Traveller: The Lugh – Air Ducts
Anyone who knows me well enough, knows I have a favourite movie… and it’s got some poor beggar scrabbling about in the air ducts..
Building The Clarke Part 2
Drag the nose section to the silhouette, ensuring it is in the correct place. PLEASE NOTE: Normally I would draw the model in one half. But for now I am not.
Next hit CTRL then Push/Pull inline with the silhouette. Sometimes I’ll put some sort of guide in so I know where to stop.
Hitting CTRL when you push/pull ensures there a new line on the model, you don’t have to do this.
Next use the scale tool and hold CTRL so it is uniform.
You could add some height, but this will do for the Clarke.
Next do it again, CTRL Pull/Push then CTRL Scale. You will notice you can pretty much use the silhouette as a guide.
Don’t worry about those horrible lines, they will be got rid off soon enough.
I’m doing the wings seperate so no need to think about them.
Fill out mose of the body, the rear engine section can wait too.
Moving along, you can get rid of those line, some you could keep, manually you can smooth those lines with the rubber sorry ‘eraser’ tool holding CTRL.
Or select the whole model, right click and soften/smooth edges, the slider will increase or decrease the smoothing.
Building The Clarke Part 1
I’ve been asked, how to make a 3D model from a plan. One way I do it is to create a cross section, them push/pull and scale. The method below I am starting with a ‘lathed’ section of the nose.
As you may know I build my maps in Sketchup then tweak them in AI. Below is the map of the Clarke and a silhouette of the deck. I use the silhouette to help build the model.
Don’t really need the guides (those are 1.5m squares) so hide them for now.
Next, I figure the nose is a good section to start with, so I want to ‘lathe’ it from the white silhouette. Then from that I can scale and loft it. I’ve chopped of the nose section then draw a circle in front of it and 90 degress to it, this is the path of the lathing. Use the follow me tool to do it. Also to get the circle in the correct place, draw a line from the centre of the nose section out and them put the circle there. It is worth changing the segments of the circle to 40 so it is smooth. Right click the circle edge, select entitiy info, change segments to something like say 44 or 30.
Make sure you keep a cope of where that part of the nose section came from, as you will go back and use it as your ‘guide’
Deck Plan: WIP The Maw
2000ton Junker/Salvager. The 2 white sections are the side and top diagrams. Each deck is 90 degree to the big ‘dry dock’ area forward. Bidge sit on the ‘top’ of the hull. The Cutter sits underneath. Not fittings on this plan, I add them in later in AI.
Any resemblance to a certain Jupiter Mining Corp ship is coincidence….
HMS Black Swan WIP Part 3 – Make Room! Make Room!
Thought I make this part about making staterooms, that way I cover a few techniques I use when making my deckplans. The basic Traveller stateroom is a 2×3 rectangle, each stateroom is 4 tons or 8 squares, the missing 1 ton (2 squares) is used for things like common rooms etc. You could make the rooms any size or shape, even combining rooms to make larger staterooms, just for this I’ll stick to the usual 2×3 one.
As I’ve said the walls are 1.0m thick, I use the offset tool and tap in 1 into the box in the lower right to get the correct size, or you can add a new guideline with the tape measure tool. As you can see I’ve shown that I draw the walls over or within the grid. Bit tricky to explain, but I usually use the one on the far right and erase the parts of the wall that will over lap with ajoining rooms. Of course they maybe no room and just a corridor. Ultimately you have to look at where the rooms are in the ship, so you know which wall to make smaller ie make some wall 1.0m and some 0.05 (so when the ajoining room is next to it it makes a 1.0m wall) I hope that makes some sense… just do it and see what I mean!
This this part shows the first version of the stateroom, if you put the room next to another rooms is makes a 2.0 m thich wall, not saying you don’t have to do that. Where I have cut the door, is just my choice here, It can be any where, in fact if you angle one corner you can put a door too.
I usually use this style, I thin the walls where I think they need to be thin (avoiding the 2.0 thick wall) The Bunk and chair are objects I have drawn and grouped (right click > add group) so I can move them around or whatever. Don’t feel restricted by drawing straight lines, use the arc tool to create things like loungers, sofas or curved desks.(Making those chairs and bunks – components is a good idea)
Finally right click and create group. You can create a component out of this stateroom and name it as such, this means that if you copy that component, any change to it will effect all copies of it, very handy. I’ve usually gone for the group option. Just my preference… You can tell any copy to be unique though (this is the bit of Sketchup I should really use more often)
Heres the fun part, with the move tool (4 arrows in a cross) selected, clicked control so a + appears on the pointer/move tool then move the stateroom, you can snap it to an axis with the shift key or not. Usually I click the point where the grid lines intersect so the copy will be in the correct place. Copy to your delight, as you see above I have creates a second line of rooms (grab and select then move) you then flip them on the direction they have gone (ie green) to create a corridor ! (another feature you get if you right click the selection)
Hey presto! More rooms that you could possibly shake a stick at! I hope this makes sense…well I’m off for a nice bowl of soylent green….
