[Mod] Yesteryears Updates
- Thread starter Majestic
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Thanks Cborg, so far we are a safe distance from the fires, but that is never a guarantee as conditions can change causing the fire to change direction at will. We have some nasty weather conditions coming up as well and so we can't relax yet.
Onto YY, I have finished the modelling and mapping of the command cruiser and have started the texturing process. I have done a bit of work on the Battleship, but nothing major as of yet. I am however looking forward to getting these last two ships done. Then it will be onto the stations.
Onto YY, I have finished the modelling and mapping of the command cruiser and have started the texturing process. I have done a bit of work on the Battleship, but nothing major as of yet. I am however looking forward to getting these last two ships done. Then it will be onto the stations.
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Federation Command Cruiser is here fresh off the assembly line. Now this design was a painstaking one to come up with. First I was going to use the Lexington (a design from the game Klingon Academy), I even went as far as doing an entire model until I decided it just didn't fit what I envisioned. So it was back to the drawing board. I used to have a lot of design concepts from the web, many no longer available however with a HD crash a year or so ago I lost all that. So I hit google, DA and SFM's looking for any sort of inspiration. In the end I took inspiration from a few sources, added my own ideas and came up with what I now call the Excalibur class.
Just to show you what the Lexington looks like here is the model I made:
I liked the idea of merging Constitution (Miranda and current ship) technology with the newer Excelsior technology so I wanted to keep that in my new design. To blend the two was difficult as while there is a ton of Excelsior kitbashes on the web, and even more of Constitution kitbashes, there are few to none designs that blend the two. I eventually ran into the Ingram (Odysseus variant) and WickedZombie's Sorcerer class. The Ingram was one of the designs originally for the Excelsior (schematics first released in 1986) and the Sorcerer is an x-era heavy cruiser based off the Excelsior. I liked parts from both designs and so I merged the elements I liked into the Excalibur.
The Ingram concept got me thinking and so I made a bit of an back story for the class:
[fieldset=Excalibur]
In the early 2260's, Starfleet R&D started a research project, the aim of the project was to advance faster than light propulsion methods to obtain faster speeds. Dubbed the Great Experiment, Starfleet hoped it would give them a tactical advantage with the Klingon Empire, who had started to become increasingly aggressive in recent years. The theoretical research was slow taking well over a decade for the fundamentals.
By 2279, the project had proceeded to a point where trial runs were ready, however a new class of vessel was needed to field test the new technology. All currently available vessels lacked the power generation and particular hull geometry to obtain such velocities in a safe and efficient manner. Starfleet engineering came up with two competing designs, a more ambitious design that would later become the Excelsior class and a more conservative design.
The latter of these two designs was named after the USS Excalibur, after the ill-fated Constitution class vessel that was lost with all hands in 2267 after the M5 computer malfunctioned and attacked the vessel on full power killing all on-board. The vessel was later scraped due to the extensive damage obtained during the attack. Unlike the USS Excelsior the new USS Excalibur used more currently available technology and components, this was done to first cut down on costs involved and secondly if successful the possibility remained that current vessels within the fleet could be refitted to similar specifications.
Both prototypes were completed in late 2285, Starfleet however decided to go with the larger and more powerful Excelsior design, it showed more promise and had improved capabilities over the Excalibur. The USS Excalibur herself remained in Earth Spacedock for a couple of years until Admiral Robert Wesley of Starfleet Tactical took notice of the vessel. Having been in overall command of the previous Excalibur, and somewhat feeling responsible for the loss of her crew, Wesley convinced Starfleet to allow him to refit the Excalibur and commission her.
While the transwarp experiment was now deemed a failure, much like the USS Excelsior the USS Excalibur's design was still a sound one. While not as capable as the Excelsior, the Excalibur was still an advanced and powerful vessel. Removing the transwarp drive, Wesley refitted the vessel with standard warp drive, the decision to leave the CE22 nacelles instead of swapping over to standard DR45 which were becoming standard on most classes was controversial within Starfleet. Starfleet wanted to use the same technology throughout the fleet (Excelsior class excluded) allowing for easier refitting and repair of the fleet. Wesley argued that the CE22 nacelles were more efficient (although a lot more costly) than the DR45 and won the argument. Other systems like new computer networks, phasers and shield emitters taken from the Excelsior class were added and the USS Excalibur left dry-dock in 2289 for a 6 month shake down cruise.
