"Fully Functional" Star Citizen E-Wing

Ambaryerno

Jr Member
Hey all. Still working on the X-Wing for Star Citizen, but I've been taking a break lately to work on my all-time favorite Star Wars ship; the E-Wing:

OrthoHigh.png


This model was designed mixing a number of sources. My three primary ones were the original Dark Empire artwork, the ortho sketch from the original Essential Guides, and there's a few touches inspired by the Fate of the Galaxy model. The approach I'm taking is to bring the E-wing into the "new" canon established with the relegation of the original EU to "Legends." One thing it lets me do is fix some of the problems with the old official specs (there is NOWHERE to fit an astromech droid in there). In my new lore, the T-90 E-wing is a new design intended to provide a less complex and easier to manufacture alternative to the T-70 X-wing, by eliminating the S-foil mechanism and complex split engine arrangement. It's also designed to cram as much firepower as possible into the smallest, lightest hull that can contain it. This results in the unusual arrangement of a third cannon located dorsally over the cockpit (necessitating an unconventional mounting for the cannon body). The ordinance magazine loads a total of sixteen proton torpedoes (and they actually fit). Because of the elimination of the heavy S-foil mechanism, the E-wing is lighter than the T-70, resulting in increased speed and maneuverability.

The cannon are modeled off the T-70's guns, while a number of cues are borrowed from the T-65; IE the cooling system amidships, the design of the deflector shield projectors on the wings, and some of the engine cowling details.

OrthoLow.png


Looking at her from slightly below. The edges of the landing gear doors, torpedo bay access hatch, boarding handhold, and boarding ladder hatch are all beveled to make them stand out more, though they're not particularly visible here. The engine cowling detail is based on the Red Five upper engine cans. And I don't know why, but I've always loved how the E-wing looks from this angle.

OrthoRear.png


And a look from behind. The landing gear and torpedo doors are a bit more visible from this angle. There's almost no official references I've ever been able to find of what the E-wing's aft bulkhead is supposed to look like, so I used a modification of the T-65 X-wing's. One thing of note, and one of my "fixes," is the addition of a third engine in the fuselage. This addresses a MAJOR problem with the design, in that the E-wing's engines are BELOW the center of mass, which would cause severe stability problems. I gave her a mid-wing design to help alleviate that, but I couldn't raise the engines enough to eliminate it entirely. So instead, I added a third engine in the fuselage that was angled down. This will counteract the torque of the wing engines trying to push the nose up. There's SOME evidence in comic art (both in Dark Empire and Crimson Empire) that the E-wing was supposed to have a third engine. Since it addresses the problem I ran with it.

The landing gear and landing gear bays have also been modeled. The torpedo racks have as well, although I'm not finished with the detailing in there yet.

The main area I've been working on is the cockpit, however I'm kind of stumped. As this is designed to be a contemporary of the T-70 I'd love to use its cockpit as a basis, the idea being to make it easier to transition pilots from one ship to the other. However so far I haven't had much luck Googling good references of the T-70s cockpit interior and instrument cluster.

Has anyone been able to dig up any information on this yet? Any pics or screens anyone can provide would be awesome.
 
Some construction pics:

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Proton torpedo magazine looking forward.

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Looking aft. Note the loading arms.

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The racks and support truss.

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Forward landing gear bay.

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Main landing gear bay.

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Landing configuration. It just wasn't possible to make the aft landing gear long enough because A) there needed to be room for the loading hatch on the torpedo bay to open and B) I didn't want to remodel the forward landing gear and bay. So instead I decided to have the E-wing land in a nose-up posture. This is a bit older image, as you can see from the OP that I've since changed the design of the cooling system and some of the details on the engines.
 
Its looking good, best incarnation of the E-Wing I've seen. Nice work on making things fit and work. Don't ya love doing the detail.;)

You may be able to make the rear landing gear longer with a couple of extra pivots and a piston at it's anchor points. It looks good the way you've done it anyway.
 
Thanks!

