New 3D Thread

[Sylvester]

Man that Morningstar blurb is kinda heartbreaking. Confed breaking up the Morningstars makes a lot of sense in my opinion, for two reasons. The obvious reason is that it was a condition of the armistice that the TCN destroy all of its brand new advanced fighters to which the Kilrathi currently had no match. A second reason that they might have been broken up is to throw the Kilrathi off the scent of the Excalibur project. Given the Excalibur's introduction in 2669, you'd have to figure that it was being worked on prior to the truce going into effect.

 

[Quarto]

Great Scimitar, Klavs! It feels like you've taken a fighter that had resembled fighters from the 1970-1980 era and turned it into a fighter that resembles the 2000-era. Very appropriate .

Man that Morningstar blurb is kinda heartbreaking. Confed breaking up the Morningstars makes a lot of sense in my opinion, for two reasons. The obvious reason is that it was a condition of the armistice that the TCN destroy all of its brand new advanced fighters to which the Kilrathi currently had no match.

Was it? I don't recall anything about that.

A second reason that they might have been broken up is to throw the Kilrathi off the scent of the Excalibur project. Given the Excalibur's introduction in 2669, you'd have to figure that it was being worked on prior to the truce going into effect.

Umm, no... that's exactly the opposite. If the Morningstar were scrapped, the Kilrathi would know that a new fighter must be developed in its stead. Even the willingness to scrap the Morningstar would already be an indication that something else is in the works...

 

[Sylvester]

That's my imagination going - nowhere in the text is that specified. But having the Morningstar's broken up as part of an armistice (in the same way that two countries might agree to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles as part of an agreement) does make sense in that regard.

 

[Klavs81]

Thanks guys, I wanted it to be a bit heartbreaking, but I also tried to add a lot of Proto-Excalibur design cues to the Morningstar while keeping her 1990s Rafale/Eurofighter aesthetic (while crinbing the heartbrake from the story of the Canadian Arrow) The side profiles of the two ships are quite similar, i'll add a pic later to show what i mean. You'll note that most of the other ships have internal guns and weapons bays and are a bit bulkier. The Morningstar hangs it all out there!

I think the Kilrathi had a vested interest in removing any potential obstacle to the coming invasion, but for the most part the fleet was mothballed, not cut apart. I think one of Jamison's political lackeys saw a chance to push this one through and got it in under the radar before someone with enough authority could oppose them.

 

[jjcoolay]

AH yes the avro Arrow... a sad sad day in history of the Canadian military. When I read that piece on the morningstar I had the the break up of the arrow in my mind. The arrow was really advanced for its time. Internal weapon racks, quick reload racks for missles, early fly by wire.

 

[Klavs81]

Blair had a thing for grease monkeys. "Nice fuselage." He'd say, making everyone in earshot uncomfortable.

"Uhhh... thanks? I guess?"

"I was talking about the Sabre."

Har har. Idiot.

Gives the rest of us a bad name, y'know?

-Unused material from Me: The Life and Battles of Maniac Marshall.

 

[Klavs81]

I'd never been on a flight deck that quiet.

There were little clusters of people here and there. Two, three to a group. People were saying goodbye, but for some reason it didn't feel sad. It was like the quiet before a wedding, rather than the funeral we all knew it to be.

I saw a pilot I didn't know manhandle a tech twice her size against a Rapier and kiss the hell out of him. I saw Chris and Jeanette just smiling at each other. I saw Kevin Tolwyn calmly preflighting his ship for the fifth time. I saw Davis, one of the kids plucked right out of basic flight, savoring a carrot with a huge grin on his face.

Three Zero Two surely didn't look unique, just your average, slate grey F-44G. Reasonably clean, well maintained, a hull patch here, a scratch or a greasy footprint there. No kill markings, no shark's mouth, no flamboyant paint scheme. Not even a name on the canopy rail.

I know people thought I was stupid for kissing my ship before every mission. People thought I was stupid for a lot of reasons. But that ship- when I kissed her, I swear she kissed back.

Three Zero Two was something special.

-Maniac

 

[Quarto]

Hmmm. Not happy. As nice as the Arena Rapier is, I don't appreciate the way it's trying to replace the original WC1/2 Rapier in everyone's minds. If you're doing the F-44G, it should look like an F-44G.

What would be cool, though, is if you were to do do a couple of versions of the Rapier, showing how with each version after G, the Rapier gets closer to the Arena version.

 

[Whiplash]

Hmmm. Not happy. As nice as the Arena Rapier is, I don't appreciate the way it's trying to replace the original WC1/2 Rapier in everyone's minds. If you're doing the F-44G, it should look like an F-44G.

There are models of the early Rapiers already, do I don't quite follow how this is supposed to replace the older versions in anyone's mind.

