Okay, after doing the Azhanti High Lightning, I am no longer afraid of the piddling little ships any more. 
So, I'm thinking about doing up a couple of designs that I've toyed with over the years: The old Battlemech dropships Union and Overlord (a 3,500-ton and a 9,700-ton ship, respectively).
I won't be doing them as mech-carrying ships, of course. But I always liked those hulls, especially the Overlord. I figured I'd do each of these as a heavy combat vessel, and as a transport vessel (much like I did a merchant version of the Broadsword).
These will be the biggest ship plans that I'll be doing up from scratch. It will be an adventure.
This brings up another thought, too. I've got a design philosophy I use with a lot of the warships. I like using common hulls, to make it more difficult for an opposing force to identify a ship. Much like the Germans did in WW2--look at the profile of the Bismarck/Tirpitz, and compare it to the Prinz Eugen--it's the same. So you don't know if it's a super-battleship or a cruiser.
The same way, I want to do a heavy warship based on the Overlord, a fast warship in the same hull, and a combat transport. The heavy warship would be a battleship, with lots of weapons and armor, and less powerful drives. The fast warship (the battle cruiser) keeps the same weapons, but reduces armor in favor of bigger drives. And the combat transport has the drives of the battleship, the armor of the battlecruiser, and reduced armament, so it can carry troops and cargo.
Does anybody else set up a design philosophy for their warships anything like this? If not, how do you design your ships?
So, I'm thinking about doing up a couple of designs that I've toyed with over the years: The old Battlemech dropships Union and Overlord (a 3,500-ton and a 9,700-ton ship, respectively). I won't be doing them as mech-carrying ships, of course. But I always liked those hulls, especially the Overlord. I figured I'd do each of these as a heavy combat vessel, and as a transport vessel (much like I did a merchant version of the Broadsword).
These will be the biggest ship plans that I'll be doing up from scratch. It will be an adventure.
This brings up another thought, too. I've got a design philosophy I use with a lot of the warships. I like using common hulls, to make it more difficult for an opposing force to identify a ship. Much like the Germans did in WW2--look at the profile of the Bismarck/Tirpitz, and compare it to the Prinz Eugen--it's the same. So you don't know if it's a super-battleship or a cruiser.
The same way, I want to do a heavy warship based on the Overlord, a fast warship in the same hull, and a combat transport. The heavy warship would be a battleship, with lots of weapons and armor, and less powerful drives. The fast warship (the battle cruiser) keeps the same weapons, but reduces armor in favor of bigger drives. And the combat transport has the drives of the battleship, the armor of the battlecruiser, and reduced armament, so it can carry troops and cargo.
Does anybody else set up a design philosophy for their warships anything like this? If not, how do you design your ships?
