Militarized Freelancer Ships

[Korolia]

Before starting this topic, allow me to ask you; what is Freelancer style?
It's something I've wondered years ago when I first started to work on a FL server development team (That would be, really, really back then, when we didn't had to use all these fancy tricks to get a server working...)

Well, my answer to this fundamental question;
Freelancer is all about stereotypes. What we have here is a flight simulator with our actual nations, but put in the future. To make everything recognizable, the developers of Freelancer introduced us with ships that reminded us of obvious cultural references of each nations they represent, at their most prominent period of time.

Many would, I believe, confuse Freelancer style with the -way- ships have been modeled; and that is more commonly understood as simple, block designs. I am not quite certain as to the explanation of this blocky design - maybe to save polygons, or to make some parts more prominent. This said, in reality, such designs probably would work just fine in space - after all, aerodynamics have very little to do when you are in space... but, flying a block isn't quite what I'd consider the fanciest thing around.

Freelancer ships were both pleasing and disgusting to my eyes. There has been, too many cultural references stuffed in forcefully into beautiful designs and we are given basically what I'd call, a "flying cultural shoebox". When you see a Bretonian battleship, the most common answer is, a lobster coupled with a ship of the line. When you see a Kusari fighter, you think, dragon, which is all very fine and fancy, but that's not quite -realist-, isn't it. They all look like stuffs you'd drive for a ship convention meeting, each bringing in the fanciest thing to represent their nation. They aren't -militarized-. They aren't fit for combat.

And this is what my work is about. Turning Freelancer fighters into -fighters-, not fancy cars, all the while trying to keep as many of the cultural - and time reference Freelancer tried to build around.

Liberty Defender

Defender frame, cockpit set as a fighter plane one, much less vulnerable. Wings are built within frame - the projected Liberty Patriot, acting as a short range interceptor for the navy would have modular wings.

Rheinland Valkyrie

Heavily modified, weapon modules in the nose of the craft, propulsion on each wings and engine at the rear.

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[Geeky]

About the defender.. The reason the cockpit is like that is to let the pilot have ALOT of viewspace around him/her. The reasoning for making the defender As-is is that when you fold the wings inward, you get something resembling a torpedo.. which i suspect was highly intentional. If you have a torpedo shaped ship, you can simply put it in the larger ships torpedo tube and launch it that way. No landing pad needed.

Same with the valkyrie you made.. the cockpit is now set between the two pods denying the pilot to see any direction but forward backward and up.

[Korolia]

Cockpits aren't too useful with electronics, unless your electronic goes down. You can track an enemy craft without watching what is possibly below you. The truth is, you only need to see what is in front of you because nobody is going to turn their guns at 90 degree in any direction to shoot something. Minimizing fragile parts of a fighter is critical in its survival. A bubble cockpit is only good for tourism I'd think.

Concerning Fold wings; again, let's remember that the Defender is the heavy variant of Liberty fighters. A modular wing means augmented fragility of a craft (and this is why some contemporary aircrafts have a "Navy" version of themselves, with folding wings to make storage easier). I thought I should pass this trait down to the patriot, a lighter craft meant for interception which doesn't rely so much on solidity.

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There is no bathroom!

[Beagle23]

I'm a big big fan of simple, more sleek, jet-like designs for ships, and for that reason there are very few ships I truly like the look of in FL. The Charon, the Eagle, perhaps even the Nyx, these are some of the few ships in Disco I like things like. The Sabre and the Titan are far on the other end of my tastes, too abstract. The same with Capitals, I like designs reminiscent of big, powerful warships - the Gallic ships, the Sarissa, the Coalition Destroyer... I love those looks. I hate the really abstract, unattractive designs. The Starflea is perhaps my number one hate, it's like a flying head with ears.

This is basically a lot of setup and preamble to say the following - if those two models you've posted and more models similar to them ever got into Disco, I would die of joy. I think they're absoloutely beautiful. I would join whatever faction got a hold of them just to fly them every day. That said, I don't think a lot of people share my tastes, and something tells me you'll get a lot more critics than supporters for this style of design.

For me, however, these models are absoloutely gorgeous, and I would wait on you hand and foot to use them.

[tansytansey]

First thoughts:
Planes in space =/= spaceships.

The designs of Vanilla Ships is actually quite brilliant, especially for their time. They may be low poly, but they're not exactly low quality. Their textures are certainly quite detailed, even more detailed than the ones you've posted here.

Aethstetically, I'd rate the Vanilla ships superior to the ones you've posted here.

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[Dantrithor]

Cockpits aren't too useful with electronics, unless your electronic goes down. You can track an enemy craft without watching what is possibly below you. The truth is, you only need to see what is in front of you because nobody is going to turn their guns at 90 degree in any direction to shoot something.

That's not true. Today's fighter crafts, with all their fancy electronics, try to give the pilot a huge field of view. Things like short-range dogfights with HMS and high maneuverability missiles (Like Archer, or Aim-9X) allow the pilot to actually shoot something at a real 90? deg while pulling high-G maneuvers, and favors those who can actually see what's behind them.

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[Revan]

That's not true. Today's fighter crafts, with all their fancy electronics, try to give the pilot a huge field of view. Things like short-range dogfights with HMS and high maneuverability missiles (Like Archer, or Aim-9X) allow the pilot to actually shoot something at a real 90? deg while pulling high-G maneuvers, and favors those who can actually see what's behind them.

I am going to go ahead and say, spaceships shouldn't have to look anything like planes, because there is no wind resistance, no need for wings - and definitely no need for any torpedo style body because again no resistance, so in my opinion ships like the sabre make sense.

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[Beagle23]

I am going to go ahead and say, spaceships shouldn't have to look anything like planes, because there is no wind resistance, no need for wings - and definitely no need for any torpedo style body because again no resistance, so in my opinion ships like the sabre make sense.

They shouldn't have to, but they can.

Because it looks cool.

[Sabre120]

I like the idea of the scientifically feasible designs, but as it's a game I want something much more aesthetically abstract, which is why I much prefer the vanilla ships.

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[jxie93]

I prefer irregualrily, asymetrically shaped ships rather than "airplanes in space".

Spacecraft, hell any craft in existence, is not about looking cool, it's all about performance.

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