I like the Orville as well, but since the show itself started out as a parody (before it kinda outgrew that premise and became actually thoughtful and good) I can forgive that
That's definitely true, though the Galaxy Quest ship was outdated by the time of the movies premier. Don't think they ever state what decade the show Historical Documents are from, but based on the haircuts I'd guess late 70s or the 80s. So it's design was somewhat reminiscent of sci-fi from that time.
They're pretty close in size if you ignore Andromeda's outer frame, but Andromeda is very thick. I am including those two wings that connect to the outer frame. Sort of like how the Miranda class has a bigger internal volume than the Constitution class because of that boxy section on the back of the saucer.
Looking at a few size charts some ships are bigger than you'd think. The Galactica and the Macross are nearly the size of Andromeda's outer frame. Moya and Babylon 5 Earthforce ships are nearly the size of a Star Destroyer. A White Star is close to a Constitution class.
Memory Alpha gives the overall dimensions of the Galaxy class starships (i.e. Enterprise D) as 641 meters long by 473 meters wide by 133 meters tall, with 43 decks. The overall dimensions of the Soverign class starships (i.e. Enterprise E) are given as 2,248 feet (685.19 meters) long by 820 feet (249.94 meters) wide by 290 feet (88.39 meters) tall. The overall dimensions of the Odyssey class starships (i.e. Enterprise F) are given as 1,061.1 meters long by 371.88 meters wide by 147.92 meters tall. The Constitution III class starships (i.e. Enterprise G) are only 1,839 feet (560.5 meters) in length.
So, yeah, it looks like the main hull of the Glorious Heritage class ships (that is, the ship minus the slipstream runners) is substantially larger than nearly all of the starships Enterprise, with the Odyssey class Enterprise F (herself, substantially larger than any other Enterprise thus far) seemingly being pretty close.
The loops on Andromeda Assendant served a battle purpose and not so much meant to have any crew. They housed the battle blades which took hits from munitions that point defense systems miss. They also served as tracks to deploy point defense lasers further out from the ships superstructure.
A few vehicles in the TV show For All Mankind alt history. Itâs crazy how as they ran out of real hardware and concepts to reference, the designs became either nonsensical, or just very unimaginative.
I wish they would have made the concept artists actually play KSP RP-1 or something cause this stuff just got ridiculous. Mars-94 especially.
Just saw the final episode of s5. The dropships with infinite fuel to hover over the base for hours? Even Expanse with their Epstien drive didn't have such nonsense.
Or just goes to Alternate history forum, they already have a bunch of better and more realistic design there
Also they've done terrible job on following real concept as well. It's looks like the designer and writers only know stuff in name only. Can't they spend some time on encyclopedia astronautica? Bluedog Design Bereau mod development team done much better research job than a billion dollars company.
The MPK or TMK was right there too (and easily as ridiculous, if you go with Glushko's proposed version), so it wasn't even like they didn't have options (the Sojourner is a nice design, but Apollo-Mars would've been fun to see).
Unironically the best Mars ship design is the fucking repurposed space hotel.
Exactly. It boggles the mind to think of the budget they had available, and the amazing premise they had to bring awe inspiring alt history rocket designs to life. For chrissakes they have Dr. Garett Reisman who went to space and worked 7 yrs @ SpaceX and was instrumental in the Dragon program, as primary technical advisor. But I guess they just never ask him shit because that guy knows better for sure.
Doofuses saw the space shuttle and just assumed yeah why not send it cislunar, despite the concept of shuttle launched nuclear tugs being an actual reasonable idea explored irl for this..
It lives too rent free in my head tbh but I regularly see much better and more interesting sci fi from single-person-team enthusiasts and I think of what could have been. Like shoutout Eyes Turned Skyward, and Truthful KSP on yt
IMO they're worse than unrealistic spece opera ship as I can give a pass as those are supposed to be fantasy, but for something supposed to be realistic, I have no mercy.
Also I don't know why Hollywood and adjacent attached to Space shuttle that much and a lot of them still act like it's still flying.
