Lego scout ship

[Scarecrow]

All this talk made me drag out my Suleiman last night. I wish I hadn't. Great Maker! It's horrid. The modelling is amateurish, the textures are basic, the UV mapping makes my brain hurt. I'm amazed it ever rendered as well as it did (probably because it was a tiny image and I buried it under 'film grain' noise). It's a real eye-opener, not least of all in showing how far I've come, I guess.

Trouble is, I really want to fix it now :/

Crow

 

[Mickazoid]

Kicking this thread, will be adding pics of ISS Andrew Boulton

Scarecrow, remember this thread?

 

[Mickazoid]

A little progress update for Andrew (1/2)

See you in the stars, Andrew!

A tour around the ship




Looking in on the port side's staterooms, and the crew galley. It can be converted into a Medbay for all-business missions or if needed in an emergency.


The engine rooms and cargo bays are in green. Each can hold a lot of cargo, while still permitting access to the moving engine.


I do love the rear passenger hatch. Above it is the escape pod.


The ramp clips in with a ladder piece, and can lowered down quite far for variable gravity landings, using a 3-way hinge.




The ventral forward hatch has a fold-down ladder with fold-down hatches. I'd like that to have an iris valve someday. The forward and starboard landing gear are visible - the three gear support the entire ship's weight fully loaded, including the hull plates and lighting/power hardware. It takes heavy-duty springs, though!

 

[Mickazoid]

(2/2)

Early version of the engine, a placeholder before focusing on power functions to rotate the internal engine structure and the external exhaust assembly

Current version, with working motor. You can see the top cargo deck, which holds an escape pod above the airlock (the same build as LEGO's model 75136) and forward of that a gunnery station below the turret, and additional cargo in the triangular areas above the main cargo bays. RIght now I am temporarily putting the USB hub for lighting power and the motor in place of the escape pod and turret interior.


One of our surveyors, sleeping with his helmet, and the tv, on. At least his roommate is busy, and he has the room to himself!


The forward starboard stateroom, like the one on the port side, is small. But, it's a single room. Like all the rooms, it's equipped with a cabinet, pull-down refresher, folding table and shelf, computer console and fold-down bunk.


Even with artificial gravity, longer-term space runs can reduce one's physical activity. And even in a Suleiman-class ship's tight quarters, smart ships are equipped with basic health, hygiene and workout facilities.


A pilot flies, and a navigator navigates.


Feeling a bit blue, drinking alone in the galley. I think our captain needs a little time to cool off ship since getting cheated out of our cut of that last salvage operation.


In his off time, this guy is loading the software for the VR helmet and pistol. He should sweep his stateroom floor, if it's his turn.


A tech comes aboard to troubleshoot the port engine - the cargo bay is full (as is the top deck cargo loft, you can see the containers behind the rail) so it's a bit tight. The crew's skis and surfboards are on the left wall.


Looking in on the port side cargo bay (empty). The computer finally arrived, so they installed it on the forward bulkhead.

 

[Mickazoid]

Here's a video of the engine rotation power function

ideally, i'd like to put the motors below the engines, rather than taking up any space in the back of the cargo bays - but that will be a modification for the future

Good news is, there's space on the underside for them, and the gears, ahead of and inside the red fuel tanks to the left and right of the loading ramp (see first of these photo posts). The challenge will be switching the axle vertical, but i love challenges like that. Ideally, I can minimize it to a single axle hole in the floor, but that'll be some inspired pajamas building time

http://www.mickikaufman.com/traveller/suleiman0618/IMG_5706.MOV

 

[Mickazoid]

Over the next time frame, I also wanna incorporate:
- Perhaps another primary hull color than that grey which, while lovely and yellowed with age, is a bit typical. Biggest obstacle is the lack of the 6x6 tiles and 3x6 wedge plates, on which the geometry and smoothness of the hull depends, in many of the colors. I think I'd love to do a Sand Blue / Light Grey / Beige combination with a stark highlight color like red or yellow, and use the dark grey as currently used, mostly to outline the geometry of the hull and define the shading of the recessed cockpit triangles.
- Decals with Andrew's art and iconography used on his Scout model (see above post)
- power functions-enabled pneumatic ramp
- power function (rotating, angling and maybe even firing) turret
- local features and lighting effects (softer lighting, welding effect for internal fixes and/or external starport diorama, blinking consoles and lightpipes, maybe a small LCD screen a la ipod nano into the galley, etc.), and
- power functions iris valves to replace lower forward hatch's flip-down doors and/or internal doorways

To wit: anyone know where I might find good high-res version of the graphics Andrew used on the side of his Scout ship?

 

[Mickazoid]

The vehicle

And here's the exploration/shuttle/cargo ground vehicle, which is designed to carry a lot of stuff that, when docked and the ramp closed, is available right up into the hold area by tilting the internal cargo ramp down.

It's a wheeled vehicle because 1. there is no LEGO hover function, and 2. because it's actually just more practical in-game for scout types on the frontier not to have to rely on something as finicky as antigrav for locomotion and docking. The vehicle's profile is curved, in order to fit in the wedge-shaped space under the main deck that the vehicle occupies, and to leave room for the internal cargo ramp that allows unloading of a docked vehicle.




When the front headlights are installed, this is gonna look amazing. Also wanna complete the glass around the whole front, probably with internal panels.


The vehicle always enters the ship in reverse... there's just no room to turn around, it's tough to get at the cargo if the controls are facing forward, and there's precious little vertical space!

 

[Blue Ghost]

Wow. That's really amazing. Honestly, I'm blown away.

Now let's see you do a Free Trader

Seriously, good work.

 

[Mickazoid]

Wow. That's really amazing. Honestly, I'm blown away.

Now let's see you do a Free Trader

Seriously, good work.

Hey thanks! It's been a hobby project during my grad school process, and after Andrew died it took on more meaning. It's kind of a gift to him that I get to keep for myself.

The bond we share based in our love of this game world is real, and it's nice to remember a friend in this way. It's an homage to that childhood wish to materialize a fantasy into reality - and in Traveller, the Scout was among the most memorable characters in the environment. And yes, I use that word advisedly.

And yeah, I'm thinking that's the next ship to do given all the recent improvements in how LEGO handles curves... or if I wanna go minifig-huge, even a Far Trader...

The geometry and scale of an X-boat, however, is so un-LEGO that it could be an absolutely a-ma-zing (and perhaps less challenging) project!

 

[Fovean]

Absolutely amazing!

 

[Condottiere]

Low berth.

 

[Mickazoid]

Low berth.

That’s awesome! when they run out of ice cream, they start selling the cheapest low berth passengers

 

[Mickazoid]

That’s awesome! when they run out of ice cream, they start selling the cheapest low berth passengers

Actually the basics of that freezer would make a nice low berth pod - noting for future reference

 

[kilemall]

Parts list?

 

[Mickazoid]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

I'm nowhere near having this build that well written-up, sadly - although since i kept pics throughout the build, it won't be impossible to create an LDD version at some point. However, I'm sure I violate the necessary exactitude for LDD in a few places (there's a slight stretch in the forward-aft line) and it will probably need to be a segmented set of files. But I will do it!

The key was starting w/the original UCS Star Destroyer, the wedge of which has nearly identical dimensions.

 

[Mickazoid]

That's actually also a great suggestion because...

...creating the LDD file w all the restrictions might help me solve that one geometry issue that (imho) is making it seem the very slightest bit stretched forward-to-aft...