From Star Trek Game Information
This will be an indepth tutorial on adding new ships to Botf. From mesh creation through the conversion process and adding the final mesh to the game, there are tools to make this a bit easier however, hex editing will be a part of the task.
The tools you will need are as follows.
A 3d modeling program, such as 3D Studio Max or Lightwave i link to max as it is the application i use, and lightwave as another well known botf modder known as dafedzuses it for his meshs.
You will need a paint application to texture your ships, i would reccomend either Paint shop pro and Adobe Photoshop cs2 are excellent choices for this however you can use The Gimp which is free and said to be just as good by those who use it.
You will also need, and without this software you will not be able to add new ships to the game, Multigen-paradigm for adding binary seperation planes.
Plus the last set of tools, the filters to convert .flt files to .hob, the file format used for Botf.
They are available from Armada Fleet Command
Now i`m not about to show you how to use max to make models, but i will show you the best way to make a mesh for Birth of the Federation.
Image:Wire 1.png