Proving successful, Wesley with his data convinced Starfleet that the Excalibur was idea for a command ship on contested boarders where deploying a dreadnaught or battleship was not possible. Convincing Starfleet it was cheaper in the long run, Starfleet green lit the class for limited construction, built as needed. The USS Excalibur was made Wesley's command ship and it's registry was changed from NX-1664-A to NCC-8352 and sent to the contested Federation/Klingon boarder.[/fieldset]
Part way through building the design I decided neither Constitution or Excelsior nacelles would fit this design, so going back to the Constitution nacelle and rebuilding the front, and using WZ's CE22 nacelle as a inspiration I came up with a new nacelle design for the Excalibur that blends parts and ideas from both Constitution and Excelsior nacelles into one. I also decided to keep the saucer photon torpedo launchers that I originally designed into my version of the Lexington as I rather liked the idea, I think it looks cool, even if it's very impractical. I also decided to do something similar to the Ingram and have the through-deck shuttlebay, considering it's a command cruiser it would probably need the extra space, if not for shuttle then for cargo. I even feel that a couple of Excalibur's may be turned into an early version of assault vessels, due to the hangar space it provides.
Well lastly the image:
Now just the battleship is left, and thankfully I have already made a fair bit of progress on her in the modelling department.
Just to show you what the Lexington looks like here is the model I made:
I liked the idea of merging Constitution (Miranda and current ship) technology with the newer Excelsior technology so I wanted to keep that in my new design. To blend the two was difficult as while there is a ton of Excelsior kitbashes on the web, and even more of Constitution kitbashes, there are few to none designs that blend the two. I eventually ran into the Ingram (Odysseus variant) and WickedZombie's Sorcerer class. The Ingram was one of the designs originally for the Excelsior (schematics first released in 1986) and the Sorcerer is an x-era heavy cruiser based off the Excelsior. I liked parts from both designs and so I merged the elements I liked into the Excalibur.
The Ingram concept got me thinking and so I made a bit of an back story for the class:
[fieldset=Excalibur]
In the early 2260's, Starfleet R&D started a research project, the aim of the project was to advance faster than light propulsion methods to obtain faster speeds. Dubbed the Great Experiment, Starfleet hoped it would give them a tactical advantage with the Klingon Empire, who had started to become increasingly aggressive in recent years. The theoretical research was slow taking well over a decade for the fundamentals.
By 2279, the project had proceeded to a point where trial runs were ready, however a new class of vessel was needed to field test the new technology. All currently available vessels lacked the power generation and particular hull geometry to obtain such velocities in a safe and efficient manner. Starfleet engineering came up with two competing designs, a more ambitious design that would later become the Excelsior class and a more conservative design.
The latter of these two designs was named after the USS Excalibur, after the ill-fated Constitution class vessel that was lost with all hands in 2267 after the M5 computer malfunctioned and attacked the vessel on full power killing all on-board. The vessel was later scraped due to the extensive damage obtained during the attack. Unlike the USS Excelsior the new USS Excalibur used more currently available technology and components, this was done to first cut down on costs involved and secondly if successful the possibility remained that current vessels within the fleet could be refitted to similar specifications.
Both prototypes were completed in late 2285, Starfleet however decided to go with the larger and more powerful Excelsior design, it showed more promise and had improved capabilities over the Excalibur. The USS Excalibur herself remained in Earth Spacedock for a couple of years until Admiral Robert Wesley of Starfleet Tactical took notice of the vessel. Having been in overall command of the previous Excalibur, and somewhat feeling responsible for the loss of her crew, Wesley convinced Starfleet to allow him to refit the Excalibur and commission her.
While the transwarp experiment was now deemed a failure, much like the USS Excelsior the USS Excalibur's design was still a sound one. While not as capable as the Excelsior, the Excalibur was still an advanced and powerful vessel. Removing the transwarp drive, Wesley refitted the vessel with standard warp drive, the decision to leave the CE22 nacelles instead of swapping over to standard DR45 which were becoming standard on most classes was controversial within Starfleet. Starfleet wanted to use the same technology throughout the fleet (Excelsior class excluded) allowing for easier refitting and repair of the fleet. Wesley argued that the CE22 nacelles were more efficient (although a lot more costly) than the DR45 and won the argument. Other systems like new computer networks, phasers and shield emitters taken from the Excelsior class were added and the USS Excalibur left dry-dock in 2289 for a 6 month shake down cruise.
