[K-D10] The Hamilton Belt Mine

[NuckElBerg]

Okay, I might've overdone it a little this week. The build consists of 2331 pieces and should be legal/stable (I've actually added a couple of "bearing pillars" behind the scenes, so it would make sense in real life. This is a continuation of Commander/Agent Beltar's build from earlier this week (which can be found here: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=109963), and it's actually implemented (almost in its entirety) in this one). I hope you like it!

Tags: Building, Mining, Space, Kawashita, Engineer, Structure

--//Transmission Begin. Date: 3105(38)15. Scramble code: kliuJHBGaow8a3rllvmMma.//--

Q's log: The Hamilton Belt Mining, 31 Maian 3815

I arrived at the asteriod which Agent Beltar discovered last week on D10, The Hamilton Belt. As Mister S noted, it is quite peculiar to find liquid Awsomnium on an asteroid like this. However, I do have a theory to why this is the case here.

After doing some readings, I found that the whole asteroid is highly ferrous (Note to self: After Awsomnium mining is finished, consider asteroid for metal mining). Due to the high frequency, rotation of the asteriod, this result in creating a highly erratic magnetic field. Now, if the once solid Awsomnium deposits of the asteriod suddenly became liquid, such as through a high energy Gamma burst from a nearby star, the quickly shifting magnetic would probably be enough to infuse the Awsomnium with enough energy for it to stay liquid.

Hmmm...

The magnetic field would actually also explain Beltar's difficulty in reaching HQ, as it would scramble most of his transmissions. Very impressive of his robot, PauL, to withstand such a field... In all honesty, it almost seems like PauL has been able to withstand... *ehm*... "scrambling"... better than his owner. When we arrived, Beltar started shouting... actually, it's probably better if I include the actual recording:

Q's log: Arrival at The Hamilton Belt, 29 Maian 2815. Audio recording.

Beltar:

"ARE YOU HERE? REALLY? OR ARE you just in my mind? Like the others?"

Q:

"I can assure you Agent, me and my crew is really here, and we're here to extract the deposits you found."

B:

"OH, YES! There's so much Awsomnium, you should really see it! Okay, bye."

Q:

"Yes, we will, that's why we're here... wait, are you going? Where?

B:

"Can't talk, must get off this rock. Been here 2 weeks. Bye. PauL, let's go!"

PauL:

"Yes sir."

Recording end.

Seriously, that guy hasn't had any real contacts with humans in weeks, he has this conversation, and then 10 minutes later, he is off? I hope he turns out okay, especially considering that he left most of his resources here. Also... what's up with his skin tone?

Anyway, back to the matter at hand...

The mining is going well, despite there being some... interesting abnormalities as a result of finding liquid Awsomnium on such a small asteroid. First of all there is the gravity. The Awsomnium doesn't stream and fall as much as just... floating in different directions. However, the effect is not as noticable as one might think - I estimate that the Awsomnium is still "falling" at a pace around 1/5 of Terra's gravity - once again a result of the asteroid's magnetic fields. Still, there is something oddly soothing about watching those slow-falling purple "water falls".

In order to pump up the Awsomnium in the most efficient way, I've invented a pump type which I call "The Sweeper". Essentially, what it does is have a number of autonomous, semi-intelligent "arms", which home in on fast flowing Awsomnium currents, leading them to the "final resting place", and when that is swept up, back to the original well. At the moment, Awsomnium seems to be flowing from the core faster than we are able to sweep it up (again, the magnetic fields), but I have my crew out, making adjustments, in order to bolster the Sweeper's efficiency. There also seem to be some durability issues with the pipes due to the extremely high energy density of floating Awsomnium. Still, it's not outside the expected range.

I expect that, when running at full capacity, we should be able to extract all Awsomnium from the asteroid within 2-3 weeks, generating 25-30 standard size tanks, which should be able to power our fleet for at least a couple of weeks.

Operative Nu'q Learberg, out.

--//Transmission End. Signature: Col. QL. Scramble code: kliuJHBGaow8a3rllvmMma.//--

More pictures and comments under the spoiler tag!

The mining operation from behind...

...and from the final angle.

