size of ships...

I'm about ready to start sculpting my own ships (possibly for production) and
was wondering about what size models y'all use for your ships of various
mass's...

thanks!

> On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, lojeck wrote:

> I'm about ready to start sculpting my own ships (possibly for

Well... roughly something like this:

Escorts: up to about 4cm long, provided they're longish rather than stubby
Cruisers: 4 - 7 cm (...except my Shadowhunters, but the 'tail' doesn't
count) Capitals: Bigger still.

Note that these figures are _very_ rough and depend quite a lot on the
shape of the ship; most of my light cruisers are about as long as the larger
DDs, but fatter, while several of my heavy cruisers are as long as some of my
capitals but thinner.

Regards,

Some time back (I'm about a week behind in reading my list-mail) Oerjan
wrote,

> Escorts: up to about 4cm long, provided they're longish rather than

Which brings up a point... am I the only one here who thinks long, slender
spaceships don't make sense? Yes, I know that all we're really doing here is
coming up with PSB to rationalize whatever we think *looks* cool.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that except for ships designed for atmospheric
entry (including, probably, most of the aforementioned escorts), the stubbier
the better: keeps your mass more compact, your structure more sturdy.

In fact, you could argue that ships should be wider than they are long, rather
than the other way around. This allows you to concentrate more
firepower/ defences/ sensors/ whatever forward. If you stick a couple
engines
on either side of this mass, the elongated moment-arm makes it easier to
turn
faster -- while the crew, near the center, is hit with less G-force.

Some of you physics-types tell me if I'm totally off-base here.  ;-)

Date sent:  17-DEC-1996 09:35:21

> Escorts: up to about 4cm long, provided they're longish rather than

> Which brings up a point... am I the only one here who thinks long,

Just a quick note. At high speeds, you need at least some kind of
streamlining. Space is NOT empty. E E 'Doc' Smith's Lensman ships were
teardrop shaped to improve their 'inertialess' performance. You will hit
stuff, and you want it to bounce.

Having said that, the best shape as far as I can tell for a space ship is a
sphear. It has minimum area to volume, good pressure holding characteristics
etc.

But pointy ships do look better IMHO.

> At 01:04 AM 12/17/96 -0500, you wrote:

A friend of mine (Chris, one of the Nipponese) and I had a discussion about
this in University. The conclusion that we came to was that "it
depends." :-)

A long, slender ship (essentially needle shaped, with all comparisons made to
a spherical "Death Star") will be harder to turn around; with so much of it's
mass out on the ends, it has a lot of rotational inertia. However, it should
be fairly easy to spin the ship on its axis. In that case, damage to one side
of the ship would be easier to overcome as the ship could rotate that part of
the hull out of the way.

A long, slender ship presents a much larger broadside, meaning that a
broadside volley would have a greater percentage of its guns brought to
bear. If you have weapons that require reloading/recharging, a long,
slender ship with a fast rotation (to get the guns on the other sides of the
hull to bear) could keep a nasty rate of fire going. It also presents a
smaller frontal area, making it harder to hit as it advances. A frontal shot
would have to go through a lot of mass in order to hit the critical command
centre (in the middle of the ship) or the engines. Of course, hits to the side
would not have to penetrate far in order to hit the ship's vitals. The ship
may be able to advance easily, but it won't be able to turn around easily.
Definitely a ship design for "jousting."

The other thing to remember is that a perfectly spherical ship would have a
lot of wasted space, if you assume human occupants. Unless the ship is very
big, a lot of the volume near the hull will be curved and not easily used by
humans.

What we decided was that neither a long needle nor a sphere were the best ship
designs in all cases. We decided that the best "overall" design was probably a
fat ellipsoid, a shape that's essentially a compromise between the two.

> In fact, you could argue that ships should be wider than they are long,

The problem with mounting all of the weapons forward (and it's actually not a
bad idea) is that you are vulnerable to flanking attacks. When we discussed
ship shapes, we came to the conclusion that the ships would be designed not
for stand alone fighting but as fleet ships. You might have a majority of
short, squat ships like you described in the front of the fleet, with a few
long, slender ships defending the flanks (left, right, upper, and lower).
Inside the fleet, you would have your ECM ships, and some nasty close defense
ships (as well as the reserve). You would then end up with interlocking arcs
of fire. Your fleet would look less like the British fleet at Jutland and more
like a "box" of B17s.

Has anyone tried this kind of design system in FT? One where it's almost
impossible to get "inside" the enemy fleet and if the enemy does, it comes
under withering interlocking fire arcs. It might make an interesting tactic.

> At 09:42 AM 12/17/96 +0000, you wrote:

Spheres have "wasted space" near the hulls. Imagine a corridor ending in a
picture window. Now imagine that the end of the corridor was curved because
the building was a big ball. Your head would hit the "ceiling" near the
window, but your feet would still be away from the window. That pie shaped
area where your body and the floor make a 90 degree angle is essentially
wasted space. That's a fair amount of mass to have around doing nothing
(although a good designer could probably use it for something). You get better
space utilization if you have a square or a rectangle. Since they aren't
practical for a ship, you may prefer an ellipse. On the other hand, if you are
talking about an alien race without a rigid skeleton, or one that is short and
squat, a sphere becomes ideal.

> At 09:42 AM 12/17/96 +0000, you wrote:

Let's see, there is a lot of equiptment in a spaceship. I'd use this
"wasted space" for storage, non-essential equiptment and systems that
need to be near the outside of the ship, ex. sensors, ECM, engines, and
weapons.

