Old Starships in need of a Makeover

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, so I doubt any of you have ever seen this before, but the following image is of a couple of the ships I created ages ago for a series of Sci-Fi Novella I have been working on. While the story has grown and such, I never got around to redesigning these ships, which, looking at them now, are wildly impractical in many respects. I can look at these and actually laugh at some of the aspects of thier designs, and I am sure you will find many more

But as many things we make, I like them, even if there about 6 years old, none the less; when the time comes that I may ever publish my book series, I should hope to have more realistic ships. As such I am opening the floor to suggestions, comments, questions and anything eles.

http://www.geocities.com/crossroads_inc42/pics.html

EDIT: For the sake of my bandwidth ((which is painfully small)) you may copy the main image to your computer or anywhere else you want rather the going back to the site again and again.

[Elheru Aran]

Well. Hmm.

I think you actually have a rather nice concept there, reminds me of the Me-262.

Question-- what are these 'battle bunkers'?

[Crossroads Inc.]

That was the orginal Base weapon system that I was using back then. It was basically a ramped up version of the old Phaser batteries on the TOS starships. The little ‘bumps’ they had. I thought when I first started off, that 360 firing Blisters would be a good system. The different types should be rather obvious.

If you wanted a more long winded answer, The following is from notes when I was remaking many of the weaponry.

Weapon systems.
Phasers and Phaser Batteries
For close to a hundred years, the offensive weapons system commonly
known as ‘Phasers’ has been the mainstay on almost every warship. The
Phasers are part of an over all weapon systems that is the culmination of
a long term program to develop a modular, compact, and self reliant for
of weaponry.

The beam weaponry know as ‘Phaser’ is really a ((Insert Technobable
here)) powered by a modular power generator. In military warships,
Phasers are gathered into Phaser Batteries, which are independently
powered. Each form of Battery would have a generator corresponding
to its needs.

The upshot of this is that it creates a highly decentralized power systems.
Even if the Mains go offline, the Phasers will still have power. In fact the
only way in which the Phasers are directly connected to the ships
systems is through the RUDI Computer links, which allow for targeting
and tracking enemy ships.

The downside of this is that when added up, the Batteries can take up a
great deal of space on a ship. Further more it limits their useful range
by a terrible amount, as the concentration and potency of the beam will
fade quickly. This means that until only very recently, space Warfare
has been conducted at uncomfortably close distances. And has resulted
in most Capital ships being designed with excess redundant systems,
safety features and immense armour and shields.

[Deathstalker]

You've probably already noticed it, but the ships look very OG (Over Gunned) They are everywhere! Reducing by a third or half would be a way to start. If the larger ships are not atmospheric, then there is no need for the wings, unless you want them for the coolness factor.

[Ra]

The designs are excellent overall. I especially like the battleship and its "batwing" design. K3wl. I think the starships blend the early jet age and Gothic looks (with the batwings and spindly, cathedralish appearance) quite well, and I say Gothic is teh roxxor.
Merely updated renderings and a little de-gunning might suffice, although I personally would narrow the wingspan a tad on the designs.
I especially like the cruiser, but thicken the neck between the "head" and "body". Looks like a gentle turn would rip the fucker apart.
Otherwise, excellent designs overall. Would scare the shit out of Feddie opponents, considering their apeshit reaction to the Scimitar's lines.
- Ra

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well the Cruisor IS over 800 meters long...

Anyways thanks for the feed back, I hadn't see these things in a long time, and when I first dug up the old pics my first few thoughts were:
"Oh Geeze! Those 'Wings' have got to be wildly Impracticle!" The ships, aside from Cruisor, are actually pretty slender on their side. Most of the internal space is taken up by the power core, fuel, and ship systems.

The Other thing is that back when I made them, about 90% of my design was to make them look "really cool" in my eyes, and at the time, having those 'Beaked' ships was a pretty keen idea. Now a days I'm despertly trying to come up with something to actually justify why someone would Engineer a ship like that aside from looks.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Tone down the wings, or give them a genuine function.

The only thing that particularly grates is the huge number of gun emplacements. I have to ask why? Weapons technology tends to develop accuracy and power with time, yet people insist on going back to battleships for inspiriation and coolness factor, but unless you have a very, very good reason why you have to step backwards in evolution then it makes no sense. Fer instance...

