Coral Sea Class Carrier Concept Model

[Fatcat]

The overall design is good, but it isn't very "solid" looking. All those overhanging sides and spaces would be definite weak points on the ship.

 

[BradMick]

well, the overhangs are 10 foot thick solid metal, covered with 3ft thick armor plating. though it may look fragile (and theres no crew in those overhangs) its pretty thick plating covering the vital areas.

oh, and the ship measures 2500 feet in length.

 

[Spien]

Both versions are good but I think the double launch tube one has more character. And it's a bit more unique in my opinion.

 

[Marc]

This carrier is supposed to be older than either the Concordia or the Bengal classes, right? And yet, what you've done is taken these two classes and fused them together into one design. Unless there's something I'm missing here, this makes no sense at all.

Your logic works both ways. What's to say that the Concordia and Bengal calsses didn't take desings aspect from this class?
I know that from the real world point of view the coral sea is a recent fan-made creation, but if you try and see it from a WC time-line point of view, the coral sea was influenced by past desings, and in turn, influenced the desing of carriers to follow. It works if you just use a little imagination.

 

[BradMick]

a slight update before i head off to class. blocked out some more areas, will detail when i get home. Oh, and i'll be working on a new surprise model once this one is finished, decided i'd do up one more ship for the project...heheh, it'll be fun.

 

[Quarto]

Your logic works both ways. What's to say that the Concordia and Bengal calsses didn't take desings aspect from this class? [...] It works if you just use a little imagination.

Well, sure, but then again, anything works if we use a little imagination . My problem with this goes a little deeper than just the question of which design inspired which - see below in my reply to Brad.

Ah, I gotcha now Qaurto. I dunno, I don't really remember why to be honest, I just know I told mark what I had in mind, he took the 'Old Carrier Class' as the inspiration, and as it progressed and morphed, became that. I can't really pin down a definate logical reason behind it, just that when the design series was going, thats what it became. I remember saying 'throw bengal wings on it, and see how it turns out', this is what was born.

The thing is, I recall disliking most of the Pioneer ship designs for these exact same reasons (although IIRC, I didn't publically complain about them, because you guys had made it clear that you wouldn't making any fundamental changes to any of them): they all looked so great, but... they were all just so darned in-bred (i.e., they were all mixtures of WC1 ships, even when it made no sense at all).

Heck, my problem isn't even with the idea of crossing two ships to come up with a new (or, in this case, old) design. It's fine if you do it once or twice, and if you use ship combinations that don't require too much thought to explain. But this kind of cannibalistic design approach gets old pretty quickly - I liked your McAuliffe fighters much better than your Pioneer fighters, because they didn't try so hard to recycle existing elements... and this is in spite of the fact that the Pioneer ships look great.

 

[Sylvester]

Gentlemen, this is my revised design. Other profile shots will be uploaded soon.

 

[Sylvester]

Profile views. Apologize for the resolution but I have dialup.

 

[powell99]

hehe pretty cool. I wish I could do stuff like that

 

[BradMick]

The only thing i can point out Qaurto, is I get the impression you ignored the bit about the Bengal pre-dating McAuliffe. Commisioned first in 2619. McAuliffe happens 2634. It's not a matter of canabalistic. It's perfectly reasonable that this ship would share that kind of design characteristic. Also, look at the Exeter. It has the same wing deals, the Gilgamesh is a flying pair of them, the Concordia has them. It's a pretty common Terran design thing.

 

[KillerWave]

I really like the first version with 2 hangars. Neat design. Q is right in his comments, however he also likes to spoil the fun
I would like to take a shot at getting the initial version on the vision engine...what do you think?
What's the polycount on that?
Man, I really wish I could model something other than basical shapes....

 

[BradMick]

wish the book hadn't said one hanger, or else it'd be two. i really liked the two as well.

the poly count is reasonably light, but it'd never make it into the vision engine. if it were any other engine, it'd probably work out alright. I seem to recall the counts for tris in the vision engine being around 1000 or so. Well, 1000 per section or something? It may be possible. I can try to work up a lower res version for you at some point though.

 

[KillerWave]

Around 1200 per object. I got fighters ingame with way more than that. Around 3500 polys.
Unless its over 5000 or 6000 polys, I think the engine could handle it. But it would be certainly a heft workload to get working.
How many will you need floating around in a mission anyway? Two at best

 

[BradMick]

heheh, alrighty. i'll shoot for a 3500 tri count version when I finish her up. do up a hanger, bridge, and hull sections?

 

[KillerWave]

Each hangar should be one object.
Yes, bridge and hull. Also I see seven engine exhausts in the rear shot.
Not to make a bomber need 8 or more torpedos to destroy it, would be better to get the 3 exhausts on the left in one object, the 3 on the right in one, and the center one in another.

 

[BradMick]

Cool. All very do-able, and easy. And, there's only the one hanger. Ships launch and recover from the front. And since the book said one hanger, thats how i've designed it.

So i'll need seperate models for the (just to recap and be 100% on this):

Bridge
Hanger
2 x 3 Engine Nozzles
1 x Big engine Nozzle
Hull

 

[Sylvester]

I'd like to hear some criteria on my own design if anyone has any.

 

[KillerWave]

BradMick -
Yes, thats correct. A shame about the 2 hangars though.

Sylvester -
I think it fits nicely along wc1-2 design. But...dont take this the wrong way...it looks a bit too much like the vesuvius to me. And I am not a big fan of wings and boxy ships.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Actually, according to the Handbook the Bengal has been around since 2619. So it's very possible for a ship which predates WC1 to have the wing dealies. McAuliffe happens in 2634. So, I guess that would be the only explanation I can give.

The Coral Sea has to be older than the Bengal-class - Richards notes with the exception of the Concordia, the Seventh Fleet's carriers all entered service before he was born. Richards was born in 2608.

 

[BradMick]

well, so...i'm not one to not play around with designs, and so....here's a quickie prototype model of a revised Coral Sea design based on all the input. i have to admit, i'm slightly more partial to this one, which means i'm going to have to come up with something new for the 'old carrier class' (the one on the right in the above three ship pic) so it doesn't look so horribly out of place. i'm going to add some more engines to the back though, so...yeah, here's the prototype for the revised Coral Sea.

killerwave, i'll quick do up the other Coral Sea for you if you want, or i'll keep this one low res starting out for you. you're call.