Hello everyone,
I am about 90% done with a project model, and wanted to get some focused feedback and critiques with regards to overall impressions, what you think might could be improved, etc.
This model will act as “background paintings” in my graphic novel, with a halftone / newsprint filter applied over it, featured at A4 print sizes, and not too terribly close-up. It’s meant to be seen from afar, and will also include stuff like some planet in the foreground or background (not yet shown).
The 2nd half of the ship remains unfinished, but basically looks like a smaller version of the front half of the ship, and the extra little modules will be filled in over the next couple days, but the bulk of the modeling is complete, excepting the fine detail connectors for the superstructure to the Alcubierre Ring, military unit decals, engine exhaust-jets, and shuttle docking ring / mounting hardware. This model also features the military heavy lift shuttle from my previous thread.
I need to fix the shader of the glowing heatsinks on the relativistic electron beam weapons in the front (shouldn’t be glowing so bright), and I haven’t yet figured out what other detail I want to add to the Alcubierre Ring, or the near-UV-ish operating light for it. You’ll also notice that the parts of the superstructure aren’t yet fully connected up to the ring or the Whipple Shield, but that’s just some extra detailing I need to do.
Some info about the design, for the real hard scifi fans:
- Ship Length: 1890 meters
- Powerplant: 4x deuterium fusion rockets (torch drives)
- Armament: 4x relativistic electron beam weapons (forward firing), 1x electromagnetic rocket-gun with 1-klometer barrel
- 8x point defense clusters featuring IR lasers and focusable RADAR arrays
- 4x sensor and targeting acquisition clusters, consisting of wide field multispectrum cameras and narrow-field telescopic lenses
- Multiple groups of manipulator arms
- Radiator cooling for the fusion engines + reactors. This was necessetated to be made with Geometry Nodes due to the complex suspension-cable structure, glowing effect made with Geometry Nodes Proximity for accurate inverse-square falloff of correct blackbody radiaton from the material operating temperature
- Whipple Shield with hyperbolic geometry pattern complimenting the octogonal geometry theme of the design, integrated with a dielectric mirror array to deflect incoming beam weapons
- Water reservoirs, crewed modules, Reaction Control Systems modules, fuel tanks, and various other miscellany.
My primary inspiration for the look of this ship, beyond the practical considerations such as the tractor design and the radiator array supported during high-G acceleration, was thinking of this thing as a stinging jellyfish - the cluter of fuel tanks, fusion reactors and other stuff trailing from the “bell”, combined with the flower-petal-ish pattern of the Whipple Shield helps evoke visions of jellyfish guts and adding to its illusion of functionality.
There are no greebles on this ship, every structure is purpose-built to suit a specific task. The model is currently at 53.9 million triangles, and I estimate it will reach approximately 85 million upon completion.
Any and all thoughts are nice, especially if you are a fan of plausible ship designs and enjoy something or notice some sort of design or structural problem - or if you feel like something is missing - love to hear it all!
