Something big

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evillejedi
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Re: Something big

Post by evillejedi »

Alternative reference on the engines, I never liked the split circle, which I think was halfway between the old box engines from the XVT games and what you have. the transitions between different parts of this ship are difficult and jarring

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this should display larger
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0426154038

http://warlords.swrebellion.com/junk/lancerengines.png
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

I doubt the engines will remain strictly the split circle. The shape transitions of the original were pretty jarring, one reason I went with a more polygonal aspect, rounding out only as it gets to the engines. I think it works pretty well so far.
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Re: Something big

Post by Lord Revan »

Some of those taller weapon towers seems to scream "shoot me off the hull", maybe make the "tower" portion wider like in that pic so that it doesn't seem such an obvious weak spot.
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

Lord Revan wrote: 2018-12-02 04:07pm Some of those taller weapon towers seems to scream "shoot me off the hull", maybe make the "tower" portion wider like in that pic so that it doesn't seem such an obvious weak spot.
No, shields are a thing, and I think they're supposed to be flak towers and show up in every version. Given the fairly inefficient shape of the hull for focusing fire, increasing arcs for the guns is a good thing I think.
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Re: Something big

Post by Marko Dash »

IIRC wasn't the negative part of the lancer that it WAS overspecialized for anti-starfighter. it was floating death for blastboats or smaller, but not much good against anything near it's own size.

that and it had really expensive sensors and targeting computers for it's weight class, and specialized fast and precise turret drives.
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Re: Something big

Post by Lord Revan »

Marko Dash wrote: 2018-12-03 05:37am IIRC wasn't the negative part of the lancer that it WAS overspecialized for anti-starfighter. it was floating death for blastboats or smaller, but not much good against anything near it's own size.

that and it had really expensive sensors and targeting computers for it's weight class, and specialized fast and precise turret drives.
more or less from what I've read. The Lancer and the Escort carrier designs (there was 2 of them) were pretty much the only capital ships with little to no anti-captital ship firepower to point that in ship to ship fighting the Lancer is typically only match to the CR-90 Corvette, but had anti-starfighter to match ships much bigger then it was.

It's clearly a ship meant to be used in fleets or convoys to provide additional anti-starfighter firepower, not as an independent operation.
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Re: Something big

Post by Captain Seafort »

Lord Revan wrote: 2018-12-03 08:10amin ship to ship fighting the Lancer is typically only match to the CR-90 Corvette, but had anti-starfighter to match ships much bigger then it was.
It wasn't even that good - ISTR that in Rogue Squadron it was confidently predicted that a single CR-90 would have been able to drive off a Lancer, if it hadn't had a Carrack in support.
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Re: Something big

Post by STONEhenl »

Fractal, how do you think a Lancer and a CR90 realistically compare with eachother? I think the CR90 is too much skeletal with too large sublight-drives to stand a chance against a Lancer. Maybe the Lancer have some tubes or fighters added in your representation of it.
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

I think that a ship that's actually designed to be balanced on the Lancer frame would far overmatch a CR90. The corvette just doesn't have the volume for a big reactor while even something as proportionately skinny as a Lancer at 250m can plausibly carry a much larger one.

Say maybe the original Lancers used largely civilian COTS stuff for propulsion to reduce cost and get the platform produced quickly, but had heavy military components like armor so it wasn’t balanced well. Replace that stuff with military grade energy density, then do the LTL armament upgrade, and this would also mitigate any acceleration issues (and gives me an opportunity to redesign the engine look), coupled with some trimmed volume (I made this thinner than most depictions, and more cutaway about the cheeks, but those are aesthetic as much as in-universe weight saving…).
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Re: Something big

Post by Esquire »

My head-canon for the Lancer is that it was designed towards the end of the Clone Wars as basically a detached point-defense battery, designed to do nothing except make a relatively small volume of space a very unpleasant place to be for enemy fighters. Therefore, cheap components, monomaniacal focus on antifighter weapons, and no alpha arc because the goal isn't to fight things which need the ship's maximum reactor power to kill, it's to maximize the angles covered by at least 2 laser cannon to allow for coordinated fire against radically-maneuvering fighters and bombers.

This works might work decently well in the sort of pitched battle we see in e.g. ROTS, but is of very situational utility in anything less intense, which explains why they perform so unimpressively in most of their Legends appearances. Thoughts?
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Re: Something big

Post by Patroklos »

If you look at the design of the primary Imperial warships, specifically the arcs of their weapons, murder wedges have a very big blind spot aft. I figured these would be parked behind primary warships, where they are likely shielded from enemy capital ship fire, to remove any weak spot in a formations anti-fighter cover. Alternatively, they can be parked inside a formation next to the HVU to intercept any enemy that penetrates the capital ship/fighter screen.

