X-boat Service Hull

  This project originated from a discussion on COTI - Refitted X-boats - VW Beetles in Traveller.  The basic specification was for a 100 ton hull that could dock with an X-boat and add capabilities the it was never designed for - maneuver drives, fuel skimming, planetary landing, etc.  For the idea to work, IMO, it needed to require the absolute minimum amount of modification to the X-boat as well.  Several ideas were bounced around, including an annular wing like Travellers Lab Ship, and I started knocking ideas around.  My first attempt looked something like this...

Not bad, and it was pretty well recieved.  This model is actually well into texturing.  I posted a WIP pic to COTI, and somebody asked if it needed more than 1 pod, so I tweaked the base setup a bit to get this...

A little different, but kind of awkward looking to me.  Somebody asked about only two pods, which led to this...

Again, not bad, but still not really as good as the first arrangement IMHO.  I looked up annular wings, and discovered that it can also mean a flat circular wing.  After ruminating about it for a bit, I came up with my latest concept.

Ahhh, now this holds some interesting concepts.  Currently, the 3 pod arrangement is just about finished with texture.  The one and two pod setups would need partial retexturing because they are simply re-scaled pods from the 3-pod set.  The final flat winged version is a rough at this point, still needed a fair bit of modelling and thought before it's ready for texture.  For that matter, I need to finish the texture on the X-boat itself.

Out of the ideas presented, I'll most likely keep the 3-pod arrangement and the flat wing - the other two simply don't appeal to me, and I've got other projects I'd like to be working on as well.  I'll touch on one of these next post.