Author Topic: Dauntless  (Read 3082 times)

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Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
  • 211
  • Degrees of guilt.
Dauntless hover artillary tank. Extremely quick, extremely potent. She can zoom around the place, find a safe spot, deploy and let it rip at enemies with artillary from over 50 clicks away. :D

Two modes: Deployed and undeployed.

Deployed mode pics:










Movement mode pics:



"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline redsniper

  • 211
  • Aim for the Top!
Looks like it's the size of a house. I have a hard time putting 'house' and 'quick' together... Still, looks like it could ruin your day.
"Think about nice things not unhappy things.
The future makes happy, if you make it yourself.
No war; think about happy things."   -WouterSmitssm

Hard Light Productions:
"...this conversation is pointlessly confrontational."

 

Offline Nuclear1

  • 211
Singh, have I said enough how much I enjoy look at your models? :D

Good work on this one. :yes:
Spoon - I stand in awe by your flawless fredding. Truely, never before have I witnessed such magnificant display of beamz.
Axem -  I don't know what I'll do with my life now. Maybe I'll become a Nun, or take up Macrame. But where ever I go... I will remember you!
Axem - Sorry to post again when I said I was leaving for good, but something was nagging me. I don't want to say it in a way that shames the campaign but I think we can all agree it is actually.. incomplete. It is missing... Voice Acting.
Quanto - I for one would love to lend my beautiful singing voice into this wholesome project.
Nuclear1 - I want a duet.
AndrewofDoom - Make it a trio!

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
  • 211
  • Bad command or file name
What's the range and service time with full fuel tanks?

What kind of terrain it can run? What kind of terrain slows it down and what stops it?

I'd wager that as being a hovercraft, it demands relatively smooth surface to run, ie. road, plain grassland, swamp or water... Moving through woods would be near impossible without massive thrusters that can boost it through woods. So, moving in a forest (not too dense) will go, but what if the terrain is too rough, so that the overpressure can no longer hover the craft, but it bites the dust?

Another thing - this thing seems ultra-heavy to me, so the power to product an air cushion of even 20 cm would be a pain in the arse for almost any powerplant (available today). On the other hand, just plug a fusion reactor into it and that's it for the power problems...

Though it would still have a powerful need of emergency boosters and retro rockets just to steer itself.

Hmm. It looks very very cool, but actually in a war it wouldn't be much of use anywhere else than Utah salt plains or similar desert regions. Forests and mountains would be very difficult terrains for that one, but on the other hand, so is the matter with traditional tanks.

I'd still take a tank rather than that. Or wait, I'd stay away from both (they are shot first) and just take a walk if I really had to choose.

OR perhaps it's not as much a hovercraft but uses some kind of repulsion lifters (tm)? Oh well, they'll have to equip it with chain tracks when they start running out of materials to build the technology needed to hover that gigant.

On the other hand, I'd say that there's a little bit too much vertical surface, especially on sides. A 112 mm Heavy one-time RPG APILAS can penetrate 700 mm of panzer steel if it hits it in straight angle, and guided AT missiles cause even more havoc... How thick is the armour? And what's the scale? If those cannons can reach 50 km, it'd be about the same size as the roller howizers of nowadays, or slightly bigger, eh? If it's that role, it would fit the role quite well, but using the build as an MBT might not be a good idea. Used by fast moving artillery units, it could really rock, and that's probably its main purpose. Put it in a front line and it'll be either stuck or crippled in terrain or attract the enemy by running on a road...

One good point in a hovercraft is that it'd hardly launch any mines - or would it? That would depend on the bottom surface area and its weight. If that thing is about 6x20 m (the size of the supporting air cushion) and weights 150 tons, then the point load on the road would be about... hmm... 150 000 kg*9,81 m/s^2  / 100 m^2 = 12 262,5 kg/m^2.

A finnish Telamiina (Anti-Vehicular mine) explodes when a weight of 150 kg's is exerted on the lid; after that the lid breaks up, making the detonator go boom along with 9,5 kg of TNT...  The area which supports that 150 kg is roughly 0,03 m^2. That air cushion featured here exerts a force equivalent to 367,875 kg weight on that area of 0,03 m^2, so even a mechanical mine would actually explode.

