shipdesign analysis

[Motorsagmannen]

ive been thinking of this for a little while, and want to share my viewpoints on the ships in WO-HD estetically (or however its spelled). i will fokus on overall shipdesign and liverydesign foremost.

FEISAR:
overall it is a sleek and streamlined craft, and compared to the bodysize it has quite large wings and airbrakes, which support its immage of THE handling machine of wipeout. it is a mixture in design between angular and curvy, the front end is totally angular up to after the cockpit and after the cockpit its round and curvy. although its front end is so drastically different compared to the back, the design works and looks pleasing to the eye.the feisar has many air-intakes the most prominent ones being the huge semi cirkles in the middle of the side. the entire front of the nose is an intake, and it has a medium sized intake each side of the nosetip to. along the entire ridge of the nose up until the cabin is another wide intake( its easiest to spot on the #3 livery). and there is a intake directly to the engine sticking up behind the cabin.
the exhaust looks like you would expect from the feisar, not overwhelming and impressive, but rather a modest rectangular followed by two small circular exhausts, it does not look like the most powerfull of engines but then again its not supposed to, considering the feisars low speed. the weapons are like most other singlehull ships exposed on the belly near the back in a symetrical layout of a cannon on each wingtip and four identical rocket brackes in the middle each holding four rockets.possible consealed weapons in the nose too, but all you see is two oval pipes sticking out slightly
livery:
#1
i never been a fan of the feisars standard livery, its combination of dark blue, turqoise, yellow and white is unfortunate. and i dont think the colours follow the lines of the ship in any pleasing way either.the nose is a solid darkblue smear with a white pinstripe at the bottom. tthe sidepanel looks messy with the turquoise-yellow-grey transition because it doesent follow the lines of the ship well and makes the otherwise cool airintake stick out like a sore thumb. i also think the efisar logos on the wings look a little to dominating.
it gets pluspoints for the awesome big picture of the cat-mascot :D
#2
its the blue and white one, now that the yellow and turquoise is nearly gone it looks much better than the standard one. basically it is the same colourscheme, but the way the colours are balanced works way better than in the standard livery.the overall flow of lines is better to. the nose looks way better. the placements of the different logos, and also the scaling in size suit the ship. unlike the other two liveries this one has black panels surrounding the cockpit instead of light-grey.
#3
this livery is both in colourscheme and overall layout completely different from the others.
the dark blue which were the primairy colour of the first two is completely gone and the new main colour is yellow with details in white and turquoise. this is by far my favourite feisar livery, the overall apperance, the placement of the logos, it all comes together like a glove on this one. moving the cat-mascot to right before the main side air intake looks perfect and also the big turquoise section in the nose with the huge "FEISAR" looks amazing. this livery is also the only one following up on the wings with a nice turqouise curving line embraced by a white line on each side.

this is taking way longer than excpected so i will work my way up in twelve posts :P

[darkfaerytales]

let me say what i think about your thread

I LOVE IT!

kudos, i wait for the others ship analysis

now this is my analysis of your analysis: i'm in accord with you

on a side note have you noticed that the first livery observed by the side follow the lines of the feisar logo? practically its a big feisar logo print on the side silhouette of the ship model

this is the same for the ag-sys first livery but by the top in that case

[Motorsagmannen]

QIREX-RD:
the qirex is another ship mixing angular design with flowing curves. the dualbodys are quite thick and has a triangular shape to them. this ship is called "the brick" for a reason and that is clearly visible from its solid and dense overall design. it has quite big airbrakes on the top of each dualhull and these are implemented in a way that looks natural to the design as mentioned it has both angular and curving lines but the execution isnt that appealing in the qirex. its dual bodypieces is quite angular the whole way... except for an odd curve that suddenly start halfway and all the way towards the rear where it suddenly goes up into a straight line towards the dualbody engines. this is imo a pointless and ugly way to do it and breaks up the design in a tasteless fashion, a pure angular qirex would still look like a brick but it might have looked cool. this ship hardly have any air-intakes the cockpit has a small one right below the nosetip and thats about it, except for the cooling ducts on the top of each dualhull (possibly to cool of weapons?). also i dont know what those sections without panels resemble but the look cool and unique ;)
the exhausts of the qirex is composed of only small outlets but my god it has many of them, 7 in totall. two small vertical ovals on top of an octagonal horizontal main exhaust in the middle body. and two small circular in each dualhull functionin as boost engines only. this gives an impression of a craft with high top speed, but the amount of engines is misleading as it is overall rather slow.
this craft has all weapons hidden in the nosetip of each dualhull. at the outside there is a rocketbracket followed by a cannon and closest to the inside is a rectangular sort of gun (posibly leachbeam,plasma?)
Livery:
#1
standard livery is a two-colour, dark purple and white skin. it is mainly purple all over and has white trim along all the edges on the body. it has also rather large decals and the most prominent beeing the qirex logo on the back end of each hull which stands out nicely, but could be just a little bit smaller to fit inside the panel like on livery#3. also the mirrored "Q" on the cockpit stands out.
i like this livery rather much it is a nice execution and the layout is clean, besides it underlines the hardcore badass image of the russian brick. its one of my favourite standard skins by far.
#2
second skin adds a thitd colour to the scheme, magenta. and this scheme resembles the dark purple ship robed in a white-magenta-white halo. now its also symetrical on each side having "qirex-rd" written inside of the halo. the huge qirex logo on the back has shrunk down and is now also three coloured, personally i liked the larger logo of the standard skin. overall... i dont like it. the halo graphics dont match with the ships lines imo.
#3
this skin is a whole new aproach to the layout than the other two. still three colours but main colour is offwhite. the purple and magenta is now featured as pinstripes following in the race direction of the ship down the ship. again the "qirex-rd" is mirrored and this time its embeded in a sleak manner in the pinstripes. the really big qirex logo is once again back to the back end of the hulls, and this time it looks awesome in purple and magenta, perfectly fitted to match the panel. i also like the small qirex logos on each airbrake, its a nice touch only the #3 skin has. its a close race with the standard livery, but this one is my favourite for this russian craft ( might be because i seem to be the only one who like it :))

this sums up my views of the qirex.

[Motorsagmannen]

whats this, i went to far into micro detail to look at the big picture on th feisar? O.0 omg
i didnt notice that the ship is one big logo thnx for the info *kicking myself*, still i dont like the standard liverydesign though :P

[Motorsagmannen]

PIRANHA:
ahh the pirahna, first impression i got of this craft is that it really looked front heavy but that is countered by the mounting of the AG-generator off center and towards the front.
this one of the ships that feature an all curvy line design. this gives it a really sleak and streamlined look and ive grown to like the look of it. its long flowing lines and huge nose makes it look like an offshore racing boat, which is a nice indication that this thing is built for speed (it even have parts of the engine bursting out). it has quite big wings, but that is not compared to the massive bulk of the main hull, and also it has small airbrakes, so according to the stats it looks really well designed
it doesent have many airducts and the biggest ones are well hidden on the belly of the beast. the most obvious one is on the top of the nose, its a narrow duct that runs all the way to the cockpit. second one is in the front and it covers a quite big portion of the underside of the nosetip. the third one is a huge duct flowing all the way from the AG-generator directly into the engine. it also has cooling ribs running alongside the nose on both sides. i must also note the awesome ribs on the side of the engine, emiting a blue glow.
exhaust on the piranha is in a league of its own. almost in full body height rectangular vertical shaped it got one hell of a main exhaust. and further states that the piranha is built for speed. its boost engines is hardly noticable when not in use and consists of three tiny engines mounted in a black box underneath each wing (when in use only two jetstreams visible from each side though.)
weaponbays? what weaponbays? oh yeah theres these small pipes on the end of each wingtip xD . (sidenote: after i had this pointed out to me i realized, if this came in a flesh coloured skin it would be obscene, you can probably guess why lol.)
livery:
#1
this is my least favourite standard livery, and except from silver skin its my least favourite in the game.
its yellow with red decor, it follows the lines of the ship quite well but i am afraid its just to dull for a sharp teethed fish like this. awesome detail though is the four tiny piranha logos underneath the window, those resemble AG-crafts devoured by this ship and is a really cool detail also found in the #2 livery.
#2
main focus shifted from yellow to red. and this time the whole ship is made to look like a piranha when seen directly from the front ( probably to scare the **** out of pilots seeing it in the rearwiev mirror. after all it is made to get a bad start then catch up and soar past.) this is an awesome idea that would only work with the piranha team and i love it. also the tailfins are made to look this way, so if seen at the right angle it looks like three piranhas charging at you teeth first. this livery looks good appart from the fact that if you drive it in chase cam the piranha logos on the wings look... i dunno kinda off.
#3
this one has yet again shifted the colour focus, this time primary colour is white whith an yellow belly (hmm yellow bellied piranha lol) with a red zig-zag line in between. the only piranha logo is this time on the right wing, and the "with added BITE" written on the other.
at first i didnt care to much for this livery and i usually raced with #2, but as time went by i couldnt take the logos on the wings of the #2 anymore and switched to this one.
now i love this livery more every time i race it. its by far my favourite for the piranha now

[darkfaerytales]

heeheh if quirex is the " brick " the goteki what it is ? " UBER-BRICK "


O.0 omg
i didnt notice that the ship is one big logo thnx for the info

actually there are many, the " halo " you refering describing the 2nd livery of quirex is actually the big logo from the top

another one is the 1st livery of icaras from a strange perspective, another is the right side of 1st mirage livery, the second livery of piranha spot the logo clearly printed from the front...

[Darkdrium777]

Qirex is no longer a brick. The handling has changed since the old Wipeouts. And Goteki turns better, so it's even less than a brick :) (brick = square shaped and bad handling).

[Motorsagmannen]

its still the brick in my eyes:D but ok i can see your points.
@darkfaerytales: yes i did actually try to see the qirex logo on the #2 livery, but just couldnt.( this was acctually before i read your feisar post btw) and the piranha im pretty sure i mentioned that the front end looks like a piranha logo, but i might have been a bit unclear right there i guess.the mirage one ive seen as well, but i had no chance in hell on the Icaras...hmmm better check it out and see if it makes sense ;)
but i like your UBER-Brick term i might use it shortly, although i know you where kidding ;)

next up,its the Y-wing bomber, with X-wing-engines, i mean the AG-5Y5

[Motorsagmannen]