The crew. They are all equipped with a standard issue jetpack/exosuit arms, which are controlled through a neurochip implanted in the back of the brain, which interfaces with the helmet, which in turn is directly connected to the jetpack/exosuit arms. Thanks to the energy density of Awsomnium, one single fuel lasts for around a full week's constant use, which in turn has lead to ladders practically being non-existant in Kawashita industrial use.

(Also, I couldn't find the decorations for the legs which I wanted, so I substituted them for similar ones (that might not exist in print), please don't kill me!)

Q's tower opened up from behind.

Probably the most redundant part of this build was the almost exact recreation (I had to make a few substitutions because I couldn't find the exact pieces in LDD, plus there was some guesswork) of the cave Beltar explored earlier this week.

It turned out quite nice though, even if you can hardly see it in the finished build. :P

Learnings from second week of LDD:

• Making 4 different hinges connect to single brick from 4 different angled pieces is hard.
  
• The flex tool can be very frustrating.
  
• There are no renders for metalized corrugated pipes in POV-Ray, despite there being in real life (like in 8458 Silver Champion). :(
  
• It takes loooong to make large mountains that look (fairly) organic).
  
• Seriously, what's up with that piece that's rotated 90 degrees in picture 2? It's not like that in the LDD build!
  

Hope you enjoyed my post this week. I've tried as hard as I can to only use legal pieces, but since I use LDD extended (in order to speed up the building process), there might be one or two that are not. Please have oversight and let me know if you see any! :)

[SpacerSteve]

This is a great creation. I really enjoy how you are showing what is going on beneath the surface.

[shmails]

I do not think you went overboard at all, it looks great. I love the awesomnium flow at the bottom and the excavator/drill. Nice work!

[Commander Turtle]

This is absolutely killer, great work!

How did you get the render to do all those nice angles? Is that just using different LDD saves from various camera angles?

[Big Sal]

Wow, really well thought out build! I like how you incorporated Beltar's cave! And the Kawashita logo!

[Umbra-Manis]

Great job! You have learned much already in LDD. The flex tool is one of the hardest to use.

[Lord Tyrus]

WOW! There is really some great builds coming out of AG!

[Jody Meyer]

Great work, lots of work with LDD, nice to see a mining scene, nice exosuits as well

[Dragonfire]

Great build, one of the best LDD builds I've ever seen!

[NuckElBerg]

@shmails: Well, I think I've spent 30h+ with it, so I maaay wanna do a little less ambitious project next week. ;)

@Turtle: Yes, exactly. If you use LDD to POV-Ray (which I think you said you use), the default setting is to use the LDD default angle, which is the same as the last saved angle in the LDD project. I used a few different tricks to be able to get a couple of renders. The first picture is rendered using the 3 step fast rendering method by Nachapon (http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=78978), and the rest are just high-res lowest quality setting renderings. :)

@Umbra-Manis: Yea, my method for using the flex tool basically consisted of doing over and over and over and over and... well, you get the point... until it actually worked. :P

Thanks to the rest you guys for all the great comments, I had great fun building a lot of this build (even though the cave walls felt a bit monotonous)! :P

[narbilu]

Absolutely stunning. What a job! I can hardly keep myself from sheading a tear.

[Lady K]

Very nice build! I love the detail inside the cave and The Sweeper! Well done!

[mccoyed]

Very cool idea. Has a neat industrial feel and I love your use of scifi heads with medieval helms. Been trying to do that a bit too!

[Commander Turtle]

@Turtle: Yes, exactly. If you use LDD to POV-Ray (which I think you said you use), the default setting is to use the LDD default angle, which is the same as the last saved angle in the LDD project. I used a few different tricks to be able to get a couple of renders. The first picture is rendered using the 3 step fast rendering method by Nachapon (http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=78978), and the rest are just high-res lowest quality setting renderings. :)

Those high-res-lowest-quality ones don't seem too bad at all. I see the complex transparent parts are the reasons for sluggishness, my render of my sub took maybe 3-4 hours on 26% while it delt with a metallic helmet visor inside a trans-blue curved part. Almost as long as the whole of the first build with 3x the pieces, which was maybe 5 hours total.

Anyway, if this build isn't the peak of LDD in this game I don't know what will be

[NuckElBerg]

@narbilu: Thank you Sir! This warms my heart!

