Ship design musings

Elowan · #1 July 21st, 2002, 08:02 PM

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.

Fyron · #2 July 21st, 2002, 08:24 PM

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.

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.

Taera · #3 July 21st, 2002, 08:30 PM

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

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

Taera · #4 July 21st, 2002, 09:25 PM

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?

DavidG · #5 July 21st, 2002, 10:14 PM

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

Elowan · #6 July 22nd, 2002, 12:16 AM

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 ]

Elowan · #7 July 22nd, 2002, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taera:
... sometimes it is rather difficult to create a whole set of unique ships, especialy if talking about neo-standard.

Pardon me -- but what in blazes is 'neo-standard'?

Fyron · #8 July 22nd, 2002, 12:30 AM

http://www.sandman43.fsnet.co.uk/neostand.htm

oleg · #9 July 22nd, 2002, 12:40 AM

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 !

Elowan · #10 July 22nd, 2002, 01:50 AM

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.