[Axem]

Wanderer was lamenting about how there were not many light cruisers/gunships out there. So I decided to show him and made some sort of an Aeolus bastard child.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/NarfPics/lightcr3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/NarfPics/lightcr4.jpg

Its got 8 turrets, but in its original configuration, the canard mounted turrets would very likely be shooting through the ship. So I also did two variants getting around that. One with the canards flipped. (Which looks sorta silly IMO)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/NarfPics/silly.jpg

And then with two turrets fixed on the side (bringing its armament down and total field of fire).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/NarfPics/sidemount.jpg

[TrashMan]

Very nice... 

[Goober5000]

Super. Post the model and maybe someone can finish it up.

[Scooby_Doo]

Oh how I wish side mounted turrets were operational.

[Taristin]

I thought I saw someone attempting to implement it a few months ago?

[Scooby_Doo]

Well they got my full support...

I'm just wondering how turret targetting is currently done. I haven't seen the C code, but I'm sure you guys understand it better than I would. What happens if you put a cap ship, with turrets on the top, on it's side in a mission and place an enemy next to the ship (so that the enemy is "on top" of the cap, relative to the cap). Do the turrets fire correctly, I would assume so.  Could this indicate that the whole universe is rotated so that the cap ship is facing up, then the target solution gets created and adjusting occurs?  If so, then could it be done so that for each turret, the entire universe gets rotated so that it's facing up? I'd do the formulas but my trig & matrix math is quite rusty.

[Trivial Psychic]

Axem, those engine nacelles are very Defiant-esque.  I prefer option 2 myself.

[Axem]

I suppose they are a bit. I didn't really have that in mind, just a random greebling thingy.

Anyhow, the model is pretty much done. Just a bit over 4000 polys. The pics before had around 6000-7000, which was mostly me trying to see what stuff I could do with it.

[TrashMan]

I would suggest a alternate turret placement. Those side turrets have a very interfering Field of Fire and are thus innefective.

The turret pointing up is BELOW the turret pointing down???

You could try a extension of some sort at the very middle and put turrets on the top and bottom part of hte extension.

[Axem]

What's wrong with that? They're quite effective. There is no firing blind spot at the sides. The only blind spot it has is to the side facing the ship, and the other canard on the same side. Your idea would only eliminate the blind spot given by the other canard.

However, FreeSpace does not care if the ship is there or not and will fire through itself. So I'll most likely be using the second variant, which does give a huge blind spot at the sides. Oh well.

[Trivial Psychic]

It already has a blind spot... between those 2 hulls.  Are you gonna give any of the Aeolus' forward beam guns or the single-part wedge turrets?

[Scooby_Doo]

You know from that last pic, the rear upper turret almost looks like a bridge tower.

[Axem]

It already has a blind spot... between those 2 hulls.  Are you gonna give any of the Aeolus' forward beam guns or the single-part wedge turrets?

Heh, yeah. I might put an invisible box there so any devious person who tried to take advantage of that would get a taste of invisible-collide. Cheap, but a bit more fair to the ship. And for a light cruiser/gunship, I think the 8 twin turrets is enough. Its meant to be a fighter killer, not for engaging cap ships.

[Kosh]

What sort of guns does it have?

[Wanderer]

At this point it seems that Cretheus is going to get only relatively light guns... If ported to main FS stuff it would have mainly flaks and couple of terran turrets. No beams though.. Its not supposed to be supergunship that can outfight fullfledged cruisers in duels but rather a fast escort ship that can tear approaching fighters and bombers into shreads and still keep up with the fastest escorted ships.

Actual projected armament is large amounts (4 to 6 turrets) of rapid fire antifighter guns coupled with few (1 or 2 turrets of each) general purpose cannons and flaks.

[Axem]

UV Mapped and texturing (sorta) is beginning. I'm no texture wizard, so I'm just pillaging the Media VP texture files and sticking them in. The windows I'll probably redo on my own since they need to be a bit different.



If anyone can suggest some good textures to use, that'd be great. I don't really like the one on top of the lip at the front (Awactile).

[Trivial Psychic]

Heh, yeah. I might put an invisible box there so any devious person who tried to take advantage of that would get a taste of invisible-collide. Cheap, but a bit more fair to the ship. And for a light cruiser/gunship, I think the 8 twin turrets is enough. Its meant to be a fighter killer, not for engaging cap ships.

How about adding a meson-ish reactor in that space?  Not to say that it would be a Meson reactor, but it would resemble the Meson bomb.

[Shade]

Remember to add the big neon sign saying "Reactor core, shoot here for chain reaction" if you do that. Personally, if I were a starship captain I'd prefer my reactor well inside the armoured hull. I really like the model though. Ony thing that bugs me are those turrets on the side extenders, where I'd prefer just one extender with a turret on each side instead (sorta like you see on homeworld heavy cruisers). But overall, very nice job 

[Fineus]

Personally, if I were a starship captain I'd prefer my reactor well inside the armoured hull.

I always liked the notion that having the reactor exposed to space aided with cooling. But that might not be scientifically viable - I don't know

[Axem]

I think the problem with that idea is that vacuum is a terrible conductor of heat. So while it might be freezing, space won't take the heat away.