Star Ship Polaris

[Admiral Buzzkill]

[Venardhi]

I like the cowling, but somehow it makes it look much smaller to me. Might just be the lack of smaller elements on it to give it context though.

[Kaiser]

Wow its look even better now

[HRHTheKING]

Superb piece of work.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Thanks.

Scale will be something to build into the hull detailing, yeah. This isn't a big ship; just for reference:

- The saucer is 70% of the diameter of the saucer section of the original TOS Enterprise;

- The length is about 125% that of Serenity.

[aridas sofia]

I like it. I think you've managed to give it the organic, Colani-esque touch while remaining true to its 1950s-60s inspirations. I know this because it reminds me (sorta) of the Flying Sub from VttBotS. Which is a good thing, since I really, really liked that little ship when I was seven years old. :thumbsup:

I also like the front-and-above view -- it has that zooidal or isomorphic similarity to a living thing -- in this case a face -- that I really like.

This is wild. It's exciting to see this ship begin to take form.

[therealfoxbat]

Starship Polaris wrote:

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That would be "rocks" - the railgun option. Though all of this is somewhat in flux - me no like rayguns, but aridas has suggested something that's sort of half-and-half.

Lot of good suggestions here, guys.

If the ship's armament is going to rely exclusively on missiles and railguns, I think there should be more space devoted to ammunition storage (magazine). You'll definitely need it for missiles, and while it's possible to use the gravitic technology to gather debris for railgun ammo, that material would still have to be loaded into the railguns from somewhere. Also, I believe gathering railgun ammo would not be very feasible during a combat situation.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Good points. One thing about this ship is that it's not a heavily armed ship of the line that's designed to last very long in combat; it's a retrofit civilian ship used for intelligence gathering and the like. Doesn't mean they don't find themselves in a fight occasionally and have to deal with their limitations, but that's (part of) a story in itself...

Venardhi has modeled and animated a variation on the design, and gave me permission to post links to it. Pretty cool:

http://www.venardhi.com/sketches/shiprotate.mov
http://www.venardhi.com/sketches/shipzoom.mov

[aridas sofia]

There are aspects of Venardhi's variant that I like -- the Kiaga-esque darts pointing aftward from the thrusters were something that I was going to add if I did another illustration. (I'd make them much shorter, however) I like his hull pattern. However, I'd consider blending these details with the existing ovoid fuselage (as we have modified it-- with the aft built up).

The real question then is whether to go with the broken aft ring as he shows, or the horseshoe shield as you have built it. That's a tough one, and I must admit to being torn. There is something appealing to that broken ring, and it has the functional logic of being part cover, part weapons holder. It also looks not so much "designed" as retrofit. however, it's not as "pretty".

There is also something about all the detailing and direction that sawtooth vent/thruster added that I find hard to let go.

[USS Mariner]

You could have an ovoid ring, connected in some way to the horseshoe sheild also.

And keep the sawtooth edges, though I might reduce their number a little bit.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

[Venardhi]

What if the cowling came from the sides of the engine pods/tanks out to the edge of the saucer, with the ring being the inside edge? That way there wouldn't be so many overlapping elements to that area.

Edit: I updated the rotate animation with the high-poly version.

It also occurs to me that I kind of like the current back as the front. Especially when it is turned on its side. Would need something added for the thrusters, but that wouldn't be too hard. Could add the fin to the back and mount them there or put them on the 'arms' of the broken ring. Then the engine pods on my variant could be turned into weapons or sensors.

[Philo]

Gotta say I'm really having a fun time watching you guys hash this out. A Dennis/Aridas team up. Very cool.

[aridas sofia]

See the attachment below. I've tried to combine the elements that I think work well together in this set of illustrations. The more I look at the broken ring/ horseshoe, the more it looks like it should be "restrained" or made less extreme in its curvature, and made to echo the other curves of the fuselage, saucer, etc. Also, it seems to me that it should be more "rollbar" and less "ring", because the bottom part lends weight underneath that seem to my eye to throw the balance of the design off.

Also, I stuck with my upper saucer grid/detailing for convenience sake. Except for the two big grids on each saucer "wing" there is no definite function assigned to any of it.

Polaris revisions

Though... to be honest, I still like the version HERE a lot.

[Venardhi]

I like those changes, though it strikes me as odd to have a 'top' and 'bottom' on a ship like this which will be functioning only in space. Since in reality the top is at the 'front', wouldn't it make more sense to be symmetrical on the top and bottom as well as left to right? Plus, if you do that, as can be somewhat seen at the end of my 'flyby' you can draw a visual connection to the Polaris logo. I suspect Your latest version would have an even stronger resemblance.