Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by BattleRaptor »

Tamren, you maybe should have worked out the math on that one before you stated it as possible.

088
Nice designs but I dont really see the Loroi connection in them.

Wintermute
Posts: 77
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:09 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Wintermute »

BattleRaptor wrote:088
Nice designs but I dont really see the Loroi connection in them.
Those aren't supposed to be Loroi ships.

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by BattleRaptor »

Well the thread kinda switched to terran/Loroi hybrids before I and others knocked it off course, I assumed it was still part of the continued theme.
My mistake.

TrashMan
Posts: 306
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:01 pm

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TrashMan »

Here's my idea of a perfect Terran warship:
Image

Image

Image


Link to album with other models:
http://img375.imageshack.us/g/archymk32.jpg/

discord
Posts: 629
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 7:44 am
Location: Umeå, Sweden

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by discord »

the only 'part of the war effort' humans would bring, would either be as prostitutes or ground pounders, the one most certainly not excluding the other.
oh, and a supply base on the flank.
and on Terran ship design, i am thinking more along the lines of the babylon 5 nova dreadnought or omega class destroyer.
http://www.b5tech.com/oldb5tech/earthal ... ships.html

User avatar
TheUnforsaken
Posts: 178
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:42 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TheUnforsaken »

discord wrote:the only 'part of the war effort' humans would bring, would either be as prostitutes or ground pounders, the one most certainly not excluding the other.
oh, and a supply base on the flank.
I have to disagree there.

My knowedge of this comic's universe may be far from complete but from what I've seen it is clear that the Loroi fleet (and doctrine) is designed around the concept of raiding a quick strikes, something completely unsuited to the war they are currently fighting. They've made few attempts, and had fewer successes, at building ships that can stand in the line (or Wall, if you're an Honorverse fan) of battle. What the Loroi need, and what the Humans can provide (assuming they can get their hands on equivalent levels of tech), is a series of ships that can take as well as they can dish out, pinning the Umiak ships in place while the Loroi are finally able to use their superior speed and range to catch the Umiak in the flanks.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. - Dylan Thomas

[A] book need never die and should not be killed; books [are] the immortal part of man. - Robert A. Heinlein

Oops. - Shannon Foraker

Incursion RPG
IC Thread
OOC Thread
Character List

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

I'm guessing Battle Globes aren't being considered because a ball just doesn't look as interesting.

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by BattleRaptor »

TrashMan, nice...... you wouldnt happen to be known around other places as trashcan would you?

Aygar
Posts: 44
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:27 pm
Location: Nashville Tennessee

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Aygar »

GBscientist wrote:With the understanding that the Loroi are rather unwilling to share high-level technology, perhaps the humans could get some gear from the Historians or Barsam, since both seemed very interested in Alexander Jardin.
The Historians are a extremely tight fisted with their tech and information in general. After they allied with the Loroi; they only offered a primitive version of their plasma array when the Loroi empire was on the verge of total defeat. The Historians prefer to be information black holes. Information goes in, Nothing comes out.
TrashMan wrote:Here's my idea of a perfect Terran warship:
One nit. There is no such thing as a perfect warship. :D

--Aygar
--Aygar

TrashMan
Posts: 306
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:01 pm

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TrashMan »

BattleRaptor wrote:TrashMan, nice...... you wouldnt happen to be known around other places as trashcan would you?
In other places (most other forums) I'm also known as TrashMan... except on those where such a name didn't fit or was taken. There I have different usernames (Firewing, Lotion Soronarr, BlackEscaflowne, etc..).

BattleRaptor
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 6:01 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by BattleRaptor »

Fair enough I knew a guy called trashcan who modeled ships very much like your designs, so was wondering if by chance you were him.


As for a perfect warship...

Battleglobe.. and its got fangs...
Did I mention its the size of the sun?
and its got mustache.

IT represents 30 seconds of modeling I shall never get back so people better like it.

