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Two words, LOAF: thermal bloom :D

I'd imagine firing a plasma weapon (or, heck, any energy-type weapon) in an atmosphere would make for a lot more headache than just whatever's targeted (including the firing platform, particularly the way that one is mounted).
 
Crusader guns

Speaking of firepower:
This one's about the Silencer's choice of personal argument enhancers.
Dunno why, but they were in the archive, and i like it.
Unfortunately the Silencer's model was not included.
 

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OK did a few more Wing Commander vessels.
The Fralthra model in the archive was damaged, so i used Marcs version he kindly shared with us.
Would anyone happen to know where to put the second Strakha with the larger cockpit? WC2 and Academy featured version1, Armada had the Shok'lar and WC3 an all new design. The texturing would indicate they planned to use it in Privateer, but the meshes didn't come with a history book (though they certainly deserve one).
 

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You nailed it -- it was originally planned for Privateer. You can find some cut devices in there, too, including a cloaking device.
 
there wouldn't happen to be a 5 view image of the paradigm floating around would there? if so it would be cool to see.
 
Not exactly floating around, but it doesn't take more than 5min to do one.
Bandit LOAF: What filename is the cloaking device? There is all kinds of stuff in the archive, some obviously not even belonging to Wing Commander.
I also found out what the Dralthi with the misaligned lascannon was used for, just take a closer look at the Academy Boxcover.
 

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These are amazingly cool. I love how you can see all the little turrets on the capships. Are these the actual models Origin used?
 
I always like looking through the ship designs of all the games. It's a separate little world with its own art movements compressed into a short time.
 
I'm amazed how much work went into the Privateer models in particular. You don't even see most of those fine details in the game. You could slap them into Prophecy or Freespace or something and they still wouldn't look bad.
 
I'm amazed how much work went into the Privateer models in particular. You don't even see most of those fine details in the game. You could slap them into Prophecy or Freespace or something and they still wouldn't look bad.

You kidding? I don't know one Freespace OR Prophecy model thats as detailed (in-game of course). Disregard the Freespace graphics mods, i can hardly play those properly. I'm not so sure the majority of today's gamer PCs could handle massive space-battles with those Privateer models yet.
 

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Hehe yeah, I think you're right about that, I just named a couple of pre-'make-everything-look-fake-good-with-shaders' space sims as an example.

Oh, and that power armored guy totally is badass.
 
It would be interesting to know what the thinking behind the detailed models was; my guess is that "better than necessary" was something of a standard for the art team. That strategy supposedly came back to bite them in Wing Commander IV, when there were serious problems turning the high quality textures into something that could be used in-flight (they were covered with individual bolts and details based on the team's visit to a real aircraft carrier).

(Also worth considering - Privateer was initially slated to be the first '3D' Wing Commander game; the initial plan was to use Strike Commander's engine... before it lagged behind in development. That's likely why you have things like the gorgeous 3D cockpits, at least.)
 
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