Crude Human Starships brainbug

[Shinova]

If you take off all the ornamentation, 40k ships are fairly sound, compared to the majority of sci-fi. It's really all just decoration, unlike Star Trek ships where the artsyness actually involves the ship's actual structure.

[Ryan Thunder]

That doesn't really explain why they would design a ship that can only direct a fraction of its firepower forward, and have the rest of it divided between mutually exclusive fire arcs...

[montypython]

Streamlining does have some usefulness even in space, as moving at relativistic velocities light itself can generate drag, so streamlining can help reduce the cross-sectional area of exposure.

[Darth Ruinus]

Advent Rising has humans having nice sleek looking ships, with the Seekers having nasty blocky things.

[Shinova]

That doesn't really explain why they would design a ship that can only direct a fraction of its firepower forward, and have the rest of it divided between mutually exclusive fire arcs...

Depends on the ship. A good amount of some ship's firepower is in its lance turrets and batteries, which are often located above and below. Others' main arsenal are in their torpedoes. It's true they often can't bring everything to bear on a single forward target like star destroyers can.

[Gullible Jones]

That is a good point, though most ships in popular SF franchises don't move at relativistic velocities in normal space (and those that do, like ST ships, are using Alcubierre-type mechanisms to do so).

I suppose kinetic weapons would provide reason for streamlining (of a sort) as well, since armor should have an easier time handling a projectile hitting it at a shallow angle than one hitting it dead on.

[Gullible Jones]

Addendum: the above post is in response to montypython.

[Gullible Jones]

Re ships that can't bring all their weapons to bear on something, you don't necessarily want that for all ships. Sometimes it's better to have firepower (relatively) evenly distributed to avoid weak points.

[avatarxprime]

Re ships that can't bring all their weapons to bear on something, you don't necessarily want that for all ships. Sometimes it's better to have firepower (relatively) evenly distributed to avoid weak points.

This is true, but that's where proper design comes in. A stardestroyer is capable of bringing the majority of its weapons to bear in a single arc, while still retaining decent firing arcs over the rest of its body. The only area where you could consider it totally undefended is the drive area. However, that particular location is dumping sufficient radiation to make most attacks a non-issue.

Advent Rising has humans having nice sleek looking ships, with the Seekers having nasty blocky things.

I thought that had been the case but I couldn't find any pictures anywhere. You know of any good places to find some?

[Darth Ruinus]

Advent Rising has humans having nice sleek looking ships, with the Seekers having nasty blocky things.

I thought that had been the case but I couldn't find any pictures anywhere. You know of any good places to find some?

Here, the first pick has a shot of the human space station

Thats the only one I have seen though.... I guess you could look on Youtube and just watch the first few movies?

[NecronLord]

Star Destroyers are not designed to fire all main weapons in a forward arc. They have to do that rediculous fan-tactic of dipping their noses to do that. It's even worse for the Venator class, which has big terraces around its guns that seem purpousefully designed to stop them being directed forwards.

In the original film trilogy, we see an Imperator fire its main weapons all of once. One bolt, in the side arc, to be precise. In Revenge of the Sith they are shown to operate by firing broadsides at their enemies as though they're part of an old pirate film.

If you want Star Wars destroyers with forward firepower, try the Confederacy of Independant Systems, whose Recurscant class and Munificent classes have big honking guns right on the front, though the former mounts some of its guns to obcure one another.

The wedge shape destroyers in the canon (as opposed to the Excecutor, which can fire forwards quite handily, if Dr Saxton's estimates of its gun locations are correct) are a fine example of a good design wasted. It's only partly rescued by the idea that the ship can fire all its energy through one heavy turbolaser, and thus doesn't need to have them all able to fire forward. and it still means the ship has to turn (either on the y or x axis) in order to bring its heavy ion cannon to bear on a target.

An effective wedge design would have the main guns staggered outwards, following the wedge shape, rather than in a straight line where they obscure each others' forward aim.

[Dooey Jo]

I agree with Stark. It's realistic for a starship to look functional and somewhat ungainly. When building any kind of vehicle a smart person is going to care more about how well it performs than how pretty it is. Look at ocean going ships on Earth: with a few exceptions like private yachts and maybe ritzy cruise liners their designs are entirely functional. There's no friction in space so there's no reason for a starship to have clean lines (which is usually what they human eye sees as pretty).

That depends on what the ships are for and what technology base they have. Take a look at modern cars, and compare with earlier models. Unless there are some physical limitations (such as this particular universe pretending to be hard sci-fi, where only long, whisk-like ships are practical), personal starships would likely go the same way, with tons of different designs, when they've had the technology for a long time and are getting used to using it. Maybe some aspects of space flight would even be seen as downright retarded because they are purely functional, which we see in the way we drive today's cars (three pedals for a creature with only two feet? A big-ass steering wheel and five thousand levers to be operated simultaneously? Only a moron would design a system like that today, especially one to be used everyday that can easily kill people if used incorrectly).

