Some time out now before starting on the Engineering Hull, the consoles are no where near what I wanted, I figured any future combat spacecraft would always push past it's limits, exposing the crew to high gravity manoeuvres and so on. So my ships need specialist couches I call Crash Couches with padding and air bag type arrangements, even oxygen helium mix that deep sea divers use.
Here is a draft married up to a General Purpose Console.
In the Star Trek Universe the system that isolates the crew from killing effects of gravity (including acceleration) is the Inertial Dampener. My own uses a bleed effect from the External Warp that isolates the whole ship from dissolving into photons when hitting light speed. Trouble is it is ruinous on power so to stop the crew being squashed into bulkheads when an eager captain burns past design limits the crew have to be cushioned up in fore and aft facing Crash Couches.
In an aside merchant ships carry a similar system and in order to make faster runs some light freighters run constantly at high gravity; crews are paid a bonus for suffering these conditions known as Gee-Pay. It is a constant source of friction between merchant spacemen and armed forces, who of course get zip.
okay, some questions and critiques.
first) it appears that the only weaponry is forward facing or forward firing. This leaves that whole side, top bottom, and rear of the vessel unprotected.
2) For such detail on the interiors, your exterior is very simplistic, This might be a better, more plausible ship if the exterior matched the detailing of the interior
3)Lastly, why such a long vessel when a patrol boat or gunship is by definition a smaller, heavily armed vessel, more so than a battleship or a carrier for example? Yet, in the modern navy, The larger ships are more heavily armed than yours appear to be.
It's a good model and well done,, just that there are some sticking points which need addressing.
So, I'm not Zanussi, obviously, but I believe I can answer some of those questions, rwking.
1) Unlike what one sees in Star Trek, torpedoes are generally not direct-fire weapons. They maneuver, and a forward-bearing tube can fire a torpedo that will come to any heading. Modern American submarines also only have forward-bearing tubes.
2) Any equipment will have to be maintained by the crew. Any equipment accessible only from the exterior of the vessel will have to be maintained by the crew wearing pressure suits. For that reason, it's completely plausible for a ship to have a cluttered interior, but a very smooth, simple exterior.
3) Historically, torpedo boats (PT boats) were small, fast, and relatively heavily armed... one or two torpedoes could sink or at least seriously damage a larger ship. They were also considered expendable... in fact, one of the best records of the PT boat combat in WWII is titled They Were Expendable.
okay, some questions and critiques.
first) it appears that the only weaponry is forward facing or forward firing. This leaves that whole side, top bottom, and rear of the vessel unprotected.
2) For such detail on the interiors, your exterior is very simplistic, This might be a better, more plausible ship if the exterior matched the detailing of the interior
3)Lastly, why such a long vessel when a patrol boat or gunship is by definition a smaller, heavily armed vessel, more so than a battleship or a carrier for example? Yet, in the modern navy, The larger ships are more heavily armed than yours appear to be.
It's a good model and well done,, just that there are some sticking points which need addressing.
Excellent questions. The length of the ship is pure physics, nicely ignored in most science fiction. A reaction engine ship can only accelerate along it's length, at best to alter course it rotates that length about the direction of travel and burns engines to slightly alter that course. Consider accelerating at 200 Gee for a month, then trying to do a hard right turn, cannot be done, your ship will simply continue to fly in the original direction, sideways, burning fuel to slightly bend the vector. So you don't fit outrigger engines, no point, at best they can spin you around, you still go the same way, if you do not need outrigger engines you build along the lines of your main engine, like a rocket in other words.
Even in the real terrestrial wars torpedo boats had to steer straight at their larger prey, why make them broader than they had to be? Just makes them a bigger target bow on. Torpedo Boats do not engage in line of battle type manoeuvres, they charge in hard, hit and then hope to get away, no point trying to engage the guns of a battleship or cruiser. That changed with the advent of the Torpedo Boat Destroyer, later just Destroyer, which were deployed in a screen to stop torpedo boats and did carry a lot of weapons, firing at all angles. The Destroyer of course evolved into a maid of all work, even carried its own torpedoes in later developments.
