Ship design musings
 

After having looked at all the ship sets I can find, I am struck by the 'family resemblance' within most sets -- with notable exceptions. That is - a heavy carrier looks very little different from its lighter brethren, etc.

My thoughts are that Carriers would not necessarily look like Cruisers, nor would Dreadnoughts necessarily resemble Battleships.

Each should (and probably would) be designed to fit a purpose.

Having said that - I've fired up my 3D apps and am designing a set wherein each ship class is somewhat different that another. Even a light cruiser wont look like its heavier brethren. Certainly my transports will be different and probably not streamlined. Even the colony ship will not be recognized as part of a 'family' and the space stations will be radically different in class.

Yes - there will be some components of the hulls which may appear to be the same.

It's more work - but I think more 'realistic' in concept.

Re: Ship design musings
 

It is more realistic, but it is a lot harder to create every ship size with a unique design to it and maintain thematic consistency. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If you want ship sets like that, check out the Star Trek, Star Wars and Babylon 5 ship sets. All of them have differentiated hull designs.

Re: Ship design musings
 

Partly you're right but i have to say that it makes sense if ships of same class have the same basis in their design. ALso sometimes it is rather difficult to create a whole set of unique ships, especialy if talking about neo-standard. Heck, even most of games like Imperium Galactica and MOO use similar ships in same families.

EDIT: wrong post in wrong place http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ July 21, 2002, 19:33: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: Ship design musings
 

Though i know what you do mean, there are shipsets out there in which the major differences between cruiser and dreadnought are the names and the actual size of the image, nothing else.

Is that what you did mean?

Re: Ship design musings
 

Well it will be interesting to see your ships although I'm not sure I agree that ships should not look similar. Like the old Star Trek ships a Dreadnaught was just a Heavy Cruiser with an extra engine tacked on. Although maybe this is what you don't like? A real world comparison might be the US space program. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo craft are pretty similar. ie all conical shaped. While the Russians were quite different

Re: Ship design musings
 

I'm not sure that I'm expressing myself quite clearly enough. It's quite possible that I'm talking through my 'nether passage'. It's just that I've seen too many 'same only different size' ship sets as to turn me off.

To me - form follows function. A submarine does not look like a battleship and a transport does not look like an Aegis cruiser. A tramp steamer is a helluva lot different that a container ship.

A 'jeep carrier' is not the Enterprise and a Skyhawk does not resemble an F-15. Nor does a Starlifter look like a C-130. And an A-10 ... well ... it looks like an A-10. Warthog is a great name for it.

Long ships will turn slowly - too much risk of something tearing away from unequal mass acceleration. Ships designed for quick maneuvers will be compact designs and tend to be slightly chunky to keep their center of mass near a centroid.

Transports aren't designed to turn fast - they're designed to carry cargo and are usually ugly - look at the Nostrodomo.

Colony ships tend to be big because they need to travel long distances and carry lots of fuel and supplies.

Frigates can be 'lean-and-mean'. Space stations can have lots of gee-gaws hanging off them since their only movement is a spin for artifical gravity and temperature modulation.

And so on.

[ July 21, 2002, 23:20: Message edited by: Elowan ]

Re: Ship design musings
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pardon me -- but what in blazes is 'neo-standard'?

Re: Ship design musings
 

Re: Ship design musings
 

All is well, but we should not extrapolate earth-bound vehicle standarts to space. Of course there is a huge difference between submarine and jet fighter - they all operate in different enviroments ! The proper comparisons should be between, for example, navy frigate and cruiser or Boing-757 and F-16. Personally, I fail to see how raising the spaceship tonnage from 300k to 400k should turn blueprints upside down !

All being said, I totally agree that simple resize of ship pictures makes very boring shipsets. I usually try to make shipsets as diverse as possible but still maitaining some sort of race theme. It is not easy and if you pull it out - we all will appreciate your efforts !

Re: Ship design musings
 

Before I comment further, I want to say that many of the ship-sets contain beautiful work and are inspiring to say the least.

