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Comparing Sci-fi Starship Sizes

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the let-the-arguments-begin dept.

LiberalApplication writes "It looks like someone has very lovingly created something that sci-fi fans everywhere will likely want to see; if not out of curiosity, then at least to revitalize the burning, seething, grudges between fanatics of rival science-fiction universes. Starship Dimensions places images of various starships from science fiction settings such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, ID4, Macross/Robotech, Lexx, Freespace, and Battlestar Galactica side-by-side, in scale! The author has also conveniently included football fields, humans, King Kong, and buildings for comparison. You can even drag them around the page and stage your own interstellar battle royale."

102 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. slashdotted by neurostar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, it looks like the battle happened before I got there... all the ships are gone already :(

    1. Re:slashdotted by FlashBIOS · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, it is on IIS - I Infrequently Serve.

    2. Re:slashdotted by Ramion · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slashdot should really really start getting a way to mirror sites that dont look like that can hold the presure and go down as fast as this.

      Its annoying for us that read this site that half the sites you link to dont work.

      Its a pain in the ass for the people that have the sites. Either because they have them at home at some small adsl connection or at a expensive host company that might uphold the /. effect, but then charge the poor person for all the traffic.

      You should really make a client where you mirror it and when people click your link they download the site from slashdot and not the orignal source and then use p2p to share it with other.. A kind of mirror p2p browser. Maybe it could be done with mozilla somehow =)

    3. Re:slashdotted by alphaseven · · Score: 4, Informative
      The site was up on Metafilter yesterday, and it even had trouble handling that traffic. Nice site though, you could choose from a few different resoluctions from 1 metre per pixel up to 2000 metres per pixel. And you could drag the images around to compare.

      The largest was the second Death Star from episode 6, followed by some alien ship from Macross 2, and the ID4 mothership (which held several 24 kilometer city destroyers).

      Also included were ships from Star Trek (the probe from episode IV was huge) Lexx, Babylon 5, Hitchhikers Guide, Battlestar Galactica... that's all I can remember. It borrowed some graphics and the look from skyscraperpage.com.

  2. /.'ed but who cares? by smoondog · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess comparing spaceship sizes is really important to /. readers. Always reminds me of the scene in "Stand By Me" where the kids argue over the superiority of mighty mouse vs superman.

    -Sean

    1. Re: /.'ed but who cares? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny


      > I guess comparing spaceship sizes is really important to /. readers.

      Maybe they don't realize that sometimes a starship is just a starship.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:/.'ed but who cares? by macshune · · Score: 2, Interesting
      What is the difference between DDoS'ing and Slashdotting? It's not like people are ignorant of the /. effect.

      If you _know_ the site is gonna go down when the story gets posted, then it's the same as DDoS'ing, right?

  3. Glass houses. by villain170 · · Score: 3, Funny

    This guy has got to have way too much time on his hands.

    Oh wait. Isn't there some kind of saying about people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing something... forget it. I forgot who I am and what I do for a second. :-D

    --

    I am over here... now I am back over here!
  4. What i want to know.... by Photon01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What i've always wanted to know is how do sci-fi starships always manage to be the same way up?

    I'd love to be watching star trek, and see a bird of prey fly along upside down in relation to the Enterprise.

    1. Re:What i want to know.... by anti11es · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What's even funnier is that when these always upright ships lose power they "lose" the ability to stay upright and drift on their side or upside down.

    2. Re:What i want to know.... by Apaturia · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What I find even more pathetic is when they have ships surrounding them and say "we can't go anywhere!". Have they not EVER heard of the third dimension? Ya know, UP or DOWN?

      Reminds me of a Futurama episode, where people encircle a ship so that it won't move. The ship just moves up and speeds away. :)

    3. Re:What i want to know.... by TWagers · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The reason is that in free-flight, they arbitrarily choose a direction to be 'up' to function as the Z-axis in whatever coordinate/sector/grid system they use. Typically this would be perpendicular to whatever the plane is of your galaxy, so in our case here in the Milky Way, x and y would be across the galactic disc, and Z would be a line going through the core. Totally arbitrary, but helpful to allow humans to 'visualize' their position in the galaxy while warping from place to place. So, to keep things in relative perspective, I assume the computers in the ships are more than happy to 'auto-level' the ship so that it appears that you're in level flight. Plus, I guess it keeps the less-intelligent folks sitting on their couches that don't understand spatial relationships from hurting their fragile little minds. =)

    4. Re:What i want to know.... by jonix · · Score: 2, Funny

      That is cunning...

    5. Re:What i want to know.... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also, how the hell do physics work in sci-fi? At least in games, have you noticed how you move along in space by firing up engines to a constant rate of thrust? In space, this would equal a constant rate of acceleration if you forget about minor gravity variances from nearby planets/stars/what-have-ye because there is no drag in space. Also, it's funny that ships in games slow down merely by decreasing the thrust from said engines... Star Trek does this too if I'm not mistaken, with constant thrust from starship engines...

      --
      Hate me!
    6. Re:What i want to know.... by kliklik · · Score: 2, Informative

      You seem to have played the wrong games. In one of my favorite space-game, Frontier, you speed up, turn your engines off and let the inertion do the 'flying' for you. Then, when the time is right, you have to fire up your retro-rockets to slow down, or rotate the ship 180 and fire the main engines. If you are good, you don't crash into the space station at 10000 km/s

      --
      guru in training
    7. Re:What i want to know.... by SlashdotLemming · · Score: 4, Funny

      The reason is that...

      No it isn't
      You think every race in the universe decided on a standard AND they all use it? HAH!!!
      In my experience as an intergalactic pilot I can tell you that, in general, a ship, while not travelling, is in a position normal to the celestial body that is exerting the largest gravitational pull on it. While traveling, a path is planned to the destination, this path is not a straight line, but a series of arcs and lines, depending on whether or not gravity is being used as a mechanism of propulsion. So, for each point in the path, a ship is either in the position it was in during its last point, or it is in transition to the position it must be in to take the next point of the journey. Often this is dictated by the design of the ship, more importantly, the flexibility of the propulsion unit. If your thrusters have a wide range of motion, then you have a bigger range of what your 'up' position could be relative to your path, and a larger set of choices for path planning
      Now, if we're talking about a super-spectral propulsion mechanism.. err.. oh gods of vacuous matter, I've said too much already.

