Halo: Starside Intercept is a Homeworld 2 total conversion bringing tactical space combat to the Halo universe.
Office of Naval Intelligence: Stealth Warfare Division. The Prowler is the workhorse of the UNSC Navy's special weapons and espionage section. It comes fully equipped with advanced sensor suites and Slipspace detection suites out of drydock and can be upgraded to house a cloak detection module to counter enemy tactics. It is lightly armed but an invaluable asset nonetheless, the stealthed profile and emissionless drives ensure it can get in and out without being detected.
Crew Compliment:
8 officers,
2 AI cores
Dimensions:
370m long
180m tall
165m wide
20,000 tonnes
Armament:
8 high yield nuclear mines
STS-EWS Ship to Ship Electronic Warfare System
Nice design and detail
This is a really crazy, nice design, which I imagine is just what you intended. The only problem I have with it is that that crazy giant antenna would reflect radar like a BOSS, and doesn't really fit in with the canon of the Prowler being basically an F117 in space. I love the rest of the design, and the big FLIR-type pod on the front, but I think that antenna needs to be redesigned, maybe a more angular design.
As for the game mechanics, would I have an active cloak, or will it just be black colored? I kinda like the latter, making it undetectable via the scanner, and making the Covie player required to keep an actual eye out for it.
Personally I dont like it at all. Like Dr Venture said the antenna looks incredibly unstealthy (if that's a word).
It also looks a bit too "wide" if you get what I mean. I always imagined prowlers to be of a similar shape to established UNSC ships but thinner and sleeker if you get what I mean.
I'm thinking about making the antenna more oblique and perhaps reducing it a little although I know that modern stealthed faces on aircraft can be smoother, it depends on the material. It will be mostly black and I can make it so you'll have to move the camera close to it in order to attack it.
As far as it being too wide, I'll admit that it does look better at some angles more then others, but I'm not sure which extant ship to compare it too, the one known oblique, angular faced ship being the Longsword is more horizontally oriented then vertically, also the F117 is also more horizontally shaped as most aircraft are now. The ship is actually really thin and sleek, from the front it would be like a knife or arrowhead. I wanted it to be a class all its own even when relying on known ship design elements. I wouldn't do justice to the Prowler design if I just combined a Longsword with a frigate.
By thin and sleek I sort of meant like a dagger blade or something like that, thats how I always imagined it. Obviously my opinion isnt the only one though, go with what the majority want.
That's true, but a cylinder is the least stealthy shape, mathematically. My two cents is this; the shape is fine, but maybe the engine cowling should be truncated horizontally, so it doesn't come off quite so wide and flipped. Then, it needs a new design for the antenna, maybe based on the shape of the oni facility from reach(whose design is always loved) which can then be horizontally oriented to lenghthen and define the nose.
I agree the engine and antenna could use some work, say flip the engines to match the rest of the ship as for the antenna a more angular approach would probably be good.
Which side is the front?
It's a sexy as hell model, but i agree the antenna looks wrong with the design and the stealth aspect. An angular antenna might work better in both respects.
Also, the ball turret, in regards to stealth that sort of thing is housed inside of an angular bay that's shielded by a coated layer of glass, atleast in the F-22 and other stealth fighters. I also can't quite tell form the pictures but in this one atleast it doesn't seem to "gel" into the ship's hull and rather looks a bit stuck on the front.
I'm also really going to have to start using this render programme, it's sexy as hell.
I'm with you there, these renders are hella awesome
Thanks!
Yeah, the lights and the materials applied to the mesh greatly increase the render time though, but I'm quite pleased with it.
As you've probably noticed, I didn't get the desired effect using diffuse mesh lighting on that particular material (2 side lights have strange area illumination)
My very compliments to you all for this and for all of your models, they look amazing.
When do we can see textured models?
Great work.
Still tracking this project. ;-)
Textured Prowler soon, and thanks!
FYI, this is the halopedia article (with images) prowler:
Halopedian.com
More specifically, the first image displays the UNSC Red Horse from the Halo: Evolutions short story "The Mona Lisa".
Besides, this looks NOTHING like the slow, poorly armed and armored stealth vessel that is an ONI prowler; think something more like the F-117 Nighthawk or the B-2 Spirit and that's more like what a prowler would look like.
We chose to distance ourselves from Halo Legends/343 as much as possible.
Halo Nation is a poor source of information, most editors add and retract information on the merits of how cool it sounds. It's a place where misinformation compounds on itself until it becomes solidified fanon. Frankly it seems like most of the frequent adherents of the site would much prefer Halo Legends and Halo Wars over Halo CE and the Nylund books, and that's bad news for us.
Besides, this thing look far more ablative then that Red Horse ship in the article you linked (also closer to the F-117 fighter), and it's clearly less armed based on its stats. I'm not sure how this thin, unsubstantial ship looks anything but lightly armored, and I don't recall where the Prowler was ever described as a slow ship. In what ways does it look nothing like how you describe it?
This is the only other known official image of a Prowler:
Halopedian.com
I do hope I'm not also obliged to retain its design as well.