Vertical ships

[Reinhard von Lohengramm]

Horizontal and vertical are irrelevant without a horizon as a frame of reference. The only two clearly defined axis are thrust and normal. Either the ship is long and narrow along its vector of thrust, or it is broad and short in its vector of thrust. If you rotate a "vertical" ship 90* along normal, it would look as a "horizontal" ship but behave identical. The only consistent frame of reference is the vector of thrust.

The main arguments for coaxial ships are that you expose as little front towards the enemy as possible and that you have the greatest possible length of weaponry such as mass drivers.
The main argument for conormal ships is that you have the maximum surface towards the enemy for mounting equipment, and a larger surface for mounting engines.

Conormal ships are more common in softer science fiction, as they in most depicted space battles are inferior to coaxial. But there are techs and tactics that could use conormal ships to great effect. They turn faster, and several smaller guns might be more useful than a few bigger. Depending on what phelbotinum you are using for shields it also reasons that conormal can have more shields, offsetting the increased chance to be hit.

Perfectly round ships expose the minimal surface/size if the enemy is equally likely to engage from any direction, but we can assume you can orient your front quickly as well as choose engagements where it already is oriented towards the enemy, and thus spherical ships expose more surface/size than coaxial on the whole.

So you can either have shape of ships be fully aesthetic or you can have it as an option for chassis, with accompanying bonuses and penalties.

I personally think that coaxial ships are the way to go and they got it correct in the anime show 'Legend of Galactic Heroes.' (Heh, no bias here given my avatar.)

All weapons are mounted at the bow, and the rest of the ship 'hides' behind them. This way, the cross-sectional area avaialble for enemy long-range bombardment to score a hit is minimized, and the deflector shield power can be concentrated in a small area.

Downside is that if the enemy succeeds in maneuvering to your broadside or forces you to fight with your broadside exposed towards them, your cross-section grows enormously, and your fleet suffers a disproportionate casuality rate. In fact, outcome of many battles in the show is determined by successful fleet maneuvers to land bombardment on enemy's broadsides.

This being the reality, conormal ships (horizontal and vertical) would not do well in combat.

(There are things that this show gets completely wrong too - melee combat, lack of mobile communication.)

 

[MasterOfGrey]

My point is that if you face me in the battle, driving forward towards my battleships then your mass is exposed af!

One comment of note here is that; yes while a vertical ship drives its broadest side towards you in battle, and thus will inherently have to absorb more damage in the approach, it also already has all its best weapons point at you as you close the distance, and doesn't have to turn to improve weapon effectiveness, delivering maximum fire-output from the moment it comes into range, while you have to take that, and then turn (continuing to take that) before you can return fire in quite the same way. They're a much higher-energy design both for offence and maintaining their defences but if you've got superior energy systems they're in a position to wreck your 'conventional' horizontal ships.

Edit: Additionally, their effective 'hit box' may not actually be all that much bigger than yours if they rotate top-over bottom around their central point (kind of like a wind turbine if the prongs of the turbine are the top and bottom halves of your vertical ship) as a large chunk of the ship is constantly in motion.

 

[Zaku]

I personally think that coaxial ships are the way to go and they got it correct in the anime show 'Legend of Galactic Heroes.' (Heh, no bias here given my avatar.)

All weapons are mounted at the bow, and the rest of the ship 'hides' behind them. This way, the cross-sectional area avaialble for enemy long-range bombardment to score a hit is minimized, and the deflector shield power can be concentrated in a small area.

Downside is that if the enemy succeeds in maneuvering to your broadside or forces you to fight with your broadside exposed towards them, your cross-section grows enormously, and your fleet suffers a disproportionate casuality rate. In fact, outcome of many battles in the show is determined by successful fleet maneuvers to land bombardment on enemy's broadsides.

This being the reality, conormal ships (horizontal and vertical) would not do well in combat.

(There are things that this show gets completely wrong too - melee combat, lack of mobile communication.)

Heretic!
Broadsides are the true path of the (space)warrior!

 

[aruon]

I personally think that coaxial ships are the way to go and they got it correct in the anime show 'Legend of Galactic Heroes.' (Heh, no bias here given my avatar.)

All weapons are mounted at the bow, and the rest of the ship 'hides' behind them. This way, the cross-sectional area avaialble for enemy long-range bombardment to score a hit is minimized, and the deflector shield power can be concentrated in a small area.

Downside is that if the enemy succeeds in maneuvering to your broadside or forces you to fight with your broadside exposed towards them, your cross-section grows enormously, and your fleet suffers a disproportionate casuality rate. In fact, outcome of many battles in the show is determined by successful fleet maneuvers to land bombardment on enemy's broadsides.

This being the reality, conormal ships (horizontal and vertical) would not do well in combat.

