(Structure) ORCS-3

(WARNING: The model contains exactly 24,100 bricks, and may be too much for some computers to handle)
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9jp5ibu8i8bbps6/ORCS-3.lxf

The Orbital Repair/Construction Station, commonly referred to by its crews as an Orc, is the standard orbital construction and repair facility used by the Yaka Empire. More akin to a small city than a simple factory, an ORCS's workers live on the station, with all provisions provided. Raw materials are delivered to the station via cargo ship, where they are offloaded into the station's six refineries (three on both sides). A hanger allows for small construction ships and for these cargo ships to dock and refuel before returning to their duties. Materials are then transported to the station's main construction area: the middle section. This construction skeleton can expand or contract, depending on the size/class of ship being built, allowing for the ORCS to server as a "one-size-fits-all" type of station. Inside this construction skeleton, multiple crane-welder hybrids are used to move large pieces of hull plating and attach them to ships, or simply repair cracks in the armor. Other cranes equipped with massive painting tools apply primer, paint, and a final clear-coat to protect and color the outer hull plates. A third type of crane equipped with a pump pumps various chemicals into the ship as it is being constructed. The station is almost completely self-sustaining. Water recycling systems allow water to be reused indefinitely. The station's hydroponics bay allows food to be grown for the entire crew. Powering the station are four of the largest fusion reactors in the Yaka Empire, "Giga" Fusion Reactors. Building starships requires immense amounts of power, and these reactors satisfy that need.

Crew: 5350

Length: 2320m

Powerplant: 16x "Giga" Fusion Reactors

Spoiler:

I've wanted to make one that big for a long time now. But I've never had the computer power.

Jealousy and "I thought of it first" aside. It's pretty sweet. Nice to see a large one, and the rings forming the reactors are really cool too. My only suggestion is to make it two or three times as long and add some other various modules, but I do like it's modular type looking construction. Very nice. Great pictures too!

Sweet man.... That is one serious construction and repair facility! I LOVE the techniques you used on this thing!!!! Those reactors look simply stunning! And that repair bay is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE! Those welding arms look GREAT, and the photo editing is fantastic! I simply LOVE the second picture! The amount of detail in that part of the build is AMAZING!!! The various pipes, exhaust ports, power conduits, vents, cables, and those BEUATIFUL curved reactors... GREAT job! I also greatly enjoy the last pic as we get to see the station doing what it was to go above and beyond doing: affixing sheets of armor plating to a warship with extreme heat welding systems.


I have a few suggestions to make this monster producer of starships even better at what it already does en mass.

1) It needs more living space. It's got PLENTY of engineering and construction cubic (kilo)meters, but it needs more room for her crew to live in. She could still use more crew living area/rest and medical facility for starship crews whose vessels are too badly damaged to live in during repairs. After all, 15,350 people live on this station, and that's not counting the ship's crews who may need to stay there short term while they get life support back.  
2) It needs more cargo holding capacity. She'll need to supply the ships she repairs or builds with hundreds of millions of tons of raw metal, not to mention more technological items such as reactors, weapon systems, computer cores, fuel systems, shields, stardrive, and the other organs and blood vessels of any ship. 
2.5) I'm not sure if Yaka uses replicators, but IF you do, this station could use some seriously huge and plentiful ones. This wouldn't entirely solve material needs for her vessels, but it would help with sheet metal, hull armor, spare bulkheads and the like.
3) Hangers: a serious starbase needs serious hangers. To house workbees (or whatever better name Yaka came up with for little ships used in the construction and repair of ships) shuttles, defensive fighters, and even docking systems to unload cargo from freighters brining in fresh supplies.
4) Additional smaller cranes, tractor beams, painting systems, welding machines, robotic arms, and other assorted ship building implements. Although the giant things you already have on there are great for the largest jobs, and workbees can handle the little stuff, there is still a gap between the two. (And to be fair... Trek didn't appear to do as well as you have already done on this one, I could be wrong though as I have not studied Trek repair stations very much)  
5) More pretty lights/windows on the inside of the work station. There is actually a good reason for this one: better lit working area = easier repairs. The other reason is I like pretty lights, and they double as viewing portals to see the work in progress from the inside.
6) If you're computer can handle this: double the length of the main repair bay and add on a couple of smaller bays (frigate sized ones) you've got a LOT of crew and an INSANE amount of reactor power on this station, much more than would be needed to build one ship I think, especially with the amount of automation that would be available several hundred years into the future. (however... given that it's already close to 14,000 pieces.... maybe it'd be better to just cut down on the number of crew, add a frigate repair bay or maybe two, or possibly cut the number of reactors by half... which I hate to advise, because the current setup looks so awesome... but I just can't imagine it would need 16 reactors each as large as a small frigate)   
7) More of those GLORIOUS burgundy markings that Yaka is so famous for, and yellow warning markings would be good too. Mainly on the outside of the primary repair bay, but also on the reactors too would look great!    
8. Again, if your computer can do it, add more detail to the outside of the repair bay (especially the top) and possibly the reactors. Tiles are good, as are general technological looking things that serve as power conduits, plasma lines for the welding arms, and the like.  
9) put the main work arms on sliding rails, if you can make it work in LDD.

Again, GREAT work! I don't believe I have seen ANYONE build ANYTHING ANYWHERE near the sheer size and power of this repair and construction station. My suggestions aren't to cut it down, rather they're to help make this giant even more fantastic than it already is. Once again, EXCELLENT work Kojan! I'm most impressed!  (which.... you always do to me with every new creation you post..  )

@AA- Thanks! I was really considering making the station twice as big (the construction part, I mean), but I just got really lazy and said that it can stretch out. :PHowever, I might actually take the time to modify this now.

@Dino- Quiet the informative post, and thank you so much! I hadn't even considered industrial lights on the inside, like you mentioned, and I think that they would be an amazing addition. Oh, and the crew of 15350? I think that must have been a typo, because I was originally thinking 5,350, as so much would be automated. :PIn any case, thank you for all of the improvement ideas! I'll begin implementing them right now!

Also, you don't have to worry about my computer's processing capabilities. With 18GB of RAM, I can usually get to about 50,000 pieces. It's LDD that gives up before my computer does.

Yes... I spent way too much time on that... but you've got such an awesome starbase frame/(above)basics here already, it deserved a
well thought out reply. Yes, 5,350 makes a LOT more sense... it'd be pretty cramped with that many.  I'd still add more housing for workers and for temporary ships crews, but it's nowhere near as big a problem as it was fifteen minutes ago.  

(I'm jealous, I only have 2 GB of RAM on my desktop, but am getting a laptop with 8 GB (but unknown graphics card to LDD compatibility *LDD can be finicky for me* (though it does have slightly older dedicated graphics)) and I intend to double my desktop's RAM in the near future... yeah... still not getting to 50,000 pieces, my computer sputters and shutters and refuses to do any more at around the 23,000 piece mark, and is EXTREMELY hard to work with at 9-10 thousand. How did you even GET 18 GBs? Not that I know much about computers , but isn't increments of 4 or 8 GB at that amount of RAM fairly typical? (just displayed total lack of computer knowledge  ) Ah, but wait, you do game design which involves video editing type work right? So you NEED that kind of power for your education. Okay, I feel better now.  )

My jealousy...is very great. The detail...the size...the computer you must have to have made that!

But, this wouldn't happen to be the one you compared mine to, would it?

@dino: And I have a whole .25GM of RAM, with no hopes of getting a better one any time soon. No complaining! I'm barely able to modifiy your Indomitable to make my Indomitable Blade, it takes about 45 seconds just to delete a single peice!

^^^ Oh dear! I'm going to PM you an article on how to use a USB flash drive (has to be empty) as extra RAM...

The model has been updated. See the pictures for the details!

@Dino: 8GB of RAM is plenty, and you don't have to worry much about graphics cards: LDD will pretty much run on anything. As for my RAM cards, I have four, which are non-typical, but I'm not sure what exact increments they are. Also, I think you're thinking of Pik on LZP that needs tons of RAM for video game production. I use it for video rendering, which I do a lot.

@Jace: Thank you so much for the compliment! :DAs for comparison, I actually based it more off of the frigate factories used in the RTS "Sins of a Solar Empire".

Spoiler:

However, I think that skeletal starship construction bays are fairly typical in sci-fi.

@AA: If the USB converted into RAM processors-thing doesn't work out for you, I have two extra 256 MB RAM cards, which I don't use, that I could mail to you.

*falls over backwards, jaw touching ceiling.* Uh... uh.... wa.... I.... aw... wah..... *whistles* WOW that is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE!!!!!!!!!!! That is one awesome piece of work Kojan! You have blown me away! It's.... it's spectacular, amazing, wonderful, 10 stars, eye popping huge, massive, and just plain beyond cool. GREAT work!!!! She's a monster... niiiiiiiiiice.... now I want to see what massive ships could come out of that construction bay...  

You've got a serious gift for building mechanical looking things... WELL done!

I was going to make a microscale space construction facility, then I saw this and went: why bother.
Impressive work, though I have to say that I believe many of us are marveling at the size, not the quality of the work. But its not like construction facilities can really have much "interest". If you know what I mean.

That is incredibly huge...

My computer would probably explode if I tried to download it!

Excellent job!

 Oh. My. Goodness.
I have the greatest respect for you having the ability to design such a gigantic model patience to actually build it! I have to try my hand at a structure like this now, but it won't be near as awesome (or huge) as this! Amazing, amazing model!

(Dino, could you send me the info on how to use a flash drive as extra RAM, too? It would be nice to have a little more RAM...)

It's approxmitly 230 studs long (57 ribs x 4 studs length (counting rib length and gaps inbetween ribs), I'm pretty sure your Patriarch is about that size Scare, you should be fine downloading it.

Dino: Can get that article as well? It would be immensely helpful!

For those of you looking for the article about turning a flash drive (pen drive) into RAM, here it is: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Pen-Drive-As-RAM
Please don't click on any of the ads.

@Dino: I'm glad you like the redesign so much! I think your constructive criticism really helped a lot and improved my model overall. Also, I did add industrial lighting to the inside, as you suggested, but I didn't get a screenshot of it.

@Scare: Just as a disclaimer, I'm not liable for any computer-exploding. I know AA reassured you that you're fine, but, trust me, if your computer can't handle the Patriarch all that well, it'll explode upon trying to open this. :PAnyways, thanks for the compliments!

@SG: Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it! I'm still jealous of you for building that Triton Class fighter, though. :PI guess we're equal in our jealousy of each others' creations.

@AA- It's not about the size (length/width/height); it's about the number of pieces. The Patriarch has 3822 pieces in it. In contrast, the ORCS-3 has 24100. That means that the ORCS-3 has about 6.324 times the number of pieces of the Patriarch. Those cylindrical reactors are crazy detailed, and use a TON of pieces. Additionally, I have the models side-by-side in LDD right now. The Patriarch is about 1/2 as long, 1/2 as wide, and about 1/2 as tall as the station. Yeah, it's big.

.....well then....

and for being so skeletal......man....6 time the peices??? Well okay then!