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prototype wrote:Doing something slightly more useful:
images

Isn't this for your Flan's pack?

Almost, I'm using a version of this as a template, but I've got some configurations that would probably work as fighters for you which I can texture.

Though it's perhaps not the most... Space-y, more of a SSTO fighter than an something you would deploy in orbit... But I can make changes to make it more sci-fi, once I stop cocking about with the aerofoil.

Wings can be spacey. No lift, but radiators, hhrdpoints, RCS mountings, engines, lots of stuff you can put on wings.

Hell, I designed a frigate with wings a while back. I should probably hunt that design down, now that I think of it.

Well, really, many fighters and singleships would be aerospace anyway.

Wings can be rationalized as a design feature to increase tropospheric performance and efficiency. Dedicated space wagons wouldn't really have a reason - I would think that perhaps the largest ship with any atmospheric capability would be something analogous to a smaller frigate.

Also in other news nothing really noteworthy has happened on my side of things recently. I would encourage anyone who's able to look into creating some visuals (be they 2d or otherwise). Anything's better than nothing at this point.

Wings can also be rationalized as mounting points for weapons and other things. With a wing, you can add on additional missiles, unguided bombs, etc. without adding additional volume or too much weight to the craft. Or mounting anything. Or as a false target (better to hit the paper wing than the main body).

The problem with mounting anything on a wing is that they present a lot of surface area to an enemy at a ton of angles without thickness to match. You'd want as small a target profile as possible; wings jutting out offering little more than auxiliary targets potentially seated with mission-critical modules really helps no one but the opposition.

I'm not saying that their ridiculous nature is something warranting outrage; but in practice they're just proxies to be shot off once the shields go down on larger ships. It'd make sense to mount additional weaponry to maximize arcs of fire, yes, or thrusters for more precise maneuvering, though given their inevitable demise all the mainline weaponry/engines should probably be mounted on the main hull itself, or the shielding be rather swell to compensate for the limited armor.

Just conjecture. Stuff like this just doesn't look as cool

Shocking, we've come to the conclusion that wings have both cons and pros.

cannonfodder wrote: Just conjecture. Stuff like this just doesn't look as cool

Well, okay, those triangles are neither useful nor pretty.

I don't know either. X3 ship design only really got the larger classes right.

At least the useless triangles are flush with the hull, though.

Did someone say...
Useless triangles?

Your ships are the useless triangles so the point is moot

I've always liked the idea of triangular spaceships after reading into Star Wars EU's justification for them. Slim target profile, great fields of fire for pretty much any turret that isn't fixed to one arc. It's just hard to pull it off nowadays without looking too similar to the eponymous trend-setters, as they were.

Or like Elite: Triangles

Ah, yes, Flying Cheese Wedges: The Game.

Well, we could take a page from the Caldari book and just slap random shapes together and call it a ship.


EDIT: (inb4) I know some may feel obligated to include a flying dong, but the myth that these are a requirement in sci-fi is, in short, a phallusy.

Honestly, I went into this thinking I'd commit to it and finish with flying colors, but truth be told the more I see of the people here the more I come to remember why I left in the first place. I'm just going to go ahead and convert what I have into something more relevant to my interests.

In any other group of people that wouldn't stop the project, but I'm not really entertaining any optimism about efforts to salvage this idea from this one in particular. I guess prototype's mod of flan's will have to do.

cannonfodder wrote:Honestly, I went into this thinking I'd commit to it and finish with flying colors

You can't possibly be serious. The project was doomed from its inception. This forum and its people are toxic to any sort of thing like this.