JB WIP thread: several ships

[Redspear]

Good to see the Tai Pan and Torus getting some attention.
And is that the Icarus???

Very promising work. I hope there's and oxp or two to come out of it.

[jackiebean]

It will take a while to get it all done but i think there will be a quite a few OXP/OXZ releases here. Most will be model and texture replacers of existing mods.

Not sure which ship you were wondering about, but no the Icarus was not posted yet, and will probably be one of the ships getting attention.

I did have the Boomslang in there, but forgot to click on it to show the name of the model when i screened it.

Here are a few more updates of the Kiota station variants. More to come. the manufacturing and research are completely changed. Biosphere version was rotated to horizontal. I am trying to build these to reflect the logical layout system of space stations as they would more likely be arranged. For instance an industrial station would have lots of room for docking and loading, and a research facility would have a lot of add on capsules to account for the different labs. The Manufacturing center alone has almost 300,000 polys total, but each piece will be far less by itself. Being that they are modular i imagine they could be arranged just about any way possible in multiple combinations, as long as the scripting is done right. The Hab ring versions were built to be massive even in the single ring configuration because i think it reflects the description much better to accommodate thousands of people for the small one.







The communications center and solar farm should take less time, and i will be glad to get them done because they are labor intensive. There seems to be some major artifacts in the rendering most of the time, but hopefully on the final unwrap and render before moving to texturing i can eliminate a lot of that mess. Keep in mind all these have to be gone back over again to shade smooth and define all the hard edges or they wont look right. Once the final seams and unwrap are done the texturing will be a bit easier to figure out. The fun part will be trying to get normal maps and light emitter maps. before the stations get that treatment though the ships will be first. Will be glad to get back to ships. Stations are hard to do just by their huge nature. One has to think 20 steps ahead just to plan everything out.

The parts will (for the most part) be arranged and then have their centers located right in the middle of the scene for ease of assembly in the script. The struts may have to be arranged identical to the originals and then called by script to their location in game. Figuring out how to stack them in script will be something i need help with. For instance the tube on the manufacturing center has four almost identical parts and greebles, the four parts will be populated in a pinwheel fasion to create the tube, and the greebles will lay on top of all four pieces to give variation. It is probably the most complicated of all of them.

[maik]

Really great to see a professional at work, your designs and productivity are amazing!

[jackiebean]

Thanks (Hvala) for the kudos maik, but i really am an amateur. My best work in in space ships and stations, but i used to be terrible at modeling years ago. Some of them still stand the test of time, but there are some cringe-worthy ones i did long ago. Things like architecture, technology (steampunk stuff or sci fi) tend to be easier to do for me than organics.

The true test to see if i have progressed at all since then (about 2006ish) is if the textures and all the other maps and reflection work right.

I worry about the stations mostly, because the ships are much smaller and easier to correct problems.

Last two Kiota station variations. may do more stations or station like ships later but for now this will be all. Back to ships.

[pagroove]

Great no fantastic ! work. I want to see you also take a try on the http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Superhub. Especially make more variants for it.

[jackiebean]

I will definitely see what i can do with the superhub. Any more requests out there?

[spara]

I will definitely see what i can do with the superhub. Any more requests out there?

A behemoth, please.

[jackiebean]

I will definitely see what i can do with the superhub. Any more requests out there?

A behemoth, please.

On the list.

[Redspear]

Any more requests out there?

A big ask but as you appear to be on a roll...

From the original elite manual:

Space Dredgers These immense factory ships are to be found wherever there has been a war, or a Thargoid invasion, or a natural catastrophe. More than forty miles long, the dredgers are a life-form to themselves. The Dredgers are huge cities in space, feeding off debris and ruination. Heavily armed, and with fleets of reconditioned fighter ships, they are to be avoided at all cost.

Would need scaling down a bit or would highlight the scale issues in the standard oolite. But a real factory ship would be nice, perhaps the Nostromo from Alien or similar? And wouldn't the derelict from that film be great (but I'm getting greedy )

No worries if you don't fancy either one.

[jackiebean]

Any more requests out there?

A big ask but as you appear to be on a roll...

From the original elite manual:

Space Dredgers These immense factory ships are to be found wherever there has been a war, or a Thargoid invasion, or a natural catastrophe. More than forty miles long, the dredgers are a life-form to themselves. The Dredgers are huge cities in space, feeding off debris and ruination. Heavily armed, and with fleets of reconditioned fighter ships, they are to be avoided at all cost.

Would need scaling down a bit or would highlight the scale issues in the standard oolite. But a real factory ship would be nice, perhaps the Nostromo from Alien or similar? And wouldn't the derelict from that film be great (but I'm getting greedy )

No worries if you don't fancy either one.

I was thinking something more in line with the giant generation ships just for continuity sake for a new deep space dredger. I can give a shot at a Nostromo style ship maybe later but for now i was really trying to stay focused on Oolite style ships. Granted the majority of ships look similar to the Nostromo shuttle, but that is a tall order.

[Norby]

Here is a screenshot about the largest Space Dredger, which is a really big moving base.

[jackiebean]

Very big. Not sure i want to go with the "hardware wars" giant vacuum cleaner though. I guess it depends on one's game build and their game style. Some people like the old ships and that is fine. Great for them. Hopefully i can strike a balance somewhere though between the new base ships and the expansions.

Edit: just random musings, but i was just now working on one of the behemoths (BH1) and putting the ball turrets on the outside of it. I had to make a circular base for each. They will be a part of the model but separate objects and may help place the turrets a bit easier. A reference point so to speak.

Anyway, since i made a base for each turret, i got to thinking about possibly installing these on fighters or smaller freighters as a highly illegal mod to ships below a certain size category. Not sure if this is already a mod, but was thinking that maybe a bonus OXP/OXZ would be ball turrets that can be installed on smaller ships, but are highly illegal mods, highly expensive (offered by pirates and scavenger type bases and dockables) and outlawed by Galcop/Gal-nav. Of course the advantage to having one would be they are automated defenses. On a fighter they would be overpowered and if done right (balanced somewhat) would give a slim advantage for escape . The upside would be they would make it a tad bit easier to get away, but if caught the penalty would be a hugely negative reputation and a stiff fine, or death. Not sure how that would be scripted, but sounds fun to me.

[Duggan]

This is just a speculative enquiry on my part ,

If it as allowed, and I am by no means sure it would be , I was wondering if ClymAngus might allow a little work to be carried out on the Warty Popsicle (Caduceus , Neo Caduceus and of course their uber sibling variant The Dark RainbowI They are great Vessels in terms of capability but look like something you would see in an Ann Summers shop ..

[Redspear]

I was thinking something more in line with the giant generation ships just for continuity sake for a new deep space dredger.

If it's to be in witchspace then large size is not really an issue (or at least not in the manner it is in a planetary system).
Sound cool and thanks for considering it

[jackiebean]

This is just a speculative enquiry on my part ,

If it as allowed, and I am by no means sure it would be , I was wondering if ClymAngus might allow a little work to be carried out on the Warty Popsicle (Caduceus , Neo Caduceus and of course their uber sibling variant The Dark RainbowI They are great Vessels in terms of capability but look like something you would see in an Ann Summers shop ..

Interesting, although i did not really make the correlation between those ships and an *ahem* adult "toy", i certainly may consider looking into that one if allowed, and may take it in a more bio-organic direction, with a few spikes to compliment the various textures, since they seem to hint in their appearance to an organically grown ship

Well, back to the grind stone for me. Chuck away the key so to speak...