OK, so I did a bit of thinking over the weekend about the dictatorships and here are some early ideas (warning: this is bit of a long post, with pictures!)
As per Dr Nil's suggestion, I have the industrial dictatorships following a Roman model, not disimmilar to the Italian Fascists, with the dictator taking on the trappings of an Emperor surrounded by magistrates and civil servants such as Aediles, Quaestors, Lictors and the like - I figured this would be slightly less offensive than the obvious route of simply plastering swastikas all over the place.
Here is a standard police unit (which has ended up resembling a viper mkII) for the industrialised dictatorships:
I could repaint the StarSeeker shuttle in Imperial colours to act as a senatorial transport (complete with purple flashes as befitting a senior megistrate) with bounties/rewards for captured/rescued passengers and crew.
For the agricultural states, we have a full-blown military dictatorship, a People's Revolutionary Junta headed by a Generalissimo. A quick repaint of the basic police vessel results in a Junta Enforcer:
The symbol is one lifted from the alternative history project
Ill Bethisad, which is itself based on a Latvian military emblem. I was going to use the
Yugo y las Flechas (Yoke and Arrows) emblem that was used by the Spanish Falange party in the 1930s, but I thought the sword and sun symbol looked more exotic and so more in keeping with the Latin American feel. I may redo this model with a more weathered metal texture and some additional colour.
I've just started playing around with Wings3d, having finally found a version that works with my OS, and so have been able to make use of the more interesting modelling features. An early idea I have are asteroid farms (for the agricultural states) and asteroid factories (for the industrial ones). Both would consist of an asteroid or boulder with with a settlement placed on top of it, and a dock built into the side. I'll probably need to tone down the polys on the final model and the transparency won't work in-game, but this gives an idea:
Finally, both types of system would need freighters to transport goods to the main stations. I've sketched out a number of variations, but for starters here's a potential model for a tanker - again I'll probably need to tone down the polys in the final version:
On the billboards front, a 'Big Brother' style one for the industrials and a sycophantic 'glorious leader' portrait for the agriculturals would seem appropriate. I did build a monumental fasces as a potential witchpoint beacon but I went completely overboard on polys, however it might still come in useful.
I'm mindful of systems becoming too congested, so where possible I'd aim to replace the existing ship population rather than adding to it through specific scripts. I often travel through less stable systems simply to avoid the traffic, and remember not everyone has fuel injectors!
Comments and suggestions welcome.
