Shipbucket

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...looks...ok so far, but it's kinda hard to tell at this stage. Maybe lessen the forward angle of that stack just a wee little bit.

Once that's done, it's time to think about the superstructure. This is perhaps the hardest part of AU/personal ship design - it's the one thing people get dead wrong all the freakin' time. Before you set on making it, you need to think about the role your ship does, which will dictate the crew your ship has, which will dictate the superstructure. We already know what the role is - a coastal patrol vessel. This means that bridge functions get precedent over bunkerage because you're not going to be spending multi-week patrols (most likely). You're also not going to be cramming weapons and sensors onto a hull like this, which means a light C&C. This would probably mean a small yet blocky bridge that will overall look proportional to the hull. You can also add some angles to make it stealthy - but at your skill level, I'd be hesitant to try. At the very least I'd look at what else is out there (Visby = BAD, you'd want to see what Venezuela, Turkey, Germany and a few others if I can find them are doing).

Unfortunately I can't give you any more advice until you make the superstructure, so go ahead and have at it!

What's a C&C?

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Command & Control: the "heart" of the ship. The bridge is where the ship is navigated, and yes the captain spends most of his time there; but the C&C room is where the "action" happens. Your radar operators and the officers that will either give the final go code for weapons hot, or the ones doing the actual button-pushing, will be sitting in this room during red alert. Battle planning and plotting also happens in this room. In the middle of a battle, unless the captain really needs to be navigating, he'll be in this room, making decisions on what targets to intercept/destroy and what threats present an imminent danger to the vessel or the objective the vessel is assigned to.

Because of this importance, the C&C room is almost always, at least on modern vessels, buried deep in the heart of the superstructure. Therefore it won't be directly visible, but the size of the C&C room does determine the size of the rest of the superstructure as whatever surrounding superstructure will essentially be built around the C&C room, particular the forward part (since these two rooms are the most important as far as the captain is concerned, it's equally important that they be close together). Since the C&C room is directly tied into the ship's radar and sensors, and since the weapons crews will be in this room as well, the size of your C&C room is in turn dictated by your weapons and sensors fit. A ship with not a lot of weapons will still have a very large C&C room if it has an extensive sensor system (take for example USS Blue Ridge, which is armed with self-defense weapons only but is itself in essence a floating, gigantic C&C operations center for a whole battlefleet). The inverse is true - ships with a large weapons fit will also have a large C&C room regardless of sensors fit (though this is almost impossible to find today, as you simply cannot use weapons effectively without a sensors suite to match).

Back on the relevant point, since a patrol vessel like this will be fielding only basic sensors and weapons, your C&C room will likely be dominated by plotting and planning - and this will actually be oriented towards receiving orders rather than giving them (and a lot of planning will be done on-the-spot, on the bridge, based on whatever on-the-spot threats are assessed - usually smuggling interdiction, illegal fishing, trespassing, etc. for a ship like this). Which means a small superstructure - given the size of the hull we're dealing with, it'll look "proportional," as I said.

Where would the C&C be?

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Atheism. Because Religion Has No Proof.
Canada Rules
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It would - very roughly - be in the indicated area. But I wouldn't worry about it since you've pretty much got it for a vessel this size. Like I said, it's the deepest part of the superstructure, right in the middle of the ship.

But right now would be the best time to add superstructure detail, before it gets covered up by bigger details and railings (which will go on very last). All vessels have hatches in order to facilitate access - all ships would be useless without them, and crews would look very silly with no means to be able to actually get inside their vessels. Life preservers and other gear go on this time too.

Unfortunately it's hard to figure out all the detail that needs to go on a ship of any size or complexity, and you may find yourself going back constantly to add these in, even after the "final" details have already been added. This is a headache, yes, and unfortunately the best indicator of what needs to go on is to simply look at similar ships. But, I can give a few rough guides - for example, you have a funnel, but engines need to breathe too, which means air intakes. On a ship like this, they would basically look like grille or other meshwork that you would tack onto the side of the ship in some fashion, in a place that makes sense (i.e., water won't get inside and it won't interfere with something else). You could even slap them on the side of the funnel; or you can slap them on at the very back of the existing superstructure. Alternatively, you can add on additional superstructure, such as immediately aft of the funnel, or on top of the aft of the existing superstructure, to specifically accommodate the intakes. On a ship like this, boats would be optional, but something to think about. Also, inflatable rafts (they're the white boxy things - look up the Epicnopolis thread in Alt Universe for more details).

If any details come to mind, I'll mention them as they, well, come to mind.


Also DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT USE THE PICTURE I JUST POSTED. I saved it as a .JPG as a matter of personal convenience, as I was merely demonstrating where the C&C would be to answer your question. Hopefully this is obvious enough, but I've learned to never make that assumption especially on these boards....

I'm not stupid, I'm just new to ship making. I've done lineart before

EDIT: Details added, need moar?


EDIT EDIT: Just to clarify, the second mini-funnel is the intake.

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Atheism. Because Religion Has No Proof.
Canada Rules
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The liferaft on the superstructure is waaay outdated. Go with an inflateable 25 man raft.

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Salide - Denton - The Interrealms

I am not very active on the forums anymore, but work is still being done on my AUs. Visit the Salidan Altiverse Page on the SB Wiki for more information. All current work is being done on Google Docs.
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I don't think it will fit.

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Atheism. Because Religion Has No Proof.
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Yes it will; they are the small, white rectangular structures, as seen on this:



Also, I was thinking something more along the lines of the dark gray square structure as seen on this:



And a very bad idea to have an intake system set up where it can suck down the exhaust gasses of its own engine!