Actually the Hellion has some intakes on the left front, and purge vents on the top rear, this was for cooling internal systems via convection while flying through an atmosphere. However, my intention with this was purely aesthetic, there were no gameplay intentions involved in the design, as not every small ship will have such design features.
Even if heat management was introduced into the game, there’s no reason that every should would have to have such features. Knowing that this is a feature unique to the Hellion (and ships X, Y, and Z, but no others) introduces the possibility of coming up with other cooling systems for other ships.
Not all cars have turbochargers, not all cars run on gasoline engines, etc.
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Before the CAD software topic is completly cooled out here… i am learning Rhinoceros right now, is it usefull -or can it be used for modding, game development? Or is solidworks/ 3dsmax still a better choice for these purposes?
I’ve only used Rhino 3D very sparingly for some translation testing, but it looked like a top notch package.
My first choice for modeling (especially hard surface HP meshes) is solid modeling packages such as Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks. My first choice for a polygonal modeler is 3DS MAX, mainly due to the fact I have like 15 years exp with Inventor/MAX.
CAD meshes can be difficult to get into polygonal packages if you’re looking for a specific mesh tessellation, you’re at the mercy of the converter, and there is no SubD modeling on CAD packages. However, CAD packages are more precise, and you can generally create more realistic hard surface meshes as opposed to a polygonal modeler. Another benefit of solid modelers is the instant booleans, you can make a mesh out of an assembly of various mashes, and with one click, merge them into a single mesh, all perfectly trimmed and manifold. No one package is the best, and generally artists use a combination of many software packages to author assets.
In the end it is a preference issue. However, in terms of getting a mesh ready for a game engine, 3DS MAX is still the standard, and fbx is the format of choice for the I-Novae Engine in terms of importing meshes, bones, animations, etc.
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Yay, for doodling generic looking starfold ships again! I kinda miss working on Infinity contributions 
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I’m going to spam this thread with stuff if no one else does 
Big brother of the guy above, this time in traditional.
Glad to see someone keeping it at the top of the forum. By the way, is that a (not quite) VLS rocket pod on the side of “big brother”? Bit hard to make out on my screen.
As for the recent off-topic.
Could be a form of rock/paper/scissor style balancing. Some small ships would have convection-type cooling giving them an edge in an atmosphere at the cost of a bit of mass to be dragged around everywhere, some would have external radiators giving them a boost both in and out of atmo at the cost of increased vulnerability, some would have holes for ejecting coolant-pellets at an angle to their trajectory to double as flares but only in limited numbers, and the rest would take the present-time approach of using propellant as coolant before expelling it in a somewhat diffuse cone behind them offering no specific benefits or drawbacks (or visible design characteristics).
In short, it would make your choice of ship within a size-classification actually matter, as opposed to every other space game I’ve ever played.
If you mean the six diagonal things on the side, those were meant to be ejectable heat storage units. Mounting missiles or mines in place would be nice, but dunno if Infinity is still sticking to full hardpoint based weaponry or not. With a little modification it could act as a single dronebay for small drones (mining drones / scanning satelies). So that’s kind of the modular part where you can fit different functionality on the ship.
At the moment, yes, we are.
Kichae, why are you not setting these guys straight as far as thermodynamics? Disposable heat Sinks? Convection cooling, what? This reads like a bad televison program. Almost like Star Trek where every other week they jettison the warp core. Is heat management that bad you’d want to do something like eject a heat sink? Jeez guys, just do it the way god intended. a open cycle, regenerative cooling system, like a jet engine or rocket engine!
I see all these stupidly numerous, large rocket bells on proposed designs and I assume some thermally active mass is coming out. right? Are any of you guys the type to think that it is all electrons coming out of that huge bell? That’s thermal power being dumped! That is the kind of stuff that would melt your rocket engine. How do you think your rocket doesn’t explode from all that heat? - the same way your whole spaceship doesn’t. You eject the heat along with the bathwater (reaction mass). This is not even elementary thermodynamics and yet people can’t figure it out.
If you are the type that relies on a SPACESHIP(!!!) to dip into atmosphere to cool off, you are doing the game wrong. If you are the type that uses disposable heat sinks as a thermal management system, you are doing it wrong. If you have friggen air scoops on a spaceship at all, you are doing it wrong (unless it also has air breathing ability). The only ways to properly get rid of heat is radiate it through (gulp) heat fins. or to dump it out the butt along with whatever you are using fro reaction mass. Unless you want to invent some weird techno babble which is also a can of worms. You don’t “bank it” and eject it later, that’s not the way it works. Instead you use that super cold, cryogenic hydrogen or marshmallows to cool your electronics, and everything else and then dump it into the reaction chamber.
Finally VLS or death! (or a beer)
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I thought Infinity’s ships used magic for sub-light propulsion… there is no reaction mass to expel otherwise one might run out?
I was under the impression that we are making a space game here. But I’m surprised the cooling is the one thing you got all mad about. Don’t you notice something else? Like a glaring giant design flaw in every single Infinity ship there is? If I wanted to make combat spaceships, putting a giant cockpit on it seems to be kinda dumb. Not to mention having any living things inside. I mean really, humans in a combat vessel? Pressurized interior? W the actual F? Who in the right mind would do that kind of stuff? It’s vulnerable, it’s a ton of unnecessary mass. Not only could you solve the same AI in a tiny computer, you’d need to store highly flammable oxygen inside your ship. In space the lack of atmosphere means that stuff burns much harder, (if you even call that “burning”) which is one of the few advantages of low pressure environments, putting huge tanks of flammable oxigen in your spaceship is straight up retarded.
