Here's a bunch of WIPs I've had on the go for a while now, just thought I'd dump them on you lot before I go off to bed. TAS "Prospector" Shuttle
I'm not certain just how those funky wings are supposed to attach or even what they are meant to be. But then it's been a while since I've checked this against the original reference shots. Masao: how far along did your take on this design get? any thoughts? TAS passenger shuttle
This was supposed to be an alternative to my TOS escape pod design, sort of the TOS era equivalent to the Saratoga's lifeboat. As you see it ended up looking more like an earlier model of the ST:VI executive shuttle.
This is a much larger variant of my TOS escape pod design which I intended to be carried aboard my Class-III NFC and presumably other such transports or even space stations. It can hold about 20 people and is launched vertically like an old fashioned rocket.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I haven't worked at all on Cyrano's shuttle after posting the schematics Iast year. Anyway, I usually don't do variations on TAS designs, since I consider them fully canon! I'll leave that to you. I'm not sure how the wings attach either, so your guess is as good as mine. I do think your version of Cyrano's shuttle looks a bit chubby, since you're leaning towards the 3/4 view more than the profile.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I think the Cyrano scoutship is the TAS design the most sorely in need of "interpretation", due to an ill-defined 3D appearance. The Mudd's Passion heavy shuttle suffers from scaling problems and is strecthed this way and that in different views, the Slaver Weapon shuttle is just plain ugly, and so forth - but their shapes at least are well defined.
Musings for whoever wishes to continue on these:
Of the noncanon designs, I love the passenger shuttle, but would still suggest adding some sort of landing gear (even the ST6 exec shuttle is bound to have some, despite seemingly resting on its "skirt" in Generations). If it is an escape pod, then fixed gear is preferable. If it is a shuttle, then deployable skids of some sort would look good. The ST6 shuttle had narrow slitlike longitudally oriented things painted on the ventral surface - those could very well be doors for landing skids.
The aft door could be less trapezoid, too, since it's squeezed into a rectangular hole anyway... The trapezoid fails to evoke a proper TOS feeling there. And the rest of the craft does that already.
The big escape pod thingy looks cool and suitably uncomfortable. I still yearn for additional ugliness - more of the checkerboard pattern, perhaps, or something to break up the smoothness of the bow. IMHO.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
You know, that second one looks a lot more like how I would imagine a TOS-era lifeboat to look like. Perhaps giving the lower forward bit a heat-shield like appearance (and removing that apparatus in front)...
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:I do think your version of Cyrano's shuttle looks a bit chubby, since you're leaning towards the 3/4 view more than the profile.
That's also an attempt to balance out the height of the nacelle pylons, since the thinner version that you did looks like it would be in serious danger of tipping over on landing.
quote: ...the Slaver Weapon shuttle is just plain ugly, and so forth - but their shapes at least are well defined.
Is that the ugly pointy one or the squat chubby one? Coz I've already done the squat chubby one.
quote: Of the noncanon designs, I love the passenger shuttle, but would still suggest adding some sort of landing gear (even the ST6 exec shuttle is bound to have some, despite seemingly resting on its "skirt" in Generations). If it is an escape pod, then fixed gear is preferable. If it is a shuttle, then deployable skids of some sort would look good. The ST6 shuttle had narrow slitlike longitudally oriented things painted on the ventral surface - those could very well be doors for landing skids.
I'm sure that it dose infact have some very low to the ground landing skids, they're just retracted in that sketch.
quote: The big escape pod thingy looks cool and suitably uncomfortable. I still yearn for additional ugliness - more of the checkerboard pattern, perhaps, or something to break up the smoothness of the bow. IMHO.
Smoothness is a prerequisite of this design as far as I'm concerned so you're just going to have to sit there in a pool of your own suffering and like it!
quote: You know, that second one looks a lot more like how I would imagine a TOS-era lifeboat to look like. Perhaps giving the lower forward bit a heat-shield like appearance (and removing that apparatus in front)...
A black NASA style heat shield wouldn't be appropriate in my opinion, partly because we've it's a technology quite out of it's time n the 23rd century but mostly because it just wouldn't look right. I'm sure that the hull exterior is heat shielded in some fashion, probably with some kind of exotic electro-bonded metallic coating...which could be why all TOS ships look green/grey/white-ish.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote: ...the Slaver Weapon shuttle is just plain ugly, and so forth - but their shapes at least are well defined.
Is that the ugly pointy one or the squat chubby one? Coz I've already done the squat chubby one.
You have? I haven't seen it!
Oh, and the one from "The Slaver Weapon" is the pointy one---the Copernicus---which I don't think is that terribly ugly...
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim:
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote: ...the Slaver Weapon shuttle is just plain ugly, and so forth - but their shapes at least are well defined.
Is that the ugly pointy one or the squat chubby one? Coz I've already done the squat chubby one.
You have? I haven't seen it!
Oh, and the one from "The Slaver Weapon" is the pointy one---the Copernicus---which I don't think is that terribly ugly...
I'm talking about Carter Wilson's shuttle, not that god awful thing with the flat nose and huge canopy.
It depends on just how ugly you think "that ugly" should be. From where I sit the Copernicus is in the "cheep Buck Rodgers ship model built by a nine year old with too much glue and no instructions" ugly zone.
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