A Living, Breathing Steampunk Metropolis - New Babbage Part 3 - The Vernian Sea

Today's episode of my exploration of New Babbage features a rather unusual region - yes, even unusual in terms of a Steampunk City! Its the Vernian Sea.

First I was more than a little skeptic about my destination. On the map the sea looks, well - like any other ocean: a plain blue area promising nothing spectacular or even mildly interesting. I soon found out that I was very wrong. Its really worth its name!

Starting my journey from the Babbage Canals on the western shore I decided if the sea has anything interesting to feature, it has to be underwater. So I rezzed Aley's Nautilus Mini-Sub. I frankly can't imagine a more suiting submarine for this purpose (even if its "probably not edible" according to its product description).

The Mini-Sub about to depart from the location of my previous New Babbage post: the Babbage Canals.

Despite being a highly industrialized area, the waters in the canals are surpringly clear.

And they are just deep enough!

Reaching the open sea, leaving New Babbage behind us.

In the south-west of the Sea is a obviously work-in-progress lighthouse.

After passing the lighthouse the bottom of the ocean dropped sharply and your daring Captain got the boat into a dive, exploring the unknown depths of the Vernian Sea.

Captain Some at the wheel!

My faithful first mate Emma playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-minor (Warning: cultural content!). I think she also found a way to use the organ as sonar.

Did someone said dandy? Our friend and passenger Zen Wickentower.

It is really amazing how efficiently Aley used the little space the submarine has. Nemo could barely have done better.

 As the boat sank deeper vague silhouettes began to slowly appear in the distance.

Getting closer they turned out to be a huge underwater station!

Following one of the endlessly appearing pipes connecting different parts of the building. I wonder what's the meaning of these lights...

Quite Impressive!

Another part of the station appears like a big flower-like structure.

I was steering around this mysterious underwater-station, looking for a porthole or some other sort of entrance, finding more and more amazing components...

This looks quite inviting! I would miss having a balcony though ;-)

We continued our expedition on foot, well on fins too ;-)

Emma having a chat with one of the locals.

White Zen went for the classical Steampunk diving style and Emma became a Mermaid, I followed the call of fasion and went for a stylish latex bane-diving suit.

I haven't used the helmet for quite a while and accidentally (not "accidentally" as some of you may think!) locked myself in without having the keys... lets call it a "diving accident", ok?

Ok, this is not the best picture I made but it features all members of the Somehow-Underwater-Expedition (no pun intended!).

Zen had to leave us shortly after so we went on exploring on our own.

Having a relaxed time inside the deep-sea station.

British Mermaids love tea of course!

"This must be underwater love..."

After spending some time in the station we did head back to the boat. The oxygen-alert was ringing hard (did I left a vent open?) So Emma had another reason to keep the Suit locked on me.

Reaching the surface and heading towards Port Babbage.

This pier seems to be made for us!

Our arrival being observed by one of New Babbage's Citizens Pilipo Underwood.

We had a very nice conversation which was a suiting ending of our underwater expedition. I can only recommend you to go exploring there too - its really a worthwhile time!

New Aerial Vehicles, Mesh-Updates And A Bit Of Cyberpunk

Don't think I was lazy since the Steampunk Expo ;-) Your favorite Drow Aviatrix was busy with creating a whole bunch of new airplanes (and an Ornithopter  too - my personal favorite).

The Steampunk Ornithopter - with fully functioning mechanic!

My Vision for the Ornithopter was as simple as it was challenging: A design reduced to the absolutely necessary! At first glance this might seem contradicting to the typical "overengineered" steampunk-style but in fact the reduction allowed me to play much more with the actual structure of the machine instead of covering it all under a streamlined fuselage.
The result is a really exciting framework consisting of metal, wires and wooden struts build around not much more than a steam engine, a seat and wings! It is really a joy to watch it fly!

For the Steampunk 2-Seater Biplane Mk3 I was able to create the engines completely as meshes, keeping the Land Impact nicely low, allowing me to add a few nice details like a picnic basket, a machine gun (purely for self-defense of course) a compass, an air-vehicle identification chart and - last but not least - a posh glass of Martini ;-)

Steampunk 2-Seater Biplane Mk3

Martini for the co-pilot: strictly following my credo "Whatever you do, do it with style."

Just hope the pilot doesn't do too tight turns!

Tight turns are no problem for these machines:  The Stunt Biplanes and Triplanes are made for daring aerial acrobatics. They respond quickly, while staying always nicely controllable, are compact in their dimensions and give the pilot an excellent view from the cockpit!

The Stunt Biplane-Set contains 5 different colour schemes.

Needless to mention the same applies for the Triplane-version too!

After so many smoking chimneys, roaring engines, flapping wings and turning propellers its time now for something completely different:

Drow not included! The Cyber Club Prefab.

The Cyber Club is an exciting prefab modeled after a club in which I myself spent many happy hours, and the generous 30x38 footprint leaves plenty of room for even the most enthusiastic dancers as well as additional furniture.

Rezzed as it is the club is ideal for cyberpunk, electro and even metal club nights but the design is fully modable, taking advantage of SL’s advanced lighting/shadows features making this a perfect spot for whatever kind of party you need to throw.

The Cyber Club on its own is a mere 24 prims, and it comes complete with the following optional furnishings:

+ DJ Booth (11 Prims)
+ Table (1 Prim)
+ Disco Ball (3 Prims)
+ Stage Trussing with Spotlights (8 Prims)
+ Bar (4 Prims)
+ Barstool (2 Prims)
+ Acid Pit (2 Prims)

Optional Evilness: The Acid-Pit for a dance-on-the-volcano-like feeling ;-)

Additional to these new creations I did also update my WW1 Airplanes with new mesh-engines. The Fokker Triplane even got a cool meshed cowl!

The Fokker Dr.1 Triplane - It looks better than ever before!

A close-up of the front.

The Sopwith Camel also got the new engine plus an improved upper wing faithfully modelled after its real-world counterpart.

The Nieuport 17 and the Morane Bullet also got the new mesh-engines installed. This is however only the first step I take. The next update will feature full mesh models with a yet not seen degree of detail! Stay tuned!

A Living, Breathing Steampunk Metropolis - New Babbage Part 2 - Babbage Canals

Time for part two of my epic journey through the sims of New Babbage! My excursions have been delayed a bit due to a certain (and pretty awesome) steampunk event, but here we go!

This time the subject of my travelings was another one of the rather waterish (if this word doesn't exists yet, I declare it as invented!) parts of the city: The Babbage Canals.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing" - your highly-decorated Drow flying ace in front of her aerial vehicle.

Checking for whom the bell tolls.

Steampunk as it should be: whimsical constructions of brass, bricks, rust and more brass reaching skywards.

As the name already betrays the sim has - canals! Along with factories, airship hangars and other really cool made buildings.

There is so much to see. I never got tired of making photos!

Did somebody say over-engineering? I think this structure has something to do with electrics - maybe... perhaps... I guess... uuh... nevermind ;-)

*resists to take out a knife and cut this off from the wall... barely*

This is not a cage! Ok, even if Emma looks the part ;-)

*takes discretely notes... lots of notes*

In case you ever wondered why they are called airships.

Churches are in general best seen from outside. I like these gothic-arches though.

Emma at the giant peach?

No, not really ;-)

To give our expedition a nice finish we had a roof-dance.

A very lovely roof-dance :-)

I can't point out often enough how much this place is worth a visit! If these pictures can't convince you to go and have a visit... you are either dead, a steampunk-hater (which makes me wonder why you made it so far!) or you already are there!

Some's Steampunk Taxi to the Baggabe Canals!