John Jiminez's work

[willieharper]

A place for johns work

[willieharper]

Jiminez's first batch

[willieharper]

the last of Jiminez's stuff... for now

[Rownyn]

This is a huge gunship, a giant :)

[Rownyn]

Got a fighter ship, very small very agile, not sure of race yet but i feel its pretty complete.
Also the Klk'k race, this is a very general idea, kinda went with a less armor feel kinda an assassin type or bounty hunter maybe.
Then i also drew up a basic turret that went with the capital ship so its very large, probably even larger then the scale i drew, so scale is off by a little.

[Rownyn]

this is the first image of my Rlaan capital ship, will be doing the turrets, Giant laser/faser guns, hanger bays, missiles, and thrusters.

[Rownyn]

This is my version of the Rlaan gun turret for the capital ship.

[Rownyn]

got more details on the capital ship, and a fighter ship

[Rownyn]

most of the capital ships as i see them. they are all capital ships except the bomber.

[Rownyn]

here it is :)

[kohldude]

I would refer to that as pretty sweet sir, but where is the meticulous labeling? :P

[Rownyn]

this is a different concept of the taizong for rlaan.

[Rownyn]

revision of taizong and so gun upgrades for any rlaan fighter, i figured i start with that.

[Rownyn]

this is the same reactor on the taizong but i think we could use it for other fighters as well for rlaan, i figured it would be heavily armored and has two shield emitters just for its own protection. the emitter on the very back is a thruster emitter, so i constructed it slightly different.

[Jack Sampson]

this is the same reactor on the taizong but i think we could use it for other fighters as well for rlaan, i figured it would be heavily armored and has two shield emitters just for its own protection. the emitter on the very back is a thruster emitter, so i constructed it slightly different.


Looks good. I like where this is going :)

[Rownyn]

this is all the views i could really think to help with 3D, the bottom is alright not my best but should still help. I didnt shade it because i figured it would be easier to see when using it for 3D ref. but if you want it shaded let me know i will. i didnt include the guns on the wings since i did a side view of them earlier and since they are pieces that swap out, the sensor fin on the bottom can be swapped out as well, so its kinda just one of many ideas i can come up with but gives you an idea how its going to look and feel. i also added some more details that are different than the original, i like the new details more so if it gets confusing let me know i will explain. for example the fins on the back plate were added, and better body overall was more thought out, the big gun was redesigned, because i thought it was real weak looking in the previous versions. i think thats it, i also did the ammo from the front view and kinda came up with the idea of how it might work, not sure if that will stick. and i didnt add the fins in front like previous, because i felt they were drawn out well enough, so dont scrap them just add them on in your mind :).

[BrandonJenkins]

These look rad, John. I'll start modeling the pieces immediately. I should have a few of them posted in the next day or so.

[Rownyn]

here is the color version for piecing it together, dont judge my coloring skills :(

[Rownyn]

So i just did quick sketches for a silhouette purpose of the shizu most are of the side view very simple sketches not really going for detail here just ideas, also some are closer to the description and others are not i did that on purpose so i can try all things and get it out of my system. I don't really have a favorite at this moment but i would really like to hear any likes and dislikes of them what works what doesn't, also any ideas would help :), otherwise ill start to work on a much more detailed version of one of them.

[Rownyn]

this is my first pass on the shizu from the side, and this just a rough drawing still working on the design but i like it so far, any info would help, and ideas much excepted :)

[Dee Bingo]

Looking good John! Has a really strong profile. One thing that I notice though is the front of the ship looks like it has "tusk" like extensions that extrude downwards but I dont seem them in the front view; are they supposed to be tucked behind the single tusk that is visible in the front view? I havent read the boiler plate for the ship which I should probably do. :)

[Rownyn]

this is a redo of the previous idea i like this one even more look for any feed back or ideas, the guns need some major work so ignore their design right now but if you have any better ideas on where they should be placed let me know, to answer Dylan question yea the tusk are actually one right behind the other, so you only see one from front view and its not in the boiler just having fun giving it a fast predator feel. front view was a bitch so be kind to my front view :) lol. yeah so any ideas and remember this is a smaller quick scout/fighter craft so keep that in mind thanks

[Jack Sampson]

