This thing is all wrapped up and submitted to our dev overlords.
The current Condor model has been part of the game for close to a decade now. It was originally submitted by Jinx (I think? correct me if I'm wrong) as a replacement for the old-old Zoner Gunboat, and as a few years later that ship received another redo, this model got repurposed, revised and retextured by AeternusDoleo to be added in as the long-requested civilian gunboat. So it's quite an old model, which means while the visual aspect of the ship is rather interesting, its technical quality is, well... yeah.
Due to its outdated technical aspects, it'll always be at the risk of getting replaced by a completely different model, but since quite a few people are a fan of the visuals of this specific model (myself included), I got peer-pressured into touching up the existing model to bring it up to a more acceptable technical level so this little nugget of disco history can be preserved and people who like its looks can stop worrying about it inevitably getting replaced.
The idea is to keep the general look of the ship close to the original, while cleaning up the under-the-hood technical aspect of the mesh and adding a bit more visual polish so certain parts of it don't look too blocky and bulky anymore. The textures will be redone completely, but the general arrangement/colorscheme will likely still be kept similar to the original.
Also, pvp performance of the ship has always been somewhat underwhelming, so after having a chat with balance devs and some gunboat people, we figured fine-tuning its profiles and giving it a tad more firepower could potentially help make it a competent medium boat, so top profile of the ship is trimmed a bit while addition of a secondary engine is intended to add a bit more volume to side/front profile which fixes the whole pancake dilemma of shipbalance, and (subject to change) the ship's receiving two extra turret mounts, but the practical increase to its firepower will only be one extra turret in each main arc.
This being a remaster rather than a remodel, I don't think it should deviate too much from the original look, so while I probably won't be pushing the tweaks to general proportions and main segments any further, feedback on the detail work and suggestions for minor tweaks is as always welcome.
What's Next?
While cleaning this thing up, I realized the general aesthetics of this ship could actually serve quite well as style guide for an "Omega Civi" shipline, and since Swallow already has two completely new CTE boats in the works, vacancy of CTE GB slot would fortunately not be a concern, and this ship can be sneakily stolen away from CTE line to be the progenitor of its own new shipline.
The new line would still be considered part of sirius-wide civilian techcell, but InRP would be made in deep Omegas, and as such, would be heavily based around technology and aesthetics of the region, so after this model is wrapped up and sent to our dev overlords, I'll be moving on to making a few other ships in this same general style to make this a separate shipline of its own. The new line will most likely end up consisting of a more convoy-oriented composition rather than the typical combat ship roster, which would ultimately include this gunboat, one or two snubs and an armored and/or battle transport of sorts.
So for the time being this will be submitted as a remastered version of existing Condor and will keep its CTE tag, and once the rest of this line is finished this model will be swapped over to the new line.
Also,
Quote:There's now a Discord server for Disco Modelers to share their on-going projects and gather feedback:
Main updates, major discussions and polls will still be handled via forums, but if you're interested in keeping up with the more incremental updates and providing real-time feedback, feel free to join.
Apart from some minor tweaks and technical cleanup, the mesh can be considered finished at this point, i.e. this is for the most part how it'll look ingame. Will hopefully get to start on textures this weekend.
Maybe the front covering side panels could be revised a bit? Less bulky or less curvy or less protruded (with bridge getting more bulk)?
Maybe a second pair of reactor cylinders near the existing ones could be added for some more bulk?
Wasn't too happy with the tail. Its general outlines weren't consistent enough with the rest of the ship, so went back and redid that. Gave it a tad more zoner vibes while at it, since inrp the new line is supposed to be built by Omega Zoners.
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