A continuation on the saucer project.
This prototype have full atmospheric and orbital flight capabilities (including thrust reversal), energy shields, and two "Galestorm" light rail repeaters for dogfighting purposes. The landing gears are removed as they will be replaced by landing legs in later updates.
Link: "Proxima" Starfighter Prototype
beautiful alien plane
@Greggory005 Right, one thing: ever heard of the Vol Noor? For some reason I'm unconsciously making the starfighter more and more similar to its design with every revision...
@ThomasRoderick i agree, it is a fetish
@Greggory005 You should know that I wanted to build pseudo-saucers (aka saucers w/ fins and cockpits and guns and whatnot) since like seven years ago. Glad to see another guy sharing the same fetish.
P.S. Did I just call my fondness for such designs a fetish?
P.P.S. Yes I did.
im also prob gonna use this as an enemy ship in my 3d animation shorts >:-)
(-if actually ever complete them that is)
Saucers make me go YES
@AndrewS4 Thanks!
@Treadmill103 New update: the mortar will be replaced by a 5" railgun with a muzzle velocity of mach 10 - because hitting anything other than a ground emplacement with a mortar is hard, and you don't really need to use a 16" gun to fire a tactical nuke with the yield of 30 tons anyways. Plus, now we can get more rounds inside that thing and that I have a cyberpunk-looking 120mm railgun since quite a while (as in 2.5 years) ago.
@spefyjerbf What I'm thinking is that a searing reentry would damage the weapons, so they need to be stowed, but I sorta like the Vol Noor's outline, so...
Also, I'm starting to wonder whether I should keep the gauss mortar or should I simply use a bomb bay and stuff it with missiles that functions both as atmospheric cruise missiles and space torpedoes. The latter one is more sane of a solution (and shows off more coding), of course, but there's a je ne sais quoi about snapping a capital ship in half with an unguided TACTICAL NUKE... (yes I'm thinking about star-age dive bombers)
It honestly depends what you are going for. If you want sleeker aerodynamics, you should go for a retracting sort of deal. You can also have the guns integrated into the hull (the barrel barely pokes out of the ship).
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However, if you want to show off your cool guns, then leave them outside of the hull!
@ThomasRoderick : Thanks for the vote of the f4u.If you want to see more of ww2,I just posted something new right now.I hope you like it.
@Treadmill103 @YourCrush @Spefyjerbf One quick question: should the front railguns be retracted into the hull when they are deactivated?
@ThomasRoderick YESSSSS
@Yourcrush Thanks!
@Ferrolon Used to. Loved the aesthetics of the Tyrant-class gunship (yeah I call them gunships as for me battleships need to have multiple turrets, so Overlord and Megalodon counts but Tyrant does not). And I might make a build inspired by it one day.
@spefyjerbf But IIRC you still need to manuver in space to actually fight... How I wish that we can get longer radar ranges in SP...
BASED ON YOUR GRAVATAR, DO YOU PLAY EVENT HORIZON????
I suppose that’s true. Thankfully there is no drag in space!
@spefyjerbf Not necessarily extra parts, given this thing had four drive units by itself... That said, I'll add more levels in between for the next update to get six forward levels and a reverse. And that you only need one cannon for each level, but a baseline "Nelan" impulse thruster requires three parts (a fuselage and two gatling guns, my own designs actually use four gatling guns for each level), so cannons are much more part efficient. The reason why I don't use cannons? First, because the drive designs were there with me since two years ago so the tech is mature; and second, cannons cannot be used if you're using missiles as well: instant relock missiles like the IMPULSE and the IMPULSE PRIME would stop functioning the second you switch to a cannon-based thruster, and frantically switching between rail repeaters and thrusters is not quite my idea of fun either. The capacity to shoot on the move with a cannon-thruster means a gun-based approach, but that also meant you now need separate AGs for each and every type of weapon.
Good observation. That’s ok though - just some extra parts.
@WrongFlyer Thanks!
@Treadmill103 @YourCrush @TomekHellFire Now with dogfighting abilities! Note: use slow motion, and be easy on the controls.
@spefyjerbf Now with throttable impulse drives! Three forward thrust levels and a reverse!
That said, the impulse cores on this craft are accumulative (Throttle > 0 on the first one, Throttle > 0.5 on the second, Throttle=1 on the third), but IIRC that won't do on a cannon-based approach, so the codes actually need to be exclusive instead of accumulative.