Estee Luxury Yards Neptune Class Corvette

When civilian merchants complained that Estee Luxury wasn't making their powerful Pluto Class available on the open market, Estee went to the drawing board and designed the Neptune Class for commercial use. While not as deadly as the Pluto, this beautiful vessel is still a tough opponent. It is meant to serve as a civilian warship for independent merchants to protect convoys with and it serves its purpose well. Its moderately-sized cargo bay also allows it to be used as a light courier.

The Neptune is somewhat unique among the other ships in HOTS; it doesn't have a visible bridge. It's hidden inside the front 'nose' section along with most of the sensor equipment. While effective at protecting the bridge, this strategy also means the crew can't see what's outside should the bridge lose power. It's a risk, but one ELX felt necessary to take. Nevertheless, the Neptune comes with dorsal and ventral observation decks for worst case scenarios.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 09:10 PM

Estee Luxury Yards Pluto Class Frigate

Though the Estee Phobos is a hardy ship, something more substantial was needed to patrol Estee space for miscreants and ne'er-do-wells. This is what the ship designers at ELX came up with. Named for the Roman God of the Underworld, the Pluto's reputation has caused some pirates to simply turn tail an flee, fearing a possible meeting with their maker. Additionally, it carries two Estee Phobos Classes in a rear mounted Launch Bay. Such firepower must not be taken lightly, and as such the Estee Pluto is only available to high ranking Estee personnel and trusted outsiders.

Reputation aside, the Pluto is a solid vessel. It specializes in thick armour with average shielding and weapon loads. In combat it takes on larger warships and lets its Phobos loose, wreaking havoc on fighter formations. Against any lone warship, the Pluto hits head-on while the Phobos practice flanking maneuvers.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:49 PM

If you add a rear cockpit and scoot the wings back on the Venus it would make a nice fighter.

Estee Luxury Yards Mars Class Missile Frigate

Sometimes a few Tazers aren't enough to get rid of pirates, surprising as that may be. Recently, pirates have become so lethal that even Plutos are having a hard time protecting freight shipments. For this reason the Mars Class was created to give long range support against pirates and other hostile forces, distracting them while freight vessels make a getaway. To be able to purchase one means you have done something considered truly amazing and worthy of trust in the extreme.

Indeed, not even ELX's general employees are allowed to own a Mars Class. That privilege is reserved for captains in ELX's personal navy alone. This is in part due to the Mars' special sensor systems. Because it specializes in guided ordnance, it relies heavily on its sensors to track and lock onto hostile ships before firing on them. The Mars carries two entire sensor suites meant to quickly lock onto any target and cut though interference and jammers with ease. All this means in-game is the Mars comes with an invisible outfit allowing players to target cloaked ships while flying one.

This is the last ELX ship I will post. As I said before, two of ELX's designs are crucial to the storyline in HOTS. You'll have to wait till I finish the TC to see how they handle.

Spartan Jai, on Dec 3 2010, said:

If you add a rear cockpit and scoot the wings back on the Venus it would make a nice fighter.

Really? I don't see it. Then again, I wasn't going for 'fighter' when I designed it. All I'm saying is it's hard for me to get the idea of 'freighter' out of my head after having built it. Either way, the special engine part used on ELX ships isn't now nor will be in the future used on ships from any other group. So the chances of a fighter resembling the Venus are slim.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:48 PM

Oh yeah, I repainted the Newton ships. You can find each post displaying each ship in the links below:

• Newton Fighter
• Newton Messenger
• Newton Courier
• Newton Luxury Courier
• Newton Freighter
• Newton Gunship
• Newton Light Destroyer
• Newton Corvette

I got a new shade of blue for NE's own color and added in grey as a base color. I think it looks a fair bit more high-tech. Let me know what you think!

They look better dude.

I went through a bunch of combinations before deciding on this one. One of the previous combinations had the same scheme of grey base with the same colored parts, but the 'government color' was this sort of tan-ish brown that resembled caramel. It looked alright for a bit, but also made the ships look like flying candy bars. Totally wrong image I wanted to send with these.

Next is a review on Elbee Intergalactic's ships. They have only two, so it'll be short. The one problem is I haven't modeled them yet. Too much focus on warships, yet again.

I realized recently I had yet to model the most important ship of any TC: the escape pod!

Though made by a myriad of corporations, the design is so intuitive each type is almost exactly the same as any other pod you might find. Even Onli pods are almost indistinguishable from human pods. The purchase of one also includes an auto-eject system for the pod, saving you the worry of hitting the button in time. Each pod includes rations and seating arrangements for 10 people.

In HOTS, most escape pods won't be like what you're used to. Sure, there will be the standard pod that simply ejects and then plops you on some random planet, but I'm also adding 'escape ships'. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's essentially a fighter you can't launch but you can eject in. They won't have any weapons and their Fluxdrives are very simple, but they allow you to pick where you land and buy a new ship yourself, bypassing the purchase of a shuttle.

There will be five types of escape pods in HOTS, as listed below from most expensive to cheapest. The first one is the pod everyone is used to.

• Executive Escape Pod: Designed for VIPs, this pod keeps a constant link with your ship's navicomputer. When ejected, it calculates the safest destination for its passengers and transports them there without incident.

• Upgraded Escape Pod: This pod's been upgraded with sophisticated sensors and highly advanced maneuvering jets. Nothing will hit you while flying this thing.

• Standard Escape Pod: With two jumps of energy, an afterburner, and a decent (though slow) energy recharge, this pod will get you to a safe harbor with little difficulty.

• Used Escape Pod: This pod has been used before and sustained a bit of damage before getting to its destination. It still has its afterburner, but only half the energy and a slower recharge.

• Rundown Escape Pod: This pod took heavy damage to its engines and is only barely still capable of flight. Its batteries run at half capacity, the afterburner has been completely blown off, and its energy recharge is practically negligent.

Now I just need to model those Elbee ships...

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:44 PM

Elbee Shipyards Daedalus-II Class Armoured Luxury Liner

Once a mighty warship, this retro design now serves as the most heavily-armoured liner in the galaxy. Much of its ammunition stores and crew bunks have been converted into stately rooms for passengers, though its military-grade armour and shielding remain, even if they are dated. The keel originally served as the Daedalus Class Destroyer in the early days of the Star Navy. EIG managed to obtain the design after the Star Navy upgraded to the Fenrir Class, the direct predecessor to the current design, the Anaconda.

It took quite a bit of tweaking and experimentation to get the color scheme just right. I tried several combinations and almost went blind with a few of them. Some of them were truly horrendous. In the end I managed to pull out this simple scheme I'm surprised I didn't come up with sooner. In fact, I didn't even come up with it on my own. I had to get some help from EVWeb with that.

Speaking of EVWeb, he's become particularly fond of one design of mine: the D-Back, a cruiser made by the Star Navy. Upon his request I granted him access to the model and he gave it some awesome textures. As the texturing is his work, he will be posting it right after this post. Take it away, EVWeb!

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:39 PM

Yup. I did re-texture the D-Back, and I hope you all like it.

EDIT: If you looked at this BEFORE midnight, then you saw the old version.

This post has been edited by EVWeb : 25 April 2013 - 05:21 PM

QUOTE (EVWeb @ Dec 7 2010, 11:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yup. I did re-texture the D-Back, and I hope you all like it.

EDIT: If you looked at this BEFORE midnight, then you saw the old version.

Holy 5H1T. :blink: :laugh: :hector_bird: That is absolutely incredible.

I don't remember the D-back. Have you not gotten to the Star Navy yet?

I like the Elbee color scheme, yellow and black. Reminds me of, well ... a bee.

This post has been edited by StarSword : 08 December 2010 - 11:27 PM

Elbee Shipyards Icarus Class Escort Gunship

Though the Elbee Liner is one tough cookie, too many close calls prompted Elbee Intergalactic to look for a solution. They decided the best option was to design an escort craft of some kind, but the cost of designing something themselves was prohibitive. As luck would have it the Star Navy began to look toward cruisers, bombers, and gunboats for light and mid-sized craft, resulting in the decommissioning of the Icarus Class Gunship. EIG bought up the remaining vessels and the design soon after.