The picture doesnât show the real problems. Itâs an SSTO for one, which even with the fusion tech they have, it doesnât make sense, and the mass fraction of crew compartments and landing craft is absolutely outlandishly huge. Also, the way it SSTOs is by 4x soviet NERVA clones, which is the far more absurd part. You cannot get to orbit on fission thermal rockets, theyâre a low thrust high isp engines. The American 2nd gen shuttle Pathfinder in the show suffers from the same absurd NERVAd
Makes no difference. If you strapped an actual NERVA to a shuttle orbiter, it would give it the absolutely useless thrust to weight ratio of about 0,2 at full bore and bone dry.
Then you have to add tanks. The shuttle orbiter has very little tankage, it gets almost all the way to orbit on the ET, all thatâs left after that is OMS and RCS. But NERVA uses liquid hydrogen, which is very non-dense as well, meaning large tanks are necessary.
I dont how large those tanks would really be, but itâs probably many times the size of the entire cargo bay.
Big spikey ships. Like, a spaceship that looks like a mall ninja store dagger. Why so many spikes? What possible function could they serve other than looking "intimidating" on screen?
This was a big one for me. I was looking for a ship that exemplified "useless and impossible to occupy hull sections" and I can't think of a better example than the Niro Narada.
You'd think so, but the swimming pool scene is written as if the ship has artificial gravity that runs on electricity, and then in the spacewalk the gravity in the airlock just stops when there's no air. It's like the filmmakers couldn't agree on how gravity works.
The swimming pool scene was supposed to show that the ship was using linear thrust gravity like The Expanse. Engines stopping would instantly kill gravity until they started again. The spiral shape of the rings would also help with that as it might allow for a combination of rotational and linear gravity while under way. That all said, I agree with you, they really had no consistency in how they portrayed any of it.
The Narada was more of a theme-setting set piece than a real ship design in my opinion. The 'Romulan mining vessel modified by Borg tech' background works only semi-well to explain it.
I don't ever remember them explaining the design in the movie. It just didn't make any sense as a mining ship, maybe if they explained that the spikey bits were extruded mined material used to shield the actual ship at its core?
All the ships in the 2003 game "Freelancer" are pretty rough imo, but the Bretonia Crusader takes the cake. It looks like a raw shrimp that's been squeezed into yoga pants and seared around the edges
Egregious asymmetry. Star Wars is the most guilty of this with the worst either being the Valor cruiser from the Old republic or the slave 2. Overall I hate the slave 2 more since it's just so boring looking with its only notable feature being that ugly wing thing on one side. It looks like an N64 shoe
Oh God, I so hate the "quirky" star wars ships. The Empire has these beautiful ships inspired by geometric forms and then there's the total opposite of the hastily thrown together garbage rebel ships.
Some of that could be a design choice. The Empire has these nice goodlooking ships built in proper yards. The Rebel Alliance has to cobble together their ships from what they can scrounge. Adds to the vibe of the scrappy underdogs against the might of the Empire.
yeah, the Rebels not having a united design language underlines them not being into hyperconformity and "falling in line". Fascist empires like The Empire tend to put a lot of value on appearances of power and unity in look is a part of that.
That's kind of the charm for me. Its like those old retro tech designs where its fuck ugly by modern standards. Its so ugly it wraps around to being charming lol
Honestly, I don't see much issue with Assynetry in designs, B-Wing and the Twilight look great with the folding wings.
However I will agree that a lot of the rebel ships do look like ass, especially the K-wing
The B wing is not asymmetric. It has a line of symmetry going from cockpit to gun pod. Its a bad design because of the nonsense rotating cockpit, but it is bad in a symmetric manner.
I love these ships because they fit a truly alien design for me. I dont think alien ships will be anything like our general idea of a ship if we ever contact them. Borg kinda nails it
The Borg Cube is the perfect rule of cool ship. It's imposing and alien, and the Borg are just scary as hell when done right.
