posted
Ventral view, showing off the hammerhead, and more clearly illustrating the width/height ratio I was talking of before, in comparison with side view. They are both in scale, by the way.
In this particular shot it's patrolling the Plomeek Nebula.
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: There are plenty of examples, both good and bad, about what can happen in space combat when you can't see your enemy.
Exhibit A: "Balance of Terror." The two ships didn't have to be in visual range all the time for there to be tense action.
Exhibit B: "Andromeda." The quintessential "beeping dots on the screen" killed a lot of the action, and cutaway shots didn't make up for it. It was the most scientifically accurate, one could argue, but that didn't make it interesting.
Let's face it: modern combat, even/especially in real life, is mostly people staring at computer screens guiding or controlling their weapons at targets dozens, hundreds, or thousands of miles away.
^ Andromeda probably isn't the best example as (if memory serves) they did both the tedious blinky lights thing and the silly Star Wars style up-close nonsense. Not the only inconsistency it had as it was rather a crap after all and of course it's not the method, it's the execution. Balance of Terror on the other hand was almost a 1:1 submarine drama analogue, right down the the Romulan set design.
Still, I'd go so far as to say that you don't even need to look to modern combat for examples of long distance combat drama. Master and Commander might be a good example. Most of the film the enemy doesn't get any closer than the horizon and a lot of the tension is in looking at maps, charts and predicting where the enemy will be. Dramatically it's no different than using sonar, radar, telescopes or EM/IR sensors.
quote:Originally posted by Nim: Thank you Mars! That is the opposite of dildo. This mission is succeeding.
It's certainly better than the vacuum cleaner attachments that pass for the official designs. If it were me though I'd maker the hammerheads larger and have the aft "fins" be a mirror image of the front.
Also, I'm not sure if the bridge (assuming that's what it is) would be exposed like that. I may be misremembering but I think there's a mention somewhere of the bridge and/or CIC being placed deeper within the hull. IIRC the rules of the Honorverse aren't like Star Trek where an unshielded ship wouldn't last ten seconds against a serious barrage but can take multiple hits and still continue to function. The only thing that needs to be away from the hull like that would be the sensor/comm arrays and those node wotsits (I forget the name) that have something to do with the drive system.
Actually, it might be fun to dust off Paint Shop Pro myself and see what I can come up with. Is there anywhere that has a half decent description of what one of these ships are supposed to look like? Just so I know the parameters.
quote:If it were me though I'd maker the hammerheads larger and have the aft "fins" be a mirror image of the front.
I experimented a lot, if the hammerheads are larger, it makes the ship look smaller. The same way a knife-handle is usually 50% of overall knife-length, but only 15-20% of a sword. Also, the attitude of the bow changed the larger the hammerhead got.
I can show you the 10+ variations I made on hammerhead-size, orientation and configuration, but one inescapable fact was that making the aft fins identical to the front and pointing backwards <---> made the sense of direction of the ship too ambiguous, or made it look like a Nebulon-B frigate. Having them point the same way <---< disrupted the visual integrity. In this case the hammerheads have no aero/hydrodynamical value but helps with impeller-wedge dispersion. Also why I mounted no weapons on them. :.)
quote:Also, I'm not sure if the bridge (assuming that's what it is) would be exposed like that.
Here's the Nike. I believe the bridge is what's shown on top. Regardless, even the thickest superdreadnought hulls got pierced like wet toilet-paper by point-blank shots from "bomb-pumped laser" missiles. More than once were Honor's CIC or bridge penetrated or open to space, and holes occasionally were cut, Borg-style, clean through the hull from side to side (taking the brig with it in one case, holding an unfortunate a-hole).
I've never said that my HMS Hammer is the be-all-end-all design for the Honorverse, which "Weber should've used if he'd had half a brain", just the one I preferred when reading and idealizing. I don't feel I'm THAT off in my views, though. It's not like that one Star Wars book cover which had a Jedi shooting Forced Lightning like it was laser-pointers.
Aside from trying to draw the essence of the ship that formed in my head ten years ago, I wanted to have something that conveyed momentum, confidence and density, with some space for man-o-war/battleship romantic elegance, as best I could. Ship aesthetics has two extremes in each end, artistic and practical. The Andromeda ship in Andromeda and the Minbari cruiser is at the "excessively sculpted or animal-mimicking" extreme, to me. The Nostromo, Leonov and Honorverse ships are "crude industrial pragmatism".
I only had two aims, balance between inspirational sources and also assymetry, giving you something your eyes could grab onto, unlike just a long cylinder. I actually had a longer list of "mustn't look like"s than "kinda look like"s, especially with the nose.
Now, I've really only put in half the components that make out a Honorverse ship in my design, simply because you guys wouldn't care if there were 2x4 phased gravitic arrays included or not, and because the ones who would care (Honorverse fans here on Flare) probably are more interested in sacks with doorknobs in them and my home adress.
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Nim: [QUOTE]Now, I've really only put in half the components that make out a Honorverse ship in my design, simply because you guys wouldn't care if there were 2x4 phased gravitic arrays included or not, and because the ones who would care (Honorverse fans here on Flare) probably are more interested in sacks with doorknobs in them and my home adress.
Dont be silly- it's nothing but the best for you, Nim. Socks with D-Cell batteries all the way: you'll last longer that way between beatings.
I really so like what you've come up with there but I'd make some tweaks and I have a few questions:
First, I'd spread the weapons out a bit- never a good idea to clump everything together if you dont have to- do they not have area of effect weapons like Nukes? you'd think such a weapon would wipe out tightly clustered weapons all at once.
