Anguished: U've got a Final Fantasy XI type airship in the works (basically a wooden sailing ship hull, except with twin rotors, and 4 vectorable thrust/attitude adjustment small propellers), that will deliver ship of the line style broadsides, but that probably won't be released until after I get my current unit project done.
Sword: I'm already using Aaglo's Warpship as my middle ages airship, available with Navigation. the FF XI type I'm planning to make available with either advanced steam power (currently known as "ironclads"), industrialization or refining. Another thing: Wyrmshadow made blimps?!?! How come I've never found one while spending hours at a time scouring the units forum backlog? All I've ever been able to find was Pesoloco's blimp, which, although good, does not fit the bill for my Tweaked Out mod the way, say, a Hindenburg type dirigible would.
Mr Will: all of the above. In the Final Fantasy mod, there aren't any true air units. All the "air" units in my mod are essentially land units that are faked to act like air units (i.e. treat all terrain as roads, have the recon and rebase abilities, etc.) The reason for this is that I absolutely hate nothing more in Civ III than their stupid immobile aircraft (well, with the one possible exception of the retardedly high corruption), but If I make the aircraft mobile, then a 1.1.1 Fighter (the most basic unit you can build in this mod) can destroy them instantaneously. Basically all that an Airship Dock does in my mod is allow trade between otherwise unconnected cities, and air-liftable units to be airlifted from city to city. Therefore, when the airship comes into contact with another airship (or other land or "air" unit for that matter) they'll duke it out until one of them is dead. I'm also making it possible for airships to transport foot units (that way, you can re-base them accross large distances to a remote city or airfield) for quick insertion deep into enemy territory.
And as to your second question, in this scenario, it's quite easy to armor an airship, all you need is mythril (a metal that's lighter and stronger than titanium) and your good to go. You can generate more lift by using mist (a semi-magical gas) to fill the gas bags, and Materia (magical crystals) with the "air" elemental property. As you can see, physics in the Final Fantasy world are rather strange, to say the least
.
Tjedge: Maybe, but remember, I have even less time than most of the other unit creators, and crappier programs (I'm limited to Bryce 5 which isn't that great for modeling, but is pretty good for animation, and Blender, which is almost impossible to work with, and I don't have the time to try to figure its arcane UI out). Also, I've already started on my next unit project: the Makou Cannon
I've attached one of the reference pics I'm using to build this sucker. So far, all I've got done is the larger structural elements, and have yet to even consider doing the various support struts and such. If I'm lucky, I'll have the model done by next week, but I wouldn't hold too much hope for that (remember I AM working 12 hour shifts at my regular job in addition to doing this, so progress is rather slow).
That would cut my workload by about 90% (although the rest of Junon's gotta go, I still need the main gun assembly). If you'd so kindly post a url where I could find such a model, I'd be extremely grateful, Wyrm.