@Kianna: Thanks! Again, I'm a little bit sad that LDD to POV-Ray hadn't implemented metallic pipes (I say again, 8458 Silver Champion!). It looks way more insidious with metallic arms (think squiddies from The Matrix). 0:) It still looks quite okay though.

@mccoyed: Yea, I thought that look for the crew was in line both with the look of my character and the Kawashita style. I probably spent 1,5-2h trying to find a good look for the crew, narrowing down helmets, faces, etc (the problem with LDD ^^). Had I been able to choose completely without restrictions, I'd probably want the helmets in dark grey, but they're only made in black. The end result worked out very well together with the black jetpack though, so I shouldn't complain. :)

@Turtle: "Anyway, if this build isn't the peak of LDD in this game I don't know what will be :D" Awww, that kinda made my day, even though I know someone sooner or later will outdo me. 0:)

Edited May 31, 2015 by NuckElBerg

[pombe]

Holy crap. I don't have the words to describe how awesome this is. There's just so much awesome...

[NuckElBerg]

Holy crap. I don't have the words to describe how awesome this is. There's just so much awesome...

Don't you mean...*puts glasses on*... Awsomnium? *cue music*

(...and yes, this was a good deposit.)

[msx80]

awesome work!!

[Andromedas Gates]

The judges awarded you 4 points.

[Commander Turtle]

Hmm, that's surprisingly low imo. I feel like the judges undervalue LDD a bit, it's damn hard to make something look this complete. The program has advantages and disadvantages over regular bricks, but I can understand this build makes it look effortless.

[NuckElBerg]

Hmm, that's surprisingly low imo. I feel like the judges undervalue LDD a bit, it's damn hard to make something look this complete. The program has advantages and disadvantages over regular bricks, but I can understand this build makes it look effortless.

Yea, I had actually hoped for at least a 5, especially considering how much time I put into it (I think around 30+h), both relative to other 4-point and 5-point builds. But I mean, I mostly do it for myself and for you guys, and you seem to like it, so no hard feelings... (That, or I'm just trying to be gracefully butthurt. ;))

EDIT: As an additional response Turtle, I think it's mainly two things about LDD which the judges undervalue:

• First, it's the time things actually take to build. Sure, there are nifty tools like grouping and copy-paste, but if you're trying to build a structure which is mainly organic, like this, then you still have to do it piece by piece. Also, the larger the model gets, the harder it can get to actually make the bricks clip like you want to. Also, things which are simple with real life (bending tubes, connecting hinges which bind at different angles) takes much longer in LDD.
  
• Secondly, the unlimited supply of all bricks created (or, at least a very large amount of different bricks) make improvising/freebuilding a lot harder actually, since you have to have a pretty good idea how to do things beforehand. In real life, with a limited amount of bricks, you only have a limited amount of options, which results in only a few ideas actually being possible. Then, it's basically about you finding these ideas. In LDD, the options are basically limitless, so you have to know what you want to do, and basically how to do it, because if you were to try out every possible option, it would just take too much time.
  

Edited June 1, 2015 by NuckElBerg

[Umbra-Manis]

Yeah. I feel like LDD is under valued as well.

[Bob De Quatre]

I hope you're not trying to teach me LDD...

[NuckElBerg]

I hope you're not trying to teach me LDD...

Hahaha, no, of course not. I actually used some of your tricks when rendering so I was able to get it done in time. I just wanted to post some of my thoughts why some people might percieve why LDD as easier than it is (especially since we don't know who the judges actually are and exactly what the scoring is based on).

But I mean... if it is you who are judging LDDs... isn't that a little like a MasterBuilder judging physical builds? Everything less than a 10179 seems trivial? (I mean, you could probably do my build in LDD in like a fourth of the time or less, but that's a little like comparing the work of a street artist to Van Gogh, Picasso or Chagal...)

[Commander Turtle]

especially since we don't know who the judges actually are and exactly what the scoring is based on

We do know the judges, it's Lady K, Narbilu, and Bob. It's a rounded average, so you might have scored 5/4/4 for a 4.33 average, while 4.5 (a judge build gets only 2 judges) or 4.67 would both be rounded to 5. So those are the people to bribe.

What we don't know is the processes behind the decisions, I would certainly love a generic form of things to shoot for. E.g. marks for build neatness, impressiveness, and story integration. The way to step further would be to use the build for storytelling like Big Sal's well-deserved 6 this week.