no need to say sorry, i should say thanks for you doing this (though i still think air will break empires)
well until now air might be only available on certain maps right? so there is still hope (otherwise a cvar should do the trick )
i recons you can probably lower the poly count a bit by using boolean addition with all the non moving parts into a single shape (maybe) assuming you haven't already just your probably counting all the interior faces good job btw
it has been discussed already, i stated my concerns, so only time will tell lets not discuss that in your stingray appreciation thread
i removed the ladder on the lowpoly and im still not done yet as i said i got to remake the wings, make union operations, fill some gaps, simplifying some stuff for texturing...
You shouldn't really remove the ladder, it's a pretty important part of the model in terms of justification. What else did you remove?
Ladders are really poly intensive, and 14k is also really poly intensive, it's well more than the tanks or buildings.
i can build a new less poly intensive one if we really need a modelled one but i think this is a thing that can be made by a texture and you wont see those details the most time anyway (damn i just realized that might lead to making me do lod models >.<)
if you use cube rungs rather than circular, I don't see how it's expensive. It's just a rectangular frame with the bottom long area being the actual cockpit. Basically 3 cuboids attached to eachother.
You need to do that anyway, you need at least two, preferably three, because 14k is way too much for a long distance model.
Assume 10 rungs, each rung uses 24 polygons, which means 240 polygons for something you will hardly see.