Creating Your Own Everything VI [No Advertising]

[Anemos Major]

(Image)
I managed to get further in the process of making a tank. Was going for a Panzer-style look, ended up with American tracks. I also managed after much desperation to fix the problem with the imperfect circles, by not doing anything and just selecting circle sizes that lacked the issue. Anyway, criticisms? As well as ideas for the rest of the tank?

One of the wheels on either end (probably the larger one?) should have teeth in order to engage the track as the drive sprocket.

There should not be a gap between the last road wheel on each end and the angled section of track. In a properly tensioned track, the angle will wrap around the last road wheel on each end.

in practical terms the easiest way to fix this would probably be to reduce the size of the larger wheel somewhat, slap on teeth to make it a sprocket, then redraw the road wheels so that they engage with the track correctly. an easy way to do this would probably be to reduce the size of the road wheels/suspension elements and up their number from 6 to 8, and in so doing you'd have more of a Panzer IV look to boot

E: while we're at it I made a graphic

[Manokan Republic]

That looks so cool man, your stuff is always so clean

[Danubian Peoples]

*Sigh

Thanks for all of the advice, but I quickly checked out my work and so much is wrong with it. Track pieces are spaced irregularly, MS Paint's selection tool only deals in quadrilaterals so I can't move the wheels to where they should be without erasing the track, and the circles are still imperfect. i tried starting from an earlier point but the circle issue still shows up. I've got no other programs to use, Paint 3D only deals in anti-aliasing and it probably has the imperfect circle problem too. What am I supposed to do to fix the circle thing? Should I even fix it? Can I? Thanks in advance and sorry for the lengthy but artless post.

[The Akasha Colony]

*Sigh

Thanks for all of the advice, but I quickly checked out my work and so much is wrong with it. Track pieces are spaced irregularly, MS Paint's selection tool only deals in quadrilaterals so I can't move the wheels to where they should be without erasing the track, and the circles are still imperfect. i tried starting from an earlier point but the circle issue still shows up. I've got no other programs to use, Paint 3D only deals in anti-aliasing and it probably has the imperfect circle problem too. What am I supposed to do to fix the circle thing? Should I even fix it? Can I? Thanks in advance and sorry for the lengthy but artless post.

Paint will draw a perfect circle so long as you hold SHIFT while you're dragging it for size. I'm not sure what other "imperfections" you might be talking about.

Beyond that, there are plenty of better, more full-featured drawing programs out there like Paint.NET and GIMP that are free and readily available for use. I am more partial to Paint.NET but primarily use Fireworks (which isn't free and is now basically at EoL).

Whether you should fix it is a subjective question. Does it bug you enough to bother fixing it? No one becomes a good line artist overnight.



The tank on top is literally a lineal descendant of the drawing on the bottom over the course of a few years as I redrew pieces here and there as I both learned more and figured out how to do basic things like shadows, better gradients, and decided to move away from black outlines. In fact, the last element of the original drawing was only recently removed. Risen Britannia's sprocket and idler are still in use, although I redrew the track links themselves to reduce pitch. In each case it was more or less because I wanted to add something new or fix some small issue that was still bugging me after I had tackled the previous thing that was bugging me.

And once you've got a good base you can start reusing sections and components to reduce the work needed to create other vehicles.

[Kassaran]

That's some Halo CE to Halo Reach shit right there. Nice work again Akasha.

[Danubian Peoples]

snip

What I mean by 'imperfections' is the hold shift thing. The resulting circle doesn't generate radial symmetry a lot. Usually the upper left and lower right aren't symmetrical. Other times the uppermost line is longer than the lowermost line, though this is usually caused by the first problem. Here's a demonstration. Note that the green lines don't land on the same parts of the circle despite being straight. That's what I mean. And unless some circle math is flying over my head, I'm pretty sure circles don't work like that.

[The Akasha Colony]

What I mean by 'imperfections' is the hold shift thing. The resulting circle doesn't generate radial symmetry a lot. Usually the upper left and lower right aren't symmetrical. Other times the uppermost line is longer than the lowermost line, though this is usually caused by the first problem. Here's a demonstration. Note that the green lines don't land on the same parts of the circle despite being straight. That's what I mean. And unless some circle math is flying over my head, I'm pretty sure circles don't work like that.

