In-Universe History
At the end of the Clone Wars the new Galactic Empire was looking for a small multi-crew, multi-role starship about the size of a light freighter. Corellian Engineering started with a clean-sheet design borrowing many systems components from their successful YT-Series of starship. The result was the NX13 Class of light freighter. The class also came well armed in its stock configuration, with the expectation that the ships would be alone and unafraid in the far reaches of uncontrolled space. Ultimately, the contract was given to the VT-49 Decimator, a much larger and more capable variant. However, the NX13 class saw success as the lightest of light freighters. Roughly the length of a YT-1300 and half the width, the NX13 became a desirable alternative for those on a budget. Because of its history as a reconnaissance platform, many crime lords wanted them in their inventory of starships that could get in and out very quickly.
Real World
The concept for this starship began in March or April of 2020 while the world went into lockdown. Like most, I was out of work and trying to occupy my time. It was suggested that I indulge my fandom a little more intensely than normal and develop who I would be in the Star Wars universe. It was a fun little exercise that demanded a starship be designed. Having loved the Millennium Falcon since I was a small child I wanted something that looked like that. I was having fun, so I wasn't too concerned with being derivative.
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Original Sketch from 2020
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Even though I'm firmly in my 30s, I am still not a good artist, though I can be creative. I drew a simple image what I thought it could/should look like and was somewhat satisfied. I combined the Falcon with the B-25 Mitchell as it was my favorite of the World War II Bombers, and added in the Phantom from Rebels for good measure.
As time marched on, the idea still kept stirring in my head (even as the world opened up and I returned to work). I decided to take up CAD design for work reasons, and so as practice I started by rendering my starship.
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| Original Design - basic and unrefinded |
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The first render was okay, but there were several things that I didn't paticularly like. For one, when put to scale next to the Millennium Falcon it was much bigger. The second was that I didn't match the silhouette. Lastly, while I did like the overall silhouette, I couldn't shake the idea that I could do better. This all came to head when Andor introduced the Fondor Haulcraft. When studying the design I was and still am so impressed with how the were able to evoke the lines of the Millennium Falcon while being largely original and remaining firmly planted in the universe.
I have a fairly unique background that gives me a different perspective on these sorts of designs. While I am a pilot by trade, I also have a strong background in engineering and the military. That means that I tend to look at these things with a practical eye.
During many drives to and from work and fighting with traffic, it became a nice distraction to try and come up with a better solution. So one day while off I sketeched out a basic layout that I thought would do a good enough job. Given that basic design, I opened sketch up and started to work on the 3D model.
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| New Concept Sketch to check the designs |
I knew that I wanted it to be in scale with the X-Wing games Millennium Falcon model, so unlike the last time I had it next to me and used actual measurements from the model to inform the size and scale of the new one. As a general thought, I knew that I wanted to have the ship be 1/2 the width of the Falcon, but the full length. I also Knew that I wanted to have a two-place cockpit like the Falcon, so I used the diameter of its cockpit as a basis for a two-place cockpit. Another control point that I used for scale was the size of the side docking rings. The height of the vessel was also used as a reference for a one-story starship.
So with those measurements in hand I drew lines across all three axis that gave me general parameters from which to confine my design. After that it was a matter of getting the shapes. I drew up the main fuselage first. Overall it was easy to get the basic shape. The cockpit, however, was much more difficult to get right. Weirdly, I did manage to screw up the dimensions of the cockpit width. The two-person Millennium Falcon cockpit is about 10mm. My cockpit would up about 8mm despite using measurements this time. I'll be honest, how that dimension was off remains a mystery.
One thing that I think is important, and I took from a talk by Doug Chang, was to make sure that Star Wars designs remain grounded in some reality. So I looked at existing aircraft in order to inform my design. Initially, I had wanted to retain the nose area from the B-25 Bomber, but I wasn't able to reconcile putting a largely glass structure between the mandibles. So I took inspiration instead from the Beechcraft Baron, of which I own one.
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| Beechcraft Baron |
I almost put the V-antenna on top of it as well since I think that design looks pretty cool, but I did not. Next, I put some thought into how to display the fact that this ship was designed to be a surveillance craft of some kind. In my original design, I kept to to a satellite dish, but in the real world these sorts of antennas are covered up by a fairing of some kind. I also dipped into my military background and remembered that the AWACS aircraft (E-2 Hawkeye and E-3 Sentry) both have large dishes suspended above them for detection and command and control.
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| E-2 Hawkeye Early Warning aircraft |
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| E-3 Sentry Command and Control Aircraft |
After the basic design was done, I got to start thinking about the weapons. Thanks to a background in the military, I can use phrases like "overlapping fields of fire" correctly in a sentence, and so I wanted to use that to effectively plan the placement of weapons systems. The first question I wanted to ask was where did it make sense to put weapons systems. The second was how many did it need. I figured that in this sgtory the ship would be alone and unafraid collecting information on rival gangs, so the pilot would want to ensure that he had many cones of lethality that would limit the amount of blind spots. Also, the fields of fire needed to avoid anything such as the now-massive radar dish that I had added above the vehicle.
I added two nose mounted laser cannons feeling that at a minimum those would be useful while in a pursuit situation. I also wanted to have an underside gunner position since to me that would be the most significant blind spot and prime for an ambush.
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| Underside showing ventral turret |
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| Tailgun Details |
Then it was on to the greebling, to which I used the Millennium Falcon as the major influence. I made sure to have the kinds of hull plating that I expected to see on this sort of a ship. I tried to make external wires look like they went somewhere into the ship itself. Greebling is annoying but fun as it turns my engineer brain on to think about how things work and relate to each other.
After looking at the main fuselage, I was very pleased with it overall, and decided to forego the outer wings that were reminiscent of the Haulcraft.
When all was said and done, I was super happy with the design. It made me want to try another right away. Mostly, I had closed a loop two years in the making. To date I still think it is my best design.
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