[Thaeris]

Well, I think the new Orion is ok, though I do also like the current one. As Orions seemingly have been built and fashioned/remodeled over a course of many, many years, it might also be an interesting idea to try and produce several different "blocks" of Orion - we certainly have enough models of the ship to do that.

The new Deimos is very nice indeed, and seems to cover most, if not all, aspects of the current HTL Deimos that I enjoy.

The new Icieni, at least at that angle, doesn't really look better than what we have now. I wouldn't vouch for it alone (though with any of these, a feature merge might be interesting).

[Rodo]

There's another reason for wanting new htl'd ships.

Texture wise, older models have tons of them, and that makes them inefficient.

[NGTM-1R]

Personally I think this version of the Orion is lightyears better in preserving the "armored box" feel of the original model then the one we have.

[Hades]

Yeah, it's not a giant cluster**** of random boxes like Bob's is.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Yeah I'm not going to tolerate such dissing of peoples work like that on a board I'm a mod for. It's just not on. Hades please either remove the above comment and/or apologise. If someone were to say things like that about stuff I'd put tons of effort into, I'd be pretty rightly pissed off, and I expect you would feel the same way.

And besides - what WOULD people be looking for in the ideal HTL orion? I mean we've had heaps of them. Far more than any other FS ship.

[Hades]

Actually, IIRC, Bob said he made it that way.

But I wasn't saying that it was bad, and I'm not the first to say what I said. I think it'd look a lot less so with better mapping, however.

Sorry, Bob.

[Bobboau]

I'm not thin skinned, say what you want.

[Aardwolf]

A lot of the added detail in these 3 models is just ... meh. I mean, there's no significant innovative stuff, just a few holes here, blocks there, grille thing in the thing...

[Vasudan Admiral]

I'm not thin skinned, say what you want.

Cool, but even with that being the case; communities which seemingly rip on even veteran's work aren't all that inviting for new modders.

Anyway, I think overall the orion is one of the trickiest ships to upgrade, because it's SO easy to lose the design intent by adding detail. That's why so many of the HTL orions we've seen all look so similar, other than the fact that most of them pinch details from Bobs.

[Hades]

Yeah, that's also very true. It's mainly because most of the new models are modeled in seemingly a similar way, pretty much covering the retail model in more random boxes (no offense to anyone, just an observation.)

[Aardwolf]

Bleh. We shouldn't have to cover every statement we make with "no offense" ... if someone's model sucks, so be it.

[Bobboau]

hence, my response.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Different people take things differently, so unless you know them well enough to know how they would take it, I would say just tone down the bluntness you might otherwise want to deliver. Also be mindful of how newbies reading the forums would see it, cos I know for a fact that blunt criticism has put some modders off HLP in the past, which sucks.

[Rga_Noris]

*grabs hold of thread steering wheel*

I'm going to work on the Orion over the next few days, but only as a side project, as I currently have some primary objectives to complete first. Although I agree the differences are mild, I think the best comparisons will be better made when viewing these models actually in game.

[Droid803]

I never saw what was wrong with Bob's HTL Orion.
Maybe because the first time I saw the Orion it was already HTL'ed and its just imprinted in my head that Bob's is how it should look.

I mean, it shouldn't be our priority to redo things until everyone is satisfied, because it won't ever work out that way...

Sure, it's due for optimization, but other than that there's nothing blatantly wrong with it and if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[Bobboau]

well, of course it looks how it should look, I made it after all.

[pecenipicek]

just to prevent anyone from working on what i work, i'm uv-ing the capshipyard model.

[Mongoose]

I honestly never had any beef with Bob's model either, although I think it could have benefited from some better texturing in certain areas.

[Thaeris]

I'd personally like to see a line up, in game, of all the standing HTL Orion models in one scene. This might be a better way to illustrate what things are liked and disliked about the given variants.

[chief1983]

I've played FS since the FS demo and I still like Bob's Orion more than any other attempt I've seen, but it may just be the flashy lights.  Turrets could use more detail though.

That said, these models are still in the mesh stage, which is pretty early from what I've seen.  Lot of work left to finish them up, and they'd have to be a significant improvement to be worth it.