Another grab bag of random sketches today. This is what you get when you have a few ideas to play with but don’t want to waste multiple pages for each one.
The first two sketches are the ones in the upper left and bottom right. Both are more experiments with the shape template tool I had, and were some exploratory concepts for maglev transport rails. The upper left one is more of a “hypertube” style, while the bottom right is a somewhat more conventional sci-fi “tuning fork” rail and fencepost idea. The upper left one honestly has some possibility as a kind of logo or proving mark.
In the middle is another experiment for broad ship hull design. This one was primarily around the idea of not having the drive units at the aft of the ship, but instead as part of a saddle-like structure that rested on the amidships part of the hull. Some additional drive units were placed at the rear, but in some ways that kind of sullies the concept. While this exact design is a bit of a dead end, it did help work out the drive design for the Kafer-class crew shuttle (or gig/ship’s boat).
The final tech thingie is in the lower left. I ran across this in a comic that I saw once, as part of some kind of a research lab. It’s a kind of generic weird-technology device, the kind of thing where you’d expect to see lightning arcing from the outer arms to the spiked sphere in the center. I almost imagine this is the kind of thing you’d see in the background of a Star Trek episode, just one more machine in some Random Science Lab. No idea what this even could be. Maybe some kind of generator or emitter? It does have some resemblance to shield emitters in the deWulf universe. But I haven’t decided yet.
That’s the fun part with these more experimental sketches; sometimes you come up with some really useful ideas, sometimes you have things that really are just dead ends, and sometimes you have something that isn’t directly useful, but points the way to other possibilities.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 