Wow, I missed a lot of posts, somehow. I'll try to catch up:
May I suggest that Plotinus' unit be used for Sherlock Holmes?
(or maybe the OP hasn't been updated) The Victorian Gentleman might come in handy too.
I might be able to do those towers, too. Might take a couple months, but there's plenty of time.
No s**t: Sherlock! (Thanks, I've always wanted to say that in a new context). All of Plot's stunning Steampunk units are already in the biq, I assure you. An update of the first post is in the works; I sent a draft to Blue Monkey, but he's cat-sitting at the moment. As for the Zeppelin Tower, that's a feature of Propeller Island, which Tom2050 is making, I assume. Your time frame of "a couple of months" is a bit further out than we'd hoped; we want to get this out within -
lemme see - 49 days, and are actually working furiously here behind the scenes to make that happen. No less than four unit makers have told me of units for this currently in production within this deadline (next month's unit contest should be interesting), and we'll have at least placeholder units for everything we asked for - which is phenomenal, when you think about it - I mean, this isn't any franchise idea, like Star Trek or Warhammer*. We thought of this ourselves - even
before** Pixar decided to do "John Carter on Mars"! Given that, the outpouring of community support has been wonderful, and we're gonna have a really interesting mod as a result.
*
Mind you, I have nothing against either, in fact the Star Trek mod was the first full mod I ever downloaded.
**
I first posted the map in the Steampunk forum on May 8, 2008; Andrew Stanton first revealed that he was writing John Carter for Pixar in June, so we beat them to the start by a month
Speaking of which...
Here's my WIP: A Barsoomian Flyer
I know where you got that diagram; I may have provided the link. I'd have to agree, though, with Blue Monkey's suggestion that you choose a design that has a bit more sailing-ship feel to it. When I read the books, I picture something more like the boat-like designs you've seen - a personal flyer is like a surfboard with a windshield on which the user lays prone; a large ship in the books is described to be more like a flying clipper ship without masts. Mid-sized ships, like the one you sampled, are described in the books as also having boat-like decks. Plenty of action occurs on those decks, in the books:
As for design ideas, I'd add some more Star Wars designs to Blue Monkey's list of ships that look like (our idea of) Barsoomian vessels:
The Bantha-II Cargo Skiff (from which came the
Desert Skiff by pleb )
For Larger ships, something closer to a Star Wars
Luxury Sail Barge, a
Seltiss II Caravel, or
Superhaul Model II Cargo skiff.
I'd also add: feel free to customize/trick out this unit (like Wyrmshadow did with the scrollwork on his
Land Ironclad, and
Nautilus) You could add extras like ropes and grappling hooks - even Napoleonic-style cannons with radium burst shells are described in the books - so you have alot of license to customize in Victorian, Sci-fi, or Gothic styles to your heart's content. If you want to customize them to specific Barsoomian cultures, versions of these with pirate (black) or egyptian (white) motifs could be used for the Firstborn or Thern cultures, respectively.
Here's what they look like right now; I modeled them after the pic BM left above. Still am going to add the circular wiring around the towers. The top walkway portion I still need to add appropriate texture, etc. But at civ scale it probably won't even be noticable so I might just leave it.