Image

On a serious note the Quake 2 Intro warship while never actually seen in action, gives the idea of being exceptionaly hardy and has the most guns of any starship from any source of sci-fi for its size you will most likely ever see.
The fighter looks pretty hardy aswell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I4V3eYtWn8

TrashMan
Posts: 306
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:01 pm

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by TrashMan »

BattleRaptor wrote:Fair enough I knew a guy called trashcan who modeled ships very much like your designs, so was wondering if by chance you were him.
Well, I am pretty active in many modding communities(Freespace, Sword of the Stars, Inifinty..)
At one time iwas visiting so many forums I kept forgeting some (and my accounts there) :oops:



Speaking of your ship - a sphere certanly is a interesting concept for space...but it does have some downsides. For one, it would be harder to mantain.

discord
Posts: 629
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 7:44 am
Location: Umeå, Sweden

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by discord »

trashman: heavier maintenance? not a certain at all, since it is a perfect sphere, the armor plates would be pretty standardized, so no extra job there, if anything less....due to larger volume to surface ratio, you could get more internals into it...making it MORE self sufficient, and have more redundancy....but it just does not look cool unless you build it in silly huge size.

and it would likely have some problems turning quickly, due to thrusters relatively close to the center of mass....

User avatar
Gudo
Posts: 158
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:54 pm

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Gudo »

TrashMan wrote: Well, I am pretty active in many modding communities(Freespace, Sword of the Stars, Inifinty..)
At one time iwas visiting so many forums I kept forgeting some (and my accounts there) :oops:
Oh damn, Freespace? Been a long time since I've played any of that :O FS2 is where it was at. Related, you ever hear about FreeOrion? It's an open source game based off the Masters of Orion games (actually where I heard of Outsider.) They've got some really impressive modeling going on.

Karst45
Posts: 785
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:03 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Contact:

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Karst45 »

Voitan wrote:Why fight fair in real time, when your FTL tech can be turned into weaponry?
how so? your not really precise as were you "jump" it not like you could jump next to a ship and even less ON a ship.
Tamren wrote:Wow. Something tells me that ship doesn't turn on a dime :D
actually with position engine at the bow and stern i think it would turn quite nicely if those reactor are strong enough.
Aygar wrote:After they allied with the Loroi; they only offered a primitive version of their plasma array when the Loroi empire was on the verge of total defeat. The Historians prefer to be information black holes. Information goes in, Nothing comes out.
they didn't offer primitive version of the plasma because they didn't trust them. They offered the best version of the plasma that the loroi could manufacture/use with their current tech level

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

how so? your not really precise as were you "jump" it not like you could jump next to a ship and even less ON a ship.
Hitting very mobile ships would be tricky, but not impossible.

But consider this.

You can bombard planets, and defense stations without giving them any time to defend themselves.

There goes their shipyards, there goes their planets.

Tamren
Posts: 85
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:16 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Tamren »

BattleRaptor wrote:Tamren, you maybe should have worked out the math on that one before you stated it as possible.
What, the fact that outsiderverse ships could dodge them or the missiles turning 90 degrees?

Loroi ships have an effective weapons engagement range of 1 light second or 300000km. This is because that is how far away Loroi can accurately target a moving ship. This is not even their maximum range, they could easily hit a stationary target with a beam at much greater distances. The Umiak prefer shorter ranged weapons, but that doesn't mean they can't use others.

A human ship entering a 300000km radius centred on a Loroi ship may be almost instantly destroyed. And this assumes that human are using equivalent engine tech and actively dodging. This means that your ships must be able to hit a tiny metal slug moving at a fraction of c at ranges greater than 300k km. Not impossible, I'll give you that. However:
Attempting to target one at 0.1 LS would be hundreds of times harder then targeting an enemy ship at 1ls with near light speed weaponry.
Right, so imagine how hard it is going to be FOR YOU to target one of these at a range GREATER than 1 LS. Because that is what you are going to have to do to guide one of these torpedoes onto its target.

By your own admission it would be hundreds of times harder for you to get a hit with with a laser torpedo than it would be for the opposing ship to just shoot you in the face. Loroi ships use beam weapons that instantly strike at equal to or almost the speed of light. And they still miss their targets at much shorter ranges!

10/10 for the effort. 11/10 for the complexity.

dfacto
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:50 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by dfacto »

Go look up REAL world railguns before you argue when you dont know anything about them.
One of the primary advantages of railguns is the round suffers NO FRICTION except agasint air in atmosphere.
They have other problems but friction isnt it..at least when they work properly.
True and false. The round itself suffers no friction when fired, but the actual firing presents a large problem as you have titanic forces acting on both the sabot and rail. This is why the test-shots so far have a huge muzzleflash even though there is no powder. Some of the rail vaporizes and shoots out of the barrel along with the round.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ioLh7b ... re=related

This makes repeat firings impossible right now, and will continue to be a problem for quite some time. I assume it will be handled at some point, but who knows how drastic the measures will need to be to ensure a reusable barrel surface.
Incidently some plans for railguns suggest oscilating the magnetic fields rapidly to superheat the projectile untill it turns into plasma and then accelerating the plasma, creating a ball of charged ions.. incidently damn close to outsider blasters except the accelerated plasma is self containing like ball lightning.. so its a ball rather then a beam.
Kind of reminds me of the Bolo Hellbores, which take frozen hydrogen and accelerate it close to c. Needless to say they can shoot ships which are in orbit.
Metal storm arrays fire millions of rounds a second.. infact technicly they could fire billions if you want to make a big enough array but as far as im aware no one has.
They fire AT a rate of 1 million rounds per minute, but they don't actually fire that many because the barrels would melt and the gun would become useless. As with railguns, the barrel's ability to withstand the rounds would be the main hurdle to metalstorm tech if it is to be used to it's theoretical potential.
send up one ton blocks of manure.
Drop a 1 gigaton nuke directly behind it and detonate.

Have 100 of them... and you have yourself a expanding wall of deadly POOP.
Unfortunately nukes aren't that useful in space because there's no overpressure shockwave to blow things around. Your plan would accelerate the shit, but it is doubtful that the acceleration would be enough to threaten any Loroi/Umiak ship in the slightest. Most likely the entire fleet formation would become slightly browner as they fly through a fine mist of flying turds.
Why fight fair in real time, when your FTL tech can be turned into weaponry?
I'm a big sucker for FTL weaponry, but Outsiderverse FTL tech would make a very poor anti-ship weapon. Mostly because it wouldn't work. :P

From the Insider:
There are no "gates", just a point or vector you want to be on toward the next star, so that the destination star's gravity well will suck you back out of hyperspace.
Outsiderverse FTL depends on the gravity well of a star to exit hyperspace, which means that if you used it against a ship you would simply overshoot into interstellar space because the ship has insufficient gravity to draw you out. Perhaps you could create a very sensitive FTL module to function with small gravitational fields, but then you couldn't use it inside a planetary system as the sun's gravity would always be greater than that of any warship. You would enter and exit hyperspace in the same location.

Voitan
Posts: 214
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:04 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by Voitan »

There are no "gates", just a point or vector you want to be on toward the next star, so that the destination star's gravity well will suck you back out of hyperspace.
This has to be exploitable somehow, but so far what's running in my head is fuzzy at best at how to go about it.

I'm still thinking this can allow for someone to seige a star system from VERY far away, but only accurate enough to hit planets. Maybe even orbiting stations.

dfacto
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:50 am

Re: Concept Fanart of Future Terran Ship Designs

Post by dfacto »

Voitan wrote:This has to be exploitable somehow, but so far what's running in my head is fuzzy at best at how to go about it.

I'm still thinking this can allow for someone to seige a star system from VERY far away, but only accurate enough to hit planets. Maybe even orbiting stations.
Also seems unlikely to me considering the information i the Insider. The jump distance is only really safe up to 10 light years.
In most cases, the maximum jump distance between stars is about 10 light years, and preferable safe distance is about 6 light years or less. The limitation on jump ranges is based both on limited ability to calculate trajectories past a certain distance (the chaotic element causes the effect of tiny errors to increase geometrically with distance), but also on the interference of nearby stars. The farther you try to jump, the more likely that other stars are going to perturb your trajectory.
So in order to use FTL bombardment you would still need to find the adjacent systems, which are very well guarded. Additionally there is no pinpoint accuracy with FTL so targeting a ship at a planet would be tricky at best. What I am thinking of involved this:
The more hyperspace momentum you have, the closer you will appear to the arrival star. If you have too much momentum it’s possible to exit hyperspace too close to or even inside the star, or to overshoot it entirely causing a hyperspace “miss.”
If you could intentionally exit hyperspace inside a star, I'd imagine you could load the ship up with antimatter or something (no idea) which could cause it to become unstable? Seems beyond the tech capabilities of the Loroi/Umiak, but it's a thought.

Post Reply