It's a matter of how Paint is trying to match the limited pixel resolution at such a small scale to the much finer circle it is rendering in the background for reference. It is focused more on hewing as closely as possible to its virtual circle than maintaining exact pixel symmetry.

At larger scales, this is not a problem. I scaled this image up from a 212x212 circle drawn in Paint to make the symmetry more obvious than trying to peer at individual pixels.

Differences in rendering for vectors between programs are not uncommon. One of the reasons I have Paint.NET installed is because it is much better at drawing smooth vector curves than Fireworks, which tends to make them rather jagged and irregular. So I prefer to draw complex curves in Paint.NET and copy them over to Fireworks, which I am generally more familiar with.

Which means that in turn, if this is important enough to get hung up on then the simplest solution is to just draw the circles in another application with a greater focus on symmetry at smaller scales and copy them over into Paint. But given Paint's shortcomings in general, this would probably just be a good reason to move away from Paint in general to something more powerful. A number of people can create very good things with Paint, but it requires a lot of manual work. The ability to work with layers is a feature I personally find indispensable and for that reason alone I would never consider Paint as my primary drawing program.

[Anemos Major]

What I mean by 'imperfections' is the hold shift thing. The resulting circle doesn't generate radial symmetry a lot. Usually the upper left and lower right aren't symmetrical. Other times the uppermost line is longer than the lowermost line, though this is usually caused by the first problem. Here's a demonstration. Note that the green lines don't land on the same parts of the circle despite being straight. That's what I mean. And unless some circle math is flying over my head, I'm pretty sure circles don't work like that.

yeah, this bugs me to no end - a workaround I use to assuage my incredibly OCD mind is to pick one quarter of the circle and just copy-paste + rotate it four times so that the lines match up. It doesn't result in perfect circles, because MSPaint is restricted in that regard, but if my own experience is any indication it will at the very least make you feel better

[Fordorsia]

[Gallia-]

why did you turn mbt70 into a gigapanzer?

[The Corparation]

why did you turn mbt70 into a gigapanzer?

What else would Ford turn it into?

[Gallia-]

not what, who

i can understand the nazis since theyre the modern incarnation of absolute evil but what did mbt70 do to deserve such an afterlife?

[Manokan Republic]

So I've had the idea for some time now that most western countries need a 22-30 ton vertical take-off aircraft for some reason, given the recent proliferation of heavily armored fighting vehicles with both 25mm+ cannons and the armor to stop them. With these sorts of vehicles becoming more mainstream and the power of weapons increasing, it would be particularly convenient if you could air drop a full sized APC, like a bradley, puma, CV90, BTR-90 or other vehicles. The Russians already have the Mil-26, which can carry up to 60,000 pounds or 30 tons, but it can only do so at low altitudes and Still, the concept of transporting a heavily armored APC to the battlefield in one clean go is not only convenient, but also allows for increase in airborne firepower who, obviously always depend on lighter equipment to operate. This would be a significant increase in firepower, storage, and potentially also give them anti-aircraft capabilities which, is nice as it's not uncommon for airborne to run in to other airborne. If a battle were to take place on top of a mountain, it would be nice to be the one with the 30mm chaingun, as opposed to the one with a lightly armored humvee or the like. So a western Mil-26 seems like a good idea, and would also allow it to carry as much weight as a C-130, which is what the military bases a lot of it's airborne operations around.

While I don't claim to be an aircraft expert, there are some various things you could do. The first thing that comes to mind is the CH53 Sea King, which is designed to carry up to 25 tons or 50,000 pounds, which as long as the IFV was on the lighter side, would be practical to deploy. However it's close to 120 million dollars, which while not bad, could be replaced with something better and less conventional than a single rotor helicopter. What comes to mind are three things, a really big helicopter that is optimized in various ways, a Quad-tilt rotor V-22, or a vehicle with two F-35 engines. The F-35 variant would be expensive, but given that it only needs to travel at slower velocity and would have less sophisticated control systems, could be fairly practical given the price range of up to 120 million dollars. A single engine is like 19 million dollars, and two would be 38 million, but an 80-120 million dual engine, 500 mph jet aircraft using F35 engines seems plausible and around the same price as Sea king, but would be the most technically complex to produce. It could carry a combined 70,000 tons, or 35 tons rather easily, especially at lower speeds, and in theory more if optimized for slow speed efficiency as opposed to high speeds (longer wings with more drag, worse at high speeds but good at low speeds), could maybe carry more. If it was dumbed down it could be a lot cheaper, but it could also end up the price of two F-35's put together which is troublesome. The second one is a V-22 with quad-tilting rotors and a tandem wing. A tandem wing by itself would increase lift by about 30%, and two tilt rotors should double it's power. This would allow for 60,000 pounds, or 30 tons of carry weight and maybe more with the tandem wing, and the military is already developing just such an aircraft, albeit it rather slowly. The final thing, and perhaps some of the features combined with a V-22, would be a really big helicopter.

