Ok, here it is, my version of a mining ship. This little beastie gave me a few headaches and forced me to become VERY familiar with using the protractor on non-X,Y,Z axis.

The obvious thing about this ship is the ''crash cage'' surrounding vital areas such as the forward habitat area, the sections joining the ore compartments and the aft engineering section. This ''crash cage'' in conjunction with the recessing of vital components like the shield generators, manouvering thrusters and bridge are aimed to reduce or minimize damage caused by large fragments of the roid breaking off during mining and drifting into the ship.

Side view.



Top view.



Front view, featuring the mining bay, more on that later.



Rear view.



The arms sticking out the front are combination grapples and laser for cutting off chunks off the asteroid. The rock is then maneuvered into the mining bay entrance to be grabbed by the 2 side clamps which grasp the rock and draw it into the mining for preliminary crushing before being transfered into one of the 3 storage bins.



Another view of the business end of the ship.



Close up of the recessing, displaying the shield gen and the maneuvering thrusters. Also you can see one of the four point joins of the crash cage, which caused me some headaches.



One of the 4 side clamps used for docking at a OP.



Rear engineering section. Once more another recessed thruster and the circular thing at the bottom is an emergency reactor core ejector port or maintenance access for when replacing the reactor core.



So there you have it, my take on a mining ship.

you made this from scratch? if so, then it's pretty good.


hmm, I wonder...

Neat.

I think you just tempted Zarth, Grant.

Looks awesome Grant.

yeah i made it from scratch i started it about two months ago. been working on it off and on.what are you wondering about zarth?

i'm thinking about making it in Blender.

oh so your going to steal my ship :P