As I was modeling this, I took a look back at old notes and old posts in this thread. One thing I noticed was a post by me saying I would occasionally notify you all in side notes when I had new ships in the gallery. After reading that I realized I had done no such thing since posting that. So, I'm saying it now: the Elbee Gunship actually marks my 110th model for HOTS, meaning 110 images in the gallery now.

Also, for those of you who've visited the gallery in the past but have not recently, it now has a somewhat new look. Seeing as there are 110 images in there, it gets a little disorganized. However, I managed to figure out how to separate images into albums within the gallery. If you were to visit the gallery now, you'd find 17 individual albums, each containing ships from one group or government. Check it out!

StarSword, on Dec 8 2010, said:

Holy 5H1T. :blink: :laugh: :hector_bird: That is absolutely incredible.

I don't remember the D-back. Have you not gotten to the Star Navy yet?

No, I have not. I'm actually considering leaving out military ships in this thread, though, and just reviewing civilian models. If you guys want reviews of the military ships, too, then I can post them once done with the civilian models. If not, you'll find out more about them when I finish the TC.

Quote

I like the Elbee color scheme, yellow and black. Reminds me of, well ... a bee.

Again, the yellow in this case is supposed to be gold. Sol Shipyards has yellow to represent the color of the sun. Estee Luxury and Elbee Intergalactic share gold as their color for the luxury they provide and because they were once one company, as explained way back in this post. ELX then took on light grey/chrome (maybe) as a base color and EIG took on black for a base. EIG also has a slightly different shade of gold than ELX.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:35 PM

I just re-visited the medical ships section of your sketchup gallery, and the Medical Starbridge looks a little squashed front to back. I think if you stretched it out, it would have a slightly sleeker look. That's just judging by the isometric view. The side view looks fine, but in-game you won't see the side view. You'll see the isometric view at different angles. Just a thought.

I kinda see your point, but Sp3cies modeled the ship that way and I don't really see enough reason to change it, with or without his permission*. Additionally, lengthening it without actually making the ship longer in-game would make the crew even more cramped. Right now it only has 2 decks, one of which is the bridge. The other is everything else. I don't want to make it longer in-game, either, because then it would be more of a gunship in size. That's not what I'm going for because gunships cant be carried in bays. Cruisers can, albeit very large bays, and you need a ship of at least a kilometer in length to mount said bay.

• Of course, I would never change it without his permission anyway.

Centauri Designs Mantis Class Light Destroyer

The Mantis Class Light Destroyer is a custom design unique to the Centauri system. Designed by a small team of shipwrights looking to cash in on the starship market, the Mantis is meant to serve merchants and marines alike. For something built by a group of backyard tinkerers, the Mantis performs exceedingly well, and rumors abound the matte black finish does more than just disguise it in space...

I know I originally introduced the Mantis as a cruiser, but the current design is far too cramped for that. Adding more/rescaling it to make it less cramped would ruin the look. So I decided on upgrading it to a light destroyer. It's very light, however, coming in more as a large gunship. This does result in a higher top speed than other ships its size and is highly maneuverable. There's also a special weapon designed specifically for the Mantis, the Medium Blaster, nicknamed the Mantis Blaster. As for the rumors, there is some truth to them, but you'll have to figure that out yourself.

Before I started making graphics for HOTS myself, I actually got permission to use the Subarashii graphic from Arpia in HOTS as the Mantis. It didn't seem right to me to simply throw that away, so I modeled the Mantis after the Subarashii.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:29 PM

Darkstar Shipwrights Ceres Class Asteroid Miner

A special vessel unique to Darkstar, the Ceres Class Asteroid Miner is the only vessel to mount standard the equipment necessary to mine asteroids. This is largely due to the extreme weight of mining equipment. In fact, the miner had to be custom built to carry the twin Mining Lances on its prow as well as the squadron of Vultures for defense.

