[Grizzly]

it somehow reminds me off the Loki.

[NGTM-1R]

First cousin to a Rapier II.

[Hellstryker]

I want one 

[Flipside]

Well, I've started on the texturing, I've tried shrinking the cockpit a bit using the texture and that seems to have helped, it certainly gives a more 'heavy attack' feel to the ship. At the moment, I'm still making up my mind, I'm thinking light assault bomber is possibly what it'll end up as, I can convert those forward dark-areas in more missile launchers with only a few polygons.

[Retsof]

  OOOOHHHHH PREEEETYYYYY.  I'm not a modeler, so I don't know how hard this would be, but if you want more missile bays you could modify those two large pods on the sides (I'm assuming they're engines) and replace the front intakes with missile ports.  Also, if that cockpit seats several people, the ship would make a very good bomber.  The blocky shape gives it the "who needs sleek, I've got POWER" look.

[Black Wolf]

Very, very nice.

[jr2]

Put missiles on the side / engine intake in the center of the side pods?  Or opposite, missiles in the center, dual engine intake feeding the engine in the side pod?

[Retsof]

I figured more like a Perseus, no intake, just missile bays.  After all, there's no air in space anyway, though intakes do always look cool.

[Scooby_Doo]

Well theres bussard intakes, but FS doesn't have that technology.

[Flipside]

I'm going to finish texturing it up and see what it looks like it needs, I could actually do your suggestion with the intake things, I thought about it myself, but I might make a custom weapon for those side-arms, with the large side-pods being the generators for them, the intakes would actually be to hold heatsinks open to space, they are only really at the front because there are some habits it is hard to get out of

[jr2]

Well, if it's both atmospheric and space capable then it would help perhaps.. IDK.

[BengalTiger]

I agree with Flipside on the putting of reactor cooling gear in the 'intakes'.

[Bob-san]

I'm going to finish texturing it up and see what it looks like it needs, I could actually do your suggestion with the intake things, I thought about it myself, but I might make a custom weapon for those side-arms, with the large side-pods being the generators for them, the intakes would actually be to hold heatsinks open to space, they are only really at the front because there are some habits it is hard to get out of

But remember that heatsinks without atmosphere (a good storyline doesn't cut it) are completely and utterly useless as anything but decoration or armor. Things like that I actually laugh at--it's completely impossible for them to work without some sort of fluid (liquid or gas) going over them. Now what might be interesting is to include those as the afterburners... a sort of interesting idea that the reactor produces energy for the weapons and also produces the some sort of cooling gas, and there is a system to not only jettison the gas but also use it to provide additional thrust.

[jr2]

Not quite true... you can lose some heat through radiation, and the larger the surface area, the better.

[Flipside]

As JR says, which is why I pointed out it doesn't really matter whether they are facing forward or not. In real life, there's very very little difference between the temperature under the unheated hull and open to space itself (Depdning on how thick the armor), but I suppose with every joule counts, you try every trick in the book, and the faster you dump heat to space, the better

Edit: Basically, yes, some kind of particle flow system is best for keeping systems cool, but what's best for keeping that particle system cool and allow it to dump heat?

[--Steve-O--]

a good old milk jug full of water, or ones own urin in a pinch? 
sorry about that, i had to say it.


::author of this reply can now be seen running away::

[--Steve-O--]

ok time to be serious. so most fighters in FS2 use what, small fussion reactors? so i would figure any cooling going on would be done internally. heat from the reactor can be applied to keep a liquid coolant from freezing. intakes can be provided for atmospheric conditions to run cool gas over heat sinks or cooling jacket around the reactor itself. then again whos to say how far away the GTVA is from Bussard technowlodgy. i dont know man, there's a bunch of reason you can use an intake and a bunch that would rule it out. in the end if it makes you happy strap on some intakes. i use them, they look cool, and old habits and ideas die hard. its your world, you are god, make the rules and bend them! 

addon:    over all i do like the model, the initial texture work made my jaw drop, the canopy glass....will it actually render like that in game? anyhow as far as the overall point of this topic, i'd call it medium to heavy assault fighter. it has the beefy look that says  GRRRRRR DONT F#@& WITH ME. Durable, like you can hit it with a giant sledghamer and yeah stuff might fall off but really al that happens is you give the pilot a fun ride.

[Flipside]

Hehe, well, I'm still deciding, I'm going to texture up the rest of the ship and then do the side-pods last, that way if I decide I want to change the geometry once everything  else is texture, it won't be quite as difficult to do.

I'm sort of toying with the thoughts of a 'defender' type ship, excellent anti-bomb/bomber capacity, good range and tough, but slow and not very agile, basically a very big trebuchet platform. That way they'd also be pretty nasty following a group of heavy bombers and taking out the anti-fighter subsystems on the target capship at long range.

[--Steve-O--]

thats what i try to do, keep the model as fluid as possible until i'm happy. thatway i can toss or pop in new geometry later. what sucks is when you finalize it, think your done, look it over and discover that A) you forgot something, or B) you came up with more ideas to add on to it. thats when it gets to be not so easy.

as for a roll, your thinking sort of like a piloted mobile point defense platform, or a bomber support fighter. not a bad idea. in a way thats sort of how i intended the wraith to be used, mainly assault and bomber support though. but i do like the idea of the defender, kind of an odd twist of interceptor, but not. intseat of chasing you down personally, they chase you down with long range angry missiles by the airtight boat full.

[Flipside]

Been a while since an update, been wrapped up with Uni stuff, but made a little more progress on texturing, done most of the centre and am going to try and get some more done over Christmas, not sure how much I'll get done, mind.

Edit: Had the smoothing too high on the renderer, updated the picture with a less smoothed one.