Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
I'm thinking the ship should be long and thin so that it can present a minimal profile to opponents. I'm tentatively sticking the engines (super-science boosted reaction engines) on the other side of the minimal profile. I'm unsure if I should orient the gravity down towards the engines, so the ship is built like a rocket or sky scraper, or if I should pick a long side of the ship to be "down", and orient the thing like a naval ship.
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In this case, 'skyscraper' looks like the way to go. If you design 'wet navy' style, and then your 'gravity disks' fail, suddenly the back wall is 'down' and the whole ship's internal orientation is skewed. Plus, if you've got 'gravity' coming from disks and acceleration at 90 degrees apart, your ship's internal structure will need some weird designs to accommodate the conflict and differing stresses.
One exception: does your ship ever enter atmospheres, land, or otherwise operate very near planetary surfaces? If so, the 'wet navy' arrangement can make landing and near-surface operations more convenient.