Two things you often don't see often on helicopters are coaxial rotors and wings. Coaxial rotors can increase lift for the size as well as aircraft stability, while wings can be used to increase lift. On the Russian mil-24 for example, up to 25% of the lift is due to the wings, even though they are small and stubby. Increased fuel efficiency and lift weight are possible ,as well as speed with the wings, which makes a lot of sense as helicopters are obviously not naturally aerodynamic shapes. Something akin to tandem wings in the front and back of a helicopter to provide extra lift seems like a good idea, with a low cost, with the only drawback being a larger landing area being needed for the frame itself, but the same when considering the width of helicopter blades. Coaxial rotors are more complicated, but achieve the same general effect, more lift. You might think that doubling the wing surface area would double the lift, but given a number of reasons, it's more like 20-30% greater lift. Nonetheless it's an improvement, and these sorts of helicopters are often times more stable, due to each one balancing each other out. A V-22 like aircraft could have all of these things, longer tandem wings and coaxial rotors, and probably have some improved efficiency, which means higher speed, more lift or better fuel efficiency. The final thing would be a hybrid electric engine, with an electric engine generally being more powerful for it's size and accelerating faster. The power can be transferred to anywhere in the vehicle easily, and it allows for a much smaller engine on the wings to produce higher power. A cover for the rotors, or a duct fan, can increase power output up to 94%, but this would be better if the propellers were smaller and not as large. Dyneema is low friction and high strength, stronger than steel by far but also hard and flexible, making it an ideal material for helicopter blades, also being much quieter. Given how huge the duct would need to be with massive rotors used on many of this helicopters, it's obvious why it's not as commonly used, but a bunch of smaller fans powered by several electric motors would be more plausible, and decrease the overall size of the aircraft. Hybrid electric engines would also potentially be more fuel efficient, but increased power ratio for oddly shaped fans is really the goal, such as tilt rotors. Like the Mil-26, it would only be marginally bigger than the parent aircraft, but be designed ot have way more thrust, so it can carry heavier albeit not really larger payloads.


Another thing would be to outfit the vehicle with a fairly heavy assortment of weapons even though it's primarily a cargo vehicle. Every time you fly over you want the thing to be spraying enemy forces with bullets, or have protection against ground vehicle, which largely translates to heavier firepower. A 30mm chaingun for example is quite small, and now a days a 27mm revolver cannon or Russian 30mm x 165mm chaingun which produces far more power can be easily mounted on a helicopter. I imagine twin 27mm Mauser Bk-27 cannons would be pretty cool, as they could combined get up to 3400 RPM, about the same rate of fire as a 30mm gatling gun, but be much smaller and more maneuver, and with slightly less power. So, every time it flies by it could also be strafing enemy troops, saving you on time, money and logistics of delegating responsibilities to other aircraft when adding weapons is rather easily. And if you needed a gunship on short notice, it would suffice. With wings it would be easier to mount weapons without much of a hassle. Anyways, these are just some of my ideas for an American based Mil-26 equivalent, and it's sort of got me thinking about various types of aircraft ideas. The goal is a strategic airlifter that would carry armored APC's, or the equivalent of a C-130, but land or take off anywhere.

These are not my pictures, but they look cool.

