Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[Mercy Machine]

I'm loving the detail on the Scarborough, but I have to pick a nit in today's panel. Mounted in the nose of the ship should be "Braking Thrusters" not "Breaking Thrusters", unless they are especially fragile.

[David]

Fixed. The embarassing thing is that I had already spotted the mistake previously, but didn't fix it straight away and then forgot when it was time to upload.

[see317]

Any chance that one of these updates is going to be a side by side in scale comparison with the Niobe?

I mean, it's obvious that the Scar is substantially larger then the Niobe (heck, that was obvious from the entry way of the Scarborough), but I'm curious as to how much larger it actually is.

[stads]

love the details of the ship

seems like its can pack a nice punch
but point defence seems lacking in my opinion on the rear on the ship
its no a easy part of the ship to hit since its relative narrow and long but stil placing something more there seems handy since its houses fuel and life support

[David]

Bah, I should have anticipated this request. Instead I find myself rendering stuff out at 11pm when my alarm is set at 5:45am so I can go to work the next day. I'd like to say it's because the needs of my readers come first, but really it's because I haven't put the two ships side-by-side since the earliest stages of the Scar's modelling and I want to see how they compare now:



The Scar is substantially smaller than Niobe, but feels bigger on the inside as it makes much more efficient use of space. It's worth noting that though the Scar's main guns are smaller in appearance, they are in fact more powerful than Niobe's. The Scar's guns are based on the models that the UTC is putting on it's state-of-the-art corvettes and frigates.

Re: The point Defence, the lateral emplacements have a fairly good arc covering most of the rear - however there isindeed a blind-spot astern. This was necessitated by the placement of the airlock, the need for heavy aft turret and the need to keep the dorsal stabiliser's profile smooth.

To be honest, the hardest thing about working on the Scar all this time has been continuing to talk about Niobe in the present tense, even though I knew of her fate in 2009.

[Tempest8008]

What's in the purple bit between the quarters and the dining room?

Inquiring minds, and all that...

[Icedaemon]

I'd bet it's the grand staircase.

I always thought that Scar's smaller than Niobe. It is after all a warship converted into a luxury yacht (which kept the guns, apparently - I initially thought it was unarmed), while the Niobe was a very old smallish cargo ship partially converted into a jack-of-all-trades.

[mysticjim]

Quick question about the layout of the Scar - would you normally have engineering based just below the crews quarters? In the event of an engineering catastrophe wouldn't it be too risky, the majority of your crew might be killed in their sleep without having had a chance to evacuate - you've probably come up with a smart and futuristic safety feature to negate this, but it just struck me as a bit dangerous!

Jim

[Raukk]

Quick question about the layout of the Scar - would you normally have engineering based just below the crews quarters? In the event of an engineering catastrophe wouldn't it be too risky, the majority of your crew might be killed in their sleep without having had a chance to evacuate - you've probably come up with a smart and futuristic safety feature to negate this, but it just struck me as a bit dangerous!

Jim

It's next to the engines, which is where I'd expect engineering, so the question is why put the crew quarters there.
Also, If you have a major engineering disaster in space it doesn't really matter where your crew was, if it's powerful enough of a blast to take out the floor (or 2) above then there isn't enough ship left to fly.

The only thing I see that is Niobe has that the Scar doesn't is a huge cargo bay, which it's looking like they wont need.

Also, I noticed a "Hangar" I hope this means we get to keep the scimitar or maybe they get a new fighter too. (P.S. that's a great spot for a hangar bay)

Can we get that picture/render of the Scar and Niobe side by side as a Wallpaper?

[David]

Can we get that picture/render of the Scar and Niobe side by side as a Wallpaper?

Good idea. I like the easy ones

I'll make a Wallpaper of this side-by-side render on the weekend and make it available to all. I'll probably do a few other WPs along the same lines for the Supporter's Club (any requests?).