Project Space Battleship I designed USS Minnesota
- Thread starter weirdguy
- Start date
jedidia
shoemaker without legs
pretty sweet design. Turning upper/lower command tower into a centrifuge would make it awesome, IMHO, but it would take some redesigning of the midship. :thumbup:
Izack
Non sequitur
It's a nice fantasy design. 
What is that, ah, proboscis on the prow for?
What is that, ah, proboscis on the prow for?
Turning the towers into a centrifuge is unnecessary, and would in fact add a joint you couldn't hope to keep air tight. Instead you roll the whole ship during those long, long days and months spent coasting around the solar system.
The bow is the main gun. It is a rail gun, or coil gun, and would probably fire nuclear warheads. The whole ship is designed around it.
What look like main gun turrets are in fact secondary guns used to fire at incoming warheads and missiles, or ships if they're in range. They would probably be lasers.
The bow is the main gun. It is a rail gun, or coil gun, and would probably fire nuclear warheads. The whole ship is designed around it.
What look like main gun turrets are in fact secondary guns used to fire at incoming warheads and missiles, or ships if they're in range. They would probably be lasers.
jedidia
shoemaker without legs
ah, now, that makes a lot of sense.
No need to fire explosives of any sort with a railgun. Either the mussle velocity is high enough that the pure kinetic energy of the projectile has enough destructive power of its own, in which case complicated warheads are unnecessary expensive, or you'd be better served with replacing the heavy railgun with a generous compliment of missiles. Since it's a scifi ship, I'd assume that huge railgun can punch quite some delta-v into its (seemingly quite large) projectiles, so no explosive on the world could really add more bang to their impact.
RisingFury
OBSP developer
That looks hot! I would have gone for USS Mosquito though :lol:
It looks a little...I don't know, fragile. Has good detail, though.
The "secondary turrets" you mention are very clearly based on WWII battleship turrets, and while it "looks cool" they aren't really very good for your stated purpose, which is basically point defense, for a couple reasons, among them limited elevation range and limited turn rate.
Point defense turrets will, in general, be fairly small and very fast to turn, with fairly small weapons (not the giant battleship guns you have there) and a fairly large range of motion. They also won't really need more than one barrel per turret for point defense purposes, especially given the accuracy of lasers. It doesn't take much damage to destroy an incoming warhead or missile, but what you do need is fast rotation for tracking. Using what looks like WWII main battleship turrets for point defense is a lot of overkill.
The "secondary turrets" you mention are very clearly based on WWII battleship turrets, and while it "looks cool" they aren't really very good for your stated purpose, which is basically point defense, for a couple reasons, among them limited elevation range and limited turn rate.
Point defense turrets will, in general, be fairly small and very fast to turn, with fairly small weapons (not the giant battleship guns you have there) and a fairly large range of motion. They also won't really need more than one barrel per turret for point defense purposes, especially given the accuracy of lasers. It doesn't take much damage to destroy an incoming warhead or missile, but what you do need is fast rotation for tracking. Using what looks like WWII main battleship turrets for point defense is a lot of overkill.
Ok, taking advice that a more traditional look might help, I re-worked some details.
Gone is the big nose gun, instead being replaced by a hangar bay for the marines and small craft. Honestly, I think it would be better this way as I cannot see where to put a hangar on a spinning ship in a parking orbit. It has to be on the long axis, and one end is all engines.
The ship got wider too, so the engine count is now seven instead of four, which helps add a centerline engine if you just want to run engines in groups and still keep it balanced.
I also changed the turrets to be more sci-fi, in this case small particle accelerator rings, and increased the count to six to keep the size of the ship up. It is shorter overall, though.
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---------- Post added at 11:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 PM ----------
Actually, I would disagree. The impact of such a shot depends if you have speed. Firing a railgun in space is a good way to get velocity without spending fuel (electricity only), but as soon as it leaves the ship it is just a satellite like anything else. Kinetic kill weapons hit because of the tremendous speeds you can reach in space.
The problem is that they have to impact. Close doesn't count. Also, they are not as useful in a chase where the target is moving away from you, and worse the shot will last forever and could kill a satellite or civilian traffic later on, decades or centuries later.
A nuke would vaporise itself, even if you didn't hit anything. It would have to, as a dud nuke would be a serious mater if 35 years later somebody finds it and keeps it for themselves. Any nuke that misses should detonate anyway to keep it out of the wrong hands. You shouldn't need to worry about accuracy or space junk issues with a nuke.
Gone is the big nose gun, instead being replaced by a hangar bay for the marines and small craft. Honestly, I think it would be better this way as I cannot see where to put a hangar on a spinning ship in a parking orbit. It has to be on the long axis, and one end is all engines.
The ship got wider too, so the engine count is now seven instead of four, which helps add a centerline engine if you just want to run engines in groups and still keep it balanced.
I also changed the turrets to be more sci-fi, in this case small particle accelerator rings, and increased the count to six to keep the size of the ship up. It is shorter overall, though.
.
---------- Post added at 11:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 PM ----------
Actually, I would disagree. The impact of such a shot depends if you have speed. Firing a railgun in space is a good way to get velocity without spending fuel (electricity only), but as soon as it leaves the ship it is just a satellite like anything else. Kinetic kill weapons hit because of the tremendous speeds you can reach in space.
The problem is that they have to impact. Close doesn't count. Also, they are not as useful in a chase where the target is moving away from you, and worse the shot will last forever and could kill a satellite or civilian traffic later on, decades or centuries later.
A nuke would vaporise itself, even if you didn't hit anything. It would have to, as a dud nuke would be a serious mater if 35 years later somebody finds it and keeps it for themselves. Any nuke that misses should detonate anyway to keep it out of the wrong hands. You shouldn't need to worry about accuracy or space junk issues with a nuke.