[New Visegrad]

A tactical APC transporter is an interesting idea. However, it probably wouldn't be sensible to have it also function as a gunship. Why? It's too big. An aircraft big enough to carry APCs is a massive target, and it's probably not particularly maneuverable either. Helicopters are fragile and rely mostly on agility to avoid being shot down - a helicopter the size of a C-130 is unlikely to be able to change direction rapidly, especially if it's carrying a 30-ton APC. Basically, if you try to operate this thing within visual range of the enemy, it's probably going to die. Maybe even outside of visual range, since it's big enough to be a target for radar-guided missiles.

The reason gunship/transport hybrids like the Mi-24 and the Huey work is because they're still light enough to be fast. They can race in, drop infantry, and be gone again very quickly. You can't do that with an APC carrier, it's too big and the unloading process is too slow. You're not really supposed to land infantry transports under fire, and you certainly couldn't get away with landing something comparable to a V-22 under fire. Also, the success of the Mi-24 is highly dependent on the enemy. Against an irregular enemy force with few heavy weapons, you can get away with close landings (although the Mi-24 began to suffer almost immediately once the Afghans got hold of Stingers). Against a trained enemy with accurate infantry rockets and SAMs, medium and heavy machine guns, and GMGs...not a chance.

The Pelican you've used as an example isn't really a very good example: not only does it rely on future-y jet thrust for propulsion, making it much more agile than you'd expect, but it's also not the size of a C-130. It's true that it can airlift a Scorpion MBT, but the Scorpion is a hilariously underweight/undersize 1-man tank, and again, future jet/rocket engines.


So...yes, having a tactical APC tranporter would be useful. A tactical combat APC transporter? Impractical. Something of this size needs to be kept out of the way of enemy fire. It would have to unload behind the lines, or before the battle began.

[Sevvania]

Halo's Scorpion, despite being operable by a single cyborg and sporting a 90mm, is actually the size of a house.

The Pelican is similarly biggly: a hundred feet long and 33 feet high, the troop bay is probably big enough to drive an Abrams into. But as you said, it's still very much a :future: thing.

[Manokan Republic]

A tactical APC transporter is an interesting idea. However, it probably wouldn't be sensible to have it also function as a gunship. Why? It's too big. An aircraft big enough to carry APCs is a massive target, and it's probably not particularly maneuverable either. Helicopters are fragile and rely mostly on agility to avoid being shot down - a helicopter the size of a C-130 is unlikely to be able to change direction rapidly, especially if it's carrying a 30-ton APC. Basically, if you try to operate this thing within visual range of the enemy, it's probably going to die. Maybe even outside of visual range, since it's big enough to be a target for radar-guided missiles.

The reason gunship/transport hybrids like the Mi-24 and the Huey work is because they're still light enough to be fast. They can race in, drop infantry, and be gone again very quickly. You can't do that with an APC carrier, it's too big and the unloading process is too slow. You're not really supposed to land infantry transports under fire, and you certainly couldn't get away with landing something comparable to a V-22 under fire. Also, the success of the Mi-24 is highly dependent on the enemy. Against an irregular enemy force with few heavy weapons, you can get away with close landings (although the Mi-24 began to suffer almost immediately once the Afghans got hold of Stingers). Against a trained enemy with accurate infantry rockets and SAMs, medium and heavy machine guns, and GMGs...not a chance.

The Pelican you've used as an example isn't really a very good example: not only does it rely on future-y jet thrust for propulsion, making it much more agile than you'd expect, but it's also not the size of a C-130. It's true that it can airlift a Scorpion MBT, but the Scorpion is a hilariously underweight/undersize 1-man tank, and again, future jet/rocket engines.


So...yes, having a tactical APC tranporter would be useful. A tactical combat APC transporter? Impractical. Something of this size needs to be kept out of the way of enemy fire. It would have to unload behind the lines, or before the battle began.

The concept art is just a stand-in picture that looks cool, with the exact details or proportions of the aircraft being malleable. A pelican aircraft would not be particularly aerodynamic either, and the idea is just that you use the picture as a stand in for the basic idea. That picture not only looks cool but is more realistic than a pelican in game which, as noted would be giant and has all kinds of other weird features to it like super manuverable, tiny jets. Also in the actual game the cargo bay is quite small so their proportions are more or less off than what it would be in real life, based on what is written on paper. Originally John-117 was supposed to be 390 pounds, and it changed to 290 pounds, and so on and so forth, even the exact details are subject to change. As for the concept of weapons being added, the main idea is that the marginal amount of extra weight is worth the trade off in firepower. If you find yourself under enemy attack, it would be nice to be able to return fire, rather than your goal to be to use it as an attack helicopter. It's not uncommon for vehicles such as UH-60's to face heavy fire, such as in mogadishu in blackhawk down, operation redwings, or basically any mission where a helicopter was shot down, so the ability to return fire is always nice. The small overall size of the weapon and it's ammunition as well as commonality with other aircraft makes it seems a practical weapon of choice to slap on for defense. It's more just about protection and the occasional strafing if you happen to fly near enough to enemy troops.

