards and machines will be designed to produce the parts, hulls etc as quickly and efficiently as possible. If it takes 1% more time and cost to decorate the hulls that is 1% that is not being spend somewhere vital.
The Gorn are seriously tight fisted. Remember the fleet had to lie about the HDD being a light cruiser because the bean counters said the fleet had a light cruiser already. With every credit being counted and war era ships being rushed out at 60-70% the cost no one is going to waste time or effort on decoration.
If on the other hand the scales are in fact the sections of ablative outer hull then they would be everywhere.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
H said:
True, good looking ships are, well, good looking :lol:
Still I like reasonable extras, as I mentioned earlier its a war era attrition ship made quickly and lost just as quickly. You are not going to expect to see teams of Gorn Maidens hand decorating the hulls of what are in effect cannon fodder units :lol:
If the scale or a hex pattern is part of the manufacturing process since its easier to make those big saucers out of geodesic sections and assemble them rather than the old fashioned (and slow) method of huge hull plates then great, give me geodesic hex patterns on the war era ships, good looking and plausible.
Yes I know it’s a sci fi game of make believe but what is wrong with plausibility.
Still a geodesic or hex pattern on the Gorn looks very nice. Look at the picture for the 2400 Gorn fleet. That is a nice looking, distinctive and much more interesting than plain grey paint job.
http://store.starfleetstore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=0600&Category_Code=GM
There is another plausible way of looking at the added detail tho.
They aren't cosmetic niceties
Nothing speeds up technology advancement like a good all out war. Maybe these added bits are design improvements and you stick em on the outside for the very reason of minimising interference to the established manufacturing process.
They don't even need to be improvements, they could be to free up some internal space for more ammo, personnel or for Tribble snack storage. The latter obviously require a lot of space and dependent on how fast you eat em could well rapidly become infinite.
Know i'm apparently bucking the trend of opinion here re war detail but ......................
They aren't cosmetic niceties
Nothing speeds up technology advancement like a good all out war. Maybe these added bits are design improvements and you stick em on the outside for the very reason of minimising interference to the established manufacturing process.
They don't even need to be improvements, they could be to free up some internal space for more ammo, personnel or for Tribble snack storage. The latter obviously require a lot of space and dependent on how fast you eat em could well rapidly become infinite.
Know i'm apparently bucking the trend of opinion here re war detail but ......................
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
McKickaha said:
Not at all. I just like a reason for the details that look so good.
A war era ship designed for rapid construction uses small hull segments; these are manufactured at a dozen smaller factories, shipped into orbit and assembled there leaving a clear pattern on the hull where they interlock.
Pre war the hulls were made at one or two specialised factories as whole sections which were moved by tug then fitted over the ships structure to form the tops and bottoms of the saucers.
The single shell hulls are more durable and because they are in one piece require less long term maintenance. A pre war ship needs to have its hull checked every 5-6 years.
The war era segmented hulls require far more frequent checks since they are a mass of join lines. They would need to be check once a year at the very least. However if the life expectancy of the war era attrition ships is 6 months that isn’t much of a problem.
I’m more than happy to have lots of detail on the Gorn ships, after all you have plenty of chance to look at the same aspect of the Gorn cruisers from your side of the table, it’s not like they turn around much
So as I said more hull detail, less sticky out bits on the war era, less hull detail, more decorations and sticky out bits on the much refitted old ships.
Of course this is the Gorn, Gorn warriors are brave, after all they go to certain death in space going bath tubs with no manoeuvrability. The Romulans on the other hand are such a bunch of cowards that in order to get them to come out from under cloaks the ship builders need to paint big fierce birds on all their ships. It’s not to scare the enemy, its to give some courage to the Romulan crews :lol: :wink:
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
I'm thinking the Wild side ships are the early era ones. Lots of sections designed to be removed and upgraded. The slopped Nacelle struts, more details on the nacelles etc.
The war era ones don't get upgrades so simpler hulls but with the scale idea, geodesic hull plates, the straight up nacelle bars etc. Rough and utilitarian for the war era to reflect them being attrition units but covered in hexes, build joins, bulkier mass production rather than a bit of style on the One BC they built each year pre war.
Is there by any chance the wilder wild side stuff for us to have a look at?
The war era ones don't get upgrades so simpler hulls but with the scale idea, geodesic hull plates, the straight up nacelle bars etc. Rough and utilitarian for the war era to reflect them being attrition units but covered in hexes, build joins, bulkier mass production rather than a bit of style on the One BC they built each year pre war.
Is there by any chance the wilder wild side stuff for us to have a look at?
Nomad said:
No, but they do have a pattern that is akin to Hew-mon skin:
http://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/06cf5f3a4e.jpg
I believe they are called a Heat Shield.
Adding a pattern like this to Gorn ships that is just a bit more reptilian scale style would make the miniatures much more interesting, and would be no worst then the panel lines on the Feddy ships or the birds on the Romulans.
These aren't ships for an early 90s computer game, lets up the polycount a bit.
Indeed they do. Many of the model maker forums refer to the Aztek pattern on the Federation ships, including making all sorts of fancy painting templates for it. I'm still trying to figure out how to duplicate it on an SL 2500.Nomad said:
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/7826/img0358ur.jpg