Are the hammerhead and fin structures part of the drive system? They desperately need some detail to both give a sense of scale and so they dont look like wings/fins. I kinda hate pointless aerodynamics of spaceships.
So...in combat, this thing rolls over like a baker's rolling pin? (your design less so than the dildo versions, thankfully). You mentioned that the dorsal/vental aspect are sorta super shielded by the drive, right? You'd think they'd rev up to speed, change the ship's attitude so the shielded aspect faced their enemy on approach and only then broadside roll thingie.
No need for "crossing the T" manuvers in space, after all.
Maybe add some weaponry on long boom arms to cover the shielded aspect- and of those get blown off, it's no big deal (thins assuming the weaponry is smallish compared to the ship's overall size, whhich seems to be the case for there to be so much of it in that narrow hull).
Personally, I favor that "Nebulon" version as maybe a nice companion cruiser.
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I'm glad you like it, you're the reason it's even here. :.)
Got a front view coming up, might add some comparison ships from other universes, too.
quote:First, I'd spread the weapons out a bit- never a good idea to clump everything together if you dont have to- do they not have area of effect weapons like Nukes?
I've played around with spreading the armament out more, but putting side-firing stuff in the stern interrupted with the chase armament, and side-weapons in the nose felt like it made the visual shape of the entire nose ambiguous. If you look at the side view, you'll see the nose is thicker at the top, where it meets the hammerhead. That's the impeller generator. It gets clearer in the upcoming front view (you'll also get more detail on the hammerhead there).
Honestly, I could easily have crammed in 200 launchers on each side, but that would A: have looked like a terminal case of "fanboyism", trying to build a ship that is mightier than all official designs, and B:, made the ship an over-pierced honeycomb, looking crushable like a taco. So I applied the "kill your darlings" approach and limited the weapons-bays to an area with thicker walls and close proximity to the centralized forward/aft ammunition rooms.
About the missiles themselves, there are two warheads: nuclear missiles are the inferior version, each Honorverse ship only carries a low, necessary complement of them for practical purposes. The main warhead in battle uses a technology called "bomb-pumped laser" (yeah, suck on that bonbon for a while :.) Weber never elaborates on how the device works, not even the encyclopedias define them, but just using conjecture, the warhead detonates and this kinetic energy behaves like photonic energy and shoots out through a sort of gravitic lens housing ball, firing between ten to a hundred beams in all directions in the detonation zone, lacerating the target (the impact zones don't explode, though). There was a weapon in "Command&Conquer: Red Alert 2" that did this, IIRC.
Anyway, this means that missiles fired close together in clusters have a higher effect and hit score tally, so ships in the Honorverse pack their launcher tubes together. It also helps in emulating the look of cannon groups in sail-era warships, which is never a bad thing.
quote:Are the hammerhead and fin structures part of the drive system? I kinda hate pointless aerodynamics of spaceships.
I do too, almost as much as animal shapes. The hammerheads are part of the impeller drive system, though. They act both like tuning forks and negative-charge magnets, no aero/hydrodynamic properties. Why I kept the back pair straight was because I could, because it was 10% more unexpected, and because I love this.
When I was young'un, a JAS-39 Gripen crashed into a park before my eyes, in a swedish air show. Five minutes after that, a camouflage-colored CH-46 Sea Knight swooped in, scanned for the pilot, filmed the wreckage and the extent of the forest fire, while doing an extremely tight 90-degree turn, laying completely on its side and showing me its belly. It was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen, and aside from the giant rotors, the aft wing housing was the only thing my eyes could lock onto. So short, massive side pylons always held a feeling of power, authority and resolve, to me.
quote:No need for "crossing the T" manuvers in space, after all.
What a funny coincedence, at first I thought you'd read up on Weber there. Actually, "crossing the T" is standard O.P. in Honorverse battles, so there is in deed still need for it. :.)
Seriously, you should read just the first book, still my fav. It's short, intense and gratifying naval-wise.
quote:Maybe add some weaponry on long boom arms to cover the shielded aspect
Interesting, could you elaborate? Placed where?
Also, let me be clear that my weapon artwork is only symbolical, grasers don't fire through triangle-holes in the hull, it was just so you guys could tell them apart, like on a blueprint. They can be made to look much cooler, protruding a bit through metal-frame mounts, but that level of detail would turn this 16-hour job into a 60-hour job. I'd have to do windows too.
Registered: Aug 1999
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Ok, I will create a new thread for this "Alternative Honorverse" ship business. I have some new stuff I want to show you guys, but I don't want Wizartist Two to get more disappointing "non-fighter jet" post notifications, I think he's been through enough as it is.
With that in mind, here's what I meant in my first post in the thread. Here are the current operational or developing fifth-gen stealth jets in the world, in roughly chronological order:
Now, try to guess what point I'm trying to make here.
Registered: Aug 1999
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Jets....Starships....Just different uses of oxygen for propulsion....
I thought I read somewhere that the Russian Mig was out of the picture? The KF-X kind of reminds me of the Saab Viggen. As for the J-20, I'm hoping they are of the same quality as all the Texsport import crap we get from China.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"... try to guess what point I'm trying to make here"
R U perhaps saying the aerodynamics and mathematics of supercruising stealth-fighter aircraft dictate that their fuselage/wing shape is constrained to a certain small set of visually similar configurations??
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Yours was the second response in the sequence, earning me fifteen Quatloos in this tier. The saturated-energy cupolas I could part with, knowing how much your kind depends on them, for insulation, fuel and clothing.
Registered: Aug 1999
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