KJCs Work
- Thread starter kjc733
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The colour scheme was inspired by the USS Monitor from the Shatner novel The Return. Originally I wanted to go flat black, however it doesn't work very well trying to make pretty pictures (it makes it hard to texturing too). What you see in the orthos is actually a bit lighter than what it should be, but it was necessary to show some detail.
As for why, I figure Starfleet finally realised that you don't have to make it easy for the bad guys to shoot at you.
As for why, I figure Starfleet finally realised that you don't have to make it easy for the bad guys to shoot at you.
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Well we did see the Defiant fire phaser beams occasionally, but while there were some linear features on the ship they didn't really look like the phaser arrays we all know and love (and sometimes they fired from a port on the deflector 
). I just picked some locations that I though gave reasonable arcs and were more obviously arrays. My guess is that they originally didn't think the Whitestar (sorry, I meant Defiant) needed arrays due to its agility.
). I just picked some locations that I though gave reasonable arcs and were more obviously arrays. My guess is that they originally didn't think the Whitestar (sorry, I meant Defiant) needed arrays due to its agility.
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Well we did see the Defiant fire phaser beams occasionally, but while there were some linear features on the ship they didn't really look like the phaser arrays we all know and love (and sometimes they fired from a port on the deflector
My thoughts too. Many vfx errors in DS9.
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Back to Babylon 5 wargaming. There were two issues with my last test (well, probably more, but I'm going to focus on two here):
1. The Earth fleet had more card options and could be better optimised than the Minbari fleet.
2. There were no fighters. I've been building the game around the idea that fighters would be involved. Earth ships have more weapon slots than Minbari ships (which have more tech slots) but because there were no fighters they didn't have to split those weapons between anti-ship and anti-fighter roles. ALso, the Defence Grid can be set to be used against fighters, so in reality not all of those defence dice would have been available for anti-ship work.
I have stepped back slightly, put a little more focus on filling out the Minbari ranks, and come up with a number of "Quickbuild" sheets that I will use for the next round of testing. These are not optimised, instead they are more thematic. Also they just fill the slots, no taking into account points. I've attached in case anyone is interested.
1. The Earth fleet had more card options and could be better optimised than the Minbari fleet.
2. There were no fighters. I've been building the game around the idea that fighters would be involved. Earth ships have more weapon slots than Minbari ships (which have more tech slots) but because there were no fighters they didn't have to split those weapons between anti-ship and anti-fighter roles. ALso, the Defence Grid can be set to be used against fighters, so in reality not all of those defence dice would have been available for anti-ship work.
I have stepped back slightly, put a little more focus on filling out the Minbari ranks, and come up with a number of "Quickbuild" sheets that I will use for the next round of testing. These are not optimised, instead they are more thematic. Also they just fill the slots, no taking into account points. I've attached in case anyone is interested.
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Playtest number two.
This time it was 3vs3, although due to space constraints (too much wrapping paper about) each ship was limited to six cards instead of the full Quickbuild sheets. This was again Earth vs Minbar.
Earth Force
Sheridan on an Omega, as per the Quickbuild sheet but without Mines.
Sinclair on a Nova, as per the Quickbuild sheet but without the Anti-Ship missiles.
Lochley on an Omega, as per the Quickbuild but without the Chaff Missiles.
Minbari
Neroon on a Sharlin, as per the Quickbuild but without the Laser Upgrade
Kalain on a Sharlin, as per the Quickbuild but without the Laser Upgrade and with Minbari Helmsman instead of Minbari Warrior.
Delenn on a Whitestar, as per the Quickbuild but without Be Somewhere Else and with Minbari Helmsman instead of Ranger (it was a Minbari fleet).
This time I refamilarised myself with the ship characteristics before playing (myself again, I hope to test with my Dad over Xmas). The Earth ships stayed in close formation and went straight down the middle. The two Sharlins use their sensor ghost capability to dance around the left side of the board while the Whitestar did its own thing down the right.
