[Hades]

Model is pretty ballin', I don't really have any criticisms about it. Keep it up.

[Qent]

Beautiful. Although, I will probably miss the asymmetry for a while. Also it looks pretty UEF-ish with those textures, somehow.

[Aesaar]

Makes sense, since a couple of the textures I used are UEF textures (uefplate.dds, specifically, which you can see on the nose and the beam cannon housings).  But the biggest reason is probably that current GTVA capital ships are all tilemapped, and the plating tiles all have very prominent seams between plates.  I used the same tiles, but as a much less prominent overlay, so the seams are much less obvious.  Observe:


This is the one used on the Chimera and Bellerophon (atmuch lower resolution).


This is the one I'm using for the Dio's bare armor.


If/when I HTL the Raynor (which'll take a long while), expect its textures to have a similar appearance.

[QuakeIV]

I would only suggest that the beam emitters be put closer to either end of the craft, seems a bit weird that they are so close together.  What with those four emitters being everything on the ship.  You could still stick pretty close to the original and make it look more sensical.

e:  I should probably add this is just me trying to be semi constructive, this will contrast so sharply with the rest of the GTVA ships that the diomedes would go from the ugliest ship in the game to the prettiest on the GTVA side of the war.  Indisputably.  May be some contention with the UEF ships but yeah that thing is epic.

[Qent]

Well, IMHO it would be good to make it look GTVA-ish instead, no matter how great the UEF looks.

[Darius]

Looks pretty GTVA-ish to me (and pretty damn cool for that matter )

With the harder lines  it does remind me a bit of the Galaxy carrier, which also fits in with Stratcomm's fleet quite well.

[MatthTheGeek]

Well, IMHO it would be good to make it look GTVA-ish instead, no matter how great the UEF looks.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the GTVA took some inspiration from some successful UEF designs for their new designs. The Diomedes was only deployed after the events of AoA after all, and is arguably very similar in role and function to the Karuna.

[The E]

It takes more than a few months to design and roll out a new ship class. That said, I do agree that this redesign fits with the GTVA fleet we have, this Diomedes is obviously closer to the Raynor than the Titan in terms of design, which works just as well.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

It takes more than a few months to design and roll out a new ship class. That said, I do agree that this redesign fits with the GTVA fleet we have, this Diomedes is obviously closer to the Raynor than the Titan in terms of design, which works just as well.

Just chiming in to say that the time it takes to design something really depends on a lot of things. I wouldn't underestimate the speed of a rolling military-industrial complex. Nearing the end of WWII, some notable designs and improvements happened with lightning quickness. In particular, arguably the most successful, definitely one of the most beautiful, and certainly the most popular (here in the U.S.) aircraft, the P-51, went from "Hey North American, we need a new fighter that can escort our bombers," to prototype in about 100 days.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, there are ships in BP that were turned around in a really quick window - I'm not totally sure off the top of my head, but weren't the TEI Wave 2 fighters either designed or hastily adapted to fight the UEF?

[Dragon]

I admit I hadn't noticed those.  Is placement especially important?  Because I could easily fit them either near the white bracings behind the conning tower, or on the underside of the wings (which could definitely use something to break up the big flat area).  It would also help if you could give me an idea of how big these drones are going to be (Perseus, Uriel, Ursa sized?)

I think that it'd be good if they were placed near the bow. I don't know how important the placement is, but there might be situations where it could be nice to have it preserved.

[The E]

Hastily adapted, I think we said.

Putting a new fighter design into service, especially if it was already past the prototype stage, will take less time than getting a new Corvette design approved, built, crewed, and deployed. This isn't WW2, and a Diomedes, which by itself is nearly a kilometer in length, is probably a more significant investment than a Cruiser or Destroyer was back then.

[General Battuta]

I admit I hadn't noticed those.  Is placement especially important?  Because I could easily fit them either near the white bracings behind the conning tower, or on the underside of the wings (which could definitely use something to break up the big flat area).  It would also help if you could give me an idea of how big these drones are going to be (Perseus, Uriel, Ursa sized?)

I think that it'd be good if they were placed near the bow. I don't know how important the placement is, but there might be situations where it could be nice to have it preserved.

