Fore-and-aft Spaceship Design Considered Silly

[rabkala]

Well, the technology is there. That's important. Next comes making it better and cheaper.

[nijineko]

indeed. there's lots of tech out there, but making it affordable, that's the trick.

[Engineer Doramos]

I can totally understand the flavor of a realistic sci fi space travel setting. I'm currently trying to create one. Ironically, it has FTL, grav control, and force fields, but I worked that into new advances in quantum theory 50 years from now (the game takes place 150 years from now). My science *fiction* theory is basically that energy and matter are aspects of space itself and thus related to gravity, so if you can manipulate matter the right way, you can push it through the fabric of space. I draw a lot from Madeline L'Engle in my perspective of spacetime though. However, it is a game, and it is fiction. As a game it has to be playable, and as it is fiction it is not real. You are left with choices of style really in the end. To say one's style is wrong due to details would be incorrect. The only valid criticism would be whether the style is successful in the end or not.

The comment on spacecraft design was very interesting. I'm still in the stage of trying to figure out common designs of terran ships from various countries. It just may be a segmented sphereoid or disc might be best, considering how thrust works in space, and that my ftl drive is centrally located.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

I ran across this the other day, thought some of you might find this useful.

http://www.people.iup.edu/pnwm/comparison.gif Click on the picture to enlarge.

When it comes to cylindrical(sp?) anti-grav. ship design, i havent been able to find much either. In the end, i just had to design my own.

[boulet]

Not just useful, it's neat too !

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Not just useful, it's neat too !

Glad to hear it. I thought it pretty cool too. It also helps when visualizing size in spacecraft design.

[Engineer Doramos]

Haha, George Lucas has everyone beat for biggest ship. I'm looking at that now. I was mulling over this game my friend made where he had earth classify its ships by size. And the biggest was pretty huge, but it was shaped like a big missile basically. It may be as size increases, spheres become less efficient due to mass, and hollow orbs would be unstable kinda, so something that has a shape that can provide thrust in several directions, like space spiders would be best on small scale ships. But you have to take into account, what kind of ship would Japan build, and Russia, and the US? I also have orbital fighters which are jets with ramjets and space thrusters that can stay in space for a while. And then there's the aliens... I have to design ships for basically 8 other spacefaring species other than humans. However, I think I'm keeping sizes pretty small, even for the two superadvanced species.

[nijineko]

geodesic dome is the strongest shape for large scale design. the bigger it gets the stronger it gets. only shape known that does that.

[Engineer Doramos]

Thanks. I remember hearing that on some tv show at some point too. I'm having trouble thinking of a geo-dome ship though. I think I will use those for colonist temporary living pods, which of course will be the house of choice in slums and refugee camps everywhere by this point of time. The problem with domes as a spaceship design is the likelihood of attack in space in this setting. The bigger you are, the easier you are to hit and breach that pretty dome. And if you fill up a sphere or semisphere, you have a lot of mass to slow down maneuvers. Saucer shapes for big ships which must transport fighters, like carriers or battleships might be best. That way, you can have a large shape for docking that you can make harder to hit by the angle at which you are seen by enemies. Of course, by that logic, the cigar-shape is also good for large ships that don't need a lot of docking area for fighters, like frigates and destroyers.
Then smaller scouting and private-class ships would probably be built for maneuverability and appearance would be based on placement of thrusters.

[Skunkape]

I ran across this page a long time ago and still find it to be very informative!

Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

I ran across this page a long time ago and still find it to be very informative!

Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

Also, very, very cool.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

geodesic dome is the strongest shape for large scale design. the bigger it gets the stronger it gets. only shape known that does that.

I think once you get to a certain technological level, shape and design would be for appearances only. Of course, we are talking very high tech. here.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

I ran across this page a long time ago and still find it to be very informative!

Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

Another thing i found interesting from your link is that the ship Surrenity is about the size of a 747. It's nice to be able to visualize appropriate sizes from the craft we see on tv.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

It is my belief that spirituality and science will eventually meet in the far future. What do i mean? In the end, life-forms will just travel by thought. Nice thought, anyway, no pun intended. Of course, if one follows that the Greys of the future have hyper-light systems, then that would blow my theory out of the water...er...um, space.

[Webhead]

For an interesting take on starship design, check out the RPG setting Rocketship Empires 1936. The idea behind it is "what if, in the 1920's, Martians visited earth and taught humanity the secrets of space-faring technology". As a result, most of the starship designs are clearly just retrofitted examples of ships and planes of the era. Many of them are quite litterally star "ships".