AG-5Y5TEMS:
well what can i say of the ag-s? its of an almost totally angular design, except from the small hemispherical intakes on each side below the cockpit( and a big oval intake in the front), the weapon-guard on the belly and the rounding of at the back end of the nose section.
the first thing that popped into my head the first time i looked at this was "hmmm, a long nosed Y-wing with a X-wing set of engines strange." so to put it softly its not hard to see where they got there inspiration. if you re-edited the ag-s into one of the episode IV-VI starwars movies few would frown upon it or even notice. that said, i am not crazy for this ships design, i love starwars and to have a h`omage to those movies in a game not related is cool. but it also leaves me with the impression that they didnt work too hard on the design of this ship. it got really clean lines for an angular designed ship and looks fairly aerodynamic. it`s also a really low craft compared to the how broad it is, and combined with a low senter of gravity this gives an impression of the ag-s, as a craft of great stability. i also love the feature of the bridge between the nose and the tail, makes it stand out on its on among the other singlehull ships ( do not mention the harimau and say it also have a bridge, that one is completely different). i also like th weapon-guard its a nice touch that stands out. a detail i dont like though, is the triangular holes with the rotating fans on the backside of the craft, it look out of place and i think the break up the otherwise clean lines of the tail-section.
compare to its handling stats it has rather small airbrakes and also feature quite small wings, so it isn`t looking agile and manouverable as it feels.
the exhaust on the ag-s, is as described, nearly identical to those of the X-wing fighter, but that is only for its boost engines, the main engine is mounted directly in the middle of these and is a horizontal medium sized rectangle. ( it seems to be a general rule of thumb, big main engine= good top speed. and big boost engines=good boost,) so this craft has actually bigger and better boost engines than main engine, which is complementary to its stats.
the weapons on the ag-s is mounted on the belly in the back part of the nose section, it consists of a large missile, a gatling cannon and a large pipe which has three small pipes inside it (could be the ag-s`s version of rockets),
all in all it looks sleak and stable, but kinda generic.
Livery:
#1
primary colour is red with a white huge ag-s logo draped over it from the top. it also have "AG-SYS" written in large bold letters down the nose-ridge just like the #2 livery has. i general the nose section looks excellent and is complementing the ship, but unfortunately the tail-section just does`nt cut it for me. overall it looks quite good, and is one of the better standard liveries.
#2
this is a whole new aproach, and the colours are switched from red and white, to white with light blue decals. the nose looks quite good and follows the lines nicely and the transition between nose and tail look much more fluent now that the bridge is coloured blue and following the lines of the decals on the tail. also a cool feature is that this design makes the top view od the ag-s look even more like a rocket than before. this is a nice livery, and because the #1 and #3 are so similar in general design, it is nice to have at least one that looks completely different.
#3
this liver y has shifted back to the red and white colourscheme of the #1 livery. but now its white with red decals. the nosetip is completely red and on the ridge between the red-section and the cockpit it has written "FAST FRIENDS" with the ag-s logo on top, this is different from the other two liveries which hace "AG-SYS" written there.
the ag-s logos on this craft is more dominating than on the other two, and on this craft it looks good, both the slanted logo, mirrored on each side of the nose. and the logo on each back wing looks amazing, only grief is that the triangular fan-holes are disrupting.
of all the ships, only the ag-s has three liveries that i use on an almost equal basis, they all look good, but in different ways. if i have to go with just one it would probably be the #1.

[Motorsagmannen]

coming up.
its the winner of many design awards such as: "best camo pattern on AG craft", "most likely-craft-to-be-hurled-into-a-store-window-during-a-riot" and last but not least "fastest military barrack"

but does it have three times the power?

[darkfaerytales]

one great nice touch about piranha design, and liveries ,you have forgot, maybe you do not have noticed, take a look on the base of the cockpit, where the glass are next to the metal, you can spot a set of detailed carves on the glass, customized for each one of the liveries, the first one is simple a set of two horizontal carves, the second is made this way ^^^^^^^^,
on the third one you can see them made like a lightning shape.
each one takes up the decals of the respective livery

those touches are pure 100 % GENIUS by SL , KUDOS to the designers !

[Motorsagmannen]

you sir is awesmoe, i never seen that before thnx, this realy shows that SL really dont **** around when making their designs. also have you ever taken a good look at weapons in the game? anthony pointed this out to me and i took some photos. there are handling instructions on the bomb,mines and rockets OMG!!!!

[darkfaerytales]

yes i have! it's astonishing, i don't remenber what is write on the rockets , but was something cool, i see if i can take a couple of good shots, i have one of the mines already, i will post it

on a side note have you ever noticed the animation of the bomb, to be more specificaly the bomb countdown?! i'ts awesome, resembles a rubik cube but spherical , i will rename it " the rubik sphere " :lol

ALL HAIL TO STUDIO LIVERPOOL!!!!

[GreenPhazon]

coming up.
its the winner of many design awards such as: "best camo pattern on AG craft", "most likely-craft-to-be-hurled-into-a-store-window-during-a-riot" and last but not least "fastest military barrack"
I think at least 2/3 of those is Triakis.

[Motorsagmannen]

the triakis won them all. and its coming up sometime today.

[Cerbis]

Motorsagmannen, you said you took pictures of the weapons? Would it be possible for you to share them somehow? I'd very much like to see this, myself!

Also, awesome thread, man. Great breakdown of the design of the craft.
Just don't forget about the teeth on the bottom of the Triakis now, yea? ;)

[Motorsagmannen]

TRIAKIS:
the triakis is yet another all angular designed craft. It is a dual-hull ship and the first main aspects that separates the triakis from other crafts in WO-HD is that its a dual-hull ship but it still has a long nose in the middle section, so it could almost be called a triple bodied ship. And also the architecture between the center and the two body-hulls is made far denser than on any other dual-hull (except from the zone craft, but I will get back to that on in the 13th segment of this) . Despite having long and sleek dual-hulls, the way they are built solid instead of hollow like most of the other of this type means that it still look rugged. And the overall bodythickness is quite consistent all over. Covering every surface of the body is a thick riveted armourplating, even covering the engine there is a diamond shaped armourpiece surrounding the exhaust in all directions even underneath. The chassis underneath the armour looks like its made from quite solid steel beams( especially the massive “V”shaped beam connecting all three hulls.) and although it looks rather sleek it also looks extremely heavy.
It actually has quite an array of airintakes but these are implemented quite discretely. First its one rather big one on the tip of each dual-hull, these without doubt fuel the boost-engines in the far end of their respective hull. On the center body there is three intakes, one small on top of the nose quite easily visible (mainly beacause of the three metal coloured spikes sticking out past it, these spikes are also located on the next airintake). One huge underneath the broadest part of the nose covering 80% of the surface in the width, and one more, behind that sticking out slightly more leading directly into the engine ( it has a slight blue glow emitting from the inside.). It also has plenty of coolingribs to, the most prominent being the big one right underneath the cockpit, it seems to be connected with the big airduct underneath the nose and might work as an intercooler for the engine. These cooling ribs are also visible on each dual-hull, located right after the intakes. So this strengthens my intercooler hypothesis.
Another quite distinctive detail on this craft is the flashing blue and red lights mounted on the backside of the wide part of the nose, and right above the engine, many ships have these but not in quite an annoying way like the triakis.
When it comes to make a judgement regarding the triakis`s handling ability I can sum up a couple of things, its a huge and massive ship but the airbrakes are tiny and also it has small or no wings.
In the exhaust department you could definitely say that the triakis have a huge main exhaust, its big and hexagonal, mounted in th very middle of the craft. It also have quite large rectangular boost engines, mounted far to the back on each dual-hull.
Its weapons consist of one gatling cannon concealed in each bridge-section between the main hull and the outside-hulls, located safe behind the massive “V” beam.
(P.S the triakis have no AG-generator underneath it, the same applies to the assegai, the mirage and the auricom to, odd.)
Livery:
#1
green camouflage with beige details (woodland)
left hull tip have the writing “TRIAKIS” right tip has the slogan “THREE TIMES MORE POWER”
#2
black, white and gray camouflage (urban)
“TRIAKIS” is moved to the back side of the left hull, right side is the same
#3
beige, dark brown, and red`ish brown (desert)
same logos as #1
I like the #2 one best nuff said, its all camo`s for pete`s sake :P

[Motorsagmannen]

you will find out in the next segment.

[SaturnReturn]

Hooray. That's the one I'm waiting for :D

[darkfaerytales]

this thread come better and better at every step:+

mate, not that i want to steal your work , that is very excellent, and be a know-it-all nipticking but i have some points i have noticed maybe can help you:
this is what i've gather on mounths of observing

-some ship actually have headlights, in some way like cars have, i do not know if the fuction is the same however, you can easily spot them on piranha, goteki, eg-x, harimau

-you have completely omited to describe the on-board instrumentation and monitors, i think it is a quite important aspect, to describe even what it is into the cockpit since it is the first wipeout where you can see this WELL and DETAILED, and if one noticed it SL have done an excellent work in this as well, every ship have its own monitor and driving diagnostics with light and animation

-the little but relevant script ( i think UBER COOL ) here and there on the ships hulls like in the piranha near exhaust " danger hot exhaust " " danger intake " , on the left side of triakis 1st livery " optical giga sensor.." ," heavy duty alloy " on it and on assegai as well, and so on...

-just to know how many of you know there is a radioactivity simbol on the goteki ship but i will not say where it is hide, the first that will spot it win a prize :lol heheehe

-describing the " anti-gravity generator and what kind it is, circular rotary, or squared
TRIAKIS:
(P.S the triakis have no AG-generator underneath it, the same applies to the assegai and th mirage to, odd.)
some not have it exposed, maybe internal?

-
TRIAKIS:
It actually has quite an array of airintakes but these are implemented quite discretely. First its one rather big one on the tip of each dual-hull, these without doubt fuel the boost-engines in the far end of their respective hull.


i think these big " airducts " are weapons bay actually, every ship should have the same weapons mounted when you observed triakis first thing you noticed is that it haven't any exposed ( as for some others ship ) a part the two gutling guns,this, plus the black& yellow strips on the tips of the hulls just near the holes bring me to the conclusion that " things " come out from there instead of enter

-the " materials " textures, as sure you have noticed every ship have different array of textures underneat " all that is printed over " like livery colours, scripts, sponsors and weathering( UBERCOOL ), this textures still to indicate the kind of material in which the ship's built i think, as an exemple the assegai " honeycomb texture " on a side note this kind of textures very own of assegai is present on mirage too but very very less prominent and you have to look very vey deep

-piranha and harimau are the 2 only ship , from what i have observed, in which the underside/ belly of the ship chage in colour/ tone ( metal tone :) ) depending by the livery

-feisar and icaras share some construciotn parts/ instruments like on-board main monitor, AG generator, a coulple of " boost "/ support exhaust...i think i have no need to explain why, right?

- the barcodes, sincerely i like the bar-codes on most of the ships liveries BUT SOMEONE CAN EXPLAIN THEM TO ME?:lol


i know i'm really maniacal:blarg

[Motorsagmannen]

GOTEKI-45:
first impressions from looking at the goteki is “OMG look at those engines!!” it is basically two huge powerplants strapped to a cockpit and draped with some armour frosting, it looks menacing. Its also the only double hulled ship that looks like it is made from three independent pieces and then bolted together. It has a certain scrapyard look to it that reminds me a bit of the pod-racers. Goteki just simply look like the least professional team of them all. That aside certainly looks fast despite its incredibly boxshaped body.
its long and angular and the external hulls are quite broad and flat, but the overall ship is surprisingly narrow. In fact despite its huge bulk its one of the narrower ships in the game. Body consists of two trapezoid shaped long dual-hulls fitted to a trapezoid cockpit. So the cross section looks pretty consistent. But the design is far from following just one direction, in fact the cockpit is shaped In a really, curvy egg shape in profile. This helps it look a bit more streamlined, and stop it from being the ultimate brick ( although it is close.).
The two external hulls are slanted slightly downward towards the outside of the ship so that the slim wedge between them is even narrower. But because of the narrow gap between the hulls the cockpit sticks out quite high and look a bit corny. Luckily the external hulls are sticking down extra much in that section and make the high cockpit less noticeable.
Although it looks like it welded together on a scrapyard it looks far from flimsy, on the contrary it makes up for exposed engines with cladding the entire top part of the main bodywork in thick armorplating. And the chassis looks almost as solid as it did on the triakis.
when it comes to handling, the first note is. This ship has NO wings whatsoever, but it salvages some cornering ability due to some of the largest airbrakes in the game. Although beeing huge the airbrakes are fitted perfectly on the top panels on each external hull and fit in with the gotekis image of “make it huge or dont make it at all” nicely. So in design versus statistics the handling look ok.
Now on to the main portion of the ship, the external boost engines, they are huge. The gotekis external hulls are the biggest in the game, but still there is no empty space on them the entire length from tip to rear is filled with the boost engines. The main engine isn`t small either but it does`nt look to effective considering the fact that it receives very little air, the only intake is a small one underneath the cockpit, and a tiny one in the nose. There is also a small airintake right under the window but thats probably to suply air to the pilot. On the booster engines on the other hand, the entire front end with its cooling ribs in the front of the intake, is a massive duct to supply air. And to top it off on top of the back end of the external hulls there is a ram air intake directly to the engine itself.
Exhaust vents consists of two sections, the wedge shaped main exhaust on the center hull. And the four huge ovals on the two external hulls. So my conclusion on appearance compared to speed stats it looks pretty consistent, it has huge boosters and a medium sized main thruster, but because of its heavy bulk and poor aerodynamics, its impossible for this craft to reach a high top speed.
The weapons on this craft is hidden on each side of the front airintake on the external hulls. The outer ones function as cannons but all four is of the same vertical rectangular shaped gun
Livery:
#1
is a white and yellow design with pink detailing. It has a rather industrial look and has “GOTEKI 45” written in bigg letters diagonally across the front end, it features a big “GOTEKI 45” along with the “G” logo diagonally on top of the left ram-air intake, and a huge “G” logo on the right airbrake. All in all the design works like a glove with the design of this craft, and complements its boxy body with the diagonal lines and industrial feel. Its my favorite for this ship although I hated it when I first started out racing the goteki
#2
focus in colour shifted to white and pink. Its now white on the top, and pink on the bottom with yellow pinstriping. It now features logos and slogans in a way that goes naturally with the lines of the ship. It now says “future proof” on the left body, and “GOTEKI 45” in the right one perfectly fitted to the elevated boxes the huge goteki logos at the back are now gone and replaced with equal goteki “G”s and “GOTEKI 45” written on the ram air and airbrakes. Although this design follows the lines of the ship perfectly I prefer the standard skin, I think the white and pink focus isn`t suiting to this ship very well. still not bad though.
#3
this livery still has all the logos as the #2 livery in the same place and size, but now the main colour is a dirty, stale yellow and all writing is in black, it certanly looks more hardcore now than any other ship in the game. This design is truly suiting for the goteki, It would look horrible on any other ship but this livery brings out the essence of the industrial gritty goteki. I like it very much.

