[bfobar]

whatever.

[BlackDove]

Actually now that you mention it...

[bfobar]

I really do think the ship is nicely done otherwise. I am envious of shingh's modelling skills. If I were to revise this ship myself though (i.e. my opinion for constructive criticism), I would probably pull the exterior engine pontoons amidships, increase the detail of the nubbin thingy on the stern (It's the only part of the ship that looks kinda polygonal, and change the turret barrels from a square grid of little barrels to either a gatling cylinder or a big barreled cannon.

I guess the turreting could work if those were some kind of power capacitor rods for an energy weapon and not actual barrels for a projectile, but they look so much like a barrel you'd shoot a projectile (mass or plasma or whatever) that I'm assuming that they are such. Thinking logically about that, we would have 48 separate loading mechanisims for 48 small caliber rounds in one turret. Also, loading bullets into a grid is far more mechanically complex than rotating a cylinder like a gatling gun. The only place in the modern world we see this would be in truck and submarine missle batteries. These batteries are 1 shot only and then back to the factory for a reload, so firing all weapons simultaniously is advantageous. Extrapolating, that would mean that the weapons in the turrets would have to have a longer reload time than the ship would be expected to be in combat for, or else it's just an inefficient design. If the turrets could reload, then the 48 independent reloading and firing controls for each barrel would take away from the space alloted to each shell, meaning that they would be far less destructive than 4 large barrel guns. Given hull strength technology equal to the guns, I could only see two of these ships sandblasting the paint off of eachother in combat, where a high caliber cannon would be able to do some actual hull damage.  For point defense, small separate turrets would be far better at preventing saturation.

So in summary, although novel, I think the barrel grid cannons aren't as believeable as a gatling or large barrel cannon unless the grid of rods all function as one barrel for an energy beam.

[TrashMan]

Your barrels would melt from the heat of even one shot. Seriously, having the most guns is not what makes a ship look cool.

Sez you.

you are both right..and wrong..

Notice the difference between BARRELS and GUNZ. Lotf of gunz = Cool. Lot's of barels = not quite that cool.

[bfobar]

Your barrels would melt from the heat of even one shot. Seriously, having the most guns is not what makes a ship look cool.

Sez you.

you are both right..and wrong..

Notice the difference between BARRELS and GUNZ. Lotf of gunz = Cool. Lot's of barels = not quite that cool.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think lots of gunz = rocking point defense. Big guns = wicked broadside. To my mind, the hull of the ship is a finite space so you can only fit in so large of a magazine or power generator for your gunz. I think the beef people have with the turret is it's little point defense gunz on a great big ship busting turret, making the weapon not very good for point defense or broadsides.

[Singh]

Thanks for the criticism (good AND bad).

Well, in defense of the barrels...it's sci-fi and it was fun making it look that way, ok? Some things need believable explainations, but sufice to say that the tech on this thing allows it to reload small projectiles quickly enough for it to _just_ manage to be viable.

The ammunition, though small, is actually burst-type, and the gun has very little degree of accuracy, with it's shots going all over the place...exactly like a flak screen should against massed fighter bombardments.

And by massed fighter bombardments, I mean massed - in the universe where this thing exists, its better off having small barrels and guns that can hit as many small swarm targets as possible and yet still be capable of dealing with larger targets (hence the triple barrel guns you see at the rear). However, a full-on Alpha Strike would go straight (since theirs no starting recoil to deal with until the first shot), and do a helluva lot of damage.

In either case, it was an exercise in excessiveness and playing around with new parts I had acquired. If it does look phallic to you, well, nothing much I can say except meh.

revision coming soon.

[bfobar]

dang, I was hoping that those were fusion power core rods for an uber death beam and they'd all glow like neon lights. 

[NGTM-1R]

However, a full-on Alpha Strike would go straight (since theirs no starting recoil to deal with until the first shot), and do a helluva lot of damage.

That'd be the least accurate of your shots. See my comment about interference.

[Martinus]

Yes it does. But what do I know? I didn't see it until my wife looked over my shoulder and pointed out the similarity.

Maybe she's trying to drop a hint?

I think it's rather awesome actually and want to see an in-game version with a few less barrels.

[FireCrack]

What if the barrels shot volleys of missiles?

[SadisticSid]

This model isn't very convincing as a warship, cool looking as it is - because the turrets are akin to having a battleship with 1000 riflemen instead of 4 16" guns.

