New X-ship

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Strakes and engines look good on the Lyran CC-X.

By Charles Chapel (Ctchapel) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 06:02 pm: Edit

Like the engines, maybe a tad longer? Is there a reason the bows can't look like the line art and the 2400 mini?

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 06:55 pm: Edit

I like these.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Add a few additional tractors, you can park Fighters on the Strakes and call them X-FiCons.....

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 07:35 pm: Edit

Don't mind the engines with their tapers though it's hard to tell how these new engines stack up with the originals.

As for the forward phasers (damage control in very tight spaces) …

By Mark Hutton (Trynda1701) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Not sure about the placement of the strakes here again, like I said on the Romulan KEX thread. Again they feel tacked on, sorry.

I wonder if they could be placed on the slopes of the rear hull, one upper strake between the ESG greeble and the orange trapezoid greeble, and one on the corresponding inner slope on the opposite side of each catamaran hull. Not sure where the lower greebles would go.

The reason I suggest moving them aft suggests linking them tech wise more closely with the engines. My suggestion above might achieve that. It was what bothered me on V1 of the Fed CX saucer strakes. Although I wish they were just panels, when Will moved them aft, where they were closer to the impulse engines, they just seemed more natural there.

I know this might not work on all Empires X-ships, but I feel it can here.

I also want to think of something to add to somehow slightly differentiate the hull shapes like how the Fed CX differes subtly from the CA hull forms, but can't think of what! Slab hulls are difficult to modify dramatically I expect!

Again, I mean no disrespect to Chris or the other sculptors or SVC, but feel that the graphics should just be a placeholder. I want these ships to pop.

By AW Cookson (Awcookson) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 09:38 pm: Edit

The Lyrans are so blocky to start that I really have little issue with this view. Maybe off setting the forward pair inward about 1 - 1.5 existing strake widths.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:11 pm: Edit

I do not agree that "one guy thinks they would look better over there" is any kind of reason. Where I put them seems the most logical place to me. I really do not want to have this conversation every ship. If there is an actual reason, speak up.

By AW Cookson (Awcookson) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Again, SVC, just my opinion. I defer to you on the look. I think we're all a bit tender after the Fed fiasco so unless there is an arc placement issue or something like that I just figured I'd share my thoughts and move on.
IMO, I think strakes look better on some hulls than others but at the end of the day I'm going to respect your thoughts on them.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:32 pm: Edit

"fiasco"?

I think we've all had enough inflammatory wording, thank you very much.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Chris -

I like where you are going with the elongated-wedge shaped engines. They still read Lyran, but definitely break from the rectangular mold most had been in.

By AW Cookson (Awcookson) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:52 pm: Edit

Will... Sorry, I didn't mean to choose a charged word. Ballyhoo? Fracas? Dust up? Silliness?
In any case I wasn't taking about the design work but how things happened.
Sorry if I gave any impression to the contrary. I know these things are simple so I appreciate your (and all the artists') offerings.

By AW Cookson (Awcookson) on Monday, February 17, 2020 - 11:58 pm: Edit

I just re-read that. The edit time has passed or I'd edit the message. It sounds a bit unintentionally snarky. It is in no way intended to be flip, Will. Sometimes humor looses context.
Also, it should have read that I know these designs are *not* simple.
I will endeavor to be more careful with my messaging.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 01:12 am: Edit

No worries on the 10:52 post. Your message was clear from context and it was easy to assume that was a typo (and it was).

But, yes, there was a dust up, or other event. Fiasco implies error or mistake, and that side of the the discussion was flogged into dead-horse jelly.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 01:31 am: Edit

Once again cool engines!

Can’t the raised panels in the ‘inner bowtie’ be the strakes that show change? I mean they weren’t on the line art but they are on the ship now, and there is four on top which seem to be the requisite number.

Did I misread something in the Fed area?
I thought the strakes were supposed to be near engineering, on this Lyran the forward two (four if you count top and bottom) seem to be too far forward.

The KEX and PCX are smaller ships so engineering is closer.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 11:51 am: Edit

The strakes go as close as practical to where SVC's line art says to put them.

In general, they have tended to be clustered around the center of the ship (varies wildly, by-empire).

Since the engineering spaces tend to also be there, it's not wrong to think there is a connection. However, I don't think it's been explicitly defined to be so.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 12:46 am: Edit

I'd be curious to see what kind of alternate hull paneling could be put on the "Aztek" version of the CCX, so as to help further distinguish it from the "Aztek" CC.

By Chris Nasipak (Ecs05norway) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 10:35 am: Edit

> I wonder if they could be placed on the slopes of the rear hull, one upper strake between the ESG greeble and the orange trapezoid greeble

I've considered placing one here, and one directly forward of it, on the slope forward of the 'turn-in' past the phaser panel. But unless SVC says otherwise, existing art takes precendence.

> I'd be curious to see what kind of alternate hull paneling could be put on the "Aztek" version of the CCX, so as to help further distinguish it from the "Aztek" CC.

This is definitely on my mind, and is one of the things that's going to take up a lot of my time this month.

I might try lengthening the engines a bit but I'll have to check the volume, they're only supposed to be a certain amount larger than the standard nacelles and I don't want to go too far past that.

Also, I see no one's noted the change I made to the ESG greeblies to represent X-ESGs. It's pretty subtle, though, so I guess it's missed notice.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 11:07 am: Edit

In terms of engine volume, I think a good comparison would be with the change shown over in the Klingon DX thread. While the Lyran and Klingon X-ship developments would have run in parallel for the most part, there likely would have been certain lines of communication in place between these two Coalition partners in this regard.

So far as panel lines go, perhaps it could be an option to place a circular panel (or panels) somewhere on the hull, where the feudal emblem could be placed more prominently than on a non-X ship?

By Charles E. Leiserson, Jr. (Locutus) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 11:09 am: Edit

> Also, I see no one's noted the change I made to the ESG greeblies to represent X-ESGs. It's pretty subtle, though, so I guess it's missed notice.

I like it. It looks "snazzed-up," which is what I both expect and want from an X-ship.

By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 11:56 am: Edit

There is no clear guide on engine volume for X-tech. The main guidance is that for empires with visible nacelles, they should be distinctive from the classics and "Uber tech kewl", but still "read" as that empire. There's a balance to it. Both the Lyran and Romulans x-ship engines seem to be on the right path, in my opinion.

The Fed CX engines are actually a little bit smaller than the classic in overall volume, despite being pretty much the same length.

The Klingon DX engines got longer, but not as thick or tall as the classics.

The classic Fed engines are huge, partly because the Feds store a lot of the slush deuterium fuel in the nacelle (some other empires do too, others like the Lyrans, don't).

By Chris Nasipak (Ecs05norway) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 11:59 am: Edit

> So far as panel lines go, perhaps it could be an option to place a circular panel (or panels) somewhere on the hull, where the feudal emblem could be placed more prominently than on a non-X ship?

I considered this when setting up the non-X aztecing, but ran into the roadblock of "there is no established size for it". There is no officialish decal to match sizes with, and those who freehand it may not agree with my decision on the size -- or simply not want to put one there at all.

By Charles Chapel (Ctchapel) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 05:27 pm: Edit

Can you make the strakes look like small versions of the DD forward hull? Keeping the Lyran look but real small.

By Chris Nasipak (Ecs05norway) on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 - 06:26 pm: Edit

> Can you make the strakes look like small versions of the DD forward hull? Keeping the Lyran look but real small.

Hrm... I'm not sure that would work out but it does give me ideas. Let me get back to you on that. Will try to get a new sketch out tonight.