This about sums up my views on the goteki.

(sidenote: hmmm looks like these are getting longer each time, mabye I should do the first ones over again and publish it in a book :P)
btw: the radioactive symbol is on the airintake right after the ribs in the front end of the external hull

[Motorsagmannen]

@darkfaerytale omg O.o you really have an eye for detail, mabye you should write something like this yourself? lol
but for your input:
-i have been noticing the different on board displays and cockpit layout, the grade of detail is stupefying on all ships, SL really did an amazing masterpiece with this game
-yes some ships have headlights, i dunno either lol
- actually the ag-s changes colour on the belly to, but only on the weaponguard. last skin makes it red.
edit: i missed you point alltogether, yes ive seen that on the pirahna, and triakis, but not in the harimau
-feisar is the european collaboration team, and the icaras is british so i would guess that they have some sort of r&d together, that might explain it, but im a little rusty with all background info, nice job noticing the subte similarities though.
-and the warning signs, labels etc are awesome, but just to damn many to recite lol. but i have been seeing them and i love SL for putting them on and in that number.
-the airducts on the triakis is probably airducts, the triakis have its guns mounted close to the cockpit. speaking of guns have you seen the armament on the auricom holy **** funny sidenote, when the ag-s fires its cannon, it glitches. because it only have one gatling cannon to the right side and none to the left, it generates a flash where the left cannon should be. aøso the icaras doesent fire from its weapons at all but form the air intakes on its wings:P
ive taking photos of every ship firing cannon to see where its active weapons are btw xD

and always nice to see there are more people around to marvel at the crafts close up, i knew i wasnt alone

[Motorsagmannen]

find out next november in the thrilling blockbuster, or check this site tomorrow.

[darkfaerytales]

heeheh the LCD on mirage is the best! sincerelly one strange thing is that they are on the 23 century and still uses monitors...anyway cool ones...

for underside tone changes under piranha and harimau i mean the raw chassis exposed metals part, the conponent of mechanics etcera, actually that part of ag-sys you refering still part of the " up " livery, like in the case of triakis for another ex. the underpart of its BIG exhaust still coloured camo like all the " up " of the ship...
( on a side note, have U noticed how DAMNED BLACK is the underside of 3rd skin harimau!:blarg )

yes i guess icaras was ever been such small and niche wise racing team, since its born, this was ever been very clear as premised in the bios, more like a whim of a wealthy magnate than a " serious " team run by a big corporate, so it's not unlikely that feisar pass some of its products/construction parts as a BIG supplier - i like how such things instill a sense of realism...

i have noticed with a bit of delusion how the cannon shots do not coincide to the actual position of the gutling cannon on some ( actually few fortunately ) of the ships, but i can understand it is for obvious reasons.
i've past an entire afternoon observing for each ship where the cannon shot fires and taking photoshots,
this is a list:
-FEISAR right, it shots from where it is supposed to be, the guns on the wings
-QUIREX right , from the top of the hulls
-PIRANHA same as feisar
-AG-SYS one right one not
-TRIAKIS right
-GOTEKI right place
-EG-X right place...but i think it have 2 in excess as it seems, the 2, one each side of the hull, aren't supposed to be gatling guns then...
-ASSEGAI it fires from the sides " airducts like " holes one each side
-MIRAGE right, it fires from right places
-HARIMAU quite not, it fires from where are positioned the rockets/ missiles
-AURICOM same as harimau
-ICARAS it fires from within the front grating on the wings


GOTEKI-45:
btw: the radioactive symbol is on the airintake right after the ribs in the front end of the external hull

YOU WIN!!!! :)

p.s.
PLEASE CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN ME THE BAR-CODES ???!!:lol

[Motorsagmannen]

i wondered about the barcodes myself. and i cant beliveve someone else here cared enough to check the firing of every ship ( i have the pictures to prove it lol). and your list is nicely done

[Avenger2197]

About bar-codes: I would think these barcodes are direct result of "ship delivery" for the teams. Due to the fact that they are NOT civic-minded in any sense. They'll never be driven to the next track, but delivered by the team for the next event.

As to their placement, well that could be just integration into the designs of the skins. Since the teams of Wipeout seem to be bursting at the seams with style.:)

Also a bit off-topic(sorry): Do you guys think that the pit areas for each team could be their containers for delivery? Lifted out after each race, and re-inserted into the next course in time for the next race? I don't really see it as being impossible, but I wouldn't know either way.:P

@Motorsagmannen: Brilliantly done with the design analysis. Look forward to the rest! :clap

[Motorsagmannen]

both your theory on the barcodes, and the possibility of the pit doors to also be the doors of the freight containers of the ships, seems plausible. never thought of the transportation to that extent, but it makes perfect sense that they wont travel by their own propultion.

and thanks for the kind words

[Avenger2197]

You know I was re-reading through and you guys mentioned headlights on ships. TBH, I don't think they are. If I'm not mistaken it was stated somewhere that EG-X uses some sort of friction-diffuser on the front of it's ship. I would think it would be the same with all ships these "lights" were visible. Especially since they "move contents" the same way that the AG generators do.(i.e. change in light patterns)

Would definitely make sense since all ships that have them visible, would greatly benefit for their movement around the track. And, since the AG race commission hates night racing it seems.:g

[Cerbis]

As for the racing league management hating night races... isn't the FX350 racing league fast enough without racing in decreased-visibility conditions? ;)

Also, here's some more half-assed thinking about the barcodes...
What if they're used by the track control computers for faster craft identification?
Not all the craft have as big and visible barcodes as others though, do they?
Perhaps... it's just Studio Liverpool liking the visuals of the barcode.
I just know that I love the barcode down the nose of the Piranha! :D

Aaaalso... isn't it possible that, if the Icaras team is the whim of a multi-billionaire, that FEISAR provides staff,
R&D and components in exchange for (much needed?) funding? I'm not too well-versed with the backstory, but if it's anything like current EU projects? ;)

[Darkdrium777]

Goteki's are headlights, no doubt. :)

http://g.imagehost.org/t/0871/wohd_20090419_004225.jpg (http://g.imagehost.org/view/0871/wohd_20090419_004225)

They're not shiny like on Harimau or EG-X

[Motorsagmannen]

yes reading this i was thinking the same thing dd777.
some ships have what is unmistakeably headlights, it could be to tackle an unforeseen downpour, or blizzard during a race, or maybe its for endurance racing, like le`mans 24H race. its not unthinkable that they would still have endurance races like that in the future.

[Motorsagmannen]

getting back to topic i will have my views on the EG-R/Xios collaboration coming up sometime today/night so stay tuned

[Motorsagmannen]

EG-X
there is a few things that come to mind foremost when looking at the eg-x, one being the strictly angular design, shaped in a tall, thin body. And second being that big sexy main engine ( I will come back to how big it really is later).
In every aspect the eg-x looks fast, it has a really long sweeping nose, big airintakes, long fins along the whole body, and short wings. This thing is built to move.
The nose of the eg-x is different from all the other nose I've looked at so far, it is completely filled with what seems to be a second AG-generator pointing forwards, as others have pointed out to me it could very well be part of an impact dampener clearly visible in the nose. But anyway, it doesn't seem to have any intakes in the nose at all, unlike most other crafts. But the eg-x is not made perfectly for this purpose, although it looks fast the rear section looks bulky and not very aerodynamic, mainly because of the thickness in the bodywork surrounding the upper four main airintakes. This make an otherwise streamlined craft look sluggish, so I don't like that one bit. Otherwise the design on the eg-x is superb and it has been one of my aesthetic favorites, all along playing WO-HD
the engine, it is vast and goes all the way from the firewall off the cockpit, out of the body and ends up in the massive thruster (this means that over a third of the ships length is filled with its main engine), only downside to it seems to be its tendency to overheat, why am I saying this? Simply because, the entire underside of the engine is exposed, there is a cooling rib in a “MMMM” pattern all around the nozzle of the main thruster,and half the top part of the engine is exposed to, and then of course its all the airintakes. it has six really big and, one smaller for the main engine alone. the most obvious be the intakes on each side behind the cockpit, and the big four angled ones on top of the wings (these seem to be there for cooling primarily, because of the venting ribs on top, and leads straight through to a triangular duct on the other side), but the biggest by far is on the belly two huge trapezoid intake on each side of the engine leading directly to the thruster and a small one running he entire length of the engine through the middle of what seems to be fuel injectors. When it comes to the booster engines they are quite small, there is two on each side of the main thruster, these have their own tiny airintakes on top of the main side intake, they really look un-impressing, but with that main engine who cares.
Now for my conclusion on the handling versus the looks, it has wing although they are quite small, and the airbrakes are quite small to, so it seems to fit its handling stats quite well. As for speed, it has one of the most impressive main engines in the game and certainly its a fast craft, but there is simply no way of it competing with the ginormous boosters of the goteki to match it in acceleration, but because of the significantly larger main engine thats no problem. Why its top speed still is so low I would blame the non aerodynamic shaped rear section, it has the grunt but doesn't cut sharply enough through the air.
The eg-x`s weapons consists of one gatling cannon on each wingtip. But there is also what looks like energy weapons running alongside of the nose on each side, semi hidden in long ducts
Livery:
#1
main colour is yellow, but it has burgundy on all the fins and wings. Also burgundy covering the panels over the engine going all the way up to the cockpit. Its a nice touch with the yellow pinstriping leading to the side airintake on each side and on the wingtips. Also keeping the airbrakes yellow makes the stand out nicely, this skin is very well adjusted for following the lines of the ship. The big “EG-X” logo looks good placed between the cockpit and main side airintake. The big “DNA” thread is opaque and semi hidden under the “EG-X” logo. The blue waving bear is awesome :D nice touch with the Xios logo on the front of the windscreen to, lets you know they care about heritage(it looks sweet for a standard livery, definitely in the top5 of those)
#2
in a few ways its identical to the #1 liver but there are some big adjustments. What is the same is the wing section is identical. but now most of the top of the ship is cladded with a mosaic of big black sections, th pinstriping on the fins is now moved up to the side of the ship right below the “linked technology” logo, and the “DNA” thread now stands out in yellow carved out of the big black tiles. The “EG-X” logo is move to the side airintake, which is now half burgundy coloured to match the transition on the wing section better. on the top section the airintakes of the booster engines are far more visible now that the black is covering everything on top of that panel except the groove of the intake, section from the cockpit and back to the engine is now yellow.
Overall it looks cool, just like the other two skins I like the yellow- burgundy- black colourscheme. Only bad thing about this livery is that the bodywork around the side airintakes are still yellow, this makes them really stand out badly in this livery.
#3
holy **** its the motherload. This livery is completely different from the two others, it still have yellow as a basis, but the burgundy is gone, and it is now almost completely covered in dark blue ( I thought it was black at first but its blue). All the intakes on the body is now covered in dark blue, and it has diagonal dark blue- yellow zebra stripes on the front fins wings side of main airintake and behind the cockpit. The panels covering the engine is striped to. Fins are now yellow instead of burgundy, and along with the all dark blue nose the stand out nicely. Airbrakes are now dark blue and blend in with the wings totally except from the yellow “EG-X” logo, it now features more colourfull logos than the other liveries including moving the tiny Xios logo to the nose and making it much bigger (and the waving bear is back to :D)
this is one of my favorite liveries in the game, this is because it looks totally unique, it has the ability to mask all design defects with the ship along with enhancing all the cool parts of it, this is one of the few liveries to deliver all that.
That being said all the liveries of the eg-x looks really nice and I could have recaed them all if it hadnt been for the #3 being so dominatingly awesome.

This sums up my views of the EG-X

[Darkdrium777]

EG-X has a thrust vectoring nozzle on the engine, not a cooling radiator IMHO.

Just some info (http://www.mae.buffalo.edu/research/laboratories/combustionlab/Thrust%20vectoring/Thrust%20vectoring.htm), you can get more on google.

[Motorsagmannen]

hmm. could be, but its not at the end of the nozzle but crowning around it, therefore it looks more like a cooling rib than a vectoring nozzle imo. but i like the way you think and thanks for the input

[darkfaerytales]

Goteki's are headlights, no doubt. :)

http://g.imagehost.org/t/0871/wohd_20090419_004225.jpg (http://g.imagehost.org/view/0871/wohd_20090419_004225)

They're not shiny like on Harimau or EG-X

dark777 you have beat me in time i still for posting clear photoshots:+
your shot is more than explanatory, i'm doubtfull about the " headlights " on eg-x and harimau, but goteki and piranha have actual headlight, no doubt

to say what i think about some posts here:
yes i think is undoubtful likely that ships are transported from event to event, would be too unforgivable stupid let the ship move around by its own propulsion to reach next events, these are racing machines! i think would be too riskful and compromising, however remenber in the old W3O site every team had its own big transport jet, boeing like...and otherwise see F1 cars today...

bar codes are uber cool thank you SL to ALL those godly TOUCHES you give to us, we hope they will never stop to astonish us, and wait for more:lol
...and yes bar codes aren't present upon every ship livery...

the multi billionare in question was Burnston Burns,now it's lead by his own son ( or grandson ) i think , Connor Burns ,interesting how just in these days it was open another thread about bios/backstory clarifications

later tonight i see if i will post some weapons/ craft shots

[Motorsagmannen]

if not, see how in the next segment.

[darkfaerytales]

As i have promised these are links to some nice pics

a mine
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9121/wohd20081102063826jpg.jpg

this one is just one of the nicer and awesome touches by SL
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4306/wohd20081127194410jpg.jpg

icaras just deploys a bomb
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9034/wohd20090330234454jpg.jpg

auricom gunfire
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5582/wohd20090330233901jpg.jpg

auricom gunfire 2
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/674/wohd20090330233809jpg.jpg

rocket!!!
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4633/wohd20090420003116.jpg

triakis fires rockets
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7466/wohd20090420003216.jpg

triakis fires rockets 2
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3968/wohd20090420003253.jpg

[Cerbis]

Thanks, mate!

[yeldar2097]

that eject picture is a stroke of genius! how did you even find that?!

[darkfaerytales]

i have to admit that initially i was astonished by SL going so far

there was a period when i take many shots of my accidents just cause i like it and then for checking the vary kind of visual damages the ships get when destroyed, another interesting thing to go in depht

[Cerbis]

You know, seeing that Eject readout just reminded me of something... if you look closely at the canopies for the various craft you can notice design that closely mimics the design of canopies in ejection seat-equipped fighter jets, such as the Icaras' triple-section canopy. However, most of the craft seem to have -broken- canopies when crashed (Of course, the glass might shatter from the sheer impact after the fact. :P), which would indicate that they use canopy-destruct ejection systems, which would explain the patterns you can see in the glass on some of the craft, for instance the Piranha.

Those patterns are break lines in the glass material, to help the ejection process.

Such stunning attention to detail!

[darkfaerytales]

i remenber some people complaint about the proportions of some canopy respect the old ship models when the first material of the game comes to light

because some was big or too " centered "

personally i like the great part of them, as a modest military aircraft fan i'm happy of this, the more there're reasemblance to modern fighter jet elements the better is for me...

[mic-dk]

I spend way to little time in photomode. Wow.

[Motorsagmannen]

@mic-dk: yupp youve missed a lot my danish compadre. without photomode this thread would be well not impossible, but by far worse.
@dark faerytales: lovely photos you got there, i sent you some of my photos over the psn to, hope you got them.
and another thing, i am awre that i could fit in much more detail in my little analysis, but the fact is that there is just soo much, evrywhere, on ll the ships. it would take forever to give a full- detailed report, and also i am trying to stay on the ball and not wander to far off into detail of another reason, if i cant manage to produce theese relatively frequently i might loose momentum, and i really want to finish this now that i actually have the time for it :P
eidt: but you mentioned that i should pay attention to texture of the hulls, i have been doing that all along, but most ships have nothing special. I mentioned the riveted armour of the triakis, and yes i will mention the honeycomb on the assegai and make notees of any texture that shines out among the others. in fact since assegai was my first love in this gme the honeycomb structured panels covering this craft was among the first discrete detailing i came across in this game.

that said i love all your feedbacks, and all tiny wonderful details you lead me to.

[Motorsagmannen]

ASSEGAI-Developments
First impressions of the assegai, quite back heavy but still, sleek, sexy and incredibly fragile.
It is a dual-hull craft, consisting of two quite long hulls with huge fins stick down on the rear end and a aerodynamic center-hull, the center hull has big wings too and these function as the by far biggest airbrakes in the game when pivoted in their sockets.
Every panel of the assegai is made out of a composite honeycomb material, which looks like carbon fiber on the backside, so all in all it looks rigid and lightweight. But this also leads to the front end being incredibly light.
because the entire front end is made out of a single thin layer of this material, bent in a wide “v” shape. The only thing to weigh it down there, are the two cannon bays on the outside of the hull, and what appears to be its AG-generator, hidden inside the teeth of the wings connected to a slim pipe of wires. The assegais main bulk is all mounted in the center hull far to the back of the ship, connected to the front hulls with only two metal clamps to each front hull. This small amount of support between the hulls, make the assegai look like the most fragile ship in the game, although its composite armor probably is quite strong.
The external hulls also have quite much extra thickness towards the rear this seems to work as extra protection on the fins to make them endure scraping better. Along with the added armor it also has a rather big rectangular box on the right external hull with three hexagon light boxes. I don’t know the purpose of this, but aesthetically I think they should have lowered it a little bit so the don’t brake the hypersmooth lines of this ship that much. On the left side there is a stepladder like on many other ships. The increased thickness of armor also applies to the airbrake-fins on the center hull. The most dominating feature of the entire center hull is the two MASSIVE coolers each side of the engine. they are by themselves covering a cross section matching the rest of the top part of the ship. Another reason for these to stand out is because of the dark grey carbon fiber coating on the backside of each unit, especially because this is still dark grey even on silver skin. Along with the teeth on the wings, and the airbrakes, these are my favorite bodypart of this ship. The centerhull itself is one of the most streamlined in the game, quite long and narrow, and it has a long sweeping line from tip to end, and except from the massive coolers the center hull is quite thin.
When it comes to the main engine it is a bit hard to tell exactly where it starts, the belly of the assegai is more complex than on most other ships, but it looks like the engine itself begins around where the underside of the body suddenly broadens up in two wide “Y” shaped intakes, also notice the ridge between those intakes has a quite big notch in it forming a vicious spike( might be to tear up armor on ships the assegai land on top of ).
What seems to be the main intake of the engine though is the kinda big one on the underside of the nose, it is shaped as flat horizontal hexagon and runs duct all the way through the center body. The booster engines on the other hand does not have a clear intake at all, the seem to either draw some air from the big coolers on the opposite side of the wing they rest on, or they get all fuel & air from the main engine, through the connecting hose. It also looks like it has a separate set of boosters mounted on the chassis beams, connected to the “Y” shaped intakes through a hose, but these do nothing in the game.
The exhausts in the assegai, is composed of a rather big main one in the shape of a horizontal oval shaped from 8 pieces of metal blocks surrounding a solid metal octagonal ring. And the boosters have one small square shaped exhaust underneath each cooler unit.
Evaluation of handling versus appearance, this craft looks really nimble in all ways. And given its big amount of fins and huge airbrakes( which I must add also are the second coolest in the game), it fits both stats and flying feel quite right, it even oversteers as the rear center of gravity would suggest.
When it comes to speed it also looks quite right, its aerodynamic and light, and the engine looks like its fairly powerful but not overwhelming :+.
The shields statistics I want to brake into some aspects, it looks like it has the most advanced armor in the game, both rigid and lightweight, thus saving it from having the shield stats of the icaras but the integral structure of the craft is where it has its biggest drawbacks. It has compromised so much in being lightweight that the overall structure is vulnerable to impact from both weapons walls and opponent ships. So looks like this fits quite nicely to the stats to.
so to sum it up the assegai looks like a purpose built racer in every way, and is definitely one of the sexiest crafts in the game
Livery:
#1
It has a quite equal primary scheme of white and blue, with some okra details and trim. External hulls are primarily blue with a white trim along the edges. “ASSEGAI DEVELOPMENTS” written along most of the left hull and “ACHIEVE YOUR DESTINY” down the right one ( small nice detail on the right side, is the decal saying established “AD” logo 2113.) the center hull is primarily white with a blue racing stripe running from the nose all the way through to the back windscreen. It also have a blue trim in the bottom section to complement the huge blue coolerunits, the cooling units themselves have a cool white arrow that fits snuggly with the venting grid on top. After the cabin it has a fairly large okra section covering most of the panel covering the engine, this is detailed by a white triangle. The airbrake fins are blue with an okra line on the top facing the hull, on the airbrakes there is also a huge white “AD” logo
(Oddly enough the inside texture, of the broadest part on each external hull, has changed greatly and now look tarnished and damaged compared to the silver skin, this applies for all three liveries.)
All in all it looks rather nice, and all the lines fit well with the ship.
#2
(“Oh sweet it’s a new livery, I bet it looks sweet and different from the standard one” well the disappointment followed shortly.)The second one has slightly less blue but more white and okra, the center hull is almost unchanged except from a few small changes, the blue racingline now features a tiny version of the waving bear logo, and instead of a white triangle on the okra engine panel there is an arrow pointing at the exhaust. But the airbrakes look vastly different it now features more okra on the top and also big part on the bottom to, the “AD” logo is now gone and replaced with a arrow pointing down and backwards, in solid blue on top of slim blue & white line grid.
The external hulls look completely different with a white primary colour on top and blue primary on the portion facing downwards, it has an okra stripe encasing the teeth. Pointing directly inwards and closing each other over the gap between the hulls.. on the blue broad part of each hull there is okra circuitry details. Another cute detail is the (“ubermall panda” next to the right-side row of teeth)
This skin has a great variety in details but I miss big team logos, and all the different lines flow in a way that seems confusing and disruptive, it has some cool small details, but all in all it just looks a bit too messy.
#3
(“Yes, it’s the last livery, finally new look for the assegai” this was my initial thought when reaching 8000 points on this craft, and the assegai was also the only ship I raced until I reached around 10k with it. Boy was I disappointed, it is yet another blue white and okra. DAMN YOU AD >.<
Enough with the digressing and on to the livery itself,)
The center hull is quite different from the others because now its primarily blue all round, it features the awesome waving bear on the engine panel waving at the pilots you pass ( cool detail, and probably the best reason to use this skin.). and now it also features a HUGE arrow, starting on the top of the engine panel and merges into the cockpit, the sides on the arrow is painted on to the coolerunits. On the airbrakes, the big “AD” logo is back and now the thickened section is painted all okra. Looks nicely.
But when it comes to the external hulls i`m not to happy, it has a harlequin mosaic of big slabs of blue white and okra, it gets some points by having the big “ACHIEVE YOUR DESTINY” written in white over the blue and okra fields on the left side. And the blue “AD” log along with “ASSEGAI DEVELOPMENTS” in okra.
Also like the tiny tag on the right side next to rectangular box saying “Part 405/7 Heavy duty alloy” which indicates which part it is and what material it is made of.
This is my preferred racing livery simply because it looks best in chase-cam, but in total the standard one looks best. (And I must say this again, WHY ARE ALL LIVERIES ON THE ASSEGAI BLUE WHITE AND OKRA!!!?!?! Its so unrewarding to gain new skins when they are all so alike each other, every other ship have at least one that looks significantly different.)

