Federation Commander

[ecs05norway]

Sketchup natively is designed for architecture, so its handling of curved surfaces is a little ... questionable. Takes some workarounds to really do much.

There are however several plugins that alleviate that. I first recommend anything and everything by Fredo, just on general principles.

As far as export formats go, Sketchup's free version currently can export to Collada .dae, and there is a plugin available to let you export to .stl. I then use MeshMixer to hollow the model in order to save print costs.

Better view of the nacelle

There were three-views of it in the old FASA Ship Recognition Manual. I've not managed to match all their detail but it's hard to do some things when you're designing around the limits of Shapeways WSF.
FASA's original side view.

This one is still something of a work in progress, based off of a civilian vessel from the anime Macross 7. The big area on top with all the arches is supposed to be a big park covered by a transparent dome.

[ecs05norway]

Apologies for the poor picture quality. Camera phone and hallway lighting.

Featuring the printed K-15 with an ADB Starline 2500 D-6 and F-5 for scale.

(That is weird. Why do img tags not work for me?)
(Ok, looks like you were right, without the ? it works.)

[djdood]

My guess would be the question mark in the image URL is messing it up.
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[Rags]

Almost finished (hopefully, there could always be an unanticipated problem). Navigation lights were placed on the port/starboard extremity and top of the hull. When double checking something for the nav lights I discovered the Cygnus unmanned supply spacecraft servicing the International Space Station use a variation of the traditional maritime navigation lights that adds an additional yellow light to the underside of the hull. It seems like a logical adaption when the object may rotate on multiple axes, so the underside of the Mongol gained a navigation light.





It took me a while to decide on a position for the Gatling phaser emitters. The RS/LS firing arcs suggests the phasers are obscured along the centreline, so the upper surface of the hull wouldn't be correct. I did consider the outer facing panels of the engine, but it didn't seem consistent with previous depictions of Hydran cruisers. I opted to place them high on the sloped side of the aft hull, above where the engine pylons meet the hull. The hull blocks the line of sight along the centreline nicely and they are high enough up on the slope to have a clearline over the engines.





A quick check along the centreline with the view set to orthographic, to confirm all eleven weapons are unmasked along a line directly forward of the ship, something the firing arcs on the SSD show a Mongol is capable of doing. Not the angle a Klingon or Lyran captain would like to see on their view screen.





For the domes near the launch tubes I made the simple change of truncating the hemispheres. Hopefully this will keep them a little bit distinct from the hemispheres used for phaser emitters and the bezelled domes of the navigation lights. How distinct would depend on the limitations of the material used when printed. The sides of the fusion beams were increased in thickness to meet the requirements for some of the materials offered by shapeways. For the same reason the impulse engines were also changed and several other minor changes made to ensure details would be properly supported during printing.

[Steve Cole]

Can you email me a set of CGIs of one ship, four or five views from various angles showing all the details?
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Rags]

An initial concept for the Tartar, showing how the fusion and hellbore variants can be represented differently.






The biggest change is swapping the fusion beam projectors for the hellbores. The need to meet the requirements for several different materials on ShapeWays places limits on how the hellbores can be represented, but I am pleased with the elements I was able to include. While doing research for the Mongol I noticed that Adam Turner had drawn different patterns for the panel lines on the front hulls for his fusion armed Mongol and hellbore armed Iroquois NCA. I kept that idea in mind as a way to also differentiate my fusion and hellbore ships. The panels for the Tartar take inspiration from Turner's Iroquois, but are greatly simplified. My intent is to repeat these patterns for the Ranger/Dragoon pairing as way to reinforce the various light cruisers sharing a design lineage derived from the heavy cruisers.



The third change is more minor detail. The launch tubes are reduced to a single tube on each flank. A small radiator extends forward of the launch tube, as an external representation of the APRs that were installed in the area. For the Ranger/Dragoon pairing, the Dragoon would have all the launch tube details removed along the flanks and an equivalent length strip of the radiator detailing added.

[mjwest]

OK, I am sorry. But, I can't help myself: The Tartar has no fighters or fighter launch tubes. It shouldn't have any launch tubes at all.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Rags]

No need at all to be sorry, I am glad you caught my mistake early. It also teaches me a good lesson about the value of having the SSD in front of me instead of relying on memory. I am not going to take offense to anyone pointing out what they believe to be an error (and in this case it definitely was an error on my part).

On the positive side, if I remove the APR radiator I have the launch tubes for a Mule LTT.