Believe me when I say that I have no wish to offend or decry anyone's work.

I intentionally drew some rather strange comparisons for the sake of getting folks attention. But the idea is that form follows function.

I'm not sure that I agree that a 100 ton difference in carrying capacity necessitates or warrants turning a blueprint upside down. But a 200 kt transport may be able to dock directly with a space station and therefore it's design would take docking into consideration.

On the other hand - a 300 kt transport may be too unwieldy to dock directly at the same station. Therefore some design changes could/would be made to facilitate off-loading via shuttle and certain protuberances, etc. allowed which were not on the former vessel.

BTW - this is only my opinion and leanings. If you like identical twins or strong family resemblance - keep to it.

Family resemblance, however, may be arrived at by using standard components such as engine pods, cargo pods, gun turrets, etc on radically different chassis designs.

Re: Ship design musings
 

Future cargo ships would almost certainly be modular in design utilizing some form of cargo container - therefore ship sizes would not really affect the transfer of cargo...

[ July 22, 2002, 03:07: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Ship design musings
 

Well yeah, i do it in my own sets - same style yet different design. if you're very curious check out my TechnoLogic race @ USy ( http://universalshipyards.tripod.com ).

Re: Ship design musings
 

Has anyone ever done a templar shipset as in the tree vessels from the novel, "Hyperion"?

Re: Ship design musings
 

Also keep in mind that a lot of the older shipsets were made before the proliferation on the forum of all these 3D "wizards", artists who can use the tools avaiable and make shipsets from scratch. Those of us that were around SEIV 18 months ago, and wanted to make a custom shipset were kind of limited. There were a couple guys that new how to do 3D art, but not enough to keep up with the demand. Basically you scrounged around the internet and found a half a dozen ship pics you liked, and then by resizing, rotating and otherwise changing the perspective, viola, a new shipset is born. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The shipsets being produced in the Last six months or so by all you artists out there are WAY better. The images usually follow a theme, but the number of reused images has decreased dramatically. But a lot of the old shipsets are still around, and that may be what you are seeing that has turned you off.

But I think it actually likely that ships of a certain race would follow a theme. People are people after all, and I expect engineers the universe over are pretty much the same. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" would I am sure have an equivalent in Phongese.

There is no reason to think they would radically alter a design philosophy that was proven, unless they were forced to by some external or internal considerations. Colony ships and transports would most likely not look like warships, that is true. But that is true of most of the shipsets I have seen as well. Warships would not neccesarily change radically in appearance just because they were bigger. More likely they would just make them bigger, or weld a couple smaller ships together. In a vacuum, you don't have to streamline, so you want more room? No problem, we'll just blowtorch the thing in half, and add a few more tons here, and a few more tons there... (Actually this is done in smaller scale today with commerical airliners.) Wan't to go faster? Sure, no problem, we'll just strap a couple more engine pods on the back here...

Geoschmo

[ July 23, 2002, 13:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Ship design musings
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I understand the process well enough and in fact had considered that very thing at first. That is - until my wife *****-slapped me and said:

"Yo! Where's all that expensive 3d software s--t you just 'had to have!?'

She actually didn't say that ... well ... not exactly but this being a family forum and all ...

Anyway - I'm scrounging the internet for 3d models and putting the arm on some of my buds in the business.

BTW - anyone know who's hoarding 3D models and or meshes of the '2001 - Space Odyssey'? I like dem bulbs ... er ... spheres. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Ship design musings
 

As is my way,
Setting aside considerations of "Real"
Focusing on "Practical"

I am currently using the Toran ship set because:
My visual limitaitons, (Retinitis Pigmentosa)
They are easy to see, (the color and size)
They are estheticaly pleasing, Nice Smooth Welballenced Curves, (no I'm not talking about a woman)
I like the Racial Portrait, (Maybe I envy the 3 eyes)

The ship set I am designing will take a while to complete.
I am buying / using 1/2400 scalle ships
I am trying to find ways to fasten various hulls to each other to create larger sizes.
When I am fished I will take photos and make BMPs
Wish me luck. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif