Space Warship Designs

What should Space Warship designs be?

  • 1. Aircraft based

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2. Bluewater Warship with tower bridges (Leiji Matsumoto style, also commonly seen in Star Wars)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3. Rockets

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4. Flying Saucers (Enterprise from Star Trek)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5. Other .............. (What future holds, add here)

    Votes: 2 100.0%

  • Total voters
    2
Joined
Jan 10, 2019
Messages
2,094
OK This is not really 'historical' but a future predictions.
Rightnow Space Warfare of all kind is fiction only. available in all entertainment medias (Novels, Cartoons (Comics and animated), Motion Pictures (Cinema based or TV based)). And even in these fictions. Space Warfare and Space Combat Vessel concepts did evolve within designs.
Here's my (rather crude) conclusions regarding to these
Early Scifi (Anything before 1974 AD)
1. Space Warfare is heavily viewed as a straight evolutions of aerial warfare. all space combat vessels (and combat mode) were nearly identical to aircrafts (hard points are primarily spinal mounts or forward facings. many of these spacecrafts did have the same wings. heavily streamlined. Some however takes off and landings like rocket and not aircrafts.
Examples
Thunderbirds.png

- Thunderbirds.
Note that Naval Nomeclatures are ported into here as well. some rocket ships are even referred to as 'Battleships' even if they have no turrets (or more like heavily armored fighters or fortress bombers)
And weaponry were purely 'deathrays' (or what later called 'Lasers', or whatever names coined for these, but mostly energy based).
2. Flying Saucers
Enterprise.png

- Star Trek. (maybe HG. Wells' War of the Worlds)



Leiji Matsumoto Hype (Since 1974 (Japan,) or 1979 (United States of America, and worldwide)
It begins with a kyushuan Mangaka (Japanese Comic Artists, though today the term Mangaka is used since Japanese 'Manga' did evolved from American 'Comics' on its own path) who was born as Akira Matsumoto (25th January 1938 - 13th February 2023), who began his career in 1953, And invented his pen name 'Leiji Matsumoto' (松本零士) in 1969 . His dream was, however to become famous animation wizard like Walt Disney. It took him yet another nearly two decades for his dream to be realized in 1974, when Yoshinobu Nishizaki (西崎義展,18 December 1934 - 2010) of Office Academy animation studio recruited him to direct an animation project that would be known as Space Battleship Yamato .. which later about a year or two became a big hit. Also in 1977 he wrote Space Pirate Captain Harlock. in BOTH shows all space warships (Particularly Yamato and Arcadia) are designed with tower bridges like sea ships of the 20th Century.
Mahoroba and Yamato.jpg

tumblr_ne65vsVlSy1qcrhtio1_1280.jpg

^ Yamato (Lower most) and Arcadia (Similiarly looking green spaceship with big skull to the front) in the same frame. All Spaceships (including a space passenger train .. the Galaxy Express 999), all of these things are created by Leiji Matsumoto.
The other (Zeppelin to the background) is Queen Emeraldas, also FTL capable.
All of these (Except Yamato) things came out by the waning years of 1970s.


What made him so influential is that not only the two Space Scifi Animes (and shortly later Galaxy Express 999) aired at that time being bighits in Japan, but an american film director named George Lucas has been in THERE at that time for his research for a movie that will later becomes Star Wars (A really bighit). He also watched the two aforemented Animes (and possible read mangas). Eventually Star Wars became a big hit and all space scifis spaceship designs follows EITHER Matsumoto OR Star Wars.
SW Imperial Stardestroyers.png

^ Imperial Star Destroyers from Star Wars (1978), notice that the use of tower bridges. it became a trend that anyone doing space scifi after that has to follow when designing spaceships. Though Starwars was tend to be copied more.

Space Battles featured since SBY in 1974 follows strictly Pacific Theatre. with cosmofighters are opreated from lager ships. most of these 'Warships' were (mostly) doubles as cosmofighter bases, with its own offensive weaponry systems (mostly followed warships of the 1930s-1940s, even if these weapons are now energy based), featured also are myriads of guided missiles (some are dubbed 'Space Torpedoes').
UAVs were not common yet. except in Gundam settings (which these drones are called Funnels and controled by human 'psychic powers' rather than AIs)
ECM and ECCMs were virtually nonexists. even at this period. (or if so these were still as advanced as IRL versions)

This design phillosophy did lasts for several decades. at least until 'Hard Scifi' came to be.

