Hessian battleship : Project FENRIR

[Torvette]

Hi everyone,

This time I have abandoned sketchup and tried a fresh modelling tool called Wings 3d. And this is what I have been working on. The Red Hessian battleship codenamed 'The Fenrir'. The pics show the untextured version of the model. I will find some time and texture it shortly.

And people who say the hessians dont need a battleship, I would say they wont need one for their normal operations but in special situations. Their hit and run tactics might be highly effective against the RM but falls short against the mighty corsairs. A hessian raid is something like a 'nasty surprise' which has earned them their reputation in Rheinland. But when its powerful corsairs on the other hand, with their big fleet of cap ships, advanced tech borrowed from the order and they being master raiders themselves, the old school hit n run is simply just not enough when you are at war with them. Thats why the corsairs keep pounding their bases in omega worlds. To surprise the powerful corsairs, they need something bigger and better than a Vidar. Its more like a secret weapon. As it is said 'A special foe calls for a special weapon'. Project 'Fenrir' will give hessians their secret weapon to defend their bases and people from corsair attacks. I JUST DONT SEE THE HESSIANS AS A HIT N RUN PIRATE FACTION, I ALSO SEE THEM AS A POWERFUL MILLITARY FORCE.

Well you can still disagree. If you think the hessians dont need a battleship, give me good reasons not lame ones like "how can unskilled miners, workers and young idealists build a battleship?" How did the Rogues and Mollys build the Scylla? All pirates are unintelligent smacks is an understatement and specially for the hessians who outwit the RM with their strategically planned raids. They have both the intelligence and the funds to undertake a project this big


About the ship :

This will not be a very big battleship but somewhat the likes of zephyr or maybe like the Osiris sizewise. The reason being the hessian domination in systems filled with asteroids. The size of the ship will assist its easy manuvering through asterioid fields and will also make the ship more agile compared to the bigger models.

I havn't thought about the ship specs yet but I will leave it to you.


So, here you go ....



















This is my first try at modelling in another tool other than sketchup. I dont think this is the final model. I might try to improve on it further based on your feedbacks or any new ideas I might come across.

[Jeremy Hunter]

1. Already a Hessian BS.

2. Looks too sleek. It screams LSF or Hackers or maybe even IMG/CR.

Or Order battlecruiser!

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May you ever walk in the Light, Shizune.

[Torvette]

1. Already a Hessian BS.

2. Looks too sleek. It screams LSF or Hackers or maybe even IMG/CR.

Or Order battlecruiser!

Firstly I didnt know hessians are getting a bs in 4.86 when I modelled this. About the ship model, I didnt want it to look like the Rheinland battleship. I thought about Vidar when I modelled this. In fact I wanted this ship to be the daddy of Vidar:)

[RmJ]

I knew he had to...suggest.....that....




Anyway I find a hard to seeing a theme and Hessan's are not really fitting into it at least as how I see their ship themes. But again only shorten by the lack of foresight of what will be decided for their Cap line.


Well the Vidar was going to get redone as to my understanding so really basing it on the newer model would be more prudent.



Eitherway any Battleship would be a nice target regardless of how it looks.

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[Hades]

There's already a Hessian battleship, modeled by yours truly and textured by Tycho.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/101...oth-d3dshpi.png
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/101...oth-d3dsh7o.png

Also, about your model, it's, unfortunately, never going to be able to go into any game as it is at the moment, I can tell that it's easily at least 10 separate meshes instead of a unified mesh. While that's not necessarily bad, it can lead to bad unoptimization and collision detection issues. I can also tell that there's at least a few thousand polygons you could shave by removing the large amount of redundant edges (ones that don't alter the shape or anything).

I do think you need to keep working at it, Wings3d, while being very simple, is a very powerful modeler, with a very intuitive context menu system, instead of the UI mess that is Blender.

[Turkish]

From strictly a design standpoint your polygonal use is excessive, there are dozens of faces that don't need to exist where they do, or simply at all.

It seems like backfacing is also a potential pitfall here. I can see some vertices which have been stretched well out of position. As a whole while I do find the shape appealing the actual construction is fairly poor, I'm sorry man. This models needs a lot of work for efficiency's sake.

Edit: I should really start reading the posts above me.

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I have a fetish for all things Norse.

[Linkus]

The model's concept is interesting but there are some pitfalls.
The overuse of bevelling and smoothing. I use Wings3D and I know it's very easy to just hit bevel or smooth to make the ship look better.
I can see you used it to make some nice curves but in reality, Freelancer ships aren't that curvy. The most curvy are Bretonian and Zoner ships.
This ship is pretty organic looking, like a Bretonian ship.

Unfortunately I have to agree with Hades point about it looking like multiple meshes put together and with Turkish that the polycount is already looking excessive.

Keep at it.
Solve the technical problems.
Take a look at the 4.86 ship thread for shipline inspiration.

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Facilitating the rise of robotics since 0 A.D.

[Durandal]

From a strictly non technical standpoint since Hades/Turkish/Linkus have already covered that, I'm not seeing any Hessian esque geometry in the thing. Infact aesthetics wise it's reminiscent of the Zephyr. Makes me think CR instantly.

[Luis]

I sense EXCESSIVE polycount over 9000!

[tansytansey]

1. Already a Hessian BS.

There's already a Hessian battleship

I think when it comes down to it, it's not first come first served, but who can produce the model that suits better.

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