    8. Re:What i want to know.... by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Since virtually all movie and TV spaceships have artificial gravity (even when they're still using some archaic V2-like rocket for propulsion, (because freefall is impossible to do on a budget), and the "real" acceleration is almost always going to be along the axis of the ship, it "stands to reason" (mine anyway) that the decks should be perpendicular to the axis, i.e. you're usually travelling "straight up" if you're standing on the deck. This would have the advantage of making the artificial gravity simpler (Don't have to worry much about sideways forces), and should the AG fail, at least you'd fall onto the deck (or more likely, get smeared over it from the thousands of g's they must pull, even on ST impulse power.

      But instead, most seem to have their decks like a sea-going ship or an airliner, parallel to the axis.

    9. Re:What i want to know.... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny
      What's even funnier is that when these always upright ships lose power they "lose" the ability to stay upright and drift on their side or upside down.

      Actually, when artifial gravity fails, the graviton matrix that supports the inertial effect degenerates, and you get a recoil effect resulting in exactly that. Don't they teach you kids anything in high school any more?

      Wait... This is 2203, right? Because if it's gone wrong and I've jumped too far again, the time cops are going to ki

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    10. Re:What i want to know.... by einhverfr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I feel like a nerd, but I'd like to point out that this is a plot point in Star Trek. Kirk is fighting Khan and realizes that Khan is thinking about the battle in 2D because he's from a long time ago, so Kirk makes sure to make extensive use of all 3 axes.

      Right-- but they never do this until it is pointed out ;-) It is like the whole point is that Kirk is thinking outside the box for just long enough to create an ambush and then back to 2D tactics ;-)

      Here is the problem-- the closest thing we have to 3D combat today is aircraft. The problem is that aircraft operate in a sort of "deep-2d" in that up is a costly direction, and most of it happens along a sort of deepened plane..... Furthermore, orientation *is* important aerodynamically, so the things that would be commonplace in space are completely foreign to our existance today.

      This is why I would like to see a completely Newtonian-based Space Combat simulator. Maybe have orbital mechanics for battles near planets.... Would be really cool....

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    11. Re:What i want to know.... by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Check out Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos. It's still got all the trappings of sci-fi combat (lasers you can see, FTL drive to get from place to place, etc) but the combat itself is based around a newtonian model. Fire up your engines and you accelerate, turn them off and you drift. It makes for some fun maneuvers, broadsiding capital ships and so on. It's also incredibly tough to get used to the first couple of times out, since you have to learn how so apply a deft touch instead of the usual all-out burn.

      There's a also mod for the IWar series called Buda5 which re-creates the Babylon 5 universe, since newtonian physics was a highlight of the show's effects.
      GMFTatsujin

    12. Re:What i want to know.... by Jerf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One of the sequels to Elite tried accurate space battles.

      It sucked.

      PROBLEM: Any ship with more acceleration then the other ship can always escape. So to deal with this gameplay "problem", they made the enemy ship magically re-appear with magical acceleration so it can take another shot at you.

      PROBLEM: Unless you use an unrealistically slow amount of thrust, you tend to have these ships zipping by each other at the very least hundreds of miles per hour, leaving you with a fraction of a second to meaningfully fire on the other ship, then it's turn back around and do it again. Since you're a human you can't whip around instantly, it take time to move the ship, so every time you miss and come around for another pass, you're going a little faster since you had more time to accelerate.

      PROBLEM: It is virtually impossible to tail someone. If you're matching their thrust vector, you're not pointing at them, you're pointing in the same direction they are. Now, if you had a gunner this might be OK, but when you're both piloting and gunning because whatever the ship info screen says your crew is, it's just you, this doesn't work.

      PROBLEM: It takes time to learn how to land on things! Typically to get somewhere in an airplane-like space simulator you point your ship at it, apply maximum boost, and stop when you get there. Do that in a real simulator and you'll whack into the object (or miss it) at a significant fraction of the speed of light. (The Elite sequel capped speeds at 1/3 the speed of light, presumably to avoid relatavistic effects.) You have to learn to turn at "midpoint", which, inconveniently enough, is also when you're going the fastest and this is fairly hard for a human to do correctly. (If you're on autopilot, it's easier, but if you're on autopilot you're not really playing...) Turn around a little too soon, and you have to creep up on the target object, which might literally take several minutes or even hours (fortunately the Elite sequel had a time compressor). Turn around a little too late and by the time you realize it you're on an unstoppable collision course. *Whack*.

      PROBLEM: "Random" encounters are impossible without cheating. I would routinely see enemies boost across the system, probably hitting the 1/3 light speed, on an intercept course, and the instant they reached me, "suddenly" they're on basically the same vector as me so they can fight me. Reality is they should have zipped across my radar so fast it would be unlikely I would even see them.

      Space is big. By the time ships are moving in real Newtonian mechanics and not taking years to get from Earth to Mars, you're incapable of handling the scales as a human. The computer cheating helps but not enough (and it's frustrating as all computer cheating is). A tactics-level simulator might be cool, but flying around in Newtonian space is no fun at all. If it was, we'd have more simulations based on that.

      Also note this demonstrates space piracy is virtually impossible unless your acceleration is on par with your maximum speed, because you just can't intercept ships to save your life. (Literally, in some cases.)

    13. Re:What i want to know.... by Rorschach1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Terminus (http://www.vvisions.com/games/details.cfm?ID=28) does a pretty good job of it. Yeah, it's not true Newtonian physics - ships have a maximum speed, and exceeding it causes hull damage and eventually destruction. But it does serve to limit the difference in velocity.

      The Terminus solar system is REALLY BIG. The fact that your top speed is limited means that pretty much anything interesting is going to be clustered around the vortex gate network. But that doesn't mean you have to stay there. I've actually flown from the Moon to the Earth in real time, without using the gate network. Took something like 12 hours. I've pondered the feasibility of flying from Earth to Venus or Mars, but it's not entirely clear if even my huge flying fuel tank of a ship would have enough juice to run the life support for that long.

      The other problem is navigation. The nav comp won't lock on to anything outside your local gate node. You're limited to looking out the window to pick your target. I once flew to Amalthea from a moon with a vortex gate and proved the concept - just had to align myself with visible landmarks. I think the solar system is dynamic in the game, though, so Venus is going to be a moving target.

      I'd recommend Terminus to anyone who likes playing around with games outside of a set story line. Not as fun as the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games as far as pure action goes, but much more like Elite.

