Prototype Midway Design

DefianceIndustries

Rear Admiral
Are there any other images of the initial design of the Midway other than this one? It's an intriguing concept design and I wanted to look at it more closely, maybe even model it if time permits. The lines are more nautical than the final design, and I can see its influence in the Cerberus. Just curious if such an animal exists or if its lost to time save this grainy image.
 
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At the present, as far as I know no other images exist. I wonder, though - would it be possible to find out who originally worked on this model?
 
Well probably the grainy image can be reconstructed back into the model.

Yeah I think there's enough there to reconstruct the basic form, but after that you'd end up guessing; which may well be what we have to do. But for example, we can guess that it would have launch tubes since the final model has them, but it may well have been designed as a through-deck ship like the Victory. I'd like some more reference material if possible, but if it doesn't exist I'll guess. :)
 
When I was recently looking through the 3D models I extracted from WCSO, I came across MERCURY.IFF. The name of each LOD for this model is "midway". Perhaps that's the Midway Prototype design? I haven't yet been able to take a better look it myself.

EDIT: Unfortunately not. It's apparently just a less detailed version of the Midway model.
mercury.png
 
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No worries @Kevin Caccamo. I had a longer than average break in my work day today and put this thing together. I assumed that it would still have the launch tubes, and dual recovery bays (located on the backside of the rounded lower hull beneath the bridge section). I don't know if the engines would fit on the wings (leaving the long stern section aft of the bridge as crew space as in the final model) or if they'd take the traditional spot in the stern. I guessed the latter.

It might work as a very rough study model, but I would love to see the original sketches for it.

MidwayProto1.jpg MidwayProto2.jpg MidwayProto3.jpg MidwayProto4.jpg MidwayProto5.jpg
 
Nice! Obviously, that sketch doesn't allow a reconstruction of any details, but you've definitely done a good job of reconstructing the basic shape.

It's kind of pointless to compare a work-in-progress model with the end result that was published in Prophecy, but looking at this, I definitely prefer this early version. It looks more like a classic WC carrier, while presenting clear innovations. It also doesn't have that weirdly fragile structure, where the ship seems so easily breakable in half.
 
Hum, I'm sort of unsure about the shape.
Can I request the top-view render?
Sure, here's the top ortho view. MidwayProto6.jpg

It looks more like a classic WC carrier, while presenting clear innovations

I think this version has some very engaging angles, the ortho fore and side views in particular. The stern is kind of blah, if I were to use it in a mod, I would want to make it look a bit better.
 
Pretty neat! I like your take on some of the design ideas. It's pretty impossible to get all the details out of the original, but I figured I'd have a go at it and put my boss MS Paint skills to good use. I think the original has a funny slanted opening in the top front that seems like it's the front of a fly-through flight deck. In the back half there's a pretty wide looking command tower off to one side, and then kinda looks like WC3,4 confed transport style engines on the back end... one on either side of the end of the flight deck.
mid_comp.png
mid_comp.jpg
mid_complines.jpg
mid_compsolids.jpg
 
look WCP_Early_Midway.pdf in cic arcive
 

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My old try at it if it helps
 

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I seem to recall that Sean Murphy had said this wasn't a prototype Midway design at all, but that it may have been a cruiser Chris Douglas had been building for the aborted Maniac Missions concept.
 
That's interesting, the ship has elements of both; the look is more like a traditional cruiser except the off-center bridge, and looking at it the ship doesn't seem to have an obvious location for launch tubes (unless the fighters launch down the trench in the center of the ship, which would seem problematic; or out of the slanted portion at the bow before it turns into a bow-ram). Alternatively it might have side-mounted launch tubes. It clearly has recovery decks, but most cruisers in WC carry a small fighter compliment; fighters could launch from there one supposes.

I assumed it was a carrier because the CIC told me so. :)
 
Try #2. This is physically closer to the original than my other try. I intentionally omitted the engines on the aft of the intakes because it didn't seem to fit with the overall design in my mind. I also didn't place any launch tubes on it yet, as I'm deciding where to put them. you could place them at the bow, below the angled panel, but at most you could fit 3, not 6 and keep the scale believable. alternatively you could do two stacks of three on the front of the ship parallel to the large landing bays, which would make more sense from an engineering perspective but it kind of hoses up the aesthetics by ruining the nautical lines down the bow. I kept the Midway bridge structure as well, though the large block next to the bridge superstructure is reminiscent of the Vesuvius so it has some design ties there. Overall though as I work on it, the ship feels smaller than the Midway, it sort of has a light carrier vibe to it in my mind.

MidwayProto2-orthoF.jpg MidwayProto2-orthoR.jpg MidwayProto2-orthoS.jpg MidwayProto2-WIP1.jpg MidwayProto2-WIP2.jpg
 
I seem to recall that Sean Murphy had said this wasn't a prototype Midway design at all, but that it may have been a cruiser Chris Douglas had been building for the aborted Maniac Missions concept.

I assumed it was a carrier because the CIC told me so. :)

I think there's two blurry prototype ships that may have led to a mixup. The one that DefianceIndustries is remaking here really does seem like a pre-Midway. The long "pant leg" hull halves, the feet/hammerhead bow and the raised bridge section are all very similar to what the final Midway ended up looking like. In our archives, this ship has the file name "mid_comp.png," but there's a second unused vessel named "ccruiser.png." It has some visual similarities to the Midway, but on the whole seems much more streamlined and smaller. The Midway-style engine nacelles bulge in the middle. I think maybe this was our Maniac Missions cruiser? https://www.wcnews.com/news/2011/08/11/prophecy-ships-high-and-low

ccruiser.png
 
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Nice! It's definitely that cruiser. Are there a couple more angles you could screenshot?
 
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