The Sharlins get the first shots off at maximum range, both focusing Sheridan. Because it was extreme range he didn't take too much damage, although it did prove that the Defence Grid is really not powerful when forced to tank multiple attackers.
The Whitestar misplayed and ended up in range of Lochleys Omega and exchange fire, chip damage on both sides. The Whitestar obviously has shields, making it the only ship on the board with that capability.
The Sharlins close the range and continue to focus fire Sheridan, who ends up with a Warp Core breach card (I'm not writing a whole set of Critical Hit cards). Needless to say that after a couple of rounds Sheridan becomes the first casualty (too busy making speeches about oranges).
The Minbari didn't get off scot free though and Neroons Sharlin takes a beating, but survives.
There's some more maneuvering where the remaining Omega and Nova try to chase the Sharlins, who have far better agility and can (to some extent) pick and choose when to take the fight. It proves more difficult than I anticipated to stay out of range 2 but in range 3 and keep the Earth ships in firing arc. This actually pleased me as I had been worried that with a full stealth build the Sharlins would find it too easy to stay at range 3 and snipe.
Next to die was the Whitestar. Lennier did a great job in keeping out of trouble and it took several volleys to lose the two shields. However it then strayed into range of the Nova which rolled two hits and two crits with four dice!! The Whitestar rolled four defence dice, rolled one evade, which would have left it with one hull. However, both crits were extra damage cards and so the Whitestar died to Sinclair.
The rest of the game got a bit boring. The Minbari stayed at range until they were ready to engage. Lochley died next (with three crit cards stacked on her), but Sinclair immediately got a lucky shot off against Neroon. After that it was a full health Nova vs a nearly full health Sharlin circling opposite sides of the board... so I called it quits.
Lessons learned:
Playing Attack Wing without shields really changes the dynamics of the game. Normally a ships has around 4 hull and 4 shields. Crit hits don't do anything special on shields and cause an additional (random) affect on hull strikes, which means you may end up with one or two crits before the ship goes boom. Here both Omegas ended up with three crits and the building detrimental affects are great to work with. I'm really, really please with my decision to just ignore shields instead of using them as armour or something.
My full stealth build Minbari ships play how I want them to. For anyone who plays Attack Wing it's Romulans, but the extra defence dice come from the tech cards instead of being a built in cloak mechanic. For X-Wing players, think TIE Phantom. But if you go full stealth then you lose the ability to ramp up the weapons. If you ramp up the weapons you can't go full stealth, so it prevents the Minbari being broken.
The differences between Minbari and Earth armour cards was actually quite striking, and fitted the play style (in my opinion). Earth armour allows the ship to shrug off a hit, so it's damage resistance. Minbari converts a crit to a hit, so it mitigates the diminishing affects. This makes the Minbari ships a little more fragile than one may think (although a Sharlin has more hull than an Omega) but they don't get ground down so easily.
The Earth "Tank" build worked quite well. As discussed before the two Defence Grid dice is good against a single attacker, but is not so great against multiple attakers. The ability to increase to three dice as a weapons upgrade slot is, I think, a decision I'm comfortable with. This game would have gone very differently if Defence Grid Upgrade had been slotted instead of missiles (which never got used as Minbari Jammer), but the missiles would have been useful against Centauri or Narn so it's not a "must have" card.
The Nova seems more useful than an Omega in the current iteration. The Omega has 360deg arc, range 2 at 4 dice. The Omega has 360deg arc, range 2 at 3 dice, but has a boresight of 4 dice at range 4. The Omega also gets a scan (which is useless against the Minbari). I think this will become more useful when the Centauri and Narn fleets make an appearance.
The Whitestar turned out to be rather fragile. Now in the show there's a bit of a disparity between the hero ship and the Whitestar fleet (which often seems to be expensive cannon fodder). The Whitestar was actually the cornerpiece of the ship balancing as I considered it equivalent to the Defiant, so I'm not going to change the specs. 2 natural evade is still better than all other ships and the two shields gives it a resistance to crits, plus the regen ability allows it to regain hull after damage - but that doesn't help if a Nova one-shots you.
