One of the parts I like the most of working with customers is listening to their ideas and try to incorporate them into the designs. Chris here is no exception. After our initial couple of hours Skype sessions we had a list of items we wanted to explore and see if they are possible and dont interfere with the original designs too much.

So the first thing we approached was the nose shape. We felt that the design was lacking additional armour at the front. When you want to throw a dart at an object you have to make sure its sharp but also that the tip of the dart is very strong so it can penetrate the object better. Also its one of the area’s most firepower of defending ships will be targetted at.

So we added some structural inforcements that fit well with the overall designs and actually are used in other ship designs. The red/white view here actually looks a little off as the contrast is very high but when its all empire white the contrast is gone and the view will not be affected.

Another part we want to change is the design of the armament of the ship. Starting with the ION cannons that are scattered across the ship. We feel that the round shapes are not complementary to the overall design and want to change them to something less .. well … round lol

The second part of the changes of the armament will be around optimising the current turrent designs. We captured some still images from Rogue One and analysed the designs. We feel that the design is great but the barrels are too thin. You dont bring guns to a laser cannon fight 😉

So we quickly sketched out what (in our opinion) would be the proper dimensions of the turrets. This is also much better for 3DPrinting as those thin barrels would be very fragile in transport. We had a AWESOME technical idea for the turrets but will come back to that in a later post.

The final part of the changes of the armament is centered around the idea that the bottom hull is very weakly protected.
The turrets on the top hull cant shoot under the ship. The turrets in the trench can only move from left to right the ion cannons in the trench also have limited field of view. Add to that there is not a single turret or ion cannon on the bottom hull and you have a severe weakspot. Enemy fighters or blokkade runners can just park themselves under the ship and blast their way through the armour.
So we designed placeholders for some turrets underneath the ship to fight off any rebels and they line up with the turrets on the top hull

And thats it for this months updates. I will be designing from now on at least one full day a week to make sure there is sufficient progress. Also just cause i am hyped about the opportunity to build another ship! Thanks Chris!