i guess it's the least.like the "tricked" light i use i'm aware that it wasn't ment to be that way, somekind of "bug" which i used as advantage.the same goes to the use of a material setting of a previousely loaded model, i'm not shure if that was ment to be that way but it has worked well
of course i can change to a material selection in the main model, like i did now for the rapier, or rewrite the squadcolor sub-model as a plain function instead of a model, so it's still easy to use.anyway i'm still looking for a possibility to use such selections as far as possible static.the use of the reg no. didn't allows that, but i need something that will be seeded allways the same way, so os.clock and such won't work.anyway i will link up here both variations of the rapier, so you can check the difference.it's simply the use of the squadcolor sub-model that makes the difference.why i use a sub-model at all instead to select the material each time?simply to keep the squad-color the same as on the squad-signs and helmets and not have to set them each time new.no big thing i can change it to a function and it will be the same as before.but check the model anyway it includes also the "lightswitch" (using billboard function), which allowed me to brighten up the cockpit when the UC is lowered (i guess it adds a glow to the transparent material, but it looks like it's getting brighter inside). i hope that "bug" will stay, because it's a cool alternative to a local lighting, especially for fighter cockpits
further i'm not shure if i can achieve the same using simply a glow on the transparent material.if, then it won't matter how i do that (i will check that possibility soon).there is another "helper" sub-model called "blank", i made this null material using tri only to prevent thrusters getting turned off by a previous use of the billboard function (has turned even the sound off). i'm not shure if it's still needed since the thruster depth issues are fixed in alpha8 (have to check that first, sometimes it blanks the thrusters only in certain angles to the lightsource).rapier_alpha8.ziprapier_alpha9.zipboth models are complete with sub-models.i checked the glow on transparent material and like i expected it's far not the same like a use of the billboard function previous to a transparent material.
thrusters are fine, i used them in wrong place.texture issue was grfx card setting, but i'm pretty shure texturefiltering had no effect previous to alpha8.anyway a good thing to know and a possibility to choose a bit between quality and speed.for those who read that and wonder which setting exactly,for NVIDIA cards it's the anisotropic texture filtering, 4x is ok, application controlled (default setting) is like off and results in lowest quality.further triple buffer and vertical sync should be enabled since alpha8.antialiasing should be off, it results in moiré effects as i remember.---good to know to, the billboard function no longer effects on the thrusters, so the blank **** can be desintegrated 
