HOME | DD

MADMANMIKE — Magellan Shuttle 02

Published: 2013-12-30 15:40:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 4486; Favourites: 59; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description Despite it's sleek exterior, the Magellan Shuttle is another result of poor communication between the design and marketing departments at Korvadyne. Designed to be a two-man scientific exploration shuttle, The Magellan has been modified by marketing over and over again and is being sold as an inexpensive patrol boat. The science lab was cut in half, reduced to a marginally adequate medical bay and three additional bunks; the sensor systems were reduced in range and variety in lieu of extra armor (still marginally adequate for a patrol boat), and the unique probe launching system was replaced entirely with addition of a secondary defense turret. 

As a two man science vessel the ship was equipped with an elegant pair of engines designed to refuel by passing through stellar bodies of adequate chemical composition (gas giants, nebulae, etc.), and thus access to them for repairs is limited to a couple of removable wall panels in the cargo bay or a series of panels on the exterior that require an E.V.A. or mechanics at a ship yard; not much of a problem for a two-man science shuttle, but a larger inconvenience for a patrol boat.  The only airlock is the rear ramp, again no problem for a science vessel tasked to map and observe stellar phenomena and occasionally land and take physical samples, but awkward at best for a patrol boat likely to engage in boarding actions.  Lastly, one feature commonly necessary for a patrol boat is adequate prisoner facilities.. The Magellan can easily be modified to accommodate prisoners in the cargo bay at an extra cost, but this requires completely contained environmental systems (as the cargobay is the airlock), and makes access to the interior starboard engine panel difficult.

Despite these issues, the platform has been popular amongst traders of expensive cargo, luxury shuttle services (who expand the living space into the cargo bay), and some explorers, despite the reduced capacity as a science vessel. Much to the chagrin of Korvadyne's upper management, Pirates seem to be scooping these up on the secondary market and upgrading the weapon systems for fast assault craft as well..

NOTE: I have in the past been in the habit of posting a full set of images for my ship designs, complete with an interior cutaway. However, I'm inclined to start selling .pdfs of my ships with full useable deck-plans for the RPG market, and am thus considering only leaving one or two images of each ship in this gallery.

Does $5.95 for a set sound reasonable?

Here's a sample shot from the interior: madmanmike.deviantart.com/art/…

As with all of my art, this was rendered in DazStudio 4.6, and postworked in Photoshop CS5.
Related content
Comments: 4

dmaland [2014-01-01 20:00:26 +0000 UTC]

I like the way the hull plating worked out.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

MADMANMIKE In reply to dmaland [2014-01-01 22:41:07 +0000 UTC]

This was built with Davorama's Flight Vehicle Construction Set, his Ground Vehicle Construction Set and his Heavy Battle Tank, all available for purchase at Powerfusion3d.com. The texture set used was the Metal set, slightly modified for a green tint in Photoshop.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Ascletarion [2013-12-30 16:11:58 +0000 UTC]

I've bought quite a number of sets like the ones you describe.  Your price of $5.95 is reasonable if it includes some fairly complete descriptions of the history (an expanded version of the above), interior descriptions, maybe very brief sample ships and crews, that sort of thing.  All of that could be abbreviated at that price, or you could charge a bit more, if you had truly awesome cutaway drawings (these are pretty rare in these sets) and well detailed floor plans.  I recommend becoming a seller on RPGNow as they have a nice customer base and good advertising options, etc.

Let me know if you have any other questions; I have a little RPG as a seller on the site so I know quite a lot about it.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

MADMANMIKE In reply to Ascletarion [2013-12-30 16:47:06 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the feedback; Yes, all of the above are likely to be included. I'm a writer first and foremost, so that side of things would be easy, and I have a library of stock characters to put into these sets, which are complete 3D composites. I figured a set of generic stats that could easily be adapted to any game system is a given as well.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0