Original Starship Design Thread

[locutes]

personally I like small well armed warships, that can be made cheaply and fast yet pack a punch and do not require allot of crew.

Something like a modern version of the Fluyt

[thekillman]

Okay, Killman, first it does not have to be manned but it is intended primarily as a manned science science starship. Secondly the arms have a few functions, the vertical 'arm' is actually going to be a reactor tower where the fission reactors are going to be placed and the two diagonal arms are your basic docking arms/cargo attacher thingies. Thirdly, other than no artificial gravity course plotting by star charting and using modern maneuvering thrusters, it is not realistic at all. The StarDrive is purely fantastical and as far as I am aware has no contemporary in modern scientific theory. And the Fission reactors convert heat and other forms of radiation directly into usable energy without the use of water, I may change the reactors later but that is my current idea.

Also the primary function is that of a scientific explorer and interstellar tug for large bits and pieces of space stations that are desired to be set up in a distant star system. So it is an explorer/cargo ship.

mm sounds kinda nice.

fission... what type. i'd personally reccommend a Hybrid reactor: a fusion reactor with fission mantle. the fuel you throw in doesn't really matter: you don't need refined uranium, thorium etc will do too. the neutron bombardment controls the fission and also radioactive isotopes are often forcibly fissioned. Helium cooled would be better.

seems like a nice multipurpose ship, where modules can be nicely attached and detached

[Alx]

Central city now under construction.

[Einherjar]

Central city now under construction.

That is turning out to be one heck of a model -----> green!

[Daryl Froggy]

mm sounds kinda nice.

fission... what type. i'd personally reccommend a Hybrid reactor: a fusion reactor with fission mantle. the fuel you throw in doesn't really matter: you don't need refined uranium, thorium etc will do too. the neutron bombardment controls the fission and also radioactive isotopes are often forcibly fissioned. Helium cooled would be better.

seems like a nice multipurpose ship, where modules can be nicely attached and detached

There are two reasons I went with a fission reactor instead of some type of fusion or one of my many implausible reactors and generators. First I wanted something that was at least in concept usable today, not in fifty years or never. Second the concept started out with an idea I had about an alternate Trek time-line where Earth discovered how to make warp drives much earlier, say 2010 instead of 2064, which needed a lot of power and the only thing they could use as a power source at the time was a fission reactor. Of course with the whole world trying to be warp capable all available fissionable materials were put into reactors instead of ICBMs and their many nuclear counterparts, because of this when WWIII happened there were virtually no nuclear bombardments anywhere in the world.

Uh, I kinda got off point there.

I was just planning on having a fictional type of fission revolving pretty much solely around uranium and plutonium because of their relative commonality in most fissions. As for cooling I have no idea how you would be able to do that successfully in space so I am just adding a couple structures on the ship and saying they have something to do with cooling the reactor.


Oh, and the primary sub-light engine is a plasma drive using heavy liquid Teflon, note this a completely fictional material, as its fuel.

[thekillman]

cooling is done by heat radiators. large panels.


also, a Hybrid reactor has the sustaining energy of fusion generated by the fission mantle: there isn't need for uberheating et all. nuclear waste is minimal. also, you can use a much wider range of fuels aside from uranium.

[Einherjar]

The stats for my ship (well the draft version anyway)

Spoiler:

Name: Ascendant

Type: Long-range, hyperspace capable, ship

Technology:

Hull: Carbon/Trinium alloy

Dimensions:
Length: 287.16m
Beam: 182.14m
Height: 48.9m

Crew:
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 100

Power plant:

Engines:
Hyperspace Generator
Sublight Engines

Armament/Weapons:
5x quad-barrelled repeating energy weapons

Defences:
Contoured shield emitters

Craft:
The ascendant carries an auxiliary craft about 12m in length and 8m in width also equipped with shields and two single-barrelled repeating energy weapons.

Other Technology:
Ring Transporters
Beaming technology
Long and short-range communications
Long and short-range sensors
Hydroponics bay
Science lab
Medical bay

[Daryl Froggy]

cooling is done by heat radiators. large panels.


also, a Hybrid reactor has the sustaining energy of fusion generated by the fission mantle: there isn't need for uberheating et all. nuclear waste is minimal. also, you can use a much wider range of fuels aside from uranium.

Yeah I remember those I just couldn't think of their name or a descriptive term.

I have a question; how many functioning hybrid reactors are there in the world? If your answer is less than five then I will not be going that direction.

[Alx]

Progress.

[Daryl Froggy]

Coooooooooooooooooooool... wow how foolish sounding that was.


I like the progress.

Edit:
Here are two ideas for changes to my Fission StarDrive ship's main, and pretty much only, sublight engine.

Spoiler:

Which one do you like better, fingers or no fingers?

[Alx]

thanks daryl.

here the last renders for today now ima hit the sack in search of some much needed rest.

[the-alguroan]

thanks daryl.

here the last renders for today now ima hit the sack in search of some much needed rest.

Alx you work at godly frighting speed.btw looking real good

[Daryl Froggy]

Okay... Wow Alx you really do work fast. You must have near total mastery in the use of your modeling program.


Here is a small update with my 'realistic' StarDrive ship. The cylinders are mostly just fillers to show you how things will look when they are stuffed full of various doodads.

It is currently ~75.22m tall, ~132.24m long, and ~68.4m wide. It will get bigger as I figure out what doodads I want to put on it and where they will go.

Those three stacked cylinders on the reactor 'arm' are representations of the reactors, or at least their overall size.


Oh, and that figure in the engine exhaust is the component 3D walking man. Just to give a a bit of scale for this incarnation.

Spoiler:

Does anyone have concepts or suggestions on this thing?

[thekillman]

I have a question; how many functioning hybrid reactors are there in the world? If your answer is less than five then I will not be going that direction.

zero, because the idea is pretty new, and wasn't even considered before because it still takes some engineering. compared to a pure fusion reactor, it's FAR more realistic. right now, they've found out that the reactor wall won't significantly contaminate the plasma, so that's +1 already.

i'd reccomend New Scientist for some basic answers.

[Alx]

Alx you work at godly frighting speed.btw looking real good

LOL thanks, i always end up doing stuff fast when i am inspired im glad you are enjoying it

Okay... Wow Alx you really do work fast. You must have near total mastery in the use of your modeling program.

i use the same program to model as you do sketchup FTW
and yeah i guess i have my masters in SU and that itself shows you what sketchup can do once you are familliar with it



Update:
slapped some window textures on some buildings.. how does it look to you guys?