so, i guess you really do need containing edges everywhere you have an extreme angle. this second ship, i went a little less liberal with the edge count and i wound up with projection errors. this particular model makes creating a cage difficrult, so i am just using raycast distance. i wonder if i need to rethink my approach… i went ahead and did a bake from Substance Painter and got pretty acceptable results compated to xNormal, so i am thinking of just running with it and going cageless in this particular case (model and application considered). it means i won’t be able to use it as a portfolio piece without making a proper cage, but it would save a but of time. maybe I’ll give creating a cage a second go tomorrow.