Proving successful, Wesley with his data convinced Starfleet that the Excalibur was idea for a command ship on contested boarders where deploying a dreadnaught or battleship was not possible. Convincing Starfleet it was cheaper in the long run, Starfleet green lit the class for limited construction, built as needed. The USS Excalibur was made Wesley's command ship and it's registry was changed from NX-1664-A to NCC-8352 and sent to the contested Federation/Klingon boarder.[/fieldset]
Part way through building the design I decided neither Constitution or Excelsior nacelles would fit this design, so going back to the Constitution nacelle and rebuilding the front, and using WZ's CE22 nacelle as a inspiration I came up with a new nacelle design for the Excalibur that blends parts and ideas from both Constitution and Excelsior nacelles into one. I also decided to keep the saucer photon torpedo launchers that I originally designed into my version of the Lexington as I rather liked the idea, I think it looks cool, even if it's very impractical. I also decided to do something similar to the Ingram and have the through-deck shuttlebay, considering it's a command cruiser it would probably need the extra space, if not for shuttle then for cargo. I even feel that a couple of Excalibur's may be turned into an early version of assault vessels, due to the hangar space it provides.
Well lastly the image:
Now just the battleship is left, and thankfully I have already made a fair bit of progress on her in the modelling department.
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Thanks, the Battleship will be tricky. I'm trying to get the large and powerful feel while at the same time wanting it to be different from the Ulysses. I've been tossing up a few designs, testing out configurations and all that. This one will probably take sometime, like the CC did.
Anyway here is a side view of the Excalibur, with the Excelsior and Conny to show rough sizes between the 3 classes.
Anyway here is a side view of the Excalibur, with the Excelsior and Conny to show rough sizes between the 3 classes.
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Why do I keep hearing Vader in the back on my head saying to me, "I find you lack of faith disturbing!"
Thank you Knight, means a lot coming from one of YY's oldest fans.
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Thanks Jetfreak. 
Well after doing the Excalibur and working on the Battleship (it's almost finished in the modelling department) it got me thinking about nacelles. Yes nacelles the things that help the little ships go zoom through space.
I know in TMP Starfleet ships used basically all the same components, but something that always bugged me was the sizes. Why would a destroyer have just a scaled down version of a Heavy Cruiser's nacelle. While looking at this I also discovered the nacelle I originally made for the Constitution when building her wasn't accurate to what we saw on screen. So I have decided to go out and make some more nacelles. While I repeated the mistake and make another nacelle that wasn't accurate (which I have recycled for the utility ships) I plan on making another today and get it right, third time lucky.
So now we have the destroyers with one type of nacelle, the utility ships with another, soon the cruisers with a 3rd and the big guns will use the original type. Then there is the Excalibur, Oberth, Okinawa and Excelsior who uses their own types as well. I was planning on doing this with the Klingons so it makes sense Starfleet would be doing the same.
Some pictures for you.
Onto the Battleship. She is almost completed, slowed down a little due to the revamp of nacelles I've been doing. With any luck I should have the modelling done today and by the end of the weekend (it's Thursday here now) she should be completed. After which I plan on going back over some of the textures, fixing them up a little and then hardpointing them all and sending them off to Jetfreak for some renders (which will be used for admiral log images etc)
EDIT
The Cruisers now have the canon nacelles as seen in the movies.
Well after doing the Excalibur and working on the Battleship (it's almost finished in the modelling department) it got me thinking about nacelles. Yes nacelles the things that help the little ships go zoom through space.
I know in TMP Starfleet ships used basically all the same components, but something that always bugged me was the sizes. Why would a destroyer have just a scaled down version of a Heavy Cruiser's nacelle. While looking at this I also discovered the nacelle I originally made for the Constitution when building her wasn't accurate to what we saw on screen. So I have decided to go out and make some more nacelles. While I repeated the mistake and make another nacelle that wasn't accurate (which I have recycled for the utility ships) I plan on making another today and get it right, third time lucky.
