Yeah, i was kinda having issues thinking of a base for it, but i kept building and that's what i ended up with at 5am lol. Thanks for the advice though, I'm sure I'll eventually think of something. Maybe there's a way to play with the mod a little to allow it to attach to an asteroid? For example, being able to use them in those non-colonizable asteroid belts with resources in them, to help keep a player from just sending a colony ship in there and taking them from you. Maybe I'm starting to get a little off topic with the whole idea though and I should just stick to what I was originally trying to do lol, I don't know anywhere near enough about the coding process yet for something like that.

You know.. I forgot about the game engine not supporting independent moving parts on a single unit or structure.. I suppose things like that just don't come to mind in the early hours of the morning lol. Damn haha. Maybe I'll just save this one in my archive for a future use. Who knows, maybe if they make a Sins 2 they'll vamp up the engine a little to handle something like that. But I can see there reasons for not doing so for this release. Can you imagine how much it would take for your computer to process that much going on at once. Even the level of graphics they have for Sins now, with the amount of structures and units you're processing at one time, with a lot of the units even supporting reflections, is pretty amazing. So I can't really complain lol, just hope for more in the near future.

As for the Kodiak, I agree with you. When I first started playing the game not more than a few weeks ago, I actually neglected using the the Kodiak's decently impressive firepower, because it didn't really look like it was worth all that much. Unfortunately, I never have the time to really sit down and further my modeling skills all that much because of work. Although I like to think I have improved a "little" over the years lol. So basically, what happens now, is every now and then I'll get a decent idea in my head and I'll make something that I think turns out pretty well, but it's usually a fluke lol. Then it'll be another few months or longer before I'm able to make anything near that well again lol.

I know right? Just think about one of these attached to the backside of every asteroid in a system, just waiting for you to pass by so it can send a powerful shot right up the backside of your ship. This XSI plugin sounds pretty interesting. Although I don't use the XSI software, except as a midway point between creating my model and trying to get it into Sins, it would definitely be a huge help in that I could just convert it from XSI into whatever type of file I need. IMO you're definitely on to something with that idea. Is there currently anything out there that already does what you're trying to accomplish? I may just be out of the loop, but it's the first I've heard of when it comes to this level of "ease of access" for models. And you're more than welcome to the model. I may still change it following Yanxa and GoaFan77's advice, in that it really doesn't fit a space turret with the current base or that it doesn't really fit into what the limits of this game engine allows as far as animation.

I would stick with the 1st base and make a little deeper. The 3 sub bases make it look a little busy plus the less polys the better for the game.

Can the little gear wheel be bigger and teeth on both larger? Be nice to see without 100% zoom, even zoomed in in-game might not see them.

Alright. So I played around with some options, and this is what I came up with for now. It is FAR from finished though, and I still haven't decided if this is what I want I want to stick with. For some reason, I just can't find a design yet that I feel fits the cannon. But here it is anyway.

And here's just a couple I've been playing around with. For some reason I can't seem to get away from the legs lol

I like the little engines on the side, they are just the right size to make it look like it can rotate in space, but not really move. Might want to put it on all four sides for realism, though Sins is hardly consistent with that.

Another thing to keep in mind if you are doing this for the expansions, the TEC turret needs to have a place for the researchable missile launchers and laser cannon thing to appear. I don't think you need to include them in your model, but you'll need to leave some space for them to appear.

@myfist0 Haha thanks. Yeah, I still plan on changing the gear size, it's just a little bit of a pain, so I haven't gotten around to it yet Is there a way to upload the file on here? If not I'll just put it on filefront or something. I think I still have an account with them .

@GoaFan77 Lol, yeah Sins does tend to ride the line when it comes to realism. But then again, I've never flown around in space inside of a battleship so I can't really say what could or couldn't happen. I agree with having engines on all sides, I was actually considering doing that before i rendered those last images, but I figured it was time to call it quits for the night. I want to place some engines on the bottom of the turret as well, but I'm trying to think of a different design. I think it would look like overkill if ALL sides of the base were covered in the same type of engine. As far as the missile launchers and laser cannon.. I never even considered those upgrades. You guys are helping me to realize a lot of things I've overlooked and helping to avoid a lot of pain when it comes time to implement this into the game.

Couple questions for anybody willing to answer:

1.) Taking into account Sins inability to use minor animations, such as the turret rotating. I'm going to assume that the model has to be one object, one mesh. Is that correct? If so, is there a limit on the amount of polys that can be used? I don't want to finish the turret, and then have to go back later and try to lessen the quality of the model because I over did everything lol.