All in all, a successful set of tests. Two games, two different results, this one was very dependent on the roll of the dice which suggests good balance (especially as I know what each side is going to do). Playing against someone else will be the real test...
This time it was 3vs3, although due to space constraints (too much wrapping paper about) each ship was limited to six cards instead of the full Quickbuild sheets. This was again Earth vs Minbar.
Earth Force
Sheridan on an Omega, as per the Quickbuild sheet but without Mines.
Sinclair on a Nova, as per the Quickbuild sheet but without the Anti-Ship missiles.
Lochley on an Omega, as per the Quickbuild but without the Chaff Missiles.
Minbari
Neroon on a Sharlin, as per the Quickbuild but without the Laser Upgrade
Kalain on a Sharlin, as per the Quickbuild but without the Laser Upgrade and with Minbari Helmsman instead of Minbari Warrior.
Delenn on a Whitestar, as per the Quickbuild but without Be Somewhere Else and with Minbari Helmsman instead of Ranger (it was a Minbari fleet).
This time I refamilarised myself with the ship characteristics before playing (myself again, I hope to test with my Dad over Xmas). The Earth ships stayed in close formation and went straight down the middle. The two Sharlins use their sensor ghost capability to dance around the left side of the board while the Whitestar did its own thing down the right.
The Sharlins get the first shots off at maximum range, both focusing Sheridan. Because it was extreme range he didn't take too much damage, although it did prove that the Defence Grid is really not powerful when forced to tank multiple attackers.
The Whitestar misplayed and ended up in range of Lochleys Omega and exchange fire, chip damage on both sides. The Whitestar obviously has shields, making it the only ship on the board with that capability.
The Sharlins close the range and continue to focus fire Sheridan, who ends up with a Warp Core breach card (I'm not writing a whole set of Critical Hit cards). Needless to say that after a couple of rounds Sheridan becomes the first casualty (too busy making speeches about oranges).
The Minbari didn't get off scot free though and Neroons Sharlin takes a beating, but survives.
There's some more maneuvering where the remaining Omega and Nova try to chase the Sharlins, who have far better agility and can (to some extent) pick and choose when to take the fight. It proves more difficult than I anticipated to stay out of range 2 but in range 3 and keep the Earth ships in firing arc. This actually pleased me as I had been worried that with a full stealth build the Sharlins would find it too easy to stay at range 3 and snipe.
Next to die was the Whitestar. Lennier did a great job in keeping out of trouble and it took several volleys to lose the two shields. However it then strayed into range of the Nova which rolled two hits and two crits with four dice!! The Whitestar rolled four defence dice, rolled one evade, which would have left it with one hull. However, both crits were extra damage cards and so the Whitestar died to Sinclair.
The rest of the game got a bit boring. The Minbari stayed at range until they were ready to engage. Lochley died next (with three crit cards stacked on her), but Sinclair immediately got a lucky shot off against Neroon. After that it was a full health Nova vs a nearly full health Sharlin circling opposite sides of the board... so I called it quits.
Lessons learned:
Playing Attack Wing without shields really changes the dynamics of the game. Normally a ships has around 4 hull and 4 shields. Crit hits don't do anything special on shields and cause an additional (random) affect on hull strikes, which means you may end up with one or two crits before the ship goes boom. Here both Omegas ended up with three crits and the building detrimental affects are great to work with. I'm really, really please with my decision to just ignore shields instead of using them as armour or something.
My full stealth build Minbari ships play how I want them to. For anyone who plays Attack Wing it's Romulans, but the extra defence dice come from the tech cards instead of being a built in cloak mechanic. For X-Wing players, think TIE Phantom. But if you go full stealth then you lose the ability to ramp up the weapons. If you ramp up the weapons you can't go full stealth, so it prevents the Minbari being broken.
