I would love to see that!

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Been playing a bit with SketchUp's colours...



For some reason I imagine the Legion's basic colour scheme to be grey, the blue is just a very...well, trendy futuristic colour I guess!

I'm imagining the basic game/battles to be some form of internal strife, it's the Legion fighting itself. The Legion originally started off as the Roman Empire, but eventually becoming the British Empire. I would imagine this strife, or at least the main campaign/storyline for the space ship game to be along the lines of either a colonial war or a war between equalized powers.

The colonial war would be very much like the wars of independence throughout the Americas. The colonies didn't really seek independence because they wanted everybody to live in freedom (Haiti probably being the big exception), their resistance has been very economic/political in nature, especially in Latin America, meaning they wanted to get more power and profit, not longer interested in sending it off to the distant throne in the old continent. In case of the Legion these would be more 'distant' colonies (subsidiary worlds) that seen great autonomy, forming their own alliances. Of course the Legion as whole isn't so happy about this idea and starts sending in their fleet to teach these secessionists a lesson.

The war between 'equal powers' would be akin to two colonial powers fighting amongst themselves for domination. Kinda like the British versus the French I guess. Perhaps some sort of 'small Psidemic' occurred, leaving vast parts of the Legion empire separated, it basically cut the empire in two factions, both believing themselves to be the true Legion. They try to establish new colonies and outdo the other one. It could also be more of a Cold War scenario in which both these factions try to fight a proxy war, akin to the Soviets and Americans. But then with elements of the French/British wars (got to love naval war).

All very possible scenarios of course. I would imagine that symbolically these factions be white (pearl) and black (obsidian), each a different aspect of the Legion, together being Legion grey. Oh well...food for thought!

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I started with a little experiment:


Let me know what you think.

I'm also planning on making the 'gaps' between the blocks of the ship (between prow and launch bays, between launch bays and engine, etc) a bit deeper, thereby also lessening the singular block feel.

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Here some other views of the ship:



The Distortion Engine will still need a lot of work, new detailing to be added, some of the old stuff having to be removed. That part also offers a nice possibility to create a 'gap' into the ship, thereby breaking the block shape when looking at it from the top or bottom.

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Been tweaking the design some more, oh and quickly added some colours for this little picture:


Man...I need to learn some proper Photoshop/Illustrator/whatever...

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Decided to give the ship some more firepower...

I'm not fully happy with them yet, they can't really turn or anything, and on some parts (especially on the carrier module) they seem rather forced, as if somebody had too many guns lying around and decided to glue them on his ship. Might remove them, or replace them for small turrets (like the side turrets of my escorts) to make them look more subtle...

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In the meantime I've started to remove the broadside weapons I've added yesterday and am replacing them for smaller turrets:


I checked it on printability and it should be all fine, which is great since I'm really digging the smaller turrets, they also make the bigger turrets look huge, which in effect makes the ship look bigger as well!

After that it's some more detailing, especially the gap parts between the components and see if I could perhaps beef up the torpedo prow. In the meantime the turret component will receive a serious overhaul, with the turrets being based on the prow cannons of the escort.

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Wanted to give the ship a little bit more shape. However, I'm not too fond of wings and such on these ships. So I decided to beef up the torpedo prow a bit, thereby making it look more heavily armored, and making it more distinguishable from the stern:

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Ships looking good, I like the ridge/bridge? I think you should only have it on one side though. The broadside cannons look really good, very nice touch indeed.

I've returned to the original prow since the beefier one meant the ship would shoot itself whilst trying to hit enemies that are straight in front of it. It needs some rethinking I guess. However, I did start working on some communication/navigation arrays, still early WIP though:

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Been experimenting with other prow mounted weapons:


Not fully sold yet, but I did make the prow multipart, meaning that the torpedo bays and sensor/comms array are separate pieces. I'm not too fond yet of the new frontal weapons, I think I'll need to design some totally new weapons rather than try to regurgitate the existing energy weapons.

Oh yeah...notice that little change at the back?

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By the way, in the meantime I've updated the communication arrays a bit. The one on the front still needs a lot of work though.




Whilst I'm personally not so much into the idea of having a bridge on the ship, the communication arrays do give people the option to count that part of the ship as a bridge if they'd wanted to, they could even try to paint tiny windows on that part of the hull!

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Just as an idea, why not put a deck below the hull? The bridge would no doubt be deep in the ship's hull, but I could picture the need for an observatory designed to gather intelligence and manage ground actions. It would make for an interesting contrast with how the fiction usually does it.

Also, ask yourself how frequent combat is in your setting. If it's relatively infrequent (as in the modern age) then you might use such a deck for guest quarters and diplomatic suites. Great view, and physically isolated from the secure areas of the ship.

If shields are far more important than armor in your setting, then it won't matter as much where stuff is positioned; if the enemy penetrates the shields it's a death sentence anyway. In most settings, armor does matter, even just burying the critical locations deep inside the hull, surrounded by non-essential spaces.

The lovely fellows over at Resin Addicts (check the place if you're interested in scratchbuilding/casting your models yourself) gave me some feedback, which kinda inspired me. Got the suggestion I should try to beef up the size of the engine itself, it didn't really work out. However, it did enable me to further chop up the ship:



This way the ship has become even more modular, allowing you to really go crazy with different designs. Really need to start rebuilding the heavy turret component and some turret variants...

@Wellspring: Regarding the observatory I'd imagine there might be multiple ones out there, besides multiple camera (drones) all over the ship. Doubt you would see that much just looking through the windows, considering the scale of these ships and combat. Regarding the diplomatic suites etc. I'd think most parts of the ship would only be accessible with clearance (would imagine some sort of genetic and code thing would be used to determine that).

As for the shield and armor, the field/shield generated by the Distortion Drive turns all matter it touches into energy, unless that matter is also shielded like that, or carried a 'counter-field', thereby allowing it to penetrate. Once penetrated the field, the ship is thickly armored as well, just in case something does get through...

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By the way, just wanted to give you a quick picture of what is possible with the current components...



The bigger engine as suggested will be made, but will be another component, basically a variant on the engine I've got now. The current engine is for standard cruisers, the larger engine (which will be a redesign of the one I've got now, but a lot beefier) will be for heavy cruisers. Reason I'm going for this route is that simply resizing the engine component makes it look odd compared to the rest of the ship.

Besides that there will be some turret variants, prow weapons, and some new components (so you have more options than the launch bay component). It would allow you to really create your own ship designs, only limited by your imagination and ability to balance it (unless you use a way larger base, and pin it to that base on multiple spots).

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