Need creative suggestions

Wow that's one nice looking model, Lars. I like it very much!!! I don't think you need much help with the details, you're doing a fine job by yourself. I think I'll just sit and watch how this one turns out. Keep us posted.
 
@ChrisReid: tell me please, whats the "valid point" there? What that "they brought it back on the Midway in WC:p" has to do with a WC1 ship? Anyway, as I said before, WC:p only proved that 1:Launching tubes can be destroyed fast-and-easy= no more fighter support, 2: the animations showed us the process of loading a ship into the tube. Compared to ship lanching from a hangar+runway, like in the movie, it was a rather slow process, and it meant only 1 ship/tube, while from the runway all the fighters can launh almost at the same time.
( I personally like the tube launch in the games though, so no offense meant)

Also,you missed the part where I Agreed that we need the tubes. There's just no place for it. We don't know where to place it on the ship.

"The Broadsword made it out the side tubes in Academy no problem. But that's also why you have a runway. It's mainly for landings, but it's also a takeoff option."
Yes, everyone agreed on that bombers shouldn't be launched from tubes.

About Academy, sorry but I don't think you have a point there. That was a cartoon, but this thread is about building a ship as Realistic as possible. Including the sizes of ships. Thats why we got a problem with launch tubes, and sizes.
For example, even the Hellcats are too big in the hangars, just look at the pictures above. So it seems we will have to drop the original numbers, again, and come up with a new 'non-accurate but looks ok' size for all ships.

Please, if possible, read through the whole thread next time. I know you don't have the time for every thread's every post as an Admin, as you gotta keep the page alive and, us happy :D Thanx!

Edit: @ Gevatter Lars
Forgot the main thing: how about putting the tubes on the side of the hangar, above the "wing-in-line-with-bridge" ? Moveing the tubes to the rear on the side as far as possible, the have room for the hangar.
 
lorddarthvik said:
@ChrisReid: tell me please, whats the "valid point" there? What that "they brought it back on the Midway in WC:p" has to do with a WC1 ship? Anyway, as I said before, WC:p only proved that 1:Launching tubes can be destroyed fast-and-easy= no more fighter support, 2: the animations showed us the process of loading a ship into the tube. Compared to ship lanching from a hangar+runway, like in the movie, it was a rather slow process, and it meant only 1 ship/tube, while from the runway all the fighters can launh almost at the same time.
( I personally like the tube launch in the games though, so no offense meant)

Also,you missed the part where I Agreed that we need the tubes. There's just no place for it. We don't know where to place it on the ship.

"The Broadsword made it out the side tubes in Academy no problem. But that's also why you have a runway. It's mainly for landings, but it's also a takeoff option."
Yes, everyone agreed on that bombers shouldn't be launched from tubes.

About Academy, sorry but I don't think you have a point there. That was a cartoon, but this thread is about building a ship as Realistic as possible. Including the sizes of ships. Thats why we got a problem with launch tubes, and sizes.
For example, even the Hellcats are too big in the hangars, just look at the pictures above. So it seems we will have to drop the original numbers, again, and come up with a new 'non-accurate but looks ok' size for all ships.

Please, if possible, read through the whole thread next time. I know you don't have the time for every thread's every post as an Admin, as you gotta keep the page alive and, us happy :D Thanx!

Careful, tread quietly, Chris is one of the most fair handed and even keeled administrators I've ever known. He reads every post through completely before responding. He understood your reasoning but he also explained why he didn't feel it was valid. In this case neither do I, however for slightly different reasons. Lars is taking the Bengal model from Wing Commander 1 to be his basic chassis for this creation. An integral part of the body of the WC1 Bengal was the launch tubes that your fighter would begin every single mission from WC1 (at least in the PC version). Something that commonly used should remain in this model as a standard. As to what ships can and cannot be launched from the tubes is an entirely different debate.
 
For what ships can lunch and can not...since their was WC1 we have to asume that at least these fighters where able to lunch from these tubes:
Hornet 20m length
Scimitar 25m length
Rapier 24m length
Raptor36m length
For comparsion the Hellcat in the hangar is scalled to 27m length.

As its easy to see the problem is that the fighters have to be scaled down or the carrier up...most likely the best solution would be to scale the fighters down in the same way you scale the carrier up so that the fighters aren't to small from their given size and the carrier differs not to much from the given size of 700m.


