Nah! I'll not bother with piccies again then, I'm too long in the tooth to faff about with third party hosting sites and more privacy policies.
I second what Peter Conway stated. I also have no intention of setting up a third-party image hosting account just to share images here. Not worth the trouble for one, and using third-party image hosting for forums ultimately will lead to many broken image links down the road as those third-party hosting accounts go away (seen that numerous times over the years). Essentially, by requiring the use of a third-party host for images, you have killed off this forum. I can only assume this new requirement is related to limited Storage allocation for the forums. Storage is cheap nowadays, you really should have just increased the available capacity rather than requiring the use of a third-party service, which just causes grief for your patrons and leads to other issues down the road. I visited the forum today to share some images/info with the forum members; instead I am replying to your post since I apparently am not able to post pics anymore. I feel this will be my last post on these forums.
I realized that I have not made a new SV in over a year, and I never made a SV that matched my "Escort" series. So I saved a junk blueprint of the Osanshouo, converted it to a SV using the prefabinfo command, and got to work. It is a pain nowadays converting a CV to a SV, you have to manually remove ALL devices from the build. Once you have only the shell remaining you have to convert all the large blocks to small blocks using the replaceblocks command. I also had an additional goal of making sure it would fit through a 5x3 hangar door. It took me quite a few hours, but I got it done and it fits. (It's a paint scraper, but it fits.) In the screnshot below I have it docked to the roof of the build I started with.
Kitbashing again. Now that we have airtight ramps I wanted to make a carrier using them. So I took an unpublished variant from the escort series and started tweaking. As usual for me, the original and where I am currently am with the retrofit.
Would be nice, but (as far as I know) the games AI would consider their line of sight to be blocked even when the ramps are open. I am currently shooting for fly-through hangars. They are giving me an opening similar in size to the 6x3 hangar doors. (sigh) but with a lot less HP.
I like the carrier-like additions. Plus having thrusters that far away from center will help with turning/agility.
I think I have the basic shape done, now to the part I hate. Trying to make it more visually interesting and not a flying lunchbox. The 4-year old Janus light carrier was the last time I made something with comparably sized hangars, so I have been referencing it for ideas. I am also debating on cutting the sides off and attaching them to a smaller ship for the middle of it. (Maybe the center is too wide.)
Sides, sides, sides... I always put hangars on the sides... What if I put one on top? Start off with a Barracuda, copy the hangar from the side of my current project, remove the roof from the Barracuda and replace it with the hangar.... Many hours later... (original on the left)
Now that the experimental branch has gone public I had a release-a-paloza today. Today I uploaded 9 CV's, 1 SV, and 1 HV to the workshop. As always with me, constructive feedback is welcome, and I do not mind if you modify my design and re-post the build. As long as you give me credit for the original in your notes. Escort Series of builds
Yesterday, I finished a new long-range interceptor, by wrapping a fighter around a shield and warp drive. My appreciation to VFA-103 for contributing the livery. Today, I just need to come up with a name for the thing. Sometimes that takes longer than the actual building.
Thanks! ...and an excellent observation. I'm glad you mentioned it. The cockpit block height dimensions were important for both the shaping and livery: 2-block vs. 3-block height has a significant impact on the design. Keep in mind position of the nose gear and front/rear beveling of this particular cockpit option. I settled in on "Corsair Interceptor" for the name. Seemed a good fit for the role and naval history.
Indeed, you should! I had to plan that one pretty carefully so it would still fit through hangar doors.
Kit bashing again today. The original could haul 10 SV's, 6 CV's, & 4 HV's. (depending on the size of the builds) Rough draft, I simply doubled the side hangars. Something people would use in game or am I pushing the limits of absurdity with this flying lunchbox?
Continuing to work on the expanded carrier I have (for now) called the Leviathan. (101 blocks wide) I am really having issues working around the Tier 4 CPU limitations and have had to remove the T2 RCS units that were present in the original build so I could add more thrusters to it. At 85 Kt (103 with the current load on it) it corners like a sleepy turtle. But since I prioritized the vertical thrust over the other vectors it is to be expected. At least it can vertically take off on a 4g planet with 10 CV's in the cargo bays. I have been debating on replacing the combat steel with armored steel to help get the weight down. Still tweaking, spawning all the SV's and HV's I can cram into it. Lets hope having all those builds docked to it does not crash the game. I have also been concerned that something like this is too large for players use. Good luck finding an area large and flat enough to land it. Or the resources needed to build it. Also, I have seen items stop rendering when I am standing on one side of the hangar and I am looking at the other. ... and I have the graphics set to max. At least I kept it down to the two gravity generators and did not have to add more of them.
The Leviathan has been uploaded to the workshop. Here is a size comparison with it's sister ship, the Cerulean Carrier. Besides the size differences, the thrusters have been reworked and the gravity generators have been removed from the sides and are now located inside the hangars. I also had to replace the T2 RCS units with T1 RCS units because of the CPU limitations. Liftoff tested on a 4G planet with 33 builds docked.
