Hy all.
First of all - huge thanks to
Zoic for beautiful high-res orthographic viper Mk VII pictures, as well as huge, huuuuuuuuuuuge thanks to elaborate site
ShipsSchematics on their vast reference library. Also I modeled every polygon and ngon with much, much, much love, and so I give my homage to the best SERIES EVER in my own way - through this Viper I bring offerings to BSG
. Seriosly. Also, this is my first tribute model ever, so the significance is great. I hope BSG fans will go nutz! when they see this, and I hope everyone else will like technical aspect (modeling, lightning, texturing) as well as storyline aspect as I go forward with this model.
SO SAY WE ALL!
Full size: http://powerlab.fsb.hr/dnovosel/patrik/vipermkVII/CainsViperss_side.jpg
I'm new to SFM, but I bring gifts. This is stil W.I.P., but it's almost finished. I only need to finish up engines and that's it. Idea is to present brand new polished viper, straight out of Beast's Belly (Pegasus Viper facilities). I present to you unique craft in all BSG Universum - Rear Admiral Cain's Vipers, being build in Beast's belly (Pegasus), a genuine idea of Pegasus' engineering ensign Lauron "Bulb" Haist - known for his out-of-the-box thinking.
For now, single Viper Mk VII CP (Cain's Prowlers) class is being build on Pegasus. This one will serve for familiarization with new cylon technology "inbred" with Colonial CNP.
Details of this story below:
On a specific occasion, Rear Admiral Cain approved wild hunt plan presented to her by her active CAG. The plan was: locate lone group of cylon raiders via raptor's scanners, commence pegasus jump once group is located, lock batteries on all raiders, destroy them, send squadron of raptors to salvage the least damaged raider, return to pegasus, commence untraceable pegasus jump.
Hardest of all was to locate lone cylon raider group, but ultimately they've hit the spot. Once salvaged raider was on board Pegasus, her engineering crew started to get familiar with cylon technology. After about month, they successfully connected organic cylon fibers with viper's optical cables. Control over cylon raider's head was maintained via Colonial CNP enhanced with genuine cylon code, therefore making this Viper Mk VII virtually uncrackable via cylon or colonial codes. Were this the only and best feature of this craft, it wouldn't be as important as it is.
Real sugar-bomb about this craft is, that implemented cylon head can send disruptive signal containing cylon-colonial code/virus to any craft within viper's standard scanner range, making it powerless, with no means of communication.
It's the same principle we can see in BSG miniseries when galactica's viper Mk VII squadron is being shut down, then massacred.
Posts
what if you push it further? like replace completely the canopy with the cylon head?
that would make a drone, and pilots wouldnt have to die anymore.
If you think about it, and you think about non-pilot viper under full CNP-cylon coding control of every function that viper has (scanners, maneuverability, data input/output link with BS Pegasus CIC, firing, targeting) - basically if all that worked, you'd have your own colonial raider - and that stage is impossible for now.
But don't get me wrong, Lauron "Bulb" Haist's idea was to make this what we have today (sure, it's undependable, but it works, so-so) and to upgrade it to fully CNP-cylon coding controlled non-pilot viper, but no one really thought that even today's progress would be possible, so idea of non-pilot viper will stay aside for some time.
also, glad you like it, and that we thought about the same step forward .
while I was posting I didn't see that you already posted. Exactly, as I said in my previous post, they coped with "simple" connection of cylon raider head and viper's avionics and that's working so-so. Putting the whole viper under the CNP-cylon code control, presumingly that it would even fly - now that would be a real disaster.
Yup, there's cylon raider head above cockpit, and yup, this babe's 3D, and yup rends are on the way. (btw. I gave to all materials gloss at value of 0,2 and sample value at 10 + AA settings on 2 (min and max), so it renders a little bit slow, but yah, renders are on the way XD).
Capt Dave - so glad to be hearing this, ty
and here's newest perspective view: