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Starports

You should be doing the deckplans!!! If I had my time again, I'd have loved to have done architecture. Law is one of the most uncreative professions there is.

I'm still playing with the composition, moved the structure right. Not sure about the position of the moon though.

Ravs

hydroportrender3.jpg
 
I am pretty sure that we actually have the technology to turn a Hurricane today. The financial liability of the damage caused by a redirected storm prevents anyone from attempting it. That might not be a problem on a water world.

If the thing is mobile, it could sail around the storms - one chunk of sea looks a lot like another.

EDIT - Great minds think alike.
 
One thing that struck me is that the shape of the thing looks almost like prow and funnel of a ship, so it could be anchored to the sea floor (which is how I assumed it would be, although no reason why it couldn't be mobile - like an iceberg it would be huge underwater with stabilisers of some sort) but have the ability to rotate into the wind, almost like a weather vane.

I guess there could be elevators which take ships down into the superstructure if there's a storm coming.

I'm not sure how to give the thing a sense of scale. Writing of some sort? Windows? Greebles?

Andrew, what do you mean by 'grown' in terms of where I go from here? At the moment I think it looks pleasing, but I'm not sure about how functional it is.

:Edit: The very shape and size of the structure suggests a high tech level as Border Reiver says. I'm trying to work out what the shape says about the people who built it and why they chose that shape...which will give me a clue as to detailing it.

Ravs
 
:)

It looked to me like a tree (or a water lilly) - maybe it's a huge floating plant, or coral, or...something. Just a thought.

Windows are a good way of showing scale.
 
Originally posted by ravs:
I'm not sure how to give the thing a sense of scale.

I'm trying to work out what the shape says about the people who built it and why they chose that shape...which will give me a clue as to detailing it.
If you envision the platforms as about 1-meter thick, a human outline at the edge of the platform would be visible to portray scale. A known ship (scout of free trader) parked on a platform could portray scale. The top third of the structure piercing through the clouds would convey a much larger scale. A water ship near the structure could also portray scale. Windows would communicate stories if they would be visible as distinct elements. If the tower collects a sand bar around it, cypress-like trees could grow around the base. In general, you need some object of known size to compare it to.

As a suggestion to why:
The average citizen spends most of his life living below sea level in spaces that resemble a shopping mall. They work in submersibles, tending plankton and schools of fish. They swim with advanced scuba equipment. The starport is the cathedral of this community. It is the ultimate expression of their collective identity.

Every citizen can still remember the first time that they visited the port. They remember the change in sound as the lift passed the water line and they heard wind against the outer hull instead of the steady flow of water. Words cannot express the first glimpse of the sky. All of the pictures in the world cannot prepare you for the first time you see it. They never imagined that so much space could exist. No outsider could fully understand what this place means to the people who live below it.
 
Sense of humour difference across the pond I suspect...I'll delete the post.

My apologies for any offence caused.

Ravs
 
Originally posted by ravs:
Sense of humour difference across the pond I suspect...I'll delete the post.

My apologies for any offence caused.

Ravs
Now that is a sense of humor difference across the pond. It was funny and no offense was taken. I had just never envisioned a Benny Hill version of Traveller.
 
Originally posted by atpollard:
As a suggestion to why:
The average citizen spends most of his life living below sea level in spaces that resemble a shopping mall. They work in submersibles, tending plankton and schools of fish. They swim with advanced scuba equipment. The starport is the cathedral of this community. It is the ultimate expression of their collective identity.

Every citizen can still remember the first time that they visited the port. They remember the change in sound as the lift passed the water line and they heard wind against the outer hull instead of the steady flow of water. Words cannot express the first glimpse of the sky. All of the pictures in the world cannot prepare you for the first time you see it. They never imagined that so much space could exist. No outsider could fully understand what this place means to the people who live below it.
Very nice. That conjures some wonderful perspective in the mind's eye.

One thought for lower tech variants, where weather control isn't an option, where materials might not allow such a graceful shape, and where you might not have the ability to cheaply bust or divert a hurricane would be to look to today's oil platforms and look just a wee bit into the future.

