[Vengence]

Yeah good points. I'll fix up some fire points but I think that there are enough polies coming from the octa cannons so I'll use button turrets on the engines and on the front to prevent it from going over 20k. I kinda like the idea of canards too.

Ok, fixes:

2 button turrets on each pod's top side (bottom side on the lower ones). Given the spacing of the engines the rear octas can cover the in betweens.
2 Octas stay put at the tips while the other 4 go on canards or just use button turrets.
I'll add 4 button turrets to the side hull.
And more fixes but the poly count is already 17700 so I'll be discreet about adding too many new stuff.

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.

As cool as it sounds, my ship has nothing to do with the FS universe. Still... if the GTI had this...

[EAD_Agamemnon]

If the GTI had this monstrosity, along with all the corrections that would be made to it....Adios me GTA y PVN amigos!

And can't forget to add this: 20 THOUSAND polys? How long did it take you just to build one of the octa-turrets? Let alone the entire ship. Very nice looking ship though. I only VERY recently got into the modeling bit. I've got one in the works. Though for me I been having fun flying around in cruisers...I like big ships

[Darius]

The Thunder and Tornado look wonderful. I love the sleek design that you've got going.

Are you still working on the Guardian and the Hurricane?

[Vengence]

If the GTI had this monstrosity, along with all the corrections that would be made to it....Adios me GTA y PVN amigos!

And can't forget to add this: 20 THOUSAND polys? How long did it take you just to build one of the octa-turrets? Let alone the entire ship. Very nice looking ship though. I only VERY recently got into the modeling bit. I've got one in the works. Though for me I been having fun flying around in cruisers...I like big ships

The octas are around 600 polies each because of the barrels and since there is going to be like 10 of them thats 6000 right there. Each engine is around 700, thats 2800 right there. And I have quite a few greebles. It took me... well not very long actually. Once I spent 13 hours on a mech because of its troublesome design. I think I only spent 4 hours here.

The Thunder and Tornado look wonderful. I love the sleek design that you've got going.

Are you still working on the Guardian and the Hurricane?

The guardian has been changed some since it's 'conception'. Its no longer 120km long, it is now 60 (still big...) and the design is scrapped temporarily. The hurricane needs a remake and its too high poly and not detailed enough. BUT... I have made another ship. Notice that my ship's names are meteorlogical with 'Hurricane' being a top dog in the line. Now think of that name 'Meteorlogical'... I have one last natual disaster in store using these names. Lets just say that if the Hurricane -class Heavy Cruiser is a A- level threat... hehe then the Meteor -class Battleship is the master of the stars as a S-Level on the highest teir! I'll show off the Meteor later but it is awesomely monsterous.

[bizzybody]

Hurricane, thunder, lightning, thunderhead, tornado, typhoon, monsoon, tsunami, waterspout, rogue wave, around Iceland and Greenland they have a word that translates as "Bottom scraper" for a tsunami that's so huge it sucks up so much water that ship's hulls scrape the bottom, then the wave crashes over the ship. That'd be a good ship name. I think it's something like 'gründsbot'.

For missiles, dust devil, microburst, squall line, wind shear...

For sheer mega-size, there's Thphoon Tip which in 1979 grew to nearly half the size of the continental United States in the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately it shrunk a heck of a lot before making landfall.

[Getter Robo G]

Heh, anything that makes my computer "bleed" belongs in ART (just kidding)

I hope you are working on "Mortal" versions once you finish the high-poly ones. I'd be a loss to miss out on that goodness you got going.

[Vengence]

The new Hecate is like 16000 polies. Without any of my octas, the poly count is around 10000. Adding 10 would bring it aroung 18000 so thats about it. As for textures, I have 11 total and some of which are... quite hi-res but I won't be using much alpha so memory would live.

Hurricane, thunder, lightning, thunderhead, tornado, typhoon, monsoon, tsunami, waterspout, rogue wave, around Iceland and Greenland they have a word that translates as "Bottom scraper" for a tsunami that's so huge it sucks up so much water that ship's hulls scrape the bottom, then the wave crashes over the ship. That'd be a good ship name. I think it's something like 'gründsbot'.

So far I have:
Whirlwind, Thunder, Blizzard, Bolt, Lightening, Gale, Tornado, Hurricane, and Meteor.

