Dreadnought-class Criuser image - Rise of the Mandalorians mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
The Empire has fallen and a New Republic is born out of the conflict. But in the ashes of civil war, yet another life stirs...
Originally designed and placed in active duty during the Clone Wars, the Dreadnought was the premiere ship of its time, for it's class. It outmatched nearly any of it's adversaries in both offensive armament and defensive capability. Hardly a surprise for a ship who's blueprints were derived from ancient Mandalorian schematics for the Kandosii battleship.
That said, the Dreadnought's unparalleled success saw it remain in active service long after the war for which it was built. In fact, some ships of the make were used in front-line fleets even into the Vong invasion. Although by that time, the Dreadnought's prowess had diminished due to advances in technology, the ship was still potent enough to be worth purchasing, when one could be found in surplus or other markets.
In the mod, the Dreadnought will replace the Acclamator as the Imperial Remnant's low-tier capital ship. It will be more powerful than the Acclamator both offensively and defensively but will lack hangar bays and be a bit more expensive.
Original model by EvilJedi. Extensive edits and cleanup made for RotM. New texture and rigging.
Ah, one of my favourite warships. So versatile and cool!
Well done, Farseer and well done to EvilJedi for the original model.
Thanks! It really is incredible that EJ's models still get tons of use after all this time... What a gift to have them all free release!
Very nice, one of my favourite ships as well.
Will the Acclamator be used in a different place or will you not use it at all?
Used in some of the minor factions to be released as an "expansion" at a later time.
Watch as the baby Carrack follows it's mother Dreadnought on its journey to hunt packs of rebellious nebulon-B's. Such majestic creatutes...
My thoughts exactly ;)
How is it we still have not evolved further from the EJ models in almost a decade? They are good, for their time they are amazing, but I keep wondering if someone cannot make better versions.
Return to modding and create Fractal's!
Normally I don't use other folk's stuff but I make exception from time to time. In the case of EJs Dreadnought and Corellian Destroyer, they are some of my favorites and I only wanted to make small changes because I felt they were near perfect already. They'll be the only two that are pulled directly from his stock though. I plan to use his ISD model as a base but it will be changed rather heavily at the end. Most other models are 100% new or improved Petro meshes.
But to answer the question specifically, I think the reason that his models still get used so much is because they were perfect for this game. Gaming itself has evolved but we're still working in an engine that's over a decade old. So the assets that go into it haven't evolved themselves necessarily. The poly count and general construction of his stuff just fits well.
The one in FotG has an actual hangar for the Dreadnaught-class: Fateofthegalaxy.net
This model initially started out with a hangar as well...but I removed it due to personal preference, since not all variants had hangars anyway. FotG does have some good models though. They go a unique direction with some of them but the results are no e to look at.
Wait it did? I've never seen EJ's model before with a hangar. Is there a picture of it somewhere?
Having a hard time finding a pic in another mod that I can just link to... It's on the belly, a small slit near the bridge section, almost directly below the forward gun turrets. I never even noticed it myself until I went to optimize/edit the model for RotM, to be honest.
Ooh, nifty! Beautiful work as usual, Farseer.
Wait a minute, do my eyes deceive me or is that a Star Destroyer sneaking about in the background?
Just the stock ISD model...for now ;)
How will the dreadnought fare against other capital ships in the next release? In the 'current' version it seems to molest the Keldabe pretty easily and can stand up reasonably well to the CD-10.
Indeed it was too big, too powerful, and just OP in last release. It'll be more in line with its canon counterpart in this release. Being more appropriately sized (a little more than the length of two Carracks) and will have a heft armament for an early stage cruiser but not able to withstand the bigger ships unless in groups.
It looks like it jumped right out of a comic, which is freaking awesome btw. Awesome work!
Thanks!
Absolutely awesome
Its funny to think about that this ship was 121 years old by the time of the Pellaeon-Gavrisom treaty and the end to the Galactic civil war. And that almost every star wars mod has this ship.
The textures look amazing but i have one little nitpick, most media show the engine exhaust colors as blue not orange.
Well in the words of Palpatine himself (which I found on Wookipedia...), "These are built from Mandalorian design. Not the most modern, but very strong."
It rang true as much during the post-endor years as it did during the Clone Wars. Besides, if you think about it, there are some nations on earth which still use WW2 era battleships in their navy. In fact, the oldest battleship still in active service is nearly 100 years old itself (serving in a South American navy somewhere).
Now, the other thing to consider is that ocean-bound battleships are subject to weathering and the natural acidity of ocean water. While space-bound battleships are in a nearly sterile environment so, it's even more plausible that it would serve for many, many years.
I've only ever seen one image that depicted blue engines. Can you source more for me? It's an easy change to make, if there is enough evidence to support it.
The only source i have for blue engines is the outbound flight picture. I think both colors work fine i'll leave it up to you to decide on it.
You're right.
For what it's worth though, Rendili did allow other starship companies to make their own versions of the ship, resulting a several different variants. The Empire made several versions too...so I suppose it's very possible that the engine type would have been modified at some point. The entire engine configuration on Outbound Flight was different than those seen elsewhere too, consisting of 5 engines arranged in a trapezoidal pattern, rather than 6 oblong engines arranged in a box pattern.
Very cool!
Never understood why no mod gives the Dreadnought a hanger, most of them had their cargo bays converted into hangars on the underside with one squadron of fighters.
Is this mostly a balance decision?
If you read the books or check specs on Wookipedia, nearly every ship ever had a hangar or at least umbilical that fighters could dock with. To have every ship with this ability would be overkill, so yes, it is a balance and gameplay decision mostly.
Further, the expanded universe, while great is most respects has a serious consistency issue with ship scaling and so some ships that are described as having hangars, really should not... For example, in one comic, a Marauder-class is shown docking in the hangar of a CARRACK... Unbelievable! Those two ships were almost the same size...and the Carrack really was small enough that it shouldn't have even had fighters docking with it, without serious modification.