As for the landing gear, I don't want to make the system too complex. For one to keep it easier to animate, and for lore reasons simply because less complex = less to break and maintain. Thus the concept I'm running with with the "rebooted" E-wing to begin.

Anyway, I'm kind of stalled for right now until I can get some good references on the T-70 cockpit as the basis here. Also a little bit stumped on the canopy mechanism. I know I want it to slide forward to avoid having to clear the cannon, but I'm not completely sure of the mechanism to use.
 
Make it work something like a F-104A (with a downward ejection seat) or the XF-103 (pilot seat hoisted upward from below.) Alternative: top gun (ha!) can rotate side to side, somewhat like a turret, allowing the canopy to open in a conventional manner.

R/ Robert
 
Just doing some playing around. Here's a look at the difference in size between the T-70 X-wing (12.48m) and the T-90 E-wing (11.2m):

T70vsT90.PNG


It certainly doesn't look like much of a difference, but then you look at it from THIS angle...

T70vsT90Top.PNG


...and the X-wing is a significantly larger and more massive machine.
 
Great modeling work! What software do you prefer? I've used Inventor for years and recently just started using Solidworks for model making and 3D printing. Really great stuff you have here with lots of detail.
 
I use Blender. There's some stuff I COULD do better, tho. None of the hard edges are beveled, and every time I try it just ends up making a mess out of the mesh.
 
Couple high-res shot of the current model:

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Made a few changes, here. I've enlarged the cannon, shortened up the rear deck, and removed the fins surrounding the engine cowling.

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Early took at textures; panel layouts, standard markings, (using Red Two as the basis for things like stencils since that was the prototype model) and squadron livery.
 
fabulous design and i like how you modelled all the interior mechanisms as well.

one issue, how do you open the hatch if the canon is right on top of it? don't tell me you've added some ridiculous moving mount for it. :sick
 
Impressive... most impressive.
It's looking really great!

I'm working too on an E-Wing model, but I'm trying to follow the line of the Dark Empire comic (ship is shorter, wings are lower)
The only pic that I found of the cockpit and position of the droid is here.

Basically the cannon detaches, the back of the cockpit slides back and the canopy opens up moving together with the cannon. Not the best design ever but I like it.

As for the t-70 cockpit, I'm sure you've seen it by now but here is the best reference I've found.
 
Yeah, I'd done the Dark Empire-style E-wing, as well:

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I also did one for X-Wing Alliance (actually, I did two, one based on the EGV blueprints, the second based on Dark Empire) but I don't have any screens of it where I am right now. Based on Dark Empire, the dorsal cannon hinges upward (you can see this in one of the hangar scenes in the original comics) to provide clearance for the canopy to open. I decided that was a bit needlessly complex, not to mention potentially unstable, so elected to go with this system.

Incidentally, I'm using the canon length of 11.2 meters, here, so it's actually the same length. However my version has a much lower profile which just makes it LOOK longer.
 
*POOF*

I return with new screens!

The model has undergone some substantial revisions. I'm going through and beveling all edges, and have thus far completed work on the base hull. I'm also refining the surface details by using decals and materials rather than conventional UV mapping. Here's a very high res (right-click and view image to see it full size) peak at how she's looking right now.

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As before, there's a mix of influences in the markings, drawing inspiration from both the T-65 and T-70. The fuselage stripes extending over the nose at the forward end was actually an artifact of how DECALMachine works (which is what I'm using to apply the decals and panel lines) and I liked it so much I decided to keep it.

Now then, does anyone have any very good, clear images of the landing gear on the T-70? I'd like to remodel the ones on the E-wing to match then, but I'm not finding a wealth of great pics in a quick search.
 
Very neat. Well done.

As for that silly placed top blaster, I'd go with the simple solution.

Modify the canopy so the aft hinge goes back into the hump of the blaster, and have that forward section of the blaster hinged, so it just move up with the canopy.

Long winded way to just say hinge that blasted so it tilts with the canopy per what we're used to seeing.
 
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