Traveller Illustrated

So now that I have finally made the descision to include the Far Trader in my Traveller Calendar 2014 submission, I have to get going with the texturing of the vessel. Rob Caswell published a drawing of the Far Trader challenging the DA Community to come up with a paint scheme (or – well – colorizing the ship).

I used his Drawing to create the following paint scheme which is also my current favorite for this ship. I tried to touch a bit on classic 70ies car racing colours (GULF Racing used a light blue and orange coloring).

And now the textured model. I think with a dusty weathering and some more decals I will be good. The bump map, specular map and an admittedly generic hull plating have alteady been added. This works fine for now.

And here comes the drawing…

The tail number states homeworld, ship type, registration number and sector abbreviation and says “Gerim, A2-58738 RD” (RD for Reaver’s Deep).

Next image shows the ship grounded with an open Airlock…

Set in a starport scene I’m currently developing…

Stay tuned for future updates.

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Starships – Meet the Lone Lady (200dt Far Trader)
Category: Far Trader,Starship,Traveller,WIP — admin @ 20:40
Sep
05 2013

The famed Type H (SN) Bounty Hunter from White Dwarf Mag No.70 is sadly one of the ccoolest ships ever designed an published for Traveller. The deckplan promised a very sleek ship.

One of the cooler Feature is it’s revolving vehicle Bay. A design feature that practically encourages fast paced hit and run action.

The sad truth is there is no full side view available. Actually no one seems to know for sure how it’s supposed to look like. This model matches the deck plans and the visible side profile of the published material.

I always wanted to do it in 3D and it was meant to prove every detail of it’s ultra cool appearance.

How can it be, that it utterly fails to look cool?

I never expected it to look so chubby.

Now I’m going to tweak the model to look cool. And I will use Ian Steeds Version the „Huntress“ as my primary source of dimenional data.

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Starships – 100ton Type H Bounty Hunter
Category: 3D-Model,Bounty Hunter,Starship,Traveller — admin @ 22:43
Jul
29 2013
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100dt X-Boat

Constructed using the 100 ton hull, the express boat is fitted with drives producing jump-4, but no maneuver drive. Fuel tankage is sufficient for one jump. The cramped bridge is complemented by a Model/4 computer. The ship has two staterooms; one is necessary for the single crew member, while the other can carry a passenger. More often, the pilot uses the second room for additional living space. There is a one ton cargo bay which is occasionally used to carry vital cargo such as vaccines or sophisticated repair parts.The ship carries no weapons or hardpoints.

It is equipped with Jump drive-B and a Modified Power Plant-C, and carries sufficient fuel for one Jump-4, and 1 month of operations. Note that the ship when in Jump space can effectivly operate in low power mode thanks to the minimal systems needs and Fusion+ distributed power system. Transfer pumps enable double jumps via detachable drop tanks, which the X-boat service produces in a ’standard‘ 100 ton size to enable quick refueling and jump procedures for the normal X-boat fleet if the tender itself is too busy to dock with the X-boat. The extremely advanced surface communicator is used to tight-beam sensitive encrypted communications to pre-set system ‚listening posts‘ bypassing the need to pass these messages through the X-boat tender crews.

Modeling the X-Boat

So finally I’m going to tackle the X-Boat and Tender for my Traveller ship portfolio. Frankly I didn’t knew in the beginning about how to make an X-Boat look interesting in any way. Maybe I still wonder. But I’m going to model it any way. Even if it’s only blocked out, so I can continue later at any given time.

The first render shows the X-Boat uprigt (as it’s deck layout is vertical) in a Dark Red and Light Grey scheme. The two main outer features are the bridge windows and the double airlock on the starbord side. So thats what you’re going to see.

The second render shows the ship in IISS olive and light grey color scheme.

Im just playing with color variations.

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Starships – 100dt X-Boat and 1000dt X-Boat Tender
Category: 3D-Model,Starship,X-Boat — admin @ 17:52
Jul
28 2013

The ship uses a 100-ton Lifting Body hull, the scout/courier is intended for exploration, survey, and courier duties, with many in service throughout known space. It mounts drives giving it jump-2 and 2-G acceleration. Installed on its bridge is a computer Model/1bis and attack-range sensors. Detached duty versions have an open lounge where survey sensors would typically go.