Early Line of Battle ships - 100's of unguided cannons
WWII Battleships - usually 9 to 12 large calibre, fire controlled, trainable weapons.
Modern Cruisers - one or two guided weapon launchers

Look at Destroyers as well, for each sub sunk in the war they dropped something like 300 depth-charges, an intolerable waste of ammo compared to todays guided systems. Watch those films of US ships fighting off Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific campaign, with hundereds of AA guns filling the sky with lead in an effort to stop some most of them getting through. Today they're armed with a guided missile launch bay, or one or two Phalanx cannons aimed by computer.

With technical progress the weapons should get smarter, less wasteful and more powerful, so there should be no need for ships to have guns on every available surface. Even if the enemy were cloaked you would use a few area effect weapons or cut a pattern with a beam weapon, not fill the sky with lead. [/rant]

There's some interesting design features in there, but right now they look like fanboy ships you are about to destroy by drawing little lines and explosions while making kaboom noises. Lose the masses of weapons, tone down the wings and then you've got the basis for some nice ships there.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Keep in mind that when I designed these originally, I created them solely for the "Coolness" factor. So gross over use of weapons is of course a given.

The other thing is the world the ships inhabited. Battle are fought at horribly close distances; and originally, I thought the more weapons the better, as accuracy wasn't an issue. That obviously has changed over time as I have reworked several things.

In any case HERE is a new Re-Design of the battleship, contrasted against the original.

[Thirdfain]

Your ships are handsome but seem very impractical. It's best to go with simple shapes which provide good gun coverage and placement for maneuvering thrusters. Ovoids, teardrops, and spheres are all good, as is the traditional Imperial wedge. Cool winged ships may look badass, but they are a far less efficient design.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Not bad, certainly an improvement and a big step in the direction of sanity, yet it can still be cool. Still seems a tad over-gunned to me, but you know your universe better than anyone else I suppose.

Instead of having 25 missile launchers couldn't I talk you into 4 or 5 banks of launchers, rather like the VLS tubes on a sub or on the latest missile cruisers? You dont need that many launchers if the missiles are guided, they find the baddy for you, and if you use banks of them you can still bombard things and it would look well cool in animation or pictures.

The wings are much better, but I'm worried by the large turrets on each one. How deep are these wings? Seems awfully thin for such large emplacements, but maybe you have something in mind that would be better explained with a side view. As for the details on the ends of the wings, I'd like to see those spines/probes extend in front of the wings too, since everything on the ship seems to be swept backwards. To be honest it's looking a bit like a Flash Gordon ship stylistically because of that. I'd combat it by changing the rear fins for something different, something that doesn't extend back beyond the engines and maybe had a slight forward sweep. They might be elongated and used as cooling fins perhaps? Just my opinion, your universe is your own and it's nice to see a part of it here.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Instead of having 25 missile launchers couldn't I talk you into 4 or 5 banks of launchers, rather like the VLS tubes on a sub or on the latest missile cruisers? You dont need that many launchers if the missiles are guided, they find the baddy for you, and if you use banks of them you can still bombard things and it would look well cool in animation or pictures.

Actually this is a very good point, I make it a note that in my stories, it doesn’t matter where you put a missile launcher as the guidance systems are extremely defined. The only way to stop one once launched, is too shoot it down ((which is why there is still a need for many smaller Beam Emplacements))

The wings are much better, but I'm worried by the large turrets on each one. How deep are these wings? Seems awfully thin for such large emplacements, but maybe you have something in mind that would be better explained with a side view.

There is a reason for that. The massive size of the turrets in regards to the rest of the ship is due to the Turrets ((the heavy ones anyways)) being largely self contained. To prevent against harm to the rest of the ship because of the immense firepower they channel, much of the systems, computers, coolants, crew pits, even localized shield, are all held within the massive turret. The only thing that connects it, directly, to the ship are the feed lines to the main Core so direct energy can be fed into it when needed.
Also for a primitive Sideview I whipped up, you can look here +http://www.geocities.com/crossroads_inc ... deview.jpg It is by no means definitive nor completely to scale, but it gives a rough approximation.

As for the details on the ends of the wings, I'd like to see those spines/probes extend in front of the wings too, since everything on the ship seems to be swept backwards. To be honest it's looking a bit like a Flash Gordon ship stylistically because of that.

Growing up I had a very bad habit of drawing many ships that looked like they could fly better then they could be in space. Adding forward ‘spines’ would do much to alleviate the ‘sweptback’ look it does have.