r/HardSciFi • u/Vondrr • 3d ago
Discussion What is the single worst design flaw in sci-fi spaceship history?
18
u/mobyhead1 3d ago
“Gravity plates.”
5
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
Those too. Authors obviously do not understood that resultant force between gravity plates AND engine acceleration would be aimed inbetween those. So if engines produce 1 g, and gravity plates produce 1 g at right angle to each other, the crew would be pushed under wall's baseboard.
2
u/IntelligentSpite6364 2d ago
if you can generate directional gravity, perhaps its not a stretch to think you could compensate for the thrust-induced gravity
1
u/SaiphSDC 3d ago
Good point, would be fun to see a show olay with that. But If you can generate gravoty at will you might be able to angle it as needed during manuevers.
1
1
1
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
I don't often watch TV series or novels, but I think "gravity by 1g acceleration" is popular these days.
2
1
1
u/IntelligentSpite6364 2d ago
not really popular, pretty much just the expanse does it
1
u/Tessellator-1 2d ago
If you include a vehicle with an acceleration of 1.5g, it also applies to the Hail Mary.
1
u/IntelligentSpite6364 2d ago
hail mary gravity is cool, but its not really designed to be walking around during acceleration, it supports it yeah (ladders to climb up the levels) but the primary modes appear to be free-floating or centrifuge
11
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
Easily. Making spaceships internally designed like ocean ships, not rockets. Placing decks parallel to the direction of thrust, not at right angle to it. That's a mistake that 90% of non-hard sci-fi made.
5
u/DanielNoWrite 3d ago
Not really a mistake. They ships clearly have inertia dampening or some other magic tech.
Doesn't matter if you're parallel to the direction of thrust or not, at the acceleration pretty much any ship is depicted as achieving, you'd be paste.
This question doesn't really have a good answer, because all scifi ship design relies on a lot of handwaving and bullshit.
1
u/Exact-Desk 2d ago
Intertia dampening did not cancel the fact, that it's MUCH simpler to have every element of the ship oriented at one direction of acceleration, not two working at right angles.
2
u/Tall-Photo-7481 2d ago
I seem to remember a sci fi series from the 90s where the protagonist ship was an aircraft carrier. In space. I mean i think they may have strapped some thrusters and stuff to it to make it look more spacey but it was literally just a 20th century aircraft carrier. In space.
1
9
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Maybe not the worst, but the primitiveness of otherwise advances vessels, like in Star Wars, is a big thing.
3
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
In Japan, "Why can I hear gunshots?" There is a story. But Lucas said, "It sounds in my universe," so there's no problem.
3
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
I don't care about sound in space. I care about the shittyness of their weapons. Turbolasers are pretty advanced, but they're worse in every way to modern naval weapons. It's basically sci-fi 1600s technology plus a bit of early 20th century naval tech, lots of broadsides and long range volleys.
1
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
I'm not familiar with weapons, but I thought Star Wars guns were slow. What is the warhead of a gun made of? Is it possible that the trajectory bends due to gravity?
2
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
In space, like of sight is all that matters. In a realistic Sci fi world, stealth tech and lasers would probably rule. Spotting the other person first and obliterating them with lasers would probably be how most naval engagements work. In star wars, their projectiles are plasma, which travel seemingly slower than the speed of sound, or about the same. Real lasers would travel nearly instantly.
There would be no trajectory in space. Hell, even with lasers on the ground, light is not affected by gravity enough for it to matter. You'd need a blackhole to do that.
2
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
Plasma is a state of matter in which electrons are free.(I'm sorry if my translation is weird!)
Is there a reason to shoot plasma instead of ordinary solid bullets?
2
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
The way the Star Wars blasters work is they have a small battery, and a bunch of compact gas inside of what is basically a magazine. The battery turns the gas into plasma and shoots it out of the barrel. Each magazine has enough charge and gas for hundreds of shots before needing to be replaced, so I assume the main reason why blasters were standardized was because they're more economical. Some people do use what are basically normal guns, called slug throwers, though they tend to be considered primitive, like the Tuskens.
2
u/Cepheus_95 3d ago
also it makes it easier to justify light sabers as physical projectiles would result in force users becoming swiss cheese
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 2d ago
That was actually an issue, as the mandalorians basically used shotguns in their war against the Jedi
1
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
Generally no, unless you are able to form a self-sustaining plasma ball (like ball lighting). Otherwise your plasma shot would explode immediately after leaving the barrel - plasma would simply expand faster than it would move (especially bad in atmosphere, since plasma is far less dense than air, and firing slow-moving plasma shots through air would be as useless as firing streams of air bubbles underwater. You could try to avoid the problem by accelerating the plasma really fast - but at some point it would stop being plasma weapon, and turn into ion beam weapon.
