Space Ships Thread

Thanks, it's also an Illustrator exercise. Eventually I'll make a full-detail color version.

>How powerful do you like your ships?
Bristling with guns and draped in aesthetic

That cannon dong is dumb as fuck.

I love it, is the game it comes from any good?

>I love it, is the game it comes from any good?
I don't know, we'll see at the end of this month when it ships.
(also, it's a giant laser)

Anyone have any big mining ships? The hub setting for my game is a old mining carrier.

I remember...

Based user! Well done. Based Buck.

Remember when not all Imperial ships had to be triangular?

>How powerful do you like your ships?

Nice trips Satan.

If your ride can't bust a planet in a few seconds then get out of my face, primitive scum.

I really don't like these designs.

Has way to much going on and is covered in random useless bits. So many sci-fi settings have a similar shit tier design style as this, like EVE ships. No focus and nothing particularly interesting or nice to look at about it. Some hack just vomited on a wacom tablet and out came the concept art.

>ayy lmao ship therefore its a sea creature but in space and makes no sense, but make sure we don't actually do anything interesting with it beyond ebin space fish.

Pure shit.

>random useless bits
Looks like radiators, heat sinks, and PD to me, user. The only random useless bits I can see are the gribbles hanging off the bottom.

>No focus and nothing particularly interesting or nice to look at about it
That's like, your opinion, man. That being said, I personally find the horseshoe hull with engine nacelles to be a fun design.

>ayy lmao ship therefore its a sea creature but in space and makes no sense, but make sure we don't actually do anything interesting with it beyond ebin space fish.
The ayys look like that on the ground too; their entire theme is Geiger hopped up on art deco.
If you notice, you'll see that the central hulls is actually fairly solid, and that it's just the wings are le ebin space fish.

LotGH ships are great however, and while I disagree with your opinion, you do have good taste in ships ,even if you dislike other good aesthetics besides smooth and functional.

>covered in random useless bits
Greebles are a time-honored sci-fi tradition, user.

Greebles are artistic cancer. Like used future they were a good idea back when they started but things have gone way to far.

github.com/a1studmuffin/SpaceshipGenerator
>Take a brick
>Bevel all the edges.
>Spraypaint it black
>Add greebles
>More greebles.
>Rows of colored lights so we know how big it is.
>Give it a pretentious mythological name and you are done.

What are you talking about, all those ships look decent to good.
There is literally nothing wrong with greebles; and while shiny and smooth ships are usually great looking, they are not the be all end all of aesthetics.

I never said it should be, but there should be an alternative to the Beveled brick spray-painted black and dusted with greebles that infests modern sci-fi.

And there is? You can have your master-crafted and hand-polished works of art, and I can have my mass-wrought greebly bricks.
No reason to get all huffy and to insult someone's taste, user.

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Ah, the age old 'Greebles Conundrum'.

Personally, I've always liked something halfway between. Something that's futuristic and advanced but still harks back to man's mechanised, maritime past.

Something kind of smooth and polished but with a few rough edges so we can relate to it.

What can I say, I like them Next-Gen.

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I guess I like ships that are made to go really really far.

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Depends on what I'm looking for, Satan. If I had to pick though I honestly prefer ships and crews to be mostly beholden to the laws of physics, it's easier for me to retain suspension of disbelief when ships in a game or movie simply wave off little things like the effects of sudden acceleration, deceleration, or direction change, the limit imposed by the speed of light, etc.

I like my ships to at least make an effort to appear realistic.

Mmm, love the design of the expanse ships.

I love the ships that are built around their guns. The idea of having weapons so fucking big, and so fucking powerful, that your ship is an addition to the gun... THat shit's my jam.

and in the end, Battle ships were just mediums for their big guns.

Highly militarized and rugged looking is also a plus for the UNSC.

I hear that.

this. If I was designing a military spacecraft it would essentially just be a rail-gun that fired bullets the size of small cars at the ROF of a modern assault rifle.

>How powerful do you like your ships?
???
plausibly powerful I guess...
like it's firepower is at a level that doesn't strain suspension of disbelief.

For example, one ship I'm rather fond of is one of my own creation. It's primary weapons are two "Tokamak Cannons", two large particle accelerators that accelerates particles (either as a single slug or just a stream of particles) of a combined mass equal to a Volkswagen beetle to nearly the speed of light, then launches it at whatever you don't like. The two cannons can be fired independently, so while the one is charging up the other can be firing.

it has an assortment of other weapons on it to defend itself against other ships but that is it's primary weapon.

I fucking LOVE the Kuun-Lan but

Why are so many sci-fi ships so shit in regards to keeping the center of mass in line with the engines.
Especially when you consider they have to be loaded, unloaded, and stuff moved around inside.

OK, if it loses the asteroid
OK
OK, but Star Wars ships weren't designed for this, the wedges just became iconic
Very good, actually, when you consider how easy the engines could compensate for drift in that layout.
Shit
Shit
Shit
Shit
Shit. Halo ships are neat in that they found an iconic design well past 2000, but their engine layouts are shit to the off-center nature of their hulls.

Etc. Etc.

I think the exception would be Star Trek, since they have integrity fields and a bunch of other in-canon bullshit to explain away the ship layouts being whatever they feel like.

Are you possessed by a twat?!

You've just delivered a critique on fictional space craft.In at least half of those pictures you can't even see the engines, much less their arrangement.

I grant you that the big pincer ship, as portrayed by the astonishingly good Chris Foss, is probably going to have issues but hey, y'know science FICTION!!! This isn't hard sci-fi!

>Sci-FI
>Needs to be realistic
user where the fuck do you think you are? Also fuck, Halo in the books tells of the ship designs and how they function, but you're okay with bullshit Star trek? Would not reply to bait again/10

Traditions are an idiot thing.

I have a thing for worldships, habitat ships, etc.
I feel there's something romantic about the idea of carrying biomes around with you so that you can recreate a world if necessary.

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> (You)
>Shit
> (You)
>Shit

Looks pretty on-center to me, fampai.

>Are you possessed by a twat?!
>where the fuck do you think you are?

What? The "I hate greebles" guy gets a pass?
Also, Trek is straight up fantasy with at least two or more mentions per episode of fluff on why their ships operate as they do

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I don't know why but there's something about this design I really love.

It's just such a shame the turrets are constructed the way they are, they're fucking horrible to recreate in starmade.

Cute-starfighter user here. I appreciated the feedback from the last time I submitted my design (first attempt really), so I thought I'd return for a second round.

Standby for second attempt at designing a spaceship...

I've got a pretty good idea of how I wanted smaller craft to look in my setting, so I took to the opposite end of the spectrum and sketched up my first capital ship.

Here's the initial DOODLE... (there's further refinements incoming, btw)

I was semi satisfied with the silhouette, so I used this as the jumping point.

shitty behind the scenes look at the design process -- I figured with a ship as large as this there was need to nail the basic hull down and then add on further detailing once satisfied.

At the bottom I started designing a very specific function of this cap ship, which was an internal weapons system... I don't think it's the most unique idea these days, but the concept is to treat these vessels like weapons that fly around (which my heavy fighter demonstrated earlier).

What do the orange and blue parts represent?

annnd... Here's the semi finalized concept.

Hull classifications are being handled as iconic weapons, so here is my 'crossbow'.

This is a profile view, ship orientation is nose (left) to propulsion (right). The little hanging arm is one of two, featuring independent range of motion. These hang out from the sides, but the connecting joint in the center brings them fairly close to one another.

The position of these arms serves many purposes, but ultimately I like the idea of moving parts on ships and don't see appendages used all that often -- best example is the ship from Outlaw Star that could manipulate and interact with it's environment.

You'll note that there's a surprising lack of detail, so gauging it's size could be rather difficult without something next to it as reference. I'm imagining this to be comparable to about three very large skyscrapers (combined). Exact capacity, crew and systems are still up for debate, however.

So there you have it. I feel like it's a good start, if any, but I'd greatly appreciate any advice as I have minimal experience with ship design logic. If more information is requested on it's function/purpose, I'll be happy to elaborate.

big ships are neat

Oh, I'm actually quite happy to explain that.

Firstly, treat those colors as indicators of TOP (orange) and BOTTOM (blue), and keep in mind this is a profile view of the main hull. This is both helpful for the design process of rendering this as a 3D object, as well as allowing me to visualize where additional weapons and systems modules will attach. Allow me to explain the last part a little more closely for your full understanding.

With this particular faction, they have adopted a modular tech doctrine that allows nearly limitless configuration of weapons/systems across the surface of the vessel. The top is mostly domed and smooth, which by design allows for easy maneuvering of smaller craft over the surface area. On the bottom there will be more permanent/fixed features, so for now treat the BLUE as non-traversable areas.

What exactly is or isn't traversing these surfaces? Well, it's complicated but easily visualized. I am not exactly ready to reveal the manner in which these individual craft traverse the featureless, rounded area, but I offer this imagery to help you out.

imagine cannons and missile nests, ranging from small to fairly large sizes, affixed to little go-karts. These go-karts will 'drive' across the surface, bringing heavy weaponry to bear, anywhere they are requested. Is your enemy flanking you? Place your defenses accordingly, and move your softer support systems around to keep the enemy from easily targeting them.