Bigger problem still, if the mines are more sophisticated, magnetically detonating bottom mines (Pohjamiina)...  :cool:
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
  • 211
  • Degrees of guilt.
It's artillary. It's meant to be nowhere near the front lines. If a person gets to it with an RPG, it'd face similar problems any other arty group would if someone with an RPG gets to them. A MBT role is definately NOT what this thing is for, that much is for sure.

Consider it as a super-fast version (with an incredibly high land and sea speed) of the Mobile Artillary Platforms you see around today. Those engines at the back are meant to steer it the similar way tanks do - adjusting throttle left and right, whilst the power core is micro-fusion (it IS sci-fi after all) and the anti-grav generators are powerfull enough to keep it up (they are located all over the underside for redundancy. She actually generates 150% the lift required, in case she DOES end up having some damaged.

Other uses would include post-beach landings, when the fight's been taken away from the beach. Then, like Hovercrafts, it would land onto the beach and instantly grant any offensive unit involved a fifty-kilometer umbrella of fire. Or, alternatively, you can place them on a ship with enough deck space that's on the coastline and use it from there, along with whatever missile systems the ship may have (but that'd be a last ditch effort).

However, as you mentioned, mines would be a problem. but then a mined area is generally towards the front lines, so if it's going there, it's screwed anyway. :)
"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline TrashMan

  • T-tower Avenger. srsly.
  • 213
  • God-Emperor of your kind!
    • FLAMES OF WAR
Ownage...

what are those minigun's for?
To shoot down RPG's or aircraft?  :p
Nobody dies as a virgin - the life ****s us all!

You're a wrongularity from which no right can escape!

 

Offline Rott3

  • 26
Ownage...

what are those minigun's for?
To shoot down RPG's or aircraft?  :p
That, or they just look cool. And that tank is the shiznit.
Bet ya can't stick it

 
holy ****. those cannon are ****ing massive, and there are 3 of them. even if only one is used at once, the recoil produced by it would be huge. and then those are augmented with miniguns that are tiny in comparison...

IMO if it's not meant to be anywhere near the front lines, conventional artillery would be cheaper and likly more effective.

However, it does have one helluva "wow" factor.
Derek Smart is his own oxymoron.

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
  • 211
  • Bad command or file name
The cannons themselves are actually not that big if compared to nowadays things. Here's a modern chain track cannon.



IMO the biggest deference between this and Singhs creation is that in your Dauntless there's three of these cannons packed in much smaller space and there is also something behind them, the vehicle just doesn't end to the cannons.

And yeah, the miniguns are a bit of a waste of resources given that this thing's not supposed to be put in front line. Of course they are useful as AAA, but still - a real single AA cannon would be more usefula against armored assault helicopters. Unless you put in a über-zuper-electro-logical aimbot that directs all the eight miniguns to hit the main rotor centrum and sever it from the enemy...

There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline Turnsky

  • FOXFIRE Artisté
  • 211
  • huh?.. Who?.. hey you kids, git off me lawn!
little hint, try playing around with the texture settings, and use the same map as the specular, and the bumpmap also, and set it to "rough" it makes the texture look a little less like plastic.
   //Warning\\
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do not torment the sleep deprived artist, he may be vicious when cornered,
in case of emergency, administer caffeine to the artist,
he will become docile after that,
and less likely to stab you in the eye with a mechanical pencil
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Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
  • 211
  • Bad command or file name
And make it painted in terrain camouflage. Military equipment is generally always camo-painted (apart from star wars...). So you'd might like to make a few skins for it... traditional green - dark-green - black for forests, tan-brown-gray for desert, white-black-gray for winter usage etc.

Unless you want to follow the path of George Lucas and paint your badass tank with bright colours that are very cool and intimidating if you're 11 years old.  :nervous: On that point of view, the plain metallic looks just very realistic... But IMO it should be camo-painted.
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

  

Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
  • 211
  • Degrees of guilt.
Hmm....I've never actualyl used the bump map feature. I thought you needed specialized maps just for it, though, as opposed to any map available?

In any case, tried it...and realized I ought to go abck over my ships and redo them with the cool bumpiness. Thanks for the heads-up, Turnsky :D




"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(