So now we have the destroyers with one type of nacelle, the utility ships with another, soon the cruisers with a 3rd and the big guns will use the original type. Then there is the Excalibur, Oberth, Okinawa and Excelsior who uses their own types as well. I was planning on doing this with the Klingons so it makes sense Starfleet would be doing the same.
Some pictures for you.
Onto the Battleship. She is almost completed, slowed down a little due to the revamp of nacelles I've been doing. With any luck I should have the modelling done today and by the end of the weekend (it's Thursday here now) she should be completed. After which I plan on going back over some of the textures, fixing them up a little and then hardpointing them all and sending them off to Jetfreak for some renders (which will be used for admiral log images etc)
EDIT
The Cruisers now have the canon nacelles as seen in the movies.
Last edited:
Knight
"What? Too flashy?"
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Loving those Maj, especially the... **** is it the Akira class? I can never remember its name, but has one nacelle above and one below the saucer. I've been dying for a good model of that with the phaser pylons off the nacelle supports but no one else ever did a complete one that was released. Very happy to see that
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Loving those Maj, especially the... **** is it the Akira class? I can never remember its name, but has one nacelle above and one below the saucer. I've been dying for a good model of that with the phaser pylons off the nacelle supports but no one else ever did a complete one that was released. Very happy to see that
Thank you Knight, I think the Akula class is the one you're referring too. Is this the one you mean:
The phaser pylons is something Syf originally did and I have continued with it, most Akula models don't have that feature.
Knight
"What? Too flashy?"
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That's the one. Do you have the torpedo launcher on the lower strut too?
I love it. There was a sod file for one with struts in I think the "ultimate federation" mod but it didn't have all the textures for it. From what Dan told me at the time, the model had lots of holes in they couldn't fix, so they didn't use it in the mod but obviously some of the files remain. Glad to see YY has one that's complete. I'm gonna have a whole fleet of them rampage across the map
Love it. Absolutely love it !
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*is force choked for his lack of faith*
All of your models and textures are looking great. Can't wait to blow them up in game
That would be me getting choked, my own lack of faith in my work.
That's the one. Do you have the torpedo launcher on the lower strut too?
I love it. There was a sod file for one with struts in I think the "ultimate federation" mod but it didn't have all the textures for it. From what Dan told me at the time, the model had lots of holes in they couldn't fix, so they didn't use it in the mod but obviously some of the files remain. Glad to see YY has one that's complete. I'm gonna have a whole fleet of them rampage across the map
Love it. Absolutely love it !
Yeap got the torpedo launcher, she is the baseline Federation destroyer. Here are some images of her from earlier in the thread. Obviously there has been improvements and updates on the model since then, and some more to come very soon after the battleship is completed.
Knight
"What? Too flashy?"
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That would be me getting choked, my own lack of faith in my work.
Yeap got the torpedo launcher, she is the baseline Federation destroyer. Here are some images of her from earlier in the thread. Obviously there has been improvements and updates on the model since then, and some more to come very soon after the battleship is completed.
View attachment 9341View attachment 9342View attachment 9343View attachment 9344
Liking that... liking that a lot!
Have I mentioned lately how much I'm looking forward to YY?
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No you've been oddly quiet. Though I can't blame you considering how long I've been working on it, I just hope when I start releasing factions it will be well worth the wait.
Knight
"What? Too flashy?"
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No you've been oddly quiet. Though I can't blame you considering how long I've been working on it, I just hope when I start releasing factions it will be well worth the wait.
I get online less with the laptop these days and it was tricky to post from my phone until the upgrade. I resumed my old lurking ways as a result
I'm in almost every day though
It will be I'm sure. Good things come to those who wait!
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I get online less with the laptop these days and it was tricky to post from my phone until the upgrade. I resumed my old lurking ways as a result
I'm in almost every day though
It will be I'm sure. Good things come to those who wait!
Yeah I don't have a phone so I have never really looked into the ability, the last version of Vb I downloaded and installed when I did the upgrade came with a free skin for the phones, which is a good thing for those who do use them.