Its also worth pointing out that for canon engagements, the vast majority of them involve the Rebel/NR side having nothing but star fighters and/or light modified freighters. There are plenty of situations where a Lancer is all you need, and where you can reasonable assume no enemy capital ships will be present. The Imperials already operate convoys with nothing other than Escort Carriers in attendance, so obviously they have accepted the risk that every once and awhile they will end up with a Rebel capital ship on their hands without their own to counter but rather just defensive star fighters. A Lancer wouldn't change the calculus there, but the 9 times out of 10 just X-wings show up...

On a separate note, its not canon but in the games one of the primary uses of anti-fighter weapons was point defense against incoming warheads. I don't know of too many cannon instances of this being the case, but for the purposes here that could be a design factor.
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Re: Something big

Post by Crazedwraith »

Esquire wrote: 2018-12-04 01:25am My head-canon for the Lancer is that it was designed towards the end of the Clone Wars as basically a detached point-defense battery, designed to do nothing except make a relatively small volume of space a very unpleasant place to be for enemy fighters. Therefore, cheap components, monomaniacal focus on antifighter weapons, and no alpha arc because the goal isn't to fight things which need the ship's maximum reactor power to kill, it's to maximize the angles covered by at least 2 laser cannon to allow for coordinated fire against radically-maneuvering fighters and bombers.

This works might work decently well in the sort of pitched battle we see in e.g. ROTS, but is of very situational utility in anything less intense, which explains why they perform so unimpressively in most of their Legends appearances. Thoughts?
Well the canonical legends was that they were developed post-Yavin as an over reaction to star fighters taking out the Death Star and were largely pointless.

I always thought if you took the 20 ion cannon off of a Carrack and replaced them with a lancer's guns. You'd have a much more effective platform since Carracks are fast and Lancers are slow. (Though turret placement may be a concern)
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Re: Something big

Post by evillejedi »

Point defense for warheads does fit with it being a clone wars design as well as it seems more CW ships may have had projectile/missile armament, not only chewing through hordes of unshielded droid fighters, but also acting as an interception screen for any warheads those fighters or any capital ships may launch even at point blank range. (think Phalanx systems) One plausible option is KDY dusting off the design that was proposed for the end of the clone wars, right after the DSI destruction and rushing an outdated design into production with little modification using low grade and quick to procure components. Imagine the KDY board saying to imperial procurement "Hey, look we can build Millions of these and solve your star fighter problem in 6 weeks or less!!! please sign here!" <insert a short story about dubious back room deals, idiotic and contradictory orders and approvals from superiors and generally malicious compliance from a mid-level imperial procurement officers perspective>


One of the interesting considerations is exactly how precise are the fast tracking turrets compared to other weapons and do they have any other benefit? Their lower output probably goes against many prior warship design criteria as they would not be multi role and therefore on a ship with limited emplacements, standard LTL or lasers would be a better option. If they are highly precise, and have very little kick back on their travel due to the lower mass being moved, then it can be assumed that the angular resolution at slower speeds is probably incredible compared to most weaponry when coupled with the targeting and sensor suites. Depending on the stability of the energy it fires it could be quite deadly at long range to lightly or unshielded targets as from many angles the lancer can have 24 to 36 laser barrels focus across one or many targets. Potentially killing fighters as they drop out of hyperspace before they can maneuver or as ships are launching from bays and have to follow fixed trajectories. If they are essentially an energy based Aegis system with close in PDWS tracking (ignore the part of the comparison with anti ship capabilities) then they may have another "weapon", making the adversary think twice about launching fighters at all. I think all of the poor canon appearances were against plot armor aggressors so it would be interesting how a lancer would fare against non-plot armor rebels, pirates or commerce raiders by deterring attacks all together.
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Re: Something big

Post by Patroklos »

Another benefit to having a craft with so many quick acting barrels is you can predicatively guarantee hits. Given a well understood medium (in this case vacuum, so yeah) and an intimate knowledge of a targets performance envelopes (I think this is usually the case in SW), you should be able to predict all the possible positions a target could be in given a period of time. Or at least a probable volume the target might occupy. You fill that volume with bolts strategically, taking into account the volume of the target inside the likely location volume, and you guarantee yourself a hit.