Whirl: Interceptor. VERY fast.
Thunder: Heavy fighter. Highly irregular stats.
Blizzard: Medium fighter. Not very good though.
Bolt: Adv. Fighter. It has a beam cannon and a beam gattling!!!
Lightening: Destroyer with a HUGE cruise missile launcher and docking bay. Can enter atmosphere.
Gale: Small carrier. Can enter atmosphere.
Tornado: Cruiser with a BIG beam turret.
Hurricane: 6km heavy cruiser with serious firepower but no AA weapons or fighter bays.
Meteor:  14km long, over a dozen huge turrets that fire big balls of plasma, frigate bay, 4 beam turrets, maybe 50 AA guns...

[Vengence]

Sorry for double post but yet again: Update

Model is fully skinned and turrets placed. The canards aren't in but I added plenty of turrets, lots of them. There are a total of 30 turrets (20 of which are simple button turrets.) Thats more turrets than a hecate! I haven't placed in the firepoints yet but I also finished the debris. There are 12 debris objects however after booleaning the main body I couldn't do it again so when it goes boom most of the main body will remain like its a derelict.

[bizzybody]

Using trueSpace? Common problem with some versions with booleaning. It'll work but something will 'rip' the mesh, making it non-solid. tS can't tell what's the inside and what's the outside, so it can no longer do booleans, face sweeps, bevels or lathes. IIRC it can't do vertex welding either on non-solid meshes. You're pretty much stuck with just being able to delete edges/vertexes/faces and select and move them around. (I don't remember if later versions with the ability to directly create new edges can or can't do it on non-solids.)

That's why you ALWAYS SAVE before doing critical things like a boolean on a model you've put a ton of time into. If it goes wrong just reload and try ti slightly different. If you're joining several parts together, it can make a difference between working and failure to change the order in which you boolean join the parts. If your model's not got anything really funky you can get away with just gluing it all, throwing a cube in away from the model then doing a join. Break it up, hit the down arrow then left or right arrow to select the cube and hit delete. Ta-da! A one piece model.

[Raptor]

Hate to be a killjoy, but unless there's been a major change in the SCP when I wasn't looking, those oct turrets won't work in FS.

FS only supports a max of four (4) firepoints for a turret.  Add more than that, and you get a CTD (in my experience).

The Starfury design is a nice one isn't it?  But its so recognisable too, so you do anything like that and people will think 'B5 Starfury'...

Not so sure about the capship.  Tiny hull, massive engines and guns larger than the ship their on?   Personal opinion.

By all means keep modelling.  We need all the talent we can get.

[Vengence]

You want to know why I really used that B5 design? Ahem...

"NASA approached producer J. Michael Straczynski, interested in adapting the design of the Starfury as a model for a forklift to be used in the construction of the International Space Station. Straczynski agreed, asking only that the name of the resulting craft remain "Starfury"."

If NASA uses it, then by all means I'll use it too. The design is very good, possessing incredible mobility and firepower so I adapted it myself. Trust me, the original design of the Thunder was NOTHING like this and it would've flown like a brick and it was totally unrealistic.
About the firepoints, its not a problem. I never imagined all guns firing at the same time so 4 is just fine.

HOWEVER!!! I need some help on the turrets themselves. I never rigged a turret before and the wiki doesn't say how everything should go (there is even a slight contradiction in the wiki). I know this so far:

Paths parented to turret-arm
Firepoints parented to gunbank dummies
But thats it really. Do the dummies get linked to the turret base or the arms? I would do this manually with modelviewer but its too slow.


EDIT:
With 30 turrets coding and rigging the tornado is going to be hell. But then again, some of you may remember this monster (and my blunder in the wrong forum ). For those who don't know, this ship is one of my big time (litterally) favorites: The Hurricane V (5) class Heavy Cruiser. It is the jewel of my collection and one of the most powerful and numerous ships I have ever concepted (aside from planet killers). Don't be fooled, this ship is massive! 6km long with turrets 14 nearly 900 meters long (with barrel) and 2 massive beam cannons in the nose. But ALAS! It has NO AA guns or beams! This ship is a Cap Killer Specialist, nothing else. However its not like you can kill this with fighters, the armor is so thick you'll need a lot of bombers. (More than 10, less than 100)

[Trivial Psychic]

Hate to be a killjoy, but unless there's been a major change in the SCP when I wasn't looking, those oct turrets won't work in FS.

FS only supports a max of four (4) firepoints for a turret.  Add more than that, and you get a CTD (in my experience).

