SciFi Battleship

[Sky Captain]

So, here is one of my first attempts in 3D modeling.

Top view


Front view


Side view












Any comments, suggestions and and criticism are welcome.

[Old Peculier]

A key to what everything is would be nice.

I can see point defence (turrets and sensors), main turrets and sensors, big forward facing guns, small forward facing guns, enclosed forward facing guns, what looks like a sideways facing torpedo launching array, and what looks like a load of Super Mario pipes of various sizes on the underside (Thrusters for flying perpendicular to a massive body?).

EDIT: Yes on closer inspection they're manoeuvring thrusters. Would be nice to know if the torpedo thing is that, or a docking section perhaps.

EDIT: Also, in terms of design, shouldn't there be load bearing structures between the two 'wings' of the ship, on each side, as they're both going to be exerting strong forces and it would reduce the effects of shear on the centre hull of the ship by spreading it over both wings areas. If that centre space needs to be left open they could be columns.

[Starglider]

If those big guns are magnetic accelerators, ammo capacity is going to be pretty modest. Unless the projectiles are extremely subcaliber, but there's no reason to make the inner diameter of a normal coilgun much bigger than the projectile (or at least, the sabot). One wonders why the cutout between the forward and aft wings exists at all. Why not fill that area in and use it for fuel tanks? A shallow notch would be enough to give the missile launchers some protection. If you are going to keep the wing structure, the forward wings could and should be a little narrower than the aft ones, there's no obvious reason to extend them so far past the outer weapon mounts.

[Sky Captain]

If those big guns are magnetic accelerators, ammo capacity is going to be pretty modest. Unless the projectiles are extremely subcaliber, but there's no reason to make the inner diameter of a normal coilgun much bigger than the projectile (or at least, the sabot). One wonders why the cutout between the forward and aft wings exists at all. Why not fill that area in and use it for fuel tanks? A shallow notch would be enough to give the missile launchers some protection. If you are going to keep the wing structure, the forward wings could and should be a little narrower than the aft ones, there's no obvious reason to extend them so far past the outer weapon mounts.

Big forward facing fixed guns are supposed to be some sort of very long range particle beam canons so ammo is not a big issue. My main reasoning behind the wings were to provide more space to spread our main guns and engines so it`s less likely a single hit could damage them all at once. Also the large surface area of wings are supposed to be used to carry smaller support craft, extra propellant for long missions or large capacity missile pods (not yet modeled). As far as big cutout between the wings it was meant to save mass, but I may remove it since the overall mass saving probably is`t worth the lost volume that could be used to carry more stuff.

Would be nice to know if the torpedo thing is that, or a docking section perhaps.

Yep it`s just that - a missile launcher.

Also, in terms of design, shouldn't there be load bearing structures between the two 'wings' of the ship, on each side, as they're both going to be exerting strong forces and it would reduce the effects of shear on the centre hull of the ship by spreading it over both wings areas. If that centre space needs to be left open they could be columns.

I`m also thinking of redesigning that part since I`m not quite satisfied with it.

[Lord Revan]

I like it, looks like a design I've been thinking about doing, though to be honest I'd merge the 2 "wings" on the sides into a 1 large structure, but that's just my opinion.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

What program are you using to make it? I would suggest looking at Sketchup next.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

What program are you using to make it? I would suggest looking at Sketchup next.

[Sky Captain]

Now mostly filled the gap between wings, added more sideways missile tubes, some secondary sensor towers since these things are likely to be the most fragile so it`s better to have more and slightly rearranged some of the point defense turrets.

What program are you using to make it? I would suggest looking at Sketchup next.

I use anim8tor since that`s a program I`m most familiar with.

[Sky Captain]

Added point defense missile launchers (the square things, each contains 25 launch tubes) and started to apply some textures on the model.

[Sky Captain]

And it flies!

Orbiting Earth at 5000 km altitude.




Delta Glider IV approaching




Delta Glider IV preparing to enter hangar.


Delta Glider IV docked inside the hangar


Starting the main engines and leaving the orbit


Earth quickly falling behind


Coming up to maximum power and exiting from the Solar system.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why two different lengths in calibers for the accelerators, exactly? The ones mounted on sponsons to the forward hull seem useless with the much shorter length. And really the size should be reduced substantially. They shouldn't need a bore any larger than modern weapons, if they're going to be accelerated to any reasonable c-fractional velocity.

[Sky Captain]

Why two different lengths in calibers for the accelerators, exactly? The ones mounted on sponsons to the forward hull seem useless with the much shorter length. And really the size should be reduced substantially. They shouldn't need a bore any larger than modern weapons, if they're going to be accelerated to any reasonable c-fractional velocity.

I think you have mistaken retro engines for accelerators. The two round things on the protruded sides of the forward hull are meant to be retro thrust engines. When I finish defining all engine locations in my Orbiter config file (now I have only main engine locations defined) I will show a demonstration of retro, hover and maneuvering thrusters firing.

