I remember Timo had this awesome guide called The Hitchhiker's Guide to Starships..I think. Does anyone or Timo havea recent version of it?
That thing gets time off from the desk drawer every now and then. It's not online anywhere, though. What email address would you wish to expose to a file dump? Timo Saloniemi
I remember when you would post it at Flare Forums. Have you created some of the pictures mentioned in it? I have enjoyed each reading of it.
Launch confirmed. It was fun to notice that I'm not the only Sheldon out there trying to pay attention (rather than just half-hearted homage) to oldie-goldie starship references: Dayton Ward in Vanguard: Open Secrets threw in not just the usual FJ Tech Manual ships, but an explicit FASA Loknar as well... Plus a certain very well-hidden FASA assault ship class. I wonder when ships from STXI start diffusing to the "regular reality" novels in some form or another? I guess I'll keep on adding all the old and new stuff that's even halfway compatible with what I already have. The universe split and some other developments do make it a somewhat Dixonesque undertaking now, though. Timo Saloniemi
The main shortcoming in FASA design work is that it was all done in 2D, and often just in side view at first. You can kitbash decent things when you work in 3D - but if you attempt to do a novel-looking ship out of the familiar parts and all you have to work with is a side view, you end up with a ship that is unappealingly tall and long. After all, the only "new" thing you can do is insert new bits between the known components. Which means you end up with something like the Chandley or the Northampton, with pylons so long that the drive plasma probably arrives at the nacelles in cold droplets. I dig Chandley nevertheless. And Loknar. And obscure things like Cle Dan or Laweya. Timo Saloniemi
^Yea, there was some dreadful stuff in the FASA books. BTW, what exactly is this thing Timo is sending everyone?
It's the ultimate in frustration: a chronological treatise on canon and well-established fanon starships as if they all belonged in the same universe and timeline, with very few graphics. Written in "Bill Gunston style", with specs followed by several pages of musings on the design history and philosophy, as well as the operational history of the class. It's about a thousand pages long currently, and follows the desktop writing traditions of remaining eternally unfinished, with most of the current gaps and to-do parts in the "small craft" section. Feel free to quote or otherwise maim the text. Others already have; there's a very nice timeline at www.jh.kobarg.de/k7/timeline, for example. Just give me the address where to dump it. If you want it in simple Word form, it's in three pieces of about 20 MB each... Timo Saloniemi