Blogs - RavenNight

I have always had trouble with Federation designs, so I decided to start at the bottom and try my hand at shuttle size ships.

So I am creating a whole set of ships, called pods and fighters, and will texture all of them. That should get me back in the swing.

The first vessel I am working on is a type 1 pod, the smallest ship. I have posted the new pics in my gallery.

Well, it seems I have some folks on the forums that were a bit suspicious that I was actually me...

Sometimes I'm not sure I'm actually me. But I checked...It's me.

I realize it's partially my fault since I haven't been in the community for quite a long time. I just started posting again in BCC, and I should be posting work there as well.

As always, I appreciate those that follow my work. I'll try and keep the updates coming.

At any rate, I'll be posting the romulan ship shots shortly. Just use the scrolling gallery at the top to view them.

I wanted to post my work on the Q1 concept, the most powerful Klingon ship in the fleet. This will be the Klingon flagship. I haven't started working on the textures yet, as I have to finish the textures for the Blade of Kahless first.

As you can see, the ship has a complete HOK and BOK docked on the hull, so this is essentially three ships combined in one, with the ability to sep.

I haven't set the size in stone yet, but it is somewhere around the size of the D'Voridex, or around 2000 meters or so...pretty big :)

Well, here's a teaser shot.

Quite a bit going on lately. I haven't finished the alternative versions of the E-6 yet, so I think I'll hold off on releasing the ship until that is done. I'll be posting pics of the refit soon.

I'm also working on some feds, including a reworked version of the Nebuchadnezzar. The Ares is getting reworked as well...pics to follow.

Quite a bit in the cue, I'll keep everyone posted.

Ok, here is a my current finished model. Ill be releasing it to be converted to a few different video games next week, once I finish a few final tweaks.

KDF E-6 "maQmIgh" (Dark Omen) class Cruiser

In the Year 2270 the Klingon High Command ordered that a refit needed to be considered for the D-7 to keep it on par with modern mainline starships. The Ktinga rebuild was a result, replacing most of the D-7s in service by the next year. Morak, lead designer for the Ktinga refit also proposed the need for a lighter, faster cruiser to compliment the Ktinga and presented the D-6 for consideration. The design was rejected, but was later excepted after an extensive redesign, including a new warp nacelle design. Being the first ship to use the new "E" type STN series induction graf engines, the designation was changed to E-6 and entered service in 2295. IKV certification was granted the following year.

The ship is reported to be in the same class range as the Ktinga, and has higher maneuverability and speed. The vessel is reported to slightly weaker than the Ktinga in armor and weaponry, but has better overall weapon coverage.

This vessel has a single torp launcher aft and fore, 2 medium range disruptor cannons fore and aft, 2 port and starboard medium range cannons and 6 very short range defensive disruptors located in key positions on the hull (3 Dorsal, 3 Ventral), mainly used to defend against drones, small vessels and torpedoes.

The ship has 4 hangars, one main hanger aft that contains one small drop ship and 1 fighter, one cargo hangar aft ventral and 2 aft-facing bays, one on the ventral crew module and one on the dorsal crew module with 1 shuttle each. Like the D-7, this ship can carry ground troops, up to 75 maximum.

This vessels main strength seems to be speed, compared to the Ktinga. The vessel also has better overall weapon coverage, but its lighter armor and weaker weapons make it more difficult for this vessel to attempt to match capital vessels.

This vessel is reported to be on par with the early Mark 2 Ktinga class cruisers, circa 2270, but is inferior to the improved Mark 3 Ktingas from 2340. Mainframe upgrades are already slated for this vessel over the next 80 years, with a total expected useful operational age of 120-140 years. A refit in 2360 added more powerful engines, better armor and crew expansion, and a Dominion war refit in 2374 was a vast improvement, adding more powerful long range disruptor cannons, extended sensor capability and improved power generation.

Length: 218m Height: 44m Width: 140m
Decks: 16
Mass: 176,000 metric tons
Complement: 24 Officers, 101 Enlisted (125 Total Standard Crew), 75 ground troops
Power: 1 Type 3 Dilithium Warp Core, 2 Type 2 Fusion Cores
Embarkment craft: 1 Drop Ship, 1 Fighter, 2 Shuttles
Propulsion: 2 STN400 Dilithium Graf Units, 2 SBN3 Impulse Units

Velocity: Warp 5 Cruising, Warp 7.0 Maximum Speed

Weapons and cloak: 8 medium range disruptor cannons, 6 very short range defensive disruptors, 2 Type 4 Torpedo launchers, Type C12e Cloak array (2 emitters, 2 coils)

Shields: Type H1, 15 emitters

Armor: Grade 3a

Nightsoft wallpaper packs - packs 1-4 - My popular designs

I have posted download packs of our most popular vessel designs today in the download section. I cut the download into 4 sections to make the download less painful, and to give you some choice as to which ones you may want.

All of the maps are in 1600x1200 format, 16m colors, Bmp format. Just drop them in your windows root folder and enjoy.

Here is a preview pic of all four packs together, so you can get an idea of what is available, the ships are as follows:

Pack one: Romulan DDeridex refit, DVoridex, Pvor and Vmelak.
Pack two: Romulan Pdan, Pkor and Pveer, Federation Falcon.
Pack three: Romulan D-type, R-type, V-type, Klingon E-7.
Pack four: Klingon C-9A and C-9A Heart of Kahless variant, Reman Saif and the Borg Sphere.

Ok, my first blog entry will be on my trials and tribulations with respect to creating starship meshes in Max.

I currently use Max 5.5, and have about 22 models in varying states of completion. Some meshes I have returned to after some time to apply what I have learned recently, so it is an ongoing process.

I have found that the biggest problem with making Starships for use in released games is the lack of exporters that work properly, so meshes can be converted for use in different games. I have a mesh waiting for conversion into two games at the moment, BC and SFC, but the progress is slow.

I feel it is high time for someone to step up and create a single program that could take meshes designed in Lightwave and Max and convert them to popular game model formats. This would be a daunting task no doubt, and would need constant updates, but it is my guess the program would be quite popular in the modding community.

Thats all for now, as I experience problems and breakthroughs I will post them here.