I'm trying to build a sci-fi universe, and my biggest anxiety has always been designing decent looking ships. These are some preliminary doodles for the Terran Defense Force, and I would really love input on them. (Sorry if part of it is cut off by your browser window; you could drag and drop.)
The one on the upper right is a design for a small scout or escort that I've been playing with since I was about ten years old - it's a bit like a cross between the Defiant and a BOP. My thinking has been to have some sort of internal hyperdrive core, with sublight engines in the nacelles; I've never been able to figure out really good spots for weapons ports or maneuvering thrusters, or what exactly to do with the rear segment.
Below that is an idea for a destroyer that I came up with yesterday, and below that maybe some kind of light cruiser. I was thinking of having particle cannons or railguns in the side turrets, and missiles from the front ports. What do you think of the configuration? What would be a good place to put a hyperdrive within the ships? Are the side turrets a good idea? - should I focus more on 360 degree weapons coverage? (I've been toying with the idea of having small defensive lasers to take out incoming projectiles.)
Last edited by Lazar on Sat Mar 28, 2009 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"There was also a large horse in the room, taking up most of it."
I think they're pretty interesting; a flattened sphere shape is always a good one. Low profile from certain angles, and still retains some of the inherent strengths of a sphere.
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Nothing it will never come. Death before defeat. I don’t bend or break. I end, if I meet a foe capable of it. Victory is in forcing the opponent to back down. I do not. There is no defeat.
I like them quite a bit actually. they do feel Defiantesque, but they have a flair and character that the Defiant doesnt have. it retains the somewhat spherical strength that a perfect sphere would have, and a low combat profile from the horizontal perspective (as sci-fi, being unimaginative, tends to stick around the horizontal plane). The weapons are close to the hull as well, meaning that if they were shot like a fighter (Direct fire, requires the ship to aim), they wouldn't be that far from the nose targeting wise. Unless you angled the barrel slightly to aim down the sights. I dunno...I like how the engines are, in some of them, built into the hull. It would probably increase the armour, but, depending on the technology involved, would need a fairly extensive and powerful cooling system.
Suggestions if i may? I think you would need to think more detailed about the weapons output, more numerous but weaker guns would be my preference set in turrets to cover all axis. Twin turrets, would be my guess for these. Then a series of much weaker but stupidly fast firing turrets for anti-fighter and light ship attacks. The missiles/torpedoes/projectile weapons are good where they are, i think only the direct fire "primary weapons" could use some work. Also, if thats the bridge section in the raised deck on top, i would advise hiding that deeper in the hull.
All in all, a very good foundation to start off with.
or at least a background as to why they are completely different. I get around that in my universe by saying they are from multiple independent shipyards, you could do the same. Coming from different design yards.
bob wrote:one thing: if there will be more pics, Please darken the lines
Yes, these were just preliminary doodles, not proper sketches. I think I'll post some more fleshed out designs in the near future.
About the weapons: I'm thinking that instead of having guns on the side mounted turrets, it might make more sense to have missile pods there, and put the guns (either turrets or fixed emitters) on the dorsal and ventral surfaces for more coverage.
"There was also a large horse in the room, taking up most of it."
I've been thinking about my ship designs, and I think there will be two different design lineages as Reliant suggested: there's the more BOP-looking one I've been toying with for years (I love the concept, but it doesn't scale up very well beyond frigate size), and the more ovoid ones that I've been developing recently, and I've decided that maybe it should be the result of the way that the space services have developed. It's always troubled me how right now it seems to be air forces that have the primary responsibility for space flight, but somehow most scifi universes seem to have transitioned to a more naval approach. So I've decided to divide my Terran Defense Force into five services: Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Star Fleet. The Space Force will have evolved from air force spatial projects, and it will be responsible for spaceplanes and small vessels up to frigate size, serving like a combination of "space air force" and "space coast guard". And then the Star Fleet will be a newer service that was created once humans already had a more solid footing in space, with bigger ships and a more naval profile. I can have some interesting overlap and tension between the two services. The individual nations of the Terran Union (254 of them) will have either small self defense forces (for the larger nations) or no armed forces at all (for the smaller ones).
As for the structure of the ships, I just can't figure out a good way to have an integrated FTL propulsion system without a) shamelessly copying Star Trek with warp nacelles, or b) going the Star Wars route with really insanely small internal hyperdrives that just seem way too advanced for my setting. So I'm thinking of having sublight ships that travel through some kind of hyperspace portal. This will free up more of the internal volume of the ships for stuff like vehicle bays, it will let me focus more on intra-system adventures than on star hopping. It opens up the dramatic possibility of advanced alien races that do have integrated FTL drives, and it still lets me have some plot-powered justification for having ships that are more aerodynamic than spaceships really need to be: they need to have proper hyperdynamics or whatever to travel properly through the portals.
"There was also a large horse in the room, taking up most of it."
Sounds good. You can fall into "portals" either being magical entities that appear wherever you need them for plot; or prized, rare, stationary strategic targets. Either way can be useful.
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
