Designing Spacecraft Lineages
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You forgot to mention Babylon 5 Starfury Aurora to the Starfury Thunderbolt.
Also changing from the Nova class to the Omega class after the Human-Minbari war and how the White Stars incorporated the 180 manuvers from the Starfuries
You forget Babylon 5😅😅
Yes, it changes in both technology and design
Spacedock, wasn't there another Basestar, one that kind of looked like a spinning top? A command level Basestar from the original BSG era?
I remember it from the show back in the 80s and again from the Star Trek versus BSG video, which I thought was a brilliant example of tactics and firepower. The command Basestar I'm talking about legged it when it's escort disc-style basestars got hammered into scrap by Starfleet's finest.
Yeah Voyager... is going to be every bit as (not make sense) as the Enterprise F to G transition.
Role on Prodigy's next season so we can see what the damage will be, Voyager-B before we even see the Voyager--A hmm
I think I once read somewhere that George Lucas recognized that a lot of the spacecraft in the original SW trilogy ended up with squarish and angled designs that tended to reflect American-made cars of the late 70's and early 80' which was when those movies were made (think the Ford Mustang). As a result, when they were making the prequel trilogy they made a conscious decision to make the spacecraft more curvy and rounded to be more like the car designs of the 1950s -- since the prequels took place some 20-30 years before the original trilogy. If true, I think that's a pretty cool detail.
I think they used the Naboo N-1 as a direct comparison in that video to the T-65B X-wing.
Yeah, that was the case.
I mean, original x-wing was based on those overly long drag race cars of old
@@shade8816not that top fuel drag cars have gotten any shorter
GL was also a big 50s car guy, he was in love with that era, so it was also just an excuse to use the styling. A lot of the prequel trilogy has 50s references in terms of architecture and styling in other things too( Dexs Diner being the most obvious, but Jango Fett using blasters straight out of a 50s sci-fi is too).
Older designs with newer tech doesn’t get the same love as it should. The B 52 today is nothing like the B 52 when they were built. This might also explain why the Miranda Class will never go out of style.
They should downgrade the B-52 to what it was when it first flew for fun
@@flinko99 watch the noobs try to handle piston engines
The in-universe explanation for the Miranda's longevity is that having a lot of external system it's incredibly easy to refit.
@@flinko99 why?
@@connordorsey9959 Because it's cool.
Honestly I would count a ship that has the same hull but new tech put into it is another way to do updating as new ship. Like the idea that a hull design could be centuries old but what is inside the hull is massively different.
aurek class starfighter from star wars EU would be an example for that
That kinda sounds like what they do with the F-teen series of jets.
That would be more of a variant.
Like the F-18 c/d
Right like early Daedalus class is a different beast than end of series.
At least put a MkII in there to show it’s totally different if you kust
I agree. One thing that's always bugged me about design lineages, especially in visual media is that the 'new' design is more about how 'cool' it looks rather than having it make sense in the context of the setting
One reason the Excelsior was in service for well over a hundred years. The Lakota was basically a completely different ship compared to the NX-2000. The only thing retained was the hull itself.
The TIE Fighter line is a great example of designing a whole family of vehicles around a base template. The Empire could easily mass produce them because they each used essentially the same cockpit layout, the same materials, and the same overall concept. It also makes field repair much easier as the TIEs have many interchangeable parts that can be carried in one supply chain, and also allows for easier cross-training for pilots.
it also rather clearly demonstrates the Empire's priorities so well that each irl generation of depiction reinforces the 'mass produced deathtrap' concept, from the original trilogy blowing them up constantly to the challenges operating one inflicts on players in Squadrons, especially if you disable non-ship hud elements. (for operating a TIE i would not recommend doing that)
Based on Disney SW, they DO mass produce them. They also mass produce entire Star Destroyers, each with crew compliments of probably thousands.
Pretty impressive for an organization supposedly trying to REGAIN power from their previous m, massive defeat. Weird they didn't use those resources to protect both Death Stars better...it's almost like Disney writers are complete fucking morons or something.
Yea, but then we got TIEs from sequels, which were an epitome of how-not-to-do generational upgrades.
They remained largely the same in shape (while PT/OT predecessors each were very unique designs on the same theme) yet just magically started to pack flippin everything inside. TIE/ln was too small for shield, more guns or more crew, yet suddenly TIE/sf has flippin everything: torpedoes, turret with a second crew member, shields, ejection seats, more powerful engines, flippin hyperdrive... AND IT'S SMALLER THAN TIE/ln! My god, what they did to the TIE-fighter line in the sequels frustrates me to no end.
@@SkywalkerWroc The Empire must have stumbled over a TARDIS in the meantime 😁...
Meet the tie advanced and the tie defender
Babylon 5 had pretty decent progression too. The Starfury Thunderbolt was in response to a need for in-atmo capabilities, and the incorporation of artificial gravity tech allowed the creation of the Warlock class. We even see the stuff from the Minbari war still around before they had the centrifuges for spin gravity.
Don't forget the White Star which evolved from Minbari tech, designed to fight the Shadows. Which then lead to the Excalibur and the Victory as basically larger capitol ship class versions. I think B5 did its ship evolution really well.
@@Actalzy Or the Nova to the Hyperion to the Omega and finally the Warlock. You can see every single step on the way.
Though when you look at it, only the Humans have any ship evolution.
@@alfredkugler3043 I think the Hyperion came before the Nova. Then somebody in Earthforce's Procurement Division figured out that putting a bunch of smooth curves on a spacecraft was redundant, and they moved to the 'bricks with guns' philosophy with the Nova and Omega. The Warlock (regretably barely seen on-screen) backs down a bit on the brutalist asthetic but still makes it clear that it's here to kick arse and take names, not win beauty pagents.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Nope, the Nova was the first. It was slow, massively armored and wherever they found place they put a gun turret.
But it was old tech, and the guns were short ranged.
Then came the Hyperion. It was from another manufacturer, was faster, sleeker and had far fewer, longer ranging guns.
Then came the Mimbari war, and the manufacturer of the Nova was forced to use the prototypes of the ship that they were pitching as a replacement for the Hyperion (the Hyperion lacked fighter complement and the Mimbari war showed that the Hyperion was somewhat underarmed) which was "just" a Nova frame with a rotating middle segment and a different weapon set, fewer (though not as few as the Hyperion) faster firing longer ranged weapons with a beam mode and a pulse mode, and a few very powerful pure beam weapons.
Those prototypes were the only thing that could make the Sharlin cruisers actually work for it, and after the war evolved into the Omega.
And the thing about the Nova, as well as the Omega is that they were essentially war designs.
Blocky and made from premanufactured parts, the EA could push out dozens of them for every Sharlin, or Primus, or G'Quan.
The Hyperion and the Warlock on the other hand were interwar designs. More emphasis on aesthetics and bells and whistles.
@@alfredkugler3043 If you watch only the show then that is correct, if you look at the expanded universe of B5 then you see each race had a lot of ship progression and a lot more ship designs then what is shown on the show.
That series with star in its name sure did some interesting things with ship lineages, huh?
In BSG, remember that only 40 years pass between the Cylon Wars. Look at how ship design in the real world has progressed over that same time period; most of the aesthetic differences are due to changes in technology and armament, otherwise a ship built in the 1940s and one built in the 1980s look pretty similar. For a direct Viper analog look at the F/A-18 Hornet; it's been in production for nearly 50 years, and on the outside the first one off the line looks an awful lot like one built yesterday
The F/A-18 isn't the best example, considering the Super Hornet is an entirely different airframe that's significantly larger than the standard Hornet. The F-16 is probably better for this kind of comparison, considering the base airframe has remained largely unchanged, even on the newest variants.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 as an added bonus, F-16:s are also called Vipers!