I never intended to produce more than a schematic as an aid-memoire, so when writing I did not accidentally send my crewman aft to the cabin flat in one chapter and for'ad in the next, hence the simplicity, but I am now re-visiting that.
Nice call Jenny. But even modern submarines use homing torpedoes with care, a manoeuvre we used to practise in the RN was to decoy a torpedo back to the firing submarine. Remember we took out the Belgrano with Mk VIII point and shoots in favour of wire guided weapons available.
Here is my crash couch married to twin light weight 40mm Nuclear Cannon, note they only elevate, the final design will encase them in a turret, they will replace the aft turrets guarding the landing ramps which I realised would not depress very well. Firing is done with a foot pedal, as most weapons were actually fired on ships I served on..
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Here is a draft married up to a General Purpose Console.
In the Star Trek Universe the system that isolates the crew from killing effects of gravity (including acceleration) is the Inertial Dampener. My own uses a bleed effect from the External Warp that isolates the whole ship from dissolving into photons when hitting light speed. Trouble is it is ruinous on power so to stop the crew being squashed into bulkheads when an eager captain burns past design limits the crew have to be cushioned up in fore and aft facing Crash Couches.
In an aside merchant ships carry a similar system and in order to make faster runs some light freighters run constantly at high gravity; crews are paid a bonus for suffering these conditions known as Gee-Pay. It is a constant source of friction between merchant spacemen and armed forces, who of course get zip.
first) it appears that the only weaponry is forward facing or forward firing. This leaves that whole side, top bottom, and rear of the vessel unprotected.
2) For such detail on the interiors, your exterior is very simplistic, This might be a better, more plausible ship if the exterior matched the detailing of the interior
3)Lastly, why such a long vessel when a patrol boat or gunship is by definition a smaller, heavily armed vessel, more so than a battleship or a carrier for example? Yet, in the modern navy, The larger ships are more heavily armed than yours appear to be.
It's a good model and well done,, just that there are some sticking points which need addressing.
1) Unlike what one sees in Star Trek, torpedoes are generally not direct-fire weapons. They maneuver, and a forward-bearing tube can fire a torpedo that will come to any heading. Modern American submarines also only have forward-bearing tubes.
2) Any equipment will have to be maintained by the crew. Any equipment accessible only from the exterior of the vessel will have to be maintained by the crew wearing pressure suits. For that reason, it's completely plausible for a ship to have a cluttered interior, but a very smooth, simple exterior.
3) Historically, torpedo boats (PT boats) were small, fast, and relatively heavily armed... one or two torpedoes could sink or at least seriously damage a larger ship. They were also considered expendable... in fact, one of the best records of the PT boat combat in WWII is titled They Were Expendable.
Excellent questions. The length of the ship is pure physics, nicely ignored in most science fiction. A reaction engine ship can only accelerate along it's length, at best to alter course it rotates that length about the direction of travel and burns engines to slightly alter that course. Consider accelerating at 200 Gee for a month, then trying to do a hard right turn, cannot be done, your ship will simply continue to fly in the original direction, sideways, burning fuel to slightly bend the vector. So you don't fit outrigger engines, no point, at best they can spin you around, you still go the same way, if you do not need outrigger engines you build along the lines of your main engine, like a rocket in other words.
Even in the real terrestrial wars torpedo boats had to steer straight at their larger prey, why make them broader than they had to be? Just makes them a bigger target bow on. Torpedo Boats do not engage in line of battle type manoeuvres, they charge in hard, hit and then hope to get away, no point trying to engage the guns of a battleship or cruiser. That changed with the advent of the Torpedo Boat Destroyer, later just Destroyer, which were deployed in a screen to stop torpedo boats and did carry a lot of weapons, firing at all angles. The Destroyer of course evolved into a maid of all work, even carried its own torpedoes in later developments.
I never intended to produce more than a schematic as an aid-memoire, so when writing I did not accidentally send my crewman aft to the cabin flat in one chapter and for'ad in the next, hence the simplicity, but I am now re-visiting that.