/sci/ - Science & Math

A "space battleship" is itself a totally ridiculous concept in real life.

>>7684035
Yeah, but let's just assume you could actually build one and space combat wouldn't be a boring affair of shooting at targets millions of kilometers out. What would be the optimum shape?

Capital ships are pointless at the moment

Sure, maybe they would be helpful if we had interstellar travel

>>7684038
>and space combat wouldn't be a boring affair of shooting at targets millions of kilometers out.

So what would it be then? Establish the rules of the universe. Because in OUR universe, there would be swarms of small unmanned drones shooting at millions of km ranges.

I loved these from Homeworld.

If Apple were a spacefaring religious cult their space frigates would look like this.

>>7684038
>Yeah, but let's just assume you could actually build one and space combat wouldn't be a boring affair of shooting at targets millions of kilometers out. What would be the optimum shape?

What ever looks scary and threatening if you're the bad guys, or proud and noble if you're the good guys.

>>7684040
depends how defensive technologies develop

>>7684030
Does shape even matter when designing spacecraft?

>>7684053
That makes as much sense as saying "aircraft combat would just be unmanned drone dogfights". Rule of cool, motherfucker. Look at all the technology today that mimics sci-fi, we'll be doing the same with spaceships.

>>7684236
Hint: When a war is fought between the side spending their effort on killing things better, and the side spending their effort on building cool shit from movies, the side building effective weapons will win.

Do you honestly think that the reason not all aircraft are unmanned is because "it's cool?"

>>7684229
From a pure flight perspective, only a little, but it does matter some. Longer ships have more angular moment of inertia and so are harder to turn and stop, but give you a longer lever arm to turn with if you have thrusters on the ends

And if you have more thrusters clustered in one place, this gets you a larger thrust and reduces duplication and complexity, but means you can only effectively accelerate in one axis and must turn the ship to thrust in a different direction.

Your surface area to volume ratio also affects how rapidly you can shed excess heat without having to have big, flimsy radiators sticking out.

>>7684030
>Lore-wise, the idea was to focus as much firepower possible forward while having a minimal profile.

makes sense
also you can use some of the same sets of turrets for frontal and parallel combat

at least in this regard it seems clearly superior to bar shape or any other common designs i can think of without obvious drawbacks

ITT: School math/science AIDS nostalgia

>>7684030
Well, you're fucked from behind if the enemy warps behind you or something.

>>7684030
>star destroyer
>space battleship
No, they're carriers. They carry bomber wings to dispense with enemy capital ships. All their weaponry is anti fighter/bomber/missile.

Only tactical use of a wedge is for when one side can shoot to the other, if you have 4 space ships in a wedge with one side heavy and one light, you have the ability to get all guns shooting forward, backward, and side to side. Only in very rare circumstances can all members of the fire team not immediately open fire upon contact before altering shape dependent upon the conditions of the battlefield. For a single space ship to adopt a wedge for the sense of having as many guns shooting forward as possible simply means over fifty percent would be unable to fire at any point in time. My suggestion is that the ship be a sphere, where no matter what side you are attacked from you can immediately get max fire power, in this case still only 50% on target immediately. In cases of ambush depending range your best bet is to often simply "turn and burn" assaulting through the enemy immediately, this is pending wether or not your in explosives range of course in which case you'd throw as much concussion/explosive shit at them immediately assaulting through upon detonation taking advantage of the disarray. Your best design would be a ship able to have as much firepower, of differing design and utilization, with each gun capable of shooting in a 360. Perhaps a hollow frame with weapons mounted and enough intelligent programming to prevent fratricide, or the ship shooting itself. #fuckbitchesgetmoney

>>7684236
>Look at all the technology today that mimics sci-fi

Except Star Wars was doing the reverse - combat in Star Wars is based on World War II era, and was already very old fashioned when the original trilogy came out. Because guess what? Star Wars isn't sci fi; it's space opera.

>>7684030
Being able to point all of your weapons in one direction has its uses.

>>7684229

At near light speed, even diffuse interstellar hydrogen is an impediment, and streamlining kicks in again.

We won't use spacecraft to traverse interstellar space, though...

None. Pic related: optimal spaceship design.

>>7684229
Simmetry is crucially important. Don't know about the rest.

>>7684030
Best way to look at this is to compare it to naval combat in real life. Having to manoeuvre your ship into position for a broadside was basically what all naval engagements were about, because not being able to bring your maximum amount of firepower to bare is a disadvantage. This is why turrets were a huge advancement.

The broadside was only created out of necessity because of the way a ship needed to be designed to function though, ideally what you want is the same amount of firepower on all sides, so you want a symmetrical ship.

>>7687038
what will we use then?

>>7687095
actually thinking about it, if your weapons are for defensive purposes you want a symmetrical ship, if you're an attack ship then you want the biggest bang for your buck, so pointy would be best.

i can imagine a sci fi universe populated by small pointy fighters and large symmetrical ships for other purposes

>>7687038
Ok Captain Autist, tell us more about the future in space

>>7684030
Space Battleships can't exist because their anti-spacecraft guns would have to be able to hit space torpedo bombers flying through four dimensions of space. /sperg

>>7687095
>>7687115

I think you might reach flawed conclusions if you use rules governing technology that has been obsolete for 60 years (battleships, etc.) to predict what distant future technology will look like.

>>7684030
>>7684035
Having all your hardware on a single platform in space is an irresponsible concentration of assets. Dividing all your hardware evenly onto multiple single-weapon platforms is a logistical nightmare.

When your space empire can mass produce space battleships and can finance multiple black-ops super-weapon projects with nary an economic shrug, it is assumed that the design of your space battleship is striking the balance between irresponsible concentration of assets and the logistical nightmare of having too many mainline platforms to manage effectively.

That and when your space BB's shields are so redundant that their average opposing force can be soaked, the irresponsibility of that concentration of assets drops considerably.

Let's see if I can address what OP couldn't. Say we develop some kind of defensive tech that mitigates laser weaponry at long ranges, say unmanned drones deploying beam chaff in conjunction with some imaginary shielding. The shielding by itself is effective for defending against a low number of, or low intensity lasers. The distances involved make solid matter as projectiles impractical. Whatever makes our ship fast is too expensive to just be shooting at people.

What shape would maximize your offensive options while minimizing your own surface area?

Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort

Keep the important stuff in the center and have a lot of surface area on the outer edge to act as a crumple zone against asteroid/debris impacts.

HELGHAN FOREVER

It wouldn't be able to balance very well. With propulsion systems at the bow of the craft, it'd still make for an extremely tight turning radius.

Sans the bow-ward propulsion systems, there'd be very little steerability, with way slower steering. Aerodynamics in space? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>7685735
Wouldn't thrusters cause massive damage to anything behind? Because those weapons could still shoot at parallel targets.