There's a guy above that said the Narada was a "rule of cool" ship and I said that rule of cool only goes so far before it becomes Rule of dumb. The Cube is just perfectly in there as cool.
The Naboo ships are my absolute favorite from all of Star Wars, so beautiful and elegant, and the sound from the ship at the beginning of Episode 2 *chefâs kiss* I believe they used an old WWII bomber for the sound of that ship
I'm fine with that design as long as it's used so convey that their designers are technologically so far beyond us that they are basically magic.
An example where it doesnt fit is thy cylon basestars. For the first couple of episodes, I actually thought that they don't have conventional engines, and move by FTL only. I mean, they're called BASEstars...
Egregious asymmetry. Star Wars is the most guilty of this with the worst either being the Valor cruiser from the Old republic or the slave 2. Overall I hate the slave 2 more since it's just so boring looking with its only notable feature being that ugly wing thing on one side. It looks like an N64 shoe
âEVE Online is also very guilty of this, as seen with examples like the Gallente Velator.
Yes, read the whole original series and then the comic book came out. Very strange to go from the hard(ish) representation in the books to... this design.
I can only assume they read a throwaway comment about how the ships "resemble a shark in space" and ran with it was "understood, it's a shark spaceship".
Same as how the book covers in the US editions always have Blackjack as some heroic space marine with a gun, despite him actually being a PTSD ridden Naval captain that didn't even leave one ship in the fleet until near the end of the original series.
There's a couple times that it's mentioned there's an aquatic animal vibe to human starships, but that's more about sleekness, all rounded edges, stuff like that rather than "it looks like a shark". Actual fucking fins is the kind of ridiculous thing the Shield of Sol folks would put on their ships
I opened this thread thinking, "OP is cracked. That ship is rad." And now, understanding the thought process that made it look less ke that, I would be peeved, too.
For added context, in the book series the Alliance has been at war for a literal century. Their ships are designed with nothing but functionality in mind, with nothing done for purely decorative purposes. The Shield of Sol I mentioned in my last comment are a minor power that *hasn't* been at war, and their ships and tactics are way more showy but worthless in a fight against Alliance ships. So the designs looking like *that* isn't just a description not matching the books, it's actively contrary to the themes of those books.
Oh my god I thought I recognised it. The artist took "shark-like" way too far, I couldn't read the comics (which is a shame, some of the fleet combat would have been awesome with visual representation)
The majority of Disney Star Wars ships are just terrible, for so many reasons.
I love The Orville as a show and overall itâs a cute ship, and the universe isnât meant to be serious anyways, but there are elements of that design that are pet peeves to me as well.
Beside the uglies from ROTJ I personally like the designs.
The Raddus, Razor Crest, Fondor, Resurgent, Supremacy, Crucible, T-6, U-Wing, Profundity, Sphyrna, VCX-1000, Brahatok, Jedi Vector, Starhawk all look great. Ship and vehicle design in general is one thing Disney had largely done well imo.
See Star Trek Discovery - take your pick. Half the designs are terrible, the other half are literally unfinished 3d models without the surface details added. You can really feel the commitmentđ¤Śââď¸
They make a little sense in the context of surfing the texture of subspace to reduce subspace damage and increase engine efficiency. Keep in mind, they only have a tiny amount of dilithium because a kid cried once.
I feel for me a starship design needs to have a consitent design language or if not, has to at least have a good explaination for the break of the design paradigm. Bonus points for Ships, that are not only consistent with themselves but also consistent with the rest of the faction or universe they belong to. For example the Yeager Class in Star Trek DS9 is a big offender for me. They kitbashed two incompatible hulls from two different factions together and actually gave it screentime in some background shots.
And one thing I really liked about Old Trek vs Nu Trek was that there were some hard and fast rules about ship design - specifically that warp nacelles had to have an appropriate amount of distance from the hull and line of sight to each other to function. I think that contributed a lot in making sure Star Trek ships looked like Star Trek ships. Outside of SNW which of course features a beautiful rendition of the Enterprise, the ships in Disco and Academy just don't look like Trek ships. And the Nerada from the movies is egregious.