@@mini_bunney heyo!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. That’s just cool.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 I suppose for that reason the Super Hornet probably does work when comparing with a viper, as later variants of the vipers seem to be completely different "air" frames to the original Mk1 or 2. The Mk3 is also substantially larger than the Mk2 which is a kinda neat parallel to real world aircraft development. I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that some of the later BSG Viper variants might not share much with their earlier cousins beyond their name.
@@Rottenflieger. To add to the whole Viper thing, there's the Japanese F-2A Viper Zero, which is more or less a scaled-up F-16C.
I would say that Star Trek vessels had an evolution that was shaped by the external forces: From the minimalistic ENT era vessels that were kinda the best humanity could build to the battleships of the TOS era that needed weapons due to the unresolved conflicts with the romulans and the klingons. Then there came TNG with the luxurious cruise ships due to the relative peace, stability and wealth of the federation in that era. After the Borg attacks / the dominion wars, ships are becoming much, much more warships again.
The Enterprise was always primarily an exploratory vessel though, it was just heavily armed because it was facing the unknown.
Look at the shapes, they're all very rounded and they generally appear non hostile. That's pretty important for diplomacy.
The new ones look like warships, and it was a wasted opportunity to make a dedicated battle cruiser for ACTUAL conflict.
@@davejones9469 I agree. It was a dual-use system, like the exploration vessels during the early colonial era. However, it was way more warship characteristics than the cruise ships of TNG.
@@elshid6046 True, and even in TNG the Enterprise D is referred to as a cruise ship in the show. To be fair, at least it's probably a big morale boost, and the wide hallways etc are good for evacuation. Silver linings? Lol.
The thing with the real life exploration vessels is that there weren't mystery navies out there to make forst contact with, it was a bunch of known enemies in a race to claim land and control the seas, namely the English, Spanish and French.
Luckily, the English dominated, otherwise we might have been living in a much less free world (hard to call it that these days).
The French revolution was essentially based on socialism, not individual rights like English common law. There might not be an America, slavery may be acceptable (the British abolished slavery around the world), and even pedophilia may have been normalized long before the current "trans" agenda. (Look up Foucault, not the scientist the philosopher)
The French are actually really fucked up, and deserve the ridicule from the rest of the west. Communism would probably be the dominant political system in the world, no joke.
@@davejones9469 First of all, also in Star Trek, there are known enemies in TOS: The Klingons and the Romulans. While not in a state of war, the three mayor powers were definitely in a state of cold war. The treaty of Alderon and the Kithomer Accords ended this cold war. It was after these Treaties that Starships began to be cruise ships instead of cruisers. So, the TOS cruisers were in fact similar to the first navies venturing where no man has gone before.
Even though in ENT, humanity has no knowledge about these races, they know that they have to deal with superior technology. As humanity is violent, it is a wise idea to assume that there are hostile people out there, and therefore, it is wise to not just send merchant vessels and unarmed research vessels.
Now to your French stuff: in the early colonization, there were many more powers involved. The ones most successful in colonizing were at first the spanish (just look at south and middle america, they all speak still spanish). Yes, they were the rivals of the English crown and the French were also starting to colonize, but that was way before the height of the British Empire during the reign of Queen Victoria. Between the early phases of colonialism (with the start being the "discovery" of America by Columbus in 1492) and this time (Queen Victoria died in 1901) were 400 years! The fact that French did not take over after the Revolution was not because of the power of the English, but because whole Europe wanted to get rid of Napoleon. The victory over him was a joint effort by the other European superpowers, especially the Russians (I highly reccommend 1812 overture in this context) with the Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig and the battle of Waterloo being main battles.
Mr. Foucault was indeed the opinion, that children and adults should be allowed to have sexual relationship with each other, but that thing was nothing that was typical to the French. In west-Germany, there was the so-called Pedophilia-Debate in the 70s and 80s, mainly by liberal parties.
But all that has nothing to do with trans people. I am wondering where so many people get the idea from that trans people support the idea that adults should be allowed to have intimate relationships with children.
@@elshid6046 There was no treaty of that kind IRL, they were in OPEN CONFLICT with the other nations, and the chances of encountering an unknown navy that could even match those of Europe at the time were negligible at BEST. It was a "HOT" NAVAL CONFLICT.
They also had to worry about food, water, etc, so were extremely limited.
On top of everything, ocean going ships HAVE to be built with a specific design, but spaceships can be ANY configuration.
There's no comparison, stop trying to find one.
Artistic-wise, I’m in awe of Star Wars’ design. The BSG reboot had to update the tech so it didn’t look dated. Star Trek’s first motion picture had to do the same, and when the pre-refit 1701 reappeared in STD/SNW it got a visual revamp as well. Star Wars doesn’t have to do that. The designs from 1977 are still timeless, to the point where the new series like Kenobi and Mando use practically the same designs for ships, armor, and droids.
On the other hand, the Galaxy-Class design from Star Trek: The Next Generation looks so advanced and futuristic that it still looks advanced and futuristic even today.
Star Trek didn't have to do that, they were just cowards
I know Anime generally doesn't get focus here, but I feel like I have to keep promoting Macross, especially here where the fighter craft have clear design lineages. Between each installment in the series, you see as each VF incorporates new technologies and designs into the craft, from the VF-0 (which itself was a F-14 Tomcat incorporating Alien technology) all the way to the YF-29 Durendal, with the ICS system and other Fold Quartz based systems, or the VF-31 Kairos which incorporates Drone Fighters (which were and advancement from the X-9 Ghost) into its armament, both of which were a part of adjusting to changing foes and advancement of conflict. Outside of the fighters, you see the Carriers and Capital ships also make advancements, such as the AMRD class developing into the Guantanamo class then into the Uraga.
On a similar, but not as a extreme note, the UC timeline of Gundam also displays distinct design lineages, most notably with the Zaku variants which improve upon themselves or adapt to different requirements while keeping notable distinct elements such as the famous mono-eye helmets.
Gundam would also be a good example of progression in star.....uh space...combat...thing design.
@@ajzebadua Agreed; there are distinct shifts in mobile suit designs over the course of most of the series that cover any large span of time, and the currently airing Gundam is literally about one of those technical shifts happening; although I doubt the span of time Witch from Mercury will cover will show us much of the consequences of the show's plot.
@@LashknifeTalon Even IBO had it. You had the Geirail (Used by that one dude who took over Earth Tekkaden) which was the predecessor to the Graze. Then obviously the Graze itself which was tuned to the needs of whatever fleet/ground base it was assigned to, plus it’s variants (Hloekk, space, ground, Stachel, Schild, Ritter, commander, etc). Then you see it developed into the Reginlaze.
All that in a series only taking place over 5 years really
Was hoping someone mentioned Macross, agreed that the Valkyrie linage is well thought out in that series, both the SV and VF lines.
The ship design for Macross really is top tier, and it's a shame it doesn't get more of a spotlight.
Personally, the method in Stargate makes the most sense to me. If you've got a hull design that works, then I don't see a reason why you'd need to design, test and produce a completely new one outside of a pressing need for a new class of ship. So long as you can reconfigure the internals to accommodate any new tech that's developed or acquired, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to build a completely new type of ship just because you've gotten an upgrade in your FTL or weapons.
the important point is "if you can reconfigure the internals" which is not always possible. The internal space, structural supports and so on were designed and built with specific technology in mind, unless you built the hull with the intention of making lots of upgrades later or you slot in some kind of standard sized equipment it's often a requirement to design a new hull around new capabilites.
For example, they tried adding cruise missiles to WW2 built battleships and they had over the years added lots of other equipment but it was simply not possible to replace the power plant and loads of other things. To do that would require making a big hole which is not good for structural integrity.
yeah pretty much unless it is a weapon that it can fit would be better served with a redesign but that is more an edge case
though after a few you might want to look and see if you can make the design better and more efficient but best to start with just updating what you have
@@KatamuroTheFirst Most of the Standard-type battleships had their powerplants replaced during the interwar period, and the reason that was done was to increase their speed, because they were slow. The Iowa class ships were already capable of 33 knots at standard load (over 35 at light load), faster than the Nimitz class carriers and well able to keep up with ships of the era. They didn't *need* new power plants, so they didn't get them.
@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t The Standard-type battleships had their machinery replaced, but it wasn't to increase their speed; the hull design limited them to roughly 21 knots across the board, and throwing extra power at the problem wasn't going to do much. The entire reason the North Carolina and South Dakota-class battleships were built was because of the slow speed of the Standards. Across all of the major navies in that time period, only three classes of ships had their speed increased by refits, the Kongo-class battlecruisers, Conte di Cavour-class, and the Andrea Doria-class battleships. On the Kongos they picked up a grand total of 3 knots from a massive 72,000 horsepower increase, while the Andrea Dorias and Conte di Cavours required a massive reconstruction that outright removed a main battery turret and lengthened the ships by 40 feet.
You are always going to have issues with a design (stress or wear points that are too fragile, insufficient strength in a minor bulkhead, awkward areas to repair, poor arcs of fire for weapons, etc.) so even with minimal technological development and no new operational needs you are likely to find enough things that need improvement that even very closely related classes are likely to be somewhat different, this gets to the point where no two battleships in the world wars were identical when commissioned even though there were several multi-ship classes of ships involved. These changes might be minor or they might be major but new designs are likely to be needed as eventually these modifications build up and it just becomes more efficient to incorporate them from the beginning in a new design. A good example of this is the move from the Flower Class Corvettes of WWII to their follow on class (the Castle Class) as they are very similar ships but the later was just enough more refined that it needed a completely new design.
Stargate is amazing in the fact that every piece of technology we see in the final seasons of the Atlantis/SG1 had its origin story, had an episode where it was introduced and surrounding circumstances.
It's something truly astounding that AFAIK no other show came close to matching.
Stargate is an odd series for that, and it's what makes it shine. It's very rare that an episode is exclusively filler or insular. Many episodes of Stargate introduce characters, events, or technology that ends up being relevant in a later episode, and then that episode ends up tying into the main plot and being important. Technology in particular ends up saving the day a few episodes or seasons later.
It's very difficult to make only minor changes if you wanted to do some sort of fanwork with the show. It's not impossible, but you basically have to end on status quo if you're actually trying to fit it into canon.
There’s a fanfic that crosses Stargate and the original (non-Firaxis) XCOM. The author has made even more of an effort to reference one-off techs and civilizations. There’s a brief glimpse at an alternate future BC-305 with ZPM-enhanced Asgard weapons and other goodies. There are also Tollan Ghostrider ships armed with ion cannons and planet-cracking UFT bombs but also equipped with Asgard shields and hyperdrives as well as the Tollan phasing tech that make them immune to damage
I think that Mobile Suit Gundam makes really good use of lineages. I like how there is a clear tree of evolution in the creation and design of most MS, and how the next generation of suits are designed with the changing battlefield in mind.
The most prominent example is observing mobile suit's adaptation to the implementation of beam weapons, which were so powerful that composite armor could not protect from them, thus seeing an entire shift in the design philosophy of ms, and the countermeasures they developed to counteract beam weapons.
The gundam wiki even has sections under each model of suit that show which suit(s) it was developed from and which suit(s) it was developed into. You can start at Zeon's Zaku 1 and trace its descendants to the Geara Zulu, or the federation's GM to the Re-Zel
This is something I love in science fiction. I love seeing ships evolve and grow. And for some odd reason the designation "Mark I, II, III, etc etc" just sound so cool when you say them out loud, especially when it's spaceships
dunno if you check out gundam, but they did something really interesting when it came to their designs. look the "main line gundams" for example, in other series you would see the mk-II to be a direct design upgrade from the original, but it wasnt.
The og gundam (the RX-78-2) was followed by the GP series of gundams, and while those were discontinued, while designing them, they made the upgraded GMs, the custom GMs, those were used to develop the next gen gms the GM Quel. which finally became the foundation to the MK-II.
that's the reason i see gundam as having the best lineage development in sci fi, it doesnt just comes from a vaccum, you can see the natural progression of things, and often it leads to a technological dead end(like the GP series). but it will also branch out into other things that will move foward.
Thank you so much for showing the Kusanagi class. I full on applauded when I saw you showcased it. It's such a perfect design that feels so good to see in action. STO's iteration came close- but Mr. Vincenzi's work is par excellence, and I'm grateful you gave it the attention it deserves.
I do prefer his angle of the nacelles. Keeping them vertical just works better.
Thanks!
I feel like the Gundam franchise did lineages quite well, in a sort-of Star Trek/Stargate ways. There are some definite differences between a Zaku, a Geara Zulu and a Messer IMO
they also do the same for their ships. You can notice it with the Federation's main ship the Salamis-class, having gotten a variant and 2 generational upgrades, of which the latest, the Salamis Kai class, getting meaningful upgrades on the original chasis inspired by design elements from ship before it to make it more effective in Mobile Suit warfare
@@granmastersword And then, with lessons learned from the Gryps War and the Neo Zeon War, Salamis-class would evolve into the Clop-class.
Then there is the whole mess that are the Advance of Zeta suits.
And separately there are also some interesting details. Take the Silver Bullet for instance, it looks like a Gundam but is in fact an offshoot of the Doven Wolf.
@@matteste and the Doven Wolf itself was developed from the Gundam Mk.5
@@granmastersword Yes and no. While the Gundam Mk-V was certainly a component of the Döven Wolf's development, there was one other mobile suit that was studied: the Psycho Gundam Mk-II.
It’s a shame that the New Republic’s Star Hawk never really got any screen-time
Yeah, but I think they were better off just updating the mc80 design then making a new one with a highly experimental weapon
Since I realy dislike the design I am fine with this
I much prefer the Legends NR Ship Progression over Canon, MC80 Liberty & Home One evolves in to the MC80B, then to the MC90; Probably the best Mon Cal out there in my opinion; then viscount and mediator, not a big fan of the heavy carrier though
@@art-games6230 It’s thematically better to have an imp scrap based heavy ship, it’s a reflection of the NR navy being A) scraps B) not that different from the empire and C) trying desperately to not just be there for destruction with the tractor beam being more “peacetime” but not succeeding
Not a fan of the design, but I'm also not a fan of Disney inventing new Mon Cal models to give to the good guys whenever they need a new big ship.
I actually followed a similar route when I was designing my own story series. A good example of designing your ship lineage is simply how our navy operates today. You might be surprised that ships won't really change much in the following years to come. It all comes down to technological progression and economics (depending on how much realism you are aiming for). Draw a few designs and imagine how it's going to evolve in hundreds of years. Imagine what technological innovations may be introduced that might change the aesthetics of the ship. And, again, if you are aiming for realism, think of practicality. If aliens operate just like us, then their ships might actually be very similar to what we have. Though, it's all a matter of perspective.
While there are obvious examples in sci-fi ship design progression, anime such as Space Battleship Yamato has a good example of how several years can impact a space navy. Simple things such as new drives can have a radical impact while the economy of a planet stabilizes, allowing Earth to produce bigger, more advanced ships at a higher rate. Within a few years, the warships look beefier and can do much more than the navy could do ten years ago.
You make a great point. Its all about economics ie star gate doesnt have a large empire to help with r&d,material science, and economy of scale plus they where mainly fighting a stagnant race of inbred crazy parasites (most of the time)
The Gundam franchise is great for this sort of thing, you can trace the design lineages of lots of both ships and mobile suits (and weapons technologies and such). For instance, in the first series we see the mass-production version of the first Gundam, called the GM, then in the subsequent series and movies set in the same era, it's developed into the GM II, then the GM III, then the Jegan, which is itself developed into the spec-ops specialized Jesta and the big, burly Gustav Karl , then later, the (ill-fated) Hardygun, and eventually, in Victory Gundam, to the small, nimble Gun-EZ.
In terms of "old frame, new tech" there was a whole faction that make that sort of their schtick, they built technologically-up-to-date versions of outdated classics, both as a morale measure and to confuse the enemy.
while i do agree with alot of what you said, i dont think the f90(never able to remember which of the f90 series it was) did that well in any way. that was less of a schtick and more of a gimmick. to me the better example of that are the hizacks(which are literal zaku 2 with a new engine and some retrofiting), or the kerberus BuCue from Seed Stargazer(similarly the strike noir and its companions).
The best example of spaceship design evolution is actually from the Pixar movie "Lightyear." While the movie as a whole wasn't great, it was a great sequence to see Buzz fly each new generation of spaceship to test the hyperfuel. During the long periods he was gone (due to time dilation), the scientists had a lot of opportunities to experiment with the design of the spacecraft. He started with the XL-01 and ended with the XL-15. Although LEGO only produced a set of the XL-15, a different toy manufacturer actually made scale models of several of the intermediate designs. It is really interesting to guess at the technology changes that informed the design changes.
Thanks for recognizing Diogo's amazing ship design. I've loved that thing for two years.
Thanks for the support 🙂
You know, if you want to see some really good iterative design, look at the Pegasus class from the Gundam universal century, starting from the white base up through the Albion, it's the same basic design but it keeps getting upgraded with new technologies, or the federation's post Zeta warships which are generally iterative on each other
Edit: or the mobile suits themselves, there is a direct line of the development leading from the RGM-79 GM to the RGM-119 Jamesgun, okay, it's a bit of a loopy line and goes into some unexpected places, but you can see how they got there
8:32 a great example of external pressure forcing a drastic change in design philosophy was the Borg incursion on Wolf 359.
The leisure cruiser Galaxy was replaced by the Sovereign, a proper battleship. New purpose built combat ships like Defiant, Akira and Steamrunner where invented.
Even exploration vessels like Voyager where armed better than the former flagship Galaxy class.
One of my fave things about the Stargate TV franchise was seeing the logical progression of the humans science and technology throughout the franchise run, so it was all fairly plausible later on if not till fantastic 😊
It was so cool to see Torchship here, even if it was only a quick shot of it!
I feel like the Freespace series did an interesting job at spacecraft lineages: both as a level-progression (ships keep getting better) but also in a Stargate kinda way (it's based on alliances and stealing, then integrating new tech).
oh my gosh the Star Patrol ships are so pretty!!!
In some of the B5Wars supplements (Dilgar War?) it gives some iterations of the Star Fury. In the series itself it shows the upgraded Star Fury that can go into atmosphere.
Some from real life that we don't see in sci-fi, is two factions working together to create a new class of ship. That due to faction differences have minor variations, like the Ohio and Vanguard class submarines.
I'd love to see a combined Starfleet/Klingon ship where the two versions had subtle differnces on screen so you knew which version was which.
The Abrams and Leopard (1&2) nearly fall into that category, as they both originated from the joint MBT-70 program (I think that is the proper name for it).
@@hanzzel6086 The Abrams is a mix of bits from different NATO member nations. For example, it uses 1st generation (Chobham) composite armour developed in England in the 1960s.
One of my favorite series for "fast upgrade" (narratively) was the OAV anime Gunbuster. As our two main protagonists are doing battles at relativistic speeds, every time they come back from a mission, years have past, and you see the technology of the world changing for them each time, including the battleships. You see them move from conveyor belt ladders in the halls of a zero G ship to weird hover energy discs to simply move around. It was a fun touch that was happening in the background of the very anime "teenage girls in giant robot fight space aliens" story.
Something similar happens in Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song as the title characters moves on through time.
I love how it all takes place in early 21st century, like they first figured out FTL technology in like late 2000's or early 2010's and the final battle where they have a 700km long ship made out of a single exotic elementary particle takes place in late 2040's
One real life vehicle I look at when trying to come up with a vehicle evolution is the Northrop F-5/F-20, YF-17, F/A-18A/B/C/D and F/A-1E/F (and EA-18G), as well as all the proposals/concepts in-between.
It PERFECTLY highlights the changes in role, doctrine, and timeframe with this family of aircraft.
In some of my settings, the jumps between generations can be surprisingly radical. For example, in the _Failed Future_ setting, Gen1 spaceships (using closed-gas NTR rockets) are slow things (generally less than 2Gs) that are largely a scaffold instead of an armored hull that Gen2s and Gen3s are known for. In addition, they're mostly propellant (usually water or something out of the propane chain group like propane and decane) despite using closed-gas NTRs.
Gen2s and Gen3s are a radical departure because, by that point, humanity developed fusion rockets and later High-Efficiency Plasma Recombustion Fusion Rockets (HePlaR for short and something taken from GURPS Transhuman Space). Practically all ships (as well as drones, shuttles, and missiles) of these generations use water as a propellant and can cross significant portions of the solar system with their megameters of delta-V. So instead of having oodles of propellant, they now have oodles of missile banks, CWIS, guns, and cargo depending on their vehicle type.
Can i have a link to this it seems interesting
@@Teb_ it's still under development right now, so its very incomplete. I'll probably make videos of the setting when it's more complete.
Seems the biggest exception would be Sisko's pimp-hand itself, the Defiant. Both in and out of universe designed to be paradigm breaking, and a direct response to a new threat.
That's one reason Trek makes visual sense. Very few things like tech just pop out of nowhere (Lookin' at you, Spore Drive). The only real deviation over so many shows is probably the Defiant, and even in universe everyone initially thinks it's very strange looking and unusual.
There is the tech in Voyager, but that tends to not work right most the time. Bring it home for RnD to work on.
The computer game I-War had a clear lineage from the Dreadnought class corvette to the smaller Tariq class patrol combatant. Both share the same basic layout and can even attach the same type of command module. The Commonwealth Navy has adapted the existing design to better fit their needs. While the Dreadnought class is still in wide use, they needed smaller cheaper vessels that could be deployed in larger numbers.
