Which landing gear should I use?

[JinM]

I made 4 different styles of a new landing gear for military corvette.

I tend to the backmost portside one (one girder block on each foot and the rest is grey basic hull).

My first favourite was the front portside one, with the continuous girders. But I they did not look so well, when I replicated them 4 times.

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[jayman38]

I think I like starboard front(?) (closest in picture 2), because logically, you would want to have a larger "foot" to spread the weight over a larger surface while landed.

On the other hand, I love the "tracks" (textures) on the upper part of the port front (?) gear (nearest in the last picture). That really helps make it look like it has machinery to drop the gear down out of the body. It's too bad the texture has those big lighter-grey "connecting" bits that break up the texture. It would be nice if it was a continuous track, top to bottom. Maybe you could use rails to simulate a continuous "track".

 

[JinM]

I think I like starboard front(?) (closest in picture 2), because logically, you would want to have a larger "foot" to spread the weight over a larger surface while landed.

On the other hand, I love the "tracks" (textures) on the upper part of the port front (?) gear (nearest in the last picture). That really helps make it look like it has machinery to drop the gear down out of the body. It's too bad the texture has those big lighter-grey "connecting" bits that break up the texture. It would be nice if it was a continuous track, top to bottom. Maybe you could use rails to simulate a continuous "track".

The landing gear's foot will all be the same, like the one you preffer (front starboard = right side of ship :D ): A bit wider than the shaft. I just forgot to put those extra blocks on the other placeholders.

I agree, that the girders have a nice "machinery" texture, but somehow look weird as well, because they make too much noise.

 

[JinM]

Ok, I tried again. I don't know why I am so obsessed with this small detail, but somehow I wanna talk about it. =)

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[Snowtiger256]

Hmm, the slab-to-wedge detail (left strut on second picture) looks like it could snap under load, even with those pipes set between the wedges. It's not a problem in game mechanics, but aesthetically it looks a bit dubious.

 

[JinM]

Yeah I the same about the slab-to-wedge ones. Thanks for the replies guys.

I went with this one now. It is a compromiss of looking good from afar and when you walk next to it. Some of the other designs all looked nice when you stand right in front of it, but when you looked from a bigger distance, the vertical parts of the gear looked more like feet of an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars instead of some supporting beams of the sloping extenders.

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...And in action: =)

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You even can crawl into the ship, I left enough space to fit an astronaut between the gear mechanics.

 

[jayman38]

...You even can crawl into the ship, I left enough space to fit an astronaut between the gear mechanics.

Neat! You can have stowaways!