The second rendering looks better than the first (better sense of the reactor in proportion to the rest of the craft, making the Shizu eventually look smaller than the other related Rlaan craft due to shared conceptions of reactor sizing)

I'd add some more prominent details for the Electronic warfare and sensor packages - they should be at least as prominent as the weaponry, if not more so (I'd prefer more so :) ) The anti-strike armament is somewhat secondary in this ship's role, and the EW and sensor packages are primary.
Transceivers, optics, inscrutable thingamabobs, projecting spines, etc. A little asymmetry would be perfectly allowable here too, giving a bit of "not enough space for all of the things we wanted to have on this ship" flavor, as well as a possible sense of after-the-fact upgrades (the EW systems being more frequently revised than the ship design).

[Jack Sampson]

Oh, and before I forget - :)

I'm continuing to like your aesthetic directions for the Rlaan ships :)

[kohldude]

It might be a bit more aesthetically pleasing if the reactor housing was more ovoid and less spheroid (think Wasp/Ant gaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaster) or Cuttlefish.. head.. body.. whatever the anatomical term is for the large part of the body).

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/7462/ovoid.th.jpg (http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/7462/ovoid.jpg)

[Rownyn]

thanks for the comments, jack you say electronic weaponry sounds awesome but i don't know what exactly it consist of, can you tell me a little bit of like what it does or point me somewhere on the website where its described. like is it more like i shoot big bolts of lightning or like wave of electronic pulses? i would really like to work on that parts sounds like fun

[kohldude]

Actually I think he's referring to electronic warfare.. In fact it says that on the Shizu's description page in many places. It's 'essentially an armed reconnaissance vehicle.' That means lots of sensors and various antennae for passive/active battlefield surveillance, and electronic warfare.

Breaching enemy computer systems to deliver nasty virus payloads;
countermeasures;
scrambling enemy sensors and their target locks;
adding duplicate sensor contacts to confuse which is the real one;
messing with enemy guidance systems;
sensor jamming;
espionage;
etc..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_counter-countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare_support_measures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare

[Jack Sampson]

Actually I think he's referring to electronic warfare.. In fact it says that on the Shizu's description page in many places. It's 'essentially an armed reconnaissance vehicle.' That means lots of sensors and various antennae for passive/active battlefield surveillance, and electronic warfare.

Breaching enemy computer systems to deliver nasty virus payloads;
countermeasures;
scrambling enemy sensors and their target locks;
adding duplicate sensor contacts to confuse which is the real one;
messing with enemy guidance systems;
sensor jamming;
espionage;
etc..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_counter-countermeasures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare_support_measures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare

All of the above except for the virus part (cyberwarefare yes, viruses, not so much - at least in combat ( What the spooks are doing while "peacefully" parked outside a diplomatic station may get more creative). Erroneous data injection and Denial Of Service/DDOS style attacks to try to disrupt collaborative defenses among groups of ships is a more likely cyber attack vector than viruses (in the *cough* future, programming languages will bounds check string buffers (and yes, I know there are other forms of exploits, but stack exploits are a lot easier to explain than heap exploits so I made a joke about a stack exploit) ).

For what that will look like visually -
Items ranging from parabolic dishes and directional radio towers to glorified laser pointer/spotlight hybrids and possibly even some tiny launchers for reflective balloons and short lived broad-spectrum EM screamers

From a form follows function perspective -
This ship wants to be able to find out as much as it can about the enemy so that it can tell ships capable of doing something nasty to them--> lots of sensors: UV-optical-radio, gravitic, (what does a Rlaan gravitic sensor look like? Whatever your creative mind decides, although some continuity with other gravitic tech could be nice)
This ship wants to deny the enemy access to clean sensor data --> jammers, directed non-lethal energy weaponry (i.e. glorified laser pointers, directional radio, radar, etc.)
This ship wants to disrupt and confuse enemy operations, formations, and collaboration --> decoys, dummy signals, see much of above equipment.
This ship getting targetted by ordinance intended for a capital vessel can be an economic win (even if the Shizu is, as a result, destroyed) --> Spoofing of allied craft

[Rownyn]

awesome thanks chris and jack i really feel now i have a better idea i really appreciate the help thank you x 10 i will work these ideas into design :)

[Rownyn]

Some ideas for the weapons on the shizu.