Architecturally, this would suggest to me a platform high off the water (or that can adjust its height off the water) to accomodate 50m+ waves (yes, this kind of stuff actually happens at sea). It would also suggest multiple pilars around the outside and possibly some interior, rather than a single support column (less torque on the pads - the current design, if the pads were heavy, would require some serious material design if the big pads were to support heavy starships). Storage locations for starships could be in enclosures beneath the pads, accessed via aircraft-carrier style elevators.

At many water ports, landing ships may have maximum size restrictions (for ones that want to land on port pads). Large enough ships may be forced to free-float (you can run arms for fuel and personel transfer out to them or accomplish this via specialized small craft). Their may thus be floating mooring buoys nearby. They have to be tough enough (they're big enough, anyway) to weather storms independently of the facility although they may be able to send all but essential crew to the facilities in the event of true foul weather, as a precaution.

To some extent, submersion may be an option, but note that ships designed to resist 1 or 2 atmospheres of external pressure or to resist the outward pressure of gasses at 1 atmosphere vs. a vacuum is nowhere near the same thing as designing something to handle 10+ atmospheres of crushing pressure from the outside. Every 33' (on earth, not sure how that changes elswewhere) is an extra atmosphere of pressure.

How deep do you have to go to avoid huge 50m+ wave surges? I assume the effects actually go well below the mean water level (50% of waveheight, as a wild-arse minimum assumption). So if you have 50m waves, you may need to get a minimum of 25m down to be out of the waves, and another <don't know how far> to avoid the turbulence caused by the storm. Let's guess you have to go down at least another 25m in this case. So, 50m at 1 atmosphere every 10m or so. So at least 6 atmospheres pressure your ships have to be able to withstand.

Obviously, cannonically, we know SDBs can do this. I don't know what the relationship between hull armour rating (our only real gauge of str) and the ability to go to depth is. But I doubt an armour 40 free trader or luxury liner could dive too deep. So it might not have the option of ducking storms by diving deep.

Anyway, that's just some extra grist for the mill. For a high tech (say C+) starport, the one in the images is wonderful. I'd give the moon some sort of tinge of blue or something to help visually separate it from the tower's white colour if you're going to have the tower rise in front of it, or give the tower some sort of tinge of colour.
 
Gorgeous stuff - and super gorgeous imagery in your description of the citizens and their beloved port.

An idea - put the moon on the left side, hanging down from the top of the screen, filling a big chunka the sky.
 
I read a Star Wars comic - this one illustrated by the GREAT Al Williamson - that had the Millenium Falcon arrive at a water world and landed on a pad that was raised from the ocean floor. The actual settlement was submerged. It was pretty cool.

EDIT: Now with pictures!

comicgrab1.jpg

Yes, the Water World is called Aquaris - then again we call our home 'Earth', which is just a fancy way of saying 'Dirt'.

In any case, note that the landing platform pops out when the starship flies near: in the narrative this is deduced to be a stealth measure to avoid detection.

Comicgrab2.jpg

The raised landing platform is connected to an elevator tube, which connects it with the submerged settlement.

Comicgrab3.jpg

Someone made this breathtakingly astute comment. :cool:

Man, I love Al Williamson's art.
 
Every citizen can still remember the first time that they visited the port. They remember the change in sound as the lift passed the water line and they heard wind against the outer hull instead of the steady flow of water. Words cannot express the first glimpse of the sky. All of the pictures in the world cannot prepare you for the first time you see it. They never imagined that so much space could exist. No outsider could fully understand what this place means to the people who live below it.
That's lovely. And it's given me a great idea.....thanks, Arthur!
 
Sorry if I'm repeating someone else's posts here..been a long time since I could relax this way...

I'm a bit chary about a 'modular' starport idea where all the units are like porta-cabins which can be locked onto each other like bits of lego.
Ummm...just curious, does this mean you don't like LBB2 ship design either? Engineering looks pretty modular to me.
Although a unified 'Imperial' presence would have some uniformity, if thew world was recontacted there would still be a lot of local influence. At least until Imperial culture homoginized things...
 