The Normandy 1 and 2 have a unique gap in that their manufacturers are completely different but aim for the same goal. However since they were both crewed by the same pliot and captain they both have the identity of "The Normandy". Without a Normandy crew it seems unlikely a Third Normandy will have been christined under the same name.
Most of gundam series do have quite rapid evolution of mobile suits, but Universal Century as main gundam timeline is brightest example. We start with gundam and we at least in anime end on Xi gundam and oh boy is it's bulky.
Well, we do end up into a size regression after that with the MS becoming smaller and more compact, but at the same time becoming more technologically advanced with beam shields, I-fields, and Minovsky flight systems.
@@StrikeNoir105E good they were getting a bit to bulky
@@StrikeNoir105E good they were getting a bit to bulky
3:37 RIP the retinas of anyone who works in that room. That's going to be a lot of workman's comp suits.
The racing ship in the Expanse has like ship evolution on its side which is a really cool detail and is totally what someone would put on their fancy racer.
I'm really happy you highlighted some of deadlock's fantastic designs, great video!
A generally linear designation of ships with clear progression is something I look for all the time in science fiction, I live for seeing those moments when they detail something or another that is better about the newer class versus the older one.
Wathammer 40k's weird sideways evolution is something to consider- there's not so much technological progress in imperial ships, as that's sort of the point of the setting, but there is a large amount of specialization later in the setting. The Horus Heresy shows everyone basically using a standard fleet arrangement of naval expeditions of space marines aboard Gloriana class battle-ships + escorts, with the Word Bearers having the Abyss class as a straight generational upgrade in a much larger, more powerful battleship. However, by 40k, expeditions, navy and space marines don't use the same ships at all. Expeditions are almost exclusively carried out by licensed Rogue Traders, aboard small, longer ranged vessels, often equipped with some degree of scientific/resource extraction equipment and weaponry limited to that designed to deter pirates. The Navy are in the original big pointy battle ships still (often literally the original ones due to losing a lot of their ship-building capacity in the heresy and to the full millenia of Night Lord raids), but the Space Marines are now siloed off to their own fleets, specialised for the planetary assaults their super-human crew are designed for- in the battle-barge, whilst the same name was sometimes used to describe crusade/heresy era ships, you've got a dedicated assault craft that simply wasn't in wide use during the Heresy.
This also seems to create a weird logistical issue, in that, as mentioned, the Navy has basically just been re-fitting the same battlegroups for millenia, whilst all the newer models seem to be those for more recent marine foundings. Which makes sense with the deference the humans have towards space-marines, but not from a military standpoint given the original point was just to make sure the space marines didn't have effective combat fleets. The end result is neither seem to have effective fleet production- someone's presumably churning out battlebarges at least fast enough to supply basically an entire fleet of them every few centuries or so (given that at least 2 foundings consisted of over 42 chapters-that's the confirmed number of 2nd founding chapters, and the 21st was apparently even larger), and yet half the actual navy can't get replacements for their actually more important ships (because marines can be quartered on Navy warships- after all, they were for centuries, whilst chapter fleets explicitly can't match equivalent naval vessels)
The Imperial Navy's "battlecruiser acquisiton" strategy is a great one.
You have a bunch of Cruisers, Lunar class etc.
Some of them get heavily damaged but survive.
You rebuild it and upgrade it while doing so, ending up with a ship rather similar to the original cruiser but you now have more firepower thanks to the turrets you put on the top.
Congrats, you have got battlecruisers.
I'd disagree with some of your assertions there (the Glorianas, for example, were very much a limited run, with less than 30 being built, compared to well over a thousand Crusade Expeditionary Fleets. And for that matter, the Gloriana was really only a 'class' of ship in the French style: they had roughly the same minimum spec, but each one was notably different from the others, reflecting the style and preferences of their users), although it is an interesting setting to consider.
For example: the Imperium has roughly 3 major design philosophies and ship lineages, and they effect how a ship is laid out and built. The oldest seems to be keel-built ships (most commonly seen now among the Chaos fleets, with designs like the Slaughter and Devastation class cruisers, the Styx and Acheron heavy cruisers, and the Despoiler class battleship; but also includes Astartes ships like the Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge, albeit with a caveat for those which I'll get to), which are produced by starting with a flat horizontal plate of adamantium and building decks above and below it. Apparently, this allows for more efficiently laid out drive systems, but limits the size of individual guns, as the preference is generally to mount them solely above the keel plate (there are exceptions, with honourable mention going to the Avenger grand cruiser and its stablemates the Exorcist and Vengeance classes, all of which represent something of a transitional design between trends).
The newer, and more prevalent trend in the Imperial Navy is for spinal-built ships, in which the initial adamantium stiffening plate is aligned vertically, and the ship built out on either side. This allows for better damage control when fighting broadside to broadside, as it's much harder for enemy fire to rake across your ship and disable your port and starboard batteries in a single salvo when the densest and toughest part of the ship is in the way.
The third philosophy is most common with ships below the line of battle (although the shipyards at Voss produce three classes of light cruiser, the Defiance, Endurance and Endeavour classes, based around it): the axial- or frame-built ship. Instead of a single massive plate, the ships are built around a central, heavily protected pipe (and in some cases, that 'pipe' is so large it is effectively the entire hull. This is where the caveat regarding Astartes vessels comes in: given how heavily their flanks are armoured, and how little there typically is above the keel, they can almost be considered frame-built). The problem with this design is while it maximises internal volume, and minimises transit issues aboard ship (it's excellent for through-deck carrier ops, or for shifting munitions from a protected magazine aft to a prow battery), unless you go really big, it winds up more fragile than traditional keel- or spinal-built designs. To try and combat this, you see a number of ships carrying large boom-mounted armour plates to act almost as Whipple shields.
Regardless, the biggest problem and expenditure with building new ships is that initial plate- you need to get a multi-kilometer chunk of adamantium, with holes for cross-corridors and access shafts in the right places. This is understandably a pain in the fundament, so if you can find a keel/spine from an existing (or even a wrecked) ship, it's a lot easier to rebuild around it. And if you know what that old ship was called, why not re-use the name?
That's not to say the Imperium's shipyards aren't building new ships from scratch, as they do (and in some surprising places as well: the Lunar-class cruiser Lord Daros was built in orbit around the Feral world of Unloth, using conscripted local labour and materials. It only took 11 years. Imagine what a proper shipyard could manage?), but it's a lot easier and cheaper to build ships of cruiser size and below than to try and produce 7km+ grand cruisers and battleships. There's even design and developmental work going on creating truly new classes (the Chalice-class battlecruiser, for example, was first built some time between 322 and 384.M39, while the first Falchion-class frigate was only laid down in 261.M41), although not all of those live up to expectations (the Chalice-class had something of a glass jaw, with a tendency to rupturing plasma conduits; the Turbulent-class heavy frigate was cramped, with inefficient energy transfer systems for her weapons, and antiquated comms systems).
I can't deny, however, that there is an apparent logistical discrepancy in the number of Battle Barges, other than to say that a number of them are refits of grand cruisers and battleships, and the majority of chapters only possess 2 or 3 of them. Sure, there are chapters like the Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, and Black templars that have more, but there are also chapters like the Iron Snakes which don't seem to have any. If we take 3 to be the average, that's only 3000 ships, built over 10,000 years (not counting replacements for destroyed vessels). That's not a massive number, considering.
