Topic: A new one coming down the line.. a TMP-era CVA project (and heads whirl!)

[atheorhaven]

Okay, raise your hands.. how many remember this picture?




Well, I mentioned that it gave me some ideas, and that it did.  I started looking around for parts and spotted Anduril's TOS CVA.  "Hmmm," I thought,"there's my carrier hull..." and I downloaded that.  And then DD said,"Look everyone, new pretties!" and showed us a gazillion new ships (seven or eight actually) that were ready for release at Unimatrix.  And I went,"Oooooo... Excelsior".  

So I downloaded that.  Played around a bit, and thought that this was doable, so went scouting for permission.  LC_Admiral nicely said yes to allow me to use his Excelsior, and anduril nicely gave me permission as well.  Now that I had permission, I was ready to start in earnest.  

Out came the chainsaw.. lop off the Excelsior hull and pylons, save, lop off the saucer and nacelles from the CVA, save.  Start up soft music and dim the lights, chill some wine, grab various assorted cheeses, and introduce the CVA to the Excelsior.  After securing movie rights from both participants.  

And here's the first batch of pictures... send the kids from the room though first, this is adult stuff.  








And this is just the start.. the ship is a bit farther along now, but just wanted you guys to see it and get caught up on it.    AND guys, this ship has been renamed to the "USS Hagen" in honor of anduril, one of the first of the ships that I'm going to work on that are going to be named after people that have helped build this community.

(ps: If anyone can send me a list of real surnames for some of those modellers that are no longer here along the lines of ppboy2000, Moonraker, and anyone else you can think of, I'd appreciate it and will be using those names for future releases.)

(And just in case you thought that I was "doin' nuttin'" the last week or so, there's more registries done for Nanner's mod, a couple of fixes to existing meshes for it, and another ship has been added to it by me, with two more coming down the line for it... and for you guys that aren't playing "Generations at War" as well.  
 

[ChrsLWlstr]

Pittsburgh Nelly!  

[KBF-HangNail]

Very Nice Will be looking forward too its completion.  

[wanderer]

<raises hand> Very sweet ship, sir.  I guess if I were to nitpick, the placement of the impulse engines bothers me, in that it's exhaust sweeps right over the landing pads for the fighters, although this is a problem I have seen with many ships...bah, who cares, sweet ship!  

[Kreeargh]

WOW thats totaly awesome  
I have that ship in wip but no point finishin any time soon  i could never come up with this level of beautiful textured detail    
 

[E_Look]

How come all CVA aspect ratios are so... flat??

[Rod O'neal]

This is a definate need ship. Looks really good, sir. Enjoyed the wit, as well, while reading the post. Thanks!  

[ModelsPlease]

Nice ship sir!!!
   

[Dizzy]

You are an extremely talented modeler, atheorhaven. I dig a lot of your models. So when I tell you I freaking hate the hell out of that model, it's nothing to do with you.

Truly, the thing to hate, and I mean despise, is the insanity of where the hangar bay doors are located! Where do the fighters go??? Who designed this stupid ass ship?

I'm telling you, each fighterbay is an extremely cramped 1 car garage. All the junk I have in my spare bedroom, my garage and my attic would fill up 3/4 of ALL those bays. Pathetic.

Whats worse, is why the hell is the hull cut away? Is that the freaking run way? They need take off space? Or maybe it's the landing pad...   Yeah...

If you want a cool carrier, encompass the 'landing pads' into the model. That should be internal hangar space. The doors should be flush with the exterior hull, not cut away and open. Just looks SOOOO stupid, cuz there is so little space inside that aft hull as it is... You might have room for a few shuttlecraft, but 16-24 fighters? Are you mad?
 

YUCK!

Ok, rant off. That model needs a fixin...


 

[Klingon Fanatic]

I agree with Dizzy about the design 'Flaws' he pointed out. Perhaps you could extend the hangar bays flush as he suggested?

I think I'd like this better if it used Kodiak engines and had a different saucer: WZ45s Lexington or Khaliban's Odysseus maybe come to mind.

However, we are really short on TMP era heavy carriers.

A+ work you got going there Atheorhaven.

Qapla!