Space Sim Era (2010s-Present)
This is when interests in space scifi declined. especially in Japan. in which only popular franchises get new stories or remakes.
Many Space Scifis originated from this era are now made with Space Sims and The Internet in mind. Note that with Real Life Space Projects did not progress in the same pace as in Scifis. Tower Bridges (Along with 'Space is an ocean' (and even the term 'Seas of Stars', the nomeclature strongly associates with Leiji Matsumoto. which he used it alot in his works, and even shown up with his death announcement (written by his eldest child 'Makiko Matsumoto' that 'He went to the Seas of Stars on 13th February 2023' ) no longer popular. Some spacecrafts reverted to pre-1974 designs. either as 'Aircraft based' or 'Rockets'. Control Bridge is now located either in the same place as in aircraft or .. with the advances of tele-optics (Webcams, Close Circuit Televisions). at the center of the very spacecrafts.. now similiar to submarines. Gun-type weapon mounts are all turret based, while missiles are of VLS type. Drones will play more important roles, Cosmofighters however tend to become less common (Ukraine Theatre proves this IRL). Electronics Warfare is now a serious business. hacking becomes more common (as seen in Bodacious Space Pirates (モーレツ宇宙海賊) ( A not so popular Space Scifi from Japan, well Original Space Scifis of this era written by Japanese are ver rare and not popular now. Maybe because Spacefaring does not appeal to Japanese anymore (or at least in these last two decades) and they viewed Space as something too far and didn't touch the audiences, despite Leiji Matsumoto's effort in final decades of his life being president of Young Astronaut Camp and being so active in that, of course at the costs of no new mangas being written himself (most of those of 'his works' were what he authrized his fans to do, and this included his 'rival' mangaka (Yuzuru Shimazaki to be specific, she already has her original works several years prior, at this era he gives out basic premises and 'frameworks' according to settings, relationships between each characters, boundaries, or even 'text stories' written as novels or movie scripts and leave the illustrations to the autorized artists).. it didn't help in the end.
1655940_639080249473473_1788699029_n.jpg

Note that Bentenmaru in Bodacious Space Pirates interior layout now follows Aircrafts (Particularly Fortress Bombers). and not Sea ships. Turrets to the back.. The ship looks much like big rockets. Can't say that is it a retro or is this design more functional than ones originated from the late 70s designs.
Note that hackings, alongside other forms of ECMs and ECCMs as well as electronis warfare. play a big part in space warfare particularly in this settings.

The Expanse.
Space Ships in this settings are all rockets. (and literally a tower when lands) ones that capable to land and take off on its own power.
This is Hard Scifi though. Space Combat in this setting is very much originals. No Cosmofighterjets shown up at all
Also Control Bridge is located to the central, visibility are done through teleoptics or periscopes of some kind. no direct 'windows' sightseeings at all.

Rocinante.png

^ Rocinante.


What's your ideas according to space warfare or space warship designs? will it follows The Expanse or Bodacious Pirates? or what. But i'm sure it won't follow either Star Wars or Space Battleship Yamato, or any other bighits created by Leiji Matsumoto as well as anyone else that followed him or Lucas.

What do you think about these?
 
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I love the early Sci-fi stuff like the Thunderbirds you give as an example. I also always liked Space: 1999s Eagle spaceships as well.
 
I think The Expanse made a real effort to anticipate what space travel would actually be like. Ships are more like Terrestrial submarines than like surface ships, but they're freed from (a) having to be hydrodynamic, and (b) the emissions they have to mask are electromagnetic energy rather than sound. Combat in The Expanse still uses sound, for the viewer's benefit. When the PDCs fire, the viewer can hear the buzz from outside.

One place where ships in The Expanse depart from the design of submarines - and from the design of just about every other sci-fi property - is in their internal layout. They're more like buildings than Terrestrial ships, where the direction of travel from the perspective of the people inside is "up" rather than "forward." Artificial gravity is generated by firing the engines, driving everyone inside "down" to the floor.

One thing The Expanse is inconsistent about is that space vessels in combat would vent their atmosphere and everyone inside would put on spacesuits, because shockwaves caused by explosions are a function of an atmosphere, and hull breaches don't 'suck' you out into space, they 'blow' you out into space. If you vent all of your atmosphere, a kinetic round puncturing your hull wouldn't transfer a lot of that energy in the form of a shockwave*, and nothing inside would be blown into space. Also, fires wouldn't ignite unless they had some kind of oxygen feeding them.