EDIT: Ah, just noticed the triple barreled ones. Never mind.

[Singh]

Yup. Those triple barreled turrets and the rear double ones make up the primary anti-cap arsenal.

Oh, and another render:

[Flipside]

I'm amazed we ever got to the moon, what with all those NASA scientists laughing about how much a Saturn 5 looks like 'Wang'

[jr2]

Hmm... just a (probably stupid) thought.  There are 4x4x3 barrels (48) here...if they're for shooting small projectiles, maybe every barrel could each be a 6-8 barrel Gatling gun?  That'd be 48x whatever rounds per second the Gatlings would be capable of.  Would instantly fry any fighter or bomber.  And a sweep across another capship would be murder on the other capship's subsystems.  I don't know how you'd code for a "sweep" across the enemy ship, though...also, if you used the sweep against a group of attack fighters or bombers, that'd be pretty sweet.  Especially if they had kinetic effect on the fighters.  They'd be charging along, and then .. Oops!  They're traveling 70 m/s backwards!  And the bombs would all be going off in their midst.   
Anyways, looks cool. 

[bfobar]

I'm amazed we ever got to the moon, what with all those NASA scientists laughing about how much a Saturn 5 looks like 'Wang'

ohferchrissakes. I will never give my opinion again. I'll just post, "WOW, great!" even If its a rubik's cube with a turret.

[Taristin]

I'm amazed we ever got to the moon, what with all those NASA scientists laughing about how much a Saturn 5 looks like 'Wang'

ohferchrissakes. I will never give my opinion again. I'll just post, "WOW, great!" even If its a rubik's cube with a turret.

You can give your opinion... we don't care. But we went through a rash of "OMG PHALLIC!!11" responses on anything that was even remotely longer than it was wide.

Really... that observation isn't helpful, nor wanted. And the modeller tends to be insulted by such claims.

[bfobar]

I got that message after the first 2 replies. I reserve the right to be annoyed when I correct my behavior and try to give other much more thoughtful constructive critcisms, thoughts, and opinions that have no mention of the p word, and no one else lets it go either.

[jr2]

Here's an idea:
If you don't like something about a model, but think the modeller did a great job on other things, just say, "Great job.  I like x,y, and z.  But a,b, and c make the whole thing look stupid, in my humble opinion.  But nice work, anyways... and I would suggest that to fix a,b, and c, you change them to d,e, and f.  Let me know what you think of my ideas."
Sound good?  'Cause really, I don't think anyone would dispute there are some very good qualities of this model, and, of course, it's not perfect in some ways...  so you help out by offering your opinion, which may or may not be accepted.  And as you saw,
Singh

Thanks for the criticism (good AND bad).

the modeller appreciates differing points of view.  Just try not to take anything personally, unless it's directed personally, in which case you might want to take a deep breath, remind yourself that you've got to be bigger than that, and ask whoever insulted you to calm down and rephrase the statement.  Of course, it helps if a certain statement applies, say someone upset that your poly count is too high, that they say something like:  (not a realistic example, but you get the point.)  "I think your poly count is too high.  In my opinion, it is not a good idea to use that many polys, as it will slow the whole game down.  I suggest..."  instead of: "ur poly counts are WAY TO HI and the game will get 2 fps if iit doesnt ctd an load what dfo you thingk your doing idiot!?!"  (misspells intended, showing the person is not thinking things through before posting.)

Anyways, sorry for the long post, and sorry if it's a bit off-topic and sorry if it doesn't really describe the problem here.  Just some thoughts.  Let me know what you think.

[Flipside]

I get annoyed bfobar, because if someone made a ship that was large at the front and thin at the back, everyone would say 'That's wrong! The Jets should be bigger than the cockpit!'. It's not personal, but I'm sick and tired of every time someone creates a model that happens to have 2 jets at the back and a nose section at the front, people start shouting Phallic.

Like I said, I've got nothing whatsoever against you, but I really wish people would stop that, it's a really silly thing to say, look at the Y-Wing fighter from Star Wars, it's a pretty standard design for spaceships, and yes, it has two thrusters at the base and a nosecone at the front, much the same as this model. I really feel for a modeller when they put hours of work into something that is, in my opinion, excellent, and someone comes along and shouts 'Wang!' because it dares to follow a design which is as old as experimental rocket planes.

Anyway, point made, I've just seen this too damn often. We'll let it rest at that.