By the way, the two bladed arms serve a dual purpose, to invert the surfaces and allow for traversable ORANGE areas to freely defend the lower BLUE underbelly. Weapons stationed on those arms can still roam around, but as you can see they have a lot less surface area, comparatively, thus the freedom of movement serves as a bonus here as well.

and in case anyone missed it (this was a little while ago that I posted) here is my very first attempt at designing a spacecraft.

This is a heavy fighter, it's integrated weapon is oversized for it's class, but boasts an impressive spectrum of firing modes.

This craft and the capital ship are part of a common faction, their design elements will echo throughout, which is why it was so important for me to establish a baseline.

The Arbalest DOODLE and this were freehand sketches with no prior designing done; they're the jumping point for the both of them. I think I captured the organic look rather well, and prior feedback was positive, so I'm really happy with how these are turning out.

and here's the 'tech specs' page for the heavy fighter.

I plan to do one for Arbalest, and it's modular weapons system, but first I will await feedback and discussion on cap-ship designing.

Oh, absolutely, most Trek ship design makes zero sense. If you were to list things like a deflector array, warp nacelles etc and ask somebody who has never seen a Trek ship to draw one scratch, there's no way the Enterprise would look like it does now.

As for the rest, you did kind of jump off the deep end. I mean, I agree that assymetrical ship design is daft (ye gods Breen ships wind me up) but maybe things like payload disribution becomes a major issue in the future and all cargo is laid out down the centre line.

I dunno.

Just re read that and it makes bugger all sense. Just ignore me...

I really dig this. It feels good. The back end of the refined sketch looks vastly different, but i can follow its evolution fine.

The fighter is a very appealing design, and i normally don't care much for asymmetry.

Would say that you need to flesh out the details on crossbow cruiser more next. I like your ideas thus far!

The arms concerning to me, but i need to see it from some other angle to be sure.

So they are articulated to protect the bottom?

Thank you. I know what you mean, and I am inclined to agree with you.

I'm in the process of drawing up a three-quarters shot now, going over some of the details is going to be a process because I have not settled on a mobile tech system just yet. I have sketches of that, but none that I'm too proud of just yet lol.

The arms serve more than just a means of protection, but you're right in assuming that this is an important function of theirs. They're the bow part of the crossbow, though they don't function exactly like pictured.

You know, in all sincerity, I'm not exactly satisfied with the way they look... Thanks for the comments, I'll try and mess around with their design a bit more for the next sketch.

OK here's my honest effort. There's parts I screwed up, like the positioning of the joint, but it's starting to take shape in my mind now.

Orange = Traversing Zones
Blue = Fixed-hull
White with stripes = Propulsion systems
Red = Cylech reservoir

Cylech (Orbital siege weapon, also influences propulsion)

That looks pretty sweet, user.

I stopped in the middle of this to do that colored one... There are some things I changed that I would keep, but I think the bow is not up to par yet. Fuck.

Slow thread. I'll post real spaceships to keep it aloft.

You think so? I appreciate it! Feedback is important to me.

Anyone else out there draw/design ships?

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I used to then my art teacher threw me out of class because it wasn't a fucking boat.

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I really dig practical builds, but just not that crazy into stuff like

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haha

I always had nice art teachers, ones that let me goof off and draw cartoons - after I was done with the assignment, of course.

Teachers made a huge impact on my tastes and interests later in life, sorry you had a crummy one.

Its the hand we're all dealt, I rolled with mine.

Well have you tried your hand at it lately? Or do you draw at all still?

I don't draw anymore, Gave that life up about 10 years ago. I find it a waste of money on an already limited budget. Nor do I want to go out and spend 50 dollars on a mouse pad, and odd ass stylists for the computer.

Also, if you're the user who did the little bug ships, I still find the little fucker going 'kawaii senpai, notice me'!

I need to get a new monitor so I can digital again. Drawing thick as fuck lines that can't be erased because they're etched into the paper is suffering.

Yep, that's me. I'm going to switch back to making cuteships once I have an idea of what I want the bigfuckers to look like.

Btw, they're crustacean inspired - but since crabs = sea arachnids... are they bugs?

That's a big fucking lobster.

Call them Bird's, fuck everybody else it's YOUR race.

Thanks for saying that, it's easy to forget that I'm the creator and that what everyone else thinks is secondary.

That being said, I DO want to find a happy middleground. I have to make products appealing to someone other than myself.

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Mahnigga.jpg

I love the fucking ships as is in all fairness, The pilots never interest me because I'm fucking weird.

Kek.

Well that's certainly fine. Ships, vehicles and constructs are mighty special to me too, but I'm only just now getting into designing my own. I have been drawing monsters and aliens and space uniforms since I was a kid, so all aspects of sci fi interest me.

Plus it wouldn't be much of a Space Western Opera without individual characters.

But I would love to try telling a small short story with JUST ships, no pilots. Now I know there's someone out there that might appreciate that.