Molotok

[Aeonic]

This is my own home made model of the Molotok. Its not exact of course, and the texture and lighting aren't quite right, but it seems pretty close, and its believable if you don't compare it side by side with the original Molotok.

I'm thinking I'll make it into a playership combined with a mod that replaces the graphic used for the original Molotok, so both the NPC and playership versions will look alike.

Either that or it'll have to be Molotok II.

[Aeonic]

[Atarlost]

Nice. In game I'm not surer anyone would notice the difference. I think your specularity is a little higher and the yellow knobs at the back of the ship may be emitters on the original. It took ten minutes to notice the latter though so a specularity drop might be enough to stand side by side in game. The texture is spot on. The box may be less rounded on yours, but at that resolution it could be the pixel boundaries lining up differently. It's also possible part of the lighting difference is from the different rendering engine.

Three points of difference in a half hour of comparison is very good. Probably good enough to leave the existing one as is without most people noticing the difference.

What are your render settings and what post processing do you do? My stuff keeps coming out slightly blurrier I think.

[Aeonic]

I render ships in 400x400 images, merge them into one image with Photoscape, and then resize them to a desired size - in this case 64x64 - with Paint Shop Pro 7. Reducing the size by that much is generally enough to smooth out most rough edges, unless the ship is in the 200x200 range to begin with.

I'm sure the "yellow knobs" on the back are thrusters because that's where the ship's exhaust appears.

I've fiddled with specularity and light direction enough that I'm sick of it. As far as I'm concerned, this is as good as its going to get without using george's rendering setup. Besides, if you eliminate the original model from the game and replace it with this one, no one's going to care if there are a few minor differences. They still look alike.

[Prophet]

I'm not sure if giving an npc a ship with 40 facings would increase their accuracy. I for one am eagerly awaiting a playership version. The Molotok is my absolute favorite vanilla ship.
Thanks Aeonic!

[Aeonic]

Incidentally you'll never get to have a true Molotok because the ones that the black market uses have a 60 degree swivel on their MAG launchers.

[Aeonic]

I'll have the player version all setup and ready to go as soon as I give it some proper starting equipment. At the moment its a fairly high-end ship if a little difficult to fly. I've created some light ceramic armor for it and I want to give it a disposable MAG launcher as well. The trident cannon makes a very nice starter alternative to the dragonfly missile system.

I'll try to get it on Xelerus sometime tomorrow.

[Atarlost]

I think the problem may be that George uses a point source for light. If you're sick of messing with lighting I can take a look. After all deducing George's lighting only needs to be done once. It might help though if we could get him to render a cube, octahedron, and a sphere or something like that, but barring that I think your Molotok is the closest match we've got to one of his meshes.

[Aeonic]

It might help if george would let people know his settings, too. However, I'm not sure that he uses the same light setup for each model.

[Aeonic]

Okay you can get it from Xelerus now.

Molotok-class heavy gunship

I've opted against replacing the default ship, since I don't want to interfere with other mods such as adding a Molotok wingman. I also left it with a standard MAG launcher and a few 400 MAGs, instead of developing a portable MAG launcher - in hopes that the MAG launcher will be revised soon.

[Prophet]

Very awesome.

I flew to Rigel and sat beside the Molotok there for comparison. Yours seems a little 'cleaner' in that the splotches are more defined and the graphic edges have more definition.

I agree with not overwriting the vanilla molotok.

The mag launcher feels a little overpowering for a starting weapon because mags show up in loot almost immediately. It might be neat to have a disposable version (like the DM600) with limited shots and can't be refilled. The light ceramic could take some stealth value too, maybe only 7 or 8.
I would also reduce the ship's mass from 200 to 60tons and the thrust from 1000 to 300. It maintains the thrust to mass ratio and brings it into common territory of the other starting ships.


Great job.

[Aeonic]

The thrust and mass are already defined by the existing Molotoks. You want to fly a Molotok, you get a Molotok, not some funky ship that looks like a Molotok.

As far as the model being cleaner, just assume its a newer model (cuz it is) and not as well used.

I agree that the MAG launcher feels overpowered (aside from the discussion in the other thread about how much MAGs suck). If I did create a disposable version, it would have to be a form of MAG that doesn't exist just in case the current MAG values get changed.

I can't see why light ceramic would have any kind of stealth value. I also don't exactly know how the stealth values work, so without knowing I don't really want to mess with it too much. But if the MAG launcher makes this ship overpowered as it is (not by much), then stealth armor certainly would.

--

Some things to consider in the balance department. I want to list the aspects that the Wolfen has over the Molotok, and aspects that the Molotok has over the Wolfen, since these two ships are actually quite similar.

Wolfen is better than Molotok because:
- Wolfen has better top speed
- Wolfen has better acceleration
- Wolfen can arm more weapons
- Wolfen can carry more cargo with an expansion
- Wolfen starts with better shields and armor

Molotok is better than Wolfen because:
- Molotok can support more devices
- Molotok starts with a MAG launcher vs Wolfen's NAMI launcher
- Molotok holds more cargo without an expansion
- Molotok can support heavier armor segments
- Molotok's handling will be less influenced by the weight of its cargo

All In all I think they're fairly balanced, since they both have their pros and cons when compared to each other.

[Atarlost]

I think that If you start with a disposable MAG launcher the player will just sell it and the difference from the Wolfen will be lost.

That said you might want to give up and give it a NAMI anyways. It will be nearly impossible to kill Arco without Stilletos and if you start with some other launcher you won't be able to use the DM1500 without uninstalling it, at which point experienced players are likely to sell it because there's so much free NAMI ammunition other launchers are crowdedout until after Charon.

You could also try to push the player down the ammo using path be starting them with a smartcannon. Smartcannon rounds are so cheap nobody is willing to buy them, so you can give as many as you want to start without effecting the player's budget. It loses some of the feel of the spread weapon, but nobody is going to use spread weapons for long because the only one good one is the Trident. It does keep the ammo using feel without starting the player off with ammo that can be converted to money.

[Aeonic]

Actually Arco is pretty easy with MAGs. I just wasted him on a flyby not too long ago. I really don't want to give it a NAMI, because everybody uses NAMI, and at least if you already have a nice launcher that you won't be able to get somewhere else anytime soon, you might feel compelled to hold onto it. But if I did give it a disposable launcher, I could always assign the launcher a price of 0 and make suure it doesn't get sold anywhere, then no one will want to buy it.

The Molotok just feels right with a trident cannon, or at least some kind of spread-fire cannon and the only alternative at that level is the laser array.

[Aury]

XD
I JUST noticed that the reference pic you provided (for the vanilla one) was... your sig! XD