As for modelling it out after the plate lines... I just cant do it, and Ill explain why
Look at the HTL Zeus for instance... It has lots of polygons following the plates of the texture. The end result is a waste of polys given the fact that in the future, you will have bump maps and the sort in freespace (yeah im faithfull 
).So in sum, whoever modelled the Zeus (cant remember who), will have to redo it once we have bump maps, when he could have modeled a bit more into the ship, instead of following everything by the letter.
But for now I guess we can deal with 2000k poly fighters. (hehe 2million polys)
Uh oh I think I see VA browsing the board... 
AND IN HIS THREAD TOO!!!!!! 
Yes - big very texty post alert.
And whoever said that is kinda wrong. Bumpmaps are not always a good substitute for actual geometry, and I've given careful consideration to what I will and will not model in, because I
know they're around the corner. In fact I have bumpmaps lined up for the
Triton,
Aeolus and
Lucifer already!
Bumpmaps accentuate existing detail - they
do not and
should not replace it.
As such I won't have to redo the Zeus (and why can nobody ever remember me?
), because the bumpmaps will only serve to improve the detail that is already there. Here's a question too: What are all these things I could have modeled in
instead of the level of detail that I
did make? There's simply nothing else to add in it's place except the exact detail that bumpmaps really
should be used for - which is smaller than what I did add.
So please go squish that notion in whichever internal forum you read it in.
When I started work on the Athena I actually started on the Mk2, not the original (and made the model from scratch, didn't edit the original one). I deliberately kept the polycount down below 2000 for multiple reasons:
1. I don't see the benefit of 5000 polys fighters. They look nice, but I won't be looking at large, well-lit renders in game.
2. I got lots of friends with poor rigs. How many here play FS2 with everything set to high?
3. Going too overboard with the polys tends to disrupt the canon look sometimes, with ppl adding stuff that isn't there on the original, which is something I try to avoid when possible.
All in all there's nothing stoping me from making a 100000 poly Athena.
However, I won't for now...Now capships - having lots of well-used polys there is a must. That's why the Archy and Whitehall cross the 10000 treshold.
You've used those arguments before now - when pretty much the same points were leveled at you, but they simply don't hold water. I am going to systematically pull them apart now because I'm quite certain they are primarily what is limiting you: (well that and I'm kinda just rehashing stuff that's going into the Blender tutorial anyway
)
1) As this Loki should prove to you, even the smallish details in your model will be visible in game (all those 'well lit renders' on the first page are just the Loki in the ship lab. In game.) Whether it's mid-dogfight, in the techroom or in the Lab - the lighting really does make even small details pop out. They don't even have to be the kind of detail you'd notice
as detail, but rather the kind you would miss very much if it wasn't there.
And people really do notice if that detail just isn't there, else there'd be no point at all to HTLing the fighters/bombers. Why are there no recent 'beauty shots' of the retail fighters anymore? Simply because the HTL stuff looks better in-game, and that's what people prefer to look at. 3d modeling for games is as much a form of art for people to enjoy as any other type is. We don't build the models and draw the textures just to represent a ships position and shape now do we? We build them to capture the feel of that ship.
As such, let loose with as many polys as you
need to capture the feel of a ship, because there's very little point in a ship that
can run on low end machines if it's unimpressive as an artwork in itself. Even ships that are not meant to be good looking in shape need to be well built to capture that ships 'feel'. You can't for example make a dodgy model of a freighter and justify thay by saying it's meant to look ugly. It needs to look real first.
Basically, go for looks first while keeping the polycount in mind - not the other way around. Aim for the image you have in your head, rather than what you think your or others graphics card can cope with, which leads us to the second point:
2) This is the reason that holds least water. First and foremost, Taylor has written up that excellent set of guidelines, tips and explanations in the stickied thread up the top of this forum. And in fact - I'd guess that this Loki would run faster than the HTL Athena based on the textures used. You've used PCX for both the hull and the cockpit, which is going to take up more memory and run slower than DDS DXT1s would. It's not the polycount that matters anymore - it's the textures.
Look at this:
Not terribly impressive eh? Well actually it is. That there is 230 000 polys in game in a single model, rendering with a shinemap no less! Now granted it wasn't with a terribly good framerate (20 or so), but the point is, the game engine is fast enough to take high polycounts without skipping a beat if they are used properly.
Note that by 'properly', I mean not only pay attention to format and reducing the number of textures, but also use the features like lods and detail boxes. That way the detail
only becomes visible when it really
is visible.
And on top of that, as Wolf says, it's better to have a full detail model that some of the lower end computer people have to turn down the graphics for now than have a low poly model that you'll need to upgrade again a year or so later because it looks so out of date.
Again, don't limit at the artwork level what should be limited by the end user.
3) This is probably the most valid point, but it's still kinda invalid. If you're making something better to the point where it disrupts the canon look (something you personally might not want), the answer is
not to add barely any detail at all, because you're not really making it any 'better' in the first place!
No; the answer, as in point 1, is to make it look as you
want it too look. That is, if you want it to totally keep the canon design feel, then you model it to do that.
As some have noticed, I keep my HTL stuff as strictly close to the canon look as I possibly can, which is for a couple of simple reasons:
1) I really like the canon designs and want to keep them like that. If I want to add my own stuff, I'll build my own ship.
2) It's more of a challenge to be inventive within the restrictions of canon - and I like such challenges too.
3) 100% guarantees people will accept it in place of the original. Least important of my reasons, and it's also me just being a bit of a wuss. I wouldn't like it at all if I put all this work into a model upgrade, only to end up with something that no-one uses for that role. Having a model that is too dissimilar to be considered an upgrade and too similar to be considered a different ship would kinda suck. What it takes to be considered 'too dissimilar' will differ greatly from person to person though.
And finally, while I'm here, there's also a very VERY important technique related aspect that you could try: surfaces. I'm not talking about smoothing - that's just a poor substitute for actual detail in the majority of cases, and it really does show in the final result. :\
What I'm talking about relates to the whole modeling technique/mentality used. The idea is that polygons form surfaces, and then surfaces form ships. If you build your ship out of surfaces rather than polygons then you will almost always end up with a far superior result visually - because it will look built rather than modeled. Take the Loki or the Zeus as an example of what I mean.
There are no or VERY few polygon creases/edges on the model that are not fully intended to be there from a design perspective. There are no hull plates that abnormally bend over any such intended crease either. The head of the original Hecate was a prime example of this, as are many of the low poly original [v] models.
Creases and ugly geometry that simply would not be constructed on the ship in the real world have no place in the model of that ship.
Anyways, enough from me. I really should do some of that whole 'study' thing for uni. :\
