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ZacharyHogan — Jacob's Ladder
Published: 2013-01-14 02:30:37 +0000 UTC; Views: 3765; Favourites: 122; Downloads: 66
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Comments: 29
One way ticket to the moon on the maglev of death, huh? The rendering of the metal is lovely, especially on the shade side where it reflects the sky's color. The story behind this painting is so open to speculation, and that's great. Well done!
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Thanks! I think this is still the painting I'm most happy with in terms of lighting colours
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Jeeeesus you are getting good! I LOVE this! You've gotten so much better with colour and shadow!!!!
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as best my knowledge serves me on this matter; it wouldn't necessarily slow it down if you truly have a frictionless sled, but it will take a heck of a lot of energy to adjust it's course, you're basically going to be fighting all the energy dumped into the ship from the entire first part of the rail speeding it up horizontally. so the part exerting all that force would be the rail and supports underneath the curve.
Given that, it'd make more sense if they put the ramp part at the end up against a mountain/hillside (I see an entire range in the background!), or better yet alleviate the whole change in direction part and build the whole thing on the side of a mountain. but eh, if they have the ability to make this and haven't discovered Rocketry they are a pretty eccentric bunch anyways, that, or they have a very different set of natural resources to pull from on their planet. (I'm going with eccentric though, if their not packing parachutes for the poor, er not really a pilot if it's just ballistic so, along for the ride dude.)
but eh, I only talk about all that because of the other comments. the painting is wonderful, love it!
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That makes a lot of sense! There's a concept for a Japanese (I think) system similar to this that consists of a straight rail at an angle. I agree about the eccentricity of it though, and I like that side of the concept! I think it's the quirkiness that makes it interesting, haha
I'll do a couple of more drawings or paintings when I can to flesh out the design a bit more and show a bit of the society in which it exists, looking more closely at those priest-like figures at the bottom-right
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yep, keep it interesting, I can be a big junky of dissecting why fictional societies would be different and/or culturally bizarre.
I almost mentioned the priestliness look of those guys myself, then I over thought it and wasn't sure if they were just less resolved jumpsuits or orange lab coats.
Now I'm looking forward to how the interaction will be, I think it'd be neat to see some kind of very none-earthly religious/scientific relationship; both freedom and tensions in places we don't have them and also the crazy politics and unique people that shaped the current society into what it is. (I think the no rocket/combustion technology idea would be very possible given the right history even here on earth if you placed it a little in the past.)
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Yup, it'll be interesting! Alternate histories are always pretty cool to explore
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So essentially a giant gauss rifle. The perspective is great. It sort of reminds me a bit of the Combine architecture from Half Life 2. Only thing I'd be worried about is the abrupt change in direction to sweep upwards at the end. The magnets there would have to be stronger to withstand the stress of the abrupt angular momentum (I don't know if that's the right term, I'm no mechanical engineer). Then again, if I'm loading myself in a gigantic coilgun, I probably don't worry about much in the first place.
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One thing I notice, those coils in the middle...is that bullet on the ropes the "ship" you mention? Because it looks big enough for like, exactly one or two dudes, judging by those people on the ground. A lot of the bullet would have to be life support and so forth. And how do they get back from space to earth?
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It's really just a one-man ship, and this is a society that hasn't discovered conventional rocketry or combustion engines, so all they can really do is use magnets to shoot things away. There is no return trip, which makes it a bit more dramatic haha
I get what you mean about the change in change in velocity from horizontal to vertical. It's something I need to do a bit more research on - I'm not sure if, on a frictionless rail with only air resistance to worry about, the change in direction would slow the ship down at all. The magnetic levitation won't be a problem there though; it's using electromagnets so the system can react to the increased force trying to push the ship onto the rail and correct it.
A lot of people have commented on the Combine similarities! I agree; I'm a huge fan of Victor Antonov's design work in HL2 and Dishonoured so it's no surprise to me that it's leaked through a bit
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Yes, it certainly does make it more dramatic. Guess these are some hardcore science folk. Unless they found a way to shoot supplies to the guy on the moon or something? I dunno.
Yeah, I don't know anything about mechanical engineering so I'm useless there.
But yeah, I loved the Combine architecture. I haven't played Dishonored but if there's good architecture it might be worth a play XD Which is probably the silliest reason to play a game.
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A silly reason to play the game? Don't be silly! It's the best reason!
It's a very good game though, I think you'd enjoy it
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I'll take a look when it's on sale. But I also have about 4000 games on Steam I haven't played XD
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Hmm. I like all the little electric power lines, this thing does look like it needs a lot of power.
I don't know much about current science or popular science fiction, but I'm guessing this thing works by powering each of the magnetic rings in a sequence, pulling the magnetized objects along?
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Essentially! The rings were a bad design choice in this image; a few meters back where we can't see from this perspective there are solenoids, which are tight coils of wire [link] . When you pass current through a solenoid it creates a magnetic field. So yeah, you're right; each one turns on one after the other, pulling the magnetised ship faster and faster!
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AH, that makes a lot of sense, that explains why it's so popular in science fiction with space elevators and magnetic cannons.
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I really like this. This is a maglev catapult isn't it?
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Thanks! It sure is. The plan is for it to use maglev as a good, frictionless rail system. For propulsion I was thinking that the rail would pass through an extremely long array of solenoids, placed end-to-end. The ship would carry a big ol' electromagnet, and the whole setup would essentially be a gigantic coilgun that would propel the ship to escape velocity (11.2km/s) before it leaves the ground, so that it can escape Earth's gravity without any rockets.
The idea is that it exists in a society that hasn't devised combustion engines or rocket powered flight.
Obviously there are a lot of issues; the ship would have to be travelling much faster than 11.2km/s in order to overcome air friction and other complications that come with travelling really quick in the atmosphere. I'm also not sure how the maglev system would react in a big solenoid. But I'm enjoying the idea so far!
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It's interestin how such a society would devise such technology. I just learned that a solenoid is a wire that has been looped multiple times and creates a magnetic field that is almost uniform. That's interesting to know because one time the car that I had problems with a burnt out solenoid.
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I would imagine that the solenoid in the car was the one in the alternator, which generates power from the spinning motion of the axle that the wheels are attached to. That's how most power stations work too - a big fan or turbine that gets turned by something passing through it (water in a dam, smoke in a coal power station, wind in a wind turbine, steam that's been heated by a nuclear reaction, etc) has a magnet attached to it, and as this magnet moves relative to a solenoid (or a group of solenoids, I'm not entirely sure about how they are arranged) a current is generated. Or that's my understanding of it, anyway!
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Perhaps the world this was built on also has thinner air or a lower gravity. It looks wonderful!
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Could be! Or maybe these people are just a little bit crazy haha
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