Heck, yall havent gotten module J1, K, or R5 on the warehouse 23 yet. And yall are working on strakes, Tholian MSB and nexus 14?
BELIEVE ME. put strakes to the side. You want a few ideas, give me a day or two; i will provide some suggestions. But i really like what Will M. Did with the engines; if its not enough, i will give you other alternatives (that is if you are capable of being objective). Not all my ideas are great, but not all of them are bad either.

By Aaron Staley (Awwwdrat) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 09:45 pm: Edit

Ah. Vudar, WYN, JINDO, and Orion DWX. I can see those having strakes. I will think about alternatives to the Fed Cx tonight and email Will tomorrow night.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 09:51 pm: Edit

Wow.

Just Wow.

I'm both amazed and appalled at the sheer arrogance and condescension in those last two posts.

Last time I checked, Mesrs. Petrick and Cole owned both ADB and the licence. If they state that something is final, it is final.

You simply aren't the owner, and therefore have no place to stand to pass judgement on their decisions.

There have been decisions and doctrinal concepts that were presented that I simply disagree with, or feel that there were missed opportunities, but I respect the decisions of the designers.

Personally, I couldn't possibly care any less than I do about whatever hand you had in bringing G1, G2 and the MSSB concepts to the table. In the past, I compiled my own versions of them but purchased them anyway because 'official' and 'professionally done' versions are better than what I produced, and I am a completionist.

If Jean wants to either kick me off the board or put me in time-out, so be it. I'm shocked with the brazenness of the attacks on the Steves and ADB.

That's my piece on this. Good day.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 09:57 pm: Edit

Aaron Staley -
Do not email me. Any input you want to make to these minis goes through SVC, or not at all.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Every X-ship gets the same recognition feature. There is NOT a solution involving different features for different empires Three years has not produced a non-strake solution.

There is also no way in Hell I am releasing two different X-ships. Forget that idea right now.

All of the MSSBs (except the Fed) show strakes (and it should have). Nobody has said one negative word about strakes in three years, not until this topic. I do not see how we invalidate all of those MSSBs at this point. Call it the best of a lot of bad choices, look forward to X2 ships, but I do not see this train stopping.

That said, if anyone has an alternative greeble (one not already rejected, one that works for all empires) I will consider it, if I think it is so much better that it is worth trashing al of the MSSBs. You have until I get back from lunch Monday.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 11:17 pm: Edit

If I may make a humble suggestion to Steve / Will:

Having seen the strakes in the line art in the MSSBs, Could they be kept to a structure that is between 2x the panel thickness on the Klingon B (panelled) minis to 1/2 of a deck tall? I feel that anything more would run the risk of being too visually jarring.

I understand your need to keep the ships visually distinct but feel that it could be done in a more subtle manner than shown in the initial graphics in this thread.

In this case, maybe reduce the hight of these strakes by 50% at a minimum and possibly extend them further aft as well. It would give us something to paint and enhance the visual distinctiveness of the CX.

By Andrew Schwenzer (Andrew_Cluetain) on Wednesday, February 05, 2020 - 11:40 pm: Edit

I do understand the need to look different at tabletop distances, but the strakes look odd, especially on the saucer. Would it be possible to do something more like the mongoose CB? THAT did look different and not as "odd." Or at least it did in my opinion.

By Aaron Staley (Awwwdrat) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 05:36 am: Edit

Will, had no intention of it.
Dowd, ignored. And should always be.
SVC, very well. I dont have the time to campaign against garbage. Ive given you my thoughts on it and thats all. Perhaps the strakes like flutter up and down like butterfly wings helping the mini zip across the board or something. Lol.
Anyway, yall wont be hearing from me again soon.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 07:51 am: Edit

Also, just to stress two things I said before on the existing strakes:
1) I believe the saucer mounted strakes should be centered front-to-back. Right now they are towards the aft of the saucer. They should be centered instead. They will be behind the side phasers and won't interfere with the forward phasers (they are FH, not FX).
2) I would also like to see them cut to half the height. At this point I realize this likely isn't possible, but I think they would be more palatable at half the height or so.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 09:30 am: Edit

I'll be honest here: the redesigned CX nacelles are so striking and distinctive that I just don't really understand why an additional point of visual distinction (beyond the nacelles and their "swept" pylons) are necessary. They're at least as distinctive as the four little sensor dishes on the GSC mini, or the shortened aft hull to distinguish between the CS and BCH minis from each other, etc., if not more so.