    14. Re:What i want to know.... by statusbar · · Score: 2, Funny
      You think every race in the universe decided on a standard AND they all use it? HAH!!!


      Well, apparently every race in the universe decided on a standard for video and audio formats! So it isn't too far of a stretch...


      Unless maybe the viewscreens in all these ships automatically swap codecs written in a 'universal programming language' - Universal Java Space Edition - UJSE?

      --jeff++

      --
      ipv6 is my vpn
    15. Re:What i want to know.... by justinkim · · Score: 2, Informative

      The quote was "We were taking a vote when the ground came up and hit us."

      From the only good episode of Galactica 1980.

  5. The Force strikes again by uptownguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hahaha! It is amazing, when you think about it... What other force on the Internet is as powerful as /.? Within 60 seconds of the original article appearing on the front page of Slashdot, the linked site was already taken down.

    Ethical question: Do we owe our linked site owners some advance warning before our herd of tribbles swarms onto their bridge?
    Bonus Question: Is it possible to be karma whoring AND trolling at the same time?

    --


    I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
    1. Re:The Force strikes again by uptownguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But the very nature of Slashdot lends itself to (1) most readers clicking on the linked article (something you'll never see (sadly) with CNN) and (2) People visiting multiple times in a day to read new articles/visit newly linked sites. This means that all of the visits to the links mentioned in (1) happen in a very short period.

      I think you are underestimating the power that is Slashdot...

      --


      I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
    2. Re:The Force strikes again by bubblegoose · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually the site was down before it when live on the front page. I was getting some page loads and some 404s while it just being previewed for subscribers.

      --
      I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
    3. Re:The Force strikes again by Cpt_Kirks · · Score: 4, Funny

      What other force on the Internet is as powerful as /.? Within 60 seconds of the original article appearing on the front page of Slashdot, the linked site was already taken down.

      You know, according to the Patriot Act, /. could be classifed as a terrorist device.

    4. Re:The Force strikes again by darkonc · · Score: 4, Informative
      Do you really think a slashdotting is that intense? Slashdot isn't a particularly big site, and it handles the load. CNN's traffic dwarfs /.'s on a slow news day, let alone during war coverage.

      Yeah, and a 25 year old harrier may not be much of a combat fighter, but if you pit it against a 1942 mustang it's not going to be much of a fight.

      Slashdot may not be "a particularly big site", but it is built with a large handfull of boxes, it's own routers, etc. and probably a couple hundred megabits bandwidth. Some of the sites that get slashdotted are things that are co-hosted with dozens or even hundreds of other sites on a single box at a large hosting company and (maybe) a 10 megabit pipe.

      I have a friend who's site gets throttled by his (free) service provider with just a couple dozen hits in an hour. Just the slashdot editorial team viewing his site could put him near his limit, much less being posted on the front page.

      My own web site spent some time being hosted on my home ADSL connection. 0.5megabits split over 10,000 /.ers trying to get first post comes to 50baud per viewer -- and that presumes that the old 200Mz P2 that I let do the hosting doesn't collapse under the load. If I had an hour or so warning, I could at least change the box to run level 3 so that the RAM being eaten up by X could be freed up. I might even switch it over to my primary desktop box and/or just mirror it somewhere with the pipe to handle the load.

      --
      Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
    5. Re:The Force strikes again by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 2, Funny
      Just the slashdot editorial team viewing his site could put him near his limit, much less being posted on the front page.

      You mean they view the submitted sites? I'm confused.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  6. Slashdot logic.. by mumblestheclown · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. The site is slashdotted.
    2. it runs IIS.
    3. therefore, microsoft is evil.
    1. Re:Slashdot logic.. by GigsVT · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Apparently the site isn't slashdotted. Even in the Mysterious Future, the index page was missing. Either they heard they were going to be slashdotted and took it down, or it was just very bad timing.

      Another argument for having some sort of instant feedback to the editors on the red articles, if a link is broken on a story like this, what's the point of even running the story?

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:Slashdot logic.. by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Well, think about it a minute... it's not helping us slashdotters access sci-fi stuff we want to see. Of course it's evil!

      ;)

  7. Strange ... by itsme1234 · · Score: 3, Funny

    What ? No WV bug comparison ?

    1. Re:Strange ... by Oloryn · · Score: 5, Funny
      What ? No WV bug comparison ?

      They don't actually grow them that big in West Virginia

  8. SpaceBalls by AntEater · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure none of those ships are as big as the one that they show during the opening scenes of SpaceBalls. That one was BIG!

    "Ludicrous Speed!"

    --
    Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
    1. Re:SpaceBalls by Sim9 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Mmm, and with the bumper sticker "WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY!"

      Perhaps that's because the ship is so massive it can't... :P

  9. Re:Mirror? by quantaman · · Score: 5, Funny

    You know it's bad when the first post is requesting a mirror!

    --
    I stole this Sig
  10. Since that site is down... by mansa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's an interesting graphic comparing ship size.

    -Mansa

    1. Re:Since that site is down... by Cleveland+Steamer · · Score: 2

      Nice, but it doesn't include a comparison with a Vogon construction fleet. :-(

  11. Mighty Mouse vs. Superman by nucal · · Score: 5, Funny
    You're right, that's just silly.

    Superman is far greater than Mighty Mouse.

    I don't know about that - on a Power per Gram ratio, Mighty Mouse beats Superman ...

    Plus, MM has a better theme song ...

    1. Re:Mighty Mouse vs. Superman by martyn+s · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Power per gram ratio is meaningless. We want to know who can beat the other one up.

      And no way does the cheesy cartoony MM theme song beat the John Williams composed SM theme.

    2. Re:Mighty Mouse vs. Superman by 10Ghz · · Score: 2, Funny

      "You just don't get it! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman is a real guy!"

      "Yeah, I guess so.... It would be hell of a fight though!"

      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  12. Re: Slashdotted already? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Funny


    > And only after two posts!!!

    This one's so important that everyone decided to actually read the article before posting.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  13. Image from original site by marlingrando · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can see the image discribed in the original post here Beware, there are a few popups from the link though...

  14. no, this is slashdot logic... by bjpirt · · Score: 3, Funny

    4. ....
    5. Profit!

  15. Re:Which would Jesus fly? by bpd1069 · · Score: 2, Funny


    How about instead of this childish fixation on size, give us some specs on fuel economy and MTBFs.

    Don't forget about TCO!!!