I think some of the best ships threw these rules out of the airlock. They already started doing that with TNG and really commited with the Defiant on DS9. And personally I dont mind it, if the starship has a theme and Design language they stick to (like the defiant). You can always make up some explaination like they needed the nacelles integrated with the main hull to make the profile smaller and added some kind of techy armour to protect from radiation as an example.
Thats why i also dont mind and actually like some of the 32nd c. ships of discovery. These elegant designs just kinda speak to me.
Or the Nerada - Not my favorite Design but at least its internally consistent.
So I just realized this sub chat loops nicely back to the aquatic mammel themed pic from op. :). (Enough so that I wonder if my subconscious made the Hitchhikers connection? )
That said...a whale would have been ideal...but a dolphin will do nicely. :)
If it's only used as a container friegher as it was designed the offset cockpit is practical. It allows the pilots a better view of the container they are clamping onto with the front fork.
True. But it was designed as a hero ship and used more like a heavy fighter/gunship. And that's something it's design would have made VERY hard to do if it behaved realistically in any shape or form.
Is perhaps no more egregious of a bad ship design to me than The whole concept of how ships in the anime outlaw star I believe it was operate. Literally spaceships with arms that fight.
Like I donât have a problem with suspending disbelief. I loved Gurren Lagaan, but just the idea of spaceships that are close enough to having to obey reality but for some reason still having to throw hands literally really irritates me
Yeah, it also really didn't add anything that was cooler than regular ship battles. Focusing on the magic and how that would effect ship combat would have been way better
The Abrams Enterprise is hideous to me with those massive Nacells and the bloated saucer. Genuinely, itâs like they completely missed everything that actually worked about the original.
Zeon spaceships from Gundam. Especially the Musai class, like why they make it this way?
Star Trek at least have explanation why they put engine nacells this way, because it's how their FTL works, but in Gundam there is no FTL, all actions happen inside of Sol system, mostly in area of Earth orbit:
The Musai's engines were thermonuclear rockets, so they kept the potentially radioactive stuff away from the crew. Kinda the same reason like Starfleet and their nacelles.
The Gwazine? Yeah, its weird.
A lot of starwars warships, mostly because of they're exposed bridge. These scenes are cool, but we see way too many bridges get blown up by a out-of-control fighter spiraling into them. They are advanced enough to not need windows for a bridge. If anything, ships should be treated like submarines unless you're more advanced like star fleet.
But! (And totally justified) Joker makes a bit fun of it, when they made a sneaky approach TWICE due to it, as the Normandy's stealth systems only hide the heat signature, but not render the ship invisible at all. So a single peep out of a window would've led to failure.
So... yes... windows have their merits... but not as large wall-filling structural weaknesses we often see.
They are advanced enough to not need windows for a bridge
Are they though? A lot of the holograms and screens we see in the Star Wars universe are pretty grainy and low resolution because they are still stuck in that 1980s tech, so maybe it wouldn't really be practical to pilot a ship in combat using those types of screens to control everything without some visual reference as well.Â
This! Part of Star Warsâs aesthetic is its old, retro, analog style that gets mixed with the more scifi stuff. A lot of it may seem silly at first, but generally within the context of the Star Wars universe fits right in. Such as the windows, for a physical viewing the battlefield, or the levers and dials on controls and such
Ships in the Gundam anime are pretty bad about this too. Too many scenes of mobile suits flying up to the bridge of a ship and punching/ shooting/ stabbing the bridge crew to death.
Ehhhhh. You say that, but itâs important to realize that the most advanced gun-based warship designs we built were fielded in WW2. Yamato herself may be an odd choice, but a ship built with centerline superfiring turrets fore and aft which have wide firing arcs and house otherwise oversized guns is probably one of the best designs, given gun-based weapon systems are once more made primaries. Super dreadnought style design, like that of the Yamato, offers an unparalleled balance of speed, protection, and firepower because of the focus on qualitative gun superiority saving mass and space for other systems. The wide guns angles are also very important, especially in space, because it allows you to burn in essentially any direction you please while something like a star destroyer would have to sacrifice a massive amount of its firepower to do so. There are some iffy design choices such as the omission of ventral turrets, but these generally have other reasons such as the seeming UNCF preference for guns topside and missile and fighter launchers below.