These guys are big. They're also slow. You won't win any races with these, nor will you dodge close-range fire. That's what the Vultures, powerful shields, and thick hull are for. It still has limited expansion space, though, and few gun and cannon emplacements. In fact, stock Ceres Classes only come with a full set of turrets, a pair of mining lances, and their Vultures. Try as you might, it would be nigh impossible to turn a Ceres into a respectable warship.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:28 PM

Centauri Designs Vulture Class Salvage Drone

Operating via a pilot in a virtual-reality chamber, Vulture Drones are used to pull usable items from the wreckage of various space craft. A few enterprising tinkerers on Centauri Alpha decided to see what they could do by fitting one with weapons, shield generators, and fighter-grade thrusters. The result is this cheap defensive craft. It'll go down if someone so much as breathes on it, but they first have to catch it.

Because of the method of control, you can't fly these in-game. The virtual-reality chamber can be on a ship, space station, or planet, but not on the Vulture itself. The things are only 6 meters long, how many humans do you know who can fit in that? At any rate, there's no reason you'd want to fly one. It's even weaker than a Carpenter and its weapons are very simple and won't do much. That said, it's faster than anything else (I mean <i>anything else</i>) in the game. So if you're in a ship smaller than 300 meters (or just don't have the space for a full flight deck) and desperately need fighters of some kind, these will do the job for at least a little bit.

I didn't realize it before, but looking at it now I've noticed the Vulture bears a striking resemblance to Vulture Droids from Star Wars. Even the color scheme is practically identical to the Vultures in Episode I. I'm not sure yet if I want to change it or just leave it as-is. At the very least I should probably change the paint.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:28 PM

Magma Shipwrights Converted Solar Ship (Boltbucket)

These ships are the definition of ancient. First built in 2938 AD, they were the best of the time. Now, though, they're largely decrepit and forgotten. They've been stripped down for usage as cheap freight haulers by shipwrights at Darkstar City. They reverse-engineered the design when a mining ship came across one floating in orbit of Luna back in the early 1200s AF. Amazingly the ship was fairly intact, only missing one section of solar panels. Despite the skill of Darkstar metalworkers, Solar Ships today are haphazard and affectionately referred to as 'Boltbuckets' by spacers for their tendency to fall apart at a moment's notice.

You can only find these on Darkstar City as they are the sole manufacturers and no one else wants to sell them at their own shipyards. It really is fairly useless and you probably shouldn't try flying one unless you're really desperate and really short on cash. That said, it carries more cargo than most ships in the same price range, making it a good early game courier.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 19 January 2011 - 08:27 PM

You may do whatever you want with my Starbridge model.

The Mantis looks kicking and the Samurai version of the Vulture looks !@#$ing brilliant.
Had a good look through the improved gallery layout, I enjoyed seeing the new ships.

QUOTE (Sp3cies @ Dec 14 2010, 03:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You may do whatever you want with my Starbridge model.

Thanks for that, but as I said before, the current design is pretty cramped. It would be challenging to try and find a way to make it more sleek while not making it more cramped.

QUOTE

The Mantis looks kicking and the Samurai version of the Vulture looks !@#$ing brilliant.

Thanks, though, which Samurai version of the Vulture are you talking about specifically? They have two. The Shuriken is a fairly standard upgrade and looks pretty much like a Vulture but with a different paint job and the addition of chainguns on the wings. On the other hand, the Harquebus is a total overhaul of the Vulture's hull, giving it a double-hull design and missiles.

QUOTE

Had a good look through the improved gallery layout, I enjoyed seeing the new ships.

Thanks again! I enjoyed making new ships. Right now it's about the most fun thing for me when working on HOTS. The game balance needs work, however, and I expect that will become my favorite thing once I get around to working on it. Right now though, I'm trying to get more of my ships rendered and put into the files. I'd like to test the balance with the ships' actual graphics and sizes rather than with placeholders and then have to test again once all the ships are in.