Hardware Shipbreakers LAV part 1

 Way back in 2015 I came across the concept art for Hardware shipbreakers a computer game that eventually became Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. In it were a couple of interesting off road sci-fi vehicles that caught my eye as possible subjects for rc models, the Baserunner and the LAV or Light Attack Vehicle. In this old post I toyed with building a Baserunner loosely based on the original concept art and had 6 massive RC tyres set aside for it. In the end I didn't like my take on it (I prefer the concept art version) and then more recently used the tyres on my own design project the Bogger 6X6.

Base Runner original concept art.

The LAV project however has not been abandoned.  

What I like about the concept art is that it is in a very loose photographic/painterly style which I find appealing and the designs look like they could actually work off-road. Many concept artists design supposedly off-road vehicles like they would sci-fi road cars, wheels and tyres with very small gaps between them and the wheel arches. This leaves absolutely no space for suspension travel. The concept artists of Blackbird, the developer of the game, seem to understand this and their designs are much more practical particularly in regard to RC vehicles which generally have a massive amount of suspension travel.

I felt the very boxy slab-sided body shape would be readily able to be scratchbuilt.

LAV exiting the Baserunner concept art.

Early unused LAV game asset.

I started on the LAV chassis some years ago. I had 4 Imex Jumbo Maxx chevron tyres which I thought would fit the bill for the LAV. I cutout the side view of the LAV from one of the concept illustrations in Photoshop and enlarged it so the tyre diameter matched that of the Jumbo Maxx tyres then printed it out full size to get a sense of the size and scale of the project.

LAV isolated from the background

The next step was to build a custom extended chassis employing Traxxas E-maxx suspension with a traxxas Summit two speed transmission.

Two sets of E-maxx chassis braces were cut up and attached to a 3mm aluminium plate. The aluminium I had on hand wasn't quite long enough so I added a short length at the rear. The front set of braces had to be spread further apart than normal to clear the Summit transmission. The front braces were supported by another custom 3mm aluminium plate underneath while at the rear the original E-Maxx plastic plate was used. Additionally a 2mm aluminium plate joined all the plastic braces in the centre and stiffened up the chassis. The rear drive shaft was extended with some aluminium tube epoxied to the original plastic uni joints.

The suspension was beefed up with the stiffest aftermarket springs I could find as the custom body will be much heavier than a lightweight vac formed piece of lexan the E-maxx bodies are made of.

The motor is a brushed De-Walt drill motor using a cheap brushed 12v-24v ESC. It has a lot of surface rust from sitting in my workshop for a number of years. There is one steering servo and a small gear shifting servo.

Also made quite some time ago was a cardboard mockup of the body to check the proportions and see it will fit on the chassis.

That was where the project sat for a number of years until now.

More recently I have been making the body from PVC foamed sheet mostly 3mm with some 6mm.

 I have had to make some adjustments to the proportions here and there to get it to fit mostly around the front suspension, widening the nose and modifying the angles of the windscreen section a bit to compensate.

Side panel with mock sliding door.

Windcreen frame done in 2D CAD and printed out on paper fullsize.

1MM styrene window frame being cut out.

2mm perspex windscreen and side windows fitted.

Side window frame templates.

Plastic grid glued in behind slots in nose.

Solid 8mm square ABS rod glued inside as strut detail.

Half round strips glued to roof.

Thanks for looking.

More soon...

Hardware Shipbreakers

In the post about making your own PVC wheels I hinted at some concept art  and in particular the vehicle design that I found inspiring. Here it is.

 
It is from a proposed game originally called Hardware Shipbreakers, now Homeworld Shipbreakers. As far as I know it is still in development, though this artwork was released some years ago now.
The hardware of Shipbreakers is some of the most convincing designs I have seen, really believable they look like they could actually work. Many sci fi designs I see look cool but could not in any way work, particularly off road. You see many so called all terrain vehicle designs with close fitting wheel arches, where there is nowhere for the suspension to go. It looks cool on a road race car where there is not any where near the amount of suspension travel, but would be totally impractical offroad.

As is common for me, a project is usually determined by the tyres I can find. The tyres come first and the design follows. The RC4WD Interco Super Swamper series 40 tyres  arrived and the PVC rims I made just before I stumbled across this artwork. They would be perfect for a vehicle along these lines. One of the concept art illustrations shows the scale of the vehicle.

From this image the massive RC tyres scale out at 1/64 scale. I don't really want to work at that small a scale so I figured 1/35 scale would be more suitable which, although halving the apparent scale, still makes for a humungous machine. To visualise the size of the vehicle at 1/35th, double the height of the figure near the front wheel. 1/35 scale also has the advantage of all the military kits and figures in that scale for kit bashing parts.

I started with some thumbnails and then roughly modeled the one I liked in Maya to grapple with the proportions.

From the screen grabs of the rough computer model I drew up a CAD version in DraftSight to get some dimensions. I then used Delta Cad to print out the CAD drawing fullsize over a number of A4 sheets which then were stuck together with masking tape, lining up the pages using a light box.

This is going to be the largest model by far of any of my projects with the body at 1070mm long and 475mm wide. I am not sure if my idea for powering the model like the Space truck project with a 540 motor and gearbox in every wheel will work with this size of model and the massively bigger circumference of these tyres. I think I will have to at least use a 200 rpm final drive rather than the 400rpm I have for the space truck idea. I think a 750 sized motor would be nice but I don't see any planetary gearboxes to fit, well not on my budget anyway. Below you can see a drilled out Traxxas 17mm hex fitted to the 6mm shaft of the motor. There is a flat ground on the shaft and a 4mm grub screw secures the hex onto the shaft.

Below you can see how the offset was allowed for in the construction of the rims so that the motor sticks out and can be mounted at the end of the suspension arms. On the far right is a rim assembly before getting trimmed. A ring of pvc gets removed from each of the inner and outer rims on both sides.

Here is a complete painted wheel with its skull design re-drilled Axial beadlock fitted. It doesn't look that big in the photo, it's ridiculously big in reality.

I still have not begun to figure out the suspension or the steering. For the latter, probably a high torque servo will get buried in the arm of each of the front wheels.

At least it is now after looking at the concept art it's fairly obvious why I painted the PVC wheels yellow.
More soon...