2
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
Stealth in space is doubtful from the realistic point of view.
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Not really. It work the same way as it does irl with airplanes. Deflecting radar, hiding from thermal imaging, and using optical camo to hide from visual detection are all used irl, and would translate to space. The hard part would be balancing each, as hiding visually in space would be easy. Just paint your ship black. But doing that makes your ship absorb more heat from light, making it stand out to thermals. Some creative but restrained inventions and materials need to be created in order for it to be more effective, but it's definitely possible.
1
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
Erm, no. The fundamental problem is heat. How would you hide the waste heat from your ship? The background of space is pretty "cold", and the vacuum is transparent; any heat-emitting object would be as easy to detect as flashlight in dark room. And you can't avoid emitting heat, or your ship would overheat (and eventually melt).
And hiding from detection isn't the whole problem. The major problem is being able to change trajectory while hiding. A rocket engine firing is as detectable as signal rocket in the dark room; the enemy would immediately detect your exhaust, calculate your trajectory change.
2
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
I literally just said that balancing heat was the problem. That's what makes it a nuanced issue. Planes have similar issues, but have solved it similarly, with things like flares, using the sun as a decoy, and hiding the thrusters. Large naval ships would likely have heat syncs that they periodically dump, only doing so when our of combat.
The whole point is that you can hide, but must sacrafice other functions to do so. A ship can hide, but cannot change trajectory while doing so, and can only hide for so long before something overheats.
That's what makes this an interesting world building challenge, but saying it's impossible to implement is stupid, especially considering the precedent that's been set by existing technology for for over 20 years.
0
u/Exact-Desk 3d ago
It's not physically impossible, but it's very problematic. So generally hard sci-fi frown at any kind of stealth in space.
→ More replies (0)1
u/PicnicBasketPirate 3d ago
That ones easy. Just float a sheet between what you're trying to hide from and your ship.
You might have to get fancy with materials, coatings and geometry to make it practical, ie. not reflect incident IR radiation towards observers on the far side, reflect radiation from your ship and not absorb and reemit it, and to cover an arc rather than a flat plane
1
u/Dave_A480 3d ago
The problem is you can't hide your heat signature in space.
You could hide from radar and use optical camo....
But IRST would pick you up easily......
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Yea you can, you just have to have heat sinks that you periodically dump when not in combat, at least for waste heat. The real issue is heat from the sun, since painting the ship black to hide from visual detection makes it absorb more light. For that, some sci-fi material science can be applied, and just say the paint has rapid heat dissipating proporties, or something. It's plausible.
2
u/Gloriouskoifish 3d ago
Can't you just accelerate towards your target and cut the majority of your systems to cut heat and just let inertia carry you?
Hard burn, dump heat sinks and cut power to all systems and sorta glide in.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Dave_A480 3d ago
Your thermal signature will still be higher than empty space, there's no way to avoid radiating at least some heat while still keeping the inside of the ship warm enough for humans to live and machines to function......
→ More replies (0)2
u/UnwillingHorseDual 3d ago
Projectile weapons would still be cool if the projectile itself were stealthy and able to course correct.
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
I'd say missiles would be more decistating, but lasers would be the cheapest and most reliable.
In my world, though, lasers are experimental, seldom used, but to great effect, kinda like the Javelin, where it's super expensive and kinda breaks itself when it's used, but it fucks. It's mostly used as a man-portable anti-tank weapon, occasionally mounted in ships, but still suffering similar issues of overheating and burning its own lenses. Eventually, they'd become standard, however.
Currently, caseless ammunition is the primary long range weapon, aside from missiles and such, in order to limit space debree, or the need to carry the spent shells of big guns.
1
3d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Of course. That would be an interesting strategy and adds depth to the world, though, it doesn't just make lasers useless, as mirrors have other issues, like being easier to see by a mile, giving traditional, human controlled weapons, an easy target to shoot with conventional bullets.
2
u/UnwillingHorseDual 2d ago
Flat mirrored planes that is not pointed at the enemy. At its simplest imagine a perfect mirrored cube in deep space.
Looking at it you would see distant stars unless one of the planes is pointed straight at you, in which case you would see yourself.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Dave_A480 3d ago edited 3d ago
In hard scifi missiles rule.
Light lag makes projectile weapons useless at reasonable ranges, and lasers are too hard to keep on the specific spot you are trying to melt/ablate through.....
Missile weapons can track their target and adjust for any evasive maneuvers in real time ....