Izack
Non sequitur
I have to stress how incredibly, unbelievably, and mindbogglingly unlikely that is in interplanetary space...
River Crab
SpaceX Cheer Captain
Would fit right in with the universe of Space Battleship Yamato. Is that intentional?
If so, looks awesome. If not, still looks awesome. :lol:
But I'm guessing you're going for something slightly more realistic while maintaining that aesthetic, what with talk of the basic workings of kinetic kill weapons and the lack of a Trek-style gravity field. Do you have any target for sci-fi hardness?
In any case, peruse the Atomic Rockets pages.
If so, looks awesome. If not, still looks awesome. :lol:
But I'm guessing you're going for something slightly more realistic while maintaining that aesthetic, what with talk of the basic workings of kinetic kill weapons and the lack of a Trek-style gravity field. Do you have any target for sci-fi hardness?
In any case, peruse the Atomic Rockets pages.
The basic idea was to be as realistic as possible, but from a time period where millions live in space and the solar system is colonized. Realism caused the initial idea to have a giant gun with a rocket engine.
To make people recognize the thing as a warship helped control the design overall. In reality I think a warship would probably be a missile launcher attached to an erector set of bits. I kept the look of an ocean going warship very specifically because of the other thing that most sci-fi does wrong. A warship isn't recognizable. They're things, but you never really see anything about it that screams that it is from the military.
I also think about video games, and sometimes wish I could play a game that was half Asteroids, and half Missile command.
Still probably the best source of reasonable space warfare discussion would be the James Cameron's Aliens Marine Guide, where the book talks about the USS Sulaco. The use of decoys, the fact that combat will nearly always take place in orbit of planets and not in deep space (too vast), and the use of information from satellites and telescopes more than how big are the guns.
To make people recognize the thing as a warship helped control the design overall. In reality I think a warship would probably be a missile launcher attached to an erector set of bits. I kept the look of an ocean going warship very specifically because of the other thing that most sci-fi does wrong. A warship isn't recognizable. They're things, but you never really see anything about it that screams that it is from the military.
I also think about video games, and sometimes wish I could play a game that was half Asteroids, and half Missile command.
Still probably the best source of reasonable space warfare discussion would be the James Cameron's Aliens Marine Guide, where the book talks about the USS Sulaco. The use of decoys, the fact that combat will nearly always take place in orbit of planets and not in deep space (too vast), and the use of information from satellites and telescopes more than how big are the guns.
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Izack
Non sequitur
Actually one of the things sci-fi almost always does wrong is portray space as an ocean with boats. It's not. It's completely different. There is almost no relationship at all between the sea and outer space, except that both are grossly misrepresented in popular media. Likewise, spacecraft and seagoing vessels have very little in common, not even submarines.
I'm not trying to bash you or your model, but "realistic" is a hard word to apply to this design. :tiphat:
I guess I should have been a bit more clear. I was only halfway keeping this "realistic".
I wanted a happy medium. Most sci-fi ships are horrible looking modern art. They usually just take lots of old model kits and glue and go to town. Oddly, you never see weapons most of the time for example. Ever since Star Wars and George Lucas, that has been what a spaceship is supposed to look like.
Yet, going too realistic would probably result in such an odd design that people wouldn't recognize it as anything at all (it would probably be a wedge of stealth material with missile launchers). Even my first attempt got criticisms and was called names like USS Mosquito. You can't have it both ways it seems, but that is the goal.
I don't want energy shields. I don't want artificial gravity. I don't want components thrown all over it to add detail (called greeble in model making). However, I actually do want a design that is instantly clear what it is, yet would look like it could actually work. You should be able to look at it and know that it's supposed to be a battleship.
I wanted a happy medium. Most sci-fi ships are horrible looking modern art. They usually just take lots of old model kits and glue and go to town. Oddly, you never see weapons most of the time for example. Ever since Star Wars and George Lucas, that has been what a spaceship is supposed to look like.
Yet, going too realistic would probably result in such an odd design that people wouldn't recognize it as anything at all (it would probably be a wedge of stealth material with missile launchers). Even my first attempt got criticisms and was called names like USS Mosquito. You can't have it both ways it seems, but that is the goal.
I don't want energy shields. I don't want artificial gravity. I don't want components thrown all over it to add detail (called greeble in model making). However, I actually do want a design that is instantly clear what it is, yet would look like it could actually work. You should be able to look at it and know that it's supposed to be a battleship.
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Izack
Non sequitur
Fair enough. Taking a realistic aesthetic is still admirable these days. :tiphat:
I hate to say it, but that's another big error with sci-fi: there is no such thing as stealth in space. No matter what you do, you're still visible to everyone with an optical (though infrared is better) telescope and LOS, if they looks closely enough. So you're not really missing anything. :lol:
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tgep
Tutorial Publisher
Very nice ! When you finish, it may just find a home in my Colonial Marine Corp Fleet.
" Bring the mains up to full power Mr Huddson. I WANT RAMMING SPEED ! "
" Bring the mains up to full power Mr Huddson. I WANT RAMMING SPEED ! "
PhantomCruiser
Wanderer
If it's flyable now, you could release it as an alpha-version and let people play around with. If you hold on to it until you are "happy" with it you may never release it.
That's one of the reasons I've been hanging onto my Lockheed/ATK COTS launcher in my signature. I'm not quite happy with it yet.
That's one of the reasons I've been hanging onto my Lockheed/ATK COTS launcher in my signature. I'm not quite happy with it yet.
Urwumpe
Not funny anymore
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Is it impossible for you to do a second version of this with more improvements and release now, as it is?
I would recommend releasing more often, and keep perfection for later.
