how about a new kitbashYa know MIles if it's gonna be a "slow" ship why not just do way with the nacelles all together( ie retexture them) and just go with impulse drive. There's a few oberth w/o pod over at Battleclinic,with a retexture anyone of them would do.
the rear miranda hull the forward section of the oberth with its nacelles retextured to look like the nacelle space is a dual mine bay on either side of the ship and a single mianda nacelle running on the underside of the ship.Minelayers and sweepers are supposed to be notoriously slow (that and i like oberth saucers)
Well, i dont think the raider or the danube has the cargo room for it. Yes they have enough to be used in a pinch - but wouldnt it be better to have an AUX ship filled with them?Fury's right runabout's wouldn't have the cargoroom needed. Think of flleet tug's they would be
And I'm not sure that any era would need a dedicated minesweeper; the average phaser bank seems like a pretty good anti-mine weapon to me...
Any ship can be a minesweeper............ once
Ok so far we're down to CL or DD or Aux for Hull. BTW did I mention I'm trying to stay as true as I can to an SFB style ship.
QuoteAnd I'm not sure that any era would need a dedicated minesweeper; the average phaser bank seems like a pretty good anti-mine weapon to me...
They are but.......the mine layer I'm designing can dump 120 mines on the field of battle. No phaser ships gonna be able to deal with that, and fight other ships at the same time. Hence the choice for drones instead of photons.
Here's an example of the Fed TOS/TMP sweeper weapons.As everyone knows there are 6 ball turrets on the saucer grouped in pairs so........
3 sets 2X Ph2
1) 2X Ph2 FH arc
2) 2X Ph2 LS arc
3) 2X Ph2 RS arc
2 sets 1X Ph3 (point defense)
1) 1XPh3 LS
2) 1XPh3 RS
5 missile racks (haven't decided what type of drone yet)
*Obviously the key to using them will be how the mines are layed out. In clusters you want to use FIRE ALL MODE if the mines are spaced out FIRE ONE mode will work better. SO you'll have anywhere from 5 to 30 missiles firing at one time.
TOS will have 2 reloads
TMP and later ships will have 3 reloads.
Power is not a problem since the minesweeper must be nearly at a dead stop to sweep mines anyway.
For the Gorn I'm going with the Heavy Destroyer Hull for both sweeper/layer.
For the Roms I'm going withthe N8 (layer) and MR's Merlin for the sweeper so far.
*Both utilizing the Plasma F in a shotgun mode to distribute 6 mini plasma burst (ala drone missiles) to destroy mines. You can read how this works in the OP manual ;)
Kzinti And Hydran....same as the Gorn, some medium sized ship.
That's what's swimming around in my head so far if that helps everyone see where I'm heading with this.
-MP
There are specs for CWs with mine racks and their heavy weapons. They're designated NMZ. It'll take me a while to remember where I saw them thoughThanks Rod, got them already :P. There's a few SFB/NCL's over at Battleclinic, mabye I'll grab one of them and experiment (though personally i don't dig the design) I'll make several types and put 'em in a ZIP and let everyone choose which they want to use. ;D
Is there anyway to get the ships in SFC to be able to target mines with any weapons ?
Man, I forgot that PF's in SFB where converted to Minelayers. I wonder if its possible to add this to SFC OP? Is it even in the 4.0 shiplist of OP?That's not a bad idea. Beef up the power a bit, remove all of the weapons, and just have all of it's power going to the sweeper-sheilds and propulsion...
Ok decided on the Fed ship and got permissions. Now mt only question for everyone is............
Would you rather have the ship basically look normal ?
or
Should I redo the saucer textures to give it a more amored appearance ?
-MP
Ok decided on the Fed ship and got permissions. Now mt only question for everyone is............
Would you rather have the ship basically look normal ?
or
Should I redo the saucer textures to give it a more amored appearance ?
-MP
I would think that you would want the model to look unique so definitely #2, especially if your going to combine the function of minelayer and sweeper in one ship, since in SFC the only sweeping method is the "runoverthemine" method. In fact if your willing to do a little meshwork, it would be fairly simple to add Choabam or reactive type armor in the form of tightly conforming boxes to the front of the hull. Anyway only an idea.
Some examples of this:
([url]http://www.army-technology.com/contractor_images/snpe/snpe2.jpg[/url])
([url]http://www.army-technology.com/contractor_images/snpe/snpe1.jpg[/url])
([url]http://www.army-technology.com/contractor_images/snpe/snpe4.jpg[/url])
Yeah great idea. 'Cept I can't mesh :'( , Do you think I could get away with trying to texture that armoour than mabye adding a 3d effect to it ? Or would that not do it justice ?
What ship are you going to convert?
ill see if i can bash together something :p
Yeah great idea. 'Cept I can't mesh :'( , Do you think I could get away with trying to texture that armoour than mabye adding a 3d effect to it ? Or would that not do it justice ?
Sure I think texture only would look just fine, the M113 in the third pic is a good example. Im thinking that the additional armor would be dark bluish grey kind of color to contrast with the normal hull color, and the armor plates wold be thickest in the center-front of the saucer then get progessivly thinner farther out to the sides. So the top view of the saucer for example the armor belt would look like a blocky crescent shape. How about that?
What ship are you going to convert?
QuoteIn the meantiime I'll start experimenting with textures and take your advice on color/thickness/placement and see hhow it turns out. I'll get a WIP up soon.
-MP
MP ive got some good armour textures for various races that can be mixed together if you want even armoured windows