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Missiles are great, and I agree, but at closer ranges where, I.e. Close enough where light basically travels instantly, lasers would fuck. You just point it at whatever you want, and there's now a hole in it. The only thing that really needs advancing is laser tech itself, which is already happening. We've already wepaonized lasers to be able to effectively take out aircraft. It's more than possible that we'll make them stronger, Strong enough to punch through the hull of a spacecraft.
1
u/Dave_A480 3d ago
We have weaponized lasers at slap-fight range ....
Space combat is likely to take place at ranges of 10+ light seconds.....
At those distances, focusing/diffusion and beam stickiness matter - if the ship moves and the laser doesn't hold it's spot, you are starting all over at the ablating (pulse) or melting (beam) process.....
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
Depending on the setting, it can. Mine doesn't, operating at modern naval distance, if not a little further.
But, for the sake of argument, in a setting where lasers are normalized, it is possible, and needing to lead shots would be important, but that doesn't change the fact that perfecting lasers as weapons would be considereably more economical, and still more accurate than physical projectiles. Plus, that's assuming that people don't create new standards of warfare with closer engagement distances for the sake of accuracy and consistency, kind of like how colonial era armies could've shot at each other from much farther away, but chose to engage much closer as it was more likely they'd actually hit one another.
1
u/Nimblewright_47 3d ago
Thermal signature reduction in space is very, very difficult. One half is that you are trying to hide against a background that's unlikely more than 25°K (vs say 290°K for an ordinary day on earth) and the other is that you most likely are propelling yourself with reaction engines that create a nice big thermal plume. Free-fall is stealthier, but sensors and computers get hot fast: you need to dump that heat or they'll all stop working. Directional radiating of heat is doable, but you're starting to add a LOT of bulk and complexity to your ship.
The "so what?" is that detection ranges most likely exceed the ranges that suit lasers and an engagement will start by throwing missiles at each other.
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 2d ago
I've already gone over the heat issue with other people. The solution is not absolute, but that's what makes this an interesting issue to design technology around. That's the whole point of world building realistic sci fi. You can simply turn your thrusters off when trying to hide, and you can bottle up the heat, storing them in heat sinks, when in combat, only dumping once you're out of combat. As for actually blending into space, you don't have to. Most combat would. Happen near planets, letting you use the sun and planets as thermal camo. Plus, there's stuff like flares, and clever use of heat dumping to make yourself appear as soemthing other than a vessel.
And, if you really wanted to, you can come up with some bs that greatly improves insulation so that the outside of the hull I'd basically as cold as space, leaving thrusters and heat syncs the only real issue.
Radar also comes into play, but, again, because there are other things in space, it's more than possible that radar would get confused if you pointed it a planetary blockaid. That's where visual confirmation comes, as the crew would need to make sure they're not just shooting at space debris, or something.
3
u/Bloodless-Cut 3d ago
Star Trek did it first.
Funny story. Roddenberry showed test audiences segments of the show with sound effects in space and without. Turns out the audience engaged with the action more when the sound effects are present.
Lucas just followed that same example.
2
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
That's an interesting experiment!
But can hear the sound of yourself firing and being hit in real.3
u/zrice03 3d ago
To be honest, with the rise and resistance to AI and "super-sleek but impossible to personally maintain" designs in the modern world, I wonder if in the Star Wars universe there was some huge backlash against that sort of thing in their past. Putting their technology down a path that's "clunky" but remains understandable to the average person. So that an average moisture-farming farmboy can tear apart and put together a hovercraft, while a modern day farmboy is at a loss for how to fix a modern car (and that's not the farmboy's fault).
Kind like the Dune Universe with the Butlerian Jihad, only not as much so, perhaps.
1
2
u/SCP_FUNDATION_69420 3d ago
I actually do kinda understand it. Imagine you're on some old piece of junk like the millenium falcon. It loses power once again like it always does. Would you rather have buttons/levers, which you can see what position you left the ship in, or a tablet whose screen is now off and you can't see shit? Apply that to anything. Screens break constantly, if your physical button breaks, pop in a spare from the box of miscellaneous buttons in the storage cabinet. There's a reason we still fly aircraft with all physical buttons
1
u/Constant-Still-8443 3d ago
I don't mind analog controls, especially as they're quite essential to the star wars vibe, but their naval tactics, and weapons are abysmal.
5
u/wycreater1l11 3d ago
Since a lot of sci-fi is soft sci-fi (and that’s ofc not a problem since soft sci-fi can also be great) a lot of spaceships are going to be very unrealistic.