* You actually see this, briefly, in Battlestar Galactica (2004), when the Galactica gets hit by a nuke and... not a lot happens. Or, at least, less than you'd think would happen. That's because so much of the power of a nuclear weapon on the surface of a planet comes from the atmospheric shockwave. In space, a nuclear missile would be much less damaging. I mean, it'd still suck, but it's plausible that a heavily-armored capital ship like a Colonial Battlestar could take a hit from a nuke and not be destroyed.
 
OK This is not really 'historical' but a future predictions.
Rightnow Space Warfare of all kind is fiction only. available in all entertainment medias (Novels, Cartoons (Comics and animated), Motion Pictures (Cinema based or TV based)). And even in these fictions. Space Warfare and Space Combat Vessel concepts did evolve within designs.
Here's my (rather crude) conclusions regarding to these
Early Scifi (Anything before 1974 AD)
1. Space Warfare is heavily viewed as a straight evolutions of aerial warfare. all space combat vessels (and combat mode) were nearly identical to aircrafts (hard points are primarily spinal mounts or forward facings. many of these spacecrafts did have the same wings. heavily streamlined. Some however takes off and landings like rocket and not aircrafts.
Examples
View attachment 671330
- Thunderbirds.
Note that Naval Nomeclatures are ported into here as well. some rocket ships are even referred to as 'Battleships' even if they have no turrets (or more like heavily armored fighters or fortress bombers)
And weaponry were purely 'deathrays' (or what later called 'Lasers', or whatever names coined for these, but mostly energy based).
2. Flying Saucers
View attachment 671329
- Star Trek. (maybe HG. Wells' War of the Worlds)



Leiji Matsumoto Hype (Since 1974 (Japan,) or 1979 (United States of America, and worldwide)
It begins with a kyushuan Mangaka (Japanese Comic Artists, though today the term Mangaka is used since Japanese 'Manga' did evolved from American 'Comics' on its own path) who was born as Akira Matsumoto (25th January 1938 - 13th February 2023), who began his career in 1953, And invented his pen name 'Leiji Matsumoto' (松本零士) in 1969 . His dream was, however to become famous animation wizard like Walt Disney. It took him yet another nearly two decades for his dream to be realized in 1974, when Yoshinobu Nishizaki (西崎義展,18 December 1934 - 2010) of Office Academy animation studio recruited him to direct an animation project that would be known as Space Battleship Yamato .. which later about a year or two became a big hit. Also in 1977 he wrote Space Pirate Captain Harlock. in BOTH shows all space warships (Particularly Yamato and Arcadia) are designed with tower bridges like sea ships of the 20th Century.
View attachment 671328
View attachment 671331
^ Yamato (Lower most) and Arcadia (Similiarly looking green spaceship with big skull to the front) in the same frame. All Spaceships (including a space passenger train .. the Galaxy Express 999), all of these things are created by Leiji Matsumoto.
The other (Zeppelin to the background) is Queen Emeraldas, also FTL capable.
All of these (Except Yamato) things came out by the waning years of 1970s.


What made him so influential is that not only the two Space Scifi Animes (and shortly later Galaxy Express 999) aired at that time being bighits in Japan, but an american film director named George Lucas has been in THERE at that time for his research for a movie that will later becomes Star Wars (A really bighit). He also watched the two aforemented Animes (and possible read mangas). Eventually Star Wars became a big hit and all space scifis spaceship designs follows EITHER Matsumoto OR Star Wars.
View attachment 671334
^ Imperial Star Destroyers from Star Wars (1978), notice that the use of tower bridges. it became a trend that anyone doing space scifi after that has to follow when designing spaceships. Though Starwars was tend to be copied more.

Space Battles featured since SBY in 1974 follows strictly Pacific Theatre. with cosmofighters are opreated from lager ships. most of these 'Warships' were (mostly) doubles as cosmofighter bases, with its own offensive weaponry systems (mostly followed warships of the 1930s-1940s, even if these weapons are now energy based), featured also are myriads of guided missiles (some are dubbed 'Space Torpedoes').
UAVs were not common yet. except in Gundam settings (which these drones are called Funnels and controled by human 'psychic powers' rather than AIs)
ECM and ECCMs were virtually nonexists. even at this period. (or if so these were still as advanced as IRL versions)

This design phillosophy did lasts for several decades. at least until 'Hard Scifi' came to be.

