Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Public Development => Topic started by: FUBAR-BDHR on February 03, 2013, 05:42:56 pm
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I find stuff that makes me wonder what the heck were they thinking when I'm going through and checking on issues. Ran into an interesting one today for instance while checking on fighter bay paths. The EA Skylark has a hanger at the front of the ship. Not a bad thing in itself until you try to launch anything from it. There is no ship small enough to actually fit in the hanger. The only thing that comes close is a life pod and it could only dock to the front of the ship not actually enter the hanger. So why put a hanger on a ship if it can't launch anything?
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The weapon-less, subsystem-less B4 comes to mind.
Curiously tipped EA Lifepod.
EA Phalanx engaging targets outside its effective range.
The Maintenance Bot having a primary weapon but no weapons subsystem.
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The weapon-less, subsystem-less B4 comes to mind.
Yea I think this one never made it out of placeholder status. It's not the only ship without subsystems. Most of the first ones ships didn't have any.
Curiously tipped EA Lifepod.
Have to check this one.
EA Phalanx engaging targets outside its effective range.
Well "out of range" is relative in FS2. Range is primarily determined by the radius of the ship so if your target is long and you are firing from the side it's in range even if no piece can be actually hit. Just an engine limitation.
The Maintenance Bot having a primary weapon but no weapons subsystem.
I've noticed this on at least 4 of the last 5 ships I've worked on. They have been fixed. I'll fix this one right now.
Anyway this really wasn't meant as a TBP project specific topic more of a general B5 show itself topic. The ship clearly has opening doors on the front for a hanger but no real use for it.
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Hmm.. I don't recall when the Skylark was 1st seen in the show. Was it in the FI days (season 1-3?), or ND (season 4-5?)?
edit: this site (http://www.themadgoner.com/B5/B5Scrolls/B5Scrolls.htm#Screen2_02_1) seems to indicate the design was pretty early on, pilot/season 1. From the pics here it kinda looks like a docking clamp rather than a hanger, but I don't know how "official" these pics are...
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The maintbot was given a weapon to stop a particularly nasty AI bug caused by the bot trying to strafe but not having any weapons to use for the calculation.
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Sorry, that probably came off as some angsty bug rant and it was not supposed to. I know you addressed the "tipped" lifepod thing a few months ago. I was thinking of things that somehow made it into TBP 3.4b.
I do think that in the show those doors on the front of the Skylark are probably some kind of docking hatch. I don't know why the TBP model would have launch paths.
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Anyway this really wasn't meant as a TBP project specific topic more of a general B5 show itself topic. The ship clearly has opening doors on the front for a hanger but no real use for it.
This could be a size issue in that the ship was made to small for a shuttle to fit in there.
As for other more common issues with ships on the show, what really bugs me are all these exposed command bridges. First example would be the EA Hyperion cruisers, worse is the White Star bridge and much worse the Vorlon Dreadnaught bridge. Worst of all the fact that the latter even shows windows, which I am very certain the Vorlons wouldn't need at all! The latters engine are not consistent with the other Vorlon engines too, but when you check the B5 Scrolls site you will recognize that most of issues like these developed when younger animators created ships without Ron Thornton or someone else checking them for inconsistencies.
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That is a typical Sci-Fi thing. Come on, realistic space combat has only been featured in books thus far since it would be boring. No sounds, vast distances, incredibly high speeds and I don't want to start talking about the physical properties of lasers and stuff.
Bottom line, this is typical of design. When creating something visual, you aim for the following: It has to look good, sound good, needs a recognizable shape and appeal to our intuitive understanding of things. It usually does not make sense, especially for something technical.
Although I do agree on the Vorlon "Windows". My guess is that it is probably related to the changes on the Vorlon's nature, in the pilot ambassador Kosh has a hand! Back in the day, they were probably just another alien race.
Regarding our approach to such problems... Zathras fixes. Poor Zathras always fixes.
In that case, a removal of the hangar is probably most appropriate (potentially replacing it with a dock point).
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That is a typical Sci-Fi thing. Come on, realistic space combat has only been featured in books thus far since it would be boring. No sounds, vast distances, incredibly high speeds and I don't want to start talking about the physical properties of lasers and stuff.
I know, but Ron Thornton and FI really tried something different. Just think about the Starfury design or Babylon 5 itself, for which they allegedly calculated the size and rotation speed so the gravity would be right. They did it much better than ST and SW :)!
Although I do agree on the Vorlon "Windows". My guess is that it is probably related to the changes on the Vorlon's nature, in the pilot ambassador Kosh has a hand! Back in the day, they were probably just another alien race.