The differences between Minbari and Earth armour cards was actually quite striking, and fitted the play style (in my opinion). Earth armour allows the ship to shrug off a hit, so it's damage resistance. Minbari converts a crit to a hit, so it mitigates the diminishing affects. This makes the Minbari ships a little more fragile than one may think (although a Sharlin has more hull than an Omega) but they don't get ground down so easily.
The Earth "Tank" build worked quite well. As discussed before the two Defence Grid dice is good against a single attacker, but is not so great against multiple attakers. The ability to increase to three dice as a weapons upgrade slot is, I think, a decision I'm comfortable with. This game would have gone very differently if Defence Grid Upgrade had been slotted instead of missiles (which never got used as Minbari Jammer), but the missiles would have been useful against Centauri or Narn so it's not a "must have" card.
The Nova seems more useful than an Omega in the current iteration. The Omega has 360deg arc, range 2 at 4 dice. The Omega has 360deg arc, range 2 at 3 dice, but has a boresight of 4 dice at range 4. The Omega also gets a scan (which is useless against the Minbari). I think this will become more useful when the Centauri and Narn fleets make an appearance.
The Whitestar turned out to be rather fragile. Now in the show there's a bit of a disparity between the hero ship and the Whitestar fleet (which often seems to be expensive cannon fodder). The Whitestar was actually the cornerpiece of the ship balancing as I considered it equivalent to the Defiant, so I'm not going to change the specs. 2 natural evade is still better than all other ships and the two shields gives it a resistance to crits, plus the regen ability allows it to regain hull after damage - but that doesn't help if a Nova one-shots you.
All in all, a successful set of tests. Two games, two different results, this one was very dependent on the roll of the dice which suggests good balance (especially as I know what each side is going to do). Playing against someone else will be the real test...
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As a friend of mine bought me a Rebel Starfighters Haynes Manuel for Christmas, I decided I should probably make use of it and built a U-Wing (but of course, what else would one do when presented with that situation 
)
While I like the U-Wing, I'm not a massive Star Wars fan and I can see myself running out of motivation pretty quickly on this one. So in all likelihood I'll probably do the UV mapping, maybe a very basic texture, and then upload the mesh for other people to play about with as I can't say I've seen that many U-Wings about.
Current poly count is 1163 square of 2030 triangles, so a little on the heavy side for an A2 fighter, but probably okay fine for a transport or for more modern games. I may even be able to trim a few more off it.
Thinking about it, I'll probably upload the Corvette as well as I can't see myself ever getting around to finishing the textures.
)While I like the U-Wing, I'm not a massive Star Wars fan and I can see myself running out of motivation pretty quickly on this one. So in all likelihood I'll probably do the UV mapping, maybe a very basic texture, and then upload the mesh for other people to play about with as I can't say I've seen that many U-Wings about.
Current poly count is 1163 square of 2030 triangles, so a little on the heavy side for an A2 fighter, but probably okay fine for a transport or for more modern games. I may even be able to trim a few more off it.
Thinking about it, I'll probably upload the Corvette as well as I can't see myself ever getting around to finishing the textures.
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Hello:
I think you've been doing a solid work with the U-Wing! My only suggestion if you want to lower the poly-gount, would be to reqork the engines because, as we all know: Cylinders are evil!
I think you've been doing a solid work with the U-Wing! My only suggestion if you want to lower the poly-gount, would be to reqork the engines because, as we all know: Cylinders are evil!
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Thank you.
UV mapping is complete and it now has partial textures.
Current poly count 1970 triangles.
UPDATE - 18/01/2021
Panel lines make all the difference!
And I think I actually prefer it with the wings swept back, makes it more graceful (for a shoebox with wings). Reminds me a little of the B1 for some reason.
UV mapping is complete and it now has partial textures.
Current poly count 1970 triangles.
UPDATE - 18/01/2021
Panel lines make all the difference!
And I think I actually prefer it with the wings swept back, makes it more graceful (for a shoebox with wings). Reminds me a little of the B1 for some reason.
