Wouldn't it make sense for all "super capital" ships in sci-fi to be cubes?

Wouldn't it make sense for all "super capital" ships in sci-fi to be cubes?

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The idea is to not get hit, so you minimize cross sectional area and angle the armor so that weapons are able to penetrate less, the end result being somewhat elongated ships.

This doesn't belong on Sup Forums

Not to get hit by lasers that travel at the speed of light and are aimed with super computers? K.

Supercomputer evasive maneuvers from prediction algorithms at light-minute distances

>the end result being somewhat elongated ships
Only if you're considering that you'll be attacked from a particular direction, generally from the front. That's good for the combat that happens in our planet (say between MBTs), but in space attacks could come from any direction. Since the perfect form for all around defense is a sphere, and ships don't need to be aerodynamical in space anyways, I guess a sphere would be the ideal ship.

Go back to /sci/ and Sup Forums NEET.

> Getting flung around and squashed and killed by the acceleration from the automated evasive system of your space boat
You better not be human

>bitches don't know about my inertial dampening field

>evasive maneuvers
shields

Isn't a sphere better?

Why would you think that?

shields can only withstand so much

you'd think so, but the economic cost of faggot nerds making the same death star jokes over and over outweigh the efficiencies.

Ship design would depend on the function of the ship.

If its a military ship, angular ships would be better for lower visibility and defense against direct shots.

Plus a large circular rational device for gravity generation.

>intertial dampening field
>they still shake the bridge and throw sparks
>dim lights, red hue, combat mode
>not seeing shit on your screen

First you have to demonstrate it makes any sense to even have a "super capital" ship.

None of the currently scientifically feasible shield concepts can stop lasers. Laser stronk.

That's actually interesting, have you got some sauce for further reading?

Then they can't land on planets or other random shit.

Y'all sentients need to assimilate

A sphere would be a more logical choice. Thrusters and sensors in every direction.

Ships do not need to be any shape in space.

mirrors...

You would not land a capital ship on a planet anyway. Gravity would wreck it.

This is why I like legend of the galactic heroes ship design
>big fuckoff lasers
>minimal shielding
>no individual ship evasion, the whole fleet has to group up
>if you get hit you're probably boned

>gets told there is no science for a certain topic
>asks for science
What are you doing?

Turns out that was just my memory being foggy. Plasma bubbles can theoretically block lasers, but you'd also be completely blinding yourself in the process. Since flying a spaceship without any kind of sensor readings is pretty much impossible, you'd have to keep your shields down for manoeuvring, and since lasers travel at the universal speed limit, it's literally impossible for you to be warned beforehand that one is coming. You could probably block missiles with one though, by activating it in small bursts. You’d also look like a small sun to other ships while you have your shields on, which seems like a pretty major flaw.

>his capital ships aren't in-atmo capable
wew

What tiny ass ships are you thinking of when we talk about capital ships?

If you can handwave the thrust requirements (antigrav or something similar) and your ship is strong enough to handle the atmospheric buffeting (which, being a capital ship, it should), why the heck not?

As long as its mass isn't enough to cause severe seismic / tidal problems (assuming you care about preventing that kind of thing), I don't see a problem with it.

Also this assumes the captain isn't a dipshit and trying to go in-atmo in some fucked up conditions like a highly acidic atmosphere or something.

The only shape for a spaceship is a tapered tube with a rocket engine on one end.

The rocket engine would be extremely radioactive so the rest of the ship would have to be shielded from it, and the best way to hide the most ship behind a radiation shield is to have it be long and thin.

Here's a giant autistic website about spaceships if you're interested
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

If yo want artificial gravity, which you'd want on a capital ship, you'd have an engine core in the middle of a giant ring

If your ship is wide enough you can spin the whole ship instead of having a ring.

A sphere is not space efficient.

Space efficiency doesn't matter in space, only mass.