For the sence/usefullness of fightertubes...as said I think that depends of how they are used and how many a ship has....but that isn't the matter at the moment.
When we speak of the size of the fightertube we also should speak about the numbers.
I think their was a screen in WC1 where it was written on a wall tube x. Knowing that would help to figure out what numbers we would have to use.
I found a screenshot if it....sadly I didn't got it to make tubes and number visible in one screen but we see here a tu*** 6-9

I don't belive that we can fit in even 6 tubes...not to speak of 9. What do you think about 4 tubes?

I have also scaled down the Hellcats in this shoot by 50%. I think the size fits much better then the old one...you see a wing of the original size at the right.
 
Well, no offense meant there! I just know that sometimes admins don't have the time for it. Cuase, I was one myself. We had about the same number of threads and posts every day, and it was hard to keep up sometimes.(it was il2-sturmoviks hungarian online squadrons forum)

SO, I think that 4 tubes sounds managable, 9 would mean attaching another carrier to this one at least :D

That 50% scale is looking all right, even taller ships like a raptor can fit in there now. Now, how about finishing up the armour plateing :D (just to get back to origianl subject)
 
When using the 50% scale of the fighters it would be well possible to put in 6 tubes but I would prefere the side position instead of the academy position because the lower one is just under the hangar so that fighters could easly transfered to the lower deck instead of beeing transfered through the entire ship to the backwing position.

The blue boxes are just for showing the position I would work them out later.

As for armor...yes I should go back to that one but the thread developed just this way ^_^
Oh and now I would have to find a new place for the front and side firing torpedo tubes. What about the sidethings..the ones that are hanging down in the pic. They are big enought to torpedo tubes.
 
The side position looks perfect to me!
I thought that it will be inline with the hangars, so that no lift is needed. Just roll there the fighters, buckle them in to the tube, and fire :D But this way it's even better, this way there's enough place for mechanism and a larger hangar.

Yes, those are big enough for torps, but in the wrong place and very vulnerable. I would insert the side firing tubes into the wing above the launch tubes. That looks cool. I know I said that it is not a good place, cause its also vulnerable, but its the only place I can see at the moment that would really suite it.
For the front firing... well, how about 6 torp tubes in the front, built into the runways frontal wall? (With doors to seal them, but with a hard enough outline to them to make em visible for us)
Or, placed into the runway sidewalls as you first drawn em ? (with moveing wall section to seal it also. Like on U-Boats)
 
lorddarthvik said:
@ChrisReid: tell me please, whats the "valid point" there? What that "they brought it back on the Midway in WC:p" has to do with a WC1 ship?

Because that reiterates that launch tubes are still a perfectly valid form of getting fighters out into space.

lorddarthvik said:
Anyway, as I said before, WC:p only proved that 1:Launching tubes can be destroyed fast-and-easy= no more fighter support,

That may have been a limitation of the game engine, but nobody's suggesting that tubes are a ship's only means of launching. If you have a bay that can somehow handle fighter recovery, why wouldn't it be able to handle spaceborne takeoffs?

lorddarthvik said:
2: the animations showed us the process of loading a ship into the tube. Compared to ship lanching from a hangar+runway, like in the movie, it was a rather slow process, and it meant only 1 ship/tube, while from the runway all the fighters can launh almost at the same time.

How often do we ever see six or more ships launch from a runway? We often see just two catapults or lanes on a deck. The aft bays alone could already give the Midway the launch capacity of a non-tube ship, and then fighters can also be constantly shuttled down the aft-to-fore tracks for even greater launch capacity.


lorddarthvik said:
Also,you missed the part where I Agreed that we need the tubes. There's just no place for it. We don't know where to place it on the ship.

And now even that's been solved quite well.


lorddarthvik said:
Yes, everyone agreed on that bombers shouldn't be launched from tubes.

No they didn't, and we see multiple Bomber types and sizes being launched from WC tubes just fine.

lorddarthvik said:
About Academy, sorry but I don't think you have a point there. That was a cartoon, but this thread is about building a ship as Realistic as possible. Including the sizes of ships. Thats why we got a problem with launch tubes, and sizes.
For example, even the Hellcats are too big in the hangars, just look at the pictures above. So it seems we will have to drop the original numbers, again, and come up with a new 'non-accurate but looks ok' size for all ships.