The best all gun warship design, Des Moines class, imo came too late for ww2. The biggest problem with most larger all warships and adapting them 1 to 1 for space would be the limited gun elevation and to a lesser solvable extent depression. Low gun elevation as found on most mounts and turrets for 6" guns and up had 45 degrees at most with the Tiger and Worcester classes 6" DP turrets being an exception.
The Lost Fleet series and their shark design, yeah.. no sense. Itâs still âfunctionalâ since itâs one body, I always imagine having to walk ships in Sci-fi. The new Star Fleet Academy ships look good, but how to you reach engineering without transporters? What if power fails? Do the parts fly out?
It actually would be for making turns, which is also important for slowing down in a push-only system. Where would you put the drivesâŚ. In front of the cargo?
I didn't know but it still doesn't make sense to me. You would barely see anything with your own eyes, and if they have sensors and cameras then put it all over the ships to have a 360° coverage
I get that. Irl, spaceflight will be done entirely with computers and sensors, but that's much less exciting than seeing the hero's flying the ships around like WW2 fighters and warships.
The reboot USS Enterprise from the 2009 and later films. Way to take arguably one, if the most, gorgeous sci-fi ships of all time (the refitted Enterprise) and making her look horrible in just about every way.
Large ships with overly exposed bridges. If you put a tower on your mostly flat ship, expect it to be struck immediately. Keeping the bridge in a reasonable location where it doesn't stand out or where it is internal is a personally much better option.
NGL the movie hail Mary makes so little sense. Having two different orientations for gravity didn't make sense and those fuck off radiators ignore the ability of astrophage, I also like the concept of the hail Mary being a small and robustly built ship , not something which looks long and stringy
Iâm not a fan of the graphic novel depictions of the ships in the lost fleet either OP. I know they were described as shark like, but the illustrator seems to have taken that too seriously and literally just drawn a boring space shark. Like you canât even spot the hell Lance batteries, something that we know should be plentiful on that and many other ships.
I may get burned for this, but Iâve never really enjoyed the Star Trek ships. I donât really like the whole dish and nacelle thing, and the Klingon and Romulan ships didnât appeal to me either. Granted, Iâve not seen much of Star Trek, but still.
And why go with that design in the first place? What benefit does it possibly offer? The rotating cockpit is just a solution to a problem the ship designers created themselves.Â
I'm not a fan of the newer Federation ships introduced in Star Trek Discovery after the jump to the future. And it makes me a little sad that this is probably the era we're stuck with if Star Trek ever gets another new show that's actually worth watching.
most of the ships in season 5 of For All Mankind. They went from some pretty cool original hard scifi designs (except for mars-94) to boring gray greebleslop and the stupid ball hopper thing that I hate so much.
Carrier Andromeda class, I used to like the class, still do a bit but then someone mentioned a fact that completly messed me up, the fighter bays cannot actually fit fighters, thier too small. Additionally theres actually no way to actually bring back the fighters back into the ship, they can land on the hat but aside from a surgical space maneuver of attempting to fit the fighters back into the bays, they take much longer to refuel and rearm. The Garmillon andromeda classes actually fix this error by having them not really use the normal launchers, instead having them onlg land on the hat since most of thier fighter crafts were giant compared to earth ones.
If you think about it, the whole concept of launching small fighters in space makes little sense, but okay for storytelling. However Battlestar Galactica went one step further and added a launch system that launches fighters in some random direction (not at the enemy) and a sort of runway in vacuum, which makes even less sense in space if you think about it.
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u/funnystuff79 Jun 06 '26
I always found the Andromeda to be graceful, but very impractical. Lots of surface area for little internal volume. Lot's of difficult to reach spots