Here's another effort. Moon moved, structure has a strong outline so it's black with procedural lights (which are pretty hit and miss)...but the effect here is to echo the scene from firefly with the ship and the horses (thanks atpollard for the idea).

Ravs

hydroportrender7.jpg
 
Originally posted by Dominion Loyalty Officer:
Sorry if I'm repeating someone else's posts here..been a long time since I could relax this way...

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I'm a bit chary about a 'modular' starport idea where all the units are like porta-cabins which can be locked onto each other like bits of lego.
Ummm...just curious, does this mean you don't like LBB2 ship design either? Engineering looks pretty modular to me.
Although a unified 'Imperial' presence would have some uniformity, if thew world was recontacted there would still be a lot of local influence. At least until Imperial culture homoginized things...
</font>[/QUOTE]As Liam said...yes modular for low level starports, but for Class C starports and above, you want the starport to tell you something about the people that live on the planet or its environmental conditions...something more than a lego block could tell you. One of the joys of Traveller is the diversity of what one may find...it fuels our sense of wonder and I guess that's one of the reasons why travellers travel.

:Edit: Stofk...that base rising out of the ocean looks for all the world an aircraft carrier! Beautiful lines and a really nice touch...god I wish I could draw like that.

p.s. I'm sorry our cricket team suck. Perhaps next year we might actually give you a game.

Ravs


Ravs
 
Based on the windows, I would estimate this spaceport to be about 40 levels above the water. At least 120 meters and probably closer to 180 meters tall. That would put the lowest platform at 40 to 60 meters above the water for those concerned about hurricanes and waves (the port could also close to traffic during storms and the ships could wait in space).

Does that sound about right to you, Ravs?
 
Originally posted by ravs:
Here's another effort. Moon moved, structure has a strong outline so it's black with procedural lights (which are pretty hit and miss)...
Any chance of a copy of that exact same render sans the sailing ship? I really love the moon up in the top left and the shadowed/windowlit port and the incoming ship isn't too bad. I'd love an image like that to show to my players when they head to a starport on a water world, but the tall ship might be inappropos in some high-tech settings. (Now, if you had a modern catamaran or something there... that might be different.... we are talking TL-C...)

Nice work!
 
Originally posted by atpollard:
Based on the windows, I would estimate this spaceport to be about 40 levels above the water. At least 120 meters and probably closer to 180 meters tall. That would put the lowest platform at 40 to 60 meters above the water for those concerned about hurricanes and waves.
At TL-C, there's nothing to say this whole structure couldn't A) submerge, B) move locale, or C) extend to put the platforms higher off the water or D) just apply some weather control to bust up the worst storms.

The one thought about the modularized starport reminded me of the way the Romans fortified every night when they camped on campaign. Standardized camp layouts. A legionaire from legion X would know his way around a camp from legion Y. I'll bet Imperial Military bases might well follow this sort of modularization philosophy - get one good, effective, design for defense, logistics, sanitation, etc. and then just copy it modularly everywhere.

Now, civilian ports are prone to artsy fartsy thematic architecture (telling you something about the place and the people and often trying to sell you some touristy stuff), but the modular feel might be right for military or corporate ports. Temporary bases certainly would.

The Imperium must have the ability to deploy, from container vessels, a standardized starport + defenses setup - probably of the roll off, maybe even self-assembling sort. The Imperial Combat Engineers arrive on a site with some levelling/fusing equipment, lay the groundwork. They make a couple of hardpack landing pads, then some big freighters lumber in and disgorge packaging. The engineers activate the automonous construction fabrication systems (bots and computer) and help manage the process. Shortly, buildings and ceramacrete (or whatever) installations rise... often unpacking from rectangular shipping containers into actual ready-to-configure modular facilities. Then the engineers get around to running power and data interconnects, burn-in testing the systems, and then voila! The temporary port (which is sturdy enough to become a permanent but simple sort of facility) is ready for business once you ship in a few ATC types and some local security (aka Marines or Army).
 
have been tinkering with medieval cities. I suspect that what I learned might be useful here.

When a city first comers into being, it might be very carefully planned. The Romans were known for building a city from scratch and laying it out oh so carefully. Wide streets, clean patterns, businesses grouped, etc.