HMS Black Swan WIP Part 3 – Zen and the Art of Starship Construction
Thought I’d mention some things that I do with my plans, but these are just my choices and not necessarily what you should do. As far as I am concerned, do anything as long as it looks ok and fits..
Walls: Internal and external bulkheads, I draw the internal bulkheads at 0.1m and the external ones at 0.2m, though for some internals I build them thicker at 0.2m. Thick armour and armoured bulkheads you can build thicker too. Admittedly most plans don’t see to show armour, I do sometimes and it makes good filler. I’ve started making my outer sections thicker so I don’t spend ages trying to fit the inner bits to the shape of the hull.
Components not in the plans: I think it was the old High Guard book that had a great list of things a deck plan should have but not necessarily listed in the tonnage, its assumed that these things come from the tonnage taken by the staterooms. I’d add to this the bridge too makes up these extra rooms and things. For example: common rooms, pantry, storages, EVA rooms, brigs, med bays etc. If the plans do note these, then even better ! I’ve assume that a med bay taken from stateroom tonnage is basic, where as one that is listed in the plans is more superior… Of course you can build rooms from the engine tonnage too, like workshops. All looks good and adds a nice touch. I assume the avionic section and office/wardroom come from the bridge tonnage too. One ship I built had a seperate CIC (Command Information Centre) too.
What the Hell does it look like?: Easy enough to work out from the hull type. Look around for inspiration and don’t be afraid of borrowing, ultimately it may not even look like what you saw.. Heck the Swan might end up looking like an Imperial Star Destroyer. I was taught to sketch things out first, I usually don’t, I should really, it’ll saves time, I just tend to do a very rough thumbnail scribble, just to get an idea of the hull shape. (Usually I picture the ship in my head, and it works fine!!)
Bare in mind I’m thinking how it’ll look in 3D too. Not everyone will do this so, it’s worth a rough sketch of the hull, showing roughly where what goes.. I have used graph paper in the past too, especially if the ship is an awkward design.
The Swan, well as noted she’s a wedge with a bridge tower section. I think, I’ll fit the CIC, Bridge, Fire Con, Captain’s office in there and stick that single torpedo barbette there too – centre line mounted facing front. Engineering aft, under the bridge tower, living space forward of that and fill the rest with all the other gubbins. As for the rest of this ship’s firepower, 3 bay weapons top of the hull in a V shape, rest of the turrets scatter around the hull. This is where a little thumbnail sketch is in order.. (I’ve a scanner – just not oodles of time at the mo’)
Next up a word about rooms and groups and components…
HMS Black Swan WIP Part 2 – Setup
I usually start sketchup up and use any template thats in metres. Its personnal choice, just I find metres easy as the Traveller map scale is metres. In theory I could export the image as eps on a 1:1 Scale…. scary (eps export is in the pro version) I always use the ‘large tool set’ too.
Turn off perspective and set the camera view to ‘top’.
To start off I draw a 1.5 metre square grid:
The tape measure tool draws the ‘guide line’ grid. Drag the 1st line from the x or y axis, type 1.5 in the box, then drag from the line you just drew. SU will do something clever, the next guide you create will ‘snap’ to 1.5m (hard to explain I’m afraid – but it does mean you are not contantly type 1.5 in the box). You do not have to draw masses of lines. Draw some x-y to make the grid then select all and hit the move tool and press ctrl to copy.. makes more sense when you do it and you can moves this copy so it align perfectly. You may end up with a guide line over a guide line, this sort of looks less like a guideline, you can delete and redo it or leave it.
Then copy all, create group (right click) and lock the selection if you need too. (right click too)
I usually then add a layer, so the grid line is on a seperate layer to the drawing.
HMS Black Swan WIP Part 1a – Intro
You maybe wondering what this WIP (Work in Progress) is. Someone on the MGT forum gave me an idea to show how I make my plans. Well this will be a rough guide, as in rough as a badgers… well you get the idea. I’ll do my best and try not to give too much away.
This assumes you have sketchup and some sort of image edit program, Gimp is ok and free Sketchup should be sufficient. Of course any other program could be used, like inkscape. Just I don’t know them, sorry.To be honest I don’t know Gimp that well and I use PS.., there all pretty much the same..
