Frigate possibilities for Epic and I-War

Here's the scale of the ships.

http://images.snapfish.com/338%3B3%3C4323232%7Ffp46%3Dot%3E2328%3D%3C2%3C%3D8%3A8%3DXROQDF%3E2323467%3A97873ot1lsi


The Spaceman Spiff is actually directly in front of the Terrapin nose, but he's too small to see.

http://images.snapfish.com/338%3B3%3C4323232%7Ffp46%3Dot%3E2328%3D%3C2%3C%3D8%3A8%3DXROQDF%3E2323467%3A97886ot1lsi

The scale of these things constantly amazes me (perhaps I'm easily amused ). It's so easy to forget the sizes of the ships when playing EoC.

No confusion; just wrong or right ... Only Solutions

Respect. Nice shape - it really manages to look like the "missing link" between the Dreadnaught and the Bastille.

The command section will add to the poly count, as the linked ship-comsec-thing is one model replaced by two new ones whenever the ship is divided. However, a poly count somewhere around 400 still seems fairly okay, especially with this complex engine structure (which looks very good btw - it looks as if the hull is shielding them against battle damage).

Well, all in all, a pretty cool design.[8D]

Thanks. Are you staisfied enough for me to 'lock' the shape and start on the details and textures? (Geometry changes become much more difficult once the textures are applied.) If you want some more pics, I can send them.

The comsec I used is the NP_comsec from EoC. Is this comsec unchanged from I-War? Or should I use the I-War model?

Will the player ever see the ship with it's comsec undocked? Do I really need a comsec bay? If so, will you need one model of the craft with the comsec and one without?

And, if so, which texture will that one support? COSA? Commonwealth? Indie? And will the comsec markings match the frigate markings?

...it looks as if the hull is shielding them against battle damage

I have a hard time not shielding thruster tubes. Stephen R. Donaldson did that to me with his Gap series (I'd never much thought about it before that). He predicted that a holed (or dented) thruster tube would make the ship nearly unmanageable. Plasma escapes at a right angle when the trusters are used, spinning the ship off course.

BTW: Do you want the heat sink to appear on the craft (like the Terrapin)?

Whew... Lots of questions today.

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If nobody else has severe points against the shape, I'd say just go on

Texturing and the comsec are important issues.

First things first: The player will only see the Navy version without command unit. Indie and COSA versions will never be seen without the comsec, so no need to take this into account.
I recommend to use the I-War 1 comsec model and its texture. Same thing with omnipresent design elements like the comsec docking bay, or the main docking port. I think it's the best way to just adapt those textures from the original ships.
If it's too much work for you to get and use the texture developpment kit of I-War 1, I could just email you those textures in tga or gif format, with the corresponding I-War 1 palette.
And once you have made the Navy textures for the frigate, I could try to work them into the Indie versions: The texture devkit has a cool feature that allows to "stamp" Indie paintjobs on normal textures, taking into account details like hull plating and such.

Shane. It is the frigate of my dreams! Nice job.

--
Hot4Darmat

Okay. I've got:

1 frigate model with Navy markings but no comsec.
1 frigate model with COSA markings and with comsec.
1 frigate model with Indie markings and with comsec.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to try my hand at the Indie markings. I live down the street from train tracks, and at the crossings I've noticed the graffiti which adorns the cargo cars. Someone spent a good deal of time on some of them, and they're quite well done (nice to see we've got artistic thugs in our inner cities ). Got me thinking of the Indie markings and what I could do with them.

I'll use the original comsecs and docking bays from I-War. No trouble on the models. I can pull them off my I-War/Defiance game. And I downloaded the I-War tools about two weeks ago (just haven't found the time to open them up yet).

The grunge-work is almost over. Texturing is the fun part.

Thanks Hot4! I'll try to make her pretty...

No confusion; just wrong or right ... Only Solutions