Over time as cities grow and shrink however that process is for all intents and purposes random. When a building is added, there is virtually no central plan. Somebody adds a new building where they want it to be, and there it is.

Same thing, fires and other disasters are completely random. Somebody decides they own that tower, and they want a mansion there, the tower comes down and a new building appears.

That means a starport would be expected to follow a similar pattern. The core, when it was first built could have a modular feel or carefully architected. That in and of itself would be colored by and create the color of the world.

Star port one, laid on the ground by the imperial engineer corps. when the world was first open to colonization would have been very modular, austere and functional. Now 1200 years later you could look at the plans and pick out that core, but there have been 16 magor renovations that are all clearly seen, and who knows how many minor “improvements” occurred with no rhyme or reason.

The new port at Arcology 2153 however which was completed 10 years ago to accommodate the offworlders visiting to commemorate 500 years since we became the sector capital was the single most impressive bit of architecture created in that last 500 years. The greatest Architects in the 2000 worlds submitted plans 50 years ago. Imperial palaces, Ancients’ city remains, Mansions, industrial complexes, even the artistic interpretations of nebula were consulted. It is widely held to be the most beautiful structure anyone, anywhere has ever witnessed, and far surpasses any images anyone can find from past wonders. There is a movement to commission a new seal for the imperial trade authority to include a bas-relief image of it.

Both of these and countless others would provide instant and built in flavor for the worlds they are the gateway to.

Think about the last time you flew and arrived at a new airport. Was it small or large? Lots of traffic or quiet? Clean? Well laid out or scattered? You instantly know what city you are in. I am not exactly a world traveler, and yes all airports have the same functions, with most of them grouped in very similar ways that could easily be matched by a modular system, but I dare anyone to say that any airport looks like any other. Each one is completely unique and captures some quality of the area they serve.
 
Ravs by the way. Your platforms put you among the great artists on the board IMHO.

Not only functional but truly beautiful.
 
The interesting thing that differs between medeival cities and those of today is: Zoning regulations and urban planning. The degree to which those factor into a design will have something to do with how planned a thing is as it grows and changes. In the absence of them, or if the prevailing logic somehow changes, you may still see the older pattern of seemingly random (at least by the time you see it) layout. OTOH, if you have a medium-high law level (high might actually be worse off as there are so many laws, things get done in very odd ways), you might actually still have a very disciplined layout. There might be fairly specific zoning laws and environmental usage plans that limit random sprawl and incursions of commercial interests.

I'm not the world's biggest traveller, but I've flown into Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, Glasgow, Montreal, Varadero, Playa Dorada, Oahu, Milwaukee, and Den Hague.

Oddly enough, in many ways, the airports seemed very similar - large volumes of people expected to move through, customs processes, baggage claim, etc. The differences were often in small details rather than large - Netherlands customs were calm, US customs were fairly intimidating, in Cuba as soon as you got out the main doors, you ran into a lot of Spanish-only speakers, etc. A lot of the differences are observed *outside* the operational parts of the port.

I think the pattern in the 3I may be quite the same - the active, operational, business-like center of an A or B port is very similar anywhere. Once you get out into Startown or into the areas surrounding the port, you may get a rather large variance in what you encounter. In the port, you may have some variances due to the laxness or alertness of local customs folks, local law levels, and the local political situation (or any amber zone classifications). But the general process may be very similar... the 3I is an empire of business.

As far as aesthetics or architecture, the airports all had a common people moving theme. Variances here were again small but significant. In Oahu, a lot of the areas had breezeways where they would not in a place that gets winter. In Ottawa's new airport, you've got quite a post-modern nightmare of roads, parkades, and glass and tile corridors stretching forever... much like Toronto. Vancouver I recall for always being under repair or reconstruction. In the Netherlands, one odd feature is that you step out of the airport proper into a major indoor mall and it is also a massive train terminus (lots of rail usage in NL to go intercity).

So, there were differences in each place, but you could easily pick out the similarities because all were serving a large bulk of people and goods moving through or into and out of these nodes. That part had a very great feeling of similarity. You know the routine at one, you nearly know the routine at others.
 
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