There are four staterooms and no low berths. The ship has one hardpoint; installed on the hardpoint is one double turret beam laser. There is one ship’s vehicle: an air/raft. Cargo capacity is 3 tons. The hull has scoops, bins, and a purification plant for wilderness refueling.

The Scout, by its nature, is built as a one-person operation: a single crew person can handle all operations, albeit inefficiently. On the other hand, the Scout can carry three non-commercial passengers in relative comfort, or up to seven with double occupancy.

I ought to do this ship. It’s classic, it’s iconic and it’s not really my favourite. But it’s a player’s ship too and there are thousands of these scattered about any given Sector of the Third Imperium. Here’s my humble adaption. THe scale is a bit off. The ship is too large. More Updates will follow.

Front View

And one with the Air/Raft garage open.

That’s it for now

   Vol  No  Label                            MCr  Notes                         
 -----  --  ------------------------------ -----  ------------------------------
   100      Lift body Hull, lifters           17  L, lifters                    
    20      Jump Fuel (2  parsecs)             0  J2, 10t/pc                    
     2      Plant Fuel (one month)             0  one month                     
     1      Fuel Scoops 100t/hr              0.1  100t/hr                       
     1      Fuel Intakes 40t/hr              0.1  40t/hr                        
     1      Vd T2 Beam Laser                   1                                
     8   4  Crew Single Stateroom            0.4  1 crew                        
     1      Crew Common Fresher                1  10 crew                       
     9      Crew Lounge                        0                                
     3      Cargo Hold Basic                   0                                
     1      Fuel Bins 20t/hr                 0.1  20t/hr                        
     4      Air/Raft Enclosed                0.1                                
     2      Vehicle Hangar Overhead            0                                
     1      AR Ant Communicator              1.5                                
     1      AR Ant Scope                     1.5                                
     1      Mail Vault                         0  for express contracts         
     2      Clinic                             1  treats common injuries        
     0      AV=5. 1 Kinetic Shell              0                                
     1      Fuel Purifiers 4t/hr               1  4t/hr                         
     3      AR Ext EMS, imported             2.7                                
     0      Jump Grid                          1                                
     4      Forward Lounge                     0                                
     4      PowerPlant-2 (A)                   4  P 2                           
     2      Maneuver Drive-2 (A)               4  2 G                           
    10      Jump Drive-2 (A)                  10  J 2                           
     1      Landing legs with pads             1                                
     1      Life Support Standard              1  10 person-months              
     1      Computer Model/1bis std            3                                
    14      Spacious Controls                  0                                
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    99                              TOTALS    52

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Starships – 100 ton Suleiman Class Scout/Courier
Category: 3D-Model,Scout,Starship,WIP — admin @ 02:47
Jul
24 2013

Ian Steed – a well known Traveller artist and generally nice guy – allowed me to play with his variant of the Scout/Courier. The base model came in colors (see below) and I will try to give it a personal touch later.

Copyright Ian Steed

Copyright Ian Steed

The next project coming up ist one of my favourite small Traveller starships, the Far Trader. As compared to the 200ton Free Trader the far trader has a longer jump leg while sacrificing some cargo space. However it is a cool adventurer ship for excactly that reason.

The finished Marava

Since I  don’t own the MegaTraveller Journal #4 – which contains a lot of info rgarding this ship, Rob Caswell kindly gave me a few illustrations for reference which I actually base my modelling on. This ship’s model is a big nod toward the original designers Tom Peters and Rob Caswell and also my way of giving them and the Traveller community back – in a way – what made my student years so great in regard to roleplaying games.

The ship uses a 200ton streamlined hull with fuel scoops. It is fitted with a front loading ramp and one side loading ramp port and starboard each. The ship is capable of 1G accelleration and one Jump-2. Whithin it’s 65tons of cargo space the ship can optionally carry an air/raft (typically enclosed like the Hurracan) in an internal hangar, leaving 57 tons of cargo space.

Deckplan Upper Deck: www.daviddrazul.com/traveller/flamingeye/images/ship_updeck.gif

Deckplan Lower Deck: www.daviddrazul.com/traveller/flamingeye/images/ship_lowdeck.gif

I can’t put the referene images online here (I haven’t asked) but the plans shown above are nearly identical (but annotated by the website owner).

Above is the current  state of the Marava (WIP) slowly coming together…

And below is the finished Lone Lady that already made it into a game trailer.

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