Holy moley those look good!
Deckplans Poll: The Next Generation
- Thread starter savage
- Start date
Holy moley those look good!
Yeah. I like them too, but I must agree that a magmagmag version would be pretty cool.
Just so as to manage expectations ... while most of the new plans are in the standard 1:120 scale (AKA "15mm scale") where one half inch represents 1.5 meters, for reasons of practicality the Kinunir is in 1:180 scale, where one third inch represents 1.5 meters. I haven't seen them first hand yet, they are on order, but I think the Kinunir plans should still work.
Patron Zero
SOC-13
I'll second or third the vote for magmagmag's illustrations, definitely technical manual quality of the first order, simply amazing work !
That said, I'm hopeful that FFE might produce some non-canon CT starships designs that have proven popular here on COTI and other Traveller forums.
That said, I'm hopeful that FFE might produce some non-canon CT starships designs that have proven popular here on COTI and other Traveller forums.
Nice thought. What would you propose?
I've always wanted a couple more balanced set of capital ships. MgT did small scale versions but it would be nice if these we're a bit bigger (CDRom) or something. It could keep a graphics guy busy for a year.
Patron Zero
SOC-13
Myself, I can always welcome more private sector-commercially owned-operated ships than dedicated naval vessels, I like to keep the spaceways and starports populated with all sorts of merchant transports.
Saying that, there seem to be all sorts of variants of the 100 Ton Scout-Courier, mind some more internal arrangements but a few interesting redresses of the tried and true design have emerged. Also to note are the various traders of the 200 Ton and 400 Ton varieties to consider, again classic ships and new incarnations of such.
My big divergence here is some of the Classic Traveller starships operating in different roles than their original deployment-service.
One that comes directly to mind would be a 400 Ton Type L Lab Ship refitted as a freight hauler, it's graceful ring structure now an open-frame fitted with standard cargo containers.
Less dramatic would be an 800 Ton Broadsword Mercenary Ship now a bulk freighter or subsidized liner, either a reasonable venture for the former warrior.
That all said, such 'redeployment' and refitting would require accessible deckplans to let players and referees alike make full use of such.
We have a couple large ships JG Brilliant Gems and the AHL but just a couple. This is something FFE could make a lot of progress in with a few ISU graphics students.
Right now I am drawing starship Geomorphs based on Index cards for use with 15mm figures (1/100th scale, i.e. 1.5m=1.5cm)
Why index cards? The local ¥100 store has 3x5 cards with a 5mm grid.
After I have completed a major update on one of my other web sites, I hope to add a number of solar systems to my Traveller site. Maybe I can get started on the star custer I mapped out insort of 3D.
I have a 3D printer now and was thinking of getting Starship Wanderer printed out. I have an obj file for it.
I have a 3D printer now and was thinking of getting Starship Wanderer printed out. I have an obj file for it.
*Whoop-whoop*
ATTENTION CITIZENS! THIS IS A POLICE ACTION. DO NOT INTERFERE. INTERFERENCE WITH A LAW ENFORCEMENT BRINGS ONE WEEK IN THE CUBES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Whee-hee. This is the best job in the worlds. :devil:
Thanks go out the the Citizens who phoned up the Control Tower with reports of bad traffic. Most especially since that was my very first spammer. I didn't follow the link, but the title and some words violated Rule 1 for sure. Pretty sure that HQ will back my play, new guy or not. First on the scene and all that.
Well. Back to your regular thread. Which I really should vote in since I bought deckplans, I do like My Patron at Court, I hold a fondness for the simple, clean CT style. On the other hand I really super dig magmagmag's most excellent 3D WalkThrus?
It has been a long day at the office already and I have to try and get a Remote Tech network up and get the dang Ore mining system to work. Turns out you have to attach the drills to the tanks. Kerbal Space Program, rocket science, little green bug-eyed aliens and explosions. What's not to love?
EDIT: sorry for the mistakes, excitement. hey nobody got laz-burned..i mean except for mister crispy there, but he had it coming, cits said so.
ATTENTION CITIZENS! THIS IS A POLICE ACTION. DO NOT INTERFERE. INTERFERENCE WITH A LAW ENFORCEMENT BRINGS ONE WEEK IN THE CUBES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Whee-hee. This is the best job in the worlds. :devil:
Thanks go out the the Citizens who phoned up the Control Tower with reports of bad traffic. Most especially since that was my very first spammer. I didn't follow the link, but the title and some words violated Rule 1 for sure. Pretty sure that HQ will back my play, new guy or not. First on the scene and all that.
Well. Back to your regular thread. Which I really should vote in since I bought deckplans, I do like My Patron at Court, I hold a fondness for the simple, clean CT style. On the other hand I really super dig magmagmag's most excellent 3D WalkThrus?
It has been a long day at the office already and I have to try and get a Remote Tech network up and get the dang Ore mining system to work. Turns out you have to attach the drills to the tanks. Kerbal Space Program, rocket science, little green bug-eyed aliens and explosions. What's not to love?
EDIT: sorry for the mistakes, excitement. hey nobody got laz-burned..i mean except for mister crispy there, but he had it coming, cits said so.
Last edited:
Well...