There was a time when most people blindly ignored actual Wing Commander sources and just did whatever the hell they wanted to in their fandom. Sounds harmless until it's you who has to spend hours and hours helping explain things to people who've believed some made-up stuff for years. People can do whatever they want in their projects, but fans' devotion to preventative maintenance over these last few years has significantly lowered the level of confusion around here.

lorddarthvik said:
Please, if possible, read through the whole thread next time. I know you don't have the time for every thread's every post as an Admin, as you gotta keep the page alive and, us happy :D Thanx!

The term "passive-aggressive" was introduced in a 1945 U.S. War Department technical bulletin, describing soldiers who weren't openly insubordinate but shirked duty through procrastination, willful incompetence, and so on.

After the war the term found its way into civilian psychiatric practice and for many years was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of the mental health trade. According to the revised third edition (DSM-III-R, 1987), someone had PAPD if he displayed five or more of the following behaviors: (1) procrastinates, (2) sulks or argues when asked to do something he doesn't want to do, (3) works inefficiently on unwanted tasks, (4) complains without justification of unreasonable demands, (5) "forgets" obligations, (6) believes he is doing a much better job than others think, (7) resents useful suggestions, (8) fails to do his share, or (9) unreasonably criticizes authority figures.
 
Ähm...could we stop the topic about the sense of tubes? The Bengal had tubes, I found a way that it would be possible to add them so we could put this aside don't you think?
 
@ ChrisReid:
Yes, I understad what you mean. Ok, lets put this aside.
(I never had to face the problem of "free creativity" on my forums, no one wanted/could redesigns a SpitfireMKix for example. There were some issues with skinning the planes though :D)

So, what do you think about the torp layout I mentioned?
 
Sorry overlooked you little post between mine and Chris one...big long posts are allways an eyecatcher for me ^_^

lorddarthvik said:
The side position looks perfect to me!
I thought that it will be inline with the hangars, so that no lift is needed. Just roll there the fighters, buckle them in to the tube, and fire :D But this way it's even better, this way there's enough place for mechanism and a larger hangar.
From the screenshots I have from WC1 we don't see the hangar opening at the far side (could also be that the cam just points the other way) but it could suggest that the landing area and the starting area are seperated from each other.
Would also make sence so that if one is damaged you could still lunch fighters.

Yes, those are big enough for torps, but in the wrong place and very vulnerable. I would insert the side firing tubes into the wing above the launch tubes. That looks cool.
I think you are quite close...but I would perfere to place them a litte up between the overhanging part and the frontwing. That would give them some protection since it would be a quite small spot to hit and their is some space to fill.
The wings themself could more likely house some radar, ECM or other equipement.

The front torpedo tubes would be nice to have them at the side like a U-Boot/Submarin.

About the numbers...do we have any numbers on how many tubes the ship had in the movie? If I rember it correctly I think it has about 12 tubes each side and at least 2 tubes in the front. When the numbers are higher then it could be a good thing to have different spots for the front firing arc. One each side of the runway as drawn earlier, two under the runway in an extra housing and two in the nose or under the runway but I wouldn't like to place them their. 4 tubes would be enough I think. Still I am interested in what the filmnumbers are. I know someone posted a pic/diagram of the movie claw but I can't find it.
 
Yep, thats a good idea with wings housing sensors and ECM. And you'r right about filling the empty spaces, that's something that can be a pain later.
As for the front launchers, it's your ship, so place it where you think it looks ok!
I'd still stick to the 2 tubes in the sidewall, and 2 or more in the middle-end vertical wall of the runway. It's stylish, for me anyway :D
SO it seems I'll have to watch the movie again to get the number of the tubes. Oh.. well... such a big task :D

(only problem is that I have it on VHS, in really bad quality. It's fomr Sat1, or Pro7, or some other German language chanell, and the picture quality was bad at that cause of the weather when I recorded it :( SO 'im not sure if I can see the small details as such.
No, I can't buy it, it is Not sold in my country :( , and I never had the urge to order something costing 10, and pay 50 for the shipping.)
 
I think their is not need to watch the movie again since I can't remeber a single scene where we clearly see the number of the frontlunchers and the side salve had about 4-5 clusters each lunching about the same number of torpedos.
Good question would now be why the Claw just layed itself into a side firing position and lunched a massiv salve at the three attacking Kilrathi ships. With that number of torpedos their should have been enought to get through the defance of the kilrathi and would have destroyed the entire battlegroup in one strike...I mean its a strike-carrier ^_^
But lets no further discuss the film logic ...its film.

