WC:CD Carrier, Transport?

Alright well I've been working on it a little bit more n more as the day goes on. I did the textures a little bit different... Added some more bridge textures. I'll work on more of it later but let me know what you think. O BTW the Third image shows the turrets the best.

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I know this was used as the Tiger's Claw in SWC, and it was a carrier but I'm not really sure what I should use this type of model as...

It was a Lexington-class Heavy Carrier in Wing Commander Armada.

I think the game called them "Heavy Particle Cannons" that are put to use on the Plunkett. I was looking to use large guns on the Destroyer.

The 'behind the screens' specifications refer to the Plunkett's second-largest weapon as being "Triple Mount Mk 2 Heavy Particle Cannon(s)" -- but I don't think the designation is ever actually used in-continuity.

I'll give it a pretty good cruising speed also, possibly faster than the Cerberus. Reason being.. Is that it's smaller also than the Cerberus.

Eugh, I'd avoid that -- the story behind the Hades-class is that it's a black (CIS) ship with an unusually high top speed... it's the SR-71 of capital ships, not the new standard for all future designs.

haha Well I actually bought mine of this silly guy in the Landreich only cost 4,000,000 credits wasn't a bad deal

Quite a deal, given the c73,000,000,000 price tag for a fleet carrier quoted in Fleet Action. :)

I'll work on more of it later but let me know what you think. O BTW the Third image shows the turrets the best.

I like the concept (it's the same idea as the Concordia Supercruiser in the movie) -- but maybe try extending the length and/or narrowing the radius of the turret barrels and see how they look. They're a little too "stubby" right now. Also, it seems kind of awkward to have a big turret blocking the ramscoop intake (the blue panel.)
 
I think the turrets look a little *too* big. Like most of the interior of this ship would need to be huge reactors and capacitors to power those freaknormous guns. Ship design ends up looking a lot more like HMS Rodney than USS Iowa, given the turret placement.

Just an opinion.

Yeah, I'd argue that the overall form of the ship is too stunted for its size. It may use the same guns as the Plunkett, but look at the proportions of the latter in contrast to its guns - it's a much more balanced shape, and the proportions of the length/breadth to turret aren't so freakishly large. It's also a much deeper design - I don't know if there's any sort of technical justification in-universe, but current-day gun turrets have giant motors to rotate the little gun platforms on the top, ammunition hauls, etc. - the part of the turret we see is only an iceberg tip.

And even besides all that, the actual precedent for turret proportions, even for giant heavy turrets like on the movie Concordia, is quite small; compare the turrets on the WCIII destroyers and cruisers for instance. What you have here is kind of awkward, a very elegant basic hull with two gigantic turrets that obliterate all else in its form - if you're going for a monitor-type design that might be appropriate. I was going to suggest when I started typing this that reducing the turret size by 70 to 60% might look good, but the most recent renders seem to show them slightly reduced already. Still, you might get a nicer look if you extended the lower ramscoop forward, make it into a 'keel' for the ship.
 
Interesting points Bob & LOAF. Since I'm going to be using the same turrets as the Plunkett scaling the ship to be a lil larger won't be a big problem. But I can't scale the turrets without also doing a seperate Turret mesh. It can be done but I'd rather just stick with the Plunkett Turret design. But as with any project it's always subject to change. Thanks for the design points and I'll make the changes ASAP. :)
 
Alright well in keeping with a few of the points that LOAF and Bob McDob had brought up and also getting my modeling program back and running (Registration Issues). Some key notes that I've gotten to.

1.
Issue: Bobs issue on the turret size.
Answer: Well Bob with keeping with my last post, I have scaled the ship to be a little larger by about 10% all around (L,W,H) you can see a tremendous difference in the size. Again I don't really want to change the turret size.