    --
    --
  16. Home Connection by Kyoya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I take it no one noticed the .sytes.net address. He was running that from his home connection via a no-ip type of setup. Odd are good the poor guys computer is now drooling on the floor. That will teach him for doing something geeky and not using the appropriate bandwidth.

    --
    To strive, to seek, but not to yield
  17. Operation Timed Out?!?! by mraymer · · Score: 5, Funny
    What a shocker this is... An article on Slashdot about Starship Sizes... why would that be Slashdotted?

    I mean, it's not like it is the nerd version of a pissing contest... oh wait, it is.

    Nerd1: The Enterprise-E could SO waste a Star Destroyer!
    Nerd2: Nuh-uh! Star Destroyers are so huge, you can't even see the windows most of the time. You can ALWAYS see the windows in the puny little federation starships.
    Nerd1: Look, I don't care how big it is... One quantam torpedo from the Enterprise-E will make it a giant space junkyard.
    Nerd2: You're such a dork!
    Nerd1: No, you're the dork!
    [begin pathetic, uncoordinated nerd brawl]

    --

    "To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking

  18. Where's the Sleeper Service? Or the puppeteers? by edremy · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Can't see the site, but the image linked clearly isn't going to be covering any GSVs. Come on, they're only 80x30x10 kilometers or so.

    And of course, they aren't even close to the true masters, the puppeteers and their home worlds.

    --
    "Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
  19. What about Dr.Who/ by watzinaneihm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How would they draw TARDIS from Dr.WHO series? It was supposed to be shaped like a london police box on the outside (kind of like a phone booth) but was supposed to contain virtually unlimited space on the inside.

    --
    .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
    1. Re:What about Dr.Who/ by Blackbrain · · Score: 2, Funny

      They are IN the Tardis...How do you think they got them all together for a picture?

      Now you'll have to excuse me, I just got some Kryptonite and need to go teach that Superman bastard a thing or two.

      --
      Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
  20. If all those ships were together... by Peterus7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The enterprise would probably start trying to open diplomatic relations with the Death star, and make a new ally, the Babylon 5 alien cruisers would go off against the cylon forces, And the robotechs would get accidently blown up by Stanley Tweedle.

  21. faster than light physics by DahGhostfacedFiddlah · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To be fair, we haven't yet designed an engine that will allow us to move faster than light. Maybe moving through subspace involves a force akin to wind resistance. I know that in Star Commander 2, normal physics applied in star systems and battle scenes, but interstellar travel forced you to use fuel the whole way.

    --
    Last post!
  22. Google by YearOfTheDragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Site without images
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: V'Ger (Voyager VI)
    LENGTH: Approximately 98 km.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by humans and launched near the end of the 20th century for peacful reconnaisance purposes, the Voyager VI probe was intercepted by an evidently technologically advanced race who augmented the probe and sent it back to Earth under a new internal conciousness, resulting in a near cataclysm.
    SOURCE: Star Trek, the Motion Picture (Film, 1982 Paramount Pictures), Drawn by Jeff Russell
    Whale Probe from Star Trek IV, 74 km long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Whale Probe
    LENGTH: Approximately 74 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Whale Probe, but extrapolation from the film has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Unknown, although the device was able to communicate with humpback whales.
    SOURCE: Star Trek IV, (Film, Paramount Pictures)
    Marduk Base from Macross II, 50 km diameter
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Marduk Mothership
    DIAMETER: Approximately 50 km. This is the stated length of the RPG version, although the movie version seems to be much larger. Further investigation is needed.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Marduk, the creators of the Zentraedi.
    SOURCE: Macross II, (Animated Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
    Rama, 50km long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Rama
    LENGTH: 50 km long, 20 km in diameter.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Large habitat ship
    SOURCE: Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clark, Drawn by Jeff Russell
    Vorlon Planet Killer, approximately 45km long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Vorlon Planet Killer
    LENGTH: Approximately 45 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Vorlon Planet Killer, but extrapolation from the show has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Vorlon
    SOURCE: Babylon 5, (Television Series)
    Phobos, moon of Mars, 27km long at longest axis
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Phobos
    DIAMETER: 27 km x 23 km x 20 km
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Moon of Mars
    SOURCE: Discovered in 1877, August 12 by Asaph Hall; photographed by 'Mariner 9' in 1971, 'Viking 1' in 1977, and the Russian 'Phobos' probe in 1988.
    City Destroyer from ID4, 24km diameter
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: ID4 City Destroyer
    DIAMETER: 24 km across, stated in the film.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: ID4 Aliens. Please see notes
    SOURCE: Independance Day (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
    Super Star Destroyer from Star Wars, 17.6km long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Executor/ Super Star Destroyer
    LENGTH: 17.6 km. Please see http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under Darth Sidious (human). Darth Vader's command ship.
    SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V and VI, the Empire Strikes Back, and the Return of the Jedi, (Film), originally drawn by Chad Wilson
    Cloud City, 16km diameter
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Cloud City
    LENGTH: 16 km.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Bespin Mining Colony
    SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V, the Empire Strikes Back (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
    Lexx, 10km long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: LEXX
    LENGTH: 10 km. From original Blueprints used in the design of the ship.
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under His Devine Shadow (human). This vessel is a wepon capable of destroying an entire Earth Size planet.
    SOURCE: LEXX (TV series)
    Babylon 5 Space Station, 8454.1m long
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: BABYLON 5/ Deep Space Station
    LENGTH: 8,454.1 m, from http://www.b5tech.com/babylonproject/babylon5stati on/babylon5station.html
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Human. "Babylon 5 is a 8,454.1* meter (five-mile) long, 840 meter diameter, 9.1 billion ton O'Neil class space station, located at a pivotal main jump gate in the Epsilon system."
    SOURCE: Babylon 5 (TV series)
    Macross I & II capital ships
    SHIP NAME/TYPE: MACROSS Sta

    --
    -= If you fight Dragons long enough, you will become a Dragon =-
    1. Re:Google by TwP · · Score: 4, Funny

      SHIP NAME/TYPE: Earth (class M)
      LENGTH: Approximately 12600 km.
      BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by God for humans and launched near the creation of the universe for peacful enjoyment of life and relationship. Earth was invaded by evil forces under direct control of Lucifer and has not been the same since. Recall notice has been sent to fix problems introduced by Lucifer. The exact time of the recall is unknown.
      SOURCE: Bible, (Book), Written by God, et. al.

