"Ship Design Question" Topic

Do you prefer your alien spaceships to all look similar in design? Or should a ship more represent its use and technology?

For instance, if you look at Babylon 5 (fleet Action, B5 Wars, CtA), all earth ships are different, yet all Mimbari ships have that same floating fish look and Narn ships have that red and black sides.

How similar should they be? Do certain ranges go "too far"?

Personally I always felt it makes a line kinda boring after awhile.

"Oh look, another black spider shadow ship."

Spaceship design, like naval ship design should be based on sound principles of maximising both defence and atriking power. Inevitably this leads to a similar appearance.

And in the case of some models, it makes them hard to tell apart.

I like a consistent theme, but there should be enough different elements to indicate what each ship's purpose is. Of course, some fleets should have a more motley appearance than others.

Similar styles represent interghangeable and modular parts .When far from home allows salvage of damaged ships to keep fleet moving .

Consider the pre-Dreadnought era. Definitely could tell the difference between French, British, Italian, Austrian Hungarian and American ships. Russia and Japan looked like French and British predominately, with some exceptions. Most carried 4 main guns and many secondary weapons, yet all had their own national characteristics. I imagine aliens would as well.

But the Japanese ships looked like British because the British built them, while the French built several ships for the Russians who then copied the design. Also one of the Russian best performing ship was built in the US.

Look at the WW2 US designs. Cruisers and up all look similar. 2+1 primary turrets with 3 guns per, plus some number of secondary turrets. The secondary turrets were actually identical between all the different USN hulls, though Destroyers usually used them as their primary battery.

Personally, I like all ships to reflect some national imagery.

For example, the newer Jovian Confed starships from DP9's Jovian Chronicles all have a similar design. Engines, a small cargo section, very large-diameter hab ring, and then the forward hull is unique to the class. Even then, the carriers (Valiant-, Forge-, and Majestic-classes) all share similar elements of their forward hull (specifically the catapult sections).

As another example, certain Earth ships from Bab5 have similar shapes, like the Olympus-class frigate and the Hyperion-class cruiser look very similar. The Nova-class DN and the Omega-class DD are similar because their central hulls are identical (Omega-class DDs installed a centrifuge section in place of a lot of the guns of the Novas, which makes them much better for long deployments).

Personally, I'm annoyed by designs like the Nebulon frigate from SW with the absurdly vulnerable rod connect the forward and aft hulls.

Inconsistently, the Enterprise and Klingon D7 are beautiful designs …

I like mine to be different. Different factions should be different and should represent the factions' use of technology, different technologies, and "naval" doctrine. Is the faction a close range knife-fighter or a long range archer or something in between? The answer to that may reflect the offensive and defensive technologies (or the way same technology may be applied) mix on the starship. It can also reflect on system redundancy or hull integrity.
-ZG

For myself the ships from the StarBlazers/Space Cruiser Yamato series were very good.

Each race had it's own style and for me the ships of the Earth Defense Fleet looked great they reminded me of WWII era ships which I like.

Zen Ghost the ships in StarBlazers I think fit in with what you said each Fleet different from the other Fleets in style,technology etc.

Im with Captain Gideon. The Yamato ships are a perfect example of the craft from different races having a specific cultural identity