[RFC][IMG] Making the Peace(maker)

[LynnInDenver]

mmm, yes I'd moved the coilgun to the nose. 1) there is room there, especially with a single pilot, 2) having it hang off the belly in a separate pod is just begging to have it shot off to me, 3) it was less work.

Stupid edit box isn't working right. *sigh*
OK, if an enemy pilot is capable of that sort of precision in a heated dogfight that he can shoot the pod off... he's more likely to use it to take the pilot out than the weapon pod. Unless they've got some strange sense of personal honor that mandates they attempt to disarm before killing... and those likely didn't last long in the Boskone War.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Star Ranger4]

Who says he was aiming for the pod? In this particular case I'm thinking more about accidental hits, probobly more from space debris than actual ENEMY fire. Where it is in the nose if weapon fire take the coilgun out the fact that the gun is out is probobly the least of your worries
(ETA)
in the mean time:

Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

(ETA)
in the mean time:

Twin engines?  I approve! 
ETA: After some thought, my personal opinion would be that Roughriders would use external gun pods regardless.  It's not like they can't be armored to handle flying debris anyhow, and as mentioned earlier it would greatly speed up the reload process by switching out the entire pod instead of messing around with finicky reload apparati.  Believe me, I know from watching the FCs load/unload their CIWS guns.  Trying to do that in null/micro-G is asking for far too much trouble.
However, Star, for your peace of mind, we can have the illustrations show them without gunpods.  If anyone asks, we can say that the illustration is of a demonstration unit.  (Hence the fancy colors.)

[Star Ranger4]

well, either way those gunpods, sitting below the fusilage wouldnt be visible from the PRESENT camera angle. for a combained shot with the Peacemaker mother ship though? eh. I guess I just need to stop being lazy.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Star Ranger4]

Retextured to match BA's input back in the inital spiltoff post
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Star Ranger4]

F-Ezig with underbelly cannon pod.

if you look closely, you can start to see a problem here though:


And here is a colored overlay to help make my point:


The red tinted areas show the Pilots sightlines. The blue, that of the cannon if its kept on the belly
Yes, the further out you go begin to get overlap, and the farther out the more overlap there is. However, the union of the two arcs remains small and poorly placed. To allow for a hit you have to aim at where the enemy is going to BE THEN, not where he is now. And guess what happens when you turn the nose to make that happen?? YOu loose sight of the bandit under the nose of your own craft. Nor can the cannon be moved forward without blocking the nose gear.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

That's why the HUDs in Ben's ships are gonna bear a passing resemblance to the ones used in Decent: Freespace. You will have the usual target reticules... as well as a 'lead' reticule that shows you exactly where to aim your fixed reticule to score a hit.

Also, I don't think it'll be too much to make the gunpods capable of self-adjusting by a degree or two. That should make for more accurate shots.

I think it also bears mentioning that coil guns should be used more like sniper rifles than machine guns - one should never mix 'spray and pray' with kinetic kill projectiles.

[Star Ranger4]

I'm allowing for that. In this case the hard limit is really defined by the hull itself. elevating the gun any more will result in the projectile striking the hull
I take it you at least dont HATE the peacemaker skin then?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Star Ranger4]

reskinned with same finish as peacmaker shot
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

Just some minor things. "ROUGHRIDERS" should be between the cockpit (more like a command deck! :p ) and the wingroots... and with the Gonzalez Banner, I was thinking that it would retain it's white background.  This is just something I threw together in five minutes using MS Paint, but it should give you a better idea of what I had in mind.


Note that the blue stripe isn't really to scale.

One other thing that is puzzling me: why is the nose opaqued?

[Star Ranger4]

because the model I started from didn't have it. Dunno why, but I'll fix that too.
Edit:
Texture Fixed?

Edit 2:
Texture fix plus nose glass:

Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[M Fnord]

Note that the blue stripe isn't really to scale.

Just as an aesthetic thing, the cannon and slogan looked far much better as black on silver without the white background. Just sayin'.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Black Aeronaut]

Hmmm.... Gimme a day or two and I might come up with something better than the white background. After all, the originals had a crest and not a flag... Maybe I can make one out of the Gonzales Banner.