(There are things that this show gets completely wrong too - melee combat, lack of mobile communication.)

hmm, this reminds me of how battle in the honorverse (honor harrington books) but in reverse-

honorverse ships derive the bulk of their propulsion from gravity wave-based impellers which are part of the bow and aft sections.

in combat, these gravity waves form an impenetrable wall at the front and back of the ships, forcing combat to be limited to damaging the broadsides (missiles in the honorverse are kinda insane and actually almost exactly how stellaris portrays missiles). but there's a tiny hole in the center of the front of the gravity band created by the impeller, and if a missile or laser can hit that sweet spot, it could gut the ship and potentially kill the command crew.

the books are also really informative in their detailing, it's like Tom Clancy in space.

 

[aruon]

personally i'd like to see all sorts of literal directions a ship design can take and modifiers to help flesh them out.

i'd love to play with ships that have a design philosophy like this star citizen fighter

 

[KonradKurze202]

hmm, this reminds me of how battle in the honorverse (honor harrington books) but in reverse-

honorverse ships derive the bulk of their propulsion from gravity wave-based impellers which are part of the bow and aft sections.

in combat, these gravity waves form an impenetrable wall at the front and back of the ships, forcing combat to be limited to damaging the broadsides (missiles in the honorverse are kinda insane and actually almost exactly how stellaris portrays missiles). but there's a tiny hole in the center of the front of the gravity band created by the impeller, and if a missile or laser can hit that sweet spot, it could gut the ship and potentially kill the command crew.

the books are also really informative in their detailing, it's like Tom Clancy in space.

 

[Rezca]

A little late to the party, but I'd like to see some vertical-built ships as well. That the player can utilize, of course

The concept made me think back to this big warship...

Spoiler: somewhat big image

 

[Comte de Verdun]

I personally think that coaxial ships are the way to go and they got it correct in the anime show 'Legend of Galactic Heroes.' (Heh, no bias here given my avatar.)

All weapons are mounted at the bow, and the rest of the ship 'hides' behind them. This way, the cross-sectional area avaialble for enemy long-range bombardment to score a hit is minimized, and the deflector shield power can be concentrated in a small area.

Downside is that if the enemy succeeds in maneuvering to your broadside or forces you to fight with your broadside exposed towards them, your cross-section grows enormously, and your fleet suffers a disproportionate casuality rate. In fact, outcome of many battles in the show is determined by successful fleet maneuvers to land bombardment on enemy's broadsides.

This being the reality, conormal ships (horizontal and vertical) would not do well in combat.

(There are things that this show gets completely wrong too - melee combat, lack of mobile communication.)

This type of arrangement was developed specifically for the type of "terrain" the Republic and the Empire fought on, the Fezzan and Iserlohn Corridors; won't be too useful in big open space like Stellaris (though I'll be more than delighted to see someone out there makes some Ginga Eiyū Densetsu mods for Stellaris hehe)

 

[Bragi]

 

[mrinku]

Echoing @Efa_Aurora's hope for asymmetry. I'd also like to see a ship design which has the decks perpendicular to the axis of thrust, because ever since I read Revelation Space that's how I see spacecraft.

TBV, that's how I've preferred my ships all along. But I cut my teeth on Heinlein juveniles.

Be nice to see some with toruses for spin gravity, too. Not everyone has that high falutin' artificial gravity!

Which brings up the point that the best shape for a crewed spaceship is usually a cylinder, tapered at the front end for reasons of style and elegance. Put some fins on for the same reason and to mount the weapons with superior firing arcs.

 

[aruon]

damn right.

A little late to the party, but I'd like to see some vertical-built ships as well. That the player can utilize, of course

The concept made me think back to this big warship...

Spoiler: somewhat big image

it's pretty cool how the forerunner ships general tend to lean towards being primarily vertical-oriented in design but also have more traditional designs as well.

 

[mrinku]

hmm, this reminds me of how battle in the honorverse (honor harrington books) but in reverse

My problem with David Weber is that he wanted Hornblower in space but felt obliged to drag the Napoleonic War setting and age of sail along with it, broadsides. raking, line of battle and all.

But the books are fairly well written.

I'd rate Miles Vorkosigan as a far better Space Hornblower, though, and Bujold is a far better author.

 

[Eldorian]

It makes sense to shape your ships for aerodynamics if you're traveling at relativistic speeds thru the interstellar medium. Ships that use warp drive still move through real (though warped) space, unlike hyperspace (tho there may be some hyperspacial medium that you also need to avoid drag in) or wormhole (tho you may need to quickly travel thru some sort of medium when entering the wormhole) FTL, you'd do some aerodynamic optimization. I've not studied the wake dynamics of traveling at relativistic speeds thru the interstellar medium, but I expect the optimal shape to be a sort of pointed cigar. Think supersonic jet without wings, as you don't want lift (edit) or crap, just a typical scifi rocket shape.

The "engines" are whatever mechanism you're using to compress space in the front and expand it in the rear, and I've no idea what form they'd take, but I doubt it would require spiting flames out the rear, so you'd have a fastback type of design in the rear.

