Re: More Wasp work, turret design

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven" <steven.james.1@??????????.??.uk>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 6:01 PM
Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] More Wasp work, turret design

The original boxed set had some rather attractive ships in it, but I never 
really liked the weird sticking up legs on the Wasp (or its sister-ships - 
the Mosquito, Dragonfly and Damselfly). I thought that the original Wasp was 
especially bad as its four "working legs" were not paralel with the gravity 
plane and the ship would have tipped forward slightly when it landed on the 
ground.

Your legs certainly work a lot better as the formerly "useless legs" now 
kneel on the ground instead of doing nothing.

If I could have my way with those rear legs on the insect ships, I'd 
probably want to make them more useful by making them swing down and lock 
into place whenever a ship lands on the ground (and swing upwards during 
flight to help with gravity). This would give the insect ships six feet to 
take their weight and the rear legs would also help stop the ship from 
tipping backwards.


>HYPERLINK
>http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/rhino/wasp8.jpg
>designed the turret so it is, I think, practical ;)

Interesting design.

>a ring of rollers under the floor gives support and rotation

Under-floor rollerswould be a *lot* harder to fix (and would introduce a 
hull weakness). I think you should bisect the turrent horizontally somewhere 
underneath the point where the balista joins on and put your rollers at that 
height. A beam could cross the turret above the joint with the balista 
sitting on the middle of the beam. The area in front of that beam *would* be 
dead space, but if you put a small shelf on it, you can use it to store 
balista bolts.

If a turret was done like that then it would not affect the integrity of the 
ship. If necessary you could lift up the entire moving part of the turret 
and be left with a small circle that was approximately 1 foot above deck 
level. And if you do the turret my way you can stick a door on the back and 
not need your ladder.

>another ring of rollers is built into the walls of the turret, which sits 
>on
>another ring that slots up inside, hope piccy illustrates that ok :-)

I'm not sure what you mean here. Why are there two sets of rollers? Are you 
saying that the turret would rotate, but the walls would stay still? I can't 
see why you would need the second set.

>roof for defence, poles for folk to push/rotate the turret.


You roof cut out is degrees, but I'm not sure that would be enough clearance 
for the width of a heavy ballista. The ballista in the illustration on page 
21 of LotV seems to have a ballista wider than the turret.

What width is that turret of yours? If it a lot wider than a heavy balista 
then you may be bloating your ship to a bigger width than it needs to be and 
if they are about the same size, then the turret could interfer with the 
operation of the balista.

A roof is an interesting idea, but in my opinion it really makes this a 
different "configuration" of the wasp. I think you should do a "standard 
wasp" with no roof and a big balista and this wasp with a smaller defended 
balista. Your ship should get a different name. Bee is gone, as is Bumble 
Bee. I'd suggest using Hornet. I don't think anyone has used that yet.

As for the "poles". These should not be fixed poles, but should instead be 
removable (like the "handspikes" fitted into "capstans" in order to turn 
them). With removable "handspikes" you would not need to allow walking space 
between the ends of the "handpikes" and the edge of the ship. The handspikes 
would be taken out and stored nearby except during ship combat. (They may 
well be stored vertically clipped to the sides of the turret.) If a ship was 
boarded lizardmen operating the handspikes would be able to pull them out 
and use them as weapons (in a similar way to the belaying pin).

Incidentally, lizardmen (sorry lizardfolk) moving the turret would be at 
risk from personal weapon attacks. You might want to give your crews shields 
that can be worn on the back while working equipment like a turret. They 
could then turn their body inwards and get some sort of protection.

(The other alternative would be to drop a capstain into the middle of the 
room below and have people turn the turret from underneath it..)

>HYPERLINK
>http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/rhino/wasp9.jpg
>rear shot and shows some “greeble” (artwork of no real purpose just to look
>interesting) I did round rear window.

I thought the original windows were round too. The artwork around the 
windows is very nice to look at, but seems to be something a captain did to 
"personalise" his ship. I wonder if you could make this something optional. 
Actually a few small variations in windows, doors and deck weapons could 
make two identical ships look like they were built by different people.

>What ya think? :-)

I'm mostly impressed, I've already said that I prefer "your" legs, but I 
also think you have made this feel more like a ship (or at least a boat).

Your wing controls, do make it look like the crew can actually steer the 
ship.

You have managed to squeeze in another deck. Although, seeing that makes me 
think you have made the Bumble Bee configuration of this hull. Your lower 
deck does seem to be fairly fat giving the ship the "pregnant" look that 
matches the Bumble Bee variant. I'd be interested to know if you could pinch 
in that bottom deck a bit and get something that looked a bit more like the 
picture on LotV page 21. (But if you did try that, please keep this as a 
Bumble Bee.)

As usual (for your ships) you have made use of the Wasp's tail. However, I'm 
a bit sorry to see that you have straightened it. You can't really tell from 
the pictures, but I've always imagined that you could walk up the back of a 
Wasp's tail when it lands on the ground.(making it function a bit like a 
ship's gangplank). Your horizontal tail would certainly help give the ship a 
stable gravity plane while in flight. I wonder if you could make it swing up 
and down like a drawbridge. (A Wasp with a swing tail would get good 
protection while landing on the ground as its legs would keep it up in the 
air, but its tail could be lowered to allow friendly folk to board easily.)

The only other "niggle" that I've got with your ship is the forward 
windows - the eyes. On the original ship these are slightly further back and 
are parallel with each other - one "points due west" and one "points due 
east". The forward windows were also parallel with the rear ones. Did that 
not work out when you tried it?

>From what I could see of the original design The only part that would work 
flooded, would be the rear of the middle deck - and that was tiny. Most of 
the lower space was below the gravity plane, meaning that water would spill 
upwards instead of staying where it was needed. I hope you can your Wasp to 
work while flooded. Here is an idea for you. How about isolating the lower 
deck of the head from the lower deck of the body and spliting the upper deck 
of the body in two (with a waterproof door running from port to starboard 
though the middle of the Wasp's body). You could have two hatches from the 
middle deck to the body of the ship - one forward of the watertight bulkhead 
and one aft of it. This would allow the lizardmen to flood the rear part of 
the middle deck and if that was the only part of the ship connected to the 
bottom (reverse gravity deck) the water could flow through a hatch at the 
bottom of that deck into your third deck. With no way between the flooded 
section and the front compartment, except by climbing all the way to the top 
deck, the water would not be able to spill out when ship went into wildspace 
and the gravity plane kicked in. (I think you could make a ship that would 
have a much larger (and therefore - from the point of view of a lizardman - 
more logical) flooded section than the original Wasp ship.)

>That’s the wasp about done.

The original ship had so *many* things that I was unhappy with that I've got 
"emotional baggage" that works against this design. However, niggles aside, 
I think your ship works a *lot* better than the original.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/