[Question] What is the best fictional spaceship?
- Thread starter Frank
- Start date
- Status
Argo/Yamato
Slave I has been my fav since I was 4 or 5.
Necronic
Staff member
Seriously? Your answer is A CUBE?
Lame. I'm going to say the Borg Sphere. Much better geometry.
GasBandit
Staff member
The sphere is a much less powerful ship designed to attack multiple weaker vessels at once but cannot hold its own against a single strong warship (such as the Enterprise, once weapons are properly modulating), whereas the cube is designed to overpower in 1v1. The fusion cube is the best of both worlds - it cannot be withstood, it cannot be swarmed. The fusion cube doesn't have to be pretty, it is the anvil that smushes you to a stain.
Basically, the argument you just gave me was that a humvee is better than a tank because it can go faster.
GasBandit
Staff member
Actually, you specifically seemed to say "I don't care why." At least that's what I gathered from your initial post.
Yeah, I should have been more clear that I didn't want a THIS SHIP IS BETTER CAUSE IT CAN BEAT THAT SHIP IN A FIGHT AND HERE'S SOME TECHNICAL SCHEMATICS TO PROVE MY POINT AND GOKU CAN BEAT UP SUPERMAN horseshit, not an overall I don't care why.
I should have posted this:
What ship is the best and why do you think it's so rad? Please don't base your answers entirely on how big it's universe ending supreme ultimate power is.
A cube or a sphere always has at least half of it's surface area concealed by the rest of the ship. A dagger or a needle shape, such as an Imperial Star Destroyer, can present a much higher percentage of it's surface area, and hence a lot more guns, to a target.
GasBandit
Staff member
That would be more important if you can make the assumption that every square meter of surface area has a weapon mounted on it. That's not the case, not even on an ISD, unless you count point-defense anti-fighter weapons, which don't care about shape either.
Also with a dagger shape, you are presenting a greater amount of your total surface area to enemy attacks.
A cube that takes many hits to one side just needs to flip and present a fresh face to the enemy.
A cube that takes many hits to one side just needs to flip and present a fresh face to the enemy.
Mostly because it was a major influence on the Death Star and Andromeda, etc.
Not the square meters, but perhaps the percentages are relevant in a big-numbers game. I believe it has a lot to do with the arcs-of-fire of the weapons mounted on a ship, and a cube seems to have a difficult time competing in that regard. Assuming turreted instead of spinal-mounted weapons, of course.
Slanted armor, on which a dagger shape can hardly be rivalled. Most of the energy gets deflected.
Regarding a cube flipping over to present a fresh side to the enemy, there may be some efficiency drawbacks in being able to bring only ~one-sixth of it's total firepower to bear on the enemy at a time.
I will say the most impressive moment for me in a sci-fi movie was the first time as a child that I saw the Star Destroyer pass overhead in the opening moments of Star Wars. From that moment on, you knew that movies were going to be different.
GasBandit
Staff member
But really, shape is irrelevant. The big weaknesses of the ISD are three-fold: the emitters for their deflector shields protrude beyond the protection of said shields in a visually conspicuous manner, and its fusion reactor is so oversized it bulges outside the framework of the ship, making an easy target once the aforementioned shields fall. The third weakness is, like all star wars universe ships, there is a dearth of large, powerful long range weaponry to combat other capital ships. It doesn't matter how many turbolaser turrets you tack on your superstructure, if your enemy is beyond their short range. Compare that to star trek capital ship phasers which have a range of around 190,000 km.
I beg to differ on the first part, much due to reasons I've already stated. On the second part, can you provide me with some sources on that, as it seems like a pretty dumb thing to do without any in-universe reasons? The Wookieepedia makes no mention of this fact regarding shield emitters, though SW canon is notorious in being difficult to determine exactly.
As far as I'm aware, the other cap ships in the SW universe use much the same weapons technology, with similar ranges. No in-universe disadvantages there, I think.
And as to Star Trek, I've watched a number of episodes, and I've yet to see a ship-on-ship combat that wasn't fought at visual range, regardless of any possible informed abilities of engaging targets at distances greater to half a light-second.
/nerdmode
The two balls on top of the star destroyer's bridge is are the shield generators. Because they were outside the shields the rebel fighters were able to easily blow them up.
Any Ewok would know that.
Added at: 22:45
The two balls on top of the star destroyer's bridge is are the shield generators. Because they were outside the shields the rebel fighters were able to easily blow them up.
Any Ewok would know that.
Added at: 22:45
Actually one would easily bring 3 large surfaces of the cube to bear against the enemy.
GasBandit
Staff member
The two domes on top of the command structure at the aft of the ship are the shield emitters. A sustained 5-10 second barrage of fire from an X-wing starfighter is sufficient to destroy one, indicating it is not protected by the shield. C'mon, you've played X-Wing, right?
Wookiepedia link incoming:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/ISD-72x_deflector_shield_generator_dome
I wasn't talking in-universe, I was talking across all sci-fi, the scope of this thread. Yes, limited to the SW universe, they were not at a disadvantage vs other capital ships who also used the "dozens of small turrets" paradigm.
"Visual range" in star trek is longer than you might think, especially when combatants are superluminal ("at warp"). The images on the main screens are not actual camera footage, but are computer representations from sensor data rendered in real time. It's also more common to have long range battles in book form, because for the TV shows "look more dramatic" when all the ships are on screen at the same time.
Also: seems like someone else hashed all this out already.
The Valkyrie because it's a totally sweet jet/robot that's highly maneuverable in land, air and space that can be flown by a single pilot. I mean seriously, it looks like hella fun to fly. Plus you can use it to pick up chicks, both figuratively and literally. The fact that you can blow shit up with it is just the icing on the cake.
Delicious, delicious icing.
Delicious, delicious icing.
dammit drifter, you ruined one of my favorite effects from old anime...
Indeed the Wookieepedia seems to say so. I should wonder why much of the rest of the source material for an Imperial Star Destroyer I've read (Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections) has indicated that the globes are pure sensor devices, and that there is no benefit for placing a component of such critical importance to the survival of a capital ship in a place where it can be easily taken out by a mere starfighter. Consider that the Executor suffered the destruction of only one of it's two globes in the Battle of Endor. Yet the destruction of only one of them, which contrary to all sense was afforded only minimal protection to begin with, is supposed to have collapsed the bridge deflector shields. I wonder if all this is not more of a 'correlation not causation' type of thing.The two domes on top of the command structure at the aft of the ship are the shield emitters. A sustained 5-10 second barrage of fire from an X-wing starfighter is sufficient to destroy one, indicating it is not protected by the shield. C'mon, you've played X-Wing, right?
Wookiepedia link incoming:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/ISD-72x_deflector_shield_generator_dome
And yes, I've played various SW fighter games. It is no secret that capital ships in those games got nerfed big time in order to make the player's balls feel bigger.
I feel in-universe is the only valid comparison, when you are comparing performance of universe-specific technologies. Otherwise the only thing we are left with is the writer's presumptiousness in how outrageous they are willing to make their tech.
My memory of TNG episodes does not entirely concur with your source, but I suppose they've done their research, so I'll concede the point that ST vessels can fight at long ranges. Though I am not entirely convinced of the validity of the reasons they give for some ships and captains favoring the close-range fights I remember, given the above.
Added at: 02:32
Not if it was directly facing the enemy. But I'm not sure this is of much significance. As I stated earlier, a cube always has at least 1/2 of it's surface area obscured by the rest of the ship, which I think places an upper limit to the surface area it can present to the enemy, and hence the number of weapons. Whereas an Imperial Star Destroyer can potentially target an enemy craft with it's full firepower.
- Status