“UFO”

I honestly didn't think I could pull it off, but I wanted my Tactical Interceptor to match the scale of my green spaceship. So I challenged myself to recreate the design at a smaller scale. Here's the result!

Original Tactical Interceptor:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegoSpaceships/s/nkocSR7G0D

Green Spaceship:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegoSpaceships/s/w8Q1Hf3vJk

Inspired by Valley Forge from Silent Running, made with spares

I’ve been experimenting with the LEGO 75432 V-19 Torrent Starfighter and seeing what else can be created from the same parts.

Gunship: A completely different take on the original set.
Colonial Viper: A design inspired by the iconic sci-fi spacecraft.
Super Torrent: An upgraded take on the original V-19 Torrent, reworking its design into something bigger and more aggressive.

It’s always interesting to see how far you can push a set beyond its original model. Which of these alternate builds is your favourite?

Lore blurb:

The Type-5 was pitched as a modular, sporty, single pilot luxury craft. Over the years it has become one of Pulsar Drive Systems' most popular ships with a wide range of easily replaceable components. The craft has also been modified by PDS' in-house tuning group, Pulsar Drive Technica, for gravity sling rally racing.

IRL blurb:

This little thing is an improvement over a scrap parts build I made while my PC was KIA. Have to give props to my fiance for his insight on shape language and color blocking. The deep range research variant had its livery influenced by oceanic research vessels and the rally variant was influenced by older F1 liveries. The poster style renders were edited in GIMP and made to look similar to magazine spreads.

Due to the UEC's immense infrastructure and resources, the UEC's Cosmos-LR77 model of battlecruiser is likely the most powerful ship of its class in the three galaxies. The front of its hull is forked to facilitate its main weapon, unique to the UEC, a massive gravity farm derived from those used by asteroid mining vessels. The device has been upscaled and weaponized, able to lock target ships in place relative to itself to make targeting weakpoints incredibly easy. Two heavy railguns are used to puncture the target until it surrenders or is crippled, and four smaller turrets on the front prongs provide supplementary firepower against smaller vessels like frigates and interceptors. Four large panels of dispersion plating spaced away from the hull provide additional armor to the sensor array and primary inhabitable decks.
1:720 scale

Here's a side by side comparison of my two TIE Interceptor Variant MOCs. The TIE "Stalker" (The Big Red One) and the TIE "Wraith" (Gray. obviously.)

This personal transport features an asymmetrical design in order to keep the frame as narrow and short as possible. This is to allow it to weave through traffic and narrow passageways that more traditional craft would be stuck in. The cost is visibility and practicality. Being able to mount such a large engine on its small frame however made it a successful racer, albeit with a higher than average crash rate due to the poor visibility.

Easily my fave scifi ship

What if the Republic had upgraded the V-19 Torrent into a hyperdrive equipped fighter designed to protect ARC-170 formations and give Jedi pilots greater independence?

The V-19E Super Torrent retains the original fighter's wide central fuselage, but replaces its complicated folding wings with a fixed delta wing configuration. I wanted to give it a more streamlined, modern fighter profile, taking inspiration from the F-22 Raptor and the classic Buck Rogers starfighter. The raised, canted stabilisers add to the aggressive silhouette, while their position above the wings leaves room for the landing gear underneath.

The integrated hyperdrive sits behind the cockpit, allowing the Super Torrent to travel through hyperspace independently without a carrier or separate hyperspace ring. I also moved the laser cannons forward to the front of the engine nacelles, along the wing roots. Placing them closer to the centreline gives the fighter a more naturally aligned forward firing arrangement.

During the Clone Wars, the ARC-170 served as a long range heavy fighter for reconnaissance and combat missions. With three clone troopers aboard each aircraft, every loss meant not only the destruction of a valuable fighter, but also the loss of three trained crew members. A dedicated escort like the Super Torrent could have helped protect these valuable ships from enemy starfighters.

Its integrated hyperdrive would also have made it useful for Jedi generals, allowing them to travel between systems without relying on the separate hyperspace rings used by many Republic Jedi starfighters. So why didn't the Republic build it? Perhaps the Republic leadership preferred mass producing smaller V-wing interceptors rather than investing in a dedicated escort fighter. The Super Torrent never entered widespread service, becoming one of those intriguing possibilities in an alternative history of the Clone Wars.

Like the original donor set, the V-19E Super Torrent is solid and sturdy, making it suitable for both display and play. You can grab it and swoosh it through dogfights across the galaxy without worrying about it falling apart.
This is an alternate build of the LEGO Star Wars V-19 Torrent Starfighter set. I hope you enjoy building it as much as I enjoyed designing it!

What if the Republic had upgraded the V-19 Torrent into the long range escort fighter the ARC-170 needed?

Instead of adopting the smaller V-wing, imagine the Republic investing in a redesigned Torrent with a hyperdrive, fixed delta wings and canted stabilisers inspired by modern fighter jets and the classic Buck Rogers starfighter.

The overall design is complete, and I'm now working on the building instructions!

Could this have been the fighter the Republic needed? 👀

I wasn't able to finish this ship in time for this subreddit's SHIPtober contest, but I was able to finish it in time for Flickr's. I'm quite happy with it.

Soteria Class Frigate 104 studs long, ~1/200 scale using the 9mm-sh astronaut statuette as crew. The ship, while mostly being rule of cool, is somewhat hard scifi, using fusion engines, reaction control thrusters, thrust gravity, radiators all that nearish future stuff. Despite using thrust gravity, the ship has a horizontal layout (in the images, except for the poster one, it is accelerating upwards) via having a line of engines along its long axis. This is so that the ship can still jink and maneuver while pointing its spinal mount at an enemy and presenting its smallest profile. Whereas in a vertical/ tower configuration, with its thrusters inline with the long axis, would instead be restricted to only burning directly towards or away from an enemy when pointing at them. It also saves its crew from needing to trudge up a bunch of stairs to get anywhere. It has a big spinal mounted coilgun, a coilgun turret, 2 banks of 8 missiles, and five CIWS turrets for point defence. I was initially planning on using laser turrets for PD since I think it makes more sense, but I wasn’t happy with my laser turret builds, so I went with the gun turrets instead.
Can accelerate at an average of 2 g for 1 hour. Wet acceleration (full propellant tanks) is 1.5g, dry acceleration(on the last dregs of propellant) is 2.9g Can lower its engines thrust to increase their efficiency, so can accelerate at an average of 0.1g for 16.5 days. Wet acceleration 0.075, dry acceleration 0.145g The ship, in Cruise acceleration, has enough deltaV to perform a flip and burn between Earth and Mars in as little as 6 days at closest approach and about 15 days when they are furthest apart, though in that case, the ship would arrive on fumes and be unable to actually maneuver in a fight without a top up. For anything further, the ship would need to spend much of the voyage coasting, and the travel times jump up to months and years.
*Edit*
AAgh! I wrote SHIPtober instead of SHIPtember

A small, fast, and highly maneuverable fighter that relies on agility and precision to take down its enemies.

It's a variation of my previous Scout Interceptor. I think I managed to refine the design even further this time.

What do you think?