Ignatz asked for details, so I decided to let him sip from the fire hose.
Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 10:59 AM
Ignatz,
This is a long one, so get comfy.
Sorry for the delay in responding. Your letter has inspired a fair amount of logical thinking, at which I'm not overly adept. This is a really big topic, actually. I have some basic space vessel design ideas that I try to stick with when creating stuff, but they almost don't matter at all: there are way more exceptions to the rules, as there are rules in this future time. Commercial vessels outnumber military ones by several orders of magnitude. There are small vessels and large ones. The large ones can be VERY large -- kilometers in length, width, and depth -- while the small ones can be anywhere from the size of a large house today, down to the size of your fist. And there are vessels of every size in between.
For clarity of communication, though, this much may be considered universal: "ships" are crewed vessels that possess a starjump engine; "boats" are crewed vessels that do NOT possess a starjump engine; "craft" are uncrewed (autonomous) vessels that may or may not possess a starjump engine. Ships, boats, and craft come in all sizes and
configurations. There are far more craft than there are any other types of vessels, and there are far more boats than there are ships. Quite a few vessels blur the lines between these definitions, but we'll stick with them for now.
At least half the population of this future time live in artificial space colonies, most of which are situated at or fairly near the outer edges of star system gravity shadows, as opposed to deeper in, where it can take days or even weeks to make passage. This informs basic design principles for space vessels. Space stations are technically vessels, too, though usually fall into entirely different operational and legal categories.
Commercial freighters tend to be big and very bulky, conforming to general geometric shapes. Few large vessels are designed to land in an atmosphere, so, almost all cargo is transferred to smaller shuttles for that purpose. A well-settled planet will have large fleets of cargo and passenger shuttles, but that's about it for streamlined space vessels. If you wanted to create some of those, you might want to put a planet in the background; you'd never see numbers of them in any other context.
Since most of the space vessels are non-streamlined, and come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, to say nothing of purposes, I would normally say that exposed engine components would be just fine. However, this is only true for vessels designed to tool around in local orbits, or to otherwise travel at sedate velocities. Considering the high speeds that vessels can obtain through use of their conventional drives (which far exceed what we have today), micrometeorite impacts become a huge potential danger; even very tiny particles colliding with a vessel moving at several hundred kilometers per second could have potentially catastrophic effects. Though outer hulls are armored against micrometeorites, I doubt that exposed engine components could be -- or rather, they COULD, but why bother? If you have to armor them up anyway, then why expose them at all? Vessels designed to move cargo from a jump point to a station or planet situated in a deep, inner orbit would travel at high speeds in order to do so in a timely fashion. Engine components, including thrustercones, would probably be internalized or made flush with the hull line. I see these sorts of vessels as being big, bulky, and largely devoid of interesting outer features. I know this presents a design challenge, so feel free to come up with anything you'd like. Remember, there are exceptions to everything in this future!
It's uncommon for vessels to have glass-like view ports, as these are largely seen as weak points (despite the fact that they aren't actually glass, but rather a form of transparent metal). Those few that do have them in abundance are generally passenger liners and scientific vessels. Exterior cameras are situated all over the hull (and are generally flush with the hull, and so, are largely invisible), and they otherwise handle exterior optical requirements. Armaments, specialized sensor arrays, and other, more delicate equipment, would be retractable.
The operational control of most large vessels would be buried deep inside, rather than near the exterior, where accidents or enemy attacks could damage them. This is a traditional military design concept which, by this time, would have extended into the commercial arena. Even in vessels that have a bridge or pilot's station near the exterior, with featureless outer configurations, and without any windows, it would be hard to tell.
Big cargo vessels generally have one or more cargo doors large enough to drive a truck through. These get docking umbilicals attached that are as wide as a highway, often coming complete with service facilities, shops, restaurants, brothels, motels, and more situated along their centerlines between the lanes of traffic. Docking ports for several vessels can be found along their lateral lines, like exits from the highway. Such umbilicals might be part of a colony station of some kind, or could be considered independent, specialized vessels all their own, which would move into place whenever big cargo ships come into the star system. And again, a big vessel might have several such cargo doors being serviced by exits in the umbilical at the same time; the very largest might even need more than one umbilical. Smaller vessels would have commensurately smaller doors, and serve entirely different sectors of the freight-hauling industry.