Maybe it is realistic for ships designed for warfare to be purely functional, but again, maybe not, when you take a look at 17th century warships, which did look pretty but could indeed kick some major ass. If you have a setting like Star Wars, I think it would be unrealistic not to see ships like Venators, that also look good while doing their job. Simply because they have the technology and economy to be able to do so.

There would probably be a lot of ugly space-trucks though.

[Junghalli]

That depends on what the ships are for and what technology base they have. Take a look at modern cars, and compare with earlier models.

Yeah, sure, in a universe like Star Wars where space travel is so common owning a starship is like owning a boat you might get lots of sleek "eye candy" designs. I was thinking a universe where space travel is more limited.

Maybe it is realistic for ships designed for warfare to be purely functional, but again, maybe not, when you take a look at 17th century warships, which did look pretty but could indeed kick some major ass.

I'm no expert on Renaissance naval warfare, but I think the designs of those ships were basically functional, except for some little statue on the front. The artsy quality of old ships like Greek triremes and Viking longboats is mostly just paint and the odd structurally insignificant sculpture: in terms of basic design they were pretty much functional.

It might be interesting to have a spacefaring culture that had retained such a tradition, and was always painting eyes on their ships or putting some sort of monster-head sculpture on the front. Even a fairly hard SF civilization could do it. Though personally I think it would look rather silly.

[[R_H]]

Star Destroyers are not designed to fire all main weapons in a forward arc. They have to do that rediculous fan-tactic of dipping their noses to do that. It's even worse for the Venator class, which has big terraces around its guns that seem purpousefully designed to stop them being directed forwards.

In the original film trilogy, we see an Imperator fire its main weapons all of once. One bolt, in the side arc, to be precise. In Revenge of the Sith they are shown to operate by firing broadsides at their enemies as though they're part of an old pirate film.

If you want Star Wars destroyers with forward firepower, try the Confederacy of Independant Systems, whose Recurscant class and Munificent classes have big honking guns right on the front, though the former mounts some of its guns to obcure one another.

The wedge shape destroyers in the canon (as opposed to the Excecutor, which can fire forwards quite handily, if Dr Saxton's estimates of its gun locations are correct) are a fine example of a good design wasted. It's only partly rescued by the idea that the ship can fire all its energy through one heavy turbolaser, and thus doesn't need to have them all able to fire forward. and it still means the ship has to turn (either on the y or x axis) in order to bring its heavy ion cannon to bear on a target.

An effective wedge design would have the main guns staggered outwards, following the wedge shape, rather than in a straight line where they obscure each others' forward aim.

What hull shape would be good for primarily engaging the enemy across the forward arc (but still adaquate in broadsides), with minimal use of fixed/limited tranverse and/or elevation weapons...would that be a

An effective wedge design would have the main guns staggered outwards, following the wedge shape, rather than in a straight line where they obscure each others' forward aim.

?

Thanks

[Shortie]

Quick answer, you've got a choice from:

Cylinder\Block (i.e. narrow forward, wide in other angles)
Wedge\Cone
Disc (i.e wide forward, narrow in other angles)
Sphere\Cube
Irregular\Asteroid
Dispersed structure
Lifting body (surprising how many SF ships go for that one)

A wedge will normally have the best forward firepower for the smallest target aspect, and still be pretty good sideways. A focus on spinal mounts would make a cylinder better, while a need for lots of surface area would make a disc better, so it does depend somewhat on the tech.

Obviously most SF ships are designed for looks rather than function, so their actual weapons placement may not relate to what would be logical.

[[R_H]]

Thanks Shortie.

I'm fleshing out a starship for a fanfic that I'm planning, which is why I was asking. I was thinking something along the lines of wedges (SD hull shape, with the dorsal vertice cut down to a face, for the heavy projectile weapons turrets). I also like the wedge, because, as you said, the target aspect is small, which, considering that if there would be any shields, they would be shielding against energy weapons, is important to minimize the effects of KE weaponry.

Hopefully I've been somewhat coherent.

Thanks

[NecronLord]

What hull shape would be good for primarily engaging the enemy across the forward arc (but still adaquate in broadsides), with minimal use of fixed/limited tranverse and/or elevation weapons...would that be a

The wedge is good. Though a rocket ship or anything similar could do quite well too. Saucers or spheres that rotate in flight like a lot of Dr Who ships and classical 'UFOs' are also fairly good for coverage, rarely having less than 50% firepower in any arc. The problem I have with people saying this about Star Destroyers (not, mind you, most other Star Wars wedges, like Excecutors and the various star cruisers, is that those particular classes aren't so great.