[Rownyn]

So here is another redo of the shizu its looking better and better, I still have to do a top down and the wings for it, but i think its starting to really take shape now.

[Rownyn]

Here is a wing for the shizu

[Rownyn]

this is the shizu at a 3/4 view and the cannon that you asked for.

[Jack Sampson]

The Shizu is a beauty - one only a Rlaan or an aesthete (although that is perhaps redundant) could truly love, but a beauty nonetheless.

Re: Hephaestus PD turret -
NEAT!

A few quick thoughts:

Love the increasing spacing between coils. Would be great if the coils got a little bit longer (along gun axis) too as they got further down the barrel.

Was thinking that the Hephaestus series could have two sets of coils (maybe make them distinct sets by rotating the flanges 90 degrees/coloration?) to help explain its rapid firing.

See bottom of post for thoughts on ammo size. With respect to ammo shape, I was thinking it'd be more cylindrical (better for storage density, no atmospheric drag to overcome). Not sure spinning round is necessary in space, but probably doesn't hurt anything, so go with it. Barrel shouldn't actually be rifled per se though, as rifling means contact between bullet and barrel, which at these velocities, would strip the barrel quickly (among other heat and maintenance related issues). Spin could be imparted during injection, or reinforced by asymmetries in either the linear accelerator itself or the round, but actual rifling would pose some difficulties.

For military version (to differentiate from civilian/export), we could add in largish tracking sensors/laser range finders/etc. peeking over/around the first set of coils (or behind them - placement up to you). For civilian/export version, keep as is.

Turret itself looks excellent.

Overall barrel length could be a bit longer - maybe 1.5x ? It should look ... a little too long, vaguely precarious compared to in-atmosphere conventional artillery weapons.
In the end, it's less important that it be any particular length than that we achieve some visual distinction in length between shell lobbers like the Makhaira series (see Aaron Reece's http://www.gamestepper.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=39185&d=1267836599 for an intuition on what they'll end up looking like) and kinetic impact weapons. Thus, the shorter they end up being, the shorter this can end up being :).

(the following re: linear accelerator ammo is copied from another thread)

For point of reference on the ammo, the mini-driver and micro-driver weapons shoot much more massive rounds than the Hephaestus coil guns (which are optimized for muzzle velocity and rate of fire, and are also much newer and better made), but an order of magnitude less massive rounds than the warhead based Makhaira, Reaper, Razor, and other weapons. Space based rounds will tend to be optimized for storage and accelerator considerations, and may be flat-faced or only very slightly pointed (given the severe deformations and angle deflections that occur on contact with shields, the impact of geometry on penetration is often ignored for most types of ship-to-ship weaponry - although exceptions, like the Aeran Kopis series of weapons, do exist.).
Don't quite have a complete set of numbers in my head yet, but am thinking of Hephaestus rounds being in the 10mm diameter X 75 mm length range, with the mini-driver rounds being something more like 30mm X 45mm or some such (with much lower muzzle velocity), and then the Makhaira, etc. rounds being, well, artillery shells.


So, I guess, given above, one thought that may arise is "isn't that an awfully big gun for such a little round" - yes. But it's a gun that makes a little round go very, very, fast. Moreover, because the round is very small, it can store a whole lot of them.

[Rownyn]

here is the laser cannon.

[Jack Sampson]

So, as a fighter-scaled laser weapon, this isn't likely to be turreted as mounted on a fighter, but would be conceivably mounted on a turret on a larger vessel. If the turret mount is custom, then it would probably look much more the laser turret on the ABL ( a real-life IR laser) -- but if it was a generic turret and the weapon was just being slotted in, then it could look much like you've depicted it.

How about we think on splitting the above image into two pieces - a generic, standardized turret mount, and the laser weapon itself?

http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/%7Ejsampson/vspics/scribble.png

(scirbble pic with the laser in outlined in green, and the generic turret bits outlined in red, drawn with mouse in GIMP)

To make the turret mount more generic, you could add attachments for an ammo feed (unused in this case, as would be the vents) and/or make the coolant lines go to the turret mounting, and then from the turret mounting to the weapon, rather than directly to the weapon.