    2. Re:Google by Macdude · · Score: 2
      SHIP NAME/TYPE: Earth (class M)
      LENGTH: Approximately 12600 km.
      BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by God for humans [snip]

      The Earth isn't a ship, it's a computer. It was built for the mice by the Magratheans. Haven't you ever bothered to go to Norway and look at Slartibartfast's signature?


      Jeez, kids today--they don't know anything...

      --
      "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
    3. Re:Google by vaylen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Your V'ger size is WAY off. According to the script for Star Trek - The Motion Picture shot 91, http://www.geocities.com/ussmunchkin/Star_Trek_I.h tm V'ger is 82 AU's in diameter. An AU (Astronomical Unit) is the distance from the earth to the sun, or 149,597,870.691 km. That would make V'ger a ridiculously immense 12,267,025,396.662 km in size. Yes that's 12 BILLION as in Carl Freakin' Sagan! I think this size was so ludicrous that they changed the number to make it WAY smaller for the Directors Cut of ST-TMP that came out on DVD last year. I'd like to see that size chart with the 12.2 billion kilometer V'ger on it.

      --

  23. Red Dwarf by bstadil · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Do not forget Red Dwarf.

    Based on the guy that paints the last letter in the intro Red Dwarf is around 1Km high, and 8Km long. Width is about 2X height.

    Anyone has better numbers?

    --
    Help fight continental drift.
    1. Re:Red Dwarf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, in "Stasis leak" they take an elevator down 2567 floors...

      On the other hand the show is extremely inconsistent, StarBug for instance is clearly not much bigger than a truck but still it has huge cargo decks and mile-long ventilation shafts!

      But who cares, it's still funny as hell.

  24. What about Moya? by RobPiano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone know how big Moya from Farscape is?

    Rob

  25. bit torrent by minus_273 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    im starting to think that bittorrent should be built into all browsers for webpages....

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:bit torrent by MQBS · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is actually a really good idea. Distributed bandwidth for *everything*, if your algorithms are efficient enough it would create ad-hoc caches. The only issue would be websites with rapidly changing data. It would basically overcome the underlying idea of being an end-user, that you cannot pass packets. Instead, you would make every computer into a node and with enough bandwidth...

      Cool. Someone get to work.

      --
      The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life- the terror of art. -Franz Kafka
    2. Re:bit torrent by mr_burns · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This has been brought up in the past. Problem is, BitTorrent really only has big advantages for big files. The publisher still has to tell every client who else is downloading. For something as small as a web page you may as well just serve up the page.

      However, including an mnet hash at the bottom of the article might do something for you. It's optimized for cacheing and serving up popular files. The hash is significantly small enough to be stuck on the end of an article and then no one server gets singled out.

      --
      "Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
  26. Re:How about the RingWorld? by Saeger · · Score: 2, Interesting
    RingWorlds?

    Oh, you mean those giant anthropomorphic orbitals of the far future that assume sentient life will still exist in an old-fashioned humanoid form requiring gravity, atmosphere, day/night cycles, etc.? Pfft.

    RingWorlds are ultimately just as unbelievable as conventional spaceships are... unless... unless you can suspend your disbelief by pretending transhumanism is "Crazy Talk", and that spam-in-a-can is the way things will always be and SHOULD be. Yeeeehaw spacecowboys. :)

    --

    --
    Power to the Peaceful
  27. Re:Mirror? by 1u3hr · · Score: 4, Informative
    The only relic still available is on his old site at fortunecities, the background image is still there which is fairly interesting in itself. I think some other bits of that site might still be there if you can work out the URLs. Nothing on the Wayback Machine for either site.

    Cowboy Neal is doing well today. Earlier his spam story is a dupe, now this one where he kills a site before there'sa "FIRST POST".

    Slashdot needs 1) dupe detection (or at least marking,
    2) some way to mirror low-bandwidth sites (give a veto to the owner)
    3) spellcheck on submissions (ESPECIALLY for the editors)

  28. What about... by los+furtive · · Score: 4, Funny

    What about the starship in Spaceballs, the one that transformed into Mega Maid?

    "Dear God, she's gone from suck to blow!"

    --

    I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.

  29. I do! (Was: Re:/.'ed but who cares?) by neurostar · · Score: 2, Funny

    I guess comparing spaceship sizes is really important to /. readers. Always reminds me of the scene in "Stand By Me" where the kids argue over the superiority of mighty mouse vs superman.

    I just wanted to make a big battle and make laser noises:

    Pshoo! Whap Whap Whap! zzt! zzt! etc....

  30. Re:Space 1999 by darkonc · · Score: 2, Informative
    I disagree that it was stupid, and I definitely disagree that it was a ripoff of Star Trek.

    The Enterprise was a large, well-outfitted High-tech starship willfully exploring space. Space 1999 was a bunch of shell-shocked astronauts trying to deal with interstellar space using vaguely 20'th century technology.

    About the only thing that the two shows had in common was space.

    --
    Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
  31. One thing I have to day by TerryAtWork · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Battlestar Galactica was the only one that got it right.

    It was an aircraft carrier in space whereas the Enterprise was a Battleship in space.

    The Federation would have been overrun by a smarter enemy.

    --
    It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
    1. Re:One thing I have to day by kwan3217 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It really depends on the kinds of weapons a small fighter can support. In the 20th and 21st century, a small plane is capable of carrying a weapon, such as a bomb, torpedo, or missile, large enough to destroy its carrier. If it absolutely positively has to be sunk in 5 minutes, a nuke could be used. A nuke can be carried by any reasonable sized fighter-bomber and will ruin the day of any ship presently afloat. This is the regime of the carriers.

      Suppose defenses start getting really good when someone develops a force field. Now all of the sudden there is no kind of torpedo which can breach the defenses, or if there is, it is too large for a fighter plane to launch. Now in order to kill the enemy you need something like the supergun on SDF-1 or the gravity blast cannon on Nadesico. Both of these ships are basically built around their main weapons. Each weapon weighs many thousands of tons and requires more energy than can ever be extracted from an engine of a fighter. Here we are back in the regime of battleships.

      Enterprise seems to be out of its regime, since photon torpedoes are small enough to be carried by a fighter. Perhaps rather than being a battleship, it is more like an attack submarine? Carrier launched aircraft are an order of magnitude faster than their carriers. Attack subs are basically underwater battleships. They rule beneath the sea because it is presently impossible to build a minisub which is an order of magnitude faster than its carrier. In Star Trek, the starships are invariably faster than their shuttles, just the opposite of a modern carrier. In this case there is nothing a small craft can do which the starship cannot.

      Summary:
      Small fast planes carrying effective weapons lead to carriers.
      Small fast planes carrying ineffective weapons lead to battleships.
      Small slow planes lead to submarines.

      It really all depends on the technological state of the art and the laws of physics.

      --
      Lots of technical and environmental problems are solved by the application of vast amounts of nuclear power
  32. Re:Mirror? by bshort404 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a partial mirror:

    http://bshort.com/shipdim/shipdim.html

    Please be gentle.

    --
    -B
  33. Star Trek thrust by StarKruzr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Incorrect. Impulse engines use the exhaust from a fusion reactor to move the ship; they are a Newtonian drive like any other.

    Warp engines, on the other hand, use asymmetric peristaltic continuum distortion - they essentially "squeeze" the ship through a bubble of distorted spacetime. No local motion takes place, but with respect to the rest of the universe, the bubble of spacetime that encapsulates the ship is moving.

    ph34r my n3rd1n355.

    --

    +++ATH0
  34. Partial Mirror by bshort404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's a partial mirror:

    http://bshort.com/shipdim/shipdim.html
    Please be gentle.

    --
    -B
  35. Andromeda has em all beat. by Mulletproof · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Magog Worldship
    Size: Approximately 1 AU
    Composition: 20 plants structually interlinked within their various orbits orbiting/powered by a small artifical star.
    Armament: Point singularity weapons (no others observed firing.
    Maximum Velocity: Um, all ahead slow ensign.
    Episodes 1-22 & 2-01

    This has to be the largest moving ship I have seen in a movie or series. I don't include Niven's ring worlds or Trek's Dyson spheres simply because they don't go anywhere. Ships go places and blow things up.

    --
    You need a FREE iPod Nano
  36. Possible other size compare chart? by jake_fehr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would anyone else like to see one of these made to compare the size of various anime mechs? It'd be like a police lineup of gundams, veritechs, SDF enforcement mechs (Pat Labor), Escaflowne (movie and series), etc....

    Anyone out there with enough knowledge and free time reading this?

  37. Babylon 5 by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's a religious debate, but for my money there's simply no comparison between B5 and just about any other sci-fi series out there. I've watched and enjoyed plenty of the others, but B5 is just something else. It has a fantastically intricate storyline and some great characters, all set in a universe that's futuristic but very credible. The visual effects still look good even today, several years after it was made. Even the theme music changes subtly from series to series to sound more in tune with the story. It's dramatic, funny, triumphant, tragic, poignant, insightful and the only sci-fi that has ever made me cry.

    NB: The episodes are somewhat independent, particularly in the early series, but there is a major story arc that runs throughout. You want to watch it from the start. It only really takes off from about the second series, but there are so many little set-ups (though you won't realise it at the time) that the first series is still a must. I doubt any regular channels are still running it anyway, as the last series was made several years ago. I'd just go and buy the whole lot on DVD.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re:Babylon 5 by idontgno · · Score: 2, Interesting
      However, the ship design sucks rocks :)

      Whose, Earth's? They looked pretty solid to me. Clunky, overfunctional, unaesthetic, boxy, like 21st Century U.S. Army stuff. Ugly, but structurally sound for the stresses you can statically design for (acceleration/deceleration, course change, some collision and weapons-fire resistance).

      Besides, I seem to recall that a lot of Earth Alliance stuff is produced in the same system we use in the 21st Century: lowest bidder. Ugly and functional is usually cheaper than pretty and functional.

      Some of the stuff from the other races (Mimbari, for instance) seemed more fragile, but after your technology has mastered localized gravitation control you can reinforce your structure with selective gravity polarization (like Star Trek "Structural Integrity Field"). Make your naval architecture as swoopy and ephemeral as you like, so long as you have still have power while you're maneuvering. (Which, by definition, you do--Newtonian universe, right?)

      By the bye, earlier upthread someone was bemoaning how the stereotypical TV SF space battle always seemed to be atmospheric ("thick 2-D", I believe). B5 seemed to model the 3D Newtonian universe quite well...Starfury fighters cutting thrust, whipping around 180 degrees on the yaw axis, and blazing away with lasers or missiles at whoever's chasing them, coasting along all the while.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    2. Re:Babylon 5 by reallocate · · Score: 2, Funny

      "He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

      Best lines I've heard in a sci-fi show.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    3. Re:Babylon 5 by Zirnike · · Score: 3, Interesting
      We'll skip the Vorlon and Shadow ships... They're way overtech, anyway, and are supposed to look pretty much imposible. A million years of design will do that.

      Exactly what are you talking about, than? The Earth ships are remarkably realistic. The Starfuries are dead on the way I would design a starfighter. The engines are on the tips of the 'fragile wings'? You mean like a 747 or a B52? Why didn't the designers of those place all the engines in the main body?

      What about capital ships? The Hyperion is a huge block. The only things hanging out are turrets, the habitat (I'm assuming, the spinning thing... which is massive, and not structurally unsound) and maybe antennas or something. And if the turrets are a problem, than the turrets on a Abrams are too.

      Or the most fragile looking ships, the Mimbari capships. No weights in the 'wings', so there isn't a problem there that isn't in a basic modern plane. Or the White Star class... Outrigger engines (for maneuverability) held by support wings. Sure, the wings look nice, but so what? I'd design them that way if I didn't need to worry about drag, too.

      Most of the rest of the alien races aren't that bad, either. Only the elder races.

      --
      I'm not shy, I'm stalking my prey
  38. What's the difference b/t a /.ing and a DDOS'ing? by fbg111 · · Score: 5, Funny

    When ddos'ers successfully crash your server, they move on to the next victim. When the slashdotters crash your server, they sit around bitching about your IIS POS, till you're back online, then they slashdot you again.

    --
    Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
  39. Scotty! Beam us out! by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Slashdot Readers:
    More power, dammit! Show us your pretty pictures!

    Webmaster Scotty:
    She can't taking anymore Captain! She's givin' us all she's got, but she can't take the slashdotting!

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  40. What... no Sulaco or Nostromo?? by tjhanley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can't deny the Alien series...