>engine core in the middle of a giant ring
We all know thats not the best idea

I'm not sure you'd want a solid disk or tube large enough to get gravity at tolerable RPMs

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like

So still some tiny ass ship. We are talking capital ships here. Pay attention

>None of the currently scientifically feasible shield concepts can stop lasers. Laser stronk.
what is "an atmosphere"

If you have a thicc ablative heat shield, you'll last long enough to release a space fart so that you can scuttle away or fire conventional weapons.

piece of shit didn't upload my pic

Do ablative heat shields work properly in space? Seems like you'd just cook the crew with no easy way to vent the heat.

No. They need to be aerodynamic.
And bank through turns.
And make a whoosh sound as they go by.

Spheres

>an actual technology thread
I thought I was on Sup Forums - Shilling & Gayyms

>/sci/ tier horseshit about muh epic star wars
>technology
ok

>>they still shake the bridge and throw sparks
>get hit in critical system
>massive power surge sent throughout the ship
>some things on the circuit overload and inertial dampeners lose power for a second
I agree the whole exploding stations thing is a bit ridiculous (you'd think they'd have figured out how to isolate the circuits by now), but it's not unbelievable

>starships, lasers, shields, propulsion systems are not technology
OK

doesn't a ship for humans need to have a big spinning centrifugal wheel, to create artificial gravity?

once you spend more than a few months in space all your internal organs start to get fucked up.

the ablation is literally how the heat vents

see: comets

Scott Kelly spent over a year in space and he didn't have any serious health issues that I know of. Without artificial gravity you inevitably get muscle atrophy but that's not a problem in 0G.
I'm not sure if they ever figured out why astronauts kept losing their eyesight, though.

Just found this article
washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-mysterious-syndrome-impairing-astronauts-eyesight/2016/07/09/f20fb9a6-41f1-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html
>The tests showed that not only had his vision changed, but his eyes had changed as well.
>The backs of his eyes had gotten flatter, pushing his retinas forward. He had choroidal folds, which are like stretch marks. His optic nerves were inflamed.
>Visual impairment intracranial pressure syndrome (VIIP) is named for the leading theory to explain it. On Earth, gravity pulls bodily fluids down toward the feet. That doesn’t happen in space, and it is thought that extra fluid in the skull increases pressure on the brain and the back of the eye.

ablation is the process of ``venting'' heat by releasing hot material.
It's the mechanical version of sweating.

Plz borgshill

nah. if our space ship is to be usable in any meaningful way, it would subject itself to far stronger acceleration than gravity in order to get around.
I agree that you wouldn't land a capital ship in the first place, but we'd probably have some field technology to prevent our hyperdimensional superfast spacehulk from being torn apart by being subjected to 1-2G.

>He is so poor his ship can't even take 2g

why is there a ball tho?

>scientifically feasible shield concepts
High-albedo materials should do.

Elongated ships best ships

It gives you maximum volume for minimal surface area, it is also a perfect shape for a pressure vessel

No, a ring so you can have artificial gravity.

I once read something funny about this:
>Federation installs inertial dampeners on the bridge
>Officers ignore the silent damage readings
>Ships blow up a lot
>Federation intentionally reduces the effect of inertial dampeners on the bridge
>Officers get shaken around whenever the ship gets damaged
>Officers start paying attention to damage
>Fewer ships blow up

They just need giant feedback motors on deck to simulate impacts.

There is no way a ship of any size can move fast enough to evade any advanced missile or laser system.

Spheres have wasted space and are harder to build than a flat surface. Just look at modern buildings. How many are spherical vs square?

This is a stupid analogy

How many planes have slab sided fuselages?

>Spheres have wasted space
Wat? They have the most space for the least surface area.

>Just look at modern buildings. How many are spherical vs square?
How many were built in a zero-g environment?

>Supercaps must be aerodynamic
For what purpose?