Enjoy,

(Attribution lost, but referring to a wide ship)
> If you stick a couple engines

To turn a ship's course, surely the thrust must be applied at a right-
angle to the direction of travel? The "elongated moment arms" on either
a long or wide ship would help it spin around, so that a rear-facing
engine may act at a right-angle to it's previous direction, so there
seems to be little difference here.

OTOH a wide ship suggests itself as a purpose built barn-door for
targetting.

> Scott Field wrote:

Good point. Dispersed structures and other shapes would probably be cheaper
and easier to build if the ship does require atmospheric performance.

> In fact, you could argue that ships should be wider than they are long,

I would imagine it depends greatly on the function of the ship. Having a
large cross-section from the front might not be appealing if you wish to
keep your sensor signature to a minimum.

> If you stick a couple engines

Mounting engines far apart could create problems if one was disabled such as
spinning about an axis. A friend of mine found this out the hard way with a
home made rocket mounting three F class engines far apart versus a cluster.
When the rocket took off, one engine failed and the whole thing tipped over
sideways skipping across the ground like a cheap guided missile. Sure enough
he tried this again with all three engines mounted apart. All engines fired
this time, but they burned at different rates. This caused the rocket to
perform another horizontal flight path, speeding towards a passing car and
scaring the wits out of its driver. (Note the second rocket was a good 3 feet
long unlike the first which was about 6 feet in length.)

> <snip>

Besides, nasty, no-nonsense looking ships are easier to sell as
effective to politicians and generals. <g>

Date sent:  18-DEC-1996 08:39:58

> Spheres have "wasted space" near the hulls. Imagine a corridor ending

Not true, unless you have artificial gravity. Note also that in many rooms,
the corners are wasted space anyway.

In zero G, the curved surface would be floor walls AND ceiling. A difficult
concept to grasp I know. But once there is no UP, architecture takes on a
whole different shape.

A sphere is the best shape simply because it is the best to hold in an
atmosphere. Currently tubes are popular for the same reason, but they are
easier (and cheaper) to manufacture. Of course systems other than life support
could be bolted on the outside of the sphere to make any shape you like.

In a message dated 17/12/96  06:06:07, you write:

<< In fact, you could argue that ships should be wider than they are long,
rather than the other way around. This allows you to concentrate more
 firepower/ defences/ sensors/ whatever forward. If you stick a couple
engines
 on either side of this mass, the elongated moment-arm makes it easier
to turn
 faster -- while the crew, near the center, is hit with less G-force.
> [quoted text omitted]

The other reason for this sort of design would be the generation of artificial
gravity by spinning the hull(s). I would probably suggest capital ships on the
spinning disc design but because of the angular moment necessary escorts would
operate as tethered hulls spinning about a common centre of mass. however the
tether would be dropped before enterring combat for increased manouverability.
This does of course assume higher tech artificial gravity is not in use. This
also introduces the idea of an entangling attack to either strip the enemy
hull of sensors,comms arrays, ecm antennae,gun turrets or barrels or to affect
the manouverability of the assaulted vessel both decidedly high risk manouvres
to say the least but you can usually find someone stupid or desperate enough
to try it.

> On Tue, 17 Dec 1996 FieldScott@aol.com wrote:

> Some time back (I'm about a week behind in reading my list-mail)
Oerjan
> wrote,

Do you _want_ everything pointed forward? I'm not sure I do - in fact,
broadside tactics (which allow me to break off far easier) seems as a
good idea to me :) And, of course - how big are your weapons? Look at
that pulse-torp-armed destroyer - the pulse torp takes up a _lot_ of
space in it (...about 33% of the mass). Will the shape of the weapon
affect the shape of the ship in this case? Those railguns - will
they fit into a smallish spherical hull?

Does much of your equipment need surface mounts - not that I can think
of
a good reason for it, except possibly for sub-packs (the Eagle Rocket
Sloop, anyone? <g>) - so you need as much surface per volume as you can
get? (...why am I thinking of NSL Battlecruisers all of a sudden...)

I think hull shape depends on a lot of things, from the basic unyielding

shape of those spinal mounts to pure estetics (...Eldar...). Since we can come
up with justifications for whatever hull shape we want, why bother...

Later,

> Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 01:04:40 -0500
...
> Which brings up a point... am I the only one here who thinks long,

Different shapes have different justifications. A long, slender ship
may house a half-mile long linear accelerator as a spinal mount. But
then again, a disk shaped or spherical ship might house some sort of large
cyclotron which fires out at a tangent from one spot on the hull. The
dispersed structure of something like 2001's Discovery or the ships from
Silent Running may be necessary to separate huge
radiation-generating
equipment from crew and sensors, or if launching and landing facilities
are external, swarms of fighters/battleriders could be launched/landed
in a very short ammount of time.

Justifying something like a Star Destroyer, the even sillier double-
wedge Narn light cruiser, Centauri winged battlecruisers, or almost anything
from Star Trek, etc., does stretch tha ability to create a rational
explanation a bit too thin, though.

Oerjan wrote,

> Since we can

Because I'm trying to come up with justifications for the hull shapes
*I*
want!  ;-)

> At 01:10 AM 12/21/96 -0500, you wrote:
Hull shapes don't matter in space.   The main differances are weather it
is a military ship or a civilian one, and weather it lands on planets or not.

Military ships are designed to have the greatest amount of surface area, to
mount weapons, sheilds, sensors, ect.

Civilian ships are designed to have the greatest amount of volume, for cargo,
and passenger areas, ect.

Thats why modern civilian freighters look plain and fat. And military ships
are full of projections and angles.