If I wanted to design a Star Destroyer for coverage, I'd probably put its heavies along the centreline, dorsal and ventral. That way they'd have 100% heavy turbolaser broadside and forward capacity (though less so in their dorsal arc, mind)

[Molyneux]

Why not a flattened cone rather than a wedge? I would think you would get more volume for your surface area with that - more space for power generation systems and such, without messing up your firing arcs.

[Adrian Laguna]

That doesn't really explain why they would design a ship that can only direct a fraction of its firepower forward, and have the rest of it divided between mutually exclusive fire arcs...

Lances, torpedoes, and the occasional nova cannon represents the Imperial Navy's primary long range firepower. They can all fire foreward. The broadside cannons are shorter ranged, and represent a design decision to take volume of fire over firing arc flexibility. From my understanding of 40k fleet combat, this is a perfectly reasonable arrangement. Basically the two fleets go at each other head-on, opening-up with their long range weapons. As they pass each other, the ships turn toward the enemy. Thus the warships in both fleets find themselves trading broadsides in an ever closing spiral. The advantage of having broadsides instead of turrets is that if another ship tries to attack form the other side, they can reply without sacrificing the amount of shot they direct toward their primary target.

It's something likes this. There are two ships, top an bottom. Each line is each ship's position at a given moment in time. For SS Top you start on the left, for SS Bottom you start on the right. They come at each other first opening up with their frontal weapons, then they switch to their broadsides when they get closer and continue using their broadsides

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That's my understanding of it based on the first book of the Eisenhorn trilogy. I haven't read Execution Hour or any other novel dedicated to the Imperial Navy's explois.

[Imperial Overlord]

That generally describes how modern cruisers fight, although I have to correct on the range of weapon batteries. They have about equal reach to lances, but there effectiveness degenerates with range. Importantly, Imperial cruisers shields and armour are strongest at the front where they are typically armed with torpedos or more rarely, nova cannons. At close range they are capable of devestating ram or torpedo attacks (which are quite effective at penetrating void shields). It makes the maneuvering more interesting when crossing an Imperial ship's T is a dangerous proposition.

Older style vessels, which make up the mainstay of chaos fleets, don't tend to have the heavy forward protection and special weapons, instead concentrating on massive, longer ranged gun decks.

[Lord Relvenous]

Responding to the OP, some instances of human ugliness and alien prettiness are the universes where aliens have been doing the whole space travel thing ages before man even developed fire. The aliens ahve had sufficient time to develop their technologies to the point where sheer form oriented building is no longer required, and the humans are doing all they can to get the things into orbit, much less paint the thing screaming red with black accents.

As a side note, religion could also drive the development of the ships, thus requiring symbolic form or decoration.

[Winston Blake]

Why not a flattened cone rather than a wedge? I would think you would get more volume for your surface area with that - more space for power generation systems and such, without messing up your firing arcs.

Large flat panels of armour are easier to make than ideal curves. See modern tank armour - making that stuff curved would be nightmarishly expensive.

[Lord Relvenous]

Why not a flattened cone rather than a wedge? I would think you would get more volume for your surface area with that - more space for power generation systems and such, without messing up your firing arcs.

Large flat panels of armour are easier to make than ideal curves. See modern tank armour - making that stuff curved would be nightmarishly expensive.

This might be me speaking out of my ass here, but a lot of modern tanks, the Challenger II for instance, use composite armor, which seems to me to be as easily made curved as straight, or at least worth the effort when defensive capabilities is factored in.

[Nyrath]

It's something likes this. There are two ships, top an bottom. Each line is each ship's position at a given moment in time. For SS Top you start on the left, for SS Bottom you start on the right. They come at each other first opening up with their frontal weapons, then they switch to their broadsides when they get closer and continue using their broadsides

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That is called the "CBS opening", because of its resemblance to the eyeball logo of the CBS TV station.

It originated about 1961 with the first video game "Spacewar".
Go here:
http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/creative ... rigin.html
and scroll down to figure 3.

[Darth Wong]

This might be me speaking out of my ass here, but a lot of modern tanks, the Challenger II for instance, use composite armor, which seems to me to be as easily made curved as straight, or at least worth the effort when defensive capabilities is factored in.

Do you know anything at all about how this armour is manufactured? If you don't, then why the fuck would you say that it is just as easily made curved as straight? And don't say it's OK because you warned you might be talking out of your ass; you're not supposed to talk out of your ass, disclaimer or no disclaimer.