[Droid803]

That's why I just said a big spinal gun...possibly a big beam cannon.
At which point, it would be easy to change it to whatever you want.

[Aardwolf]

a) MACs can exist wherever I want them
b) I don't want them, because to fill something the size of those fighterbays with a solid steel projectile only as long as it is tall, the projectile would be about 4 times the mass of the ship (assuming the ship has a net density comparable to that of water). Fired at typical earth-impacting asteroid speed, that would have the explosive force of a rather large nuke upon entering the atmosphere. That is significantly more powerful than I need, especially since I already have my main guns in place.

Other suggestions, please.

[Snail]

How about a tactical control center? A heavily armored viewport with a few radars/scanners.

Or maybe a heavy physical shield? Like, a giant block of steel that prevents damage from being done to the front of the ship? It could be done by adding an extra submodel, called "Shield", and assign it a subsystem. This subsystem would have an armor.tbl value that allows it to absorb large amounts of damage. Additionally, it would have the "carry no damage" flag also. When all this is combined, the subsystem would absorb all damage done to the submodel, and the attacks to the front of the ship would hurt only the Shield submodel/subsystem, not the ship(until the shield submodel/subsystem is finally destroyed).

[General Battuta]

Mac guns don't fit in the FS universe.

You're definitely right. Suggestion withdrawn.

[Droid803]

How about a tactical control center? A heavily armored viewport with a few radars/scanners.

Or maybe a heavy physical shield? Like, a giant block of steel that prevents damage from being done to the front of the ship? It could be done by adding an extra submodel, called "Shield", and assign it a subsystem. This subsystem would have an armor.tbl value that allows it to absorb large amounts of damage. Additionally, it would have the "carry no damage" flag also. When all this is combined, the subsystem would absorb all damage done to the submodel, and the attacks to the front of the ship would hurt only the Shield submodel/subsystem, not the ship(until the shield submodel/subsystem is finally destroyed).

Ooh...massive hunk of armor sounds interesting.

[Jadehawk]

Humm, sounds like this could be called an Assault Battlecarrier? or ship of some sort with that huge armor thingy. If so, then would be able to absorb a full frontal blast or two or three or? from the SD Sathanas? Imagine that, a ship that was designed to take on this Shivan bad boy's main guns.  Then deliver several squadrons of bombers to disable the same guns so the other ships can finish it off. Cool! I like it. 

OK, just an idea

[Aardwolf]

I don't like the shield idea much.

I want something that looks good, isn't a gun or bunch of guns, and isn't a fighterbay.

[General Battuta]

Hrm. Well, that leaves sensor array, missile pod...uh...

[Stormkeeper]

Cloaking array, gravity well generator, ecm center ...

[General Battuta]

Cloaking array, gravity well generator, ecm center ...

Possibly also outside the FSverse, I'm afraid. Except for the ECM, but how would that work in-game?

[Aardwolf]

Matrix-style EMP? Disables the user, but fries the enemies as well?

Cool, but no.

[Stormkeeper]

Nonono, an ECM suite. In other words, it functions as an AWACS, but also scrambles enemy systems, creating a sphere of electronic interferance for the enemies, like a permanent stealth field around it, also preventing aspect lock by virtue of being untargetable, at least until they destroy the suite.

[General Battuta]

Ugh, an untargetable system that prevents targeting? That'd be a real pain, especially cause most good anti-subsystem missiles require aspect lock, and primaries are just not a good tool for that job.

[esarai]

Here's something I've been toying with for a bit... why not make the player able to enter the superstructure of the ship? Those openings could be a service-way or such. Like a hall with crap loads of greeble on the sides for flythroughs. Might not make the AI to happy, but it would make for an interesting mission, 'specially if there was an objective inside it.

About the ECM, it kinda doesn't make sense for a ship to jam yet still be stealthy. It may be untargetable to a ship's sensors, but that doesn't mean weapons cannot passively acquire the target. There are weapons out there called "Anti-Radiation Missiles," designed for tracking and destroying a hostile ECM transmitter based on it's jamming signals. The missiles do not rely on a control transmitter for guidance, instead tracking their targets autonomously. But that is assuming that ECM means conventional form of an Electronic Countermeasure, something that broadcasts craploads of noise on datalink and missile guidance frequencies.

[General Battuta]

The Raynor and Titan classes featured in Blue Planet have that ability. You can fly into their hangars and explore.

[Aardwolf]

"Featured in", not "from" Blue Planet.

EMP is an electronic countermeasure... sort of. It's electronic and a countermeasure, anyway.

Anyway, I'm going to change what I want from you guys so I can get what I really want done with the ship:

I would like to request a modeler who is not too busy to take a look at the ship, greeble up the spots that are uber-plain now, and touch up some of the somewhat but not quite so much plain spots. Also this person could help out by optimizing some of my greebles--many of them have polygons that are entirely inside the hull of the ship, which is pointless because they are invisible and add nothing good to the model (but they did make it easier to make those greebles). I imagine whoever ends up doing this would have some creative freedom, but I would ultimately prefer to have control over the design (if I say it looks stupid, it looks stupid, etc.).

I am going to install fighterbays in the lower cavity, and will upload a screenshot of that area when I have finished doing so.

[Hellstryker]

Mac guns don't fit in the FS universe.

The Rakvere will now kill you.

[Aardwolf]

Hellstryker you bum!

I warned you there were some geometry issues that might need cleaning up!

[esarai]

The Raynor and Titan classes from Blue Planet have that ability. You can fly into their hangars and explore.

I've seen the Raynor. It's internal sections were unimpressive. You basically flew in one side of the fighter cavern and flew out the other, through a very very very boxy tunnel. I'm saying that there should be actual paths through the ship, not just a single flyable figherbay that has no greeb or coolness in it. In my idea you'd be able to fly in one end of the ship and exit at the other, and there'd be obstacles and stuff, some subsystems, something else maybe... not just boxyness.

Note: make sure the ship you're in is pathed, so it won't suddenly smash you up inside it...

[Droid803]

Well, the high poly Raynor and Titan do have greebles in their hangar.
Another ship would be the FTFg Hyperion (UEFg Karuna for people who don't know of its true origins). That has a fighter bay complete with fighters hanging on racks