 

[Murmeldjuret]

It makes sense to shape your ships for aerodynamics if you're traveling at relativistic speeds thru the interstellar medium. Ships that use warp drive still move through real (though warped) space, unlike hyperspace (tho there may be some hyperspacial medium that you also need to avoid drag in) or wormhole (tho you may need to quickly travel thru some sort of medium when entering the wormhole) FTL, you'd do some aerodynamic optimization. I've not studied the wake dynamics of traveling at relativistic speeds thru the interstellar medium, but I expect the optimal shape to be a sort of pointed cigar. Think supersonic jet without wings, as you don't want lift.

When traveling at relativistic speeds, molecules still will not be remotely close to the density of an atmosphere. The interstellar medium is like 10^18 times less dense than earth's atmosphere in the denser parts. And if you travel near c and collide with a molecule it will be like a particle accelerator/miniature nuke. Angle of approach is irrelevant, you will not be able to deflect it. Thick flat shielding is a better approach than angled and thin. Angled ship parts is very useful vs enemy laser beams and mass drivers, but at some velocity it doesn't matter what angle you have for as soon as you touch a particle that particle explodes.

 

[Eldorian]

When traveling at relativistic speeds, molecules still will not be remotely close to the density of an atmosphere. The interstellar medium is like 10^18 times less dense than earth's atmosphere in the denser parts. And if you travel near c and collide with a molecule it will be like a particle accelerator/miniature nuke. Angle of approach is irrelevant, you will not be able to deflect it. Thick flat shielding is a better approach than angled and thin. Angled ship parts is very useful vs enemy laser beams and mass drivers, but at some velocity it doesn't matter what angle you have for as soon as you touch a particle that particle explodes.

You're neglecting the the effects of compressing space in front of your craft. Warp speed craft aren't traveling anywhere near c relative to local space, but because they've compressed local space (relative to the direction of travel) the interstellar medium is likewise compressed.

Edit: I guess I should have used "warp speeds" instead of relativistic in my previous post, to make it clear the ship isn't running into dense particles at relativistic speeds. It's compressing the interstellar medium and then traveling thru that at more "normal" speeds.

Edit: This has gotten interested enough to do some back of the napkin calculations. Via wikipedia, I got that air is 10^13 times more dense than the densest parts of the interstellar medium (stellar nurseries). I don't know where you got 10^18. The more common bits of the Milky Way give me 10^20. Some back of the napkin calculations later (really a quick plug into excel), and traveling at 200c thru a stellar nursery is like trying to orbit the Earth in the mesosphere, where meteors burn up. I did that by figuring how far you'd need to compress space to turn a dense stellar nursery into the mesosphere.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

TBV, that's how I've preferred my ships all along. But I cut my teeth on Heinlein juveniles.

Yeah, me too. Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Stranger In A Strange Land are great books, and if you're too young to understand the politics of it then The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers are amazingly good. For a young man who was interested in science, they were deeply influential.

(Sidenote: what I always loved about Heinlein wasn't so much the tech or the optimism, as the fact that his heroes normally won through being smarter than their opponents, not stronger or braver or somehow chosen by destiny. That was a revelation for me at the time.)

Be nice to see some with toruses for spin gravity, too. Not everyone has that high falutin' artificial gravity!

That'd be cool.

I'd also like to see some which look like the Empire and Alliance ships from Gratuitous Space Battles: that is, a series of separate elements which are held together by struts, with large amounts of open space in between them. Is it practical? No. Is it cool? Yes.

Empire:

Spoiler

Alliance:

Spoiler

 

[mrinku]

Yeah, me too. Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Stranger In A Strange Land are great books, and if you're too young to understand the politics of it then The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers are amazingly good. For a young man who was interested in science, they were deeply influential.

Have Spacesuit Will Travel was actually the very first science fiction novel I ever read. Would have been in 1976 when I was about 10, though already a massive genre fan from television shows like Fireball XL5, Dr Who, Lost in Space and My Favorite Martian. Star Wars came along shortly after, but the novels and short stories got in first as I read my way through the science fiction shelf at the library.

I should admit that being an Apollo era kid had its influence too...

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

I should admit that being an Apollo era kid had its influence too...

I envy you that. Sure, you had to live under the shadow of nuclear annihilation, but you got to live in the era when space was still a shining future instead of a brief, yellowing past.

 

[PichuTrainer]

I'd love to see more variety in ship designs, long as it's not unrealistic.

Image of a Vertical fighter of the Genie from the now dead game Black Prophecy.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Hell yeah, vertical ships!

This Dev Diary screenshot shows vertical ship designs in the distance, but it's a unique "fallen empire" design.

I wonder if this means it's possible to change/unlock shipsets as you progress in technology... Or maybe the advanced ship sections are visibly different from the starting ones? In terms of overall aesthetic?