While catching up on my COTI reading, I came across the thread Ship Recongnition: pg 80 MTJ#4 and got to thinking. Since no official stats exist for it that I'm aware of (Swiftbrooks most excellent design notwithstanding), I wondered if it was possible to work up a model based just on the image. Here's what I've got so far...
I took the original image and blew it up to 1300x1600 (give or take) to allow for more discrete measurements. I then started marking out the areas that needed measuring - length, width, and other useful distances. For this I used photoshop. (If the image below violates Fair Use, let me know and I'll take it down ASAP).
The next major issue is the matter of scale. With no other reference points in the picture, I needed a place to get solid measurements. Using the hatch shown on the port side (~2 meters) and the turret (~3 meters), I came up with a scale of 28 pixels = 1 meter, give or take. Those numbers were purely arbitrary SWAGs, but there's going to have to be a fair bit of slop in the process anyway, given the size of the source image. I then went back into photoshop and used the ruler to get measurements of my marked out lines, then plugged all of those numbers into a spreadsheet to convert to meters and deckplan squares.
Once I got the measurements worked out, I started laying out the outer shape of the deckplan. Having everything converted to squares (rounded to the nearest whole number) makes this relatively easy. Note that the totals on the plan are wrong - the main deck actually works out to 324.5 tons, the upper deck works out to 72 tons (EDIT- errr, 36 tons since it's half-height), and the boat works out to 14 tons. So, according to just the deckplan spaces, with 1 boat, 1 upper deck and 1 main deck, a grand total of 374.5 dtons. That doesnt account for the sloping part of the upper deck, the curvature of the hull, etc.
Once the deckplan was laid out, I took it in for modelling. At this point it's very rough geometry, less than 1,000 polygons (as a reference, the Type C runs about 40-50,000 polygons).
Considerations:
The upper deck is only scaled to 1.5 m tall, rather than 3. At 3 m it just doesnt look right, and the pic looks like it's fairly short too. Possibly fuel tankage or a little taller for a cargo bay below.
The picture shows 4 turrets for sure, and possibly 6 if you count the ones blended into the forward edges of the engine pods. Therefore, it's at least 400 dtons, and 600+ if you go with 2 main decks. The argument could be made that the objects in front of the engine pods are docking ports; heck, I'd even go with ground defense turrets if it was a merc ship or frontier trader.
Thoughts, opinions, critiques, and full-on complaints are welcome as always.
I took the original image and blew it up to 1300x1600 (give or take) to allow for more discrete measurements. I then started marking out the areas that needed measuring - length, width, and other useful distances. For this I used photoshop. (If the image below violates Fair Use, let me know and I'll take it down ASAP).
The next major issue is the matter of scale. With no other reference points in the picture, I needed a place to get solid measurements. Using the hatch shown on the port side (~2 meters) and the turret (~3 meters), I came up with a scale of 28 pixels = 1 meter, give or take. Those numbers were purely arbitrary SWAGs, but there's going to have to be a fair bit of slop in the process anyway, given the size of the source image. I then went back into photoshop and used the ruler to get measurements of my marked out lines, then plugged all of those numbers into a spreadsheet to convert to meters and deckplan squares.
Once I got the measurements worked out, I started laying out the outer shape of the deckplan. Having everything converted to squares (rounded to the nearest whole number) makes this relatively easy. Note that the totals on the plan are wrong - the main deck actually works out to 324.5 tons, the upper deck works out to 72 tons (EDIT- errr, 36 tons since it's half-height), and the boat works out to 14 tons. So, according to just the deckplan spaces, with 1 boat, 1 upper deck and 1 main deck, a grand total of 374.5 dtons. That doesnt account for the sloping part of the upper deck, the curvature of the hull, etc.
Once the deckplan was laid out, I took it in for modelling. At this point it's very rough geometry, less than 1,000 polygons (as a reference, the Type C runs about 40-50,000 polygons).
Considerations:
The upper deck is only scaled to 1.5 m tall, rather than 3. At 3 m it just doesnt look right, and the pic looks like it's fairly short too. Possibly fuel tankage or a little taller for a cargo bay below.
The picture shows 4 turrets for sure, and possibly 6 if you count the ones blended into the forward edges of the engine pods. Therefore, it's at least 400 dtons, and 600+ if you go with 2 main decks. The argument could be made that the objects in front of the engine pods are docking ports; heck, I'd even go with ground defense turrets if it was a merc ship or frontier trader.
Thoughts, opinions, critiques, and full-on complaints are welcome as always.
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Never mind 
:toast:
