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If the backstory of a dumb design is cost-cutting, there's no limit to how dumb it can get. I can really imagine those things loaded up with cargo strapped to the railings I guess. It does seem like a pretty weak design for a personnel carrier. Definitely it doesn't seem suited to going from orbit to surface, and I wouldn't go a foot on top of it without getting some strap around me to clip onto the railing., and the time it would take to unclip might kinda clash with the speed of infantry deployment. Except the first clip I found of them in use wasn't of it being used to drop in troops, it was of it being used as a gunship. With the firepower being provided by the soldiers on top of the thing. I don't think their guns are even mounted on the actual vehicle, they're just being carried by the soldiers themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxuLj1IR20E When I found a clip of them being used for troop carrying, it kinda makes more sense with the soldiers keeping as low as possible to provide less of a target, but it seems like the game devs felt pretty uncomfortable about using them as vehicles because they only have 3-4 men per vehicle. If you're fine with that few people, why not just make an actual armored vehicle? Also the faction that uses them isn't the faction that has breathing masks? How high up are they supposed to be deploying from? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w8HDn5z5oM However, it also reminds me of another fighting vehicle where people are supposed to be hanging around on top, totally unsecured. PT Boats.  I'm pretty sure that these aren't meant to wade into fire though, and if you did actually want to transport people through a danger zone there's a sheltered area to stick people in instead of just having them hang out above board with the guns. I have thought about how if you have a sci-fi world with force fields that can keep air in, maybe you could forego a proper hull at all, and just have everybody clamboring around on a much more barebones kinda craft, maybe kept on by some artificial gravity. And the closest I've seen with that is Treasure Planet (although it doesn't actually bother trying to explain why they don't need space suits, and space is just full of air.) 
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May 7, 2021 23:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1D5Ucc_vY0&t=351s This is them invading the planet in the 2nd one, where it was introduced. I guess the invasion ships are lower than I remembered from 10 years ago. Infidelicious fucked around with this message at 00:00 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 7, 2021 23:56
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Infidelicious posted:Invading and militarily defeating a weaker opponent on your own terms is the easy part of ill advised foreign interventions, if losing a large percentage of the initial attack force is a concern... they don't happen (See: North Korea, China). I'd settle on emblematic of "Dutch". Guerrilla Games is a Dutch studio and they're not subtle about their parallels and criticisms. Hell, if you watch the opening cutscene of Killzone 2 where they Intruder first appears, there's a newsreel playing under space mussolini posing the question of of helmets or atmospheric hazard gear is even needed during the invasion. The ISA is comically dumb but I think it's there to make a point about how comically dumb the mindset of "in and out within a month" Military Ops are when faced with the reality of asymmetrical warfare. The opening cutscene ends with the first wave of the invasion fleet getting utterly torn to pieces by the Helghast defenders, but the game starts with you and the second wave going in anyways, and the whole campaign covers a series of catastrophic blunders by the protagonists that ends with their main objective failed, the fleet in tatters and the Helghast coming in for a counterattack. The only reason that that ISA "won" is because they accidentally committed genocide trying to stop Malcolm McDowell from blowing up Earth with a doomsday bomb. Everything else about their military operation was a disaster from equipment to tactics to mentality and the game reflects that with a big blinking sign saying "these people are loving duuuuuuumb" That being said, the vertically oriented ISA cruiser is very pretty and does fit in with the thread. 
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 02:40 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 02:25
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Arcsquad12 posted:the vertically oriented ISA cruiser is very pretty and does fit in with the thread. Though one must scroll a bit
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May 9, 2021 02:12
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I remember watching something about why the US was having so much trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan and it talked about how Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted to make the army this super fast and light force, less tanks and heavy APCs, more zippy transports with no armor and a 50cal on the roof. They wanted this because they felt no enemy could withstand the US military might so why waste money on expensive things to keep the troops from dying. It talked about how if they did go to war with Iran with this force, the invasion would be a disaster because unlike the other two countries, Iran actually has a modern military and has been expecting the US to invade for decades, though they also talked about how many Americans feel that all countries in that part of the world are people living in tents and caves wearing robes and can't possibly put up a fight against the US. In the first Expanse book, Holden upon seeing the Donnager thinks about how no one puts any effort into style and design on ships anymore. They're all basically just skyscrapers and that's all they look like, boxes with engines, guns and missile tubes on them. Purely functional.
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May 9, 2021 10:42
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https://twitter.com/TheSpaceshipper/status/1391875443964485632?s=20 *points* V'Ger.
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May 10, 2021 23:02
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I always sort of wondered why they made up a Voyager 6 instead of using one of the real ones. Was it to suggest a future of fervent space exploration to correlate with Star Trek themes?
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May 10, 2021 23:13
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Brawnfire posted:I always sort of wondered why they made up a Voyager 6 instead of using one of the real ones. Was it to suggest a future of fervent space exploration to correlate with Star Trek themes? Probably. There was a TNG episode that had NASA sending manned space missions outside the solar system as early as the 2030s.
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May 11, 2021 00:25
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Cross-Section posted:Probably. There was a TNG episode that had NASA sending manned space missions outside the solar system as early as the 2030s. Haha I was like "oh hey we have plans for a space probe going into interstellar space--" then I saw "manned" and lmao nahhh
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May 11, 2021 00:33
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Remember in the Star Trek timeline by the 90s there was widespread genetic engineering and also the ability to build sleeper ships. Clearly space travel became a major focus of world governments in Trek's past. Guess they were doing that at the same time they were shoving unemployed people in ghettos.
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May 12, 2021 09:41
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We're doing space programs and ghettos and genetic engineering right now. Concentration of wealth and hatred of the poor is a wild combination. It's only more extreme in the Star Trek timeline.
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May 12, 2021 09:53
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Brawnfire posted:Though one must scroll a bit Nice.
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May 14, 2021 09:08
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This is an incredible thread about Red Dwarf set design https://twitter.com/mr_clark/status/1248371017203974145?s=20
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May 16, 2021 14:49
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Arcsquad12 posted:The Pegasus carriers all look great, especially the Albion and the Spartan with its double stacked launch bays. Space battleships are the redshirts of gundam but I love them. They have sleek lines, big engines, and just the right amount of gun turrets. Proper space cruisers.   
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May 29, 2021 03:57
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Ever wonder what would happen if the Federation and Klingons made a ship together? Well wonder no longer. She looks pretty drat nice.
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May 29, 2021 23:51
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All things considered that's a beauty. Also would gladly watch a 10 part documentary series about the two teams working together-- every part of the teams too, from Engineering to supply-sourcing to PR to construction.
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May 29, 2021 23:58
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A Federation Cardassian team up design would be more entertaining to watch because all the cardassian women would be wanting to bone the Irish engineers after the second argument on the construction platform.
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May 30, 2021 00:34
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The Last Call posted:Ever wonder what would happen if the Federation and Klingons made a ship together? Well wonder no longer. Weren't the Klingons behind technologically in most of ST other than cloaking? I got the impression from the series that the only reason they were a serious contender was that their ships were dedicated warships rather than multi-purpose like Starfleet, and even then the best they could achieve was essentially parity. Mostly just wondering what exactly they bring to the table on any sort of collaboration.
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May 30, 2021 01:51
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We're doing STO, are we? I happen to have a bunch of ships ready at hand. The Bastion, in case you wondered what a star destroyer built by sentient dinosaurs who escaped Earth before the meteor hit would look like. (That is not a joke, Voyager is weird)  A Klingon/Romulan hybrid bird of prey.  Time traveling alien space Nazis never looked so good.  Jem'hadar assault destroyer.  The Khopesh class dreadnought warbird, a credible attempt to properly Romulan-ize the Scimitar.  Resistance is, and always has been, illogical.
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May 30, 2021 02:09
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Vernii posted:Weren't the Klingons behind technologically in most of ST other than cloaking? I got the impression from the series that the only reason they were a serious contender was that their ships were dedicated warships rather than multi-purpose like Starfleet, and even then the best they could achieve was essentially parity. Mostly just wondering what exactly they bring to the table on any sort of collaboration.
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May 30, 2021 02:33
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mind the walrus posted:They're bringing the "We feel useful and allied with the socialist space hippies instead of bored and chafed by them" diplomacy factor. STO also posits that Klingon technology is generally less advanced than the Federation, but Klingon military doctrine is far more sophisticated, and that Klingon ships, while lower tech, are also much faster and easier to build and maintain. Federation ship takes a beating? Weeks if not months in drydock. Klingon ship takes a beating? A week, tops, at any outpost.
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May 30, 2021 02:36
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Starfleet ships also aren't dedicated combat veseels unlike Klingon ships so its much easier to repair a bird of prey when you aren't also repairing two dozen science stations.
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May 30, 2021 02:38
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Cythereal posted:STO also posits that Klingon technology is generally less advanced than the Federation, but Klingon military doctrine is far more sophisticated, and that Klingon ships, while lower tech, are also much faster and easier to build and maintain. Federation ship takes a beating? Weeks if not months in drydock. Klingon ship takes a beating? A week, tops, at any outpost. The Nintendo Game Boys of the Alpha Quadrant.
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May 30, 2021 02:42
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Arcsquad12 posted:Starfleet ships also aren't dedicated combat veseels unlike Klingon ships so its much easier to repair a bird of prey when you aren't also repairing two dozen science stations. In STO, at least, the Federation has plenty of dedicated combat vessels at this point. The Defiant, Prometheus and Akira lines have seen 30 years of iterations and improvements.
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May 30, 2021 03:21
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I honestly liked the feeling in TOS that there were like 12 Constellation ships total and maybe like another 10 other Starfleet ships… in all. The whole giant space dock thing of Star Trek 3 really kind of ruined the feeling of the ships being huge and special.
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May 30, 2021 05:34
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The Last Call posted:Ever wonder what would happen if the Federation and Klingons made a ship together? Well wonder no longer. I'm not massively fond of the ship, but I do like that it looks quite awkward as the first hybrid ship they ever did. It also looks like discovery, which isn't actually much of a coincidence. One of the reasons Discovery is designed the way that she is is that back when Bryan Fuller was preproducing it, the plan was that season 2 would reveal that Discovery was designed to be able to go undercover as a Klingon ship: the saucer would come off except for the sphere in the middle and the upwards-facing nacelles would flip to face down instead and it'd be like 'BAM, KLINGON STYLE'.  
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 05:50 on May 30, 2021 |
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May 30, 2021 05:47
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Hey man that's a nice hat
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May 30, 2021 17:15
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I think it may be due to how so many ships are sleek, but I love the look of the Peacekeeper Marauder drop ships in Farscape. They're just a shape I don't see much. Their shape and design immediately telegraph that they're a thankless grunt ship full of meat for the grinder. 
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May 31, 2021 09:15
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Treguna Mekoides posted:I think it may be due to how so many ships are sleek, but I love the look of the Peacekeeper Marauder drop ships in Farscape. They're just a shape I don't see much. Their shape and design immediately telegraph that they're a thankless grunt ship full of meat for the grinder. Dude yes thank you I've always loved these. Just wonderful troop dropship/space C-130 thing I love.
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Jun 2, 2021 03:46
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How about some more spaceships copying historical naval ships!  Well, I say spaceships, not exactly. They're in a space, not exactly outer space. Or at least not the normal outer space. Inside the universe, outside the timestream? It's a bit confusing, but it's a really different and original idea and basically the only thing I remember fondly about Sluggy Freelance. It had two arcs interspersed with the comic's other dumb stuff. Maybe they revisited it at some point, I haven't read in a long while. Basically in this dimension, everyone has a little bubble of "time" with them that if it runs out, the freeze into a lifeless statue. It increases in strength and recharges in the presence of other people's time-bubbles, so that encourages both for people to maintain sizable crews instead of going it alone and for people to forcibly take captives to charge and maintain their time-bubbles. So, much of them turn to piracy.     Some ships seem to have thrusters on the rear, but all ships in "Timeless Ppace" use "powersails", that it's not really clear what they do, but apparently they all need to be balanced out somehow along three dimensions to be able to navigate. They're all relics of the "Teknokons" a group of robotic explorers that were sent out into Timeless Space long ago as part of a corporate project that never actually bore any fruit. There's a neat little revelation at the end of the first arc that most people only ever wind up in Timeless Space as the result of science experiments gone wrong, so the bulk of them are just nerds playing at being pirates. Even though the ships look simple, it's actually incredibly complicated for the people who know how to fly them to actually fly them. There's a decent amount of maintenance scenes.   And yes, there's that grey and white lump that's supposed to be a rabbit. He's the only character from the main comic in the whole arc, having been tossed into Timeless Space after he became the Easter Bunny, slew the spirit of Halloween to take over that holiday, and used the resulting Halloween-powers to wage a war of conquest across the holidays, eventually being defeated by New Year's and being tossed out of the timestream. It's a very weird comic, and in the times when the comic distances itself from most of the main cast, I think you see a lot of potential in Pete Abrams that eventually gets covered right back up again.
