HMS Escort

[S.W.Ninja]

@ Berkut the fighter is at the texturing stage but untill I replace my broken photoshop CS with CS3 in a few week she's on the backburner.

Another minor updates for your viewing pleasures not had much working time today as I spent most of the day in bed (old neck injury) hopefully though it will show you what the section upfront was intended for.

Also added extra CIWs fore and aft and 2 turrets now defend the bridge though I may reduce that number as she's maybe a little overarmed in my oppinion. Also been toying with the idea of deployable solar panels for emergency power etc, oppinions on that and suggestions are welcome.

[liam887]

nice! I dont agree with others i think the ribs fit nicely. Have you seen event horizon when the other ship docks with the title ship, that docking clamp is awesome but i gather your going to add the detials to yours later?

[S.W.Ninja]

Yea i remember that film it was awesome but Ive been unable to find many reference images of docking ports or even how they work, so im gonna wing it a bit .

Also I would have detailed it some more today but ive been in bed most of it damn neck pains. Had to drag myself up and out to show some work as promised. Ill try and work on it some more tomorrow depending on how I am.

[Major Diarrhia]

Cool design, although I like it more without ribs. You have space along the back for two or three more guns that can fire port and starboard.

[Monkey Boy]

Originally Posted by S.W.Ninja

Yea i remember that film it was awesome but Ive been unable to find many reference images of docking ports or even how they work, so im gonna wing it a bit .

Damn, thought I had some good ones of the lewis & clark, but only find this small one:

Yours looks more like an airport aerobridge, so that perhaps is a place to look for inspiration/

[S.W.Ninja]

@ Monkey boy thanks for the references and I think I made that docking port without relising it looked like the airport ones

@Major Diarrhia - I dont want to overarm her as she's really not that big of a ship, in terms of interior space and the rear sections are taken up by the engineering area so directly below any turrets there would be no space for magazines ect.

Also it seems to me that theres a 50/50 split on those who like the ribbing and those who dont I said earlier Id tackle it later on in the build but ive started to look at possible idea's around it. Ive lowered the ribbing on 1 section of the ship and ive also posted images without to compare.

Personally Im not going to loose the ribbing all together though I may adjust it so its not as pronounced against the hull.

[Berkut]

hmm, I still think it looks better without the ribbing, just missing some armour panelling. You know what else you could do that would look really cool? Keep it, and cover the large areas that are empty with explosive reactive armour using ribs as support structures, while leaving some greeble heavy parts exposed from armour, not too realistic but would look great imo. I hope that made sense.

[Kadaeux]

Originally Posted by Berkut

hmm, I still think it looks better without the ribbing, just missing some armour panelling. You know what else you could do that would look really cool? Keep it, and cover the large areas that are empty with explosive reactive armour using ribs as support structures, while leaving some greeble heavy parts exposed from armour, not too realistic but would look great imo. I hope that made sense.

You couldn't actually use reactive armour effectively in space, the "blast" would punch into the hull for one. It wouldn't stop a projectile for second as there is little more than a flash of light in space as there is not atmosphere to conduct the explosion away from the hull. Third, you could royally destroy Delta-V you've been fighting months to aquire. (Say 1/3 lightspeed.)

Great work by the way mate, is she going to be a "hard" scifi ship with thrusters etc or???

[S.W.Ninja]

She's intending to be an honest look into what the Royal Navies first warship orientated spaceship will look like. Probable duties would be defending European space agencies interests around the moon and space stations around Earth orbit.

While your speaking on the Delta-V term, would a rail gun with initial chemical proppellant produce less recoil than a standard naval gun. Say only 1/4 the initial explosive charge in the rail gun compared to the standard one but with magnetic barrel achieving most of the velocity?

Was just something I was pondering while designing the main guns

[Kadaeux]

Originally Posted by S.W.Ninja

While your speaking on the Delta-V term, would a rail gun with initial chemical proppellant produce less recoil than a standard naval gun. Say only 1/4 the initial explosive charge in the rail gun compared to the standard one but with magnetic barrel achieving most of the velocity?

Was just something I was pondering while designing the main guns

It would likely produce more recoil than a stardard railgun yes, but one idea I and several mates bandied about was having the "ammunition" be a combination between kinetic kill and a missile. It would be fired by a railgun and then once clear of the ship ignite its own internal propellant to increase its acceleration to target.

In hard scifi you really don't need missiles with explosive warheads.

This site Atomic Rockets is extremely helpful in designing a "hard" scifi ship with good essays on weapons, engines etc. I might help you, it's helped me from time to time...