 

[Klavs81]

Now, don't anybody flip out. You probably won't be seeing the Super Rapier on deck until after Vukar Tag. It's a second generation follow on to the ABCDEF Models, much like the F/A-18E Super Hornet. Super Wing commander was my first WC game and I have a special place in my heart for this girl. I've just placed her chronologically so her appearance makes sense going forward to the Arena era.

 

[Quarto]

Now, don't anybody flip out. You probably won't be seeing the Super Rapier on deck until after Vukar Tag. It's a second generation follow on to the ABCDEF Models, much like the F/A-18E Super Hornet. Super Wing commander was my first WC game and I have a special place in my heart for this girl. I've just placed her chronologically so her appearance makes sense going forward to the Arena era.

Ah, well, that sounds reasonable, except that you seem to have dropped a model. The Rapier we see in WC2 is the F-44G - so if you want to introduce a new "Super" Rapier model, it should be at least the F-44H, or possibly even J (assuming that the Rapiers used for atmospheric combat in End Run were not standard G models, because particle cannons don't work in atmosphere; and assuming that Confed, like the US, skips the I and O designations due to their visual resemblence to numbers). Just don't call it the F-44G, and we won't have a problem .

 

[jlav]

I don't know if I've posted in here yet or not, but your work is stunning. I love all of it, especially the Salthi

 

[Klavs81]

Thanks jlav! And thanks for your hard work on the Privateer Board Game, it looks really cool!

 

[Klavs81]

F-103 Excalibur 'Lancelot 300' is now on permanent display in the Victory Museum, Jupiter Orbit, Sol System.

Chief Coriolis' crew back on the Victory had worked hundreds of hours getting our ships ready for the mission. But the Excaliburs had seen some hard use in getting us all the way to Kilrah's front porch, and they were finicky to maintain under the best of conditions.

The asteroid bases were reasonably well stocked, but they had been seeded before the Excalibur had fully left the drawing board. Some of the bleeding edge tech that gave the F-103 such an edge in space gave it a major Achilles heel when it came to the supply chain.

Peters had pulled a main stabilizer quad from 300. She frowned at it for a minute, then strode purposefully toward the parts cage. After a few minutes more, I noticed her back
under her own ship, 303.

The deck was cramped, Flint had to come right past where I was working to get over to 300 again. We locked eyes as she went past. She was lugging the good stabilizer quad from her own ship over to Blair's.

He saw what was going on, you could see it in his face. But to broach the subject was unthinkable, even impossible.

Despite everything, it was Chris Blair who had the best chance of completing the mission. The rest of us had become expendable.

It was neither a hard decision nor an easy one. It was simply the decision that had to be made. I followed Flint's lead, no orders or discussion required.

Soon we were working side by side, wordlessly pulling good parts from our birds to keep Blair's in top condition.

I can still see her: Filthy flight suit, face oily and grungy, hair greasy and matted, dark circles under her eyes.

I'd have married that girl.

-Maniac

 

[Triple-B]

the excalibur looks awesome. I will order it for sure

I just hope we see that Peacetime Arrow and the Dragon soon.

 

[Klavs81]

Too tired to channel Maniac, but there's a definite family resemblance.

 

[Whiplash]

Niiice! I see you've remained quite faithful to the original design. Good thing too.

 

[bsmith13]

Klavs, I love hearing from Maniac as much as I like seeing your new models. Can't wait for the next installment/release.

Any chance of having a Maniac blog somewhere where we can find all the "excerpts" from his autobiography in one place?

 

[Klavs81]

It had been six months since I had been in the cockpit. Surgery, rehabilitation, interviews, press junkets, endless memorial dedications, and a month long leave at my dad's place had taken their toll. You'd think the guy that helped
dust Prince Thrakath and destroy Kilrah could fly a decent upwind leg but noooo. I was way behind the ship.

Basic piloting is all about managing your finite ammount of concentration into managable levels, and planning ahead to break your concentration up to manage the next thing. I was blowing it bad. Before I knew it I was blind with no
NAV info, climbing through a solid overcast at 4600 meters with no outside reference or data. Normally this is no problem in an Arrow, if you go blind, you just pitch up, use your thrust to pop up above the overcast and start working on your options.

But thanks to the new batch of fleet cutbacks we only had enough fuel for a short atmospheric hop, the engines mixing the limited fuel with the ambient air to maintain propulsion and there was no way I had enough propellant to burner up to the stratosphere. It was just supposed to be a local atmospheric flight. Red lights were coming on one after another, and now I was totally crippled and blind, with no way to know even my altitude. I had been shot at thousands of times, been shot up hundreds of times, and nothing shook me like that dark cloud closing in around me, the rivulets of water pouring over the canopy, the flash of lightning, the sound of my stupid beating heart, and me, cursing like an idiot at my own stupidity and pride.

That green painted Arrow and I were going to dig one hell of a messy hole in the mountainside.



Thanks for the continued support well wishes guys, I'm archiving the Maniac stuff, who knows where it will end up!

 

[Klavs81]

Tarawa liveries! Maniac fiction was on my other computer, coming soon!