Topic: KDF E-7 "Blood Honor" (quv 'lw) class battlecruiser wip...Need your help

[Akira_Commander567]

I'm afraid I'm of no futher use to you on this ship. Hope it all goes well.

[Shadowfleet]

Raven - I like them both --  a lot -- why not release an E-7S (short neck) scaled slightly smaller for use as a scout and an E-7L scaled larger as a full up war ship? I also like the idea of releasing her with the different nacelle textures so folks can customize it. WZ does a lot of his releases with alternate textures and I've always thought that it is a nice touch.

Even if you release just one, it'll be an awesome gift to the community! WELL DONE and thanks for sharing!

[Akira_Commander567]

Yes, I'd love to seee this ship in a mod for SFC 4.

[Raven Night]

Thanks for the comments.

Here is what I am planning (something like it) for the E-5. I am going to use the current mesh, but remove the "booms" on the side of the neck, give it a round flare on the side of the crew module (instead of the delta shape there now), remove the impulse engine booms in the rear, and reshape the sensor pods and the wings slightly.

Here is the current pattern for the ventral wing, let me know if you like the pattern sofar.......note that no weathering or detailing has been added, im looking for feedback on the overall pattern.

[Starforce2]

where are those orange warp manifolds I keep suggesting?

So no multiple booms? Never been fond of them anyways.

[Raven Night]

They will be included as an alternate texture...Im going to do the same thing I did with the panel, allowing people to just drop in the color they want.

Ill be offering two seperate sets, one for the front vent and details, the other for the grill inside. Ill offer orange, red (standard), green and a dark purple to use with the Darkfleet textures, or just by itself if you want.

So all told, this ship will have a seperate texture pack with dark textures, the extra house panels and the different vent colors.

[Raven Night]

thats alot of red paneling on the underside of the wings... a small suggestion dont just use the red. Have some rak green or even some very obvious gray panel, will give a nice bit of variation and will show off your textures

Its a good point...if I want to make it look similar to the original D-7, Ill have to add in a dabble of dark green and grey here and there. Ill add more detail, I wanted to get the base texture pattern down, and see if it worked for you guys.

But dude, i am seriously loving thiese textures. very cool. How far do you think you are from release as i think i can handle most of the porting for you and i knows a few people who can make you an impressive brk model to go along side it.

Thank you. Well, Im looking at about a month right now...Im doing some private work on a demo for another company, as well as taking modeling lessons from my staff to prepare me for retirement at the end of the year. So Im working on it bit by bit, but I will continue on the model to its completion.

What are your plans for damage textures. I know BC uses its own damage and applies it, but you know as well as i do that SFC doesn't like that idea and require the damage mapps with the model... If your not doing them, mind if do them?. Ive got some very cool damage templates that im dying to try out.

Im all for you doing damage textures for it, and as always I appreciate your help and the help of outlance.

[markyd]

So I like the shorter neck with the new wing adjustments.   Good job so far on the underside 

[Raven Night]

Thanks. I think they grew on me too.

Here is what I am proposing for the klingon symbol on the ventral hull. Now, a few things I would like to note...

First, no weathering or heavy detailing has been applied. This is just a pattern example, for your guys perusal and consideration. I can make changes as needed before finalizing.

Second, I change the logo a bit. Since the ship is more of a "speeder" so to speak, sleek and lean but still very predatory, I stretched the actual logo a bit to give it a similar sleek appearance.

Third, I have learned in my lessons how to use the cutout and drop shadow tools in PSP...giving me the ability to add some raised detail to areas of the maps, adding to the realism. In this case, I looked at the D-7 from ST:TMP on the ventral hull and tried to create a design similar to the original, including a similar bulge and some of the raised areas.

Let me know what you think.

[Raven Night]

Now that I look at it, Im getting rid of the greebles I put in to the left and right of the insignia. They just detract from the overall look.

[Kreeargh]

Now that I look at it, Im getting rid of the greebles I put in to the left and right of the insignia. They just detract from the overall look.

I kinda like it no offence it adds some more detail to the hull other than pannels and such. It give it a more mechanical feel to it. Damn good job by the way 

[Raven Night]

Thank you, no offense taken, I did remove the greebles, but I can add them back in if you guys think I should. Ill post a pic of the progress shortly.

[Spartan-039]

I like it. How many weapon systems are on this ship?

[Starforce2]

if the C9A was any indication.....enough

[Raven Night]

This vessel has a single torp launcher aft and fore, 4 medium long range disruptor cannons (ventral wing pods), 4 fore and 2 aft short range light disruptor cannons, and 10 very short range defensive disruptors located in key positions on the hull, mainly used to defend against drones and torpedoes.

[Spartan-039]

Nice, I'd hate to be on the business end of those weapons, it kinda makes me think of a AC-130 Spectre gunship.

[Raven Night]

Though I wanted it more powerful than the current D-7...and we could discuss both canon and in-game weaponry to determine proper strength, I just determined what would be a good weapon level for this ship as the current battlecruiser.

If this ship was to be common, it would have to have heavy enough firepower to stand against a capital ship if in a group of three...I call it the "threes level".

Most ship battle groups seem to be limited in numbers, unless it is a large invasion fleet. When we have seen groups of ships travelling together, they would tend to be three...not sure if this was intended, so I assumed it was common.

Using that principle, this ship would have to have three vessels to stand against a Galaxy class, lets say. Now, it would be very strong at close range, but at that range a Galaxy would be even more dangerous.

So I imagined a scenario where three ships would fight straight on, with no cloak. Then based the weapons on that.

[Raven Night]

Ok, I have a few things to discuss.

First, I considered doing a bridge module similar to the original D-7 for a while, I even built one...but decided in the end to leave it off. Perhaps I will use it when I make the E-5. Instead I added a small slit on the forward dorsal hull to hold a few micro windows...I wanted to ask you guys if 1/4 windows are ok, or do I need to increase them to the size of the other windows.

Now, the windows on this ship are bigger than the originals on the D-7 (full size, almost ceiling to floor), creating some problems with scaling, but I think I have decided to make this ship about the size of the C-9a, or basically a ship between the D-7 and the Vorcha. I will work out the exact size later, but suffice to say it is bigger than originally conceived.

Therefore I had to make a few more changes...I modified the torp launchers fore and aft to fit a larger ship, and also modified the maps a bit to dress them up. I also put them farther back in the hull, closer to the original.

So, let me know what you think of the bridge window bar and the new design for the torp launchers. I am about 50 percent finished with the initial textures on the ventral hull.

[**M23**]

I think it looks great... additions are cool 

[Raven Night]

Thank you...looking for some more feedback, working on the bottom textures now as I wait for more opinions. I especially need feedback on the following...

SIZE OF THE SHIP

I am proposing this ship will be about 1.5x the size of the original D-7, with the E-5 closer to the size of the original battlecruiser.

TORP LAUNCHERS

Torp launchers are deeper and the graphics have been redesigned to match the movie and game models better (the shine). Let me know if you like it better this way.

BRIDGE WINDOW BAR

Does the bar work as the proposed bridge area (a buried bridge, compared to the original bulge on the D-7), and is the half-size windows an issue?