Warship, Yay? Nay?

Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. It still isn't working, but lemme see what I can do with this. I might have an idea that'll let me transfer it back.

That texturing is rather confused-looking, not to pick or offend...

As, I said, the texture is broken in wings only. I can tell because as I move the mouse, it flickers and flashes. Lol?

um... 012011100010? any news?

You know, you can just call me 010. I don't even remember it. Heck, call me FenixPheonix, it's the new name I use. Anyway, I'm really sorry, but the exporting isn't working. It's really annoying me. So I can get it smoothed, but then I can't give it back to you in a useable format. I've tried everything I can think of. Blender can import .dae's, but it doesn't display them properly. Wings can't import .dae's. It's really annoying. But don't worry, this won't be showing up in any of my stuff, so I haven't stolen it.

Mac_Dude, why didn't you Smooth it? It looks like it was made out of LEGOs.

(opinion) I get the impression that this ship is never meant to go into atmosphere, because if it did those gun placements would snap right off upon Entry. (/opinion)

Anyway, I like Wings 3D. It has a great support group. It's easy to use right out of the "box" and the price is great too!

Smoothing it was the job he outsourced to me, because it's actually pretty hard to do in Wings. So I exported it to Sketchup to smooth the edges a bit, and then ran into several problems. 1. It wasn't built based on XYZ axis, making it much more difficult to align for working. 2. Wings has a very weird way of doing its files, so there were a lot of extra faces that weren't needed, lines to nowhere, and planes that weren't connected to anything. 3. I can't export it. .dae files, which is the only way I can get it out right now, aren't imported properly by Blender, and Wings can't get them at all. And FBX Converter is so hopelessly broken that it's completely worthless.

It sounds more like User error rather than Program issues. Smoothing is actually pretty easy. And the extra edges is a matter of Clean Up. Anyway, here is a site I use full of Wings Tutorials that I have used http://www.geocities.../aardvarks.html

One last think, I noted that Blender imported Nendo, so I exported to nendo (.ndo) and I had no problem getting a model into Blender 2.4.2.

sorry to bring up a really dead topic, but I just realized: upload the .skp file and I'll use my copy of sketchup to import it to wings. I loath sketchup, but I guess I can use it on this occaision.

Some comments on the ship: Those are really big radar dishes. Those things would be the first thing to be blown off in any combat situation. Also, that ship is REALLY un-aerodynamic. Not good for re-entry. Radar dishes would snap off in an instant. Also, if I read correctly, that's an IDA Warship because it's main engines are ripped IDA Frigate engines?

Its not meant for reentry, ok? Also, it has energy shielding. it is called the IDA warship because it uses a different kind of Impact Drive Assembly. To compare these engines to an IDA frigate's would be like comparing a civic with a mustang. it just wouldn't work.

@mac_dude, on Dec 23 2008, 01:32 PM, said in Warship, Yay? Nay?:

Its not meant for reentry, ok? Also, it has energy shielding. it is called the IDA warship because it uses a different kind of Impact Drive Assembly. To compare these engines to an IDA frigate's would be like comparing a civic with a mustang. it just wouldn't work.

Then how do you land?

Anti-gravity devices or systems I assume.

@s-s--valor, on Dec 23 2008, 02:39 PM, said in Warship, Yay? Nay?:

Then how do you land?

The same way you land the unrelenting(didn't see that one coming, didja???) Take a shuttle.

@mac_dude, on Dec 23 2008, 06:15 PM, said in Warship, Yay? Nay?:

The same way you land the unrelenting(didn't see that one coming, didja???) Take a shuttle.

