Drawing ships

[Terquem]

I'm adjusting the access way (the part across the top) and making minor adjustments.
The crew can access the "tube" (1.5m wide by 1.2m high) to move between the engineering section and the control compartment but it is a tight hand over hand trip because the space includes the lowering hoists for the module.

 

[infojunky]

I have done both. In particular, I used several plastic spaceships that I built" in my teens as the basis for ships.

Me too...

Pictured, a 250ish ton (1/100thscale), built from cardboard and wood bits and tones of hot glue. I have a couple of more buried in storage as well.

 

[GypsyComet]

Example: Two different drawings to the same stats, the Type S:
View attachment 3900

View attachment 3901

Three, technically. The exterior on that page from Traders & Gunboats is the Judges Guild Scout, which is NOT the Sulie.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Three, technically. The exterior on that page from Traders & Gunboats is the Judges Guild Scout, which is NOT the Sulie.

Wait. Not finding those in a quick web search. In what ways is the JG version different from the S7 version, aside from maybe not having stuff that doesn't fit?

 

[Vargr Breath]

Wait. Not finding those in a quick web search. In what ways is the JG version different from the S7 version, aside from maybe not having stuff that doesn't fit?

https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/84075-sample.pdf

 

[Grav_Moped]

https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/84075-sample.pdf

Thanks! Interesting... not quite the way I would have done it, but I see what they were trying to accomplish.

Might have more to say when I'm using a bigger display than my phone... LOL

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Three, technically. The exterior on that page from Traders & Gunboats is the Judges Guild Scout, which is NOT the Sulie.

At least, there is also the Snapshot deckplan:

They are all built to the Type S specification.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Has anyone ever done a drawing of what the Snapshot "Type S" would have looked like on the outside?

 

[Enoki]

I kind of split the difference. I figure out roughly how much tonnage is necessary to fit all the stuff (a highly technical term) that has to fit in the ship to make it do what I need it to do.
At that point, without doing a really detailed build, I design the ship starting with a rough volume based on its envisioned shape. The overall volume is refined some to make it close to what's likely needed with maybe 10% extra 'just in case.'
I then cram everything in and lastly do the actual calculations of the exact volume everything takes up.

 

[Grav_Moped]

At least, there is also the Snapshot deckplan:
View attachment 3979
They are all built to the Type S specification.

Interesting (and I really ought to pull my set out of storage). There are two separate avionics bays, the ship's locker is a room off to the side of the bridge and it probably fits, and the drive bay has no user servicable parts inside.

I know it was drawn as an arena for a small-arms combat game, but there's a lot of unstated assumptions about how starships work in-universe going on here.

 

[TamsinP]

The trouble with a lot of the 2D deckplans is that whoever designed them often failed to take into account the exterior shape of the vessel and how that would impact on the interior.
I know the frustration that Ben at 2nd Dynasty had trying to convert the 2D plans of the Type S, Type J and Type A into 3D models and how things had to be amended to make the interior usable. The spearhead shape of the Type S/Type J was a real PITA.

 

[Terquem]

My biggest complaint since I first got my hands on supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats has been "wall thickness"
Interior walls, when there are several along a frame or compartment line, tend to add up quickly and a pencil line along a grid, for me, is frustrating
I try to make my 2d Autocad renders "volume corrected," accounting for walls as often as I can.

 

[Spinward Flow]

My biggest complaint since I first got my hands on supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats has been "wall thickness"
Interior walls, when there are several along a frame or compartment line, tend to add up quickly and a pencil line along a grid, for me, is frustrating
I try to make my 2d Autocad renders "volume corrected," accounting for walls as often as I can.

Gets even worse when you try to account for materials strength. You rapidly get into the "6 inches polymer plexiglass vs 1 inch thick transparent aluminum" problem once you realize that you need 7x less volume/wall thickness for Bonded Superdense (TL=14-15) as you do for Composite Laminates (TL=7-9) to achieve the same structural strength. That can mean the difference between a 5cm thick bulkhead wall (TL=14-15) and a 35cm thick bulkhead wall (TL=7-9) ... which is going to be enough of a difference to show up in 3D renders of a starship, but will NOT show up in the symbolic "wargamer" representation of a deck plan in 2D.

 

[GypsyComet]

Has anyone ever done a drawing of what the Snapshot "Type S" would have looked like on the outside?

Its closest relative would be the T20 Scout, I think, but I tend to see the Snapshot Scout as looking a lot like the lifting body that inspired the Six Million Dollar Man, the Northrop HL-10. A volume check on the deck plan is pretty close to 100 dtons, so being a rounded lifting body instead of a sharp-edged arrowhead is within reason and allows the deck plan to push rooms to the edge.

 

[GypsyComet]

At least, there is also the Snapshot deckplan:
View attachment 3979
They are all built to the Type S specification.

Yep. I was just pointing out that the now-common Sulie did not have its own artwork until later in CT. Traders & Gunboats, and all of the early JTAS pics that include the arrowhead Scout, depicted the JG Scout for external art. The hexagonal Bridge windows and the grills on the aft surface instead of all three doors (it still has one) are the signatures of the JG hull.

 

[Spinward Flow]

looking a lot like the lifting body that inspired the Six Million Dollar Man, the Northrop HL-10.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Yep. I was just pointing out that the now-common Sulie did not have its own artwork until later in CT. Traders & Gunboats, and all of the early JTAS pics that include the arrowhead Scout, depicted the JG Scout for external art. The hexagonal Bridge windows and the grills on the aft surface instead of all three doors (it still has one) are the signatures of the JG hull.

The first two Type S, Judges Guild and Snapshot deck plans are single deck ships and did not try to cram things into two other partial decks as in S-7 Traders & Gunboats.

 

[whartung]

looking a lot like the lifting body that inspired the Six Million Dollar Man, the Northrop HL-10.

I don't recommend that model. I've seen video footage of it's landings, and they don't do well.

 

[whulorigan]

Its closest relative would be the T20 Scout, I think, but I tend to see the Snapshot Scout as looking a lot like the lifting body that inspired the Six Million Dollar Man, the Northrop HL-10. . . .

I don't recommend that model. I've seen video footage of it's landings, and they don't do well.

The footage from the Six Million Dolar Man is actually the Northrop M2-F2. It is one of a number of similar lifting body styles that USAF/NASA were experimenting with back then (including the HL-10). Note that the M2-F2 does not have the center fin of the HL-10, and neither does Steve Austin's craft in the TV-Series footage.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The footage from the Six Million Dolar Man is actually the Northrop M2-F2.

Fun fact, in the series the craft that Steve Austin crashed while test piloting is called an M3-F4 ... an entirely fictional (further) development of the M2-F2 program (but a logical progression of it if the testing campaign had continued).