I usually start with an idea of what the hull looks like, in this case the ‘client’ has suggested a needle/wedge ala the classic sort of vessel (Imperial Star Destroyers, The Kinunir, HMSS Cheeseblock etc) Makes my job easier and the fact he’s given me the specs. I do the lots, specs, blurb, deckplan and a 3D model too, so any help is good. Mind you if I do the specs I find sometime as I do the drawing, I can tweaking things if need be.
Well more as soon as the Dry Dock is empty, got a rush job on….
HMS Black Swan WIP Part 1 – Specs
Well here is part one.
These are the specs supplied to me. On the far right is the number of squares each section uses. This follows the standard 1 ton=2 squares rule. (Each square of floor space is 1.5m wide – One ton = 14 cubic metres: the volume of one ton of liquid hydrogen. Two 1.5 metre squares from deck to ceiling, occupy approximately 1 ton)
Though I will break that rule, as I always assume some sections or taller or thinner than the 2.3m (3m with wiring etc) deck height. This is especially true of cargo sections.
In the’ MTU’ this ship is in, it has dual layer armour and does not apply the 1 ton for fire control for each bay.
| HMS Black Swan 1000t Sloop | Tons | Price (Mcr.) | S | |||
| Hull | 1000 Tons | Hull 22 | 100.00 | |||
| Structure 22 | ||||||
| Streamlined | 10.00 | |||||
| Reinforced Structure (2 pts) | 50 | 10.00 | 100 | |||
| Armour | Titanium Steel | 6 points | 150 | 15.00 | 300 | |
| Crystaliron | 4 points | 50 | 20.00 | 100 | ||
| Jump Drive L | Jump 3 | 60 | 110.00 | 120 | ||
| Manoeuvre Drive L | Thrust 3 | 21 | 44.00 | 42 | ||
| Power Plant L | Rating 3 | 34 | 88.00 | 68 | ||
| Bridge | Standard | 20 | 5.00 | 40 | ||
| Computer | Model /5 | Rating 25 | 10.00 | |||
| Electronics | Advanced | DM+1 | 3 | 2.00 | 6 | |
| Counter Measures Suite | 7 | 6.00 | 14 | |||
| Weapons | Hardpoint #1 | Particle Beam Bay | 50 | 20.00 | 100 | |
| Hardpoint #2 | Fusion Gun Bay | 50 | 8.00 | 100 | ||
| Hardpoint #3 | Fusion Gun Bay | 50 | 8.00 | 100 | ||
| Hardpoint #4 | Torpedo Barbette | 5 | 3.00 | 10 | ||
| Hardpoint #5 | Triple Turret (Sandcaster x3) | 1 | 1.75 | 2 | ||
| Hardpoint #6 | Triple Turret (Sandcaster x3) | 1 | 1.75 | 2 | ||
| Hardpoint #7 | Double Turret (Beam Laser x2) | 1 | 2.50 | 2 | ||
| Hardpoint #8 | Double Turret (Beam Laser x2) | 1 | 2.50 | 2 | ||
| Hardpoint #9 | Double Turret (Pulse Laser x2) | 1 | 2.00 | 2 | ||
| Hardpoint #10 | Double Turret (Pulse Laser x2) | 1 | 2.00 | 2 | ||
| Ammunition | Nuclear Torpedoes | x4 | 10 | 20 | ||
| Sandcaster Barrels | x80 | 4 | 8 | |||
| Fuel | 344 Tons | One Jump-3 and 4 Weeks of Operation | 344 | 688 | ||
| Cargo | 0 Tons | |||||
| 13 Staterooms | 52 | 104 | ||||
| Extras | Fuel Scoops | Integral | ||||
| Fuel Processors | x8 (160 Tons / Day) | 8 | 0.40 | 16 | ||
| Ship’s Locker | ||||||
| Armoury | 2 | 0.50 | 4 | |||
| Armoured Bulkheads | (M-Drive,Particle beam bay, Fusion bays, Power plant & Bridge) | 22.8 | 4.56 | 45.6 | ||
| Software | Manoeuvre/0 | Rating 0 | ||||
| Jump Control/3 | Rating 15 | 0.30 | ||||
| Fire Control/3 | Rating 15 | 6.00 | ||||
| Library/0 | ||||||
| Maintenance Cost (monthly) | 0.040 | |||||
| Life Support Cost (monthly) | 0.026 | |||||
| Total Tonnage & Cost | 998.8 | 483.26 |
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