As far as the inner diameter of forward particle canons I just did`t have any idea how large it should be, but I might change that. Outer diameter I think should be left as it is because there must be a space where to put all those huge acceleration magnets and stuff and associated structural support.

[Sky Captain]

Finished defining hover, retro and attitude engine locations.

Yaw




Pitch





Roll





Translation up/right/left/backward/down/forward













Retro



Hover takeoff from ocean



Attitude thrusters in translation mode also can be used for takeoff - they produce over 4 G`s of acceleration.



Now time to make a strap-on missile pods.

[Sky Captain]

Now the ship with strap-on missile pods attached. Each pod contains 228 missile tubes with 12 long range missiles stacked in each tube - 2736 in total.
Unfortunately spacecraft3 module I`m using don`t allow more than 16 docking ports per vessel so I can`t dock more hardware to the ship. There are still 28 free hardpoints.

[Tritio]

Nice ship! It certainly looks warlike and impressive.

A thought that occured to me was that there are too few mini-thrusters. The ones that do the yaw/pitch/retro etc. It appears that there are two on each side. What if they get damaged? Are they protected? Because eliminating those thrusters would severely impair the mobility of the ship.

[loomer]

What's the firing sequence on those MACsPACs? Sequential barrage? Single fire control? Simultaneous discharge of all the guns? Dual-fire pairs for the |-| arrangement? Also, is there a reason in particular they're so far exposed forward? With the additional load bearing support between the wings you could sink the middle pair further into the ship if the space isn't occupied.

[Sky Captain]

I managed to make a workaround the docking port number limitation and now all slots are taken by missile pods



Firing sequence is as follows: when first line of missile pods are emptied they are discarded so the ones sitting behind can fire and so on. It takes about 2 minutes to fire one pod so in ~six minutes all pods are empty putting in total 120384 missiles in vacuum and it must be done before the ship comes under enemy fire because pods can be easily damaged with possible catastrophic consequences.

Nice ship! It certainly looks warlike and impressive.

A thought that occured to me was that there are too few mini-thrusters. The ones that do the yaw/pitch/retro etc. It appears that there are two on each side. What if they get damaged? Are they protected? Because eliminating those thrusters would severely impair the mobility of the ship.

Yes that could be an issue although not that big since the maneuvering also can be done by vectoring main engine exhaust especially during the combat when the ship may need to change attitude faster than attitude thrusters alone could manage. But I may add more attitude thrusters to add redundancy and also for faster maneuvering.

What's the firing sequence on those MACsPACs? Sequential barrage? Single fire control? Simultaneous discharge of all the guns? Dual-fire pairs for the |-| arrangement? Also, is there a reason in particular they're so far exposed forward? With the additional load bearing support between the wings you could sink the middle pair further into the ship if the space isn't occupied.

Main guns are primary meant to engage very distant targets with effective range of more than dozens of light seconds against targets that are fixed or move predictably. Their main role is to eliminate heavy orbital battlestations and batter enemy fleets from what would be normally considered a missile range while closing in and emptying the missile loadout.

Each gun can be fired at it`s own target or all concentrated on one if necessary although the ship has to be turned rather precisely against the target because beams can be steered only few degrees and the guns are too large to be mounted on turrets (there is only about half visible, the other half of their length are inside the ship. The reason why they are exposed is because most of the inside are taken up by power generation systems, huge capacitor banks, heat management systems, magazines, propellant storage, main egines and so on.

[Sky Captain]

Started to make a point defense destroyer. It`s primary function is to increase the depth of fleet`s point defense envelope. On it`s own it lacks firepower and endurance to successfully engage heavy warships, but it can help to protect fleet`s heavy ships from enemy anti ship missile swarms. Because of it`s small size it lacks FTL capability and is dependent on larger ships for travel between star systems, but these disadvantages are more than made up by it`s powerful point defense capabilities.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That's looking pretty darn good now, and the bore is, I see, now quite realistic. I think I once calculated the kinetic energy of a 155mm (6.1in ) artillery shell fired at .9999c to be somewhere around 4 - 6 gigatonnes.

[Sky Captain]

The destroyer is more or less finished.





A close up on point defense batteries.

That's looking pretty darn good now, and the bore is, I see, now quite realistic. I think I once calculated the kinetic energy of a 155mm (6.1in ) artillery shell fired at .9999c to be somewhere around 4 - 6 gigatonnes.

Yeah, I`m thinking of making some sort of huge strap on MAC cannons that could be used to bombard stationary targets with relativistic projectiles from very long range limited only with how precise ship can be aimed at it`s target. Since such weapon would be inefficient against highly maneuverable warships it would be carried only if there is stationary targets that are too well defended to be attacked in conventional way.