While the suspension of disbelief is fine here, if you're going for realistic, there's still a point to be had. You could theoretically justify it by either saying that the turrets, dishes, and other easily-sheared devices can retract into the ship for descending/re-entry purposes, but that still leaves an issue with combat, since those would be the first items to be quickly destroyed in a battle. Dishes and antennae would be like giant bulls-eyes for weapons officers, because they could theoreticaly quickly cripple your sensors and communications (like your ship to your fighters) very quickly. It's like targeting the masts on old-style sailing ships, or targeting the rudder and propeller on more modern vessels. That's why dishes and antennae would be ditched much like they are in modern laptops: in favor of less-easily destructable internal mechanics. You don't see wireless cards in general today that stick out of computers, and even Bluetooth or wireless mouse transceivers are more and more going to "nano" style communications, where the adapters stick out only a quarter of an inch from a USB port. Cellular phones have all but ditched the easily broken external attenae and gone entirely to internal ones, with relatively little loss of reception. Antennae in particular don't need to stick out from a ship to be effective. Their effectiveness is determined by angle to the signal beam and length. It doesn't matter if the antenna were to run lengthwise down the ship and along the outside.

Theoretically as well, the communications in this era are FTL, which means that they are not using EM waves that disperse on an inverse curve with distance. Modern physics has no knowledge of any "subspace" or "hyperspace" in which there are different energy spectrums, so in that respect, the game is already going into a realm of science fiction that is unknown at best, and unrealistic at worst. Take the liberty granted by that and just ditch the dishes in favor of more internalized systems less susceptible to shear and battle damage.

Aerodynamics are less of an issue. Yes, the ship would be relatively not easily maneuverable in atmospheric conditions, but generally, you don't take a warship into the atmo of a planet very often apart from landing and takeoff. You're not going to do any significant evasive maneuvers in atmosphere, most likely. The ship is not generating lift from the aerodynamics. Take the Firefly-class Serenity, for example - it gets its lift from the VTOL engines, not from traditional pressure-based lift. The only issue with aerodynamics that you might want to look at a ship like Serenity for is the fact that those turrents, dishes and antennae would again last about three seconds before re-entry sheared them right off. Also, look at ships from Star Trek. Aerodynamically, they're useless. In atmo, they rely on sheer power from the engines, not the ability to glide smoothly.

So, in the end it depends on how much you intend to rely on the suspension of disbelief here. Parts for the sake of parts actually lends itself to hurting your cause in the suspension of disbelief. It's easier to believe something is there when it is not than it is to ignore what you can see. Also, less is often more. The simpler the ship is on the eyes of the pilot, while expanding on color and texture instead of extra polygons, the more graceful looking and smooth it will appear. You want this thing to look mean, not just like a hulk of deadly crap. You want less brutal efficiency and a more stylish killer. Think of a lioness or a cheetah, instead of a bulldozer. Smooth things out, if not for aerodynamic, for grace's purpose.

Remember as well how large you want the sprite to be. What are people really going to see? If you make this a large 100x100 sprite, just for example, the amount of detail on a specific turret here would be probably 5x5, maybe 8x8 at best. You'll have gone to a lot of hard work for something barely perceptible. Same with the radar dishes. You're talking again 8x8 or 10x10 if you have a huge dish. All people will see is a rough circle with a dot in the middle. Little embellishments are far less important than the outline and texture of the keel itself. Work out those issues first, then focus on the additions that have less meaning. Think about the importance of such things as what this is going to look like if you add banking frames, or running lights, or a cool weapons sprite. The addition of turrets or dishes on the model is not going to affect the actual performance in-game of the ship. It's only illusion, basically a sort of visual bravado. Since that's the case, make your bravado count in the more important areas first.

While I appreciate your point, look at this like a 1980s cellphone. This was made in 380nc. The normal game storyline came in 1170ish nc. So I look at it like the IDA Warship's Motorolla Startac to the Fed Carrier's iPhone. Plus, as they say, every little bit helps. So I will keep the dishes because at the time this thing was made, they were state of the edge, cutting art technology.

Don't you mean state of the art cutting edge technology? Instead of state of the edge cutting art tech?

Wow! You guys are pickin on him quite a bit for this... :rolleyes:

I think this is a good start on a ship for evn. I do have to agree that you won't see the turrets or dishes much at all in game unless this is a mammoth sized ship. Can I give the suggestion that the next time you make another ship that you make the basic ship design first and then just add most details later for a shipyard pic? I'm no genius when it comes to graphics but I think that is what most people do around here.