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Looks great!
Looking at those screenshots, I really need to re-install Milkshape 3d. Wish that the program wasn't abandoned. I felt like I was able to get a decent handle on it, but I've always been too intimidated by Blender and the other programs.
Looking at those screenshots, I really need to re-install Milkshape 3d. Wish that the program wasn't abandoned. I felt like I was able to get a decent handle on it, but I've always been too intimidated by Blender and the other programs.
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Hello:
I totally agree! The extra details, like panels and other drawn details, do help a big lot to bring models to life; that is what I always do with all my 3d models for that exact reason
.
I totally agree! The extra details, like panels and other drawn details, do help a big lot to bring models to life; that is what I always do with all my 3d models for that exact reason
.
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What rebel craft wouldn't be complete without some dirt and some damage to the paint.
I think I'm about done, so I'll tidy up a few bits and pieces and upload the mesh. I'll try to include this scheme and a blank texture so people can do their own paint jobs. Poly count is 1942 triangular polygons.
I think I'm about done, so I'll tidy up a few bits and pieces and upload the mesh. I'll try to include this scheme and a blank texture so people can do their own paint jobs. Poly count is 1942 triangular polygons.
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WARNING: This post contain scenes that some viewers may find disturbing.
Especially fans of the Galaxy class.
This is still very early days. The first step is always to make something resembling the base ship before making alterations. But let's not beat around the bush, Galaxy is a big gal and is going to require a lot more work than just a quick nip and tuck. So far only basic changes have been made to the stardrive section and her ample nacelles.
And if anyone thinks that this is horrific, just wait until I get started on the saucer...
Especially fans of the Galaxy class.
This is still very early days. The first step is always to make something resembling the base ship before making alterations. But let's not beat around the bush, Galaxy is a big gal and is going to require a lot more work than just a quick nip and tuck. So far only basic changes have been made to the stardrive section and her ample nacelles.
And if anyone thinks that this is horrific, just wait until I get started on the saucer...
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The pylons are a win in my book.
I also like the nacelles especially from the front. Have you thought of making them longer? I always wanted to see how that would look.
Did you lower the saucer section? If so I think you could go a deck or three lower. Always thought the neck of the galaxy was to long.
Not trying to hijack your project just throwing out a few ideas. If you like em fine and if they work out even better. But I'm sure your final design will to awesome!!
I also like the nacelles especially from the front. Have you thought of making them longer? I always wanted to see how that would look.
Did you lower the saucer section? If so I think you could go a deck or three lower. Always thought the neck of the galaxy was to long.
Not trying to hijack your project just throwing out a few ideas. If you like em fine and if they work out even better. But I'm sure your final design will to awesome!!
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The nacelle pylons I do intent to keep angled rather than curved, although how exactly they interface with the hull and pylons is likely to change. They look pretty bad from the top (hence why there's no top view 
)
You are correct, the neck has been compressed by a few decks. I may compress it a little more but it all depends on the nacelles as the way the nacelles hang under the saucer is part of what gives the Galaxy it's character. That is critical to these reworks, I can tweak all the details but the essence of the design has to remain the same. Plus I don't like the idea of impulse engines blasting out gas onto the nacelles. And I have plans for the neck.
Feel free to fire out ideas. I may ignore them as I have actually drafted out this one far more significantly than other designs, but on the other hand I may figure it fits better than what I had planned.
)You are correct, the neck has been compressed by a few decks. I may compress it a little more but it all depends on the nacelles as the way the nacelles hang under the saucer is part of what gives the Galaxy it's character. That is critical to these reworks, I can tweak all the details but the essence of the design has to remain the same. Plus I don't like the idea of impulse engines blasting out gas onto the nacelles. And I have plans for the neck.
Feel free to fire out ideas. I may ignore them as I have actually drafted out this one far more significantly than other designs, but on the other hand I may figure it fits better than what I had planned.
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That is heresy! Heresy I say!