@@ala5530 it's worth noting that there are more completed chapters than current ones- the 21st was apparently both massive and largely resulted in heretics, piles of tentacles, accidental time travelers, burning ghosts and similarly non-productive fleet assets. Which is probably also why this is a logistics problem- the battle-barges that are constructed from the ground up are inevitably immediately given to the fleet commanders with the least overall experience. I mean, sure, naval officers have 1/3rd of the life expectancy and worse memories, but I suspect no amount of psycho-indoctrination is going to quite cover the gap between a human naval commander who's actually risen through the ranks via successful work in combat situations and a super-cave man who's only previous experience with space travel was the one time he fell out of a tree when he was 6.
The Kusanagi is AMAZING and is my favorite thing so far this year.
Another series you could have included in this was the Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers) series of ships. You had the design lineage of the United Nations Cosmo Navy both before the integration of Iscandarian technology. The design evolution of the later Cosmo Navy craft as well as those of the Gamilas, Gatlantis (Comet Empire) etc.
I Loved this one. And I totally agree. The changes (or lack there of) on your ships, weapons and support tech is going to reflect the story and the groups in your story. Star Wars’ fantasy roots are in the timelessness of fairy tails. SG-1 is has as a core feature the rise of humanity as the old empires fall.
Except we never, ever see how the changes in regime affect the common person in the whole SW story, tv included.
@@davejones9469 This was mostly about ships and fighters but we have seen some things. But they were not the focus of the story. We did see some in Rogue One how believers were affected. But that is story focus mostly.
@@leodouskyron5671 Rogue One destroyed canon. They can fire the death star at restricted power. Lots of use for that. Their ship development eventually reflecting the bs ship designs. At least they remembered Y Wings exist..
There's a block based shipbuilding game out there called Reassembly, and it's quite interesting for me to look back at my designs as I've unlocked parts and upgraded.
For some reason i put a basic serial number on my designs - the first one was G1-01 (First generation, first design). And being able to track the history of how i designed my ships as i got better at the game is really quite interesting. Every time i unlocked a big chunk of new blocks would be a generation. G4-05 is where things began to solidify, and even though I've been playing the game for several years now, i still come back to that design as kind of a benchmark.
Reassembly is pretty great, give it a shot!
One of the most interesting examples of design lineage in Star Wars is Delta 7 Jedi Starfighter > Eta 2 Jedi interceptor > TIE Fighter. How to get from arrow shaped craft to something as wildly different as TIE fighter in just one intermediate step.
Remember this: Designing Spacecraft Lineages is heavily tide into "Mission Profile" is it single purpose or milti-purpose? When the Starfleet changed its overall mission profile, so did the look of the fleet. After the Dominion War, mission profile changed from exploration to defense. Which is why i love the idea behind the USS Protostar and the crew of the Voyager being behind it. Advancements in propulsion system with reactor upgrades was necessary for the future of exploration from Starfleet. But it looks like most of its future timelines showed that it never got back to being fully exploration again like the old days.
I would suggest Babylon 5 might also be worthy of consideration. By the time of the show itself, you had the omega class destroyers as their primary ship, but they also had several Schwarzkopf class battleships, which were basically the same as the Omega‘s, but without the carousel section, and then prior to that you had some sort of tender thing that we only see in the war. And, of course, after the show ends, they switched to the warlock design, which theoretically was an extension of the Schwarzkopf and Omega’s, though I admit, that’s a bit of a stretch . There was also the star fury which you’ve discussed elsewhere on here and the advanced Star fury that could go in the atmosphere later on in the series, and there was supposed to be a even earlier design called the badger which was designed, but they didn’t have the time or money to build a cockpit set for it, and render a whole bunch of them properly for the in the beginning movie. It is a really interesting design though. and then you’ve got the Minbari white star design which leads to the Valen design, which is ugly as hell, but partially based on human tech, which then leads to the Excalibar class ship in crusade, which was a hybrid of human and minbari technology, with a little bit of Vorlon thrown in. You’ve also got the 20 years in the future in miniature white stars.
that kind of reminds me of the gundam design line, with the main unit(the gundam RX-78-2) being "downgraded" to be mass produced, which lead to the gm. which got a weaker reactor and less expensive(as well as nowhere near as good) armor. and it if you follow the gm design tree, you will end up at the gm sniper II, which while made for a sniper role, was actually powerfull enough to rival the original gundam in many aspects(while surpassing it in some, but also being lesser in others).
My 3 fave ship designs are all from British sci-fi and all deserve upgrades. Blakes 7 Liberator, Space 1999 Eagles and Red Dwarf Star Bug. All fantastic in their simplicity.
The Eagles were awesome!
In star trek we have also seen the change of computer systems running these vessels like the Duotronic systems,Multitronic system,Isolinear systems and Bioneural systems
Except the "new" transporter gun that's existed since the Videans in Voyager, and possibly even a variation in Enterprise.
Mobile suit gundams universal century timeline does an amazing job of this: so many of the design changes over generations are driven by in universe explanations
In starwars you also have the evolution of Incom Corp.'s fighters from the Z-95 headhunter used in the clone wars to the T-70 X-wing used by the Resistance.
I've done a fair bit of evolving spacecraft lineages. My most recent one is a starship that I designed long, long ago, probably over 15 yeas ago in fact. It was a cool design, and I called it the Interceptor class, designed for ship to ship combat, and high maneuverability, with large engines built away from the central axis of the ship, and a main drive engine at the core. As the years went on though, not only did the needs of my star fleet change, but the design itself started to break down. A couple of refits and overhauls couldn't make up for a major structural weakness that developed.
So, a new version was commissioned. The fleet now had support ships to take up the role of interception, but it needed a new heavy hitter. The design of the ship stayed the same, but it became about 25% larger, had drastically improved armour, more advanced weapons, a more robust shield projector system, and the addition of a detachable dedicated interceptor craft. Since the ship itself was no longer an interceptor type, the class name was changed too. The new name was taken from the fourth ship of the Interceptor class, "RSS Infernal, FR 1443", to be the new Infernal class.
In terms of weapons in particular, the old design had four main turrets on the front, and a good coverage of smaller weapons around the ship. The main turrets had limited fields of fire, mainly in that they only had rotation on the X axis, though this problem was somewhat mitigated by mounting two of the turrets on the sides of the ship, so their X was the ship's Y. The new design reduces the turrets to two, but gives them two barrels each, and gives them 360 x 110 degrees of rotation. It also uses some of the extra space to add forward mounted MAC cannons, torpedo launchers, and a wider variety of other weapons across the ship.
I'm also currently working on a new 4th gen heavy carrier starship, recently made the 9th gen tank, and I have plans in mind for the 15th version of my gunship, and 17th version of aerofighter.
The F-16 fighter was named "Viper" unofficially by its pilots, and they documented the name as being based on the Battlestar Galactica Colonial Vipers. The Viper Mk. VII takes aesthetic elements from the F-16 (someone from the production team said it was either F-16 or F-18 not knowing the difference between the two but it is clearly F-16). Thus the Viper Mk. VII is designed as a combination of two other types of Viper, one of which is from the real world. The fact it has such a complex computer system is also a reference to the F-16 which was the first USAF fighter to use full fly-by-wire control systems.
I think one of my favorite technological sci-fi craft evolutions is that Zaku line from the Mobile Suit Gundam universe. The base Zaku I looks and certainly moves like a predecessor to the iconic Zaku II, the Zaku II taking traits of the Zaku I and applying combat lessons learned from previous engagements. The next member in the line is the Zaku III, which is bulkier and more heavily armed than its predecessors without compromising mobility or generator output. These three perfectly follow the ever increasing dinosaurian growth mobile suits experienced by getting bigger, heavier, and armed with more powerful beam weaponry. The Zaku I and II started with ballistic projectiles and the Zaku III had built in beam weapons. The last members of the Zaku line, the Geara Doga and Geara Zulu, take things in an interesting way by trimming the fat and slimming down. The end result is a further increase in mobility while allowing for mission flexibility and ease of mass production. There are also two other suits that, while from a different faction, represent a transitory step between ballistic weapons to beam weapons: the Hi-Zack and the Marasai.
I'm glad you mentioned adapting ship designs to match or at least respond to different technology they encounter. Thats a major driving force in current jet fighter design, where you have countries inovating to one up even rumors about enemy fighter capabilities. The only time I've seen that in Star Wars was the evolution of the TIE series, creating the TIE Advanced and the TIE Defender as direct response to the Rebels shielded and hyperspace capable ships. In Star Trek its only in the Enterprise E and thr Defiant, both of which were designed in reslonse to the Borg, even if they faced a lot of other enemies to boot.
I've wanted to see a video like this for a while. Thank you!
There's also something to be said about each franchises built in "momentum" in ship design. It would be like seeing McDonalds without the golden arches. You just expect to see a certain thing. It's almost like a trademark and I think a departure from a "traditional" design in most universes will get more fan backlash than other more familiar designs.
I was hoping you'd make a montage of the Toyota Camry thru the years as a comparable evolution sequence.
The Tie fighter from Star was has probably the most iterations, from the original T.I.E fighter, tie/LN, production model, Tie/IN interceptor, Tie/sa bomber, Tie/br boarding shuttle, The Tie experimental series (Tie/M1-5), Tie Reaper, Tie lander, Tie brute, Tie Striker, Tie Advanced series (ranging from the original X1- to the production x7 "tie avenger", and the V7 of the imperial inquisitor fame) to the Tie/D tie defender . Then there's the newer stuff from the "sequels". The humble, often (and sometimes rightly) maligned tie fighter has been designed and redesigned over and over again to do pretty much anything a space navy would want to possibly do. from swarm fighters, to high performance multi-role strike craft, to boarding craft, scouts, training drones and experimental testbeds for new technology the tie fighter has done it all. It's a testament to it's design really, that 130 years after it's original introduction it was still being used in some form.
First One is Star Trek, but instead of focusing on the canonical timeline (the fluff) I think design is better to focus in the publishing timeline (behind the scenes). Star Trek was first but before then all space ships followed two designs, the rocket 🚀 and the disk 🥏
stargate was HUGE on the whole "upgrade tech" thing. Railguns, these were meant for this ship but...
The hull of this ship was made from minerals mined by these aliens on this planet, every single piece of tech, every component, from engines to rings, could be traced back to another episode where humans found, then decoded, then learned to reproduce the tech.
when i used to create my own designs for a story/roleplay thing i was doing my early designs were huge lumbering crates armed with several dozen fixed forward firing beam weapons. By the end the ships had downgraded to a fraction of the size equiped with small arrays of complimentary weapons to break shields and shatter underlying armors. The "human" ships never had shields beyond a "pinched energy shield" which was basically 2 gravimetric fields squishing a layer of ultra fine particulate that was intended to scatter and disperse energy based weapons and such a "shield couldnt just be run non stop and it wasnt a complete coverage.
Basically my story telling went from "have all the ships in a big wall formation and everyone pulls the trigger on thier 100 beam weapons at the same time" to "smaller formations of smaller ships operating together to tactically defeat opponents in small set piece battles as a part of a much larger overall universe"
My designs tended to inspire each other as well, and In my story i even have/had some designs that i really liked but they didnt really fit the narrative so they appear, and then are "withdrawn" converted to other roles such as my aptly named "kineticdeath" class cruiser which was supposed to fly in a straight line as fast as possible and fire its single coilgun style cannon to a percentage of light speed before slowing to a maneuvering speed and departing. It was refit into the "Kineticdeath II" which was a reccon and surveillance platform. My earliest 3d model designs though have visual cues that tie them into my last, most recent 3d design and thats something I find really cool
Hard to believe you guys showed star wars but didn't show the evolutions in the TIE line.
From the basic TIE with it's no shields, hyperdrive, or life support, basic hexagonal solar panels and 2 rapid-fire light laser cannons to the Advanced X-1 to the Interceptor to the Avenger to the Defender, the TIEs constantly evolved to better perform their role, with each iteration being shown by having different/more surface-area solar panels, more potent weapons, additions like shielding and hyperdrives, and so on.
I know others will hgave beaten me to it but I still wanted to say it :P
That's what I do on my comics, there is a lot of changes on my space craft, the first generation is on the shape of Space Battleship Yamato (with only one space craft still into service), the second one on a more likely Stargate shapes, with a Prometheus looking, a long ship with two powerful engins on the sides, and a huge tower for the main bridge on the back. And the last generation still not into service is looking like the "the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These", with a look with the Galactic Empire shapes with few sharps things on the hull.
That's how I did to make differences between every generation of space crafts in my universe.
It's not in space, or even science fiction, but one example of this sort of iterative design process actually happening would be Knight's and Magic; a fantasy mecha light novel/manga/anime (whatever). The main characters are essentially an engineering team, so it's not too surprising that you see the various kingdoms around them iterating on their robot designs over the course of the story, including some parts about how they're going to retrofit older designs to ease the adoption of the technology the protagonists (and some villains) are introducing into the ecosystem. There are also sections about various groups adapting to technological pressures from their neighbors in their weapon design.
I havnt watched Picard yet so seeing the Odyssey Class has now been brought into cannon has made me UNREASONABLY excited!!!
Obvious mention of Gundam here. The family trees for some of the mobile suits present in both the UC series and all the alternate universes can get downright crazy. And don't get me started on the tangle that is the TR-6 line. There is also the fact that in the UC era, they are actually split into separate generations depending on technological advancements.
Cough the Defiant😂 @8:30
Thanks for the mention!
It's hard to make a video about spaceships that only appear in books, but comments are good for text!
Lensmen is famous for its "arms race" development. It doesn't have precise lineages, but development does fork off into new directions (from pre-Galactic Patrol ships, to maulers and negasphere handlers and strategy controllers, to intergalactic courier hulls).
But Doc Smith's other big series, Skylark, is all about one lineage - the Skylark herself. Right from the first book she's already a work in progress, as her first voyage is pursued by a second Skylark design from the same builders! And the ship is completely overhauled to accommodate new physical laws several times. At some point I recall they actually have space for a nice cottage somewhere inside the main computer, a far cry from the more conventional design of the early capsules.
Surprised y’all didn’t include the starfury. I know y’all love that one.
This is potentially a really interesting topic. Even one of these franchises could be a whole series, rather than one video. But the thing that seems conspicuously missing here is the design lineages of real world things as a point of reference. The evolution of submarines, surface ships, or airplanes for a comparison to how things evolve in sci fi would be the context that makes this a lot more substantial.
Missed opportunity to also put Homeworld into this as there's been some huge design shifts over the years. But I absolutely loved this video, thank you.
GOOD PLUG for Deadlock, if you want a fun space fleet game (that's now offered as free somewhere) all tied in the BSG universe, Deadlock is lots of fun, I have 300+ hours in it, and have done all the DLC campaigns. Obv the Spacedock folks love it, so give it a try. Love the lineage lore!
