[Doko]

Mainly looking on feedback before I start texturing (and by texturing I mean learning how to do it properly). The main mesh won't be changing much, I like the overall shape but it could use a lot more details to break the flatness of the model a bit.

A couple of things that I'll be changing soon are the side thrusters and the ending of that long extrusion on the sides of the ships its too sharp atm.

http://p3d.in/FydfK

[Cyborg17]

You should probably add at least a token turret.  All ships have to defend themselves from asteroid fields.  One turret on the top and one on the bottom should be sufficient.

[Catecholamine]

turret.

To me, it looks like it has two of them on the front already.

[An4ximandros]

Looks good! A turret looks unnecessary, in my opinion.

Cat, those are pipes.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

FWIW, civilian ships with turrets never made much sense IMHO... They're no good against asteroids anyway, the military should have something in place for that. Much like you don't see self-defense weapons on today's civilian ships, even if they regularly cross areas with high pirate activity.

For some reason the model isn't loading for me, so I can't comment on the ship itself

[Catecholamine]

The way I see a civilian vessel-mounted turret is equivalent to a car-mounted snow plow. It's a tool to remove obstacles.

They could be equipped with a civilian analog to the Morning Star with almost no damage value.

[An4ximandros]

Then it would be worthless and not worth the code work. Imho, just leave it unarmed and make a note to have it be escorted by some police ship or something.

[Catecholamine]

Is it that hard to edit the weapons.tbl values? It doesn't have to have 0 damage, just enough to get rid of asteroids.

Police don't escort civilians through snow (or rough terrain, or other environmental obstacles).

[Hades]

FWIW, civilian ships with turrets never made much sense IMHO... They're no good against asteroids anyway, the military should have something in place for that. Much like you don't see self-defense weapons on today's civilian ships, even if they regularly cross areas with high pirate activity.

For some reason the model isn't loading for me, so I can't comment on the ship itself

Difference being, the weapons large enough to deal with pirates today are large enough to be quite dangerous in the wrong hands, and arguable not quite as effective as simply having a detachment people with guns on the ship.

In the FreeSpace settings, such turrets are useful since the first previously mentioned point does not apply (a Civilian tanker with two laser turrets or so won't be so dangerous) while it gives itself the ability to shoot down incoming asteroids, which is a very useful thing to have.

Now, about the model, I think it needs a bit more shape to it honestly. It's currently a wafer with spheres in it, which while it might make some sense design wise, it isn't very interesting

[Cyborg17]

Is it that hard to edit the weapons.tbl values? It doesn't have to have 0 damage, just enough to get rid of asteroids.

Police don't escort civilians through snow (or rough terrain, or other environmental obstacles).

It takes 5 minutes tops to make the table entry if you work from one that exists already.  It's harder to hook up the turrets correctly, especially if you are still figuring out how to do that.

[Trivial Psychic]

Now, about the model, I think it needs a bit more shape to it honestly. It's currently a wafer with spheres in it, which while it might make some sense design wise, it isn't very interesting

I tend to agree.  On first glance I thought it was more of a refueling platform than a ship.  If I may give an opinion, the center-line of the ship needs to be stronger.  Delete the outer engines and beef up the central ones.  Make the center-line hull thicker and add some form of main hull extension beyond the front of the flat section, and add any command superstructure onto that.

[Nyctaeus]

It rather looks like a civilian botanic liner with biospheres to live in and grow plants. Overall is cool

[headdie]

Overall I like it a lot.  though like some here have suggested a couple of turrets would probably be a good idea.

[Doko]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

On turrets:

I was tempted to put in a couple of turrets for asteroid deflection but then I thought it about a little more and to me a ship this size is not going to be going through asteroid fields regulary, its just a big bulky tanker that refuels stations / destroyers on regular schedules. If the necessity arrived for one to be brought into an unfavorable situation escorts would be provided since without fuel you are pretty much screwed and it should be top priority for anyone out there.

Now, about the model, I think it needs a bit more shape to it honestly. It's currently a wafer with spheres in it, which while it might make some sense design wise, it isn't very interesting

I agree, the center hull is too straight and flat and the overall simplistic shape is something I've been strugling with mostly because of how massive the liquid storage tanks are, all changes I made to it din't look right. Will keep trying though.

Now, about the model, I think it needs a bit more shape to it honestly. It's currently a wafer with spheres in it, which while it might make some sense design wise, it isn't very interesting

I tend to agree.  On first glance I thought it was more of a refueling platform than a ship.  If I may give an opinion, the center-line of the ship needs to be stronger.  Delete the outer engines and beef up the central ones.  Make the center-line hull thicker and add some form of main hull extension beyond the front of the flat section, and add any command superstructure onto that.

Engines are staying (maybe not exactly as they are right now but they ain't going away. I like the expansion of the bridge and the structure around it. will fiddle around with it, the visibility from the bridge was a big concern that din't look right from the start.

[Black Wolf]

Looks cool, but have you considered making the tanks separate models? We have multidocking, and multiple-container ships are really friggen cool IMO. Plus, separate models mean the potential for separate textures, and multiple colours on the same ship.

Alternately, definitely at least make them destroyable submodels.

As for the rest of the model, three suggestions - take them or ignore them as you see fit.

1. If you haven't already (I can't tell) flip it so that the bridge is underslung, like a zeppelin. No good reason, it'd just be cool and different, and since there's no horizon, there's no inherent advantage to being high up as opposed to down low in space - on either side, you're going to miss out on seeing fifty percent of the universe just because of the shape of the model.

2. Beef up your engines - you're making a freighter, which has to move a lot of weight. The engines look a tad puny right now.

3. That notch at the front is crying out for some kind of detail. I put a little secondary bridge up the front when I did my Atlantis (see the link above) and something like that might be appropriate here, or any other kind of doodad, but at the moment it looks kind of unfinished.

My 2c anyway. The fact that you're making civilian stuff at all is awesome. Good luck!

[EDIT]FWIW, I'm a big fan of unarmed civilian ships too.

[Doko]

Looks cool, but have you considered making the tanks separate models? We have multidocking, and multiple-container ships are really friggen cool IMO. Plus, separate models mean the potential for separate textures, and multiple colours on the same ship.

Alternately, definitely at least make them destroyable submodels.

As for the rest of the model, three suggestions - take them or ignore them as you see fit.

1. If you haven't already (I can't tell) flip it so that the bridge is underslung, like a zeppelin. No good reason, it'd just be cool and different, and since there's no horizon, there's no inherent advantage to being high up as opposed to down low in space - on either side, you're going to miss out on seeing fifty percent of the universe just because of the shape of the model.

2. Beef up your engines - you're making a freighter, which has to move a lot of weight. The engines look a tad puny right now.

3. That notch at the front is crying out for some kind of detail. I put a little secondary bridge up the front when I did my Atlantis (see the link above) and something like that might be appropriate here, or any other kind of doodad, but at the moment it looks kind of unfinished.

My 2c anyway. The fact that you're making civilian stuff at all is awesome. Good luck!

[EDIT]FWIW, I'm a big fan of unarmed civilian ships too.

Good suggestions.

1. Feels awkward to me. Maybe with a more chaotic shape it might work better.

2. Agree to a certain extent, side engines will be going through an overhaul at some point but the main ones will most likely not be changed. I'll consider swaping the two thrusters into a really big one and see how it looks, low on my priorities though. I'm pretty happy with that part of the ship.

3. Putting it plainly that part looks like ****, mainly because of a total lack of inspiration for it. The secondary bridge was a pretty genious idea on that model you linked, It has changed my perspective on how that section could look.

edit: forgot to address the submodel feedback.

They were originally separate objects but I'm not sure how to justify that this huge container of (most likely) combustible material would not blow up the entire ship and anything near it if destroyed. If someone is escorting this vessel and fails he ends up paying the ultimate price.
On the other hand if someone wanted to use the model for say... transporting water its not too hard to detach those verts and play around with some supports for the tanks but fuel has been my idea from the start.