While I'm admittedly a fan of the Galaxy, this is some nice work to make her more agressive and less, ahem, luxurious. I particularly like the more compressed neck, though I agree with your point that preserving the Galaxy's character is important.
A few ideas: Perhaps a Dawnstar-style cutout in the front of the saucer might be nice, to differentiate her from the original when seen from above. More prominent / noticeable impulse engines might be cool as well.
Looking forward to seeing more of this one!
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Don't worry, her saucer will look very different This is still very early days.
But the one change I can show off right now is the forward shuttlebay. Also slightly altered bridge... island and further refinement of the pylons.
This is still very early days.But the one change I can show off right now is the forward shuttlebay. Also slightly altered bridge... island and further refinement of the pylons.
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I don't see anything wrong with the top view. I'm digging the altered bridge island and forward shuttlebay. Your going to keep the aft one right? One question, are the shuttlebays connected through the interior of the ship. Always thought a "hanger" was the way to go for shuttle/fighter operations.
Are you going to add a deflector to the saucer section? (maybe to the ventral side.) Also, I always thought the saucer should have at least a limited warp drive. I mean we're going to take the ship into combat so we load all the REMF's if the saucer and set it adrift?? The Stardrive goes zooming off at high warp to engage the enemy and the saucer does what? Sit in intergalactic space, send out a distress signal, and hope the bad guys don't zoom in and blow them away, or try and limp to the nearest star system in what a year or eight?? I'm voting for a warp drive! (Maybe integrated into the ventral side of the saucer.)
Please keep posting updates. I'm excited about this one!
Are you going to add a deflector to the saucer section? (maybe to the ventral side.) Also, I always thought the saucer should have at least a limited warp drive. I mean we're going to take the ship into combat so we load all the REMF's if the saucer and set it adrift?? The Stardrive goes zooming off at high warp to engage the enemy and the saucer does what? Sit in intergalactic space, send out a distress signal, and hope the bad guys don't zoom in and blow them away, or try and limp to the nearest star system in what a year or eight?? I'm voting for a warp drive! (Maybe integrated into the ventral side of the saucer.)
Please keep posting updates. I'm excited about this one!
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That top view is following another pylon rework, it looked really bad before (and I'm still not happy with it).
I will be keeping the existing shuttlebays, although the two bays on the neck may be combined into a single one like I did with the GC. Probably the two saucer bays wouldn't be through deck due to the location of the computer cores, but the thought crossed my mind.
I do not intend on incorporating warp drive into the saucer at this point (although I completely agree with your reasoning). I may do an alternate "mission specific" saucer at some point.
Little known fact, the Galaxy class saucer actually already includes a secondary deflector. The cutout that looks like it houses four windows on the underside is actually listed as a deflector in technical drawings.
I will be keeping the existing shuttlebays, although the two bays on the neck may be combined into a single one like I did with the GC. Probably the two saucer bays wouldn't be through deck due to the location of the computer cores, but the thought crossed my mind.
I do not intend on incorporating warp drive into the saucer at this point (although I completely agree with your reasoning). I may do an alternate "mission specific" saucer at some point.
Little known fact, the Galaxy class saucer actually already includes a secondary deflector. The cutout that looks like it houses four windows on the underside is actually listed as a deflector in technical drawings.
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Would cutting 10 meters or so off the end of the engineering hull fix the pylon geometry problem?
Couldn't the computer cores just be pushed further away for the center line to allow a though hanger?
Although after more thought the one problem I do see is would the shuttlebays line up, as in be on the same deck. Although I guess an elevator could fix that problem.
I actually know about the secondary deflector, got my Tech Manaul right here I was just hoping you would draw one in that could be seen.
Couldn't the computer cores just be pushed further away for the center line to allow a though hanger?
Although after more thought the one problem I do see is would the shuttlebays line up, as in be on the same deck. Although I guess an elevator could fix that problem.
I actually know about the secondary deflector, got my Tech Manaul right here
I was just hoping you would draw one in that could be seen.