Evolution of the French Leviathans
While the original concept sketch that Doug provided told me he was the right man for the job, it wasn’t exactly the direction we wanted to proceed. In our estimation if felt a little too Edwardian. And for the visuals of our game we absolutely wanted to proceed down a more Victorian Science Fiction/Steam Punk angle.
So after some back and forth discussions, Doug dove back in and generated sketch 2.
We immediately felt this was a better direction to head. Of course we also began running into the perennial problem faced by all ship designs. The “coolness factor” vs. the “realistic factor.”
Likely one of the most realistic spaceship designs ever is the Star Trek Borg cube. A giant block of defensive armor and armaments, with the bridge buried in the heart of the ship. The same could be said of giant robots. The Robotech bioroids were close to the best, with the pilot buried in the chest under the most armor, not mounted on top in a miniscule cockpit that’ll be destroyed by a stiff breeze.
However, while they have their place, no ‘hero’ fights in such a machine. Instead, the cockpit is up where a man can see his enemy with his own eyes. Or in the case of ships, the bridge is visible, so we know the captain is right there at the edge of the action, able to stand heroically, legs braced, looking out of the ship’s viewport with his own eyes. I could delve into the psychology of all of that, but I think most of us understand that instinctively…and if we don’t we just need to look at the vast majority of successful science fiction universes (books to TV to movies) and realize that is almost always the case.
So maintaining that aspect of a “look” was important. Just as important, the placement of the tanks containing our magic goo also need to be visible. It’s what will help to provide that unique look to the ships of the Leviathans universe. Obviously this isn’t all of the tanks; some are buried deep inside the ship, universe and game speaking, but for visuals some of that has to appear on the flanks of our ships.
Furthermore, in addition to setting the look of the universe as a whole apart from other such universe that have come before, we also realized that the design and placement of those exterior tanks would also help to differentiate faction designs. Let’s face it, the majority of wet navy ships unless you’ve a discerning eye for it, often look all too similar, even among various empires. A player walking up and glancing at a table needs to be able to pick out a faction ship. “Wow, cool French ship. What class is that?”
So while the over-all feel of the ship was starting to come together, we felt the current look of the side mounted tanks wasn’t unique enough.
We immediately fell in love with the cool aft design elements that Doug added, but the side tanks still just weren’t working well enough for us. The French had a very distinctive hull at this time in the real world and we wanted to ensure that that unique look would translate into Leviathans.
With Doug’s fourth iteration we felt he’d mostly nailed it. There’s a host of subtle nuances that were added as we headed into two or three additional illustrations before we called it final and he began working on the color illustration. But I’ll discuss that in another blog post, as well as start discussing other faction’s visuals.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
It’s always interesting to see the evolution of design. Thanks Randall, this is cool
You’re most welcome…now just need to fix those pesky images…babe in the woods with this stuff…but learning…
Great sketches.
I’d be interested to hear actual military engineers / defense contractors critique fictional ships based on their practicality and structural utility in a war setting. How would Lockheed Martin redesign the Star Ship Enterprise or the Super Star Destroyer?
Anyway, here’s the Michael Moorcock book I was telling you about – the one that deals with the alternate WWII massive war zeppelins. Maybe be some good reference material or some inspiration for future ideas.
http://www.amazon.com/Nomad-Time-Streams-Michael-Moorcock/dp/1565041941/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243961622&sr=8-1
hahah…that would actually be really fun and cool to generate and read.
Thanks for the link, Houston.
The capped funnels, and their placement, do give this Leviathan a very French look. Losing the tripods and adding the ‘tumblehome’ hull and ram bow makes it look right at home above Lorraine. Well done!
Love seeing how things are being developed
Man…I love seeing the concepts. I really am looking forward to this…can’t wait.
actually, i beleive that placing the bridge towards the top of the ship has less to do with “heroic” stuff for wet navy, and more to do with visibility. before computers, radio, radar, nightvision, and thermal imaging…all you had were the Mk1 eyeballs. for navigation, for range finding, even for communication.
placing the conn higher above the waterline ensured navigation was smoother. a higher angle allowed you to see into the water to see near surface dangers a lower position might hide. being near the top of the ship allows a wider field of view, in fact in many cases on old sailing ships, 360 degree. later steam ships condensed this greatly with enclosed conns and such, but by then you had soundtubes and later intercoms for your observers to relay info to you. but being able ot see where your going is of major importance. even today. (ask yourself why modern carriers still have a bridge tower, instead of it just being a cluster of sensors for rooms buried in the hull…)
the old sailing ships employed crowsnests for the same reason. being the highest point on the ship, they had the best vantage point, since their height and resulting angle meant the horizon was a small fraction farther away than for the people down below, and the angle meant better contrast and parralax when spotting stuff. it was also great for looking straight down into the water to see submerged dangers. later steam powered ships kept the crowsnest concept and expanded it with optical range finders, sound tubes for quick communication, and so on. the methods changed, but the basic reasoning stayed the same. in fact, with the enclosed conns and the large size of the ships, such observation platforms became even more important, since they could often see what the captain could not.
the main problem science fiction tends to have with bridges and such stems from the fact that most are presenting SPACESHIPS, and not wet-navy ships. the above approach is important for a wet navy ship, since even if your high-tech gizmo’s work perfectly, you’re still on a 2D plane and your enemies are too. space ships operate in a fully 3D volume, and at such scales that having windows at all is pointless, since you usually can’t see the enemy with the naked eye anyway. which is why ships like the star trek or star wars stuff, with exposed bridges at the “highest point” on the ship as measured from an arbitrary ‘waterline’ draw so much flack. in space, there is no reason not to bury your conn deep in the hull. unless your just wanting to do a “space is an ocean” thing…
for leviathans, it would seem they fall in a halfway point. the operate on what is basically a 3D plane, perhaps better envisioned as layers of 2D planes, one on top of the other. much like submarines, they’d operated basically like a surface ship, only able to rise and sink as well. since unlike submarines leviathans operate in air, most of the old paradigms about bridges and crowsnests would seem to be still apply. it’s still important to see where your going.
i would however expect that eventually something more than the simple bridge and crowsnest would develop. for a 3d enviroment liek the air, your going ot want eyes on all sides. so i’d expect that eventually you’d get observation points along the sides, on decks underslung under the hull, on the bow, on the stern….and so on. so you don’t have blindspots.
Sorry for another comment, but I think, placement of second big turret over first sonewhat too modern for french warship of pre-war era.
Before WWI all theirs big warships mostly used rhombical placement of the single (and very long) barreled turrets as on this photo of Massena BB.
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7089/60d6442e7c49.jpg
Maybe Doug can shift second turret from nose to port board below second funnel, and add overly large sponson?
Danton-class BB, which been obvious prototype for this sketch, had three big turrets in row on both boards in perfect french manner.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Dreanoughts_Danton.jpg
Sorry again
While it certainly wasn’t common, superfiring turrets were used by the French – see the Henri IV, laid down 1897 & commissioned 1899. Another point to remember – Leviathans aren’t naval ships, and their construction can impose different opportunities and limitations.
While we’re certainly guided by the examples of the Mundane Timeline, we are not bound by them. A certain amount of divergence is necessary. For example, most political clashes in the Mundane Timeline never ended up in ship-to-ship combat. But who wants to play where you set up your fleets, then “roll 2D6 on a result of 2 to 11 there’s a political solution, drawn game & pack up the minis”
Sorry for wronging of the draft.
but how about predecessor?
I think, its can be Massena-class Leviathan
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/5206/massena.gif
Well, I suppose we’ll have to wait a bit for the different designs, their relations and histories… Nevermind, so far, I like it !
After seeing this, I now just want to see how the other nations’s leviathan were designed… From the header picture, one can see that the British ships are sleekers, with longer bows and square funnels… But the German ones (more turrets a la Nassau ?) ? and Russian ? US ? Italian ?
One last thing while we’re speaking about French leviathans: I’ve seen them called “VNF truc” in the timeline. I suppose it’s mean to say Vaisseau National Francais or something like this. The problem is that it doesn’t sound French at all: our ships are just called by their name without any USS or HMS or MV. At most, you can add an article (e.g. “Le Fantasque”, “Le Patrie”, French ships are masculine), but the plain name would be more French-like.
But it’s just nitpicking at details. Thanks for showing us how things are made !
Out of curiosity, will these beauties be in plastic or lead?
Plastic. However, if the line is successful, sky’s the limit, so to speak, and so you might eventually see a metal line.
When will we get to see pictures of the plastic minis?
I can’t wait to start a french fleet. What will be the scale of the models?
I hope you add smaller planes & bombers though because small fast units may
give an exta dimension to the game and add a reason to add ships with flack.
Keep up the good work it looks great.
Nice shoutout to Rifts Glitterboy 2098
NGR is Epic
“Likely one of the most realistic spaceship designs ever is the Star Trek Borg cube. A giant block of defensive armor and armaments, with the bridge buried in the heart of the ship.”
“However, while they have their place, no ‘hero’ fights in such a machine. Instead, the cockpit is up where a man can see his enemy with his own eyes.”
Which is one reason the Borg cube was so damn intimidating: You’re so unimportant we don’t even need to look at you when we destroy you.
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@glitterboy2098: “actually, i beleive that placing the bridge towards the top of the ship has less to do with “heroic” stuff for wet navy, and more to do with visibility. before computers, radio, radar, nightvision, and thermal imaging…all you had were the Mk1 eyeballs. for navigation, for range finding, even for communication.”
You’re correct. In fact, on Modern Marvels the USCGC Healy has an auxiliary control station (AloftCon) that’s mounted atop the superstructure so it can be piloted more effectively. (It’s the big black “mast” in this image: