New design, lots of guns!

[Stark]

That's totally relevant and serves to establish a hard rule for all starship design ever, thank you salm the idiot.

Not all designs are for 5s shots with no context. Oops.

What's sad is Grahf's designs already have more than 'commercial' exposure by having so many images, and the roles of his ships are pretty much obvious or in flux. So... thanks for wasting everyone's time with your irrelevance.

[salm]

Haha, oh my, oh my. I never said that it´s a hard rule for all starships. I explicitly stated that different situations require different designs.
You, on the other hand have been claiming that non realistic designs makes the design worse in general. You are the one trying to establish a hard rule.
So just take your strawmen and shove them up your ass.

[Stark]

If you, however, go for a realistic approach sacrificing the artistic requirements, then yes, that´s damaging realism wank.

Thank you, and good day.

[salm]

You´re welcome.

[Stark]

I never said that it´s a hard rule for all starships.

If you, however, go for a realistic approach sacrificing the artistic requirements, then yes, that´s damaging realism wank.

Pompous AND dishonest; hilarious.

Oh sorry, I forgot you ignored all the parts of my posts you didn't like (such as the discussion on consistency) and you doubtless think 'sacrificing artisitic requirements' means 'doing what salm says you have to do or else'.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Actually, I find this whole debate rather stimulating. SO......back to the subject at hand, maybe a top mounted hangar that exits out through the sides.

[Stark]

Do you mean an internal box with side exits? You could place the hangar box behind something heavily armoured like your spinal ridge, so only the actual doors themselves would be vulnerable most of the time.

And do something cool, like have the hangar 'doors' be short-range destroyers or something that detach to escort the main ship when in combat.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

This is sort of what I was thinking:

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I'd like to request a slight zoom out to see the hangar better in context, please.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Decided to use some basic painting stuff on my battleship:

[Phantasee]

Awww yeah, that's some sick stuff, yo!

I'm sorry, the sudden transition to a more 'gritty' looking ship from the plain models brought out my inner thug. It's looking really nice.

[Hawkwings]

Well, forward-facing carrier door openings might make sense in a universe where shields are the main protection, and armor isn't worth a damn. Plus it helps you get your fighters to the battle faster/using less fuel because they've got the velocity of the carrier added to their launch velocity.

Anyways, if you want to do side doors on a large carrier, envision a system where the fighters are attached to rails and then flung out of the door one after another. On a small frigate that might carry a couple "helicopter" equivalents, think of something like a carrier flight deck elevator, where the ship is stored internally and moved to the outside surface.

[Stark]

Turns out any setting anywhere with worthless armour but strong shields might have ships like this, but otherwise it's inadvisable.

You mean like that? LOL.

I don't think launch really needs anything so complicated; you can really just push them out the door like in B5. If a ship only has a few small craft, the idea of a hangar AND an elevator AND surface facilities seems like massive overkill.

[Sky Captain]

Another idea might be to have a large wing like structures (removable maybe?) to store stuff on the outside where parasite craft and large missile pods could be mounted something in line with real life attack helicopters. It would also allow a more customization levels of weapon loadout depending on mission - choosing between lot`s of missile pods, extra energy weapons and more small support craft depending on mission needs.

[Coyote]

I'm also designing a ship with the free version of SketchUp, and I'll post 'em soon... but in the meantime, I have to say, seeing what can be done here is very inspiring.

What texture is that, anyway? Is that stock with SketchUp? I haven't gotten to the texture part yet, it seems that you're about 2 weeks ahead of me...

Oh, and as for placement of hull forms, etc... Stark is right in that it adds to the realism to have things be symettrical (in mass, at least, if not entirely in form) and ideally "centerlined". But as for the placement of launch bays, a lot more context would be needed before passing judgment-- not only what types of fighters they are using but how fast they are needed, against what type of enemy, and so on.

Other things to consider-- maybe it is not a dedicated warship, but a scientific or "Coast Guard" vessel with an additional mission to defend borders. Or, it may be a political or economic decision to place the hangars where they are, especially if it is a culture that has not known war for a long time...

[Knife]

Looks to me like he used the stock textures, the metal ones to be precise. Wonder what it looks like made of wood? :p

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I really like the battleship. Are those missile tubes in the rear to the sides of the engines?

Also, about forward facing launch bays oriented "up" during acceleration, if the carrier is braking before entering the battle arena (since most likely a carrier wouldn't want to be in the thick of things), then forward-opening bays would really be "down." Fighters released during deceleration would simply "fall" out the front of the ship at its original velocity before braking .