I'd imagined that something similar would be done with the warp nacelles on other empires' X-ships (a boat-tail type thing with fins for the Klingons, something akin to the Fed design for the Romulans, etc.), and that such would serve well (with only "hidden engine" empires such as the ISC and Tholians needed further points of distinction).

That said, if there's to be required some kind of uniform X-ship point of distinction beyond that for all the minis, I really don't know what to recommend. If it *has* to be strakes, could they at least be not so prominent? Perhaps something like the intercoolers that flank the aft ends of Federation non-X warp nacelles? Or something that is more of an low arch shape than a rectangular block?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 02:59 pm: Edit

On a separate note, I was thinking of how the saucer on the proposed CX has a distinctly smooth "outer ring", to help distinguish it from the hull plating on the CA, which extends to the rim of the saucer and down along the sides.

Would this help go some way towards making a potential CB miniature (if that ship were to retain the "outer ring" feature) distinct enough from the CA to be worth considering at some point?

I recall there being some reservations about the direction Mongoose went with the Starline 2500 CB on the one hand, but concern as to what would actually make a more "correct" Fed heavy command cruiser design worth the effort in Shapeways terms on the other.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Definitely they need to be shorter in my opinion. What about moving them closer to that line that runs from the bridge to the impulse deck.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 03:32 pm: Edit

In a moment I will post the round two designs.

I definitely want the sculptors for all X-ships to do fancy engines and NOT just slap strakes on existing ships. That won't exactly match the art but I'm not capable of doing the kind of engines Will did. I do like his engines a lot.

I don't think that the engines are enough, and like I said, the MSSB art you have all seen (and not commented on) for three years would all be invalidated, but it's a thought I see many of you have. That doesn't mean I think it's right but we have a few days for you to convince me (which I am not). And even I died tomorrow and Petrick said "sure, go with engines, forget those blobs SVC put on the art" the MSSB art won't change (too much work for nothing).

I am pretty much going to let Will decide how big to make the strakes and where to slide them. His artistic choices are better than mine.

The strakes in the new art are smaller but are as small as they can be, so no, they cannot be made smaller than the new art below.

I will comment only that certain statements about who was the sole driving force behind certain past projects are not accurate.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 03:33 pm: Edit

Round two art

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 03:35 pm: Edit

More round two art

By Matthew Lawson (Mglawson) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Looks good to me; head on they don't stand out as much! Gotta start working on my empires now...

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Much better, I think the original design of the strakes being on the curve made the trailing ends too tall.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:18 pm: Edit

That's definitely a better placement on the saucer strakes. Given that they're there, and obvious, do we *need* them on the secondary hull?

By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:21 pm: Edit

This is considerably better. I do think the bottom strakes on the engineering hull make it look inelegant. If you could delete the two bottom strakes and leave the others on the saucer and the top half of the engineering hull, I think it would look better.

Just my opinion.

By David Bostwick (Zarquon) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:22 pm: Edit

As someone very much not a fan of the strakes, I'll say that the new art looks much better on the saucer. Now does there really need to be 8 of them? Can we lose the strakes on the secondary hull and call it done?

By Charles Chapel (Ctchapel) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:33 pm: Edit

I still don't like the strakes on the aft hull. Does really have to make an 'X' to be an advanced design. I still think that incorporating the strake detail into the structure that holds the deflector dish would look better. Or the neck.

Addressing the it's been 3 years without comment, please note we've only have top down art to see and as such no context to review. I thought those were strips on the hull, not any kind of structure. That would be the easiest way to mark up existing art to get product out the door rather than doing everything over.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:40 pm: Edit

I echo the statements above. The saucer is much better. Do we need the strakes on the secondary hull it already has considerable changes without them.

I miss the twin turbo lifts though.

By Jay Gustafson (Jay13) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:41 pm: Edit

What will it cost

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 04:44 pm: Edit

12 economic points which must be XTPs.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, February 06, 2020 - 06:09 pm: Edit

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Quote:

12 economic points which must be XTPs.

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