Askad-Eleska render

[Graham Kennedy]

Today's effort. This one ended up taking about two days.

The Askad-Eleska is another Turgran design. Two main changes here - you can see they reoriented the back section, rotating it 90 degrees so the FTL nacelles are port and starboard rather than top and bottom. This was done to reduce the target profile to enemies on the beam. They've also been brought in and attached directly to the hull. Partly that's due to better engine tech reducing radiation output, but also about how the hull and FTL field interact. Midspace drives of this era had two field "lobes", each an ellipsoid with the proportions of 1:2:4. Having bits of hull poke through that field is a Bad Thing. Having the generator midspace shunts in the nacelles close to the field boundaries, though, was a Good Thing. In early midspace designs the hull design was influenced quite heavily by this, which is why portions of the hull were contoured to fit an ellipsoid. You can see that over time that influence drops away as improved tech meant that shunts didn't need to be near to the field boundary, and the fields themselves got bigger and more roomy.

Also notice the forcefield generators on the exterior hull. This was the first generation with forcefields for defence, you can see them on the Vanguard too.





Note the Big Ass Missile, too big to launch from the standard sized tubes.



In the below image you can see the hangar entrances on the bottom right. The yellow things are lifeboats, with the forcefield generator between them. Top right is an FTL comm - you can see the similarity to the FTL Comm on the Kororra class.











This is now a more or less complete lineage from the Swiftsure through the Vanguard classes. There would be other ships in there - these are all the "big ships" of their time, but there would be cruisers, frigates, etc scattered in there as well.

There's a couple or three ships to come between Vanguard and the Kororra, and several between Longbow and Swiftsure.

[Captain Seafort]

Looking at the number of missile tubes on this one, plus the existence of the bolt-ons that look absolutely nothing like modern quad Harpoon launchers, I'd infer that missiles were considered superior to AMPs at this point. Is this the case?

[Graham Kennedy]

Looking at the number of missile tubes on this one, plus the existence of the bolt-ons that look absolutely nothing like modern quad Harpoon launchers, I'd infer that missiles were considered superior to AMPs at this point. Is this the case?

AMP cannon were pretty new at this point - the Amzard class is the first to have them, IIRC. In terms of hitting power the missiles are better one to one, but an AMP cannon of this era fires at very nearly lightspeed, whilst the missile would have to accelerate out at hundreds to thousands of gees. But then the AMP cannon only fires in straight lines, whilst your missile can home in on a target. Your AMP cannon can also fire over and over again, of course, for as long as the M/AM supply holds out. In terms of overall effectiveness missiles were probably better at this point, but not by very much. The Vanguard AMP cannon were much better than the missiles of the day, overall.

Later AMP cannon would be able to fire FTL beams over vastly longer range - but then missiles/torpedoes would be able to fly FTL over vastly longer range too!

[Reliant121]

Impressive as ever!

[Mikey]

the bolt-ons that look absolutely nothing like modern quad Harpoon launchers

I was just thinking the same thing, but also in general I like the thought process - or rather, the lack of inbuilt bias - in having the missile/torp launchers off-axis.

[Graham Kennedy]

Yes, they were inspired by Harpoon launchers. The reason they tilt up/down is to clear the AMP cannon in front of them.