The Terrans

[Atrocities]

I like em alot. But I the side armor to me is just a tad too tall. Otherwise rock on set.

[ZeroAdunn]

I like it, it has a feel of high tech, mixed with steampunk.

[AgentZero]

Fyron: You're perfectly right, although the smaller Terran ships would be manoeverable enough to keep their armor facing the enemy, and the LC & CR can hide behind said armor while delivering broadsides to the enemy. That said, the Last three in the series will have the armor on the top and bottom, with only a comparatively small gap for weapons to poke out. That way the only really vulnerable bits are the front and rear, but hey, you can't have everything.

AT: Praise from Caesar, I am honoured. Although I would say if someone's going to be flinging depleted uranium and other nasties at me, I want the biggest shield you can give me.

ZeroAdunn: I'm not sure what 'steampunk' is, but I'm gonna take that as a complement. So, thanks!

[Suicide Junkie]

A mere three enemy ships at linearly independent vectors can make the ship vulnerable no matter what orientation it is in.

In any large combat, the plates would be of little use. Just spread out, and pick off the ships you have a clear shot at... if they try to angle towards you, somebody else in your fleet will get a shot.

[Phoenix-D]

Suicide Junkie said:
A mere three enemy ships at linearly independent vectors can make the ship vulnerable no matter what orientation it is in.

In any large combat, the plates would be of little use. Just spread out, and pick off the ships you have a clear shot at... if they try to angle towards you, somebody else in your fleet will get a shot.

On the other hand, doing that will also likely put your ships out of mutual support range and make defeat in detail more likely.

Consider a cruiser firing missles at your fleet. Would you rather have those ships close enough to ALL engage the incoming missiles with PDC, or spread apart so only the targeted ship could hit it?

[Suicide Junkie]

With realistic combat being fought at reasonable distances, sure.
I was thinking more along the lines of the overlapping formations and dogfighting I see in SE4 combat...

BTW, in the example there, I'd rather have at least that one ship be able to return fire effectively, rather than none of them.

[AgentZero]

Don't worry Aiken. In art, as in life, I refuse to succumb to the demands of reality. And as a matter of fact, the original design I had for these ships actually had the armor plates wrap all the way around the ship so only the front and rear would be exposed, but it ended up looking, well, alien. And when you're making a shipset for humans, if it looks alien, you've failed in your design concept.

[AgentZero]

I decided I didn't quite like the look of the Cruiser, so here's an updated Version. Improvement, yes or no?

[Baron Munchausen]

It basically means 'retro-tech' science fiction, backformed from Cyberpunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. Fiction in the steampunk genre is set in the past, or a world resembling the past, in which modern technological developments occurred earlier in history, but were accomplished via the technology already present in that time period. The genre typically falls into the realm of science fiction.

[Aiken]

I don't think that shipset makers should care about physical or engineering credibility of their models. I don't care that armor plates on the left and right side of the ship are useless in 3-dimensional combat, but I found them appealing from aesthetical point of view.

Side armor all the way! Don't fall under realist's influence AgentZero!