Most Beautiful Ship

[RyanDarkstar]

My wife and I both play Jedi in The Old Republic and love our Defender-class Light Corvettes.


I also love the CR90 and YT-2000.
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Currently playing D&D 5E and painting an unholy amount of miniatures.

[Yora]

[Scots Dragon]

[Krassh]

My personal favorite designs are probably the ISD and the A-Wing.

But my personal gripe with most ships in Star Wars, especially all legacy designs, but with all the Corellian freighters and the YT series in particular is, that they might look somewhat interesting, but more often than not simply just ugly and much more importantly, rather nonsensical from a spaceship engineering standpoint. Most designs also completely disregard basic aerodynamics, hull stress or the need for in flight access for maintenance and repairs, like on the engines.
Obviously, the ships in Star Wars were built with originality in appearance and easy to work with basic shapes in mind, with everything else being an afterthought.
The legacy ships were mostly designed by complete amateurs and fools though without a single thought for the practical purpose of those ships.

Case and point: the YT series, especially the YT-1300.

A ship series designed as a light freighter or glorified tug boat, but with a shape and interior space arrangement which leaves neither enough room for a proper crew or passengers to live there comfortably during extended space flights, nor offers even as much cargo space as a regular freight truck with trailer.

Let's just say, you won't fit even a single car inside an YT anywhere. Especially since you won't even get one up that waaayyyy to narrow boarding ramp.

Main problem is the flat and wide, single level circular design of the hull, which may look iconic and kinda streamlined, but is one of the worst possible shapes for an actual transporter.

If the ship was conceived with at least having two decks, with the upper one containing mostly the crew and passenger quarters, as well as necessary faculties for extended space travel, whilst the lower deck is solely dedicated to cargo and engineering, the YT-1300 series could become a practical and useful ship.

Actually, i would very much be inclined to redesign the YT series according to more realistic and practical engineering aspects, whilst keeping the overall appearance mostly. Except for reshaping and placing the cockpit in the middle between and above the cargo mandibles flush with the upper deck, but still leaving room between the mandibles for a cargo container, whilst giving the pilot a much better view overall and keeping the walking distances short.

I found these alternative light freighter designs, which both are aesthetically more interesting and more practical imho:

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/013/606/732/large/simon-coles-ortho-poster-01-01.jpg?1540380186

This one looks just overall more practical shapewise for a small transporter, though the cockpit is severely restricted view wise and could need at least a few more windows,

https://modelermagic.com/john-stuart-star-wars-johnston-early-concept-millennium-falcon/

This one is more "classical" and practically shaped, except for the oversized engine block and the positioning of the gun turrets. Still could need some more room behind the cockpit for proper crew quarters (or a second upper deck).

And don't even get me started on the YT-2400, which must be one of the most ugly and stupid designs for a ship ever!

All those ship designs waste so much precious interior space for weirdly shaped hulls and weirdly placed cockpits and interior walkways without a single thought for practicality and economics, not even talking about physics or aerodynamics.

One of the greatest fault of most of the legacy ship designs is though, that there are too few designs of ample size with enough interior room or action stations for a classical RPG crew of 4 to 6 people plus eventual passengers, which are workable as a mobile home in the stars.

A good example for a reasonably sized and designed ship would be the Barloz class, which sports enough room for the crew as well as ample and reasonably placed cargo space. Though it still could use some improvements certainly.

Anyone wanna share their preferred ship designs for roleplaying purposes, original Star Wars or fan made/borrowed elsewhere?

[Whill]