Project J-Class Modular Interplanetary Heavy Freighter

[FatalFlux]

Hey there! I have a meager bit of progress to report and a technical question to ask (first of many, I'm sure).

Firstly, the new stuff. Work has been progressing slowly, as time allowed. I've gotten both the conceptual and physical design and layout of the ship to a stage I'm comfortable with. Plenty of details remain to be determined as the need arises, but I've got this beast pretty well cornered in my headspace, so to speak.

On the exterior, little appears to have changed since my original post:

One of the more major functionality changes has been a rearrangement of the XR2 class docking berths. You can see along the top, directly under the bridge, is the primary berth. Should look pretty cool to come in for docking along the dorsal side of a large chain of modules! The second one was moved to the ventral side. The XR5 class berth remains unchanged. You can also see that an RCS maneuvering scheme has been decided upon and added. Also, the engine nozzles have been redesigned to more accurately reflect the decided upon propulsion tech.

On the interior, however, things look much different! I've planned out the general arrangement and approximate scaling of most major internal systems (for the drive module, at any rate). Check it out!

I got a hold of a bunch of delightfully speculative but surprisingly detailed journal articles and NASA research proposals on fusion propulsion and gleaned enough knowledge to put together a rough design for a decidedly futuristic space truck. He3-He3 fusion was selected as the obvious choice for such a futuristic vehicle. The "Plasma Channeling System" and it's ancillary system, the "Plasmic Hydrogen Holding Apparatus," are even more futuristic (read: probably impractical, likely impossible :thumbup. Together they enable "relatively vigorous" RCS and retro thrust and add a significant kick to the main engines. Don't expect a moment-of-inertia miracle when you've got a silly number of modules attached though. Leave plenty of time to adjust your orientation, m'kay?

Naturally, none of the internals will be present in the in-game model. I plan to incorporate the layout of the systems above into a master systems display in the VC when I get around to that. For the interested, here's a roughly complete resource flow diagram:

On to the trouble!

This weekend I finally had enough free time to dive into giving the J-Class a proper model. I'm having an issue with the Blender 2.5 to Mesh export addon. Does it work with Blender 2.61? It appears like it's not exporting textures at all. It creates the folder, but doesn't even put the dummy .dds file in it. The ship in-game is invisible. Mesh Wizard shows that the mesh is fine, so it must be an issue with the texture. Anyone have any experience or tips on using that tool?

Also, any comments or ideas or whatever on the design side of things are of course welcome! Sorry it's taken me so long to get just this far. Things should start coming along faster now that I've got a solid design laid out.

Happy orbiting!

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks great that way. You don't seem to have a maritime background? Your plan for the engineering module gets in the direction of a contemporary cargo ship engine room, you just lack the spare He3 fusion engine assembly somewhere at the walls.

also, it looks a bit too eggshell like, you should at least have a thrust structure somewhere to transmit the thrust of the engines to the rest of the ship.

Tiny nitpicking: Your magnetic nozzle does not get electricity. But that is the really tiny one.

Is your engineering module pressurized (breathable atmosphere), or unpressurized?

 

[FatalFlux]

Not sure what you meant in the first paragraph about the spare fusion engine, but you're right, I completely forgot about the thrust structure. There are naturally many secondary and supporting systems not pictured, so it's not nearly as empty as it looks in the schematic model, but I'll probably outline something roughly, at least in my head. Thanks for pointing that out.

As for the engineering compartment being pressurized, I hadn't planned on it, no. I can't really think of a good reason for it. Plus it's huge. I hadn't imagined there being very much room down there anyway. Really only emergency maintenance crawlways. Perhaps there could be sub-compartments that can be sealed and partially pressurized with N₂ or something, only requiring a personal O₂ tank, mask, and minimal thermal protection when the crew needs access. There does need to be an "elevator" to move crew from XR2 Bay #2 to the living compartment, and that could be accomplished any number of ways. Considering it's 0 G, it really only needs to be a pressurized vertical shaft along one edge of the internal hull.

And yeah, I forgot to add a line from main power to the magnozzle, but it's really just another part of the engine assembly anyway, and that's connected to the main grid, naturally. Good eye though, thanks for the questions and input! :tiphat:

 

[Urwumpe]

Not sure what you meant in the first paragraph about the spare fusion engine, but you're right, I completely forgot about the thrust structure.

LOL, actually just very simple: On modern cargo ships (on the ocean), you have huge diesel engines, that easily compete with small apartment blocks in size. Since you can't always reach the next MTU factory for a repair, a complete piston assembly (about 6 meters long) for such a huge engine is usually stored inside the engine room, ready to be put in place during calmer weather.

Your Aux ionizer looked so similar to the fusion engines there, it looked almost like the future version of the spare piston in a ships engine room.

And yes, I would also have put away with breathable atmosphere there, it just means more work than it is worth. But I had to ask. :lol:

If you need an engineering opinion: The wall at the sides of the engines looks many aesthetic, but I fear it will not help cooling the lower engines, but instead reflect too much heat to the engines. If you want to keep this design feature (cars had been cooler with fins), maybe you should consider getting a bit more distance between wall and engines.