I don't think so. Ron designed the cruisers and fighters himself and there were no visible bridges or windows. As far as I know the dreadnaught and the planet destroyer were designed by others later who improvised on his design, but didn't get the real alien-biotech-feeling of the ships. I agree that in other cases, like the White Star, it probably looked better with something recognizable like a bridge on top though...
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Did the Hyperion really have an external/exposed bridge structure? Like other EA ships, I always figured it was deep inside the hull. Earthforce seems to have shied from the idea of vulnerable Star Destroyer bridge structures.
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Did the Hyperion really have an external/exposed bridge structure? Like other EA ships, I always figured it was deep inside the hull. Earthforce seems to have shied from the idea of vulnerable Star Destroyer bridge structures.
I always thought the round structure on top in the picture below was the bridge. It's marked as sensors in TBP, but the yellow ring looks like windows to me. On the other hand, in ITB I can't remember a windows on the bridge at all, or am I mistaken?
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/b5/cc_breheny_06a.JPG
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Things that look like "bridges" on starships (especially in universes where the bridges are usually said to be deep within the ship) are usually just observation towers.
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For god's sake, the Star Destroyer's "tower" isn't the goddamn bridge. The bridge is this tiny thingy in the middle of the tower's hexagon.
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This is true, but doesn't change the fact it's an odd place to put a command and control center on a ship that may have been designed to see some shooting. I guess it's good the Rebels never exploited this potential design flaw.
One place we do know where the EA made that Star Destroyer mistake was Babylon 5 itself. Though to be fair, it wasn't built as a warship. And they at least had the sense to install some armor plates that could be brought up over the windows during battle situations.
The Excalibur on the other hand...
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This is true, but doesn't change the fact it's an odd place to put a command and control center on a ship that may have been designed to see some shooting. I guess it's good the Rebels never exploited this potential design flaw.
They did: A Rebel fighter crashed into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer in ROTJ and brought it down on the Death Star II!
One place we do know where the EA made that Star Destroyer mistake was Babylon 5 itself. Though to be fair, it wasn't built as a warship. And they at least had the sense to install some armor plates that could be brought up over the windows during battle situations.
Exactly. I always assumed the window was there to overlook the main trading vector into the docking bay.
The Excalibur on the other hand...
...didn't fit into the B5 universe at all, because all the really competent CGI designers had left with FI at the time. Just compare it to the White Star or Warlock Destroyer, those are valid Babylon 5 ISA and EA ship styles! Also what were they thinking when they included the stupid-drama-plot-device-main-cannon that leaves the ship dead in space after firing? What a joke compared to the way all other ships were using beams in B5 itself! Almost as stupid as the Liandra virtual-reality-firing-room...
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I wouldn't call the A-Wing crashing through the SSD bridge "exploiting" anything. That guy lost controll of his (burning) fighter and was clearly panicking.... he was obviously not intenting to crash through there.
As for the Hyperion, the few shots we see from inside the ships main command room (CIC, bridge, command center... whatever you wanna call it) doesn't show any windows at all, so it must be somewhere inside.
As for the Victory main gun... yeah pretty much. If anything they should have done it the other way round, that they have to shut down most systems before firing, in order to gather enough energy for the shot. You can't use more energy than you have and then reload the negative amount after using it up as if it were some mathematical equation.
Also the artificial gravity still worked even after shooting... which doesn't make sense for two reasons. 1) From the episodes where the EA get's artificial gravity and gravity drives from the Minbari (as a bonus to joining the ISA) we know that the two are linked. So why is the gravity working, but the engine not? 2) Isn't the ability to defend yourself far more important than gravity on the decks? Just put on some seatbelts and re-route the energy from the artificial gravity to the weapons or engines, so you aren't a sitting duck!
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I wouldn't call the A-Wing crashing through the SSD bridge "exploiting" anything. That guy lost controll of his (burning) fighter and was clearly panicking.... he was obviously not intenting to crash through there.
I disagree. For me the guy was screaming because he was aware that he will die in the crash. Remember that the people of the bridge were following him all the way towards the collision, this looked like done on purpose!
As for the Hyperion, the few shots we see from inside the ships main command room (CIC, bridge, command center... whatever you wanna call it) doesn't show any windows at all, so it must be somewhere inside.
Okay! But then they shouldn't have used those token white/yellow window lights on the sensor array. They were too easily confused with bridge windows and we didn't get an inside view until In the beginning IIRC.