This was my opinion on the Assegai

[Motorsagmannen]

or is it all a Mirage?

soon you will know the truth
p.s my anlysis is definitely getting bigger each time lol.

[yeldar2097]

yay for mirage :D
looking forward to it :P

[darkfaerytales]

you are right motorsag there is too too much to describing the ships

i remenber the first 2-3 months of the game i spent much time in the menus than in the game...

better to stay synthetic and focused, you're right, but...I HAVE SAY YOU THAT I'M MANIACAL! I HAVE SAY IT!!!:dizzy:g hehehehe

as for the texture of the hulls you're right again in fact not that all the ship have something special, in fact there're something distinguishing on assegai,mirage, triakis ( as you have nicely described ) , qirex eheheh just 'cause some friends of mine say that " this Ship is much weathered and ruined than others " true! 3rd EG-X skin (? for me it's strange )
but i found something strange on the textured " skin " of HARIMAU too, i cannot explain or described it but it is STRANGE, seems built by strange material...

THANK YOU PAL I RUN to CHECK MY PSN FOLDER!

[Motorsagmannen]

yes the qirex is definitely more weathered and beaten than most others, but my first posts werent nearly as thourough as they are now :P
im considering grouping all my analysis, into one big post, it might bring a better structure to this thread and keep the consistency. but of course it could also be daunting to have so much info and text in one post :P:dizzy
edit: now im up to 14 pages back to back in wordfile, size 12 times new roman, omg what am i doing here xD. btw mirage coming up tomorrow)

[Motorsagmannen]

MIRAGE:
This craft is by many referred to as the “green bug”, the reasons for this is quite obvious, all the skins are green to a certain degree, and the “mantis body is made to look like… well a mantis. And also people have shunned it as ugly, this I wont agree on one bit different, yes. Ugly? not even the slightest.

The mirage is probably the roundest craft in the game. all panels even the ones with straight lines are rounded off. The center hull itself is almost wheel shaped, being the shortest hull compared to its height and also being the only cockpit with no nose in front of the pilot, just a tall windscreen. the mirage is also quite broad compared to its length, and thus the overall appearance turns it into a different looking craft. But not only does it look different from the rest, it looks even more futuristic. Every aspect of the mirage looks like its more technically advanced than the other teams, the strange armor coating, the transparent lcd screen on the windshield, even the design of the craft itself seem more modern. One of the most notable features is without doubt the big mantis claw external hulls, these function as shields for the otherwise exposed pilot against mines and bombs, especially the massive, thick ( I guess around 40-50 cm) triangular plates at the front, they are also dual layered, those are tough without doubt. but this way of armor plating also seem to grant the pilot a limited LOS other than directly to the front. The other use of the mantis claws is for the housing of its gatling cannons, they are located in oval crevices, on the outside of each claw, the cannons are linked to the center hull by a thick cable linked to an oval box on the inside of the claw. Imo these are the coolest main guns in the game, they even have exposed ammo visible in a rectangular slot right behind the gun :D. it also have one energy weapon hidden on the inside of each claw located on a oval long box, which is connected by thick cables all the way to the thinnest part of the hull, there it meets up with the cable for the gatling cannon and the merge into one cable crossing the thin section back to the rear of the external hull.
(to further enhance the mantis image, the mirage has two rows of three spikes on each claw at the bottom, just as real life mantises, and the two antennae is curved slightly outwards to replicate an insects, its unnecessary but cool design details.) When it comes to one of the issues that seem to confuse people the most, the mirage has quite big front ends on the external hulls, yet the middle section of the hulls is quite thin, how does it stay in one piece, not only during racing but also during heavy weapons damage, after all the mirage does have quite high shieldscore?. Well, the answer is three layers of composite material all along this panel, that said when the ship does explode these always bends out of shape, so it is probably the weakest link in its armor, but not as weak as they first appear. And all of the ships body panels seems to be made of a material mimicking the looks of insect exoskeleton, the surface is not smooth at all, and truly seem organic. Is this another trick behind the technically advanced mirage or part of their mantis gimmick? When it comes to the other aspects of the shield, the mirage looks rock solid. no need to mention the external hulls further, the rest of that will survive Armageddon. And the compact centerhull is also built to endure, with the thick metal plate shielding the whole belly including its two slim horizontal rectangular boosters. And the rest covered almost completely in armor.
The external hulls are connected to the centerhull, using primarily a dense pauldron, fitted to a socket on the upper part. When it comes to the airintakes, the mirage have an unusual body and therefore the ordinary intakes are gone, the three most obvious are the two small rectangular ducts, one on each pauldron, and the third being the broad ribbed intake right after the cockpit. Its also possible for the huge 90* angled pipe on the left and the four small 90* angled ones on the left is connected to the engine, either to provide lift or to feed air, but its hard to see the real function of those ( personally I would have put either two big ones or, 8 small ones instead for a cleaner look ). It is not as easy to make conclusions as to how exactly the engines function, especially because of the unorthodox bodyshape of the mirage. So sadly I cant make any conclusions about that especially as there are no direct air ducts what so ever, but the big one on right behind the cockpit seem to lead towards the main thruster. What I can say is that this is most definitely a compact engine, and I can make an educated guess based on speed based on its thruster size. The main thruster is slightly larger than average and is completely quadratic in shape small trapezoid metal inserts breaks up the quadrant and gives it more texture (which is a nice touch). The boosters are almost impossible to spot during races as they are located directly underneath the main thruster, and are of the same width, which makes them quite big even though they are very flat rounded of rectangles. When in use they show to small jet streams each instead of one solid flat one. So my judgment on this crafts speed based on appearance is it looks plausible. both the main thruster and the boosters are slightly bigger than average, but not dominating, and because of the roundness of the body, It probably doesn’t suffer from much aerodynamic drag.
When it comes to the handling, the back portion of each external hull function as wings, these are fairly large and would probably ensure fair handling ability, and the airbrakes although not that big in surface size, looks efficient to as they are mounted s a natural extension of the wings. Which btw give the hulls a great total appearance when it comes to the flow of lines. So it does look to be up to specs there to.
All in all, the mirage is a different looking craft and has a feel to it as being thoroughly designed to look a certain way, most of these aspects look nice but when it comes to practicality its extreme design does definitely hinder the LOS of the pilot. If this is countered with cameras and censors on the external hulls it shouldn’t lead to any problems,( which seem plausible regarding the advanced design of the mirage in general ) but this couldn’t be discovered. I give the mirage my approval because of its many cool and unique design features.

guess what the post is too long lol, sepparated in two posts, apparently i cant have over 10000 characters

[Motorsagmannen]

MIRAGE: part. II
Livery:
Before starting I would like to point out that the mirage is the ONLY craft with paint on the silverskin, you cant get rid of that stripe running across the middle of the center hull. Again I really like this line and the fact that even the silverskin has it looks cool. :+
#1
The standard livery is composed mostly of black and different shades of green, with white detailing. The black is located on the top panels (these are black on all liveries). The entire right side of the ship is one massive mirage logo and starts out with a fairly dark green on the entire right section of the center hull, and onwards on the external hull. At the edge of the thin section the section the dark green ends and the lighter green continues. The transition between the shades of green is made by the white lines of the mirage logo, and all in all it is one of the better adaptations of a team logo over an entire shipside. Details on the right side of the ship is not plentiful but the all fit in snuggly, on the bottom of the center on the mantis claw is the mirage slogan “SEEING IS BELIEVING”. On the wing it has the mirage logo in the lighter shade of green fitted on the dark green background. And last but not least it’s the Ubermall panda located on the front triangular armorplate.
On the left side it starts at the back of the center hull with light green, this continues forward until it reach the thin section where the right side turned into the light green. The left side now turns into dark green all the way to the tip. Details on the left side is most prominent in the white “MIRAGE” written on the lower center part of the claw. There is also the mirage logo now in white located on the left wing, and the white barcode running along the thin section (this barcode is placed in the same location on every livery, which is rare in the AG-crafts.) Dividing the two sides of the ship is the white wide center line, running the entire length of the centerhull.
This livery has nice duality over it and I like the chasecam which shows dark green on the right side and light green on the left, the left side looks a bit bland compared to the right though because of its lack of prominent details. It is also the only non- symmetric livery to this ship.
#2
This livery stands out from the other two in a good couple of vital aspects, all the colours are the same but the balance between them are altered greatly, main colour is now white, and the detailing is now done in the two shades of green. The exceptions to this is found on the front armorplates which is solid dark green, the airbrakes which are also dark green with black diagonal zebra-trim along the two sides facing the body. And the center hull which is primarily in the lighter green. To start of with the center hull its all light green except from the panel right in front of the pilots feet, and the top half of the panel covering the backside. the detailing on the center hull consists of a white line going across the top of the cockpit and dark green trim following the transition between the white and the light green on the backside panel, it also features the thick stripe running along the length of the panel, this also in dark green. When it comes to the external hulls, the top half of the claws are painted dark green, and adjascent to the entire dark green section it has a pinstripe in the lighter green, this pinstriping is also found on top of the pauldrons but now both the lighter and the dark green are thin lines running along the panel. The “MIRAGE” on the left and the “SEEING IS BELIEVING” slogan on the right side of the claws are dark green. The “MIRAGE” logo on the wings is now two- couloured in light and dark green just like the actual logo. The barcode on the left thin section of the external hull is now pink and barely visible, but it is still in the same location.
Truly this livery looks awesome, and has a true racing feel to it in an old school fashion,
( the closest match to this among the other liveries must be the #3 livery of the qirex, which happen to be my favorite for that craft to) the mixture of hypermodern AG-crafts and racing stripes I must admit appeal to me greatly, and therefore this is my favourite livery for the mirage. Only downside, I whish the airbrakes where white instead.
#3
This by far the darkest of them, the entire front section is dark metallic gray up until the angle in the thin section where the lighter green takes over as the majority colour except on the cockpit sidepanels which are black and the centerhull backpanel which is dark green on the top half with the thick stripe in black. The detailing on this ship consists of a certain interesting elements, the “MIRAGE” on the left external hull is now also featured on to the right as well, removing the slogan completely. And it also has a vertical green line ( of the lighter one ) running down making the center line in the “m” the center line in the “G” is also green. This looks cool on the left side but sadly doesent correspond well on the right side because of when you compose a logo with words on one side the letters wont match with the layout on the other, so the green line hitting the center of the “m” now hits the center of the “E” and makes little sense, the middle lines of the “m” and “G” are still green though, which is nice. on the wings the mirage logo is now in white and on the left side it has “MIRAGE” written under it. The left side has a big “m” instead. The airbrakes have the same black diagonal zebra pattern on the sides facing the body, but because of the lighter shade of green it stands out much more clearly now.
On the center hull things get interesting, the black panels on the side of the cockpit have a thin dark green mesh dividing the panel into big black rectangles, this is only visible in the right light conditions, and even then you don’t see it clearly until you bring up the exposure in photo mode, it’s a cool feature that I bet most haven’t seen. I love it 
As for random decals the Ubermall panda is back to the right external hull, but now moved back to just before the “MIRAGE” decal. (if you think im beeing obsessive with the ubermall panda and the blue waving bear your probably right, but they are just too awesome not to include here.)
All in all for this livery, quite cool but its my least favourite for this craft, its just to dark, and lacks the contrast that the other two have, it still have some excellent design features though, and these heighten my view on it.