Earthforce in Babylon 5 had great progression. The Hyperion Class had no gravity, relatively small, and required crews to strap in significantly limiting their mobility in the ship. The Omega Class incorporated the spinning section that gave them gravity as well as a significant increase in size. The Omega also carried a significant compliment of Starfurys make it more of a battle carrier than a destroyer. Next the Warlock Class incorporated gravity tech w/o the need for a spinning section and the power cores of that class allowed for 2 fixed AEGIS planetary defense beam weapons that could rip apart any ship of the "younger races." Finally. While not purely an Earth Alliance design, the Victory Class destroyers where an exponential jump in size, power and fighter carrying capability. Those 4 ships really show an incredible jump in design and technology over the 20 year time span from the Earth-Mimbari war to the events of Crusade.
I have a soft spot for the Nova class. Absolutely no subtlety about it. Designed to close with the enemy, rip their arms off, and beat them to death with the bloody stumps. A bare-knuckle brawler par excellence.
The Minbari had other ideas about letting it do its job, however.
This was really interesting. I think this factor is one of the few spaceship design elements that ISN'T included in Star Citizen's phenomenal ship designs, and now I wish it was.
The fact the EU design's are even briefly mentioned leaves the Starwars section unfinished.
In Starwars the Star Destroyer form is an old Sith design, which was carried over, in terms of universe.
I'd like an hour long video going into further detail on the subject, or a series of smaller ones.
One thing that I really miss in a lot of common sci fi shows is adapting and progressing designs for the periods they are active in, and to match the threats they face.
Drawing from our own history, for example, US Navy destroyers at the start of WWII were very "min-maxed" designs with stability issues and little room for upgrades built to squeeze every ounce of surface firepower out of the treaty displacement limits. This came at the cost of AA armaments, with most ships just carrying a few machine guns and dual-purpose main guns. Sufficient for 30s era aircraft, not modern air threats.
In the mid-war period, we start to see the 20mm and 40mm guns festoon existing designs as they are cycled off the front line for repairs and refits. Generally, these ships lose some gun or torpedo mounts to fit them due to stability issues. Some are relegated to secondary theaters, sent to serve with allied forces, or converted into tender vessels or fast troop transports. We also start to see the legendary Fletcher-class enter service, a design that does away with the treaty limits and produces an excellent, large ship with a distinctive flush-deck compared to the stepped decks of earlier ships - this deals better with battle damage. A ship truly built for war.
The late-war era sees the threat shift, from surface, sub-surface and aerial threats to mostly air attack. The axis forces deploy new weapons and tactics in air attacks, while their surface fleets largely cease to exist. The US Navy is forced to adapt. Even the larger Fletchers now have to trade some of their torpedo weaponry for AA guns - There aren't many warships to use those torpedoes on anymore anyways. Some are converted into specialized radar picket destroyers with no torpedoes but reinforced masts to carry larger radars, and covered in AAA, as they operate detached from the fleet and are a vulnerable target.
In my opinion, one franchise that does this pretty well is Halo.
there's one mistake you've made - there is a tangible difference between MK1 and MK2 vipers - armour. Viper mk1 was a protected fighter that used armour to keep itself alive, however at some point people realized "Don't get hit" is better than "Don't get injured" for light craft so stripped armour, focused on manoeuvrability and boom, that's your mark 2
One thing that doesn't get brought up often enough, is that the visual design of ships in Star Wars is meant to contrast artisanal ship design and manufacturing with full on industrialization.
The Ep has more flowing lines and curves, even the droid army and their massive ground transport still resembles organics.
But by episode 2 everything becomes more boxy and integrated. The Republic's vehicles look more streamlined for production, and you see more droids as weapons such as the various tank droids.
By the original, everything is a boxy, used future.
This topic is displayed in quite interesting way in Yamato 2199 and other designs form this universe. There is Cosmo navy form the beginning of the series then we have titular yamato but it's not meant as ship of the line and then we have new design witch incorporate features form booth yamato and earlier designs with its culmination being Andromeda class.
V interesting, love what you do, Spacedock!
The Viper mark 3, I love so much. I think it’s the perfect Viper. Armored, agile, heavily armed. Only downside is the cost, which, to be fair, is a big one.
That blue-gray coating, though. So good. Better than the stark white, I like to think.
The FreeSpace franchise does this well, especially if you include 150 odd fan-made campaigns and about as many fan made fighters and ships over the last 20+ years.
Excellent discussion.
Not exactly what you were talking about. But one thing I really love is advanced/restricted technology becoming consumer grade over the generations.
For example, Spike's ship from Cowboy Bebop, which used to be a racing ship before it was outmoded.
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and very well informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and form possibly provided indeed, 👌.
Before I forget -- got no love for Masao Okazaki's Starfleet Museum? He set out to evolve a whole family tree of designs from the very first crude matter/antimatter-powered ships all the way to Matt Jefferies' classic design and a little bit beyond. He even has a couple of dead-end designs and one modular design, the Paris class, that could have been taken a lot further (and somewhere in the Multiverse probably was).
Been a while but here is another attempt. I'd love an episode on Captain Harlock's Arcadia
I've been writing for fun a little setting where each star power has their own major rival. So they build their fleet mostly to fight them, and then have to make alternatives to deal with everyone else.
I feel the evolution of the Prometheus/Daedalus classes in Star Gate missed a huge opportunity to mention the use of Freed planets as potential resources in advancing SG-Commands technology. Like using now free Shipwrights at captured Gou'uld facilities to aid in designing or building the Ships off world. The clash of Tau'ri designs merging with the traditional, ritualistic and ceremonial displays of the System Lords technology. The Bickering cause by the conflicting design philosophies would be hilarious to hear about or have witnesses in person.
Great work! Will you be doing a breakdown video on the Titan/Enterprise-G?
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Babylon 5. It is a great example of ship development and evolution. If you look at earth alliances ships, you see a clear scale of technological advancement.
There is a Fan made Star Trek design out there called the Diligent that should be noted. A beautiful and well thought out design.
I do really like the way mobile suits and ships evolved in Mobile Suit Gundam, as messy as it is sometimes. Really gives the vibe of 2 factions locked in a death struggle grasping a scraping for every possible advantage, all winding up with a mishmashed collection of overtuned hotrod like weapons Dueling it out
more than the oyw era, i feel like its even more interesting later, as we see things like the use of retrofit zakus into hizacks, while the main gundam line ends up in a tech dead end with the GP series, but, its the custom gm, made using that tech, that went on to the design of the MK-II... which also went disregarded as the new delta line became able to produce transformable machines.
the best of all, is how we see tech reach its plateau, and be suplanted by other stuff that while influencied by it, doesnt really has the capability(or political power as is often the case in gundam) to deliver.
I have a very long running setting that has multiple 'lines' of diverging and converging designs. Adding in experimental models that don't look much like their siblings, and maybe spawning their own later branches or updates across all models depending on the results. Also maybe a vessel starts as a 'cruiser', but tends to be used in a certain role... So the next iteration has a heavier focus on that role and it is reflected in the styling and equipment.
Other vessels prove so iconic that when they must be retired a completely new from the ground up, but identical in functional appearance design is created though it may now be larger or smaller than the original as technology has changed. Maybe the original was very manpower intensive and had a 500 person crew, but automation now allows the same capability with just 100 people. So you can shrink the design as life support and crew facilities can be 1/5 what they were.🤷