As for the Victory main gun... yeah pretty much. If anything they should have done it the other way round, that they have to shut down most systems before firing, in order to gather enough energy for the shot.
I agree completely! Also what annoyed me as much about the Excalibur were those big useless wings to the engines. The whole ship design looked like a lot like wasted space just to give it form, which is untypical for B5.
Another thing connected to the external bridges and windows on the Vorlon dreadnaught and the White Star: Why does the latter use only a partial hologram for information? The Minbari sure know how to do a real one and having half a hologram over a window must have been confusing, together with the security issue of having a window in the first place. Of course the hologram tech of the Vorlons must be even better so an external bridge with windows, on their station too, makes no sense!
Speaking of the White Star, why did it have those classical engines on the side and pulse cannons besides the main beam too? Minbari and Vorlon tech never needed either, so this too looks to me as if they were added just to have some cool effects, which made no sense in the internal logic of B5 ship design technology.
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The "big useless wings" are for the technobabble gravity drive (compare to similarly advanced ships like the Sharlin, Vorchan, etc.).
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The "big useless wings" are for the technobabble gravity drive (compare to similarly advanced ships like the Sharlin, Vorchan, etc.).
That's exactly the problem, because these are no gravity drives, they show the typical EA exhaust engines at their ends!
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The Centauri use both regular and gravity drives in conjunction so I assume the ISA does the same.
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Mmm...Comes to my mind...
I would like to see
-new hud
-new menu interface
-new jump point
Add..
-lens flare on jump point
-debris on all the models
More things..
-Correct HTL Starfury's maneuverable thrusters (correct table)
-Life pod don't looks cannon
(http://store02.prostores.com/artplanes/catalog/Babylon%20Pod%20EA%20Life%20Pod.jpg) (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090703113261/babylon5/images/d/d3/EA_Freighter_Escape_Pod_01.jpg)
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Correct me if I'm wrongs, but isn't that the life pod of the Streib ship?
I don't remember ever seeing another life pod in the TV show or films (other than ejected fighter cockpits).
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Correct me if I'm wrongs, but isn't that the life pod of the Streib ship?
I don't remember ever seeing another life pod in the TV show or films (other than ejected fighter cockpits).
No, this is the Earth Aliance Lifepod
The first appearance on the show was on season 4 "Between The Darkness And The Light"
MORE INFO+ (http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Alliance_Standard_Life_Pod)
Just a quick sketch meanwhile someone answered my post
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HQ3pBO5XImA/URrhLlm7s5I/AAAAAAAAARs/eZbqT_HN004/s1152/2.jpg)
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The Centauri use both regular and gravity drives in conjunction so I assume the ISA does the same.
Where does this info come from? Also even the Vorchan fins look better than the Excalibur ones...
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I think Woolie Wool is referring to the thrusters seen on the same Centauri cruiser we see Londo standing on, presumably as a result of artificial gravity. JMS' comments implied the Centauri and Minbari use a similar technology to both move their ships and keep the crews from floating around.
The current EA Lifepod is just a recycled EA Breaching Pod without the landing struts. I briefly tried retexturing it to look more like the one in the show but the UV mapping as it is doesn't accommodate it. That model in emi's post looks like a definite improvement.
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I think Woolie Wool is referring to the thrusters seen on the same Centauri cruiser we see Londo standing on, presumably as a result of artificial gravity. JMS' comments implied the Centauri and Minbari use a similar technology to both move their ships and keep the crews from floating around.
I always had the impression that while the Centauri could generate artificial gravity they didn't move their ships with this but rather by conventional means. All of their ships have nozzles but none of the Minbari have and they are not as far advanced as the Minbari are.
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The Vorlons use a mix of gravity drives and thrusters too, though it's hard to tell wether the thrusters are just "for show" for the younger races, or actually improve speed and/or manouverbility.
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Yea that's one of those things I noticed the other day. It takes Kosh's ship 2 hours to decelerate from the jumpnode to be slow enough to dock with the station but the Vorlon fleet stops in seconds.
On another what were they thinking note why is B5 on a direct collision course for anything that comes out of the jump gate? Come on move the think a few hundred meters to the left or something.
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Yea that's one of those things I noticed the other day. It takes Kosh's ship 2 hours to decelerate from the jumpnode to be slow enough to dock with the station but the Vorlon fleet stops in seconds.
The yellow openings on the back of the Vorlon ships seem to be their gravity drives, but they sure are no exhaust nozzles. And I agree with you that Kosh pulled off some show when arriving! Not only decelerating so slowly, but also opening his wings as if they were important. No other Vorlon ships shown ever did this IIRC...