[Steve Cole]

Rags: I suspect that your Hydrans will end up on the Shapeways store but right this particular minute (month) I have too many irons in the fire so I will look at your stuff and speak with you later. You deserve more attention than I have to give at the moment. In the meantime, I would suggest you post images and seek public evaluation of the details like launch tubes and so forth. Indeed, once you have the Mongol, you can do several variants including the Mohawk without a lot of extra effort.

I'll skip the list of things on my plate (no, I won't: Starmada, ACTASF2, countersheet printing, SFU history book, Fed Admiral combat system, the rest of the stuff for Shapways opening, Garth's POL deck plans book, getting the Lyran and LDR books in print, art for the Kzinti and Gorn books, getting the ACTASF2 ZFF onto the website, getting map panels printed, communique, the lost Klingon FC card pack, and some personal stuff that cannot be ignored much longer).
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Rags]

That is no problem, I understand your need to prioritize your work. I will keep working on the Hydran ships and posting here for feedback. Given the number of knowledgeable people here any significant mistakes on my part will spotted quickly. Will has been a great help with my questions about the ShapeWays process, so I have some confidence with how I am proceeding.

[Steve Cole]

Jean wants you to pick a cruiser and a destroyer and focus on getting them finished and "photos" uploaded so the public can tell you if something needs fixing. Once that happens she'll put them on the Shapeways store (if you're agreeable) and you can feed one or two Hydrans a month to the store as long as you like. Not saying it's a race between you and Will's D7 but the store opens when the D7 is ready and your ships go on the store when they're ready.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Steve Cole]

Gary, discussion of your Mongol is here:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/32784/36356.html?1497220381#POST772112

There is a remote chance of getting it into opening day. (Don't start changing stuff based on public comments, discuss with me first.)
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Rags]

Some unexpectedly large commitments elsewhere and lack of internet access while travelling interrupted progress the past several days. Some work in progress screenshots of the Lancer class destroyer. It currently has the weapons and launch tubes, however details for both the warp and impulse engines still need to be added.



There are a couple of other minor tasks that still need to be done. The deflector array is currently too thick and will need to be reduced. I also need to check the balance point to determine where to cut the hole for the stand. The simple wedge shaped hull is very 3d printer friendly and preliminary checks all suggest printability won't be an issue.

I will respond on the other board in a moment to the feedback given on the Mongol. My thanks to everyone that took the time to comment.
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Gary Pollock

[Rags]

I have revised where I placed the fighter launch tubes. The three shuttle bay on a Lancer are allowed to transfer shuttles using J1.59, so internal connections between the bays that are large enough to move an admin shuttle exist with in the ship. Where I had previously placed the launch tubes would have required the passageways for shuttle transfer to run almost the entire width of the ship, which would be an unlikely use of so much internal volume.

I moved the launch tubes and associated bay doors to a position further forward and lower on the hull, reducing the distance between the bays. I also added a ventral bay door for the admin shuttle's centrally located shuttle bay. Moving the bays details closer together will also be more suitable for the Destroyer Escort and the Outrider survey ship, where the three bays are enlarge to become a single large bay. It should also be a much better position for a future Heavy Lancer miniature, where like the DE and Outrider the three shuttlebays of the standard Lancer become a single large bay and also needs to be adjacent to the area where additional shuttlebays could be placed in the option positions. The hatch for the HDW power options is shown on the top down graphic for the Heavy Lancer as being directly above where I placed the shuttle bays for the standard Lancer, so I think the position should work if it is assumed an elevator connects the power option box shuttlebays to the other bay beneath it.



The details for the warp and impulse engines have also been added. The number of external impulse engine details matches the number of impulse engine boxes on the SSD, something that is also on the Mongol sculpt. It is small feature that provided a tangible connection between the miniature and the SSD. It is something I would like to continue for the complete range of Hydrans miniatures. (In case one notices the apparent asymmetry in the impulse engines, it is just an artifact of the shader.)



Work on the Knight Class Hellbore DD is progressing in parallel to Lancer. There is a printability issue with the APR radiators that needs to be fixed, but besides that I am happy with progess for the Knight so far.
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Gary Pollock

[Rags]

With the development discussions for the various Shapeways releases taking place on the other board I haven't been posting for the Hydran here lately, but I thought I would share a sight that always makes me relieved as a sculptor for this project.

This is a heatmap from Shapeways' automated checking system for the final draft of the Paladin, showing areas that are possibly too thin to print reliably for a particular material. In this case for the material with the second harshest print requirements of those ADB offers. Only one little tiny area on the front of the deflector dish that will need to thickened slightly. Waa-hoo, no major problems!



The only material with greater thickness requirements also needs two of the hellbores to be tweaked slightly, but hellbore design I am using pushes right to the limits of that material and I always expect every ship with hellbores to need some individual attention for it.
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Gary Pollock