Alright, I changed a few things, and for now I'm ignoring the other ship models associated with this (the LF and Bomber) - at this point, I'm just working on getting one working model into the game, and seeing as the HF was the original it got chosen. The others may be added later, or they may not be, it remains to be seen. If I can get this model working and in-game, I may work on a similar freighter-ish model as it's partner ship.
Changes Made:
-Moved the 'antennae' on the tops of the engine pylons backwards, to make room for two level 2 turret hardpoints at the front of the engine pylons (for mining lasers)
-Shortened the fins on the sides of the engine pylons to improve appearance and reduce target profile
-Fixed a few texture issues
Here's the new Images, unless something else big is requested, the only change to the model i'm considering at this point is the removal of the welding machine and toolbox on the sides of the ship - I just think the engine pylons might look a bit too plain without them, perhaps another detail needs to be added to compensate.
Here are the hardpoints so you can get an idea of where the guns and other equipment go on the ship:
A - Class 9 Gun
B - Class 2 Turret (for mining lasers)
C - Thruster
D - Torpedo
E - Cruise Disruptor
F - Mine
G - Countermeasure
H - Class 8 Gun
That said, this is what still needs to be done:
-Need help changing the ship model into a .cmp/proper file type for freelancer
-Need to figure out how to transfer the current texture mappings into the game along with the model
-Need to hardpoint the model (have no idea how to do this)
-Need to adjust the current ship's stats if this is to replace the bulldog (add two mining laser hardpoints, adjust ship power output and manuverability to be on par with other gallic HF's, need to adjust cargo so that the ship has some use as a mining/salvaging vessel)
I also need to rescale the model - back when I made models before during 4.84, I noticed that whenever I import an existing freelancer ship model into the same scene as the ship model I've made, mine ends up being about a thousand times too large (currently, if this ship was put straight into freelancer, it'd probably be bigger than a planet). I would appreciate if someone else could send me the current bulldog model in a .3ds format so that I can import it into the same scene and rescale this model accordingly.