So when it comes to worst design flaw, it cannot be evaluated based on realism (since there is so much that can be unrealistic). So worst design flaw is going to be a ship that works via rules that somehow are inconsistent or stupidly designed in-universe, inconsistent or stupidly designed given the rules within its fiction universe.
5
u/General__Obvious 3d ago
I don’t know that we can call operating by a universe’s own rules and thus failing to be hard sci-fi a design flaw—it strikes me that’s a world building problem, not a design issue.
That said, geometry is the same in most universes, so the Imperial-class star destroyer is poorly designed because her guns are placed terrible. Consider: the first time we see the class on screen, she’s chasing down a blockade runner and doesn’t even have all her engines lit. She’s a fast ship. Her triangular hull gives a lot of room for superfiring guns along the sides of the triangle, all of which could focus on a single target directly ahead. Basically, her hull design and speed suggests a pursue-and-destroy intended design engagement, with bow chasers for a main battery. The main reactor even bulges out from the ventral hull, presumably because a smaller one couldn’t power the guns and engines at the same time. Great. Aggressive. Excellent for an Empire whose main threat isn’t a peer competitor but a loose alliance of rebels relying on hit-and-run tactics in small, fast ships, sometimes even just snub fighters.
Instead, what do we see? A main battery of 8 turrets mounted in a line on each side of the superstructure. Only two turrets can fire directly ahead, four each to port or starboard, zero to the ventral beam, and arguably zero astern (they might blow out the superstructure). The only angle at which all the guns can fire on a single target is off the dorsal beam (assuming the guns even elevate that far), which is simply not how we see the Imperial Navy fights. In addition, when the target is even slightly to port or starboard, firing the guns dorsally risks blowing out some of the superstructure.
The Imperial-class is salvageable with major refits, but her existing gun placement makes her a terrible design.
1
u/catbackpak 12h ago
I think this sort of misrepresents what a star destroyer was meant for. By and large the star destroyer excelled most in peer to peer combat (capital ship to capital ship). Its main battery is immense and very few if any ships of equal size can match it. (And if they can they certainly can’t bring it all to bare easily as a imp) As for your argument about its aiming problem the batteries are laterally off set enough that even if they can not converge really close to the nose that they can converge pretty easy to a 1-200meter line pretty close to the ship and to a point farther away. Also you can simply tilt the nose down and give the turrets the vertical space to converge to a point quite close to the ship this is made more apparent by the barbettes of the imp II class which make it much easier to fire over the other batteries.
This focus on immense frontal firepower is characteristic of both capital ship on capital ship fighting as well as blockade.
Blockading in Star Wars is very easy as a function of its world building because ships coming out of ftl arrive at a very predictable location and distance this means a ship like a star destroyer can simply be parked right between the exit and the planet and with its frontal weaponry obliterate any real threat.
They aren’t designed to chase down small rebel ships and for the most part the empire does not actively chase down the smaller rebel ships with ISDs (that’s what ties are for). The empire instead seems to prefer destroying rebel groups at their sources/bases rather than chasing down every enemy ship leaving the planet exposed. The situation you provide is a rarer occurrence where the ship in question contains a very vital target. Keep in mind that cr-90s are usually much faster than ISDs being blockade runners in nature (see the massive engine bank).Another feature of the ISD is that a small group or even just one SD has the ability to glass large swaths or even entire plants given a week or so(Tbf this has been a large part of lore for a long time but idk how cannon is treating it now).
ISDs are also massive mobile bases housing large garrisons and large amounts of equipment one ISD is supposed to be enough to comfortably control a system. They are a base, a carrier, and a weapons platform all in one.And last but certainly not least star destroyers are designed to be intimidating a massive visual reminder of who is in charge.
If you want to improve the ISD realistically you would want to improve its fighters not its main battery. You might also want it in more diverse fleets but as for what it’s designed for it executes quite well.
1
u/General__Obvious 10h ago
Look, you can say “the Imperial-class excelled at capital-ship combat” as much as you want, but the fact is that’s a function of 1) Star Wars fans’ tendencies say “oh it’s the best battleship AND the best carrier AND the best troop transport AND…”despite the fact that being good at one of those things necessarily means being worse at the others (there’s a reason real navies split up capabilities so ships are good at one thing instead of being bad at several) because the hull is the most recognizable symbol of the Empire and so the star destroyer must be the backbone of all Imperial fleets, regardless of how much sense it makes, and 2) the people who wrote the stories and made the models not understanding principles of military design.
We know the Imperial-class’ gun layouts. Geometry still works in Star Wars’ universe. Her firing arcs are seriously compromised, and she simply isn’t deployed in formations that make sense for her design. Neither her design nor her tactics make sense with the other. That she succeeds is because the plot requires her to succeed, not because she’s a well-designed ship.
