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ILJackson — Space Mining Vehicle
Published: 2011-01-20 16:45:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 4240; Favourites: 59; Downloads: 316
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Description
An asteroid mining vessel hunts for a few more good rocks to mine out of a meteor swarm before they fall into Mar's atmosphere.This is a commissioned piece for a collectible card game. I tried out a few new texturing techniques which I think really paid off here.
I wanted the ship to really look realistically used, without looking like nobody ever took care of it. The ship has laser mining devices on the bottom, and robotic arms which shovel the debris into the hold, so I made sure that the bottom was pitted and scarred from all the little rocks, heated by the lasers, that would probably splash up and hit the bottom from the drilling. Also notice that the windows are all either slanted slightly upwards or otherwise protected from the bottom of the craft.
As fun as warships and space fighters are to make, I find that often my best work ends up being utility vessels and "blue collar" ships.
Download for best view.
If you are interested in hiring me for commission work, send me a note through DA for information on rates and availability.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think.
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Comments: 15
It's got a cool bit of nostalgia to it, as if a part of the "playable" Wing Commander universe were suddenly transported into real life.
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That is a really cool design! Keep up the excellence!
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Lovely to see space craft other than warships. I am sure there will be a lot more of these than battle cruisers.
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Excellent ship and the new texturing style works really well. She looks like she works for a living to be sure, and I can totally see the scene you mention with the Captain. Makes me envision the interior looking like a cross between the udersea drilling rig in the Abyss and the mining facility on Io in the movie Outland 
Talking about the mining lasers and bringing things into the hold gives me an idea for a different style of miner. Your shipping skills are better than mine so if you find it intriguing feel free to experiment with this notion...
It'd be a bigger ship, because it's also a foundry/refinery due to the nature of it's mining style. It finds a large asteroid then drills down like an oil rig with a bit and pipe. When it gets down to the center of the deposit, mining lasers at the drill bit fire in all directions, heating the ore until it's molten. Then when sufficient amounts of the ore are ready, the liquid metals are simply pumped up into the ship for smelting and processing. The slabs of processed metal could be bolted on to the exterior of the ship rather than taking up cargo space (as long as the appropriate spacers are provided to avoid vacuum welding.
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That'd be something you do to a really rich deposit planetoid that's going to last awhile, like Ceres or Eros. It would probably look like an asteroid base. Actually, the first thing that comes to mind is the Peragus mining facility in the game Knights of the Old Republic 2: Sith Lords. Eventually, due to structural concerns, you'd have to abandon the asteroid before it collapsed, so you'd want to make sure it lasted a long time before you spend that kind of money.
Visually, I'd think it looked like a spider. And remember that this would be microgravity. So why have them bolted to the side? You could just tether them and let them hang in the breeze like a kite tail drifting off the asteroid. Then a pickup ship would come in, cut the line, and take it away.
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Yah, very true... it'd be a bit capital sized ship (or one of moderate size that would have it's molten ore pumped up to waiting 'tankers') Yah, eventually you'd have to stop the mining, but if you stop mining before it becomes structurally unsound, you now have a large hollow planetoid suitable for installation of life support, power, and crew systems and turn it into a ready-made space station 
Interesting bit of recreational thought we've got going here
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You could always have the end of the line be a little thruster that kept it safely deployed in case of emergency, but in space there's usually not much happening to act upon an object in motion already. Also, since it's space and you're not really worried about drag or anything like that, the drag line of mined metal could literally be a few miles long (which would visually look really cool).
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this is one of your best Ships and renders yet man!
i really love the shape and functional look of the vessel, it just screams mining vehicle
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I was going for a ship where you could imagine the captain grimacing while he drank bad coffee shouting "just shut it down until we find out what's making that damn noise!" while everyone else is complaining about their cut of the profits and the lack of respect from "The Company."
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hahahahaha well played sir, i believe you hit the nail on the head
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