About not haveing the DVD...I know that from Anime. Most of the good stuff isn't buyable here or the translation/voices are so bad that you wish for an english version ^_^
And when you find a good one its mostly quite expansive compared to other countries. Last time my friend bought one for me in UK. I would have payed for the normal german version 45€ but only 15pound in england for the special edition.

But back to topic
I have started to work on the window row that I had in the concept
What do you think?

and closup

The darkblue box next to the windows is a 2x2x2m to give a sizecomparsion.

I just thought the overkill would be to even do the some rooms behind that windows for a more realistic lightning. But then it would have to be something simple.
 
Looking great!
Well, making rooms insode would be an overkill, but... I would be happy to do it :D You have overdetailed the wundows allready, whí not make some inside for the ship then? Of course, just after the outside is finished. An inside gives a special eralisitc fell about anyhting. I'v been modelling cars for a long time, and only 2 or 3 of them has an inside, but they look (rather, feel) so much more real and comlpete, even though their outside lacks detail compared to ones without the inside.
I would suggest only one thing for teh windows. They look a bit too randomly placed. Its totally ok that there are spaces between them, but those larger spaces should be some kind of more like "planned" spaces, haveing the smae size, or one of them haveing twice the size of a smaller space maybe? That would look more "human", allthough not exactly logical.
 
Mh yes maybe you are right with placeing them more systematical. I just put them in their for the look of it and see how it "feels".
For the more realistic feeling...have you seen Appleseed 2004? An animated anime....their is a scene with a small tank and that thing just looks cool...and that is because of the numerous fine details. They even made the screw. Might it be via texture or not. But it gives a quite complete felling to the tank that woulnd't be their otherwise.

One interrior that I allready got on my list is the hangar...have to see that I can make some good detail shots of the movie one.
Other possible where the bridge. I would like to see what it is like to stand on the bridge and what down your carrier and see some fighters starting/landing.
The ship will be my most complex model I have ever made so far with all these details.
 
External spot lights! for the runway, and the markings at least. Thats some "human" thing also about space ships :D
But thats for later.

I caunted the side rocket launches in the movie, and it ranged from 10 to 15 depending wich scene I look at. Fromt he top view its deffinetly 12, so that should be the correct number.

Edit:
I'm experimenting on how to make an inside for a ship. I built a sleek little strike-cruiser, and now I'm trying to add a bridge, bunks, a small hangar, and the bar :D I got serious problems with makeing a "hole" for the rooms in the ships hull, and making the holes for the windows. I used booleans, bu Max's booleans gives lots of errors. I'll post a shot of it in my thread when I got a room finished, just to get the feel of it.
 
Thanks for counting the torbtubes. I think 12 torpedos in packs of 4 iwill be good.

Adding point for spotlights on the runway is of lower priority but a good thing to remember.

I think I got screenshots somewhere from some WC1 game interrior if you need them. Hangar will be taken mostly from the movie...or lets say its heavly inspiried by it.

Yes max boolens are the worst thing ever invented ^_^
I try to do everything possible to not use them. Mostly you have to clear up the geometrie after the boolen. Don't know why discreet never got that running.
 
I would appreciate those screenies, that would help alot.
I would modell the inside for you :D It would be nice to see a completed high detail Tigers Claw at last.


Max booleans are finally patched for those who use the newest Max For the subscribers (constant buyers). It's a third party plugin, that costs 300 american dollars for those who wish to use it and are not subscribers. Nice.... I'll just try to work without it. Mostly, the problem is that the cutting errors can't be cleaned up without hourse of rebuilding. Making the cuts by hand would take less time in most cases.
 
Well, i had this mentioned before, but I'll have to say it again:

let the movie claw open up it's runway to the max, and add the aft section of the WC1 bengal.

as for the true size, in WC1, there are landing sequences, compare the size of your craft to the width of the landing bay....

I had thesame problem(well not problem, but it bugged me somehow) with UE, the bengal was not massive enough... but looking back, the midway, the cerberus, and the intrepid...

ofcourse, this was probably due to game engine limitations.
 
Ok here are the images I found for the rooms




And the sizecomparsion from a landing sequenz. The landing fighter is a Raptor...see how small it looks.
 
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