Sectorgame

They seem like the sort of thing you'd engage with Trebs at long range... not something to get up close and personal with.

think of these things with Kaysers or Maxims

Whoa! Those are really cool.

You should post them on the mod forum when HLP comes up - I'm sure a bunch of campaigns would love to have them. Inferno wasn't going to use sentry guns, but they'd probably change their minds if they saw these.

Thanks for the kudos guys.

Unfortunately I have to admit, that I'm not able to UV-Map yet, and my current mod-work don't leave much time to learn something new (and
our main texture-artist is unbeatable ) So I'm still bound to use tilling-textures mostly (and believe me, tilling the vasudan and shivan textures
can really be a pain in the neck, not to mention truespace ).

About your comments :

The hull of the terran gunstar was my very first model I got working in freespace I just recycled the hull-structure and made new turrets and
texture. Maybe I choose another texture for it, will see about that.

By making all the details, I still tried to keep the polycount as small as possible, since you will need a few of them for good protection, and all
this high-res models slow down older system too much. Their polycount is now (including turrets) at LOD0:

Gunstar : 2446 polies
Ammut : 2450 "
Cerberus: 3560 " (dont worry, I will change the name )

I put that red-texture into the vasudan, because I wanted some technical structure in it. I tried also blue and yellow, but they don't look so good
and are used on terran ships. Using the main-texture with only small tech-details make the overall look boring. So I have choosen the red one.

You are right about the energy consumption, but I think even 10 Laserturret will need a massive amount of energy. But maybe I reduce
their size a little (but actually I like them more that way).

About the armament, actually I didn't planed on giving it fighter weapons. My first running version (the original gunstar) was armed with modified
terran-turrets. I made the bolt only 30-50% size, 200 % speed and half the damage. This plus giving it the "swarm" flag let it fire 2 bolts at once,
and we are talking about fighter killers. That is what I meant about realitly.
(You can still destroy 'em, but you will need help, even if they only keep the turrets busy. Alone, you are as good as dead).

Because the WC-Saga demo is getting into the hot phase I will be kinda busy in the next weeks, but I plan to make LOD's and debris for these
babies and will then release them for public use (since my own freespace-campaign will be released not before 2010 ) I will notify you guys when
they are ready, so you can grap them.

And of course, HLP will see them too

Something everybody forgets about beams is the heat they produce.

The reason the Mjolnir has the rotating parts is to dissipate the prodigous amount of heat the main PBC produces. Also, the Mjolnir is supposed to have a cluster launcher and one AAA beam on the aft non-rotating section.

The current selection of sentrys would be more effectual if the Cerebus had been re-equipped with flak guns, the Alastor(ah-las-tor or ala-stor, BTW) equipped with a special issue high-powered longish range anti-fighter cannon, and the Mjolnir equipped as they're supposed to be.

Those are nice though.

Because somehow spinning continually helps dissipate heat... except that the only way that would work is if the heat were being dissipated into some other medium, like air, that the rotation would increase exposure to. Really, if you're going to try to use technobabble, do it shamelessly.

The only possible use for the rotating coils is in a field focusing mechanism, in what I personally think is a non-encased version of an internal beam cannon. And to look cool. Rearming the sentries is a decent idea, granted. But they are so small that they should be hindered by their miniscule power supply, so giving them a subach-d is probably most appropriate. And besides, they are designed to fend off freighters and support craft more than combat ships, given the way they have been deployed in missions. And given the dock-paper-engines Triton, they probably work pretty well for that purpose.

Actually, it would dissipate heat just by standing still. Remember folks, it´s verrry verrry cold in space. Like, freezing your nuts into a popsicle kind of cold... brrrrrrrrr

Swamp_Thing wrote:Actually, it would dissipate heat just by standing still. Remember folks, it´s verrry verrry cold in space. Like, freezing your nuts into a popsicle kind of cold... brrrrrrrrr

True but never forget that without convection and conduction to remove the heat things cool down in space a slot more slowly than you might expect.

Notice that it takes thousands of years for a nebula to cool down and millions for a brown dwarf.

A brown dwarf is still generating heat at some marginal level isn't it? I think a brown dwarf is the remnant of a star too small for a supernova that is in the final stages of the Oxygen->Iron fusion(or is it Nitrogen).

it doesnt need to spin, only to do some ventalation-thingey...


BTW, call the shivan one the 'Argus'. argus was some god-guy who had lots of eyes, and they did something (i dont remember what) and then he turned into peacock. it dont make sence to me, either

Nope. A brown dwarf has stopped fusion by very early in its life. Brown dwarfs never had the mass to start fusion (or at best sustain it for very long).

There are far too many variants of the name "Argo" in Greek mythology. Fortunately, it's already assigned to the terran transport. I'd pick something different (preferably non-greeko-roman) for the Shivans.

karajorma wrote:Nope. A brown dwarf has stopped fusion by very early in its life. Brown dwarfs never had the mass to start fusion (or at best sustain it for very long).

Well, almost. They do generate a little bit of heat, indicating some light fusion in the core of the star, but not nearly as much as a white dwarf, much less a mainline star. (Jupiter and likely most of the "superjovian" planets found outside our solar system also generate a little bit of radiation on their own). And anyway, heat escaping from a star does it by way of EM radiation, including infrared. It doesn't just "cool down". Nothing does, there has to be a process there to take the heat energy away.

Yeah if you are going Shivan do not use a Greek name. Use somethin from ancient Babylon or India

I like the Sentries overall, but the texturing on the Terran one is awful. No offense, but those yellow/black stripes drive me nuts whenever I See 'em.

Your turrets kicka** though.

Call the shivan sentinel Neti or Ereskigal (the guardian and ruler of the Sumerian underworld respectively).
I don't think there's much of Sumerian myth in FS yet

StratComm wrote:

karajorma wrote:Nope. A brown dwarf has stopped fusion by very early in its life. Brown dwarfs never had the mass to start fusion (or at best sustain it for very long).

Well, almost. They do generate a little bit of heat, indicating some light fusion in the core of the star, but not nearly as much as a white dwarf, much less a mainline star. (Jupiter and likely most of the "superjovian" planets found outside our solar system also generate a little bit of radiation on their own).

Jupiter generates heat by the gravitational compression of its core not due to any nuclear reactions past or present.

IIRC Brown dwarfs by definition never reached the temp for fusion of hydrogen (although they may have reached the required temp for fusion of lithium). Once the lithium is depleted the brown dwarf stops generating heat by fusion.

http://brown-dwarf.wikiverse.org/ seems to agree with the way I recalled it

StratComm wrote:And anyway, heat escaping from a star does it by way of EM radiation, including infrared. It doesn't just "cool down". Nothing does, there has to be a process there to take the heat energy away.

You may have noticed that I got the names of the processes that don't exist in space correct. I never said that brown dwarfs cool down by magic, I simply didn't bother to name the process they do use

My point was simply that people overestimate how quickly radiation can disipate heat. If radiation was as effective as some people think it is then the apollo missions and the space shuttle would have needed to have blast furnaces going constantly to keep them habitable.