Here is an update on the model.

The model is as good as finished. Now for the texturing... oh dear...

Did you notice something new when visiting my website? Well, that is, if you're one of the 2 or 3 regular visitors of my site. No? well that's thanks to Weebly who kindly redirects everyone trying to visit my old page to my new and upgraded domain!
Yes, that's right. I'm now no longer a sub-domain of Weebly.com but a unique website amongst millions of other sites on the internet.

Other than that, I've also been working on another model. The HMCS Attaque for Kirby, another Steam friend.

The ESAD M60 Asteroid Class Explorer

-Built Year 3072

-Length: 10.1m

-Type: VTOL, Deep Space Exploration

-Crew: Pilot, Co-Pilot

-Armament: 4 Rockets, Forward Cannons

The ESAD M60 A.C.E is a deep space exploration craft designed for staying in space for weeks or even months.
It got its name from the M40 X A.C.E, the first Asteroid Class Explorer.

Though a little outdated, these spacecraft still are in use by the ESAD scientific research department.

So I was thinking today about ships and flying and energies and stuff. I came to start thinking about how large ships would land. The standard scifi magic hovering was obviously something I wouldn't do since that wouldn't be the kind of realism I'm looking for.

My original reason for starting to think about how ships would stay in the air came from me watching Battlestar Galactica. I was looking at the Raptors and I was wondering how the hell those un-aerodynamic things could stay in the air. It would obviously take a lot of thrust and energy to keep it in the air.

To cut a long story short, me thinking of one thing lead to me thinking of another and before long I was thinking about my Space 3000 universe which is where these scifi-ish thoughts usually take me. So how would a ship land? Well the smaller ships are usually VTOL with thrusters on the bottom of the ship similar to the BSG Raptors (only with a more aerodynamic design). However the larger ships, and I'm talking the ships that are over half a kilometer long (like the Aloadae II I poster earlier), they would simply use up way to much energy trying to land in the VTOL kind of way. Landing gears are out as well since a ship of this size would produce to much friction, both in the wheel mechanics and between the tires/ground so that would simply be to risky. Besides, maintenance would be a bitch. Think of all the poor engineers.

Then I got the idea. An idea that would shift the energy consumption from ship to ground allowing the ship to land without using a huge amount of energy. But where would the stopping force come from then? Well the ground. So I got the idea that what if the airstrip itself provided the entire force of keeping the spacecraft on(off) the ground.

Large ships would land on airstrips with a built-in combination of air pressure and magnets holding the ship of the ground during approach. The ship would then use its own forward thrusters to slow down until finally coming to a halt at the end of the airstrip. There it would deploy its landing gear on either the ground or a movable platform.

Think of it like airhockey only with half a kilometer long ships.

This way a lot of the energy would be used more efficiently and the ship itself would only have to provide the forward stopping force (by burning their forward thrusters at full). The downside might be that the landing strips would have to be pretty damn long, many kilometers long. Just like for modern space shuttles.
Even so, I think it's a great idea considering the alternatives. I'm just wondering if it has been thought of before.

So here is my concept of how it would look:

Here is the remake of the Aloadae II finished.

I was thinking about continuing on an Arctic Adventures with the SnowTeam re-boot. However, instead I went for remaking one of my old Space 3000 ships, the Sirius 1 class: Aloadae II.

A ship made for a Steam friend, Raven.

 The U.S.S. Corvus

Built Year 2393

Registry: NCC-804-07-A

Class: Modified Convictus Class

Length: 850m

Crew: 1250 - 1580

Warp Factor: 9.5

Shields: Deflector Shield Emitters

Armament: 16 Phaser Banks, 2 Forward Photon Torpedo Launchers, 2 Aft Photon Torpedo Launchers, 1 Quantum Torpedo Launcher

Here is another Star Trekkie ship by me (who isn't a trekkie. No seriously I'm not, I don't have any Star Trek uniforms in my closet). It's a small escort, very similar to the Defiant.

U.S.S. Caesar

Built Year 2322

Registry: NCC-505-05

Class: Palladium Class

Length: 170 m

Crew: 200 - 250

Warp Factor: 9.5

Shields: Deflector Shield Emitters

Armament: 6 Phaser Banks, 2 Directed Phaser Banks, 2 Dual Phaser Cannons, 2 Forward Photon Torpedo Launchers, 2 Aft Photon Torpedo Launchers

Uploaded some new music to Admiral Skeybars YouTube channel including two new singles by me.