Akyazi/Akula

[Shadowman99]

Very nice. I have a first printing of the "Ships of the Line" book that featured this design and the perimeter defense ships. There was also a work-bee with a combat attachment that made it look scorpion-like. Kinda cool.

You're doing a great job. I'll dig the book out and let me know if there's any sections where you have questions about accuracy, I can send scans.

[Basill]

Ok, this is fairly bloated for 3 little images, so read at your maximum ADHD discretion. I’m thinking of changing my signature to “King of the run-on sentences!”

Thanks Shadowman99. I too have a copy of Ships of the Line Vol 1 though I don't know if its first edition printing or anything. I used scans off the internet to function as background plates for the modeling, but that book has been in my lap during 90 % of the work! I'm not particularly worried about accuracy at this point, especially since I took some liberties with the three different designs, cherry picked my favorite features, and merged them into a single ship. But I always welcome advice.

About a fan series... I'm not that familiar with the genre, and well, not being a fiction writer of any capacity, I can honestly say the idea has never crossed my mind. Not that I haven't developed little scenarios here and there in my background mind while modeling, but they are never fully realized and rarely consistent. More like subspace chatter and crew buzzing around while they go about their mundane routines. The “ghost in the machine” if you will. But I'll store the notion in my subconscious for later consideration.

As for updates... I worked on the bay some more. Added more details. Put little grippies on the hand rails and added a new pair overhead. I realized, if I was climbing up that little ladder thing and suddenly had to stand upright to board a workbee, I might want something overhead, in addition to the side rail, to manage my balancing act. Do you think I should put some sort of base against the wall for the hand rails? They look sorta plain just sticking out of the wall. Haven’t decided yet.

I turned on one of the newly added red warning lights by the exterior door. I placed them there so they would be out of the workbee flight path and off the floor for maximum movement while the doors are closed. Standard procedure would have those as spinner lights that come on, before the doors open, to warn of impending environment change, and remain a fixed glow after opening. Of course if you could see them and didn’t have on a working space-suit, you wouldn’t have long to admire them. Both sides should have them but I haven’t put the other in place yet. Those other dark things I added are combination remote control/tractor beam emplacement for docking and undocking. There is even a little graphic on the control console that partially deals with this.

I tweaked the light settings in general; also added a few and readjusted positions. Ideally the glowing panels would do most of the work, but I've chosen to fake it this time around with spot lights and omni-directionals, at least in this early stage- for ease of rendering. I used a shadow noise reduction feature to help cut the sharpness of the shadows all about. I think that helped a bit. Lighting it seems, is the never ending task. Therein lies the hobby I suspect.

I might start on one of the single bee-bays on the ventral hull shortly. I’m thinking those bees will have to be suspended in some way while docked, so I look forward to working those issues out.

[Shadowman99]

FYI - The Work Bees in TMP would fly into an airlock socket that made an airtight seal around the front half of the ship. There was a utility arm that would swing down to that large black structure on the top-rear and lock the bee in place and plug-in various umbelicals to recharge the craft.

In ST:TMP this was shown in the BG of a couple of matte paintings depicting the shuttle hanger.

[Basill]

Yeah. There was some discussion about that earlier, and I figured that docking feature was probably necessary in a larger ship that might need to leave its bay doors open for long periods while in dock and such. But I decided that since this was a considerably smaller ship and its bays were totally dedicated to their storage and maintenance, I would come up with some slightly different nesting features for them. But now that I think about it, even though I have some detail in the cradle for umbilical purposes, I might still want to build a little swing arm thingie to latch onto the backside of the bee. I've actually built a hanger/cargo bay for Kevin Riley's awesome Phobos model and it has those little vacuum seal docking sockets. I guess I've never posted any of those images online. My bees need numbers too now that I think about it.

[Drumming Hawk]

Unbelievable what you have done for this ship!

[TheGreatRaja]

Very nice work, sort of retro yet not

[evil_genius_180]

Nice job on the bays. Whether it's proper for a work bee to land in one or not, it's freakin' cool.

[Basill]

Ok, as promised, that other little bee bay calls to me and I have shifted some of my emphasis to it. It’s in a very primitive state currently, as I am just trying to decide how I want things arranged and how much internal space I want to devote to it.

It’s currently set up much like the deck plans in the book, but I am less than enthused with this arrangement. However, I must follow the exterior design to some degree, so I don’t have a lot of wiggle room. I’m trying to use other model assets just like a set designer might, so you will note the glowy slat wall, greeble wall, and control console. That’s part of the fun for me. In the deck plans, there appears to be a spacesuit stowage nook, just like the TMP airlock set, so I have put one here in the same position. It appears too large however, so I will be rethinking its final location.

There is a large section of the ship (it would be just to the right of this image behind a wall) devoted to launching science probes (my version) and intelligence/reconnaissance drones. It takes up a significant chunk of the next section of “ring” over, so I have toyed with the idea of combining the two room’s functionality, unlike the official versions. This would give me more room to maneuver inside as well as possibly more storage space for all the cool little workbee attachments that make the craft more effective like a Swiss-Army knife.

I’ve built a clamp or “cradle” to be suspended from the ceiling for holding the bee during parking. It has bumpers and hard attachment points to some of the bee’s external features (fuel/battery-charge/life-support consumables.) It also has openings for access to some of the apparent maintenance panels on the bee. I haven’t fully worked out how it will be attached to the ceiling (especially since there is no ceiling yet) or if it will have any mechanized features for lowering the bee out into the clearance of space. Not sure how redundant that feature may or may not be, but it seems cool. The bees of the other bay would appear to slide into their parking slots with ease, especially under auto/remote piloting. So we’ll have to see.

First image shows the door closed with everything in apparent hibernation. Sorry for the darkness, but it’s the night shift. Actually these didn’t look that dark at midnight last night with only my monitor to light the way, but here at work I find it harder to make things out. Still, there is very little there to make out in this early stage.

The second image showing the action of the clamp, is a blend of two renderings, with and without shadows for some omni-lights standing in for those glowing panels in the door frame. And yes, there are 2 doors; inner and outer for this bay. That comes mostly from the need for a movable floor, and the fact that the inboard profile shows a large gap between the outer hull and the deck this bay is on. There may be some artifacts from the blend, which relied on Photoshop and a bit of creative eraser technique, but I was just trying to give a first impression and was too tired to worry about it.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

[Shadowman99]

I like it. Great looking claw.

Since the workbee is ubiquitous there would be many compatable systems for servicing, storing, moving, etc... TMP socket method is "cannon", but seeing workbees with only the aft section visible is not as interesting looking as what you've done.

[XRaiderV1.7]

nice, just nice.

does she have nacelle intercoolers? i ask cause its been a while since ive last viewed a nice starfleet ship like this one, thus, my trek knowledge is a bit rusty.