Not exactly.  got around that limitation themselves on the Aeolus.  The flankside wedge turrets (flak & AAA) have 6 firepoints each, split in to 2 groups of 3 by creating 2 turret entries in the pof data for each turret submodel.

[Vengence]

Niice!

[Getter Robo G]

LOVE the design!

  Some.. Ok all, of the turrets, do look a tad oversized for the hull they are on... No offense!

 I'd recommend goign fro 60=75% of current size. IMHO it would look better aestheticly with the slightly smaller "Big Hulking Guns". 



[Edit]   Goes double for the side mounted ones on those outcroppings/wings? I always felt that even if they look the same, your Main Guns should always be bigger than your Secondary and Tritery weapon implacements. And I would consider those spots "Secondary" ones.  But of course it's your ship design.

 

[spartan_0214]

check please!

[bizzybody]

Eeeek! Big ship! Very nifty looking but that rear dorsal turret facing aft has a very limited field of fire. Great for horking any cap ship dumb enough to get behind it but again you've left blind spots to the rear quarters.

How about raising a big tower under that rear turret? Then it could fire all around. Staggering the turrets is good, implies there's giant support structures inside the hull like on a wet navy battleship*... but then those sponson mounted ones, do they turn together or do they have lighter guns?

*Look up how the turrets on the Bismark were built. Everything to run them was inside a huge rotating structure that just set down into a well in the deck and turned on a giant radial roller bearing. When it was sunk it rolled over and the turrets all dropped out.

[BS403]

Hate to be a killjoy, but unless there's been a major change in the SCP when I wasn't looking, those oct turrets won't work in FS.

FS only supports a max of four (4) firepoints for a turret.  Add more than that, and you get a CTD (in my experience).

Not exactly.  got around that limitation themselves on the Aeolus.  The flankside wedge turrets (flak & AAA) have 6 firepoints each, split in to 2 groups of 3 by creating 2 turret entries in the pof data for each turret submodel.

Idon't understand how to set that up I tryed to do it with other ships but couldn't get it to work.

[Vengence]

Eeeek! Big ship! Very nifty looking but that rear dorsal turret facing aft has a very limited field of fire. Great for horking any cap ship dumb enough to get behind it but again you've left blind spots to the rear quarters.

How about raising a big tower under that rear turret? Then it could fire all around. Staggering the turrets is good, implies there's giant support structures inside the hull like on a wet navy battleship*... but then those sponson mounted ones, do they turn together or do they have lighter guns?

That blind spot was intentional. About the side mounts... those are there for added firepower really, and are independent of one another.

LOVE the design!

  Some.. Ok all, of the turrets, do look a tad oversized for the hull they are on... No offense!

 I'd recommend goign fro 60=75% of current size. IMHO it would look better aestheticly with the slightly smaller "Big Hulking Guns". 

[Edit]   Goes double for the side mounted ones on those outcroppings/wings? I always felt that even if they look the same, your Main Guns should always be bigger than your Secondary and Tritery weapon implacements. And I would consider those spots "Secondary" ones.  But of course it's your ship design.
 

I get that . Everyone always say that the turrets are huge but thats the point .

If I were to script the ship's behavior, then if it enters battle it will ALWAYS attempt to face the opposing capital ship head on so it can bring almost all of its turrets to bear as well as its double main cannon. So it will always be moving to catch a destroyer in the front delta to attack. It rarely enter attacks going broadside because half of the turrets will be locked on to the target. Thing is, the Hurricane will never have AA guns so there is no need to cover the engines unless the enemy cruiser somehow got close. Even so, this ship is a capital killer. Meaning it will ignore fighters and bombers and go for the big fish. For example, if in FS, if there is a fleet of cruisers coming in, the Hurricane won't even bother unless there is of them. However, if there is a destroyer, the Hurricane will enter battle, face the enemy head on, and kill it. A Hurricane is never alone. Being alone is just screaming to the enemy "Come and eat me! I'm a juicy but tough nut to crack in the open!" Thats really its weakness, but with such thick armor it will take LOTS of bombers.

Still, my question remains unanswered: How exactly do I rig turrets in 3ds anyways?

[Colonol Dekker]

An x-wing walks into a bar, Gets a starfury drunk............Does what drunken starfighters do.



And this is the result, Its all good though
9.8 out of ten ZoDS.....

[Vengence]

What do I have to do to earn that last 0.2?