It is possible and works, but it is not very practical. I was working with a guy on shattered worlds who tried this. What he did was make a flat object the model for the tractor beam (Which function as an ID like it does here at discovery). It suffered from 3 flaws,
1) Your Tractor beam come from your logo
2) To have multiple logo you must have multiple mounts for that item, activating more then one tractor beam causes a crash to the desktop near every time.
3) most importantly, the logo will not become visible to other players until they are within 30 m of your ship, and the image can glitch. A flat object is almost impossible to align against the hull so that it appears seemless.
Considering how hard it would be to make without any glitches, and how close you would have to be to see the logo, I'd say this isn't worth the trouble.
So do it as a seperate hull model for each class of civilian fighter, make it just slightly larger than the original model (but not noticably bigger) so it covers the plain hull, then make it mountable in the same way a cargo pod on a transport/train is. Voila! New factionized paintjobs!
(Yes, I'm aware that it's more complicated than I've said, but I don't see why it wouldn't work...)
' Wrote:something I wouldn't mind seeing is faction specific colors and patterns for various factions to use on civilian ships, like the Eagle or Starblazer. You could do it as a mountable thing like a cargo pod, and make it specific for each civvie ship class.
It would be a lot of work, but I think it would be cool.
Good idea, would just be easier to re-do the skin on civy ships, the main ship name, and sell the redone ship at a appropriate base.
Huh...oh my example was a mountable logo that was layed on top of a surface.
A "Faction" paint job is only doable by giving the ship a different mat file, and new code. Essentially you would have two of the same ship, but with a diferent paint job. IE The katamaran.
' Wrote:maybe if we sell an item that replaced the actual texture?
This is exactly what I suggested...make it a mountable item that looks just like the ship itself, but is actually a mountable item like a cargo pod is.
Still going to be plauged by teh draw distance flaw. Has anyone ever flown at a PC train and seen the pod suddenly appear. That is what will happen. It would bugger up combat something fierce.