Also unloading a vehicle would take a shorter amount of time, as you land and then it rolls off the ramp with all the troops all at once, instead of a bunch of individual soldiers jumping out and making sure the area is safe. The added speed of the vehicles means you can land further away, as what can take hours for soldiers takes minutes for vehicles, and so ideally you would land far away. It depends on the weapon you're using as to it's range, but with a range of potentially several miles, also longer if you are at higher altitude, it does make sense to keep around when you fly over an area. Like the Mil-26, what I envisioned was greater carrying capacity with around the same size as the parent vehicle (the Mil-6 for the Mil-26), so you could carry the same volume of cargo but that was denser, such as heavily armored fighting vehicles in to combat which are not large, but heavy. For carrying infantry this is obviously unnecessary as humans are only as dense as water, but for carrying something extremely heavy it makes a lot of sense to have a small cargo area but high payload capacity.

As for the fragility it depends on the particular helicopter or aircraft, with the apache being resistant to .50 caliber and 14.5mm rounds, especially at a distance, and things like quick-kill or the iron curtain active protection system can shoot down missiles and potentially certain types of bullets; the T-14 Armata supposedly has an active defense system that is designed to shoot down tank rounds, not that you would necessarily use something identical on a helicopter. Armor technology has improved dramatically in many ways, with titanium only being marginally more expensive than steel, and things like perforated or SLAT armor starting to become the norm. Ceramic and Dyneema armor are much lighter than even titanium and yet provide similiar protection, and armor works better at high altitudes where rounds have lost a considerable amount of energy. Armor kits can be added to the V-22, which although it's protection level is unspecified, that are supposed to provide protection against small arms like the Ak-47 and .50 caliber round, that was just 800 pounds. With a stronger engine in the same sized vehicle, you obviously could have better armor, much better armor, which would give you fairly decent protection against typical small arms. Additional counter measures such as flares, active infrared strobes, thermal vision cameras which detect oncoming missiles, and the like could provide quite a lot of protection without adding a whole lot of extra cost or weight to the vehicle, along with basic things like smoke (of which the apache helicopter apparently deploys and doesn't immediately disperse with it's rotors). Radar resistant materials would provide further protection against guided missiles, but this actually would be expensive and require making the plane more stealthy. Even if it wasn't invisible, reducing the cross-section size still makes it harder to target, which is always an advantage. Like with the F-35, more modern construction materials have made it so you don't have to constantly add radar tape, and the material cost of the F-35 is actually quite low, with 400 billion of the 1.5 trillion dollars being research costs, and a large chunk being maintenance.

Anyways, the goal was never for it to be a gunship in the attack role specifically just be able to do it in a pinch. It's not uncommon to be flying over an enemy force that is shooting back at you with small arms, particularly against insurgents which is the primary enemy in a modern field of combat. When you fly over or near the enemy, you can shoot back at them, without really costing you a lot. I mean obviously no-one plans to get shot down. The V-22 has been used in a number of hot engagements with a large degree in success, and notably "in 18 February 2011, Marine Commandant General James Amos indicated MV-22s deployed to Afghanistan had surpassed 100,000 flight hours and were noted as "the safest airplane, or close to the safest airplane” in the Marine Corps inventory". The vehicle was found to be lacking in firepower and situational awareness, which sort of indicates that more guns and sensors would have been a good idea to add, even if the vehicle itself performed well. Nonetheless obviously it would just be relegated to the transport role, to deploy far behind enemy lines, and afford to do so by utilizing heavily armored vehicles which can transport infantry.