[Star Ranger4]

In the mean time, did you have any thoughts about the docking pylons on the wings?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

Hmm... I'd say use the same sort of pylons used on B-52's for drop tanks and external ordnance. No need for rungs or anything obvious - that kind of stuff would be retractable. Docking would be finicky work, but when a F-EZig is close enough the computer will take over and guide it in that last little bit.

[Star Ranger4]

Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[ECSNorway]

... yeiow. I would not want to be the pilot trying to dock that close to a spinning propellor.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Black Aeronaut]

... yeiow. I would not want to be the pilot trying to dock that close to a spinning propellor.

...........  Uhm, here.  Look at this: http://www.af.mil/shared/...5-F-9999s-0015.jpg  Only not quite as long so as to accommodate the limited dorsal space on a F-EZig.  Besides, I can't imagine them redocking in a 'hot' situation.  Once the fuzz is clear they can stop the props and coast on momentum.

[Ace Dreamer]

... yeiow. I would not want to be the pilot trying to dock that close to a spinning propellor.

...........  Uhm, here.  Look at this: http://www.af.mil/shared/...5-F-9999s-0015.jpg  Only not quite as long so as to accommodate the limited dorsal space on a F-EZig.  Besides, I can't imagine them redocking in a 'hot' situation.  Once the fuzz is clear they can stop the props and coast on momentum.

Don't these start to stall and "lose altitude" if you stop the props? [grin]
(Just saying, if your craft is using the wave to maneouver like an aircraft, should you take the downsides as well?)
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Star Ranger4]

Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist

Loose altitude? what altitude? However, I can see speed dropping while the props are off. In fact if I'm understanding BA correctly what he's envisioning doing the re-docking/re-arming at a dead stop out of combat. As the pilots fold their wings and re-dock the F EZig's the support crew on the peacemaker also eva and rearm them as needed, hence his overriding me about where to put the Coilgun.

In defense of my initial concept, however... Remember that the strongest part of the wing is the central Spar. This pylon basicly goes from the spar and tapers back to the strongest part of the F EZ, which is around the area of the engines and where ITS wing spar joins the fuselage.
EDIT
Found the Image.  Forward raked?  shorter?.  If your sure, then yes.  Confirm:  Are you sure?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

Pretty sure that will work... at least as far as keeping the small fry away from the spinning blades 'o' doom.

[Star Ranger4]

Very well.



Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Black Aeronaut]

...Is it just a trick of the angle, or is that vertical stabilizer on the starboard side touching the underside of the Peacemaker's wing?

Otherwise, this looks fine. In a finer detail shot we can just add the lines for the hatches just underneath the leading edges of the wings. As for the guide for the pilot...

OOH! There can be a wire-line spool mounted under an easy-access panel behind the cockpit - it doesn't have to be very big since it only needs to hold a few meters of wire line. It would have an electromagnetic head with enough residual magnetism for it to stick when it lands. Part of Roughrider pilot training will be to hit the 'sweet spot' with the mag-head - too far and you'll have trouble getting yourself into the hatch, too close and it'll be on the hatch and cause problems. This could be the Roughrider's right of passage for new pilots since their equivalent of a carrier deck landing is being handled by computers.

[Star Ranger4]

Trick of the angle. There still isn't that much clearance, but it looks like less because that stabilizer is sticking up on the far side of the engine cowling.
as far as rite of passage...  I'd say having to prove you can 'hook the 3 wire' with your computer off works better; it shows that even though they normally let the computer do it they are bad arsed enough they can hook back up even if the computer is out.  And the big dogs can do it while the peacmaker is under drive.
EDIT:
8 hanging, Six turning, 4 burning...

Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Ace Dreamer]

Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist

Loose altitude? what altitude? However, I can see speed dropping while the props are off. In fact if I'm understanding BA correctly what he's envisioning doing the re-docking/re-arming at a dead stop out of combat.

Your handwavium, your choice of design, your choice of quirks...
I could imagine a prop-driven Fenspace 'aircraft' where just because there is no 'altitude' (or no 'road' for some Fenspace vehicles) doesn't mean that the handwavium doesn't quirk the vehicle into acting as if there is one.  You could start to drift 'downwards' as well as slow when the props are off.  You'd never hit 'the ground', but you could need to 'climb' a lot to regain your original course.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind