Fleet Tender Update

[Thunderbolt]

I put this one to bed for a bit last year, and thought it was about time I tried to finish it off:

Added small towers along the top, and more containers underneath.

I'm building a travelling gantry and runs along the under slung containers, which will be some kind of servicing / docking thing-ama-jig.

 

[Peter Schutze]

gasp !

thats going to look absolutely amazing when colored

 

[Ran Targas]

SWEEET!!! I particularly like the structural ribs and the cutters along the top. Very cool.

Now, is it just coincidence or do your turrets look like those rotating air ducts on top of buildings?

 

[Major B]

Great work Thunderbolt! Can't wait to see it finished.

Have you worked out stats for this or is it just a concept?

 

[DaveChase]

Are those ships boats along the top or Modular Cutters?


OH, and it does look cool and nice and neat and wow.

Dave Chase

 

[Thunderbolt]

Are those ships boats along the top or Modular Cutters?

Dave Chase

Those are ships boats, mostly because I had a model lying around from a previous project.

Have you worked out stats for this or is it just a concept?

Dave Chase

I did start to come up with some stats, but I wanted to come up with 'the look' primarily, then follow that with stats later. I think it was weighing in at about 10,000 tons.

My only possible reservation about stats is this whole Mongoose license thing that kicked off a while ago, I don't want to get into license violation / compliance nonsense.

Now, is it just coincidence or do your turrets look like those rotating air ducts on top of buildings?

Dave Chase

I never thought of that, but now you mention it, they do look like those spinning covers!

As far as colouring it, I am so dreading it, my modelling program is really struggling with it, and UV mapping is going to be just hell.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Nice!

My only possible reservation about stats is this whole Mongoose license thing that kicked off a while ago, I don't want to get into license violation / compliance nonsense.

Just don't use MGT stats.

 

[Thunderbolt]

Didn't the license restrictions cover anything related to Traveller entirely?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

You can't sell it, that's all.

 

[DaveChase]

Thanks for the answers

I am guessing then that the center 'tube' that the ship's boats are attached to is about 9 meters in diameter then?

I have posted a basic sketch deckplan here

Basic Fleet Tender sketch

I used this to help determine the aproximate size of the ship. I would like to do more figuring but

1) I don't want to take away from your work or efforts.
2) I do enjoy your work and I am just wasting a bit of time and brain power
3) And I wanted to know more about your ship size and objects/parts of the ship.

If this is more than you want from me, no problem just let me know. Don't want to step on any toes.

Thanks again for the posting and work that you are doing.

Dave Chase

 

[Swiftbrook]

Great pic!

I did some playing around with the picture and excel and came up with the following.

Those are ships boats, mostly because I had a model lying around from a previous project.

I did start to come up with some stats, but I wanted to come up with 'the look' primarily, then follow that with stats later. I think it was weighing in at about 10,000 tons.

Based on a ships boat, and MT ton = 13.5 Kl, I estimated about 7,000t.

Based on a cutter (which I think it looks more like because it looks 'fat' to me) I estimated 9,250t.

Interesting to see how it turns out. It looks like the four cylinders on the sides (not the cutters) and the eight boxes on the keel are detachable pods. Just my take.

Random Thoughts ...
Looks too small for a fleet tender.
Looks just right for a Mega Corp freighter.
Too many boats for a freighter.
Too many boats for a tender. It just take too long to move all that cargo in such small boats or cutters. Need something bigger.
Turrets look oversized for a 10,000t ship. They look like small bays. They look bigger than the bridge of the cutter/boat.

Please Understand this is constructive ideas. I think the art is Great!, just my mathy side kicking in.

-Swiftbrook

 

[Thunderbolt]

Dave, Swiftbrook

Thanks for taking an interest!

You are almost spot on Dave, the centre cylinders (four in total) are 9.75 metres in diameter.

When I last calculated its volume, it was a shade over 7000 tons, but the additional containers and stuff will be pushing it towards 8 - 9000 tons.

I agree with the points made about the boats, I started off with a couple, but as the design is modular and repetitive, it seemed more balanced to have more along the hull. The turrets started out as turrets, but as the ship concept became bigger, I ended up pretending they are bays instead.

I should mention that the large cylinders on each side detach, there's a whole skeleton / spine going on under there!!!

Truth be told, my operating concept all along has been that it is a Victory / Liberty ship, cheap, functional, ugly, so the fleet tender thing is not set in stone, I figured maybe there was a need for a ship to look after the smaller escorts requirements.

Roles would include freighter, refueller, mobile repair shop, troop transport.

At the moment, the rough plan is that the main accomodation is along the top cylinders, cargo along the side cylinders and boxes beneath, fuel and engines at the back, bridge is the sphere on top near the back.

Keep the ideas coming, it helps me put off the evil day when I texture this monstrosity.

 

[Swiftbrook]

I should mention that the large cylinders on each side detach, there's a whole skeleton / spine going on under there!!!

Truth be told, my operating concept all along has been that it is a Victory / Liberty ship, cheap, functional, ugly.

With that in mind, the Liberty ship idea is perfect for Traveller. It's just at the upper level of a ship that the PC's could be responsible for escorting. As I recall from a TD or Challenge article, you use about 5t of escort for every 100t of transport ship. (if you find this article, please correct me if I'm wrong) At around 10,000t, this puts the PC ship at about 500t. A Gazzle, Fiery or Broadsword would work nice.

As for modular, instead of boxes down the keel, how about another row of the cylinders?

With their large size, and large crews, I'd cut down on the number of bay weapons. Maybe one port and starboard bay and reduce the size of the rest to turret size.

Keep up the good work.

-Swiftbrook

 

[Thunderbolt]

Looks like I'll be building a cutter over the weekend !!

I think I'm going to push the ships underneath. I've been looking at some of the older iterations and they looked sleeker, also might lose the top cylinder at the front, as that looked sleeker in an older version too.

The big cylinders down the sides are so integral to the main central spine, that a similar set down the keel would be a major redesign, but the great thing about this style of design, is it makes it easy to move stuff around

 

[Swiftbrook]

Thunderbolt,

Any updates?

-Swiftbrook

 

[Thunderbolt]

I've created the cutters but I've not really found an arrangement I like for attaching them to the ship.

The asymmetric arrangement does the job but somehow I don't like the aesthetics.

I've updated the linked image to show the changes. For a bit of fun, I've put one of my super high-tech designs along side for scale and contrast!!

 

[boomslang]

The asymmetric arrangement does the job but somehow I don't like the aesthetics.

You know, thanks to grav plating, you could always mount the port-side ones upside-down, and keep your ventral boat deck always in zero-gee.

You could even mount the cutters on each side in a nose-to-nose configuration, one rightside up and the other upside down, so that one's drive exhausts aren't right in the nose of the next.

Looking good...

 

[Swiftbrook]

The asymmetric arrangement does the job but somehow I don't like the aesthetics.

You could have cutters with doors on the port instead of the starboard.

I like the black background of the original picture better (luckily I saved it). The revised pic looks longer. I like it better.

-Swiftbrook