KF

[FPF_TraceyG]

The hanger bay is designed to launch a single fighter simultaneously from each door, the fighters are then recovered through the rear large hanger bay doors, I think. Its exactly like the TOS SFB CVA, except with TMP details and is virtually SFB cannon (except for the TMP design).
This ship wouldnt be the same if you changed the hanger bay doors.
I agree with Wanderer about the impulse engines though, where did they go on the original?

[ganymad]

i like that ship. but using tos parts doesnt fit with the excelsior parts i think.
i was always searching for a decent curry class but with excelsior engines - im no friend of mixing parts from different hulls in a kitbash. but thats just me
if u want to keep going with your carrier i got one sugesstion. dont tak the excelsior impulse engines as hangars.leave them to be engines and gut some hangar dors into the lower secondary hull - or make it a throughdeck carrier.that way u could and some internal deatail like some docked fighters or shuttles. just an idea.


greatings,




ed

[wanderer]

To answer Tracey's question (and to add to my own late night ramblings), the impulse engines were located thus, here in Anduril's CVA...



This would seem to be a much more logical placement.

Also, iirc from SFB, the CVA had 3 shuttlebays, one on each side for the fighters, and the rear bay for the shuttles.

And I would disagree with Diz and KF.  If you look at the size of the doors and imagine the size of the fighter entering...



...it seems to me there would be enough room on each side for the hangers and space in between for machine shops, weapons storage, etc, not to mention that much of that would probably be elavatored up from the deck immediately below.  It seems to me that the fighter would land on the pad (that's what it's for, after all), and would be 'tracked' inside it's hanger; not tractored, but 'tracked'; you can see the tracks leading to the doors.  

My late night $.02  

[Cpt_LC_Amaral]

Interesting design.. you just mispelled my nick.
Cpt. LC Amaral.
I'm not Admiral.. yet. hehe

Cpt.  

[Rogue]

Interesting mix of comments. Largely positive. And if there is any fault to be found, blame me. I put him up to it.

I want this ship. As good as the rebuilt CVA that Anduril's did is, it won't fit in my Federation fleet. This will be my CVA of choice because it is the only compatable FCVA on the horizon. And just look at it. You have to say Atheorhaven is doing some quality work on it. Will all of the features make sense? Bah... if you want starships that make sense then equip your library with Fenlon Monitors and starships with that kind of geometry. SFC  needs  this CVA because this geometry  is  the Federation CVA.

So here we go... new model is introduced to the community. Which there hasn't been much in the way of useful models for SFC, as of late. Firesoul did us a huge favor with some kitbashed models that have been MIA since forever. Really now, how many more fantasy designs do we need? What specifications does one describe these fantasy designs with? Why are they all nth generation X-ships that killl everything on the board in the first turn? The problem with most of these fantasy starships is what to do with them. (Ya, I know... every starship is a fantasy starship) This one is all ready to be what it is built to be. A workable TMP era Federation CVA. Which makes me very happy.

This is where I wipe a small tear from the corner of my eye... *sniff*

       

[atheorhaven]

Whoops, sorry about that... I'll be sure to correct the speeling in future posts.  (grin)

What do you think of the useage of the parts though?  They match pretty darn closely to the picture that I was following for the design, hence that's why I was wanting to use them in this project.  



Addressing other concerns raised so far..

I also felt that I had the saucer a little low and that at launch, fighters had the chance of being washed by the impulse engines and blown back into each other, creating mangled cans of pilot jelly.  So I have raised the saucer, which has raised the engines exhaust above the level of the top of the carrier hull.  You'll see that in a later pic.  It's a little bit high according to the original picture, but I feel that this is the logical placement now.  

The fighters are recovered through the rear of the ship using the big hanger doors back there, where they can be serviced, recharged, repaired, and then be raised back up to flight level into the launch hangers.  In an emergency, they could also be recovered through the launch bays, and that's what the tracks are for outside the doors.  

