[WIP] FTL: Faster Than Light - Kestrel Cruiser

[Cooly568]

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Edited February 9, 2019 by Cooly568

[Neutrinovore]

I'm interested in this one! As long as you create some interesting shapes and contours on the bottom surface that match the look of the top, this will be a really awesome ship. If I may put in a few requests/suggestions, I'd like to see some kind of ramp door at the rear leading to a fairly large cargo bay, and also some good rugged landing gear that blend smoothly into the bottom surface when retracted. Again, just requests.

Also, I don't know if you're planning to have multiple parts, or just do an all-in-one ship that has everything including engines and landing gear built in. There are arguments for and against both methods, but either way, this will still be a nifty ship if and when completed.

I look forward to watching this project as it progresses, my friend!

[blackheart612]

Nice! You can base of the bottom of those from those on the title screen. BTW, the Kestrel's Engine might not be like that. You see it's like it has the hull holding/clamping it instead of the regular attached design

[Cooly568]

I'm interested in this one! As long as you create some interesting shapes and contours on the bottom surface that match the look of the top, this will be a really awesome ship. If I may put in a few requests/suggestions, I'd like to see some kind of ramp door at the rear leading to a fairly large cargo bay, and also some good rugged landing gear that blend smoothly into the bottom surface when retracted. Again, just requests.

Also, I don't know if you're planning to have multiple parts, or just do an all-in-one ship that has everything including engines and landing gear built in. There are arguments for and against both methods, but either way, this will still be a nifty ship if and when completed.

I look forward to watching this project as it progresses, my friend!

This is what the back looks like right now.

I'm going to make it a airlock-ish thing, because if you look at the game's layout of the ship, the back has an airlock which leads to the engine room.

About multiple parts, I want to make it more than one, and make the ship actually hollow, so your crew can walk around the interior of the ship.

I can imagine the ship having landing gear, and it's going to get more detailed as I go on and it gets textured.

If I can, there are some things I want to do with this modding project as well, they are...

Learn how to mod IVA's in.

Make compatible with KSP Interstellar. (so you could actually use this ship as FTL transport)

And learn attachment nodes.

If I can get the Kestrel working I would personally like to get on to some of the other ships in the game like the Kruos or the Nesasio.

[CaptainKipard]

AW! You beat me to it! I wish you luck although I'm really not a fan of hollow structures.

Your models has a LOT more faces than it needs.

The latest FTL update came with some artwork showing this ship from a perspective point of view. Are you using that for reference?

Edited May 12, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Deathsoul097]

My my my, 32K tris! You may want to lower that a little if you want more than 1 frame per hour. And by a little I mean a lot. And by a lot, I mean ridiculously. It looks awesome, but at a tri count that high, this will be unplayable.

[ahappydude]

My my my, 32K tris! You may want to lower that a little if you want more than 1 frame per hour. And by a little I mean a lot. And by a lot, I mean ridiculously. It looks awesome, but at a tri count that high, this will be unplayable.

Amen, its the sad truth, also have you thought about making it in sort of modular fashion? So we can make the ship hw big or small as we like it? Still a great idea and your prgress is good!

[blackheart612]

Well, I sure hope you texture it remastered:

[Cooly568]

AW! You beat me to it! I wish you luck although I'm really not a fan of hollow structures.

Your models has a LOT more faces than it needs.

The latest FTL update came with some artwork showing this ship from a perspective point of view. Are you using that for reference?

I personally don't like the way the Kestrel is portrayed in a different perspective by the people who actually made the game, and I'm going more for what I think the ship looks like.

My my my, 32K tris! You may want to lower that a little if you want more than 1 frame per hour. And by a little I mean a lot. And by a lot, I mean ridiculously. It looks awesome, but at a tri count that high, this will be unplayable.

Since I run a pretty beefy computer I focus on creating the part first, and then just before I release it I simplify the part and remove a lot of excess vertices, tris, and faces.

I've run 65000+ vertices on my computer, so performance isn't too much of a matter to me, just optimization is something I do before I would release it.

Amen, its the sad truth, also have you thought about making it in sort of modular fashion? So we can make the ship hw big or small as we like it? Still a great idea and your prgress is good!

Making the Kestrel modular enough to be made into custom ships would most likely very hard and out of my league, maybe I could make parts that are modular and resemble FTL later.

Well, I sure hope you texture it remastered:

-snip-

I'm going to be texturing it close to what it is portrayed as in the game.

[Cooly568]

Tonight I did a bit of work on the engines and general model refining, and dropped the tri count significantly.

[blackheart612]

I'm going to be texturing it close to what it is portrayed as in the game.

Well... it'll be my job to re-texture it when it's finished for... personal preferences he he he.

[The Destroyer]

Lookin' good cooly!

[Cooly568]

I played around with a really quickly patched together texture and Unity setup today.

[The Destroyer]

Very cool looking.

Will these be a "INFINITE FUEL WARP DRIVE YEAH" ship or some sort of actual "Balenced" ship?

[Cooly568]

I'm aiming for something that is fully functional and balanced on the KSP Interstellar level.

I'm also aiming for a compatibility/reliance on KSP Interstellar.

[PolecatEZ]

Since I run a pretty beefy computer I focus on creating the part first, and then just before I release it I simplify the part and remove a lot of excess vertices, tris, and faces.

I've run 65000+ vertices on my computer, so performance isn't too much of a matter to me, just optimization is something I do before I would release it.

From the look of it, you could easily bust that thing into about 5 or 6 modular parts at < 700 tris each (engines will use the most). With the right shaders, you won't lose much detail.

I'm looking forward to having more than just B9 stuff in the game, so if you need any help with the Unity setups or configs, or chopping it into modular parts/morphing new ones, send me a PM. Blackheart is quite the busybody with texturing, so it looks like you're in good hands there.

[CaptainKipard]

Even 700 per part looks high. I don't think there's any need for it. This ship is clearly made of large flat pieces.

[PolecatEZ]

Even 700 per part looks high. I don't think there's any need for it. This ship is clearly made of large flat pieces.

He's got a pretty heavy bevel that goes around curves, but a good edge cut/smoothing combo could cut it down. He might hit 700 per engine if the details go up (toriodals around the engine bells, for example).

[Tetriswizard]

Logged in just to say, bro look at that shading, theres more to pixel art than just a silhouette.

Remember that there is light direction, and shading. the light level indicates the slope/direction/level of the area.

Also keep those engine nacelles round, they're seperate from the ship body, and look at some Kestrel pictures on the internet, none of them look like yours.

Another tip, not a good idea to use curvy splines, as they increase your polycount by the handful and even a dozen polygons can affect a computers performance enough to make a difference.

also that's 729 poly's, 1254 points, and 28 individual objects.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Tetriswizard

[xEvilReeperx]

Just for your guys' reference, the 78-part stock Kerbal-X on the launchpad has

• 31k vertices
  
• 57k faces
  

So keeping face and vertex limits to the basic part level is kind of silly unless these are going to be mini-Kestrels you link together to pull your rocket like it was Santa's sled