2.
Issue: LOAF's recommendation to change the area near the upper ram scoop.
Answer: I decided that it was a little overkill to actually have the extra oversized turret after viewing both LOAF's throughts and Bobs thoughts. And at the same time also thought that for a destroyer it's probably pretty well armed compared to other destroyers in the WC Universe, already so I removed that gun and will probably add something else in place, not sure yet. As you can see I've changed that area a little bit by adding something that the Indomitable class from Arena has. Some type of fire protective type walls. Maybe put the shield generator in there (Not really too sure yet)

3.
Issue: LOAF's recommendation to not be faster than the Cerberus.
Answer: Well ya know what LOAF I Don't Really Give A Flying........... Just kidding that's a good point so it will be speed equivalent to other destroyers and cap ships unlike Cerberus which was a faster ship. in the WC Universe area, maybe the Sheffield. Not to sure yet.

4. There is no 4

Well with those issues out of the way. I've added some detail to the textures, so that it looks a little better in scale. Also if there's any other comments please feel free to leave the thoughts here so that I can address them and make changes. One thing with making and creating anything is criticizm and that's always a good thing even if it's bad. But any thoughts you guys may have would be great. The poly count for the model is pretty maxed out. But if anyone has any ideas for the engines so I can get rid of some polys there, and create more box shaped engines, if anyone has any ideas even if it's another type ship send em my way. As always thanx for your input in advance :D

Anyways here's some definate improvements, please comment When doing a project alone you get a little lost and especially when doing models it's great to have people from the community come together to give some comments. And BTW Positive and negative feedback is always welcome.

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I was a little Remiss in showing the extended turret barrels too. I know this picture isn't all that great but. The Turrets that I'm talking about are the ones towards the rear of the Plunkett Ship so it'll give you a better visual of how large the Destroyer is going to be. The only thing I might do is change the texture of the original Plunkett Turret That's pretty much it.

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Those 3 are a Few so you guys can see which ones I'm talking about.

Then here's the Revised Turret Size Render that LOAF had mentioned

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Alright by request here were some things.

1. Lower scoop turned into hanger bay or cargo access.
2. Add some scoops on the sides. Similar to Midway Design.
3. On upper scoop made 2 seperate scoops. Instead of One.

Any other thoughts, post em up here.

As always thanx for the comments, Here's 2 shots with the update as above.

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Also the Armament as it stands now is 14 "Laser Turrets" maybe a few tachyons I'm not sure yet.
and the 3 as LOAF pointed out "Triple Mount Mk 2 Heavy Particle Cannon(s)" So there's 5 laser turrets on the bottom (1 being in the rear) 9 on the top ( 1 being above the bridge and 2 being below the bridge. If you think this may be too armed or not armed enough make it known :) As always... Happy Hunting
 
To be honest I kind of miss the second gun. It made it seem really fearsome in a time when Confed really needed to push out some heavy firepower.
 
Issue: LOAF's recommendation to change the area near the upper ram scoop.
Answer: I decided that it was a little overkill to actually have the extra oversized turret after viewing both LOAF's throughts and Bobs thoughts. And at the same time also thought that for a destroyer it's probably pretty well armed compared to other destroyers in the WC Universe, already so I removed that gun and will probably add something else in place, not sure yet.

Actually, my other suggestion on the matter (which were admittedly rather overshadowed by the gigantic fuss over the size in the first two paragraphs) was to make it into a monitor-type ship - traditionally a shallow-draft (and usually thereby low-endurance) warship with extremely heavy gun armament - basically a coastal defense ship (or shore bombardment platform), a floating artillery platform. These kinds of ships were also very slow (don't need speed to hit shore targets), but it might be useful for, say, escorting merchant convoys.

They're also conspicuous for having oversized turrets: http://uboat.net/allies/warships/photos/br/hms_terror.jpg

The other issue here is that you didn't really fix the "large objects blocking the upper ramscoop" thing - in fact, the gigantic hunchback makes it worse. I was thinking of moving it to the lower part of the hull, where the tentative hangar is now, and with the two smaller side intakes you really don't need a fourth. With that out of the way, the turret can maybe go on top of the hunchback area.

Finally, with all these changes, I have to admit that I miss the clean hull design from the first screencaps, before everything else was added. It seems a shame to scrap that - it might be a good idea to keep it on hand as a concept for another time.

