Are the panel lines on a separate layer? Any chance of lightening them up so they're not as sharply defined? Leviathan or not, the original texture was very clean, with minimal panel lining - I'm not saying redo it, but maybe try to de-emphasize them a tad?
I can see why you would think so,they are a tad too strong and just to point it out I am using the retail .pcx textures as reference not the MediaVP ones. Normal strength can be changed as I desire, without much problems.
We can actually see a big difference without a blue ship now. Should it come back or stay out?
I'm very much on the fence regarding the glows, I can only assume FSU changed this to make visual identification easier as in retail leviathan and the fenris had identical appearance.
For now I'm very much inclined to see how they both preform ingame before doing a change, if visual identification at close and at distance poses too much of a problem game play wise, I'll happily make the leviathan glows blue and fenris glows red.
I'd say, keep the color-swapped look. Green stripes on the bow, slightly "dusty gray" skin instead of "bluish-gray" of the Fenris, and of course the blue lights. Since the "Fenris-like" texture is either already done or nearly done, it could be added as an optional one.
The main armour colour is almost identical ( around 90,90,90 RGB) The major difference is in the shine and elements in the grime. Adding an "optional" texture, while not completely out of the question is not on the agenda.
as soon as you are further than some 500m away from the ships you are probably not going to be able to tell which ship is which, without looking very closely
That is crux of the problem is not? In the altered version from the side you can easily identify the two, however viewed from anywhere else, top, under and front they look the same. In retail you did not know before targeting the ship or : pay attention to the briefing and battle chatter. (Thinking of the main freespace campaign here).
Well, in the end they are just glows, easily changed by anyone with access to a decent editing program.