Spaceship Design: What makes sense, and what's nonsense?

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by FenrisLoki

So realism is not really a strong point of Star Wars or Star Trek designs. Those are mostly aesthetic. Swoopy closed shapes are fine, but unless your FTL system has a fluid "drag" in its hypothetical physics, there's no real reason for it. People may decide to build that way, but it isn't a necessity.

It's worth noting that most Star Wars spaceships are (in-universe) intended to operate in many types of atmosphere as well as in (hyper)space. Of course, the actual designs are influenced far more by "will it look cool on screen" and "will the toy sell" than any actual workable real world engineering considerations.