[Coyote]

If "fighters" in this society are "drone swarms" and considered disposable, then the return of the drone fighters may bot even be a priority. Once the drones launch, the forward bay becomes 'ablative armor' for more valuable portions of the ship.

Although if that were the case, it would again be more logical to just launch the drones from the outer skin of the ship and do away with bays entirely.

[aimless]

If you, however, go for a realistic approach sacrificing the artistic requirements, then yes, that´s damaging realism wank.

Pompous AND dishonest; hilarious.

Oh sorry, I forgot you ignored all the parts of my posts you didn't like (such as the discussion on consistency) and you doubtless think 'sacrificing artisitic requirements' means 'doing what salm says you have to do or else'.

The realism vs art problem shouldn't even be an issue given a skilled designer with sufficient time and interest. Case in point: Most actual military hardware looks cool as hell. Tanks look awesome, jet planes look awesome, battleships and carriers look awesome. And they're about as realistic as it gets.

Of course the question arises: do these things look awesome because of our long familiarity with them and existing knowledge of what the forms represent, or are they inherently cool looking because they are brilliantly designed pieces of engineering (and can people only tell that they are brilliantly designed pieces of engineering because of long familiarity?). Important because as you guys were pointing out earlier, if the audience doesn't recognize/understand something it's hard to get them involved with it.

And since so many conventional ways of thinking are done away with by a space environment, this is where the 'realism vs art' problem crops up, because people won't 'get' a brilliantly designed realistic spaceship like they will get a jet fighter. I think the resolution of this issue can have great rewards though, if the narrative A) has brilliantly designed ships, and B) makes the audience understand why they're amazing, at which point you'd get a "ooohhh" moment from your audience when they can appreciate how awesome that is.

Because things that are real really are cooler. Military hardware is cool partially because you know the kind of power it has, you know that jet can break the sound barrier and blow up a small town. Movies which tell an interesting but improbable story automatically become cooler when it's 'based on a true story' (even when it isn't: see Fargo where the Cohens just tack on that very partial truth at the start of the film to trick the audience).

Anyways the point of this essay is that the only causes of insurmountable conflict between realism and coolness are the limitations of the narrative.

So the 30s commercial example, the narrative is very limited and the issue would be insurmountable. A full length Hollywood movie might be able to do it but most likely won't take the time or effort (would take some skill to weave the explanations smoothly into the rest of the story). And of course a book is the best place to set up the explanation, but ironically the ship is left to the imagination anyways.

EDIT: Just to add an example of brilliant spaceship engineering that an audience just won't 'get'. I caught the first half of Deep Impact on TV a few days ago, and when they go up in the big spaceship they're like "OK, going to switch on the Orion Drive." I was all "holy shit awesome, Orion actually got some Hollywood representation?!". And then it turns out that it just looks like a normal Hollywood propulsion, and I wept silently. But the point is, it occurred to me that had the used the actual Orion system, most of the audience would have been like "no way, that's retarded and unrealistic, what is this rubbish".

[aimless]

Oh, and Graff: awesome work. I think the aesthetics generally look good, you've got enough detail to avoid plainess without making it too busy, the sensibility of the lines and shapes is nicely done and consistent across the models. I think the turrets look a little dinky, like they'd suffice for CIWS purposes but not to take down enemy ships at range (not saying make all of them bigger, since they are well proportioned atm). I guess you have those nifty missile pods also.

EDIT: Oh just read that the spikes are guns. Seems odd, are the supposed to be exactly like that as part of some exotic weapon system or were you limited by the program from what you really wanted?

All in all solid stuff, nothing mind blowing or 'oh wow awesome' inducing in terms of ship design but just a nice job and nice modeling.

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

In response to the bland design of my main guns, I present you with this:

[Havok]

Dude. You should make them so they can undock and fly around the ship in a defensive pattern! That would be sweet!

[fusion]

Dude. You should make them so they can undock and fly around the ship in a defensive pattern! That would be sweet!

Eh.. I am not too sure about that though....

Aren't the four sticks sticking out of the front of the ship, guns? If so, have some holes in them....

[Grahf: Seeker Of Power]

Well, I changed the purpose of the spikes from being beam gun emitters to being part of the sensor/communication array...

[Chardok]

They could be teslapoles to project emp or some silliness!