Alright, I present the first ships I have ever crafted for Freelancer - the Reaper, Hydra, and Harlequin VHFs for Bretonia, Kusari, and Rheinland respectively. They were created out of a need for new models for the already-existing house VHFs within 88 Flak; up until this point, the Harlequin just used the Valkyrie model, etc. I wanted to keep the designs conservative - just some new fins to distinguish the VHF from the HF, similarly to stock FL models.

Before I get started, here's a fun fact - I cheated. These are not actually new models, but instead, regular models with extra fin items attached in the form of hard-mounted CargoPods - these can not be shot off (or otherwise even hit, to prevent the fins from blocking damage to the real hull), removed, or otherwise tampered with - for all intents and purposes, they are part of the model itself. Sona1111 spliced off fin models directly from the ships, and after a bit of editing to clear up nickname conflicts, I had sexy new fins to strap on my ships.

So, without further ado, here we go.

Reaper, Bretonia VHF: (click to expand)


Of all three VHF concepts, this one was the toughest. At first, I settled for a single new fin on the bottom of the ship, extending down in-between the two engines. However, since the fins were spliced directly from the ship itself, they both had a "top" and "bottom" texture that were different (the "top" has the emblem and hardpoint spot) - besides, the single bottom fin was pretty lame, so it had to be two fins. From here, I decided something X-Wing style was in order, so I put them on top of the existing wings at an angle, and moved the fins inwards a little bit so they would be less exposed and look more like "secondary" fins. The end result is passable, though it's probably my least favorite of the three; perhaps it'll grow on me. Also, any thoughts on the name "Reaper"? I'd like something that goes in line with Cavalier / Crusader, but I'm pretty stumped on the name.

Hydra, Kusari VHF: (click to expand)


This design was a no-brainer the moment the spike fins were spliced off, as was the name Hydra. The fins on the front are intended as "fangs", and I think it came out quite well. Little bummed about how the Kusari logo is shamelessly cropped over with the fin placement, but oh well.

Harlequin, Rheinland VHF: (click to expand)


Easily my favorite of the three. It looks menacing, powerful, and fits right in alongside its military kin. The fins themselves were actually spliced off the Banshee, and then turned around for that sleek look. As with the other VHFs, the extra fins have contrails, but it makes the biggest impact here - seeing the extra contrails while piloting this ship adds greatly to the sense of extra mass and power. I really like how this turned out.



You may notice that, despite merely being mounted items, these new fins sport contrails and (in the case of the Harlequin) lights. This was accomplished via giving the fins hardpoints that were not called on the base model (in this case, HpFinARunningLight01, etc.), and then mounting the contrail/light on this hardpoint - when Freelancer can't find the specified hardpoint on the base model, it then enumerates the mounted items to see if it can find the hardpoint there. Thus, in this case, you have a Light mounted on a CargoPod mounted on the ship. Hypothetically speaking, you could thus have a gun mounted on another gun mounted on the ship (that's a mouthful), but I haven't tried it yet.

So as the title suggests, any comments? Critique? Questions? Fire away. lol

Edit: I apologize for the dark pictures on the Harlequin. They were taken in Hamburg, which is rather dark. I'll see if I can take some better ones.

Excellent thinking outside the box mate!

@name for the Reaper: I'd suggest Dragoon here, in reference to the evolution in time. A cavalier is the most basic form of cavalry; a crusader is a heavily armored knight that was used (duh) during the Crusades; a dragoon is basically mounted gunpowder infantry. It also feels a bit less heavy than Covenanter