P.S. the caps and uncaps of the letters "m" and "G" are there to best fit the font on the craft itself.

Ok Mirage complete, hope you like it

[Motorsagmannen]

stay tuned

[darkfaerytales]

this is definitely, if not the best, one of the best analysis you done :+, kudos friend!

heehhe now as usuals my toughts

the antennas are actually " antennas " for comunications, many ships have, so i think the enginner have say theyself " uhm we have built a ship who completely mimicks a mantis and there's left to put in some comunication array, so why not "

i wonder however the 3 teeth under each hull purpose,maybe docking/transport ?

ehehehe search my old post " no one loves mirage " i say your same exact words on remark how mirage is " futuristic " even in a futuristic game, i have compare it to some of the current concept / prototypes cars who never see a place in the market

seems roughly 20 years ahead, anyway remain hard establish how the " time moves " in the 23 century compared to how it does today, as i've mentioned before sincerely i have expected an lcd installed on every ship, mirage gets one for obvious reasons...
but by many aspects the things are better this way, i wouldn't never want some elements could ruin the " future but industrial " look of wipeout, so monitors are cool

a curious fact over eveything is , yes it's true , we mark mirage as " strange " " unusual " " advanced " uncanonycal " but in the end it's fundamentally the same goteki 45 Pure design but splited into 2 hulls and overally rounded up :p

one more last question remain unsolved to me : a mantis? why a mantis?:D

[Darkdrium777]

hmm. could be, but its not at the end of the nozzle but crowning around it, therefore it looks more like a cooling rib than a vectoring nozzle imo. but i like the way you think and thanks for the inputJust coming back with this: WipEout PurE intro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQgBtgQaW9o). Look at the end. :)

[Motorsagmannen]

wow awesome vid, never seen that before, yes the end there is without doubt vectoring nozzles, but it still won`t change my view on the EG-X.
@drk faerytales, im glad you like it, and coming to the mntis question, ehm dunno if you mounted this towards me or towards th SL designers. but if its towards me well, ia mantis has quite long thin arms with big claws at the end, therefore it wouls be a naturall comparison. if its at SL, the mantis are considered to be one of the fastest species in the world when it comes to reflexes, and besides i guess they would think an insectoid design would look cool in WO and therefore implementing the mirage with its mantis body. mantis body is also SL`s words for describing the mirage, and i used it because i can see where they were going with this.

[Motorsagmannen]

a bit swmped with work atm, but will get my next babie online asap ;) so be patient, might take couple of days

[darkfaerytales]

haahaha i was thinkin' other morning in the bed, about assegai, and the infamous partnering with triakis in which they have developed " unique shielding technology " whose " improve " the durability of the assegai chassis , haahaha maybe paying big $ to triakis to help develop a 7 shield in the end , how big MOFO they are at Triakis! they have screw up them!:D i guess if now this shield is " improved " then before was worser than the icaras one:lol

poor assegai:o

[Motorsagmannen]

well they seem to also consider light weight over shield capacity. so the shields is quite lightweight, and durable enough for its purpose. i dont think triakis ****ed them over so to speak. and as you said, without the composite alloy shield, i would probably rate is a 5 in shield

[Motorsagmannen]

HARIMAU:
First impressions on the harimau is, wow this is a really sexy craft. Second thoughts hmmm, looks like a fish. It is one of the thinnest crafts in the game and a streamlined overall look to it. When it also is one of the flattest the ships it looks quite compact overall. Everything needed is fitted in the confines of the hull without sticking out more than necessary. The belly is the smoothest on any ag crafts (except from the zone-craft). And the only protruding elements are the arsenal mounted under the tip of the nose. And boy does this thing have an arsenal, rivaled only to the auricom in amount, and fitted on a smaller space. It is epic, composed of two huge missiles on each side (outer ones functioning as cannons for some reason), two energy weapons mounted to the forward directed ag- generator. And two massive rocket-pods mounted a meter apart along the center holding 10 rockets each. And compared to the pleasantly flat fishlike first impression it looks like it can bite quite hard.

The hull is in general divided into two sections, the nose, with the cockpit weapon systems and AG-generator. And the rear containing wings, airbrakes and engine. The engine is mounted as a bridge between the two hulls and runs along the entire rear section. Speaking about the engine I want to discuss the MANY and various air intakes on this craft. They vary much in size but the harimau features almost ridiculous amount, most of them visual in plain sight. The biggest ones first, it is the two MASSIVE ones on the belly they are triangular shaped and runs the around 75% of the entire width of the craft. These are probably main airintakes to the engine. And as most other big intakes on other ag craft, they are invisible without photo mode. On the top of the hull there is an array of intakes and air-ducts, most prominent being the wide flat ones on each side of the cockpit. These are just as wide as the one s on the belly but being totally flat they lack a little in capacity, these are divided in two equal sized holes each. In front of those and running alongside of the nose is a series of intakes divided by slanted panels, although static the look like they are closeable and consists of five intakes divided by four slanting plates. On the ridge of the nose itself there is two small intakes, probably leading air to the cockpit.
Behind the cockpit is two black panels sticking out on each side in n angle, each of those is an intake to. In the middle of these panels there is a center panel composed of two antennas in front of a central venting hole. Running on the sides of the craft, parallel to the three center panels is a black grate which seems to be venting hot air from the backward facing AG-generators ( at least the look like it by appearance, but hard to tell what their use is. All I know is that they look awesome with their black center cone and blue, glowing halo.)
on the rear hull it has some fairly big ones mounted inside the lower set of wings. And the last ones are two small grates located on the far back on top of the engine, these emits a blue glow, and looks like they are there for venting the engine. As a last note all airintakes and venting grates that are visible are black, which make them all stand out clearly on any livery. The AG generators on the harimau is different from all other crafts, they are composed of four thin lines running along the topside of the bottom airintakes. In between of these there’s metal rails, which seems to be functioning as protection against impacts. These AG- generators are uniquely harimau´s, and resemble no other generator design.

Moving on to the main engine. It looks like it starts right where the ridge containing the cockpit has a dent in it, the engine starts where the panels go up after the dent. It is wedge on the top side slanting all the way towards the exhaust, and the underside is level but semicircular the whole way. Like most other aspects of the harimau, the engine is thin and compact. The only protruding elements to its otherwise smooth appearance, is the exposed fuel lines. One on each side of the engine and two on the middle, connected via two half-halo pipes encasing the engines middle section. Towards the back end of the engine is a strange trapezoid red light, I have absolutely no idea what this is, but its fairly large and is also something only the harimau has. On the top side of the engine there is fewer details than on the belly, however a few caught my attention. Running on both sides, between the engine and the panels of the nose section, runs a pipe that looks surprisingly much like exhaust and muffler of a car or motorcycle. The pipes are gunmetal grey along with the rest of the engine but the “muffler” is much lighter and stands out quite clearly. Also worth noting is the two humps on the topside of the engine each having a small airintake mounted on the top. And now to the exhaust nozzle itself, it is mainly composed of two elements. The canter rectangle, and the outer rectangle encasing the central one on all sides. This is a bit hypothetically because it is extremely difficult to make out if the harimau has booster engines or not. But my conclusion after studying this ship excessively, is this: the central rectangle is the main thruster, and the outer rectangle serve s booster engines, although they are both linked without doubt to the same engine and mechanism. This is also a design trait no other ship has, every other ship have distinct and separate boosters and main engines, but it does suit the compact design of the harimau well to have a two engines wrapped up in one. All in all its power output doesn’t look to impressive but it still looks kinda fast. So it seems up to specs. Moving from oomph to handling,

it is all centered in the back hull of the ship. The rear hull is quite dense in the middle, being full of the engine. But other than that its all wings, two really big ones covering the top, and two slightly smaller ones right below. The top wings also house the coolest looking airbrakes in the game (imo). These are two flaps lying indistinctive on the top of the wings when out of use, but when they are deployed they pop up, along the entire width of the front end of the wings, mounted to two broad hinges. In all aspects the harimau looks nimble and maneuverable, its narrow body, streamlined hull and huge wings are all contributing to this. So I would say it looks fairly well designed all in all in both handling and speed. On to the shields, it is hard to point fingers at flimsiness with the ship being as compact as it is, but it does have almost the entire engine exposed, and the armor don’t appear to be thick at all, so I would give it a rather plausible shield rating.
Speaking of shields it is interesting to note that the silver ship have a mixture of smooth ordinary panels, and panels having the same insect like texture as the mirage. None of the other liveries have this, they only have the smooth panels. But all the liveries have the machined grooves and dents on every panel.

[Motorsagmannen]