The latest innovation in shipping is the supercarrier (also known as superhaulers, superfreighters, and other names). These are largely autonomous swarms of cargo containers (all owned by separate shipping companies), moving via a single propagated starjump field, so that the entire swarm pops into a star system at one time. Imagine a "train" of a few hundred of these cargo boxes (each the size of big house, today) moving through space. Now imagine a few hundred, to a few thousand of these trains, moving along together. Each train has a few engineering cars spaced along it, networked with all the others in the swarm. When they jump, they all jump together. Such a swarm can be hundreds, even thousands of kilometers in length, and always in flux. Each box is autonomous, and equipped with small thrusters in order to maintain stability.
When a box is shipped out to a destination, it moves off on its own to a point near a designated arrival orbit. In due course, the supercarrier pops in, and this box, like thousands of others earmarked for departure, approaches in a designated orbit, while others immediately peel-off from the swarm, heading in-system. The thousands heading out then join up, settling in as entrained units. The swarm stays in the star system for a set period of time (usually a few hours, up to a day or so), then it pops out again, on to the next star system. This supercarrier will have a number designation, and maybe even a name, but it is much more like an incorporated business entity, than it is a "ship" in the conventional sense.
If or when the business entity goes bankrupt, or is otherwise dissolved, the supercarrier just "evaporates", delivering its cargo boxes in one star system after another without taking on any new ones, until there are simply none left. Supercarriers have human crews, but since everything is (mostly) autonomous, they'd only need a few hundred people, at most, for the entire thing. The majority would be service technicians, making sure all the boxes were operating within nominal parameters. A few would be engineering specialists. Fewer still would be specialists, like emergency personnel, defensive operators (gunners), or communication techs. Finally, there'd just be a small contingent of officers, spaced throughout the length and breadth of the supercarrier, overseeing the whole thing.
Weapon systems on commercial vessels are, by law, restricted to those intended for self-defense. While a trained and licensed gunner like Ejoq can use these with great efficacy, such weapons are considered very small and under-powered compared to their military counterparts. In "Street Candles", Ejoq uses a common weapon system called a Lantern Gun. This is composed of blocky, lantern-shaped emitters mounted on extending arms -- one on top, and one on the bottom of the ship. When activated, they fire a polarized particle beam, looking like purple lightning, that arcs out from one of the lanterns, over to the target, and then back to the other lantern, in an electricity-like loop. Other weapons are missile packs, often housed in cylinders, that can rapid-fire an entire compliment of small rockets in only a second or two. Particle beams might be built-in, flush to the hull, or mounted on extending arms, looking like delicate filigrees of shiny chrome and crystal...or maybe just like bland, encased boxes.
Paint jobs on most large cargo vessels would probably be minimal: scarred-up basic colors, like you'd see at the hull-line of busy cargo ships traveling about the sea today. Still, call numbers, ship names, corporate logos, and possibly even large animated or static advertisements could be common (the sides of roaming spaceships can be rented out as billboards, providing passive income to indebted freighters). Passenger liners might be more artistic. Private yachts and racers would be very striking. Construction and maintenance vessels would likely be in various flavors of caution-yellow, maybe with black stripes, and brightly lighted exteriors. Emergency rescue vessels could be white, with red stripes and such. Police could be any color, but black and white motifs are instantly recognizable, maybe
with flashing blue and red lights. Military vessels are invariably flat black, as this constitutes "camo color" in outer space, but possibly with emblems, call numbers, and names that are large and well-lighted (which can, of course, be turned off during sensitive operations).
Attached to this email are a few files, including the interior floor plans for the ship design used in the first playtest of the game, back in 2019, which was published on Hacker Public Radio. Notice on there, the key, to the right; at its bottom, there is a top-down view of a person, to give it some scale. This vessel was a derelict, mostly stripped for parts. Even when new, though, it was only a "cab" for massive box containers, which would have been loaded with cargo, and then delivered from one star system to another. The container would then be dropped off, and another picked up. In other words, as cargo vessels go, this design is actually rather small.
Also attached is a file showing the emblem for Alliance Fleet (the military), which might appear on the exteriors of their ships. Feel free to use it, change it, or ignore it.
I've included a ship design for a future Stardrifter tale. It's an old-fashioned frame hauler ship, called "Orphan Rose", designed to move a bunch of cargo boxes in a removable exterior skeleton of scaffolding and girders. Frame haulers are being phased out under the commercial pressure exerted by the supercarriers.
Ignatz, I want to thank you VERY much for your interest in this. Regardless of where all this goes, I'm deeply touched by your enthusiasm and kindness.
-David