[Stryke 9]

Prev of a short ani clip I've got in the workings, basically showing off how severely a laser that needs a mile-long focussing tube , with evil things in the fighterbay can fuck you up. The two ships in front are (fairly obviously) tugs; the big 'un, being a former space station turned battlecruiser, and a station not originally built for "blowing stuff up" at that, has no actual "propulsion systems" or "steering". Tubes in back, some of 'em are fighterbays, some other stuff as per need and ability of mechanics, giant Tokamak reactor retrofit towards the bottom base, nasty crawly little irradiated space freaks in the piping. And that's it.

[Knight Templar]

Interesting, but how does the white fruit loop fit in ?

[Stryke 9]

That's a highlight on the end of one of the tubes. Look at the others- the main light and keylight are basically on opposite sides, diagonal to the image, like in a standard setup.


Of course, the ****ed-up perspective that came from the camera angle (the model's biiig. RDS will only let me model down to scales of .01 unit and still manipulate stuff, so the station itself is something like 1500 long- on the other hand, I wanted the tugs to be really visible, so the camera's in close- hence, wide angle, lots of distortion) doesn't help.

[Knight Templar]

Gotcha.

Cool model actually. Reminds me of an Evil Pod Racer with plans to destroy the galaxy.

[Stryke 9]

Eh, not destroy the galaxy, just wipe out humanity and take the galaxy for itself.

[Nico]

you should throw some cables and stuff on your umbrella, coz I gather it's quite big, and you know, all that sci-fi ****, gravitational stress, etc. there's no way that thing can rotate or anthing w/o breaking apart.
I like the two tugs, but they have the same pb: the beam that joins the ftont and back parts is way too thin.

[Stryke 9]

No air resistance in deep space, so they don't break so easy, and the two parts really move independently- there's a thruster on the back of the control pod, so that it can remain in the same place relative to the huge hunk of reactor and engine in back. As for the ship, there's a series of support cables you can just barely see keeping the big arms from snapping off due to... whatever, and that's all it would likely need.

Hell, look at the ISS. Drive that thing at 20 MPH here on the ground (assuming it survived gravity), and it'd snap like a twig.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
No air resistance in deep space...

Actually, I'm thinking Venom is talking more about accelleration shear, where you end up with the thrust vector moving the center long before the rest got moving, thus causing dangerous stress on the structural elements.

[Stryke 9]

How fast are you thinking a giant orbital comms station pulled by two tiny cargo tugs can accelerate?

Well, I guess "tiny" is the wrong word, but the station's about a mile long...

[Razor]

Whats with the doughnut in the background?

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
How fast are you thinking a giant orbital comms station pulled by two tiny cargo tugs can accelerate?

Well, I guess "tiny" is the wrong word, but the station's about a mile long...

Its all about scale. You don't need to accellerate fast if your object is large enough. If we're talking a MILE, its big enough. Consider sky scrapers: they need special engineering to withstand the stress differential caused by still air at the bottom and mild wind at the top. You're talking about a stress differential over a distance five times that.

[Stryke 9]

Hmm. Maybe, then. I dunno...

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Razor
Whats with the doughnut in the background?

Originally posted by Stryke 9
That's a highlight on the end of one of the tubes. Look at the others- the main light and keylight are basically on opposite sides, diagonal to the image, like in a standard setup.


Of course, the ****ed-up perspective that came from the camera angle (the model's biiig. RDS will only let me model down to scales of .01 unit and still manipulate stuff, so the station itself is something like 1500 long- on the other hand, I wanted the tugs to be really visible, so the camera's in close- hence, wide angle, lots of distortion) doesn't help.