KF: There are some good points you're raising here, but take a look at the picture that I was following for this.. this is definitely an Excelsior saucer and nacelles with it, so odd as it seems.. that's what was used in the design.  And the design does call for the doors not being flush, but more centered.  I followed anduril's six door design for his CVA still, but had to slighty move their placement around a bit during the kitbash.  I also had to add in a deflector dish, as anduril's was an external TOS unit.  During testing I wound up with the neat split deflector shape totally by accident due to the nature of the way the textures are laid on the hull.  And here's some more pictures that get us up to speed, where the ship is at right now.  The only thing left to do here is some minor lighting adjustments on the back of the carrier hull, check for any more mesh holes, finish the detailing on the textures, and I think it'll be almost ready to release.  

[Chrystoff]

Quote:
Interesting mix of comments. Largely positive. And if there is any fault to be found, blame me. I put him up to it.

Well, if you put him up to it, I am thankful you did. Now that I've seen the WIP's, I cannot wait for it's release. It's a superb & logical spin on an existing idea.    

[Captain Ron]

So far so good, retexturing the lower hull with the Excelsior pattern is going to be a problem though, lots of work to do that. I also have to agree though that the impulse engines blowing acroos the fight bays and against the warp engine pylons is bad though. You can retexture those into hugh windows though like an observation louge and then add the impulse engine to the top. Use the rear firing photon assembly from the Excalibur as the engines it is samll enough not to impact on the model much.

[atheorhaven]

Not entirely accurate Rogue.. I've been following your suggestions on this one, much as I have followed Bernard's in posts constructing ships that he has been aware of, KF's suggestions in other posts, etc etc.  But some of this is also my doing too.    I also put myself up to it here.  

Here's the thing, I love doing ships that are a challenge, and are usually challenged right at the start.  Azel's "Alseides" is a prime example of a ship that I love to do.  Underpowered and way overtorped.  Almost got the most negative reaction I'd ever seen to one of his drawings, and for Atolm, it's rare that anyone hates his stuff.  So naturally my ears perked up.    I didn't particularly want people to see this as a bad design, but to try and see it as he saw it.  That's what I attempted to realize with it, incorporating some new ideas of my own into it that I've never heard being done before.  The arboretum in it has a day and night sky that change depending on lighting!  The walkways in it light with spots for nighttime strolls.  There's a simulated dusk on the walls.  I loved doing that ship for all that and because it turned out so pretty.  

I'm enjoying working on this ship because I knew that this one would have a similar sort of reaction.  (Hence the title).  In canon TV Trek, we have never seen a carrier (that I've ever heard about).  In SFB, they exist, and in TV Trek, there have been shown fighters and trainers, must they not also launch from somewhere?  And for those here that just have a problem with the design.. umm, ladies and gentlemen, isn't that what we do here?  Push the edge of canon and non-canon design and see what comes out of that work?  Some of us here are FASA people, some are SFB, some are TV Trek, and some are SFC, and the really neat thing about this place is that here, that can all come together and reveal some truly remarkable designs that help to flesh out something different than the "saucer and cans on sticks" design approach that usually is seen with most Feddie designs.  

I have some design issues with some ships released here, the same as you.  But those are usually my issues, and I've been here long enough to know that you can get people worked up enough that they leave never to return if they never recieve any constructive encouragement.  That's one of the reasons why I'm doing this now with Federation designs.  They're pretty well known, they're usually the ships most asked for, they are usually someone's dream ship, they've usually wanted to see that ship forever, and usually the person asking doesn't know how to do this and is too quiet to ask for it.  Rogue asked, I saw the design, thought that it was doable, and am helping to fill that request.  And his reason for asking was a good one and he wanted this for general release so that everyone else could benefit by it.

I'm just glad that I could help out Rogue in this.    The only thing that I ask in return (as always) is that I get a screencap of it ingame being used.  You'd be surprised by how infrequent that actually does happen..

Dizzy, thanks for your comments.  I always find it weird to see people saying that they like my stuff, and I appreciate the fact that you don't like the design.  I kind of do simply because it's kind of "Galactica" looking, and I always did like that cheesy old show.  Surprise surprise, I'm also a big fan of cheesy horror movies and when Godzilla comes out of the water to stomp on Tokyo, I'm right there with a bowl of popcorn.
 

[atheorhaven]

Kreeargh, there's always a point in finishing.  

You get the satisfaction of seeing it out the door and know that it's something that you did and knowing that like it or hate it, someone somewhere is downloading it and it is sitting somewhere out there with someone quietly playing it on their machine.  And that's a good thing.