Working on a Charon Class frigate.

CmdrSkywalker · Aug 31, 2016

I've never built a large ship but now I have decided to give it a try. My first being a Charon Class frigate from the Halo series. My goal is to complete it with a large complement of weapons and logic hangars.

Anubis Evo · Sep 1, 2016

CmdrSkywalker said:
I've never built a large ship but now I have decided to give it a try. My first being a Charon Class frigate from the Halo series. My goal is to complete it with a large complement of weapons and logic hangars.

Are you planning on making this to scale?

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 1, 2016

No it will be a little smaller than full size. Reason being I like ships at a certain size so they are not too big to move around.

Madman198237 · Sep 1, 2016

That's too bad---Anubis here is making a full-scale Paris-class frigate----we need the complete set (Charon, Paris, and Stalwart) at scale.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 1, 2016

Aw, my apologies. That would have been cool. You're certainly free to use the ship for whatever your needs may be once I am finished.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 4, 2016

So I am working on the prongs and I am unsure if I have the bottom too close to the top.

When I look at generic Charon pictures I feel they should be spread more but when I look at pictures of The Dawn they seem much closer together. Thoughts?

Madman198237 · Sep 4, 2016

Choose what you want.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 11, 2016

Small update, I have made working rail hangar doors.

Jojomo · Sep 11, 2016

CmdrSkywalker said:
So I am working on the prongs and I am unsure if I have the bottom too close to the top.

When I look at generic Charon pictures I feel they should be spread more but when I look at pictures of The Dawn they seem much closer together. Thoughts?

I think it looks about right. Possibly it could be moved very slightly further down (a judgement call based on your source images), but definitely not closer.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 11, 2016

Another small update, side view of the progress. Notice this side does not have rail doors installed yet. Will come later.

Thanks Jojomo. I decided to leave the prongs as they were. I wanted it to be more like the game in that regard.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 14, 2016

Something I have had fun working on for my vessel that I am proud to show, a D77H-TCI Halo 3 Pelican. Currently has rotating thrusters. I am working on the bay door and landing legs at the moment. Those will open together so I can keep the interior more compact. I will add this as its own blueprint as soon as it is ready.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 16, 2016

Madman198237 said:
That's too bad---Anubis here is making a full-scale Paris-class frigate----we need the complete set (Charon, Paris, and Stalwart) at scale.

I have my final length and width settled for the ship and it still is not 1:1 but it is VERY close to being so. A Charon frigate is listed as 490 meters long and 156 meters wide. My frigate is 467 meters long and 207 meters wide. So yes not exact but in full scope It will look just about as large as it should. My bottom section is not yet made so I do not have a final height yet. If this ship is good for the Paris-Charon-Stalwart trio then I am up for that.

StarWars1981 · Sep 19, 2016

If you're that close, build the extra 23 meters. Might as well have the full ship. Also, what caused the width? That is significantly over source material. You'll probably end up at either 155 or 157 if you go for a to-scale ship, given that operating on an even bias is absolutely horrible ... If you're under size, your width should also be under stated size, xD... it'll probably look a little odd from above if it's actually wrong and not a bad source material. As you've not sourced it, I can't tell you if they're right or not.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 19, 2016

I'm sourcing the Halopedia page. I've spent a lot of time overlooking my ship from the top and looking at numerous source pictures both from Halo 3 and some fan-made Halo content (such as the Sins of the Prophets 3D models.) It looks consistent to Forward Unto Dawn in Halo 3.
[doublepost=1474323096,1474322585][/doublepost]Here is a topside view

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 20, 2016

StarWars1981 said:
If you're that close, build the extra 23 meters. Might as well have the full ship. Also, what caused the width? That is significantly over source material. You'll probably end up at either 155 or 157 if you go for a to-scale ship, given that operating on an even bias is absolutely horrible ... If you're under size, your width should also be under stated size, xD... it'll probably look a little odd from above if it's actually wrong and not a bad source material. As you've not sourced it, I can't tell you if they're right or not.

After looking at my model more and the in-game ship I think you are correct in my dimensions being more off than I realize. I'm thinking about restarting the ship but using SMedit for a better shell. I did not like my ship core placement in the first place, so this would probably turn out better.

StarWars1981 · Sep 20, 2016

Don't restart it - just increase your build-box dimensions and copy-paste-lagout-move everything around the core.
Also, it's the engine pods - they're nearly in-line with the forward hangar bay/missile bay/logic-door-thingies forwards, just aft of the prongs. They should be maybe a tad wider and far closer to the hull. Also if you go find the source material and replace the large rectangles on top, it'll help you see what you what it to be better. Right now it's hard to identify future placements cause of the blandness. Add some detail and things (LARGE things, not like greebles yet) and you might see where it oughta go.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 20, 2016

There are other things that I screwed up which I would find easier redoing. The front of the prongs, top section where the bridge is and the hangars. I didn't know about SMEdit before as far as hulls and that is something I would like to look at. I'll load one up and see which I like more.

SuperWookie · Sep 20, 2016

CmdrSkywalker said:
There are other things that I screwed up which I would find easier redoing. The front of the prongs, top section where the bridge is and the hangars. I didn't know about SMEdit before as far as hulls and that is something I would like to look at. I'll load one up and see which I like more.

Just be aware you'll have some cleaning up to do before you can start detailing with a smedit model. Heres a useful tutorial my friend made for it:

Jojomo · Sep 20, 2016

CmdrSkywalker said:
There are other things that I screwed up which I would find easier redoing. The front of the prongs, top section where the bridge is and the hangars. I didn't know about SMEdit before as far as hulls and that is something I would like to look at. I'll load one up and see which I like more.

If you don't change it by using cut/paste, and want to restart, you might want to wait a few days until this tool is released, and use it: binvox to sm3 blueprint (WIP)

SMEdit isn't up to date, and can't export the current file types.

CmdrSkywalker · Sep 20, 2016

Jojomo said:
If you don't change it by using cut/paste, and want to restart, you might want to wait a few days until this tool is released, and use it: binvox to sm3 blueprint (WIP)

SMEdit isn't up to date, and can't export the current file types.

Oh wow! I actually already managed to import an .obj from SMEdit into my current version of Starmade but if this can give a better model for me to "chisel" out then I will use it. Can you select the hull color? SMEdit lacks dark gray. And how about core placement?