    --
    --- /. is like tivo for news
  41. Distributed Mirrors Project by ckedge · · Score: 4, Informative


    http://solem.cs.man.ac.uk:8006/cgi-bin/mirror.pl?g et=http%3A%2F%2Fzardalu.sytes.net%2F

    Everyone, add the following URL to your shortcuts, it'll be dang handy if you're a slashdot regular.

    http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~brejc8/mirror/index.html

    Note that by going to the main distributed-mirror page, you can add to the list of mirrors (if you know of others, or if you are creating one yourself.)

  42. Star Wars Technical Commentaries by willith · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let us not forget the Star Wars Technical Commentaries, a collection of near industry-quality analyses of Star Wars tech, put toghether by a Ph.D with a lot of time on his hands.

    There's a couple of weeks of engrossing reading there. Highlights include Warships of the Empire, The Endor Holocaust (an interesting examination of probably ecological fallout on the sanctuary moon due to the explosion of the Death Star II), and The Injuries of Darth Vader.

  43. Re:Ships? by crazyphilman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're not alone, dude.

    I thought the original Star Wars series was ok, and worth watching once, but suffered because it was a little too kid-oriented (Ewoks??? Jawas??? too much obligatory cuteness). I don't see why people have to get so obsessed over it (did you see the guys dressing up as Jedi and lining up for the Phantom Menace? Holy Moly). And, the new series kinda sucks. Why did George Lucas make the Jedi into such a bunch of joyless fucks??? No love, no sex, no possessions, can't have fun, can't do anything amusing... Who the hell would join such an organization? No wonder they roam around, kidnapping kids to make new Jedi. Adults would chase them off with pitchforks and torches. ;)

    And, don't get me started on Star Trek. God, what awfulness. At least the original Gene Roddenberry series was an allegory for something. You had the USS Enterprise (named after an aircraft carrier), Klingons (who were basically communist Russians), Romulans (I guess Red China?) and so on. It let Roddenberry examine the cold war without being obvious about it, and he occasionally examined a traditional sci-fi deep thought or two. Not worth obsession or anyting, but amusing. But, God, the new series don't even have that to recommend them! They're so boring and sad... I mean, Jesus, it's all about geek wish-fulfillment: all the crafty techies doing techie things, with supporting women all around them, but never stealing their thunder, and so on. And, they're all so annoyingly typecast: Oh, Klingons are always butch, whatserface is the "sensitive one", the borg chick is cold and aloof... DULL, DULL DULL. Ick, foo.

    And, don't get me started on all the crazy trekkies, walking around with chirping starfleet insignias on their chests... Did you hear about that maniac who spoke to his son only in Klingon for the first two years of the kid's life, making the kid's primary language KLINGON??? What is WRONG with these people? That kid's gonna be a mental case for the rest of his life.

    --
    Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
  44. A solution - temporary local mirrors on Slashdot by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Unfortunately, I think this might be a side effect of the new "mysterious future" feature. If subscribers can see an article 30 minutes before the rest of the Slashdot crowd then that gives them 30 minutes in which to slashdot the relevant server and/or eat up all of the site owners bandwidth cap.

    Looks like uber geeks who can't stand missing out on articles like this one will have to subscribe if they want a fighting chance of reading the relevant article(s). I know the editors here really don't give a damn about issues like site management any more than they have to (witness the number of headlines and summaries that are inaccurate, badly spelt and/or grammatically incorrect, the number of dupes, fakes, etc), but when it's someone else's bandwidth then they really should be trying to work with people rather than against them.

    Offering to mirror articles on non-commercial sites locally for a week or so would be a good start. The story links could point to the local server mirror which after a week could be changed to s simple redirection page pointing back to the original source site. This solution would stop major slashdotting of small "mom and pop"-type sites, and benefit Slashdot readers, Slashdot and the site owners as well. (If ad revenue is an issue, I'm sure Slashdot and the site owner could agree on splitting the revenue that the locally hosted mirror generates. And I'm sure Slashdot could cover itself against any possible legal ramifications with a well-worded contract that clearly illustrates that the content and the consequences of publishing it are the responsibility of the original owner - just like ISPs do all the time and Slashdot does with posts at the moment.)

    I'm not saying that this should be compulsory, but that it should be an option. It seems to be a win-win situation all around, so why wouldn't they consider it?

    Any editors reading this have any comments to make?

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  45. Ancent history. by c.emmertfoster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    See this abusenet thread for the original debate, the Enterprise versus an Imperial Star Destroyer!

    It's especially funny because you thought you were joking.

    --
    We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
  46. Largest space structure size by bradbury · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The largest integrated space structure size (that I've encountered) would be a highly evolved Matrioshka Brain which is a multi-layer Dyson Sphere constructed using molecular nanotechnology. This is significantly larger and a heck of a lot more intelligant than a Magog Worldship. There is not normally enough enough material outside of the star in a single solar system to construct one however, so it would require an extended harvesting process within a large gas cloud or perhaps an extensive process of star-lifting [1] to accomplish this. The maximum size of a Matrioshka Brain depends on the size of the star used as a power source and/or the size to which it is reduced. But a diameter of several light years is not unreasonable. This is determined by the heat radiation limits as specified by Stefan's Law. Unlike Niven's Ringworld or a Magog Worldship which may have significant problems with the laws of physics (holding them together is problematic), Matrioshka Brains do seem feasible.

    Interestingly, when you navigate a Matrioshka Brain one has to take the star with you -- so changing course or speed does take a rather long time.

    1. D. R. Criswell, "Solar System Industrialization: Implications for Interstellar Migrations", Chapter 4 in Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience, Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, (eds.), University of California Press, (1985), pp 50-87.

  47. new "mysterious future" feature by kikta · · Score: 2, Funny

    Something else I'd like to see is someone reposting the "mysterious future" articles somewhere else. That way everyone could get them for free. Why should Slashdot be able to extort money out of people to get something in advance? Especially when there's a question of inadequate bandwidth, e.g. slashdotting. I say fuck 'em. Put those articles on BitTorrent. Ruin this plum for subscribers, because we deserve that service without paying!

    P.S. Yes, this is sarcasm. I just can't help noticing the irony.

  48. Solutions to your problems by einhverfr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Solutions are usually pretty obvious:

    PROBLEM: Any ship with more acceleration then the other ship can always escape. So to deal with this gameplay "problem", they made the enemy ship magically re-appear with magical acceleration so it can take another shot at you.

    Solution-- for larger capital ships this would always hold true, and this is OK. But for the smaller fighters, assume they carry a limited quantity of O2. They can wait it out away from the battle, but they can't go too far or their life-support will run out and the pilot will die.