Keep the placement if at all possible, and please, please keep all the subsystem and turret names EXACTLY the same. This is super important.

[LordPomposity]

It takes more than a few months to design and roll out a new ship class. That said, I do agree that this redesign fits with the GTVA fleet we have, this Diomedes is obviously closer to the Raynor than the Titan in terms of design, which works just as well.

Just chiming in to say that the time it takes to design something really depends on a lot of things. I wouldn't underestimate the speed of a rolling military-industrial complex. Nearing the end of WWII, some notable designs and improvements happened with lightning quickness. In particular, arguably the most successful, definitely one of the most beautiful, and certainly the most popular (here in the U.S.) aircraft, the P-51, went from "Hey North American, we need a new fighter that can escort our bombers," to prototype in about 100 days.

Also, the FS1 intro cutscene was on 7 January 2335, and "Good Luck" was on 29 March 2335. During that time, the GTA went from unshielded Apollos armed with ML-16s to Ursas with shields, intersystem jump capability, and the Harbinger torpedo. That said, capital ship development stayed completely stagnant during that time period.

[Klaustrophobia]

but i don't want a replacement for the diomedes... 

[Aesaar]

Keep the placement if at all possible, and please, please keep all the subsystem and turret names EXACTLY the same. This is super important.

Acknowledged.  Any word on the drone size?  There's a suitable area near the bow, but if they're the size of an Ursa or Vajradhara, I'm not sure it'll work.  A picture of one would help in making the dockpoint more than a simple circle, but if you'd rather not reveal that right now, I completely understand.

I'd personally prefer the docks under the wings, but I'll defer to you.

I would only suggest that the beam emitters be put closer to either end of the craft, seems a bit weird that they are so close together.  What with those four emitters being everything on the ship.  You could still stick pretty close to the original and make it look more sensical.

  I modelled the beam cannon layout after the starboard side of the current model, where they're very close together.  I find it contrasts the Deimos' spread out firepower quite nicely.

For me, the real establishing moment for the Diomedes wasn't the Valerie or Triteia, it was the Medea jumping in and shredding Torpedo Two with its starboard battery.  I wanted this version to look very similar when doing that.  Also makes it look like the beams are linked to the same fire control. If I could, I'd make both beams do the exact same movement when slashing.

The other reason is that I'm really not keen on redoing the UV map for that area again.

[General Battuta]

Keep the placement if at all possible, and please, please keep all the subsystem and turret names EXACTLY the same. This is super important.

Acknowledged.  Any word on the drone size?  There's a suitable area near the bow, but if they're the size of an Ursa or Vajradhara, I'm not sure it'll work.  A picture of one would help in making the dockpoint more than a simple circle, but if you'd rather not reveal that right now, I completely understand.

I'd personally prefer the docks under the wings, but I'll defer to you.

The OpEval drone platforms are old, underused bomber hulls converted with plug-in cockpit systems rather than dedicated designs (yet) - I think just use the Zeus. maybe the Medusa, as your model.

We wanted a good reason to use lots of old cool HTLs that would otherwise never get a chance to fly in BP.

[Dragon]

Just measure the spacing on the original, and try to match it with your docks.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Hastily adapted, I think we said.

Putting a new fighter design into service, especially if it was already past the prototype stage, will take less time than getting a new Corvette design approved, built, crewed, and deployed. This isn't WW2, and a Diomedes, which by itself is nearly a kilometer in length, is probably a more significant investment than a Cruiser or Destroyer was back then.

I understand your objections to the idea, but essentially, what I was trying to say is that it really depends on the effort. The allegory I made to the P-51 is still pretty accurate. After the Chimera and Bellerophon, the engineers had experience with the technology already, and they probably had a laundry list of requirements from the GTVA high command, after evaluating feedback from commanders in the field. It's also possible the hull design was for a different project already in the works, but got re-purposed to meet the needs of the new contract. We humans are capable of frightening levels of ingenuity when we're up against the wall.

OT: I love the new design, it actually reminds me a bit of certain variants of the Tengu from EVE Online. I'm looking forward to...staying the heck away from this thing in WIH2.

[crizza]

I love the new design, espacially the nod to homeworld.
It looks like the little brother of the TEI capships.