7 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:I mean there's no reason every single ship has to be made for atmospheric flight and landing. Kinda silly to make them all work for that actually.
For a ship this small, being able to land is kinda important.
1 minute ago, Ominovin said:For a ship this small, being able to land is kinda important.
- If you are big enough to carry shuttles, then landing can be 'optional'...
- If you are a shuttle (or at least shuttle-sized), then you really need to be able to land...
I don't necessarily agree. It would certainly need some sort of escape pod, but it is not unreasonable to thing of sub-capital ships that operate wholly without changing from atmosphere to space. If nothing else it would just be cheaper.
8 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:I don't necessarily agree. It would certainly need some sort of escape pod, but it is not unreasonable to thing of sub-capital ships that operate wholly without changing from atmosphere to space. If nothing else it would just be cheaper.
Perhaps, but:
These are rather huge issues for most potential users.
13 minutes ago, Ominovin said:Perhaps, but:
- Delivering cargo is a lot harder when you need to carry it (all of it) through a docking ring,
- You are completely dependent on there being a space station or another ship you can dock with at each stop in your travels, and
- Any sort of exterior maintenance requires a space walk or two...
These are rather huge issues for most potential users.
I don't disagree, however the stresses of changing from atmosphere would be bigger risk factors. If there is not a specific reason for a craft to go between atmo and space then they would be made of one or the other generally.
This doesn't mean that there wouldn't be dual use craft, or that dual use craft wouldn't be common , but single use craft would also be common.
I know this is a really old topic but I stumbled on this because I'm DMing a game where our pirate characters have this ship, and I was looking for layout designs.
This was a really good question I hadn't considered, and I love seeing the different solutions but I'm surprised no one has proposed this one:
Instead of having to swing or turn or position anything sideways at awkward 90-degree angles, what if all three wings/foils just swing at roughly 45-degree angles, and become a literal tripod. The hinge that someone mentioned on the bottom fin allows it to sit and rest weight of the back of the ship on a center of gravity while the two wings on each side turn with their bottom half forward to stabilize landing and hold the front of ship's weight evenly.
The wings are the actual landing gear! I think it's a much more elegant solution that allows the ship to sit parallel with the ground and not have the ridiculously long ramp or elevator problem. The ramp would still have to be quite long, but not as long -- basically the length of the cockpit/head and neck, and maybe it still telescopes back in but now it wouldn't have to be as crazy.
btw: I'm working on layout maps or floorplans for this one, I may upload them when they're finished.
Its kind of a dumb design but its also an indicator that it was designed to be used only in certain environments that would support it; Coruscant and other Heavily urbanized areas that
would have the floating platforms, or other ships and space stations it could hover next to and just load/unload.
Otherwise the side wings would have to rotate 90 degrees forward and the ventral fin would have to fold at the joint; ugly and awkward as **** but would work...
that or it just rams itself into the ground on landing...any landing you can walk away from?
Oh wait, what if instead of folding the ventral Fin simple collapses into the upper part? That would work just fine...
Edited by GandofGandThus is what I mean; (pardon the hasty 3-D Model...)
On 1/8/2019 at 4:42 PM, Zrob314 said:I mean there's no reason every single ship has to be made for atmospheric flight and landing. Kinda silly to make them all work for that actually.
If it's sil 4 or smaller it has to land, sil 5's tend to land, even sil 6 like the republic clone troop transport tend to land. Imperial star destroyers can enter the atmosphere and hover a few kilometers over the planetary surface (rogue 1). I don't think super star destroyers try to land (discounting the legends book that said one was built underground on coruscant because it is legends). I mean the death star can be expected to not enter atmosphere as would snoke's ship from the last jedi, but the general assumption is that most ships can enter the atmosphere without crashing and sil 5 or smaller can land.