2.) My experience with modding is VERY limited. I just started a few days ago, and so far all I've managed to do is change starbases so that they can move around and engage targets within a gravity well, and change the abilities of a few capital ships around. So my question is this: how difficult would it be to use this model as a whole new unit? Instead of taking the place of the original gauss cannon, it would be a separate structure. I have no clue as to how to go about adding a new structure icon to the Tactical buildings list though.

Well, I'll see what else I can manage to do with this tomorrow after work. Maybe I'll get those gears re-designed

BTW: Thank you for all the feedback. It's been a HUGE help

The model has to be 1 object (all objects merged).

The fewer polys the better. It really matters when there are large amounts of the mesh in-game, like fighter and trade ships lag game large. Harpo did the math of removing 1 poly from each fighter times god knows how many fighter equals a lot less lag later game.

Have a look at [MOD] The Sins Optimization Project 

Adding a new unit is not all that hard. I recommend notepad++ and do a search in the converted files for Gauss and see the files it links to.

[Tutorials] 3D Modeling, Texturing, Importing & Converting

@myfist0 Wow, the information on the forum opened my eyes to so many things that I didn't realize about this game. After reading through all 15 pages, I've definitely gotten a better understanding about how necessary it is to be careful with how much work you're putting on this game engine. The work those guys are doing is amazing, Ironclad should be paying them for improvements like that lol. And thank you for the info and links too

@SuperZERO0 Thank you, I appreciate it.

Just waiting for the updated model to finish rendering. Added a few things and even changed the gears "myfist0." Hopefully they'll be a little easier to see, albeit if you look closely, they really aren't that realistic. But I suppose sometimes you have to sacrifice minor details when it comes to modeling for something like this lol.

Hmmm.... As the modeler for the Optimization project, you need to realize that the game engine will not handle 100's of these in game.  It shouldn't exceed 3,000 polys.  But you can "cheat" alot of the details with a good texture.

Now on to the good news ->  I like the design.  The base and overall layout look good, but the turret itself could use a little love.  Needs something on the back and/or top of it.  The Gear is an interesting design choice, but I don't think it will be noticeable enough in game.  The turret covers it up.  I'm not sure how to solve that one....

OK went through my archive, and here is an example that may help you out with what to add....

Are you using XSI?  Just curious...

@ SivCorp First of all, thank you for the feedback. It's greatly appreciated. I do admit that during probably the first.. 3/4 of the time spent modeling this turret, i completely disregarded the poly count. The thought never even occurred to me until late into it. So now I'm finding myself going back and decimating the meshes to clean up anything extra to try to get the count back down. I'm not sure if I'll make that 3,000 cut off, but I might get close to it. Maybe I'll make the this one a little more powerful than the gauss cannon, and further limit the amount that can be built to try to counteract how many of them are going to be floating around out there in a game session. The main problem I'm having, being the first model I've designed for a game, is that I keep having the urge to add more details "ie: the gear" because I'm use to modeling with the main goal being to try to get it to look as realistic as I can "which I don't always succeed at" lol. Which you can see here, http://stormchaser2oo6.deviantart.com/gallery/. As far as the designs for the top turret itself, I definitely agree that it's missing something, I just haven't been able to figure out what. I'm sure your model there will definitely help me to incorporate some much needed details. Thank you for that. BTW, I love that design. Was it created for Sins? It looks as though it was meant to be attached to another structure or unit because of the base.

Nope, I'm using blender. I've got XSI, but for now there's just too much of a difference in how the program functions compared to what I'm use to, to be able to sit down and learn it. Maybe eventually though.

@ GoaFan77 Yeah, implementing the new graphics for the construction interface was the part I was really dreading getting in to. I haven't really seen a lot of information out there pertaining to it. I'll definitely do a search around the forum and see what I can come up with though. Thanks for the offer to help implement it into the game. Depending on how much I'm able to learn between now and then as far as the modding portion goes, I might take you up on that.

Well this weekend is a 4 day weekend for me. Gotta love government paid time off. So maybe I'll have some time to sit around and see what else I can come up with. And I'll definitely have to do some more work in getting the poly count down.

Thanks for the help everybody!

Awesome design. I see a lot of different possibilities with that model. I cant decide whether I'd consider it Advent or Vasari though. I think I see features of both.