Sorta, yes. It is teaching me the joys of MechJeb2 and other nifty mods that keep proving that even with computers flying rocket science is hard. :coffeegulp:
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
There's a difference in what I use, what's available, and what I would like to see in Traveller deckplans.
I like a lot of details. If a grid and squared off lines is all I have, then that's what I use. But, if I can get some good deckplans actually showing the interior of the ship with 3D representation of space, then I'd love it.
These deck plans of the Millennium Falcon are pretty cool.
Cross Sections are a little too busy, but is accompanied with a detailed plan like that above, they're very useful. Cross Sections are good for studying.
For Traveller, these 3D deck plans have the right idea, but I think they need more detail on the walls and such.
I think maybe a straight heads down plan with some shots of what the actual interiors look like is a good compromise.
Interior Shot 1
Interior Shot 2
Dream Interior Shot 1
Dream Interior Shot 2
I like a lot of details. If a grid and squared off lines is all I have, then that's what I use. But, if I can get some good deckplans actually showing the interior of the ship with 3D representation of space, then I'd love it.
These deck plans of the Millennium Falcon are pretty cool.
Cross Sections are a little too busy, but is accompanied with a detailed plan like that above, they're very useful. Cross Sections are good for studying.
For Traveller, these 3D deck plans have the right idea, but I think they need more detail on the walls and such.
I think maybe a straight heads down plan with some shots of what the actual interiors look like is a good compromise.
Interior Shot 1
Interior Shot 2
Dream Interior Shot 1
Dream Interior Shot 2
Patron Zero
SOC-13
Maybe I'm too old school or just too old in general but I prefer line-art over virtually rendered illustrations.
S-4, may I ask where the two 'interior shot' images originated ?
S-4, may I ask where the two 'interior shot' images originated ?
Same here. However, I like having both. Line art, first, in vector format, so I can blow it up to table scale for minis.
CT style line art will render well on cheap black and white printing processes on uncoated paper - in a way that photos or 3D rendered stuff won't. As an example the 3D renderings in the Mongoose rulebooks really don't come out well.
In some ways I'm old school, but I did work briefly as a typesetter for jobbing printers so I have a little background in getting things to come out well in print.
Printed halftones (i.e. offset) don't render well on uncoated paper because it's just absorbent enough to spread the ink slightly. You can get away with a matt art paper (similar to the coated paper the original CT LBBs were printed on); this will render halftones OK but the paper can be a lot more expensive than uncoated media.
Halftones printed with a hagiographic process (i.e. a high-speed laser printer of the type often used for short-run printing) suffer from a similar problem, although for a different reason. In the latter case the fuser rollers slightly squash the toner outwards, spreading the dots. This type of process doesn't work well on coated papers as the toner is inclined to flake off the paper. You can get laser-friendly matt art stock for a price, but that's mostly about the paper being thermally stable so it doesn't wrinkle when it goes through the fuser assembly.1
This makes it quite difficult to get photos or 3D rendered graphics to come out well on cheap printing processes. Also, if your renderings fall short of photo-realistic they tend to look a bit cheap and nasty (and making really good 3D scenes is quite time consuming). Pen-and-ink drawings, on the other hand, are obviously drawings, so they tend to look OK unless the artist isn't up to scratch.
For continuous tone images you also need to ensure that the response curves are calibrated right for your output medium otherwise the contrast will come out all wrong. However, even if you do this, the spreading you get in the above two cases makes rendering halftones on cheap processes quite fraught. You can see this problem with the renderings in the Mongoose rulebook.
WH Keith style line art, on the other hand, renders well in this type of medium, even at resolutions as low as 300dpi. However, it can be tricky to get it to render well on a screen. For use on a screen you would have to oversample it, convert it to grey scale and shrink it down with interpolation.
One option for rendering continuous tone images on hagiographic processes is to use an error diffusion dither to convert from continuous tone to a dithered black-and-white image. You still have to be a bit careful of the spread on the dots, though, but you can experiment with diddling the response curves on an ordinary laser printer. Get a sample of the paper you intend to use for the final output and frig the response curves and dithering patterns until you get the blocking sorted.
You can also get away with fairly coarse rendering with error diffusion - even at 300 dpi on the final render it can come out OK. Note, however, that error diffusion dithers don't work well on offset presses unless you're using coated paper, in which case you can usually get halftones to come out OK anyway.
TL;DR - you're rogered either way.
1 - Note that the last time I did this in any quantity was about 1995 so the state of the art may have advanced in the meantime.
Last edited:
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
pretty much all of the above depending on the group and how we're playing. I have (far too many) fancy poster deck plans, have printed out the King Richard from the CD to use that (taped together the tabloid size printouts and it sort of overflowed our table but they were 15mm compatible. and I still have those minis), created/borrowed battle maps if we were getting tactical.
And gone the other way with complete theater of the mind action.
Now, if you asked for preference, I'd go with more crunchy battle maps but my group I am currently with are not gearheads and don't care to get that level of detail, or oohing and ahing over my pretty poster deck plans (had them hanging in my office back when I was working out of an office they are that nice).
And gone the other way with complete theater of the mind action.
Now, if you asked for preference, I'd go with more crunchy battle maps but my group I am currently with are not gearheads and don't care to get that level of detail, or oohing and ahing over my pretty poster deck plans (had them hanging in my office back when I was working out of an office they are that nice).
Similar threads
