The Philosopher's Stone

[Freddy Mallins]

RSF Orbital Sailor The Philosopher's Stone

(click for gallery)

First spaceship I’ve really ever built; kinda sucks, but I like it.1 - First angle2 - Back shot3 - Side view4 - Front5 - Interior of the control center6 - Greebling side 1 *7 - Greebling side 2 *8 - Room 1, cargo hold9 - Room 2, bunks10 - The Royal Steam Federation11 - Main part of the ship, 112 - Main part of the ship, 213 - Observation port ***14 - Entry into the observation ports15 - Topside radar16 - Engines (with fuel tanks immediately next to them)17 - Topside airlock **18 - Topside back greebling *19 - Bottomside back greebling *20 - Airlock hold with space suits ****21 - Space suit (with light thingy flipped down)22 - Captain and crewmemberThis isn’t exactly Steampunk; I’d say it’s actually a bit more of Dieselpunk, but considering they’re going to space, I’d give them a little leeway to be a bit more futuristic than their current era.Basically the way this thing contextually works is that it explodes, launches itself into orbit, and floats around the earth a couple of times (considering it's Steampunk, the safety and well-being of the crewmembers is just an extraneous variable).The ship isn’t actually white; it’s this weird shade of light gray that’s in the LDD color palette, but I’ve never seen it before in real life, unless it’s supposed to be the NXT/Thok white…This whole ship is maybe held together by…three or four major connection points. Hence why I love building in LDD.* To be honest, I really don’t like the greebling I did on this, on the few parts that actually have it. My problem with greebling is that I’m just not experienced; my idea of the trick is just to surf through the minifig piece inventories and just pick out random pieces that look mechanical-ish would maybe work if thrown all together. My idea of good greebling is basically mechanical puke where you can’t distinguish separate pieces out of the whole cluster; I just haven’t gotten up to that point, yet.** I didn't really like this part, either; I just really wanted to do something with this design that I made, so I was all like 'Hey, airlocks.' Probably a bad move.*** The best job on the ship is getting the port that faces the earth; the worst job is the exact opposite.**** I guess I could’ve added a little something more into the latter part of the ship where the space suits and airlocks are; that rooms kinda blandishness.Anyways, enjoy or whatever.

[Taipu1]

And you think this kinda sucks, why, exactly? :PI'll commend you on your patience first, when I use LDD it always seems to take forever to do anything, and thats for things not nearly this large.Then there's the actual intricacy of the build, the control center at the front I love, I was actually building something similar using those cockpit pieces, and you've put me to shame with how sleekly they're integrated. The same goes for the observation things on the side, they look really awesome.The attention to detail (again I admire your patience) is amazing, with all the little rooms on the inside, and the greebling on the side.Overall, I think your over critical of yourself, and this is the best thing I've ever seen come out of LDD. I'd like to see more.

[bonesiii]

I like it for the most part, especially the overall shape, and those observation ports.An interesting idea of making a "steampunk" or dieselpunk spaceships. Personally, I think of Steampunk as brown and iron/steel (or bronze/copper, etc.), the brown representing wood, although there's no real reason it would have to be. When I see this I see nothing that says Steampunk, and not just because of the lack of brown, but then if you were to make a steam-powered (or something similar) spacecraft (skyhopper I guess this would be), the design would have to be different from typical steampunk, so okay. What maybe could have improved it was a more traditional wood interior though.The first criticism that came to mind is the lance piece on the front; I would have turned it so that "side" dish points down, instead of randomly to one side, so you could say it is a scanner of the planet surface below. And that establishes a principle I think would help with your "greebling" throughout. Random mechanicalish stuff that is so obviously just tacked on to add texture just doesn't do it at least for me -- and especially not for steam or dieselpunk in which the workings are real-world style, not some fictional sci-fi technology that we couldn't understand. That is, always make sure its placements have some logical justification based on a design purpose.You could kind of get away with some of this if it was not an aerospace craft as computing components, but it's odd to see them on the outside where re-entry would destroy them. If this is any "punk" below the capability of forcefields, you'd think there'd be a space-shuttle-style physical armoring under the craft, and components would only be visible on the top or inside, never on any part of the bottom.Also it's awkward to have an airlock that extends, yet doesn't extend far enough past the up-raised wings (or down) to reach a flat surface. You can easily get away with that though by just saying anything it attaches to has an extended airlock too; it looks about half the height of the wings there so okay.And one little "maybe nitpick" (but undecided ) is the way those small fins on the 'neck' are held on; it looks like it would create a lot of drag, which seems odd considering most of the rest is very aerodynamic, and doesn't seem necessary, but it does look cool, so whatever. :PCriticisms aside, though, it's a cool design, and you obviously worked hard getting all those pieces to fit together, plus working in some clever piece uses. I especially love the whole observation port design, from base to tip. Looks designed to clamp in the window dome to make sure it stays airtight (and kinda makes me look "nervously" at the other windows by comparison ).And the engines look really cool, especially how massive the empty space inside the four blast cones are, plus the tanks being so obvious. There's no confusion on the function there. It really does look like it would just basically explode into orbit and not be able to do anything else other than fall back to Earth afterwards (or whatever planet it's from ).I suppose to be complete I should say what I wasn't going to, though, which is, although they look cool, vertical wings probably have little to no practical value, whereas sideways wings could actually help it survive reentry much like a space shuttle. But that's a boring criticism to make because with sideways wings it would look too cliche so ignore me. Although I suppose a "space biplane" wouldn't be too cliche. :shrugs:Overall a good use of LDD especially for a larger model (those aren't easy). Would love to see more like this from you.

[Freddy Mallins]

Hey thanks, bones (and you too, Taipu). I actually am planning on doing some Neo-Classic Space stuff in LDD, considering I have the capability digitally. And thanks for the criticism - some of the stuff you brought up I didn't think about before, such as the reason greebling would even be on the outside of the ship.But I can just blame it all on the Steampunks; after all, this is the first rocket ship they've ever designed and built.

[<Reverb>]

At first, I thought I was going to see a picture of a rock. xDYeah, I applaud you on doing this in LDD. I couldn't of made anything better than a minifigure in LLD. :PSo for one, I love the control center and design of the spacesuits. I also like those bed/bunks. They're nice and small yet detailed.For the exterior, *claps*. The engines are intricuite as well as the fuel tanks. The Wings(?) have a nice design too.Overall, I love the it. The MOC as a whole is spectacular, and even more awesome if its in LDD.Nice MOC.

Edited May 18, 2012 by The Elements

[The Swimming Beard]

Wow, that is really good. I like the design of the front and engine designs, and the middle sections look good as well.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Toa of Smooth Jazz