HARIMAU:Part II
Liveries:
Before I start I would like to point out that the harimau is the only craft having three completely different liveries both in composition and colour scheme. They share some common details, but all in all I think its great to have this much variety to choose from in one ship.
#1
This livery is without doubt the brightest and most colourful livery in the game, the palette consists of orange, a couple of shades of yellow, white, light blue and turquoise.
And the design is an interesting mix of symmetric and un-symmetric. The front hull is symmetric all the way in front of the cockpit, with a huge harimau logo formed out of the all orange nose tip and two triangular fields in two different shades of yellow further down the side. On top of this huge logo is “harimau” written in big blue letters followed by the harimau logo. This writing is repeated underneath the decal in a turquoise shadow effect. This logo is also found on the ridge running on the top of the ship, only slightly smaller. When the cockpit starts the white background is changed to orange with a blue, which is flat on the right side and jagged across the cockpit and left side. On this orange background the left side has the harimau slogan “a force of nature” in white followed by a small harimau logo (this is btw the only place on any of the liveries that the slogan is portrayed). The barcode is located just underneath this decal. On the back end of this hull there is a blue harimau logo with turquoise underlying shadow. The right side has a HUGE 1/3 of the harimau logo in yellow covering most of this side. In the middle of this yellow piece there is a quite big blue harimau logo. And the rear end has the same small blue logo with turquoise shadow as the left side.
(I just noticed, this livery has the Xios logo underneath the cockpit, and so does the feisars #1 livery. Wtf? I can understand the eg-x having this, and I can also see kinda why e-unity would show their respect to the former Swedish (or was it Finnish) team. But how come the Asian hippie conglomerate have this beats me totally. :P)
The tail section is totally symmetrical and is composed of the lower wing panel which is in one piece all the way. This is all covered in two shades of yellow lain down in diagonal stripe pattern, on the side of each wing there is a white and blue logo of an ag-craft (probably feisar.) with a blue ship on a white circle with blue trim ( quite cool logo imo.). the top wings have orange as the base colour, with blue wingtips and a yellow harimau logo. The right airbrake has a Japanese writing running along the whole thing (I cant read Japanese and would love it if anyone could interpret it, probably a major sponsor as this is one of the few logos that stay on every livery.)
All in all this livery look truly unique but I have mixed feelings about it, some days I love it and some days I don’t. But it has some really nice touches like the huge harimau logo on the nose, so I give it a :+
#2
This one is made out of three shades of yellow and black entirely. The nose tip is all black, and so are the panels surrounding the cockpit. The “harimau” on the nose along with the logo is still on the same place on the front, this time in black on solid yellow, however now the shadowing is REALLY diffuse, with just a tiny bit lighter yellow to shadow it on a yellow background. This delicate ghost painting can also be seen on the left side of the cockpit where it lies big transparent harimau logo, in yellow on yellow background. Just beautiful and something you have no chance in hell spotting without photo mode, and btw it is also invisible if looked at from an angle. The left side harimau logo is also semi transparent but being painted solid yellow on a 2-yellow shades stripe pattern far more easier to spot. On top of this logo is a mirrored version of the Japanese signs on the airbrake. The two shade stripe pattern is located on the two triangular panels on the back of the front hull and on the right big right side panel beside the cockpit. The tail is one solid yellow, with the blue ag-craft on white circle logo inflated to fill the entire lower wing section.
What do I think of this livery? I am fully aware that the majority of people out there prefer this livery, that said my summary is this. At first it was my favorite for this ship, the use of only black and various shades of yellow is a nice touch to make subtle details while still maintaining a clean and consistent appearance, but after I while I got tired of it. The lack of contrast in colour when raced in a chase cam, made it become too much of a sore spot in the end. I still like it very much for all its subtle ingenious touches but I never race with this myself anymore.
#3
This ship has blue as its base colour on the top of the ship, and orange as base colour at the bottom. On the front hull these are divided by a thin white line. Running from the tip of the nose to where the hull starts to narrow. To start it of whit the nose again it has a big harimau logo (in the original colour scheme of two shades of pink and one orange) covering half the nose. Three replicates of this logo is found spiraling backwards on the right side decreasing in size the further back they get ( last aprox 1/4 the size of the first one on the nose.) the entire right side after the main top airintake is striped in two shades of blue with harimau in black written on it. The left side however has only the black “harimau” written under the cockpit, and an orange “ignition” decal next to the nosetip logo. The panels surrounding the cockpit is still black, like the #2 livery.
The rear section has some features from the #2 livery. The lower section is one solid colour, but now orange to match the scheme with blue on top and orange at the bottom. The logo on the lower wings is identical but imo it stands out better on orange compared to white. The top wings are solid blue, but this time they are not symmetrical. The right side has a big harimau logo covering the entire top, while the right side only has a ¼ size one, they both are aligned with the orange part facing center though.
My judgment on this livery. It is without doubt one of my favorites in the entire game, the contrasts, the way the colours play against each other is just phenomenal. In the colour table blue and orange are complete opposites and this make it stand out on any race grid, and in a good way. The way the orange and yellow logo look on this ship is like a fireworks display, and the unsymmetrical layout just adds to the playful overall look. So what the #2 livery lacked in contrast, this is completely opposite when raced in chase cam, and is my favorite view on the tracks (the harimau got a great ass ;)) compared to the standard livery it is a little more extreme because of the use of opposite colours, and stronger colours to, the tone is much paler in the standard livery.

Well that’s it. My precious harimau synthezised.

[Motorsagmannen]

read inside article for all do`s and dont`s

[darkfaerytales]

i dont think triakis ****ed them over so to speak. and as you said, without the composite alloy shield, i would probably rate is a 5 in shield

heeheh it was to put some humor touch, altought i think triakis are indeed MOFO anyway! haahahaha



First impressions on the harimau is, wow this is a really sexy craft. Second thoughts hmmm, looks like a fish.

ok, after i have read this phrase i'm officialy convinced that you share your mind with mine:lol



The top wings also house the coolest looking airbrakes in the game (imo).

so they are, i was so curious to know what are the coolest game airbrakes for you!

[Motorsagmannen]

thnx for the feedback, and for some reason my little analysis are getting longer each time (mirage-harimau = 1000 digits more, and 3-4000 over the 10000 limit in one post lol.)
i might be mental but at least im not alone lol :P

[darkfaerytales]

i'm pretty shocked:lol these are indeed the first things that came in my mind when first i've seen harimau
how in the earth it is possible! ahahahah

p.s. your analysis aren't " so little " heheheehe

[Motorsagmannen]

i dont think its that uncommon to see the harimau as a sexy fish, come on... just look at it, it fits perfectly lol. in fact ironically it looks more like fish than the pirahna

edit: @DD777: it seems we talked by each other when discussing vectoring nozzles, yes i agree what you thouth i ws talking about indeed is this. and somehow this slipped my attention when writing the damned thing. but to my defence i was talking about something completely different :lol

[darkfaerytales]

urghh this is the same thing i think as well!!! more fish than piranha:blarg

i begin to fear you:cold seriuosly:cold

ahahah just kiddin';)

[JaceMc]

Maybe you should add some images to the start of every new livery. It would help a lot if you could compare the image to your analysis.

[Motorsagmannen]

not a badi idea, but im fundamentally lazy. taking the photos itself would be fairly easy, since its only going to be for rough reference. but i have no clue to how it is best to transfer and post them. well i might consider it if i get a little crash course. just pm me if you have some basic prosedures for it.
@darkfaerytales, ever heard of a book called 1984? lol jk

[Avenger2197]

@ Motor: On closer inspection Harimau does have booster engines, they're just really, really thin.;) Harimau is the F-117 of the AG race circuit:lol

Secondly, I believe the writing is supposed to say "Wipeout". Not sure tho, maybe Aka-sho, or Hisho would know.

Also did anyone else notice the FX-400 logo on the front of Harimau's #1, and #2 liveries? It's right at the tip, very small, but there.;)

[rdmx]

Maybe Harimau should be renamed to Ikan, such is its resemblance to a fish.
Harimau is indonesian for tiger, ikan is indonesian for fish

[Motorsagmannen]

@avenger, i didnt quite catch if you agreed or disagreed with my conclusion, but as long as you are scoping the ships details close up its all good.
@insertcoin: ooh nice info i didnt know harimau was indonesian for tiger. well it suits the backstory quite well at least. considering it is an organisation cloning tigers to save their population. and racing as a publicity stunt so to speak.
and Ikan hs a nice ring to it to.
but during work today i couldnt get "halibut" out of my head, which is a larger large flat fish.( i work selling fish and meat.)

[Avenger2197]

It was a disagreement with what you said about the boosters and the engine being in the same rectangle. They are the same in size to the intakes beside the cockpit, but following the lines of the large top wings.

Keep up the good work, man!;)

[Motorsagmannen]

i was talking about the exhaust of the main engine beeing encased inside the outer rectangle where the boost exhaust is. as far as i could tell from studying the ship i couldnt find any other exhausts. i went back to looking at it today to see if i missed something, and i cant say that i could find any other boost exhausts. if i werent clear enough to avoid a possible misunderstanding i apologize. but i wasnt refering to anything other than the exhaust. but thanks for the feedback, im not at all afraid of beeing proved wrong. as a matter of fact new input to get to the bottom of the facts is enjoyable.

[Motorsagmannen]

sry for the long delay, had little time to do this because of school, work e.t.c. but finally the auricom is done
AURICOM:
The auricom is a ship in the dual hull category, and have greatest structural resemblance with the triakis and the goteki-45, the overall architecture and layout is almost identical to that of the triakis. They share the same way of linking the exterior hulls to the center hull and their boost engines are remarkably alike in execution (more of that later) . But design wise they are miles apart. Where most of the dual hull crafts are angular or bulky the auricom is quite sleek and elegant with its two narrow hulls. The design of the auricom is also angular based in design. But the edges are all rounded off, thus making it look sleek compared to most other craft. The auricom looks quite modern compared to most of the other crafts, only the mirage, and possibly the assegai looks as advanced in design as this. All in all it looks both streamlined and sturdy. It shares a design feature with the harimau as well, most of the auricom armor panels have machined grooves and dents in them. On the center hull it also have some cool details like the two pipelines (could be power lines.) running parallel right behind the cockpit. These meet on the top with blue connector markings on the left and yellow on the right. from the center point they snake downwards to fill the outline of the black panel on the side, this is also fond towards the back of the hull. I also like the exposed circuitry panel on the middle of the center hull, it is slightly elevated of the rest of the hull, but not in a way that interrupts with the smooth lines of the ship, its ventilated in both the front and rear.

When it comes to the engines of the auricom, the first thing that strikes me is how identical the layout is to the triakis, and how much design that fits with the goteki.
Talking about the boost engines, they have a few prominent feature shared with the goteki first, it’s the fact that these two ships both have exposed boost engines filling the entire volume of the external hulls, and also the cooling ribs found on the very front of the air-intake is shared by both. The engines first start out with a semi-concealed intake to the first set of cooling ribs, these lead to a rather large, odd, pale-beige bag ( I have no explanation for this bag whatsoever and its purpose bewilders me quite a lot) through a metal pipe. This bag then connects to a tight row of large black boxes through a large oval pipe. The first box is the largest in volume and is shaped in a trapezoid fashion to fit the hull design going from a large in the front and narrowing down in the middle on each side of the box there is a solid metal rail. This seems to be there as a part of locking the craft in place during docking and transport. On the topside there is a small but wide ventilation slit in the armor leading from this box. The second box is the smallest in most ways, being narrower and thinner than any of the other, it is rather long though. As for distinguishing features it doesn’t have a lot except from a set of interlocking metal bars on the transition to the first box and a rather large rounded rectangular box on the middle. The third box is just a black box, being slightly larger in volume due to the change of shape of the hull, making it both wider and taller than the previous one. it is connected to the fourth box through a massive metal hinge, locking them together. So as far as I could tell this is the point where the front end of the hull could be taken apart for easier access during maintenance. The fourth box seems to be a vital part of the engine with 5 horizontal slits ventilating towards the outside and a large vertical grate towards the inside it also has two forward mounted lights, one on each side of the massive hinge. Behind this box is what seems to be the main burner unit, it is composed of a long, slim black box covered in cooling ribs, the traditional blue glow emits from the box from one slit on each side running the entire length of this box. Behind this is a final box detailed by four vertical fins towards the outside and a small white cable towards the back end. This leads to the last section of the boost engines, the exhaust. The boost exhaust on the auricom is second to nothing else, they consist of one massive 2 by 1 meter outlet on each boost engine, and when active they emit the largest solitary boost stream in the game. The main engine is rather more concealed and doesn’t have many or big airintakes, the most obvious is the one on the tip of the center hull, it’s a quite small narrow duct and could just as well be the pilots air supply. The biggest ones are found on the top of the hull directly behind the antennae on top of the cockpit. These are composed of a big grate running the entire width of the center hull and slightly down the side of it. It is divided into to separate sections and share a great resemblance to the main engine air intake of the mirage. The main exhaust itself is fairly above average in size and has the same vent-rib surface as the piranha has. All in all, I would say that the auricom is slightly off when portraying engine capacity compared to its stats, I would put this ship based on looks alone as a 80 speed 90 boost ship. this is because of the huge boost engines and slightly above average main engine.

When it comes to handling it is a rather ambiguous ship. It shares the tight and strong architecture as the triakis, but this ship looks like it could handle better, mostly due to the three rather large wings mounted on the belly of the center hull. And one armor panel on each external hull extended to form a wing as well as functioning as weapon guards. it also has larger airbrakes, these are hinged to 3rds towards the back of them, and compared to the body size the are around medium sized so it looks a little better than the stats. But when also considering weight, it looks almost as dense as the triakis, and the armor (although not covering the belly) is quite thick, so all in all it looks more like a midway between 70 and 60 handling ship, maybe even more towards 70. (That said, it definitely looks like a better handling ship compared to the triakis and piranha.).
The shields on the auricom looks like it would be described as slightly similar to the goteki 45 as they are both ships with sturdy upper armor and non existent lower armor. The coverage is however far better on the transition between the center hull and the two external hulls. Also the general architecture itself looks as rocksolid as the triakis. And although the engines are exposed the look quite durable as few vulnerable parts are found outside of coverage, either from the sturdy boxes composing the engine or the armor. Therefore I would put this ship slightly higher than the goteki, and I think it deserves the 90 shield based on its appearance.