Ideally these same vehicles would also store a large amount of fuel, water and food, as well as water filters. To add to the concept, the vehicles would deploy with a month of water or more, and the ability to get it from the field, as well as 3 months of food, and additional vehicles would be deployed behind them which act as fuel and logistics trucks. The ability to be cut off from supplies for a long period of time is ideal for airborne troops, and while the vehicle would be rather heavy, I figure you could store water and food in the spaced armor of the vehicle, or in their Diamond, Double-V shaped hulls, especially liquids, in an appropriately shaped container. Each vehicle would be able to do some engineering tasks, such as be useful for digging trenches or fox holes, to assist the infantry on the ground. If it was hybrid electric, it could also provide power, serving as a mobile generator, and the HEMTT for example is supposed to be able to generate enough electricity to run an air field or small military base. You can build a makeshift, semi-permanent military base on the fly using giant sandbags or hesco barriers, which are lightweight in transit and only require that they are filled with dirt which can be gathered from the natural environment. So in a short period of time you could land, build yourself a makeshift airbase, and then operate from there, even potentially allowing larger aircraft to eventually land, like a C-130. But, ideally the idea is more so partial self sufficiency, at least for short periods of time, making the vehicle a workhorse to do a lot of things, as well be heavily armored and armed.

[Mero-Curgovina]

been meaning to flex somewhere other than a discord for a while

[Gallia-]

Halo's Scorpion, despite being operable by a single cyborg and sporting a 90mm, is actually the size of a house.
(Image)
The Pelican is similarly biggly: a hundred feet long and 33 feet high, the troop bay is probably big enough to drive an Abrams into. But as you said, it's still very much a :future: thing.

Despite having metal bones, Master Chief hasn't died of the resulting compromised immune system or anemia.

[Kassaran]

Last I checked, it was ceramic lacing to reinforce them, but then again... *future* biomedical processes will likely defy much of what is currently understood.

[Rostavykhan]

(Image)
(Image)
(Image)

been meaning to flex somewhere other than a discord for a while

Top tank is bae. I dig it.

Last I checked, it was ceramic lacing to reinforce them, but then again... *future* biomedical processes will likely defy much of what is currently understood.

Haha thicc boi.

I'm tempted to try to make a fusion of a Tau Fire Warrior and an Elite Ranger for FT armor, but...I suck at making detailed FT stuff outside of Star Trek.

Back to Interwar stuff with me.

[Manokan Republic]

Halo's Scorpion, despite being operable by a single cyborg and sporting a 90mm, is actually the size of a house.
(Image)
The Pelican is similarly biggly: a hundred feet long and 33 feet high, the troop bay is probably big enough to drive an Abrams into. But as you said, it's still very much a :future: thing.

Despite having metal bones, Master Chief hasn't died of the resulting compromised immune system or anemia.

It was ceramic, but titanium is also more or less inert in the body, and titanium foam can be added to bones with relative ease in comparison to many other materials. [1][2][3] Titanium will integrate in to bones, which will latch on to the titanium and absorb it, thus making it stronger or possible to do things like attack artificial limbs to the bone. It wouldn't make you bullet proof though, just reduce joint damage and pain which, all things considered with 120+ pound combat packs is probably worth it. Also anything that boosts joints in general.

Dyneema and certain types of ceramic can also be used, so it's not a bad option on top of titanium; ceramic coated titanium is already the ideal material for use with joints, so a sort of hybrid material makes sense.

[Triplebaconation]

[Manokan Republic]

So these are the two main images I think will represent my military forces. I'm sort of torn between how they look, and I think the anti-aircraft gun thing is still a little odd, and the vehicle doesn't actually look like a namer in RL, but I think it's close enough. I'm not really a perfectionist and am willing to just throw stuff together if it looks cool.

The references are all over the place, but basically it's the same sources as before, with palernian forces that are recolored and the 40mm bofors tank gun turret thrown in. My last post with all the references got deleted, so I'ma do it again. The tank tracks reference is where I got the new turret from. I'm just going to pretend there's missiles hidden in there.

[Mero-Curgovina]

flexing your own lineart VI. modern MBT that I'll be doing an upgrade kit for eventually.

[Manokan Republic]

(Image)

flexing your own lineart VI. modern MBT that I'll be doing an upgrade kit for eventually.

Nuuuuu it's deletered D: