FreeOrion

Since I assume that the simple and ordinary Humans/Terrans, however they are labeled, will be a race of FO, and since I haven't seen anyone working on ships for them (i.e. us ) I tried to produce a terran ship, a small one at first.
I tried to use the classical sci-fi-terran-ship-concept (rather un-aerodynamic, bulky, angular with engine separated from the rest of the ship and bridge in the ship's mid-section) found in the Corellian Corvette and Nebulon-B-Frigate of Star Wars, or the Terran Ships of Babylon 5 - or partially already in 2001: A Space Odyssey's Discovery. I tried, however to avoid too many similarities except in the basic structure, to distinguish that design from the established ones:

I know, it's far from detailed and even further from finished but I just wanted to gather some feedback, to see if this has any chance of going anywhere.

Not bad, it kinda reminds me of a giant dog bone or chew toy. A lot of them would look pretty good.

My opinion was that human ships should look more like Imperial craft in Battlefleet Gothic, but then again we're just as unpredictable as any other race.

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Captain? What does the big shiny red button do?

In fact, I wanted to start a more fortress-like (don't want to say Star Destroyer here) look at large hulls - unfortunately, I've got no scanner here; I did some preliminary sketches on paper.
I agree that especially the engine/drive-section is a bit very rounded, but then I always failed to understand why the human race in Sci-Fi seldomly manages to apply rounded forms to their ships, aside from space station habitat rings...
But untextured as it is, it really looks a bit like a dog's bone...

Technically, the smoothing groups look messed up - might be a result of bad topology(hard to say without a wireframe).
Artistically, the proportions aren't well balanced. Personally I'd stretch out the middle section and then decide wether either the front section or back section should be larger. It looks quite stiff and a certain element of surprise is missing.
Still a lot to do, I think.

Hmm, with a few hours distance, I really think, I'll limit the bulk of "crew-operations" to the prow part, especially the half-ring compartment below the bridge, I.E. make the beam between prow and stern a lot thinner,
Yes, and I definitly have to work on the round parts, especially where they are connected to more angular parts, they are still kinda flowing into each other at the moment which may cause the messed-up look.

EDIT: Getting there, I think:

While we don't have a final design for humans, this seems closest. The bad news is that they're deliberately not "standard Si-Fi Humans", the good news is that some of the alien races (e.g. The Stonecarvers) will be using spaceships that look like ISO standard human ships so you haven't wasted any effort

Nice ships by the way, they look sweet

Thanks very much, though it's only one ship design as of yet, .
Dub me uncreative, but it seems to me, that the ship hull above is a bit un-nautiloid ...
on the other hand, it's a rather unesthetic, bulky design with clearly defined, at least pseudo-efficient sections (from prow to stern: cargo/sensors - crew and controls - beam with fuel pods - engine section. Period.). This could indeed reflect a militarist society with not much of a sense for beauty, people who need their ships to take some and function.
I'd be glad to deviate a bit from the stereotypical human line and make the larger designs a bit more stonecarverish, if you would be willing to adopt my (seemingly) now raceless shipline.

No problem when you think about it, the standard Si-Fi human ship doesn't isn't really that "humanoid", I doubt you'll find many species building ships that actually look like their physical form.


Exactly.


I don't know if the Stonecarvers will make the final list of races (and we probably won't decide for a long time, I certainly hope they will) but I'm more than happy to adopt your ship if the Stonecarvers don't make it I'm certain one of the other practical races with no ascetic sense will so your ship's safe

As for deviating, you don't have too: the stereotypical human line was always what I imagined the Stonecarvers flying however if you want to exercise a little artistic freedom then go right ahead

BTW, I forgot to welcome you to the forums in my last post. Whoops, welcome to the forums.

P.S. I just realised I said "guns feature prominently", that was before PD said he dosn't want visible weapons or other components, so just ignore that part. I'll go edit it out.

No, no, what I wanted to say is that, according to what I've seen, in the Sci-Fi developer's mind, the shipbuilder's race usually has an impact on their ship's design, not that they sculpt their ships completely after their own image. At least as long as they're not human or near human in appearance. Like, for examples MonCal Cruisers in Star Wars looking aquatic and organic in shape, quite fish- or whale like and tentacled speciec having tentacle-like outcroppings on their design, insectoid species, like Bab5's Shadows having chitinous-looking armor-plated, sometimes even spider/bug-like designs, aso.


I think the race-change will mainly affect the texturing (less windows, more armor plating ) the overall design will more or less follow the small ship hull now.


Thank you very much. Glad to be here, I can say, .

P.S. Yes I've read that too, but PD has at least nothing against gun mountings/turrets, so I'll be generous with using them on the bigger hulls, .

Ah, I see what you mean now, you just threw me off the sent when you used humans as an example, we're the least likely to get ships based on our appearance / culture out of all races, normally we get standardised human ships regardless.

IMO is just a matter of personal taste, I don't design my races that way, I have no problem when other people do but I prefer following a more realistic development: The physical appearance / biology is whatever I feel like.
The culture is independent of their appearance, but more fundamental aspects of their biology can have an influence, the Etty for example were immobile for the early part of there existence, that had a permanent effect on their personality.
Finally ships are based on their culture, sense of aesthetics and possibly any a technological advantages or disadvantages.

Here is the medium ship hull:

I said, the design of the larger ship hulls would be more or less oriented towards the small ship design. But since the small and medium design look quite alike, I will try and move away a bit from that overall design for the large and huge ships while retaining the core elements of the line (angular, trapezoidal prow, half-ring-section, general shape of the engines).

Take a look at the USS Sulaco from aliens. I think it matches this style quite well.

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Photo-dump.

Musings

That style being variations on "gun in space"?

You might say its a gunship.

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Photo-dump.

Musings

Yes, the Sulaco and Bab 5's Earth Alliance Omega Class were the two main pieces of reference for this ship line so far.

@ Geoff de Medio: Where do you see "Gun in Space" in my ship line? I'm not exactly sure if I've got correctly what you mean, but as it's been demanded, I've no visible guns whatsoever on my designs.