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Jun 2, 2021 06:57
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Makes me think of the Pride of the Skies, the ship from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.  
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Jun 2, 2021 10:57
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The_Doctor posted:Makes me think of the Pride of the Skies, the ship from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. Oh man, why did you have to post those pics? That ship looked so much cooler in my memories. But if we’re talking about space sailing ships look no further than DND Spelljammers.  
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Jun 2, 2021 13:37
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Treguna Mekoides posted:I think it may be due to how so many ships are sleek, but I love the look of the Peacekeeper Marauder drop ships in Farscape. They're just a shape I don't see much. Their shape and design immediately telegraph that they're a thankless grunt ship full of meat for the grinder. I'm a huge Farscape fan but I don't think I've ever seen what it looked like from the front, as it's always always portrayed from behind. Farscape has some great minimalist ship designs, mostly due to their cgi budget. Plus the stylized/"painted" look of the cgi really has allowed them to mostly age well.
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Jun 2, 2021 17:41
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I picked up a new space boat in Star Trek Online today. I kind of love the aesthetic to Lukari ships in this game: classic UFO designs. The first Lukari ship was a flying saucer. Then a triangle. Now the boomerang. If they ever get a fourth ship, my money's on a flying cigar.
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Jun 9, 2021 03:25
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I had the good fortune in my youth to live near the Chicago Virtual Worlds arcade, with the Battletech pods. However, the thing I really loved was their second game... Red Planet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhW95Lsfs2w Velocity = Victory
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Jun 23, 2021 09:17
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I have new space boats in Star Trek Online. Jaieh class science pilot warbird. Kind of disappointingly to me, it has Reman hull textures, but that makes sense given that it's based on concept art of the Scimitar for Nemesis, which was envisioned as looking more like a diving bird of prey that would unfold its wings for its doomsday weapon.  Grissom class light science vessel. Obviously the endgame version of the venerable Oberth class and can be kitbashed with it (or just replaced with the classic Oberth skin), but is actually based on a discarded concept art for the USS Voyager.  Dauntless class experimental science vessel. One of those 'wait, why is this in the game and playable?' ships that STO loves to trot out.
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Jun 25, 2021 01:49
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Cythereal posted:
Can you get another angle on this because I have no idea what's going on with the... saucer? It's making my brain hurt
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Jun 25, 2021 10:35
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Can you get another angle on this because I have no idea what's going on with the... saucer? It's making my brain hurt  In the game it's a modern redesign of the Oberth class and can be kitbashed with it, but the design is actually based on early concept art for the USS Voyager, including that weird ?saucer? design.
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Jun 25, 2021 11:57
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 Concept back when they were throwing around lots of ideas for what Voyager would look like; this was when she was very much a weak science ship and clearly meant to be the updated equivalent to the Oberth.
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Jun 25, 2021 12:16
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Speaking of Star Trek Online, one thing I do love is the design gimmick of ships from Risa, the resort planet. They're just blatant tourist boats in space. You've got the big obnoxious cruise ship   Including the atrium  The tiny zippy catamaran  The fast hydrofoil ferry (including obnoxious wood accents): 
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jun 25, 2021 |
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Jun 25, 2021 12:27
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