We can do this now in naval combat. Given the sea state and the performance of the target, there are only so many place it can be between a firing a salvo and target area impact. You shoot a round at all of those using STOT calculations. This a bit easier with explosive ordnance because you don't need a "skin to skin" hit like turbo lasers. I know we have seen flack-like turbolasers before, but they are the exception. You can also achieve STOT with a single barrel in a terrestrial gravity situation using ballistics, in direct fire energy weapon space examples you need all the separate barrels.
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

Patroklos wrote: 2018-12-05 06:18am Another benefit to having a craft with so many quick acting barrels is you can predicatively guarantee hits. Given a well understood medium (in this case vacuum, so yeah) and an intimate knowledge of a targets performance envelopes (I think this is usually the case in SW), you should be able to predict all the possible positions a target could be in given a period of time. Or at least a probable volume the target might occupy. You fill that volume with bolts strategically, taking into account the volume of the target inside the likely location volume, and you guarantee yourself a hit.

We can do this now in naval combat. Given the sea state and the performance of the target, there are only so many place it can be between a firing a salvo and target area impact. You shoot a round at all of those using STOT calculations. This a bit easier with explosive ordnance because you don't need a "skin to skin" hit like turbo lasers. I know we have seen flack-like turbolasers before, but they are the exception. You can also achieve STOT with a single barrel in a terrestrial gravity situation using ballistics, in direct fire energy weapon space examples you need all the separate barrels.
This largely forms the basis of my Lanchester-like calculations for large vs small capital ships. Individual turret hit rates may suck but when there are a thousand turrets firing, even a 5% hit rate is fatal when it's a 200 power ISD ship vs an ISD.
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Re: Something big

Post by Crossroads Inc. »

I like the look of it!
Well, If I cannot get a Carrack, the Lancer is another one I have always loved :3
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Re: Something big

Post by Patroklos »

fractalsponge1 wrote: 2018-12-07 10:00pm Lancer updates:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ybDZxR
What’s the justification for the double bridge? In the real world they exist for flag ships so the Admiral has his own space to command and observe from or they are on carriers to have a separate space to direct flight operations with a view of the deck. Neither fits on a ship of this size and role.

What would fit, since star wars justifies eyeball battlefield observation in battle with a hand wave, are small observation posts (maybe elevated like the weapons) dorsal/central with 360 views as fire direction points.

Also those cheek indents look out of place now. You have essentially drastically reduced internal volume while requiring the same armored surface area that would be required if they were popped out. I would come up with some sort of component that lives there they benefits from the shelter provided.
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

Both of those are largely aesthetic decisions.

The double bridge is in every depiction of the ship and I like it, so there's that. In universe reasons? Maybe fighter coordination center? There's no reason it would require windows per se, but par for the course for SW command spaces there.

I offer no major engineering justification for the indents, except a general move in the design towards mass reduction from the original look. I think it's questionable for a ship of this size how much "armor" there really is, but I agree that reduction of volume and increase in protected surface area is in general dumb move. That said, that volume was never going to be power generation anyway, and there's a need to increase acceleration from the original (assuming this is a refit or a variant, and you know, doesn't just supplant the old look :) )
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Re: Something big

Post by Lord Revan »

The Lancer seems to be designed to be mobile "AA-battery" for convoys rather then an independent patrol craft so the second bridge could be "convoy cordination" bridge/room.

It's not meant to duel Starships of its size 1 on 1 (or at all) but rather deal with fighters when Star destroyers or other ships with sizeble fighterwing of their own aren't avaible.

At least that's only way the design as depicted makes sense to me.
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Re: Something big

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Perhaps those indents/cutouts could be mounting points for forward sensor arrays? It would make sense for an AA ship to have powerful sensors, like AEGIS ships do in real life.
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Re: Something big

Post by Patroklos »

They could also be filled in with some sort of anti fighter missile battery. Not canon, but liberties have been taken with other ships regarding missiles such as the victory.

I like the model btw, I sometimes forget to say that and jump right into suggestions :)
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

For anyone interested, I've been doing a little back of envelope surface unit OOB design for scaling purposes:
http://fractalsponge.net/?p=3952

Everything subject to change and discussion. Note caveats about not-yet-designed vehicles and full logistical tail.
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Re: Something big

Post by PhoenixKnig »

*Reads FS's OOB are you planning your own version of the AT-ACT sometime in the near future?
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Re: Something big

Post by fractalsponge1 »

A long term goal is to model every one of those vehicles, then render the entire OOB in parade ground layout with individual vehicles in all its Zapad-1981 glory.
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