Been working on the landing gear a bit and some bits in the cockpit. One thing that sucks about modeling aircraft that never flew, is that they usually didn't have a cockpit designed, and they don't have any details on the landing gear.
I tried to come up with a gear design that matched the "style" that most Luftwaffe planes seemed to have at that time. Also the cockpit is going to be fun as was previously stated by Dietz. I'm leaning towards a He111 styled layout with a center console/throttle quadrant, and P-38/He-111 style yokes for the pilot and co-pilot. I would also like to make it so that the co-pilots position doubles as bombardier with a bomb sight centered in front of the co-pilot. If you guys feel that my description of the cockpit sounds good, I will dive in and make it more "permanent."
With what you see in these renders the model has little over 7,000 faces, and 5,000 vertices (including internals). That count is current and I have yet to optimize the wing/damage internals. I have read that a 30k poly aircraft has been tested in IL2 with no FPS hit, so I would think that 5-10k should be more then safe.
Also, after looking at the renders.. Do you guys feel the gear doors should be flat as they are now, or should they be extruded to look more realistic/3D. As they are now they will look almost invisible from certain angles, but I also feel that I shouldn't overly detail the landing gear as it will only be seen while the aircraft is on the ground?
Damage Internals not rendered in wire frame
Damage Internals not rendered in wire frame