Airship

[nakirush]

It's been quite sometime since I did any design work so in an attempt to get my brain working again I did this. I would love to hear your thoughts on it (both technique and actual design) and as much critique as you're willing to throw at me. :) Thank you in advance, you guys are great!

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/5159/5gi6.jpg

The first thing I see right off the bat is I'm using a pure white light and possibly it's too strong. I suppose I should go back and fix that ASAP..or make it grayscale.

[Snarfevs]

Two questions come to mind:

- How does it stay aloft? Even with the gas sac filled with hydrogen and ultra-light structural materials I can't see such at small volume keeping the vehicle in the air.

- With a center of mass ostensibly above its center of buoyancy, how does it stay upright?

[nakirush]

Hmm, two very good questions. I hope I have some good answers.

1) The orange glowing "bubbles" on the top and bottom house gravity control stations. The top one is pointed up and is "pulling" the rear end up, and the bottom is doing the opposite effect.

2) Ah, yes...the mast. I actually never thought of this part before, but I think I have an answer now (which cannot exactly be seen in this picture, but I would have to go back and do more views of this). Basically my idea is that the orange on the bottom (behind the bubble) is actually split into two gravity pods, one on either side. The forces from these pods could fluctuate to balance the ship.

I hope those answers are okay, you really put me on the spot there with the second one! Hehe, but I see what you mean. I guess I should spend a little more time figuring out how my designs work. Maybe I could hang a weight from the bottom to counter the mast..but then again that would overpower the units keeping the ship aloft and send the craft to it's ultimate undoing.

Thanks for the comment Snarfevs, you really got me thinking here!

[Snarfevs]

You never said anything about gravity control in the original post, which is fine, but in which case renders the sail a bit redundant. The ability to make something arbitrarily levitate seems to demand a similarly more overarching movement scheme than a wind sail, or even none at all. The ability to control gravity is a very fundamental achievement, on the same kind of level of control as reactionless drives or just simply teleporting around, and using it to make a design go can be extremely unsatisfying when it induces such massive and inexplicable anachronisms.

Put simply, it's a lot like trebuchet popping out of the side of a jet fighter to throw rocks at enemies.

On top of this, the most likely reading a viewer will make without explicitly being told that the vehicle uses 'gravity control pods' is that it's a lighter than air vehicle, as the design of your control pods looks very similar to the kind of ribbed envelope design encountered in zeppelins.

Sorry if I seem harsh but I do feel that either the design or the rationale for the design needs to be sharpened up.

[nakirush]

Hey, not at all! I really hate it when people are soft on their critiques, it's very hard for me to advance that way. So I really appreciate an honest opinion.

I think I'm going to go in tomorrow and redesign my entire ship. I'll definately be focusing on the technology alot more and keeping what you said in mind.

Thank you so much for your comments on this, I really do appreciate it!