Space Sim Era (2010s-Present)
This is when interests in space scifi declined. especially in Japan. in which only popular franchises get new stories or remakes.
Many Space Scifis originated from this era are now made with Space Sims and The Internet in mind. Note that with Real Life Space Projects did not progress in the same pace as in Scifis. Tower Bridges (Along with 'Space is an ocean' (and even the term 'Seas of Stars', the nomeclature strongly associates with Leiji Matsumoto. which he used it alot in his works, and even shown up with his death announcement (written by his eldest child 'Makiko Matsumoto' that 'He went to the Seas of Stars on 13th February 2023' ) no longer popular. Some spacecrafts reverted to pre-1974 designs. either as 'Aircraft based' or 'Rockets'. Control Bridge is now located either in the same place as in aircraft or .. with the advances of tele-optics (Webcams, Close Circuit Televisions). at the center of the very spacecrafts.. now similiar to submarines. Gun-type weapon mounts are all turret based, while missiles are of VLS type. Drones will play more important roles, Cosmofighters however tend to become less common (Ukraine Theatre proves this IRL). Electronics Warfare is now a serious business. hacking becomes more common (as seen in Bodacious Space Pirates (モーレツ宇宙海賊) ( A not so popular Space Scifi from Japan, well Original Space Scifis of this era written by Japanese are ver rare and not popular now. Maybe because Spacefaring does not appeal to Japanese anymore (or at least in these last two decades) and they viewed Space as something too far and didn't touch the audiences, despite Leiji Matsumoto's effort in final decades of his life being president of Young Astronaut Camp and being so active in that, of course at the costs of no new mangas being written himself (most of those of 'his works' were what he authrized his fans to do, and this included his 'rival' mangaka (Yuzuru Shimazaki to be specific, she already has her original works several years prior, at this era he gives out basic premises and 'frameworks' according to settings, relationships between each characters, boundaries, or even 'text stories' written as novels or movie scripts and leave the illustrations to the autorized artists).. it didn't help in the end.
View attachment 671333
Note that Bentenmaru in Bodacious Space Pirates interior layout now follows Aircrafts (Particularly Fortress Bombers). and not Sea ships. Turrets to the back.. The ship looks much like big rockets. Can't say that is it a retro or is this design more functional than ones originated from the late 70s designs.
Note that hackings, alongside other forms of ECMs and ECCMs as well as electronis warfare. play a big part in space warfare particularly in this settings.

The Expanse.
Space Ships in this settings are all rockets. (and literally a tower when lands) ones that capable to land and take off on its own power.
This is Hard Scifi though. Space Combat in this setting is very much originals. No Cosmofighterjets shown up at all
Also Control Bridge is located to the central, visibility are done through teleoptics or periscopes of some kind. no direct 'windows' sightseeings at all.

View attachment 671332
^ Rocinante.


What's your ideas according to space warfare or space warship designs? will it follows The Expanse or Bodacious Pirates? or what. But i'm sure it won't follow either Star Wars or Space Battleship Yamato, or any other bighits created by Leiji Matsumoto as well as anyone else that followed him or Lucas.

What do you think about these?
The design, I think, would depend on who was being fought. Fighting other humans with starships would require different designs, capabilities, and expectations than fighting alien civilizations, which would vary between, "human-like," ones (the mainstream ones in Star Trek, Babylon 5, Andromeda, etc.), "weird anatomy, civilization, and lifestyles, but still comprehensible to humans," (the majority of aliens in Star Wars, Valeris, Farscape, etc.), "weird anatomy and weird psychology, but generally on par with humans," (the mainstream aliens of Doctor Who, Space Above and Beyond, Starship Troopers, Independence Day, and arguably V, etc.), "super-aliens," (the, "Angels," in Evangion, the Vorlons and Shadows in Babylon 5, various energy being in Star Trek, etc.), "primitive aliens or human cultures with preternational, inherent powers, mysticism, or magic, or a god-like patron," (Asgardians, Eternals, Inhumans, and Denizens of the Dark Dimension from Marvel come to mind), fighting Lovecraft-style monsters in space, or fighting robots or other aritifical beings (numerous examples). I personally believe the adversary type would mold a good part of design, schematics, capabilities, and expectations, here.
 
