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Synapsepilot

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Salvete amici

So, I orded three new books today which I am highly excited about. Two of them are about astrodynamics, the field I plan to make my career in, and another is an alternate history graphic novel about the space race. One of the books I had the honor of browsing through a few years ago, first pages are cramed with complex math I do not yet understand, but I will conquer these complex orbital mechanics equations! In addition to that, I downloaded Orbiter 2010 space flight simulator to get a further taste of the newtonian mechanics of space flight. My ultimate goal is to be an astronaut (first man on Mars perhaps?)

Lately I have been coming up with an idea for a comic about space combat, but based upon more (semi) realistic spaceships and such. No lasers, FTL drives, deflector shields, artificial gravity by unknown means, and any other such thing. Weapons will be mostly slug throwers, mass drivers, kinetic energy weapons and the like. It will almost look like cold war era stuff. I will use space fighters in a sense. The current title is "Lancer Squadron", and as of now (though this may change) set in the Lylat System a many a year (a few hundred perhaps) before the events of Starfox64. I have a basic plot worked out and will build upon it. I was up until 2AM last night designing a spacefighter, and realized what little life I have. Now, why "Lancer Squadron"? as the title? While doing research I came across descriptions of what sound enough like starfighters to make me happy. These ships are called lancers. Why are thay called lancers you may ask? First a description of what they are. A lancer would be a relativly small ship launched from a carrier or boosted into orbit. They would be small enough and numerous enough to avoid a capital ships heavy weapons and get in close enough to deploy some sort of kinetic energy weapon. The enemy may attack you with their own lancer craft, and the best strategy may be to intercept them with lancers of your own. Now this is where the name comes from. The two "dogfighting" craft would approach head on at high speeds, releasing their weapons at the last possible second. Similiar in a way to the medieval joust. Another thing, the pilots would wear complete pressure suits, and the cockpit would be a vacuum just like space, that way a fire will not break out in the cockpit. The cockpit's windows would be replaced with armor plating. Everything the pilot needs to know would be diplayed in the pilot's helmet. Manuvering would be accomplished with either thrusters placed at certain points on the craft or by large gyroscopes in the midsection, my current design looks sort of like a star fury from Babylon 5. Enough of my rambling, more later.

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Hey, maybe you could help me design some good simple designs for spaceships. That could help me a lot :).

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Since I'm a hobby astonomer/astrophisicyst I love the idea of the "lancer" space combat... but you must know that they wouldn't wait for the last moment to shoot their rockets, rounds. As you know the "nearly vacuum" of space provides practicaly small manouer possibilities. The usage of trans/rot thrusters are limited, it needs a lot of time for the spacecraft to react, and a lot of fuel (if they are not using a Nuclear reactor or anti-matter ect.). More mass = the ship is harder to control. Anyways I love this "low sci-fi" idea.

If you tried Orbiter - I know an action space shooter that I played in childhood (it uses Newtonian physics) - it's called I-War :D

P.S I'm not much a Babylon 5 watcher - but I always loved how they implemented newtonian physics in it (those awesome 180 deg. turns in space) :D

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Hey, maybe you could help me design some good simple designs for spaceships. That could help me a lot :-).

Sure, why not. Design depends on what purpose you want your ship(s) to have.

Since I'm a hobby astonomer/astrophisicyst I love the idea of the "lancer" space combat... but you must know that they wouldn't wait for the last moment to shoot their rockets, rounds. As you know the "nearly vacuum" of space provides practicaly small manouer possibilities. The usage of trans/rot thrusters are limited, it needs a lot of time for the spacecraft to react, and a lot of fuel (if they are not using a Nuclear reactor or anti-matter ect.). More mass = the ship is harder to control. Anyways I love this "low sci-fi" idea.

If you tried Orbiter - I know an action space shooter that I played in childhood (it uses Newtonian physics) - it's called I-War :D

P.S I'm not much a Babylon 5 watcher - but I always loved how they implemented newtonian physics in it (those awesome 180 deg. turns in space) :D

Thanks for your input, I am still trying to fine tune how these ships will fight each other in the vacuum of space. Part of the reason I downloaded orbiter was to help me get a good feeling of manuvering a spacecraft to aid in my story.Manuvering wise they may use moment control gyros, which is fine for adjusting attitude, but for translating up, down, left, and right I can only think thrusters would be a viable option. I would like it if my ships used chemical propellant for primary fuel, but I may use nuclear power in order to get the power where it needs to be. I have an early concept drawing of a ship I will put up a little later. Still need to develop characters more, design a carrier ship, enemy vessels, etc...but hey, I'm in no rush.

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Not sure yet, (Main reason is, I don't have a usable plot yet)!

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Not sure yet, (Main reason is, I don't have a usable plot yet)!

Yeah, I'm having some similiar problems with my comic. Just let me know when you need help!

In other news, my books arrived today. Pretty neat stuff, LOTS of math.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have you ever heard of the "IL-2 Sturmovik" WWII flight simulator series?

Link

[media=]

I used to play...and own.. when i was but a wee boy.

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Yes, in fact I have il2: 1946. Still play it from time to time, best of all it is one of the few sims I can run on high graphics settings.

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I have been at the beach the past few days, so my last few posts have been made via 3DS (hold your applause). My stretch of beach is nicely secluded, plenty of room to fly my stunt kite.

I have finalized the basic story for my comic. It takes place two centuries before sf64. I still need to get more concept drawings done, a rough script, and a few other things. I want to at least get a few more of the drawings done before Monday.

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Comic style or animation? That'd be cool, and I'd be happy to help! I think the fact that you posted on a 3DS is awesome! I'm hoping to get one soon.

Fanfic/story question: Since I'm doing a prequel to Star Fox 64, part of the screenplay has Peppy's return to Corneria in a spacecraft (damaged obviously), have any suggestions on a Space Craft for this instance?

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My story is going to be comic style, I wish I had the software for animation, that would be awesome.

About your story, if this is Peppy coming back after James' death, I would do something that looks like an earlier version of an arwing. I assume what you have in mind is capable of atmospheric flight, so make it resemble a jet in that case. If it is an escape pod, something with a heatshield dominating the craft might be the best option. I know of a great website that talks all about designing space ships for sci fi stories, which I will post a link to when I am at a real computer. In the meantime, do some research, there are many rescources available.

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Alright thanks! I love your Deviant Art works by the way!

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Alright thanks! I love your Deviant Art works by the way!

Thanks for the kind words. Just let me know when you need more help.

It has been quite a relaxing time at the beach, wonderful seafood, beautiful beach, plus i got to get a lot of stunt kite time in, and it was excellent weather for it! Consistent strong wind all week, in that kind of wind you can easily get dragged across the sand by the kite's pull. The bad news is I broke the carbon fiber spine on one of my kites, nothing a new carbon fiber rod from the hobby shop can't fix. Got to watch a sea turtle nest hatch too, pretty neat stuff. In other news I started watching Robotech on Netflix.It is a good show, now I want to build some Robotech/Macross mecha models.

School starts this Monday, I really need to start applying to colleges...

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, this past week was my first week of school, my senior year of high school. We are starting a block schedule, which means only four classes semester (albit longer of course)· This semester I am taking art , AP Latin, advanced CAD, and AP government. In art I am doing an independent study due to the fact that it is art 1, which I took my freshman year. In addition I also joined cross country.

The high school I am at now I attended my freshman year, then I moved away for two years, but now I am back for my senior year. It is amazing how much old friends have changed. I managed to re-establish old freindships on the first day anyways. It was funny, some old friends who I had not seen in two years said hello as if I never left. Well, I must say it is good to be back. Weird considering the school's motto is "finish what you start".

Got a little bit more done on my comic. I have a concept cover up on my fanart thread, and I have made progress on a few characters, drawings of whom I will have up later on. This comic may end up being a bit of an experiment, to help me gain experience for other works. The most challenge part has been working out the technical aspects of the ships and such that will appear in the story, but also the most enjoyable.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Oh my, haven't updated in a while.

Was browsing through our school library, pretty small but has a good selection. The collection needs more updated books. Most of them were published in the 1970's, I even found one published in the late 40's (about cartoons!). The cool part is that it would be difficult to find these books anwhere else...so its not that bad. I managed to find a book specifically about space weapons and warfare (published in the 70's).

I am also painting a Valkyrie from Robotech in art...have not painted in a while, but it is coming along nicely so far.

In my fan-comic, I have enough of the plot done to create a page or two which may be done when time permits.

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If you're working on art and stuff, you may find these things a little handy:

http://fanboypaper.com/products.php?id=8

http://fanboypaper.com/products.php?id=13

There was also a sketchbook, but the paper is terrible for sketching (It's closer to bristle paper than sketch, and bristle is for final drafts), so I didn't list it. You should be able to find this stuff at a local art store or online, and they're pretty cheap, so you can buy multiples (And I have, since the concept book doesn't come with many pages to work with).

Have fun with your art and fanfiction!

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If you're working on art and stuff, you may find these things a little handy:

http://fanboypaper.c...oducts.php?id=8

http://fanboypaper.c...ducts.php?id=13

There was also a sketchbook, but the paper is terrible for sketching (It's closer to bristle paper than sketch, and bristle is for final drafts), so I didn't list it. You should be able to find this stuff at a local art store or online, and they're pretty cheap, so you can buy multiples (And I have, since the concept book doesn't come with many pages to work with).

Have fun with your art and fanfiction!

Hmm, these are quite interesting, thanks for sharing.

I found a book on creating comics, I am hoping that will come in handy. I really want to get some work done on the story this weekend and at least get one piece of art up relating to it.

In other news, I pre-orderd the Warhammer 40k Limited Edition Dark Vengance set, which is set to release tomorrow, but I got an E-mail today saying it shipped! I am very excited about it, I have been wanting to get into tabletop gaming for a while now, and here is my chance!

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