[Vengence]

If you can't see the image just say so, I used imageshack.




Though not exactly an original design, this model is the first one I made that includes multiple lods and debris. It is also the first model which I used a new skinning technique, however it was a little crude: I used 3ds Max's render to texture feature to render the maps into a high res texture which in turn automatically uvw wraps the model so less work for me. But in order to get the right detail the resolution is around 4000x4000! Way too much but I have plenty of RAM and speed to handel it no probs so I won't release the model because of this flaw. I don't feel like improving upon this design so I'll leave it as it is right now.

For gameplay, I enabled this fighter to strafe and fly backwards to add a new element to this fighter. Though I must admit, it gave me and the fighter an unfair advantage over the vanilla FS craft. Their missiles missed and I can strafe across the hull of a capital ship and still shoot at it. Armaments are pretty heavy, 1 primary gun and 8 secondary guns. However the 8 guns are spaced far from the hull so the best weapons for these mounts would be smaller weapons like the subach to suppress an enemy or have a higher hit ratio when dealing with long distance fighting. Though it barely affects gameplay, the missiles have 20 launch points but only 2 slots for missiles. If I modify the hornet to launch 20 missiles in a double salvo then it would really effect gameplay! As an interesting twist to make this fighter stand out a bit in the game, I gave it highly irregular values. The craft is a little slow but very agile. Its armor is average but weapons are incredible. Shields are decent but power generation and afterburners are great. I'm still thinking about getting rid of these values but it was just an experiment.

To finish, I call this fighter the Thunder. The reason is that all my ships are named after meteorlogical stuff and that this is a heavy fighter so thunder was appropriate. However the fighter is an evolution of my older designs of fighters with the same name and role, its just that this model is the most realistic of the evolution. The design inspiration comes from the Thunderbolt Starfury, X-Wing, and a mech I made long ago (The cockpit, parts of the nose, and paint scheme comes from the mech).

End Long Post!

[Freespace Freak]

It's alive!  ALIIIIVE!!!  *thunder and lightning*

Wow!  It looks cool!  Is it for any particular mod or campaign, or is it just for fun?

[Vengence]

Yes and no... If I can make maps and a campaign then yeah it will be in a campaign.

[Dark Hunter]

Looks like the Claymore series from Inferno.

That being said there are still some major differences. You say 8 secondary banks?  

That's one helluva lot of missiles.......

[aldo_14]

Looks like the Claymore series from Inferno.

That being said there are still some major differences. You say 8 secondary banks? 

That's one helluva lot of missiles.......

And the Claymore was a hell of a lot like the Thunderbolt..  And now looks more like a Viper.....

I'm guessing the latter is the more likely source of inspiration

[Vengence]

  I never played inferno.

To clear up:
Total of 9 guns (8 small, 1 large)
Support for 2 different types of missiles at once.
Total of 20 launch points BUT it really doesn't matter unless I'm like shooting 20 missiles at the same time.

Imagine 5 of these at long range opening fire with their small guns. With so much fire and in such a large radius its not easy to weave through (its like going through a firestorm of bullets in WW2). When they get into close range their larger primary gun comes into play and can really hurt.

Ah, I forgot to mention that the 'W' bent shape of the wings was inspired from Ace Combat's X-02 Wyvern fighter

[NGTM-1R]

I suspect this would be most useful for a TBP mod, but with the current texturing you could pass it off as FS Terran if you had to.

Would be a worthwhile addition for my 2350 GTVA fleet...

[Unknown Target]

Neat. Looks like the Claymore though

[Trivial Psychic]

Claymore MK.II to be specific, from Inferno R1.

[Scooby_Doo]

WOW.... 

makes my stuff look lame

[Vengence]

Neat. Looks like the Claymore though

Um, could I see a pic of that Claymore please?

WOW.... 

makes my stuff look lame

Eh? Didn't you make all those cool models before? Your textures are way better... if only the renderer didn't blur my texture

Here is the original model texture before being rendered into a single skin:


I'm working on my first capital ship for FS now so its important to me. This new ship is called the Tornado. It is in my scale (NOT FS scales) a cruiser (bigger than a destroyer but smaller than a heavy cruiser) at 2.5km long and like my "Faction's" style they think big to overcome a disadvantage in technology. In this case, the Tornado is equipped with 2 HUUUUGE beam turrets that rip armor apart like it was cloth. It's engine to size ratio is so large it is the fastest accelerating ship of its size class. The mega turrets kill cap ships while its dozen or so octa-cannons take down fighters and bombers. I'm planning on giving it a fighter bay too.

[Unknown Target]

Claymore Mk II:





There's another Claymore model that looks more like it, it's either the III or the IV.

[Vengence]

 
Indeed. There ARE similarities. At least we know that the design is popular .

EDIT:

I think the poly count on my ship and guns is way too high. But still, these octa cannons look cool.

[spartan_0214]

I've GOTTA get me one of those!!!!!!!

   

[Vengence]

You may just get that wish.

[Vengence]

Sorry for double post: UPDATE

I'm sure prepping this ship is going to be hell.
There are 6 Octa turrets up front and 8 Octa Turrets down back. Each turret will fire 8 small blasts VERY rapidly so getting through might be harder going through flak. The enourmas turrets will fire huge beams, who knows what the damage value will be!

[Kaboodles]

Also, at first glance, I thought it was a fighter, so I was a little confused about all of those turrets.  Also, you might want to move some of those turrets to the engines.  It looks completely vulnerable there since the engines would get in the way of the turrets.

[Trivial Psychic]

If its intended for the FS universe, it's pylon-mounted engine configuration resembles the Hades enough, so it could be from an alternate universe, where the GTI succeeded in their takeover of the GTA.

[bizzybody]

It has HUGE blind spots in the firing arcs of those turrets. Enemy fighters could easily come in from anywhere to the rear side quadrants and hit the engines. Parking the forward turrets right in the shadow of those big beam cannons makes them vulnerable to a direct overhead attack.

A 'canard' style wing on the tip of the nose, sorta like a hammerhead shark, with a turret top and bottom on each side would clear their firing arcs. The other two turrets could be left right at the tip under the beam cannon muzzles and devoted to directly forward defense.

Ont the rear, leave four turrets, two top and two bottom, where they are for direct rear defense and move the rest out to the engine pods.

Anything you put in front of a turret to protect it is just something the turret can't protect! Examine where turrets were mounted on WW2 era bombers. Nose/chin, tip of the tail, middle of the top/dorsal side and often a ball turret smack in the middle of the bottom/ventral side, plus a waist gunner on each side behind the wings.

If it weren't for considerations of aerodynamics, weight etc, I bet they'd have parked a gun right behind each engine as those were primary targets for enemy fighters to take out to bring down a bomber.

On a bomber with a single tailfin, an ideal approach for a fighter was from the rear, slightly high and maybe just a bit to one side so the fin would block the dorsal turret, leaving the main danger the limited firing arc most of the tail gunners had. Twin tailfin bombers like the B-24 and B-25 had a clear field to the rear for the dorsal turret at the expense of having two shadows in the firing arc. A fighter coming in trhough one of those holes could find itself in danger from a waist gunner, but that was only a single gun VS the two most turrets had.

With the typical defensive arrangement, a bomber could engage up to six fighters. If seven or more came out to play... Bomber formations were designed so they could provide covering fire to one another while hopefully staying out of the way of each other's bullets. But losses were still extremely high until the long range P-51 Mustang fighter was developed that could escort bombers from takeoff all the way to their target and back home. (See especially the Tuskegee Airmen, who never lost a single bomber they were assigned to protect.)

[spartan_0214]

You may just get that wish.

I mean real life. . .