(Here's an example of the shape it evokes - the Hiigaran Marine troopship, from the second game: http://images.wikia.com/homeworld/images/9/98/Marine_frigate.jpg)
 
The clean version was actually done by someone else but I as using that model as a basis for the newer design. I've attached another screenshot showing that nothing is blocking the ram scoop thingy, I'll try to make those changes that your talking about sometime today but as you can see my bandwitch isn't all that great on geocities at the moment so time to find a new spot. But I'll make those changes and we'll see where it goes. thanx it's always good to get more information and different design ideas thanx :)

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Here's also another image of the changes that Bob had mentioned let me know what you think.

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Keep in mind I'm planning on making this a destroyer, The 2nd and 3rd pics show changes that bob had mentioned. I'll be posting 1024x768 from now on to give a larger picture
 
Destroyer? I'd say go for Supercruiser it does a nice job of evoking the Concordia (supercruiser) with all the turrets.

The latest shots all remind me of what I imagined the Texas-class Dreadnaughts to be like except with a few less turrets. All it needs is some damage, a few kats chasing it and a little bubble saying...."This is TCS Yorkshire. Long Live the Confederation."
 
Destroyer? I'd say go for Supercruiser it does a nice job of evoking the Concordia (supercruiser) with all the turrets.

The latest shots all remind me of what I imagined the Texas-class Dreadnaughts to be like except with a few less turrets. All it needs is some damage, a few kats chasing it and a little bubble saying...."This is TCS Yorkshire. Long Live the Confederation."

Hehe, I can't see the third image which would presumably give a better overall view, but the ship at this point looks a lot like this: http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/0083/birmingham.jpg

Also, you can (or should, anyway) be able to upload images as attachments. I don't recall if it's been disabled for new members or not.
 
I like the way the ship looks. Definitely evokes the feeling of a "space dreadnought."

What about torpedo (Capship Missile) bays? This thing already looks angry and ready to fight - might as well go for the gold!
 
Alright well when getting home from work last night I did decide.. Ya know there isn't a Dread after the Battle of Earth (Am I mistaken) so anyways I worked the hell outta this bad boy last night. So check out these 2 new screenshots. Enjoy and as always leave comments... I like the Cap ship torpedoe idea and I attached actually some tubes of some sort near the 2 hanger bays which are shown under the bridge area....Also as Arena Indomitable class cruiser it seems to have a physical defense for the runway so anyways...leave more comments and I'll just keep on adding to this thing. It's at about 10,500 polies at the moment but...what's funny is everything included without the engines, turrets, and the bridge, and also (Where's should a shield generator be mounted? it only sits at 594 polies for the general ship.. So most of the polies are turrets. If there's any other shape additions that can be made I'm all ears...or eyes... rather. I'm sure you guys will like this one much more. I've added a little bit more WC2-esq design highlights which you all will love

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Oh yea and I was a little remiss in showing the underbelly of the beast.

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I like the ventral guns. It's easy to forget that spaceships can use all that space on the bottom for weaponry, too.
 
And actually to add on to all of that. You as the WC Community can see that when trying to make something a little different and as original as possible without de-valuing some of the Wing Commander Architecture so to speak. What starts out to be one thing turns into something a bit better, with time and hard work.

Take the "Buccaneer" For example at the start it had no name. It started out as this
http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=23168

Then eventually turned into what I classified (but did not name you as the community did that)) as the HF-66 Thunderbolt Buccaneer.

http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=23205

So as you can see the original 1st picture in this post is actually someone elses design. Which is a pretty nice looking carrier from both SWC and Armada. Then you can see the transformation that takes place by using a more simple model of that 1st high poly model and adding on to make something a little different than anything else. Believe me I value everybodys opinion, facts, and random rants because that's what makes me want to do changes to the models and change certain criteria for the "Collateral Damage" Project.. This is a thank you to those who have helped along the way. In closing, If there are any changes views or thoughts on the above post Secret Ops "Dreadnought" please make them noted. Also I will be posting up a vote on what to name this ship. It's designation (unless already taken) will be CVS-66. But a name......Not sure yet so I will have you as the WC Community Vote I will keep the vote up for 2 weeks this time not just 3 days :)...
 
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