stock models, reasons for the terrifying method

[Nemrav]

EEK....

This was a flt-200 fuel tank.... What I would like to know it why it was made like this in all these different pieces ? was it for uv texturing ?

[nli2work]

who knows... it's just an MU import though. doesn't mean the original was done this way.

[noonespecial]

It probably had an "Edge Split" modifier on the model to make the edges look cleaner before it was exported.

[Yarbrough08]

It probably had an "Edge Split" modifier on the model to make the edges look cleaner before it was exported.

Yeah, Unity's smoothing is subpar and does not accept smoothing groups from most modeling programs (at least in my expierences). Splitting edges into separate elements provides the best look sometimes.