Traveller - Plankwell-class Dreadnought (v1.1)

Overview:

The Plankwell-class dreadnought is a 200,000 displacement ton behemoth of a ship and one of the largest warships produced by the Third Imperium. It is only dwarfed by the more massive and far more expensive Tigress-class. These ships however, were produced in far greater numbers and in far less time than other vessels in its class because of its modular design, which results in the ship's rather blocky appearance. The front and middle sections can be removed from the spine of the ship and swapped out with other modules for specific missions as needed.

This set up here has a central hangar module for the launch and recovery of fighters and other light auxiliary ships such as troop landing craft, bombers and gunships. The bow module is fitted with missile and torpedo tubes as well as two large bays big enough to hold corvette-sized capital ships and cargo. The rest of the ship is covered with various weapon batteries including meson gun turrets, particle beam cannon turrets and point-defense laser turrets. The primary weapon is a spinal mount particle beam cannon. The ship is protected by both nuclear dampeners and meson screen projectors.

The class was named after Grand Admiral Olav hault-Plankwell, a sector admiral of the Spinward Marches who led the defeat of the Outworld Coalition in the First Frontier War. He gained fame and infamy for a number of things - you can read more about this legendary character on the Traveller Wiki.

Modeling:

I modeled the ship in SketchUp and used Blender to help UV wrap the texture around the cowling near the bridge tower. I imagined this tower being able to rise up from the hull during battle and perhaps lowering during jump space travel. The other textures were projected on the hull in various parts and detailed in Photoshop.

Background image "From Nothing" created by cosmicspark and used with permission.
Thanks Tim! 

Update v1.1 - I re-rendered the ship against a transparent background and then Photoshopped it right over Tim's background image. Originally it looked blurry so now the background is the same resolution as Tim's original image.

Design:

The Plankwell was originally designed in 1981 by Paul Jaquays, (who is now known as Jennell Jaquays), for the Classic Traveller Supplement #9: Fighting Ships. I modified the design somewhat - in Jaquays' version the very bow of the ship is completely flat, but I angled it inward at the bottom which made it look more interesting. I also added a pod-like structure in the lower middle of the bow, where as her design is just a square plate-looking thing - almost appearing like a bumper and license plate of a car. Overall I think Jaquays' design just screams "1980s" with it's square appearance and sharp angles.

You can view Paul's original drawing here:
i114.photobucket.com/albums/n2…

For more info visit:
wiki.travellerrpg.com/Plankwel…

The model is available to download here:
3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model…

COPYRIGHT NOTICE AND CREATIVE COMMONS SHARE-ALIKE
The Plankwell-class Dreadnought is ©1981 Far Future Enterprises. All rights reserved

This image and the 3d model were created as fan art which is ©2015 JayThurman. This means I own the copyright to this derivative work. However, I have released it under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Share Alike 3.0 License which means you can use the 3d model for whatever you want, even modify it, or print a 3d model of it, as long as it's for personal use and you do not sell it for profit in any manner. If you publicly share a derivative work made using this image and/or the 3d model, you agree to release it under this same license and give me, JayThurman, written credit for the work I did somewhere within a description plus a URL link back to this webpage. If you do not do these simple things I will consider it theft of my artwork and will take legal action if necessary.