Well the modelling on the battleship is 95% done. I just need to do some alterations to the nacelles so they work for the design and then I will be texturing time. It's rather different from the other designs I have done and I know some people both hate and love the design I am doing. But my version as always is a little different and more to my own personal tastes, so hopefully it will be an improvement on the design.
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I can announce that modelling for the battleship is finally done. This ship really did take ages to model and get right. More so that the Excalibur or Excelsior (if memory serves). It's friday night here and I have worked on this (on and off) for probably 3-4 days now. I plan to map her and texture her this weekend. Probably be Sunday. So with any luck I should have her done very early next week.
She is slightly over 7200 poly's, rather high for a model but since this is a battleship, and you'll not build many of these I thought the poly count was doable. Plus like with the Excelsior if I tried and lower her, I would have to sacrifice quality. I still don't know how I feel about this ship, I myself have a love/hate relationship with it. I do however admit I prefer my design much better and after she's textured she'll make a fine addition to the fleet, ending them with a bang.
She is slightly over 7200 poly's, rather high for a model but since this is a battleship, and you'll not build many of these I thought the poly count was doable. Plus like with the Excelsior if I tried and lower her, I would have to sacrifice quality. I still don't know how I feel about this ship, I myself have a love/hate relationship with it. I do however admit I prefer my design much better and after she's textured she'll make a fine addition to the fleet, ending them with a bang.
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I hope not to disappoint. In the mean time I did some more updates to some models. This should be one of my last passes on the ships. This time I fixed up the windows to match the later Excelsior and Excalibur classes. I had some time to kill and didn't want to start mapping the Battleship tonight/this morning so I did this instead. Just the destroyers for now.
Rifraf
I know just enough to be a danger to myself
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Looking good. Still like the detroyat. That abbe1 or abbel, hard to see the spelling, but that one looks pretty cool as well. I don't recall seeing a regular connie though? Maybe I missed it on some pages back?
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Very good work man I like
I like
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I plan to do the frigates and utility ships tonight and maybe even the cruisers.
I'll be sure to give you two sometime alone when I release the Federation.
Yeah the Detroyat had some further edits earlier, mainly with the Miranda like exposed bits. After I did the Miranda I went back to both the Detroyat and Phobos and made new parts to match the Miranda.
I must admit I almost downgraded the Detroyat to the map unit listing a while back, but decided that it was best to keep her as I didn't want to have to make yet another model. So I have concreted the ships into the list, refusing to make any changes to them. Though after I get the races down I want to go back and make 2 avatars, each with some unique units and offer different types of play styles. But for the initial releases I am not doing avatars.
Regular connie, do you mean TOS version or TMP version? I have done a TMP connie, she is the heavy cruiser for the Federation and I will be revamping her textures perhaps tonight and posting an updated version of her. I will also at the same time be reworking the Constellation drastically. That one will take quite a bit of time to do though, as I plan on modelling in her shuttlebays to match the other ships and so a full re-texture of her saucer rim will be needed.
I want to get all the ships done to a standard before I move onto the stations.
Thanks Starfox.
I'll be sure to give you two sometime alone when I release the Federation.
Yeah the Detroyat had some further edits earlier, mainly with the Miranda like exposed bits. After I did the Miranda I went back to both the Detroyat and Phobos and made new parts to match the Miranda.
I must admit I almost downgraded the Detroyat to the map unit listing a while back, but decided that it was best to keep her as I didn't want to have to make yet another model. So I have concreted the ships into the list, refusing to make any changes to them. Though after I get the races down I want to go back and make 2 avatars, each with some unique units and offer different types of play styles. But for the initial releases I am not doing avatars.
Regular connie, do you mean TOS version or TMP version? I have done a TMP connie, she is the heavy cruiser for the Federation and I will be revamping her textures perhaps tonight and posting an updated version of her. I will also at the same time be reworking the Constellation drastically. That one will take quite a bit of time to do though, as I plan on modelling in her shuttlebays to match the other ships and so a full re-texture of her saucer rim will be needed.
I want to get all the ships done to a standard before I move onto the stations.
Very good work man
Thanks Starfox.
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It's a FO mod now, so I can have higher poly models and take advantage of the neat features incorporated into FO. I was one of the earliest mods to do this, I'm glad I did as otherwise YY wouldn't have progressed any further and evolve into what it is today. Yes I have ideas that will make the factions even more unique.