Ultra realistic space combat is the most boring and unromantic shit ever

More to do about pressure, which is why windows are round rather than square on planes
A spaceship also has pressurisation concerns

does anyone have a pic of that NEET tube spaceship that's basically a one room apartment? I like that one

>wait until the missile is about to hit you
>move slightly out of the way
wow hard

This user gets it. You can pressurize a square cross section fuselage, but that will weigh substantially more than a circular fuselage designed to handle the same pressure differential.

Aircraft that don't need to be pressurized are much more boxy since that gives you less dead space, which in turn results in lower frontal and wetted area.

buildings dont float around in space, well excepting ff4 headquarters which sort of routinely does

>The best volume/surface ratio
>Not space efficient
bruh
If armour is strong enough to withstand fire, sphere would also be the best shape for this as attacks could come from any direction and distances would mean aiming at a particular part of your ship is foolish anyway.
By the way you probably want your shit spread out as far as possible to minimise the chances of disabling multiple systems with one shot.
What is the reason to bring a capital ship to the surface anyway?

Where are the radiators?

The missile has less mass so it accelerates faster, which means if you move slightly, it will move too and slightly faster than you do.

>If armour is strong enough to withstand fire, sphere would also be the best shape for this as attacks could come from any direction

But if you could determine the direction of an attack in advance, the best shape would be a long thin cylinder, which you could turn towards the threat to minimise exposed surface area. And it's kinda difficult for an enemy to hide in space. This also applies for avoiding micrometeorites, which all ships would need to consider.

shields don't exist

It's like intense submarine battles where both sides know where each other is at and their computers are playing a game of checkers with gigwatt lasers and thermonuclear missiles

wouldn't lasers go to shit within a few kilometers ?

Borg cubes never seem to land anywhere so fucking making anything aerodynamic.

Also, a cube doesn't maximize the possible surface area for windows/weapons/whatever bullshit which humans seem to like
Which then could lead to some issues about heat, since now you have to actively work to get the heat out from the center out.

oh good point.

then what about a long thin cylinder carrier with sphere fighters

>The missile has less mass so it accelerates faster
Depends on T:W of the missile and the target ship.
>There is no way a ship of any size can move fast enough to evade any advanced missile
Wrong. Just like in atmosphere, there are only two options for missile weapons: long endurance or short sprint.
Long endurance missiles depend on stealth to approach their target or the target being stationary to avoid defenses and obtain a hit on target. They have a large fuel to mass ratio and can afford long thrust phases to reach their target. They are generally limited in their destructive force because of the required fuel mass to obtain their long range. These are the cruise missiles and BVR anti-air missiles of today. Granted there are some modern long range missiles that have a terminal sprint mode built into them, these missiles are always even more limited in their destructive payload than other missiles without the sprint.
Sprint missiles are those that have a relatively low fuel to mass ratio and depend on overwhelming agility to get to their target before it can evade. This dependence means they have very short ranges for missile weapons, with burn times measured in a couple of minutes on the high end because these missiles require a high thrust to mass ratio. The high thrust to mass ratio also limits their mass to devote to destructive force.
Apply this to space-borne combat, and you're limited to long endurance missiles without much additional delta-v to evade interception, as stealth in space is not something we can do, or sprint missiles that require you to be in range of other weapons that would be more cost effective than missiles to use.

Lasers work for very long ranges in space since there's practically nothing to diffract light. I'm confident that two ships in orbit of the same planetary body would be able to effectively use laser weaponry against each other.

>Lasers work for very long ranges in space since there's practically nothing to diffract light.
Diffraction isn't the problem> Lasers in space are limited by lenses being able to properly focus them.
I remember somebody having done the math with our current understanding of physics that limits effective laser weapons without prohibitively massive lensing systems to a couple hundred km ranges max.
In space a couple hundred km is spitting distance.

here again
>Diffraction isn't the problem
To clarify, diffraction isn't a major problem. Space isn't just total emptiness as particles float around everywhere, so diffraction could be an issue if you had the requisite lensing system to focus a laser far enough for it to matter.

Spheres are naturally the best & most stable superstructure.