To Kara Pitat About The Rim Runner; Possible Engine Room?

Cyrinadia

Hello Kara Pitat!

I love your sets, especially the Rim Runner. I really appreciate the internal sections of the Rim Runner as I love space ships in general and the more detailed, the better. Your creations hit that nail on the head so thank you!

I was hoping, since there seems to be an empty section on the Vertical Accessway on the middle level of the Rim Runner, that this was for an Engine Room and if that's something we could see at some point? An Engi gotta Eng. 

I hope you get the message and I love your work!

 

Sincerely,

Cyri.

Rane

Thank you for the comment!  You are correct, that was indeed for the engine room.  I left it out because I'm not that much of an engineer.  (As in, actual engines.)  I don't think it'd be too hard, but I'll have to see.  :)

richardandtracy

To be honest, nobody is an engineer on FTL or in-system reaction engines. So you're in the enviable position of being the world's expert on that engine, and anything whatsoever you do is correct. Impossible for it not to be - by definition. Have fun with it! Regards, Richard.

Cyrinadia

Thank you for responding! <3 Exactly as RichardandTracy said.. some greebles and nurbs and you'll be fine!

For ideas, I think of Firefly; Serenity's engine room. Mass Effect as well (although the upright style like Star Trek's warp core is, to me, not on 'brand' for your ships. I personally think horizontal cylindrical engines are the right flavour). Hell Divers 2 also has some ideas. Of course these would only trigger your innate talents.

I personally imagine them as connecting to the existing engines much like traditional space rockets. 

Thank you again! I hope we helped encourage you!

richardandtracy

Just a few suggestions/ things that might just inspire a few ideas:

1. In modern ocean going ship engine rooms, most of the pipes power cables & gubbins are hidden behind panel doors so you don't see the innards of the engines.
2. For a reaction engine there is going to be a lot of thrust, so it mught be reasonable to see pretty hefty horizontal bracing going from the engine to structural walls inside the craft.
3. There is usually waste heat to be ducted away and coolant pipes are more efficient than air cooling and fins - though fins could be in the mix for heating ducts to the remainder of the vessel.
4. It's likely that there will need to be a lot of electrical power required too. This will need moderate to large cables somewhere (hidden inside the panel doors?)
5. Generation of the electrical power could be via a tocomac, which gives the opportunity for a model of a heavily braced torus in the engine room - visually very interesting. A single point fusion plant could be considered too, with six direction lasers pointing at the fusion point.
6. Fuel pipes & reaction mass pipes may be needed. Even if more efficient ion engines are used, to get a decent thrust a moderate amount of reaction mass will be required to be piped to the engines. The ion engines currently in use on spacecraft have a thrust of up to 1N (the weight of a medium size apple) which shows how close ion engines are to their invention, and most use helium as the reaction material that's sent through the linear accelerator. The reaction material leaves the engine at 0.3 x speed of light, and for a 1N thrust the nozzle is miniscule. The linear accelerator will have multiple toroidal electromagnets around the accelerator tube (though the whole area could be boxed in with hinged panels).
7. There will need to be a monitoring station, toolbox, somewhere for tea/coffee, possible dirt stains, mug rings, lubricant containers, applicators and cleaners, PPE, suit stowage, just Stuff. And if the vessel is going to go zero-g, each item of stuff will need a stowage point.
8. You could consider an FTL engine as a 'black box' lump in the middle of a room with nothing more than cooling ducts and power supply. The outside could be labelled as if it's a branded item from a one stop supplier, eg 'My FTL Engine.com'. Saves having to imagine too much about it..

Just an idea or two.

Regards,

Richard