Re: More Wasp work, turret design

Yeah the legs were totally barmy! ;) I was tempted ot make them directly
like a real wasps, but thought, hm, heck just leave them, things don't have
to be always 100% practical, it's Spelljammer! ;)

I didn't like the angled tail, thought it would be good , angled, on land,
to brace itself, but otherwise...it would really throw the ship off balance!

Way the turret works is, imagine a ring, inside and slightly lower, is a set
of rollers. The turret itself slot son top of the ring, a wide groove cut
throught its 1' thichk walls slots onto the ring. Inside the slot are
rollers, so, set of rollers on the ring, support the FLOOR of the turret,
the set of rollers inside the allls support the alls and roof, thus
istributing the weight over many rollers.

It's quite simple really ;) only concenrn is anchoring the turret so reverse
gravity doesn't throw it off, so I imagine it's held down with spindle going
through the deck, and fastened below , so you can remove turret if need, but
is otherwise firmly fixed.

The ballista would project beyond the turret, only the main body of it would
be inside, the "bow" end, which is so wide, doesn't need to be inside.
Catapults would always be a pain but, meh ;) I think they'd work if
trebuchet design like I made (no sling just a bucket) because the turret
roof is quite high. Onagers would work too.

A capstan below is impractical since it would be in the "companionway" :(
Yeah the handles to turn the turret are removable ;) 
Alas crew working it would be vulnerable to fire, but I figured the
lizardmen are not smart enough to make a gear system rotated by handles
inside the turret. I was starting to build such a thing and then realized,
NOPE, lizardmen aren't that smart ;)

The "greeble" work around the rear eyes is removable :)

The forward eyes, have to be way out on stalks if parallel...imagine an egg
shell, if the eyes are to the middle, but truly perpendicular, there's a big
gap between them and the shell, meaning a long tube to bridge that
gap..which means very restricted vision, but, if the eyes are rotated to be
more flush with the shell, you get much better field of vision, though it
angles forward by about 15 degrees or more, you can see that better in the
animation if you slow it down/use mouse to drag it forward/backward

Hm, good point on flooding it. If you look at my re-worked deckplan
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/wasp/deck1s.gif
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/wasp/decks2.gif
you can maybe figure it out, the head is separated by a bulkhead by way.
:)

Lol yes the original wasp was the ship I was most dreading building!! ;)

*snip!*

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.

Interesting design.

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.

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.

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..)


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.


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_00107193
7434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/ 


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