Seeking expressions of interest

[Wildeblood]

OK Diziet I have scaled the larger ship to 170m long. If I scale the smaller ship to match then it comes out at 112m long (tip to tip).

112 sounds fine..

That sounds small to me; that would make most of the main hull only a few metres tall, wouldn't it - ignoring the projections? I'd expect it to be double that size to 'make sense'. (Yes, I know it's none of my business.)

[Shipbuilder]

Wildeblood - Any feedback is always welcome however as I have produced these ships for Diziet I'll leave the decision regarding size to him.

[Diziet Sma]

I'm always willing to hear the opinions of those with more knowledge and experience than myself.. even if I may decide to stick with my own choice in the end.. Wildeblood, what would you suggest as suitable dimensions (for both ships, for that matter)?

Shipbuilder, you mentioned the lengths, what do the other dimensions come to?

[Shipbuilder]

Shipbuilder, you mentioned the lengths, what do the other dimensions come to?

Apologies I gave an incorrect length for the smaller ship previously. Based on keeping the scale of the smaller ship matched with that of the larger ship i.e. the size of the rear sections being the same the current sizes of the ships are as follows: -

Smaller slave ship W117m H37m L127m.
Larger slave ship W117m H37m L170m.

As can be seen the larger ship has the same maximum width and height but is longer. We can of course change these sizes if decided.

Diziet - Just let me know when you have had time to decide (I would think Smivs is being kept busy enough with texturing the first batch of ships anyway )

[Diziet Sma]

So they actually came out pretty close to what I was expecting.. I'll go with them as is, unless Wildeblood or somebody else persuades me that they really need to be bigger.

[Shipbuilder]

Diziet - OK I'll proceed on the basis of using these sizes.

Personally I think that they should be big enough as they relate to an Anaconda and Python in size.

Note - I have E-mailed you info for the Blockade Runner.

[Smivs]

One consideration must be whether they will/can dock at a standard station.

[Diziet Sma]

One consideration must be whether they will/can dock at a standard station.

That was one of my considerations, too..

[Shipbuilder]

One consideration must be whether they will/can dock at a standard station.

That was one of my considerations, too..

Smivs/Diziet - I have just tested a demo version of the larger slave ship oxp and can confirm that you can both take off and land without any problems.

I still seem to be having problems with my Box.com account I may need to set up a new account ! (The screen greys out and box stops working whenever I try to upload a new file), so I will E-Mail you both a zip file containing the following: -

I appear to have got around the problem with box by uploading the files using the bulk uploader method so hopefully moving forward I will be able to upload as usual

1) A test oxp so you can see and fly the ship in game (I have not gone through in detail to set the weapon positions etc but the views and external views are all set up).
2) The .mlt .obj and .dat files.
3) The Wings 3D model files.
4) A blank texture file ready for smivs to do his magic to (I have simply applied a flat blue texture file to the oxp so that I could quickly check out the ship in game).

Any problems please let me know.

[Cholmondely]

Diziet - Have a look at the screenshots for some concept slave ship designs. The first ship I imagine is the standard medium size slaver, (Probably the 40-50 ton ship you asked for), while the second ship is a large slaver if required.

Let me have your thoughts.

Does anybody know what happened to this project? There is a YouTube proof of concept by Smivs here:

There has been some talk lately about the possibility of a Capital player ship, one far bigger than the usual player ships. One of the main problems with this idea is that such a ship is too big to dock.
Solutions suggested include giant stations to allow massive ships to dock, and ships with a detachable section which can dock.
The giant stations are achievable, but the Capital ship with a detachable docking module have always been viewed as impossible due to the 'You are the ship, and the ship is You' principle.
As somebody who likes to do 'The Impossible', I thought I'd take a look at this and after some thought I spent yesterday on a demonstration of one way this could be done.
What I have is a large ship (the Slaver Ship from Dizzies WIP) consisting of two parts, the smaller of which can be detached by the player and flown to a station to dock. After re-launch it can be flown back to the Mothership and re-attached.
I have to stress that this is just a 'Proof of Concept' and is not a fully-working OXP, or even at this stage a work in progress.
A video of the demonstration can be seen here.
Although the Module is not actually docked in the video, I have docked and re-launched it several times, followed by returning to the Mother Ship and re-attaching. In a nutshell, it works.
The whole thing is clearly quite crude and would need a great deal of development if it were ever to become a proper OXP, but I'm posting this here as I thought you might be interested.

Edited to add:
just came across this (2014)

[Cholmondely]

Nice. Feel free to donate that to the Explorers' Club ship set...

Wildeblood... what was the Explorers' Club ship set supposed to be?

[Wildeblood]

Nice. Feel free to donate that to the Explorers' Club ship set...

Wildeblood... what was the Explorers' Club ship set supposed to be?

I can tell you what it wasn't: something for you to add to your lists of "lost" or unfinished OXPs, since it never existed.

Having said that, I knew exactly what I wanted, so its non-existence doesn't obviate me describing it to you. It would have been a set of three ships, the Mystic class survey ship, Magic class survey vessel, and Mystery class research vessel. (Also anything else anyone was willing to donate to be the subject of a "locate this lost ship" mission.)

The Mystic and Magic classes were Isis Interstellar hulls retrofitted to Explorers' Club specifications by the Explorers' Club liaison service at Wildefire Systems. The Mystic class were being retired from Club service, and were freely available on the second-hand market (all Club-specific equipment having been removed). They were being replaced by the Magic class which were just entering service.

The first Magic class survey vessel was called Primitive Magic, the second to be built - the first with the finalized specification for serial production - was called Practical Magic. I flew that one for a short while, after it completed its flight trials and before it was collected by its eventual owner. During my custody, Practical Magic was one of the test-beds for Wildefire's "Autotrack" technology.

There followed a serial production of eight vessels, specified the same as Practical Magic. I don't recall all the names after all these years, but there were at least Black, White, Blue, Friday, and "Magique" which had a French-themed interior. Then there were two vessels specified and built by the Special Equipment section (which may or may not exist) at Wildefire. They were called Invisible Magic and Anonymous Magic. Rumours that they included illegal cloaking technology are untrue - neither the Explorers' Club nor Wildefire Systems would experiment with such technology. Anonymous Magic, the twelfth Magic class survey vessel to be built, was my ship thereafter. There was no hull 13.

Block 2 serial production, subject to agreement being reached with Isis Interstellar, would have begun with hull 14 and been generally available to Explorers' Club members with a rating over 255.

The Mystery class research vessel was a rather more nebulous proposition, and the reason no OXP was ever created. I was hoping to persuade Shipbuilder to create a model of the Hooded Swan for the Mystery vessels. I wasn't willing to accept anything less beautiful.