[Elowan]

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 ]