Proof of Concept

Ehhhh.... I'd rather just see it tiled off and lose the top turrets, personally. But it's your design.

Dino27 wrote:Ehhhh.... I'd rather just see it tiled off and lose the top turrets, personally. But it's your design.

Definitely not losing the turrets, and honestly I don't get the whole "no studs NO STUUUUDDDDSSS" mentality. They're LEGOs, LEGOs have studs. Deal with it, guys.

I'ld deffinitly lose the turrets off the top, but maybe put something else up there like a sensor array bubble or something (aka, half a dome that supposedly is filled with important equipment), and/or maybe a turret made more rounded/bubble like with a minifig up in it (have him only half in, the rest of his body sticking down into the cockpit), IDK, atleast take those two turrets off.

I actually kinda like it. It definitely has a good Star Wars shuttle/troop-transport-y feel to it.

And wow I love those side turrets... Definitely stealing 'em from you, ARC. As to the top turrets, I'd agree that they don't quite look right. Maybe moving the actual "gun" parts of the turrets farther down a little? I dunno. ...Ehh, don't worry about it, it looks fine, and it's obvious you've got some other ideas to work on.

Commander Ant wrote:I'ld deffinitly lose the turrets off the top, but maybe put something else up there like a sensor array bubble or something (aka, half a dome that supposedly is filled with important equipment), and/or maybe a turret made more rounded/bubble like with a minifig up in it (have him only half in, the rest of his body sticking down into the cockpit), IDK, atleast take those two turrets off.

I'm not taking out the top turrets, it needs the coverage. I agree that it could be better done, but I'm not sure how to do it. For now, I'm sticking with this.

Lord Admiral Ariklego wrote:I actually kinda like it. It definitely has a good Star Wars shuttle/troop-transport-y feel to it.

And wow I love those side turrets... Definitely stealing 'em from you, ARC. As to the top turrets, I'd agree that they don't quite look right. Maybe moving the actual "gun" parts of the turrets farther down a little? I dunno. ...Ehh, don't worry about it, it looks fine, and it's obvious you've got some other ideas to work on.

Well, then they'd have no vertical traverse, making them just about useless to fend off fighters, which is what they're there to do. I'm also not changing the design, because I want the top turrets to match the bottom turrets.

Now, what I might do is move the turrets to the sides, and figure them out on there. Actually I think that's what I'm going to go with for the sake of getting rid of the terrible landing gear, being able to add some kind of sensor/communications array on the top, and being able to thin out the bottom deck.
Hmm...maybe use the same elements from the Recon/AA's turret? That'd be nicely low-profile, but still fully effective...perhaps I ought to have some smaller missiles as well for anti-fighter purposes, in addition to the huge ones I already have equipped in there...might end up lowering the number of anti-capital ship/bunker-busting missiles then...not the worst thing in the world to happen...it's not a Missile Boat for sure...

Bahhh that'll all be later, because I'm tired of working on this thing. And I need to finish my orbital fort. Luckily I doubt that'll take too extremely long...I hope.

Using your stationary emplacement turrets would work nicely.

Commander Ant wrote:Using your stationary emplacement turrets would work nicely.

On the sides, or the top and bottom. And do you mean the naval-looking one or the third own with the twin chain guns?

The naval one, kinda like what you put on the sides, but use them for the top, or use that turret for the base, but replace the guns with a single chaingun. The wider base on the turret would make it look alot better.

Commander Ant wrote:The naval one, kinda like what you put on the sides, but use them for the top, or use that turret for the base, but replace the guns with a single chaingun. The wider base on the turret would make it look alot better.

I think I might be able to figure something like that out. I was thinking, though, of replacing the turrets entirely with the turret of the Recon/AA, although without the missiles or communications/sensor array.

Shuttle Updates:

Updated the turrets to the quad-cannon style from the Recon/AA. I'm much happier with them but I'm still not sure about them. Maybe farther to the middle, or add some kind of communications/sensor greeblies in the middle instead?

Also, I figured out that the model I'd been working with was 34 meters long, according to a 3 studs:1 meter scale, so I added another 8 meters in the cargo area to make it 42 meters long, although I didn't make it any wider. As such I also modified the sides and now it carries 130 missiles in two launchers, each launcher carrying five salvos of 13 missiles. Keep in mind that the Missile Boat from Star Wars is 10 meters and carries 80 missiles, and nobody questions this. A bit more than half-again the payload, at a bit over four times the size seems perfectly reasonable to me.

You'll also notice that I got rid of the landing gear. Reason why? It sucked. I'll see about putting in some decent landing gear, maybe, because honestly I doubt these would ever touch the ground like a C-130, but more hover like an LAAT/i. They'd be probably have some sort of "cradle" for when they're having maintenance done on them and otherwise be hooked up to the ceiling of the hangars in Marine Country until they need to be loaded up, in which case...bah, I don't have to justify this all to you guys.

Once I figure this last bit out with the turrets I promise I'll get distracted playing The Old Republic start working on the orbital fort I've been hinting about.

Added something in the middle. I don't ever want to touch this thing again, honestly.

Shuttle:

Oh so much better! That little bit of touch up helped a ton! Looks great now!