Anyways, enough of that... Good work and keep it up. I look forward to seeing the end product here

I get that you're going for old tech, and that's great and all. I'm all for the idea of old-school here. I'm just saying, those things are obsolete now and we don't even have hyperlight tech yet. If you look on the same old-school 380NC IDA Frigates, they don't have any antennae or dishes either. Why? Because they're old tech even by our own standards, much less that of several centuries in the future.

If you're going for the same tech level of the IDA Frigate, as I get that you seem to be, I'd take a closer look at the Nova Files (I found the IDA shipyard pic in Nova Data 6) and refine your idea more along those concepts - look at the other ships dated the same period: the Leviathan or even the Pegasus to an extent. Looking at the Leviathan, no dishes or antennae are easily visible to me.

Or look at the Battlestar Galactica. That thing is designed to be a brute force weapon with one purpose: blow toasters to high heavens. There is no waste on the design, no radar dishes for the DRADIS system, no antennae for the shortwave comm system. Why? Because they'd be destroyed in seconds. You want old tech? BSG is old tech. Combat fighter vessels like Vipers have sleeker, more graceful lines that present less of a cross section and less inviting target. Transport vessels (even combat transport vessels like the Raptor,) are not designed with the same kind of lines: more sensors, squatter target, and "get the hell out of here now" capabilities. Battleships like Battlestars are too huge to be either maneuverable or avoid getting a good weapons shot at. They rely on the fighters to keep out inbound fighters or high-yield warheads. When those fail, having a good, solid, very durable, radiation resistant outer hull and heavily supported keel is all that a battleship has.

Armored turrets are one thing, but dishes and antennae just don't make any sense from either a practical level of sprite design or a practical level of aerospace engineering. This is a combat ship, not a scientific exploration vessel that is not anticipating taking a beating. Right now, you're designing a long-range vessel with lots of sensors, but intending it to be a shorter range blunt force instrument of mass destruction. You need to think less Motorola Startac vs. iPhone and more early-model Panasonic Toughbook vs. MacBook. The interior technology may be inferior but the exterior lines of the ship would remain unchanged. Some principles of basic flight and aerospace design just remain constant, no matter what era you're in.

Come to think of it, why would people deliberately spend their hard-earned game cash to buy your ship if it's 800 years out-of-date? At the very least, by now this ship should have been retrofitted with more modernized equipment, or it's more or less a pile of resurrected obsolete junk anyways. If you're going for the Motorola Startac vs. iPhone idea, you have one critical flaw in the analogy: you probably couldn't even get a Motorola Startac to work on today's networks anyways, and certainly not at any sort of competetive level with the iPhone. And you would never take a Motorola Startac into a combat zone. Hell, you wouldn't even take it outside on a bad weather day. And there's a reason that nobody uses that technology anymore as a result. You need to come up with a ship that would have a reason to still be hanging around. The IDA Frigates and Leviathans both exhibit this. They're aging, but certainly not obsolete. They're the Ambassador -class of Nova. They've been around for quite a while, but the spaceframe itself doesn't warrant retirement. Upgrade the electronics and OS, and it's still quite a spry little vessel.

It's clear in the game that the IDA Frigates have good armor but poor shields, and the Aurorans have miserable ones as well. 800 years prior in game time, shields were not very sophisticated, and it looks their their purpose was marginal towards defense. So, the shields drop in seconds of intense battle, and your external sensitive equipment gets blown to pieces in seconds. All the turrets I can find in pictures look like they are intentionally armored heavily for that very purpose. There are no exposed delicate electronics.

I think you'll find, if you keep the turrets and armor them better, ditch the dishes and antennae, and smooth out some of the sharper corners, you'll have yourself one great little sprite to play with. Make this thing look old, too, if that's what you're going for. Add some dents in the hull. Make the texture a patchwork of welded bulkheads. Char it up a bit. Make it look 800 years old. Make it look like a warship, not like a bad marriage of LEGO construction and RadioShack.

I concur entirely with the previous post, with one exception.

If I had a Motorola Startac and it would work, I would probably use it, sometimes. Older technology often has innate charm, hence steampunk. Some people might just fly it for fun.