Here are the units from my space mod Galactic Conquests Mod, that I concepted more than 20 years ago for Civ 2 ToT. At that time I distinguished between "Fighter Races" (among them Star Wars, Battleship Galactica, Perry Rhodan) and "Torpedo Races" (among them the Star Trek ships). Some of those unit graphics were updated during the decades. May be there will come a time when I release this mod again.

Spaceships.jpg
 
And these ships. if not taken from popular Scifi. are very much based on aircrafts.
They are all taken from popular SciFi. The ball spaceships of the Perry Rhodan series are definitely not based on aircraft. The same for the ringship of the Mysterious.
 
^ And none of these are Japanese bighits created by Leiji Matsumoto like Space Battleship Yamato (Yamato and Andromeda for example), Space Pirate Captain Harlock (Arcadia), or Mobile Suit Gundam... right?
This is correct. When I made that mod long ago, I was aware about Space Battleship Yamato, but I find it completely ugly and unacceptable for a spaceship. The reason could be, that I like "blue water" ironclads, pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts and battleships a lot and have tons of them in my Civ 3 mods CCM 2.5 and RARR and the Civ 3 scenarios SOE, WW2 Global Gold and the Civ 3 scenario AoI, where I took part in the creation, but these great ships should stay where they are belonging to - and this is the sea and not space.
Spoiler :

Battleship Yamato in CCM 2.5:

Yamato.gif


I am not aware about Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Mobile Suit Gundam, as it seems you were not aware about Perry Rhodan and the "Kugelraumer" spaceships, so it is the biggest SciFi novel series in the world. I think the acceptance is influenced by the fantasy triggered by the publicity in the media in different zones of culture around the world.
 
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Here is some information about the Perry Rhodan series (so I have left reading them many years ago, as I had no more time for them):

Perry Rhodan narrates a continuing SciFi story by weekly novel booklets since 1961. At present the series is at booklet 3237. One important kind of spaceships in that series are the ball spaceships (Kugelraumer).

The sphere is the shape that has the smallest possible surface area for a given volume. It has no corners or edges, is therefore equally resilient from all sides and therefore shows no structural weaknesses. The propulsion system is housed in an annular bulge spanning the equator of the ship. To land on planets, landing supports are extended, at the end of which landing plates support the weight of the spaceship.



The most prominent weapon is the "Transformkanone" (Transform Cannon). The gun fires transform bombs by dematerializing them in zero time using a transmitter-like effect and rematerializing them in the target. Transform bombs are usually understood to be effective bodies with a fusion charge, but special emitting devices can also be used to enable transform cannons to deliver special warheads to the target area. When the targeted ships are protected by special defense shields, the fusion bombs are exploding outside that shield until the shield is collapsing.

More details here: https://www-perrypedia-de.translate..._sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de#Funktionsweise
 
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What's your ideas according to space warfare or space warship designs?

Looking thru the responses, most spaceships in this thread are the products of Kardashev level zero and one civilizations, and none from the 2 -5 level civilizations (although civilizations in the 3 -5 region would probably say "we don't need no stinkin' warships!" anyways).

So the first warship on the Kardashashev level 2 scale that I can think of would be Niven's Ringworld: the ring controls the weapon (which is the star itself) via magnetic manipulation to direct huge solar flares from the star at any incoming adversaries. Pretty effective and overwhelming as far as weapons go!

D

Ringworld.png
 
Short answer: Submarine, with no conning tower. Longer answer: they're already designed to be airtight etc., and I think that the earliest warships will essentially be built around a linear accelerator, firing dense "shells" at as close to relativistic speed as possible. Also, a submarine design, when facing hostile warships, would present the narrowest (hardest to detect) target. One more: EMG (heat) emissions could be "stored" (such material exists today) during battle, then discharged afterward. Or a heat/stealth shield could be applied to the front of the ship.
 
The Perry Rhodan "sphereship" design is (deliberately?) echoed by the Adamist starships in Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. The in-universe explanation is that their FTL drive is based on (hyperspherical) wormhole generation, so the hull is designed to maximise internal volume (cargo space, and/or weapon loads) within the size-limit of the wormhole that a ship can generate.

I wonder if the massive CIS ships seen in SW Ep II, during the climactic battle on Geonosis, were (also) a deliberate nod to the Perry Rhodan stories...?
 
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