As for the laser itself, the only thing that jumps out at me in anything other than a positive way is the size of the final lens/mirror array -- I think it should be bigger. The trend of the gun getting smaller as it goes further down the laser tube has a nice aesthetic, but at the very end, it should get bigger again. Something closer to the blue disk I outlined (or at least as big a diameter as anything that could readily fit in the turret). Bigger emitters give both better range (diffraction angle improves) and the ratio between the emitter size and the spot-on-target size should be maximized in order to do the most damage for the least stress on the firing laser.

[Dee Bingo]

I like the shape you've got going and I like the deliberate use of coolant tubing though I'd experiment with making the tubes bigger, maybe? Overall I really like its profile as a weapon. I need to try some different mounts as well. You have a lot of cool things going on that you can break up modularly since they are good designs. I like how you seen to be establishing a style with this weapon.

[Rownyn]

here is the laser gun upgrade, its still on the turrent because when its on a fighter you can just mount it on the actual craft with out turrent, so i kill to birds with one stone by making it all at once. this one is much more bigger and way bigger in fire power so if the first one is good this is great lol. let me know what you guys think.

[Jack Sampson]

I really like the styling for both of these. There's something really nice and old-school SF laser-cannon-y about the construction that has a certain appeal to it.

Sometime very soon, I'm going to need to spec out some descriptions of standard generic turrets and hardpoint sizes (separate from, but clearly related to, the weapon dimensions themselves) and such for different groups, and then we can think some more about the modularity and compatibility aspects (for instance, a Rlaan turret wouldn't have an internal ammunition feed, so it could only mount energy weapons, or weapons with self-contained ammo feeds).

[Rownyn]

this was how i saw it i kinda took the name literally and made an arc the emits outwards, it would be on the outside of the ship some where safe i would imagine. the electric current is only when its about to fire it builds up i figure kinda like an EMP.

[Jack Sampson]

I like it. It's got an ominous sort of look to it.

[Rownyn]

Here are two images of details of rlaan ships, they are just to give description for anyone else that would have work on them, i will be making more soon.

[Jack Sampson]

Perfect! These are going to make for an excellent style guide!

[Dee Bingo]

Good job man! I like how you magnified the specific parts on your drawing and gave an explanation for what they do as well as what they look like.

[Rownyn]

This is what i got so far for the rlaan style guide, still needs a more pages but here are the first nine enjoy :)

http://rapidshare.com/files/387074019/rlaan_style_01.pdf.html

[Jack Sampson]

What you have so far is very, very good. The only thing that springs particularly to mind as a possible improvement is to use both the Shizu and the Taizong on some pages, where appropriate, just to show how the same feature appears across multiple designs.

At some point we'll want to add in something about coloration of civilian vs. non-civilian vessels for the Rlaan, as it's a big distinction for them (civvies use very pale/washed-out version of color scheme, are always completely unarmed).

Looking further down the line (timewise), once we do a couple of larger vessels, we could have a bit on the distinctions between larger and smaller Rlaan craft.

[Rownyn]

Yup i agree jack, i am planning to use the tai zong and i have wings to talk about and fighter guns to talk about, i will add these things next. so far i have used just what i have come up with so far, i will move on to cap ships when assigned i suppose or sooner same with civilian stuff, ive only done military so far so soon hopefully if thats what is planned

[Rownyn]

here are a few more pages featuring the tai zong.

[kohldude]

Those are looking great. Needs more front shots though.

[Rownyn]

this is the shield and gun emitters, next ill do the thruster and a gun for rlaan with a few upgrades next.

[kohldude]

Looks pretty good.

[Rownyn]

Here are the last of the emitters being the thrust emitters, and just to clear things up I built the emitters with bases that can be used when not used on an actual ship, so if you remove the base, whats left is what will be on the ships themselves. I also finished up the Dezong, redo of the side view, and added the front and bottom view...enjoy!!

[Rownyn]

Here is a gun turret made with Rlaan tech. but probably not used by themselves. It also has four upgradable slots.

[kohldude]

More labels!

[Rownyn]

so far so good

[Rownyn]

Alright here is what i have so far, right now it stands at 5614 tris, i havent unwrapped everything yet but soon will be.

[alanlei]

cool. the side view has a nice silhouette.

im going to upload a screenshot of the taizong. tell me if it matches the concept and if theres any problems..