Yeah, that is cool technology there!
@Skyler - It would not matter what color you use on a spaceship it would not work as camouflage, it’s heat signature and em emissions would give it away long before it came into visual range.
@Khnum - Check this out. http://www.howstuffworks.com/invisibility-cloak.htm
Yeah, I’ve seen that one too, and it’s pretty cool! …
So back on track, how’s the ship’s design and texturing coming? Any new renders for us to see?
Haven’t had time to do much today just some basic modeling of the engines. I will start on the smaller details tonight or tomorrow morning so I should have a new update tomorrow afternoon. The only problem I have is that unlike conventional rocket engines that have all kinds of conduits and pipes on the outside VASIMR engines have all the details inside the casing.
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Sorry for the delay in updates I had problems with my pc so I decided to build a new system. After I put it all together and reinstalled the software I discovered that I had backed up everything except the Colonial frigate so I decided to use another freighter that I had started awhile back. So far I have only removed the cargo containers and added some guns.
@DDD - and anyone else interested I found two of the shows I mentioned, they were on the history channel not discovery, here are the links on youtube. This is space wars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WkJ0ib0w9M and this is colonizing space http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOkKut65pCo&feature=related also star wars tech is pretty cool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBW7Y1Qj94k
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Minor update added some shield emitters and a little detail to the main hatch. I’m going to work on the engines next.
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With the girders it has a nice Space 1999 feel to it…
Cujo
Personally, I wouldn’t bother with any sort camouflage painting. A pretty much any space-going ship is going to produce a huge amount of heat which can be detect. The website Atomic Rockets (a guide to writing hard science fiction) has more information on the subject.
Hey thanks for the vid links mate! I am glad you found them, pretty cool stuff, i am watching the last one now (the starwars)
@DDD - Your welcome if I find any more I will put up the link.
@Cujo31 - Thanks, the eagle’s are another sci-fi ship that are considered realistic by those aerospace engineers. I wish I could find that article it was very interesting.
Started working on the engine section, I like this better than the other version. Let me know what you think.
Thanks for the comments.
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Added fuel lines fuel pumps and electrical conduits. Next are the brackets that connect the tanks and engines to the girder.
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Here are some shots of the hull with the texture, not sure if I’m done with it yet. I need to adjust the uv’s some more.
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I was experimenting with a texture of mars and decided to do a render with the frigate in orbit. I need to find a higher resolution texture.
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The long metal array looks useless…
Here try this site for mars textures: http://planetpixelemporium.com/mars.html
I agree that the array does look out of place. Now if it was holding something, that would help the look. Just making it look a little more busy would help a lot, I would think.
About the support structure - I guess that’s for the cargo containers usually. How about some makeshift add-on fighter docks or some light gun batteries or something like it 
Otherwise it would make more sense just to cut it as it’s extra weight/size and that ain’t good for a military ship
The girder was originally there to hold containers, I’m posting a shot with the containers from the original model. I would not consider the girder useless considering it’s supporting 32 rail guns. In the story the conversion to combat ships was supposed to be temporary,
There will be more than one of these ships in the book some of them will have missile pods,
I need to make a texture for those guns.
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@DDD - In the last post I forgot to say that site is where I got the mars texture but it’s the lower res one, I do not have the money for the high res version at this time. Thanks anyway though.
I was going to work on the hull texture some more but I decided to start on the missile pod instead. Just the basic shape so far.