On another what were they thinking note why is B5 on a direct collision course for anything that comes out of the jump gate? Come on move the think a few hundred meters to the left or something.
Is it really? I would have guessed it's a bit to the side, but placing it almost in line makes sense for technically not advanced races to save fuel for navigating.
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The hyperspace deceleration thing was cut from the re-edit that was done for the DVD release. They also cut most of the conversation between G'kar and Leeta, as well as the "privacy" thing at the beginning of the conversation, though they did add other previously unknown scenes and updated external visuals.
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...best thing about the pilot is that it can be ignored...
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...best thing about the pilot is that it can be ignored...
Yeah, I see it similar! Also there weren't any Starfuries then, but some other generic fighters instead.
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Those same fighters appear in the regular series as well. They are flying all over the place around B5 in at least the first 2 episodes.
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I'll bet these are just shots recycled from the pilot then...
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Been doing a lot of looking at the Nova and Omega over the last couple of weeks. Some things really bug me about how those ships and in some cases many of the other ships are designed.
-First fighterbays. Who thought it was a good idea to put the only method of fighter recovery right up front where it is the first thing to get hit by enemy fire. Also without artificial gravity how do you recover a ship while moving at any speed especially if that ship is damaged in any way. Now the Raider Battlewagon has the right idea. Bays in back and fly right in since fighters are faster then capital ships.
-Weapons on the Nova and Omega. First issue is the gun placements on the Nova. Lets put all the guns so the ship can't fire at anything directly in front of it. Also it's pretty much impossible to bring any decent amount of the guns to bear on a target in any direction unless that target is something tall like a Sharlin or turned something like a Vorchan on it's side. Then there is the Omega where most of the firepower is in the rear behind the rotating section. 20 guns aft of the rotating section and like 8 in front. Lets put our own hull in the way of the target or hope it's behind us so we can bring the rear guns to bear and not get our fighterbay blown up.
-Missiles. Looking at pic after pic of the Nova and Omega it really seems like these ships were designed to be missile boats. Look closely at all those red glows on the side they are perfect missile bays and even look like they have arms holding the missile in launch position. Now one of those ships armed with 72 (I think that's how many there are) huge warheads or even nukes and that would be devastating firepower.
Don't get me wrong these are some of the best sci-fi ships every but the more you look at them the more you see where they could have been better.
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-Missiles. Looking at pic after pic of the Nova and Omega it really seems like these ships were designed to be missile boats. Look closely at all those red glows on the side they are perfect missile bays and even look like they have arms holding the missile in launch position. Now one of those ships armed with 72 (I think that's how many there are) huge warheads or even nukes and that would be devastating firepower.
I have a recollection of reading something which said exactly this, i.e. that they were designed to be able to launch heaps of missiles...
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I have a recollection of reading something which said exactly this, i.e. that they were designed to be able to launch heaps of missiles...
Yes, this was mentioned in one of the great interviews at http://www.themadgoner.com/B5/B5Scrolls/B5Scrolls.htm.
As for the Nova's guns, doesn't it have two beam weapons to hit anything towards the front? The Omega has them.
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It has 4 turrets facing front as does the Omega (well the Omega has 2 but each has 2 weapons). Both ships have a blind spot as wide as the front of this ship in front of the ship. Park a nova directly facing another nova and the only thing the front turrets could shoot is the front turrets on the other ship (without shooting through it's own hull that is).
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Both ships have a blind spot as wide as the front of this ship in front of the ship.
At least the Omegas should have power beams on the front as seen on the show. Originally intended to come out of the huge rectangles below the docking bay, like on the Narn cruisers, but due to an error coming out of the two smaller guns aside the bay, which should have fired only projectiles. Both are visible in TBP and on the Nova too, are they not used?
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Nope they are not set up as weapons and due to the error in the show the big guns apparently aren't canon only the side ones. As I stated above the only way for the side one to fire directly in front of the ship is to shoot through its own hull.
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We never ever see them firing in the show, aka they are not canon weapons. For what we know, these could be engine thrusters (which would make sense, you would want to be able to break).
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As I stated above the only way for the side one to fire directly in front of the ship is to shoot through its own hull.
So the beams from the side ones can not be angled towards the front without firing through the hull? That's bad.
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Going through the weapons.tbl I noticed the CR Oltus, that spherical hunter-killer drone the Centauri use in Season 5. Someone took the time to model and table it for TBP, yet it is not used by any ship in the game...