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TorchShips → torchships → Questions and Comments → Ship design
 

Topic: Ship design

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Anonymous
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Ship design
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Hello, great work you've been doing and I've been following this project for a while (and backed the kickstarter)

I have to say though, one aspect which has always stood out to me is the ship design. Whilst I know you want to move away from the wing commander/sci-fi show ships and fighting (and that's great), I really do think it would be easier for people to 'get it' if the ship design was slightly more standard scifi style, or at least look a bit more war like. 

In showing it to friends they thought it was more of a kerbel style exploration game rather than a more fighting based game, and I feel that just a different main model would convey a completely different sort of game which I'm sure would draw more people in.

Just something to think about!

 



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admin
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I've actually ran into that issue while working with 3d modelers, they really, really, don't like to make the more spindly, 'realistic' ship designs. Everything I get is streamlined (sometimes with wings and tail fins), with no or very small reaction mass tanks, and glowing exhaust ports for the engines :)

You are right about the 'more warlike' feedback - very good point - I'll think about that. There is (as always) some interesting stuff on the atomic rocket site about this www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarship.php. But even there none of the warship designs have large enough reaction mass tanks! I like the Yellowjacket Destroyer by J. Wilde. (reactor-axe-man.deviantart.com/art/Yellowjacket-Destroyer-376812896) - but I'm not even sure if that is warlike looking enough.

The progression in TorchShips will be from customized 'scratch fleet' combat ships to eventually purpose build warships. Visualize armed tugs and freighters, then moving to dedicated fighting units. So at first weapons, sensors, and armor are 'bolted on', maybe something like a block v apollo capsule/command module with missiles and an auto-cannon :) Then moving to more sophisticated engines, armor, sensors, and weapons...




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nate2010
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If we're throwing votes around...im all for as "realistic" as possible. we've already seen the standard spaceship look a million times. Id love to have something that looked feasible even if it doesnt fit with the standard image of a "warship" not to mention, it may add to the depth of the game, realistically sized re-mass tanks and radiators could make for some interesting factors when ships take sub kill damage

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Kibble
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I agree with Nate. I really like the spacecraft concepts we've seen for this game - they are like the Daedalus interstellar spacecraft, and piloting one of those monsters around a solar system would be freaking awesome! I think the design of Daedalus is pretty evocative (and fairly well known, I think), and in my opinion it should resonate in the designs of these giant open-cycle gas-core nuclear thermal rocket-powered fighting spacecraft<3



-- Edited by Kibble on Tuesday 23rd of September 2014 08:49:34 AM

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Ander-song
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I agree with Nate and Kibble.

A lot of very interesting, more realistic ship designs have been done by BBZWBBZW. Check out his imageshack and his 'verse Wiki.

imageshack.us/user/bbzwbbzw

via.wikia.com/wiki/Vir_Inter_Astrum_Wiki

While the aerospace fighters might not fit in this game world (though they could if you wanted them to...) his larger ship designs I think certainly do.

k82h.png



-- Edited by Ander-song on Wednesday 24th of September 2014 08:06:49 PM

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acrosome
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Where are the radiators on the Tian Shan Long? Are they retracted? (That always ruins things for me.)

Since you're an Atomic Rockets fan, I can't recommend Attack Vector:Tactical enough, as a source of inspiration:

Lafayette_Surrenders.jpg

 


Wasp.jpg

 

Rafik_Medina.jpg

 

They definitely look "warlike," though you might still not like the small fuel tankage.  AV:T assumes some very efficient drives.  But adding tankage to a design like this would still work.  In AV:T the radiators are retractable, and extending them is one way to surrender, since doing so turns you into a large, clumsy, and fragile target.

I think that to make a ship look warlike you really just have to keep in long and rocketlike (phallic?).  Round, bulbous designs generally don't look aggressive enough, if that makes any sense.

I had always wished that someone would make AV:T as a computer sim.  I've just discovered this project, and hope that it might be that sim.  (I'm a very Wasp kind of guy.)



-- Edited by acrosome on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 07:30:54 PM



-- Edited by acrosome on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 07:34:01 PM



-- Edited by acrosome on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 07:35:32 PM



-- Edited by acrosome on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 07:37:53 PM



-- Edited by acrosome on Wednesday 15th of October 2014 07:38:39 PM

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Ander-song
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Ha! I bought AVT, but only for the story and technology background info. I never had anyone to play it against and when I do, we play casual board games (Axis and Allies, etc.) I wouldn't mind seeing a computer version of that at all.

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Reactor Axe Man
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With good reason AV:T was noted as having "made the impossible merely excruciating" or words to that effect.


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Kibble
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Attack Vector ship's real wierd thing is that for gameplay purposes they assume that the heat of the engine reactions can be fully directed out the exhaust, meaning the engine itself doesn't need radiators.  This fundamentally changes that design from what may be likely of highly efficient nuke-electric/fission/fusion engines.  In fact the aesthetics of deep spacecraft in the future might make for good-looking spacecraft in Torchships!  Sharp-angled radiators could look very aggressive.

Here's a rendering by the great Rick Robinson of what he believes future manned deep spacecraft will look like:

Deep+Space+1.JPG

And here's a couple images of Discovery, the Dragonfly version from the novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey, interpretation by a very skilled model-builder - very aggressive-looking, IMO!

P1120621_edited-1.jpg

P1120623.jpg



-- Edited by Kibble on Wednesday 22nd of October 2014 10:21:37 AM

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Reactor Axe Man
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You can see it in their visual look for the torches, though. They are basically open cages with very little surface area to catch any of the "shine" from the torch reaction. The spikes that project out from the cage are actually radiators for what little energy does get captured.

 



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Kibble
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I assumed the cage-look on the Attack Vector rocket was because it was a magnetic bottle nozzle, for some kind of nuclear plasma thruster. Rockets that work by just dumping heat into propellant (Read: chemical, nuclear thermal) don't need big radiators, but most high-specific impulse nuclear drives do. The highest thermal specific impulse you can get is with an open-cycle gas-core nuclear thermal rocket, which delivers a modest (relative to torch-level rocket engines) specific impulse of about 3500 seconds. (Compare with about 450s for chemical O2/H2, 900s for solid-core NTR, 5000s for most active ion drives, and 20000s for VASIMR!)



-- Edited by Kibble on Thursday 6th of November 2014 12:10:07 PM

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Reactor Axe Man
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I'm going to have to dig out the books, but the ISP on Attack Vector fusion torches is just on the possible side of ludicrous.


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Kibble
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Hey wait are you the same Reactor-Axe-Man who makes the spaceship models on DA? If so, wow - that's super cool that I'm talking to such a famous artist! Your CGI work is really awesome. It always shows up in the "More From DeviantArt" next to any deviation with spaceships in it.

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Reactor Axe Man
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Yeah, that's me. smile

 



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admin
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and in the 'I have even better news' category, he is working on some ship models for TorchShips :)



-- Edited by admin on Tuesday 18th of November 2014 04:04:16 PM



-- Edited by admin on Tuesday 18th of November 2014 04:05:14 PM

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