The arsenal of the auricom dwarves everything else in the game, this is the list going from far right to far left: mounted on the outside of the external hull on a bracket connected in between the second last and the last booster engine module is two missile pods mounted on a long box. The outer missile functions as cannon when active. This bracket also holds weapons on the inside between the center hull and the external hull. This part has an energy weapon and a gatling cannon. On the other inside bracket on the left however there is two pods of ten rockets. And the outside bracket on the left is identical as the one on the right with two missiles where the outside functions as cannons.
So my summary of the auricom in total, is that it looks a bit off compared to the stats and it draws elements in design from many other ag- crafts, but the way all those pieces are put together makes the auricom look unique and by no means mistakable as any other. It is one of my favorite designs because of its smooth lines an sleek hulls.

[H3avyM3tal]

Great thread and all, but do try to build your posts into paragraphs. That last post looks like a brick! Can't possibly read it all without having tears coming out of my eyes.

And about those headlights on the Goteki - we need night races.

[Motorsagmannen]

auricom pt. II
livery :
to start I want to say that the auricom is the ONLY ship in the game where all decals are in the same location, size and execution on all liveries. Only thing different is colour on the base, and some decals to be visible on the different new basecolour.
#1
This livery is a pretty even dark-blue and white scheme with red details. The white is found on the centerhull on the entire front armorplate, and on top of the rest of the panels towards the main exhaust. The white panels on the top of the hull, has a red pinstriping which makes a nice transition to the all blue lower part of the hull, there is also a tiny “auricom star” located between the two antennae . The lower part is solid blue, including the center one of the three belly-wings, the two other wings are white. The left wing also has two red stars on the side facing the track. The right one has a really transparent ghost image of the auricom logo
The external hulls are 50-50 white and dark-blue, on the top and inside they are white, with the exception of the inside of the thickest portion of the left hull which is white and light grey in a diagonal zebra pattern, and on the outside they are blue. Because of the shape of the hull, the white and blue meet together on the top of the back end on each hull and the far backside is blue even on the top. It is also a transitin with the blue and whit towards the front making it 50% blue on the top at the very start of the hull, this transition starts right where the slogan starts The decals on the left hull starts with the slogan “THE AURICOM WAY” written in blue on the top of the broadest part of the hull. The center line in the two “A”s are red just like the auricom logo ( I didn’t notice earlier but the xios log is also found right underneath WAY in the slogan odd?). This slogan is under lined by a red stripe running to the end of this panel. On the next panel you have a small blue white and red “auricom star” in front of two red stripes running along the transition of the white and blue base colour. And finally on the end of the hull is a huge “auricom star on the transition between the blue and the white. On the right side, instead of the slogan you have a huge “AURICOM” written along the top of the front panel. And the only other significant change is on the top of the back panel, where it features a huge blue and red “A” outlined in white against the blue background. This a nice standard livery because of its clean look and strong contrasts. All the major logos fit nicely on their designated spots. But its not the one I usually use with the auricom.
#2
This has a totally different palette, now the primairy colour is red and almost all details are done with white and light grey. On the center hull the white is in the same place but the dark blue is replaced by red, and the red is replaced by light grey. The external hulls are solid red, and the slogan and team name is changed to white,. The pinstripe underneath the slogan and logo is now light grey. The small “auricom star” on the top of the next panel is still blue white and red, but the huge star on the left side is now grey instead of blue making it white-grey-white-red. The two stripes following the small stars are now made by one grey on the outside and one white on the inside instead of two red lines The huge “A” on the right is now red with a white outline, with the center line blue with grey outline. This is my favourite livery of this ship, its very clean and has great contrast in red and white. I also likes the fact that this is the Canadian skin. its by far my favourite for this ship both in total appearance and when raced in chase cam.
#3
This livery has a white as a base colour but some sections of blue to. On the center hull the nose end is all white, the second panel is all blue with the stripe still in place but white this time. The “auricom-star” between the antennae is now back to blue white and red ( although the blue is feint on the blue background.). the third panel is white on the bottom and blue on the to except from a white line running along the center of the panel around 1/3 of the width making the rest of the blue stand out as two separate lines. These blue lines still has the thinner white line encased inside. The last section around the exhaust is all white. Unlike the other two liveries this one has all the wings on the belly in the same colour, now they are all white. On the left external hull it has the slogan written in blue towards the front with the centerlines of the “A” red, just like the standard livery. The line underneath the slogan is also red, like it was in the first one. On the next panel the colours have changed their position compared to the standard livery, making the inside blue and the outside white, also the two red stripes from the standard is made white. The huge “auricom star” is now two layers of thin white outline one matte and one shiny, followed by red outline of the star, white, and then the small all red center star.
On the right side it strts out with “AUrICOM” written in red with a red line following underneath. And the huge “A” on the back end now all red, but outlined in white against a white background.
This livery is my least favourite of this ship, and I can understand why it’s the one I se fewest times online. The #1 and #2 have one thing in common, and that is a rather equal colour balance, this one is mostly white except from a large bulk of blue in the center, and the way the arges logos are made red makes them stick out in a rather un-pleasing way, the way the two major text entries on the external hulls, and the two massive logos are balanced is far better on the other two.
That’s pretty much it, my views on the auricom.

[Motorsagmannen]

@heavy metal, hmm yes paragraphs. i write these in word, then copy paste. it looks better in the original format. so yes ok ill redo the posts a little to avoid bricklike apperance. and nightraces, hell yeah. in fact all kind of enviromental race conditions would be awesome, blizzard on sebenco, hard rain on chenghou... bring it on :D

[Motorsagmannen]

yes in the next segment i would turn my binoculars around to the infamous icaras, and also reveal the full web of ironies surrounding this team ;)

[Spece2goin]

getting to close to the sun, burn the wings and crash down?

then Sol2 is not a track for icaras

[Motorsagmannen]

indeed it isnt ;), but theres more...

[Motorsagmannen]

lol here i thought my journey was nearing completion with only two ships left... I WAS WRONG. lol omg this new DLC coming outh has 13!!!!new ships, which will roughly put me up to around 60 pages in wordfile font 12 when complete. ooooh cant wait for this DLC :g

[Spece2goin]

did you see the Harimau doesnt look like a fish anymore!
it's more like a harpoon now!

(see on screenshots, it is going backwards on the track, maybe an eliminator feature that allow you to make 180° turn, it's on the video)

[Motorsagmannen]

yepp and i think it still looks awesome, so far the goteki, assegai, auricom and harimau looks sweet as hell. im really psyched about seeing all the ships close up. ( not certain about the icaras and piranha yet though, the were different but im not sure yet wether i like it.)

[darkfaerytales]

HELLOOOOOOO!!!!! friend ! where you have gone in all this time!!!

HEY SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE MORE WORK TO DO NOW!!!!

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH:D

:beer

[IH8YOU]

I predict he should be close to done by 2097 actually. ;)

[Motorsagmannen]

Before I had the time to complete the Icaras my pc died halfway, and am in the process of getting scraped up enough for a new one. I would like to share a little something to all that has read this thread, and participated in the marvelous pastime of studying AG-craft in their natural habitat with binoculars.

This is my complete list of ship-skins from #1 to #97. (there are many ways to do a list like this, this definetely not the right or easy way.)
Yes, this by no means relevant to anyone but… maybe at least I can get some feedback from people who disagree or agree. :P
Here are the guidelines:

F= Fury ship
Std= Standard livery
#2= Second livery (HD ships.)
#3= Third livery (HD ships.)
Slvr= Silver skin
ZB= Zone Battle skin
:beer= My favorite to use
*= Best looking skin for that ship

1 )--*-Harimau #3 :beer
2 )--*-EG-X #3 :beer
3 )--*-Auricom #2 :beer
4 )----Harimau #2
5 )----Zone:
-- -----------1 EG-X*
-------------2 AG-Systems
-------------3 Feisar
-------------4 Harimau
-------------5 Triakis
-------------6 Goteki 45
-------------7 Icaras
-------------8 Auricom
-------------9 Qirex-RD
------------10 Assegai
------------11 Piranha
------------12 Mirage
6 )-----Auricom Std
7 )--F*-Harimau ZB :beer
8 )---*-Icaras #2 :beer
9 )---*-Assegai Std
10 )-F--Harimau Slvr
11 )-F--Feisar Std :beer
12 )----Icaras Std
13 )----Piranha #3 :beer
14 )-F*-Assegai Std
15 )-F--Harimau Std
16 )----Auricom Slvr
17 )-F--Feisar ZB
18 )----Piranha #2
19 )----Assegai Slvr
20 )-F*-Qirex-RD Std
21 )-F--Qirex-RD ZB :beer
22 )----EG-X #2
23 )----Icaras #3
24 )--*-Feisar #3 :beer
25 )-F*-EG-X Slvr :beer
26 )-F--Assegai ZB :beer
27 )-F--Qirex-RD Slvr
28 )--*-Triakis #2 :beer
29 )--*-Goteki 45 Std :beer
30 )----Triakis Slvr
31 )-F--Assegai Slvr
32 )--*-Mirage #2 :beer
33 )----Harimau Std
34 )----Icaras Slvr
35 )-F*-Triakis Slvr :beer
36 )-F*-Mirage Std :beer
37 )--*-AG-Systems Std
38 )----Feisar #2
39 )----AG-Systems #3 :beer
40 )--*-Qirex-RD #3 :beer
41 )----Harimau Slvr
42 )----Goteki 45 #3
43 )-F--Feisar Slvr
44 )----Qirex-RD Std
45 )----AG-Systems #2
46 )-F--Triakis Std
47 )----Mirage Std
48 )-F*-Icaras Slvr :beer
49 )----Auricom #3
50 )-F*-Goteki 45 Std :beer
51 )----Goteki 45 Slvr
52 )----Piranha Slvr
53 )----Mirage #3
54 )----EG-X Std
55 )----Feisar Slvr
56 )-F--Mirage Slvr
57 )-F*-Piranha Std
58 )----AG-Systems Slvr
59 )----Assegai #2
60 )-F--Triakis ZB
61 )-F--EG-X Std
62 )-F--Goteki 45 Slvr
63 )----Triakis #3
64 )----EG-X Slvr
65 )----Goteki 45 #2
66 )----Detonator
67 )----Mirage Slvr
68 )-F--Piranha ZB :beer
69 )-F*-Auricom Std :beer
70 )-F*-AG-Systems Slvr
71 )----Qirex-RD #2
72 )-F--EG-X ZB
73 )----Assegai #3 :beer
74 )-F--Piranha Slvr
75 )-F--Auricom Slvr
76 )----Piranha Std
77 )-F--Goteki 45 ZB
78 )----Feisar Std
79 )----Qirex-RD Slvr
80 )-F--Mirage ZB
81 )----Triakis Std
82 )-F--Icaras ZB
83 )-F--Auricom ZB
84 )-F--AG-Systems ZB
85 )-F--Icaras Std
86 )-F--AG-Systems Std :beer

[MetaKraken]

Where's the description for Icaras, Van-Uber and Tigron (as cameo appearances)?

[Motorsagmannen]

Icaras is in the process... but severly delayed due to computer breakdown. might be a while until its up and running. after that its time for the zone ship.
fury ships i havent decided if i have time to do yet :brickwall but i hope i make it
since tigron and van-uber is not HD ships i wouldnt include them into this thread.
( you could post a similar thread to this in the apropriate forum page yourself mabye :)? )
so anyways thats the staus atm