As hrobertson already mentioned, as far as I’m aware Infinity ships don’t use actual physical fuel to manoeuvre. So yeah nearly every aspect of your modern space game opens up a giant can of worms. I just can’t take your rant seriously there. 
(Note: And what that design is about, has nothing to do with Ruinat’s post about different cooling menthods. The idea is that radiation trough panels is painfully slow compared to the amout of heat your uber-space-lazers generate.)
Edit: Also what’s up with the obsession about VLS? I don’t get it…
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Oh, for the love of… You realize that bridge position is the least of Delver’s design worries, right? He’s not going to be happy with anything, because none of the space ships are going to end up looking like they were marketed discreetly as personal massagers.
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You are both terribly wrong. While you guys are here panting over every possible, crenulated looking rocket engine, here on IRC we have spent, literally minutes talking about these very issues. How to handle cockpits. What’s the point of h00manZ in a A.I. dominated universe? What is a space fighter? How big should things be? Why are there no brothels? All these and many more are discussed endlessly on bathroom breaks. I’ll hit up on hrobertson’s response.
Of course one might run out. Do you think giant rocket engine bell housings are reaction jets? I do. They obviously appear to handle a great amount of material of some kind that pass through them (maybe magic?). So either the Design Document is full of dookie about having reactionless engines or the modelers/developers just think everything needs more jet nozzles just because. So why not just use… er… “grav plates”? yeah, that’s the ticket. Or maybe paint them with Cavorite.
I have to say you’ve got a point. Of course in a universe with FTL communications, it would be trivial to put a sensor array in the nose, a low grade A.I. in the belly and a FTL transceiver in the butt and control everything from your home planet, right? That’s where the game designers differ though. The developers do not want strong A.I. They can even invent a good reason plot-wise not to have strong A.I. After-all ‘Dune’ did that. Unless you want some sort of post singularity universe where the A.I.s are the dominant sophont then you are sort of stuck with meat people. Meat people must pilot ships. Meat people are the only ones qualified for a shoot/don’t shoot scenario.
Meat people must be used like meat people throughout all the ages of mankind. To make dumb decisions and then to later regret it or write memoirs about it. That’s just what meat does. That’s why you have to have a carrier craft send little baby craft that go out and get blown up so they can send even smaller, unmanned craft to blow up themselves. there is a sense in there if you ignored FTL communications and the desire for strong A.I…
That’s why we need a cockpit. Sure a cockpit is problematic but meat people like to be able to see out. I just have concerns with a little 20-30 tonne spaceship being useful for anything.
Of course I’m just making noise!
Cans of worms are terrible things. you open one up and they get all over the place. slithering about. You can never get them back in the can. Often requiring ever more elaborate means of exposition and fractured reasoning why one game decision seems to conflict with another game decision. Why for instance you have a fusion reactor that normally under physical law must produce LOTS of heat (many gigawatts worth) and produce waste gases and energy byproducts but somehow uses no fuel and produces no thrust and produces no heat or at least not enough to require giant space fins (which as we all know all true space rockets have). It just produces magic electricity which is dumped into giant rocket engines that require a even more giant rocket bell.
Now here is my submission. Everyone knows they really want to do it, so go for it. Change the ship design so it actually does use a reactionless drive. dump all but one rocket engine. make vents for the effluent of helium and dangerous particles and then design some sort of gravity plates or special paint or spines or widgets and then make sure combat adheres to whatever limitations you place on it. At least one is embracing the desire we all want. we can dump the whole old fashioned idea of rockets and flames and RCS and make them more like a good science fiction book. I’d be quite happy with a modified version of the Matrix film’s Hovercraft.
Also add VLS
Also use trusses. Because I like trusses even more than capped cylinders.
I’d take a modified ‘Valley Forge’ any day.
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I’m looking forward to your mod!
Wait, I just realised, we’ve been talking about how VLS is an absolute must, but “vertical” is defined as the direction “locally aligned with the gradient of the gravity field” - that would require forcing all spaceships to align themselves to a certain direction being “down” in order to use their VLS!
To prevent this from becoming necessary, I propose we forthwith refer to the system as Perpendicular To Primary Propulsion Axis Launch System or PTPPALS.
I agree. Also, missiles on current Vertical launch System equipped ships don’t need to “align to target” especially since their target is still 100-25km away. It would be the same for a space combat missile. It’s not like an airstream is going to interfere with launch right?
PitPals
works for me.
Personally I like the borg design. It doesn’t look pretty, but it’s highly functional, maximizes space, and is easier to build. You don’t need to worry about aerodynamics in space, and the modular design makes for easy repair. Spheres are another option (“that’s no moon!”)
While I couldn’t get my old account back, I do want to say, Timmon, your work has really improved. And it was already fantastic to begin with.
Please do yourself a favor and become a pro if you haven’t already. 
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Somehow thought of the old buildings contribution thread again - would anyone be up for a collaboration? Would be fun to make some 3dmodels and textures if anyone has (or could create - I’d do it myself, but I haven’t drawn any concepts in a long time) any good building concepts! =)