Well, the fins are backswept and have a inward dihedral, so they're not strictly vertical. I did a search of batplanes, and nothing found vaguely resembles this as a whole concept OR just the fins.

So I have no clue where you're coming from, Lecter.

IRS, yep, that's what it looks like. I wish they could have at least made it look like it had some teeth, though. Seriously, when I looked at that, my first thought was "Oh, cool, this game has space tugboats. Great concept."

I just saw what Lecter was talking about- if you crop away the lower portion of the last image until most of the front and underside are gone, what's left looks oddly like batman's mask. The 'ears' are a bit off, but otherwise, the resemblance is uncanny. It'll probably cease to be an issue once textures are applied so we get a better sense of its size.

That's uncanny.

Well, just about any other viewing angle will bugger that up, and yeah, the textures are going to throw it off a ton.

Make the whole thing jet black, I bet the problem will go away.

I didn't see it, and I like it. It needs some textures and protrusions to make it look like it means business and can spit death in addition to being sleek, but I like it.

I have to be pretty careful if I'm going to make it look more military oriented, given the fluff background. Either way, I've got the UV map almost finished. It's been giving me fits. No less than twenty separate parts to the map.

damn, i wonder how big a dreadnought would be on here?

/me drools

Miharu does have a valid point about craft design in the game; the game operates entirely in space, outside an atmosphere. A design like the Marauder reflects this; it is a collection of boxes and thrusters with no effort at streamlining, because without air there is NO POINT in streamlining.

So, pretty though they are, wings and struts serve no purpose and should be discarded. Unless it has a thruster or a weapon on it, or is strengthening, it has no purpose being on a spacecraft.

Built to this design, a Centaur would be an ugly long collection of struts, a main engine at the back, weapons mounts fairly central along with battery/reactor and manoevering thrusters tacked on as appropriate. The cockpit would have to be a bubble, more or less, to give the pilot maximum visibility.

Any shrouding would be there purely to protect vulnerable systems against weapons hits; not armour so much as burnable shielding, designed so repair techies can simply rip the old off, stick new sheeting on and recycle the debris.

So, go look at a Marauder. It ain't pretty, but it is designed for vacuum operations.

This is a game, not a flight simulator for training purposes, Wyrm. I couldn't care less about what a real spacecraft should look like.

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Actually, you couldn't care less, Lecter.

However, I would assume that some ships (such as the centaur) are meant for planetary maneuvering, while larger ships like the Moth, are not.

Similarly, small fighter such as the cent aren't really made for planets, while the vulture was originally developed for such purposes. (Back as a nightwing, or whatever)

Some of 'em are, some of 'em aren't