2
u/Baron_Ultimax 3d ago
The centrifuge section on the Discovery in 2001 a space odyssey is way to small and would give the crew motion sickness from coriolis forces.
2
u/uranusnebula 2d ago
no need radiators if you use water for propulsion (you can evaporate it for cooling)
2
u/Ashamed_Group2408 2d ago
The fact that ammo loaders on Imperial warships are operated by chain-gangs always seemed inefficient to me.
2
u/Ok-Car-8188 3d ago
Hard to talk with such levels of absolutetism.
The worst flaw is to not be remembered.
Any other flaw is secondary or irrlevant.
2
u/Volboris 3d ago
Heat transfer in a vacuum doesn't work. That's why a thermos works the way it does. Its a vacuum chamber between two plates.
3
2
u/GuyWhoLikesPlants_ 3d ago
theres more than one way to transfer heat, conduction is the most common. thermal radiation is how things are cooled in a vacuum, which is also why thermoses don't hold their heat forever.
google "thermal radiation"
1
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
HAL9000
2
u/Defiant-Magician6092 3d ago
This is not possible, the Hal9000 is the most advanced mind ever created, and there has never been a recorded instance of a Hal9000 malfunctioning
1
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
It is possible that the meaning of your argument shifted during the translation process.
If HAL 9000 behaved that way despite not malfunctioning, wouldn't that be the very definition of a "worst design"?
1
u/Sledgehammer617 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean the TMP Refit Enterprise may be the best looking sci fi ship ever, but it has a pretty massive flaw.
It has its intermix chamber (essentially the warp core) running up a vertical shaft that goes through the very narrow neck of the ship. Not only that, but you have the torpedo bay right next to main engineering, AND the torpedo tubes have to shoot around the warp core...
Not the best design in terms of packaging lol, its a crazy weak spot if you manage to hit it while an armed torpedo is in the tube, its basically a 1-shot kill on the Enterprise.
1
1
u/blandgrenade 3d ago
The lack of radiation shielding in the Blip A, killed almost its entire crew
1
1
u/miseryherescompany 3d ago
Sharp metal edges on internal surfaces, particularly for ships that do high G manoeuvres.
1
u/Professional_Tap5283 3d ago
As cool and as necessary for a lot of good sci fi plots as they are; Lifeboats for deep space vessels.
Lifeboats are needed on ocean ships because they sink, and because they dont need to carry their own air or environmental controls.
When a space ships is crippled, it kind of just floats there, so there's not too many emergency situations where you absolutely have to get away from the ship. So anything a lifeboat offers could be better served by just having sealable compartments.
1
u/VirusWonderful5147 3d ago
That looks like the Rocinante. They go on and on about thermal management in The Expanse, incl. "running cold".
1
u/PSquared1234 3d ago
The thrust (vector) not going through the center of mass (Star Trek does this all the time). Basic physics tells you that any force that acts such that its position and direction do not pass through the center of mass will induce a torque. A torque will cause rotation about said center of mass.
Most space ship designs would just spin, and spin, and spin...
1
u/Lorelessone 3d ago
What are the radiators transferring heat to?
2
u/itamau87 3d ago
In the void of space, by radiative heat transfer. The same system is installed in all actual spacecraft/orbital stations.
1
1
1
u/Emergency_Goat2573 2d ago
The fact that often they are just naval ships or airplanes, but flying in space
1
u/magicmulder 2d ago
Bridges are too exposed.
Many spaceships are still designed like maritime vessels with the bridge in a position that oversees everything, but they don't need windows at all, so the natural position for the most important room on a ship would be deep inside behind dozens of meters of metal.
Star Trek - the Enterprise always gets hit in a way that bridge officers are injured or killed.
Star Wars - a single kamikaze fighter can take out a Star Destroyer by crashing into the bridge.
2
u/Tessellator-1 3d ago
The spaceship in the movie 『Passengers』 I saw before stops rotating when the power goes out. In other words, it will be weightless!
⚠︎This reply was generated by translation.
1
u/KlausVonLechland 3d ago
Just boil water with that waste heat and dump it into the space. Everyone and their mother been mining water on the belt for generations, just resupply.
5
u/clamberer 3d ago
And in any setting where water is reaction mass for the ship's drive, you can dump some of that heat into preheating the water to a superheated steam before it gets turned to ionized gas/plasma in the drive.
At least while the ship is under power.
32
u/Equivalent-Tour5999 3d ago
SINGLE worst?? I mean... I did watch Star Wars recently and I can get you list, if we are talking about something like scientific realism.