    PROBLEM: Unless you use an unrealistically slow amount of thrust, you tend to have these ships zipping by each other at the very least hundreds of miles per hour, leaving you with a fraction of a second to meaningfully fire on the other ship, then it's turn back around and do it again. Since you're a human you can't whip around instantly, it take time to move the ship, so every time you miss and come around for another pass, you're going a little faster since you had more time to accelerate.

    One of those jobs for a targeting computer. What do you think fighter airplane pilots use target acquisition radar for anyway? As for accelleration, it would likely be limited to the inertia you want to put on the human body...

    PROBLEM: It is virtually impossible to tail someone. If you're matching their thrust vector, you're not pointing at them, you're pointing in the same direction they are. Now, if you had a gunner this might be OK, but when you're both piloting and gunning because whatever the ship info screen says your crew is, it's just you, this doesn't work.

    Actually flying a fighter designed for manuverability is actually a major problem anyway. My suggestion is to have a tracking computer enhancement which enables one to guide the fighter in a computer-enhanced mode, where a dot on the HUD is moved with a joystick and the computer attempts to compensate. The same holds true for the landing problem. My solution would be to be able to operate thrusters in tracked or untracked mode and allow for computer assisted landings.

    One would probably need some convention for FTL travel in order to make the game more interesting (I like the B5 sort of hyperspace, but other ways would be possible too).

    Most of the problems could be handled by assuming computer enhancements for targetting, landing, and even manuvering... Of course, landing with a damaged computer could be interesting ;)

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  49. Eureka! by snilloc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    /. cannot ask to mirror a site for legal reasons, nor can they just go ahead and mirror it.

    What is needed is for site authors to pre-emptively allow mirroring. This could be done with some kind of apache mod (as somebody has suggested below) or with a simple statement like "Please mirror this site if you're going to post a link to this site that is likely to generate massive amounts of traffic."

    perhaps some sort of web content license that allows for mirroring... Just so that nobody has to ask before either posting to /. or mirroring.

    Seriously though, anybody posting a site about dimensions of sci-fi starships must have some knowledge of slashdot and the possibility of getting /.ed.

    1. Re:Eureka! by arkanes · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They can't ASK for legal reasons? I respect Slashdot not wanting to deal with the issues surrounding mirrors, but that's just stupid.

    2. Re:Eureka! by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The answer very well might be "no, you can't link or mirror." By not asking, they avoid the issue of somebody saying "no", but also cut off the possibility of "yes, but please mirror it."

      You don't need permission to link to a site (I know some stupid sites tried to say you did, but none have held up in court). You don't ask permission, just give warning that you're planning to do that, and ask if they want it to be mirrored.

      With this kind of story, it's been around for a few months and is hardly time sensitive.

      If a site really doesn't want links it can easily just take the page down for a few hours (as the floppy Enterprise site did recently), or just check for a Slashdot referrer and reject it.

  50. a few biggies by tri44id · · Score: 2, Informative
    Sorry no pics, these are from books.

    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Scranton, Pennsylvania/spindizzy drive
    LENGTH: 5Km
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The first city to "go Okie", leaving an economically depressed Earth in search of paying jobs.
    SOURCE: James Blish, "A Life for the Stars"

    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Hern VI/spindizzy drive
    LENGTH: 3000Km ("considerably smaller than Mercury")
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: Flown across the galaxy by New Yorkers on a mission to destroy the Vegan Orbital Fort.
    SOURCE: James Blish, "Earthman, Come Home"

    SHIP NAME/TYPE: Mars/tweaked space-time elements of quantum descriptors
    LENGTH: 6750Km
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Federal Republic of Mars moved their planet to a new system 10,000 light years away in order to escape the oppressive politoco-economic expansionism of Earth's Greater East-West Alliance (GEWA). Mars's moon Phobos was used as a "scout ship".
    SOURCE: Greg Bear, "Moving Mars". The novel won several awards, including the Nebula Award.

    SHIP NAME/TYPE: none.
    LENGTH: 90 million miles
    BUILDER/COMMENTS: The ship was a gigantic dummy, the largest scarecrow ever conceived by the human mind. It was used at least twice, once to frighten away nonhuman agressors from a forgotten corner of the galaxies, once to serve as a diversionary action in the destruction of the dictator Lord Raumsog and seventeen million noncombatants with carcinogenic poisons.
    SOURCE: Cordwainer Smith, "Golden the Ship Was -- Oh! Oh! Oh!"

    --
    Taxation without representation is tyranny! Statehood for DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands & Pacific Territories!
  51. Another site by termilitor · · Score: 2, Informative

    The site Ex Astris Scientia concentrates on measuring and comparing Star Trek ships, but it's still an impressive effort.

  52. Dyson sphere by Apogaion · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Missing from this list is the biggest space structure I've ever heard proposed, the solid Dyson sphere, a modification of a concept proposed by the astronomer Freeman Dyson. A solid Dyson sphere is a shell constructed around a star, so that all the star's energy is contained. One of these built around the Sun at the radius of the Earth's orbit would have a diameter of 3x10^8 km.

    There's an episode of ST:TNG in which the NCC-1701-D crew finds Scottie marooned on the surface of a Dyson sphere, where he has trapped himself in a transporter loop for several decades in order to survive.

    --
    This account verified sig-free since..., uh, never mind.
  53. Surprising by Etriaph · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I was amazed by the sheer total of universes he was able to combine. To find The Gunstar from The Last Starfighter on that site was really amazingly cool.

    Unfortunately, my Star Trek Technical Manual shows the Constitution Class and the Galaxy Class in different scale. On his site, the original Enteprises ship class looks about half as big as the Galaxy Class, which it's not, it's about 1/4 - 1/3. But seeing the size of the Sovereign Class as it compares way up there to the Super Star Destroyer (and it's comparison to the original unfinished Death Star) was even more cool.

    This guy should get an award from someone for his patience.

    --
    "It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
  54. Here is a link to a picture of starship sizes... by mgblst · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/systems/jupit er/photos/jupiter%20size%20comparison.jpg

    See if you can break that link..

  55. Perry Rodan - POINT by Pope+Raymond+Lama · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unlss you will count the Death Star - and even them,
    I'd nedd it's specs, because OLD MAN station
    is probably still larger, Perry Rhodan - a German Sci Fi series, is the clear winner.

    With 2.5 Kilometers in an ordinary battle ship,
    Weapons ranging to tenths of millions of kilometers, they are unmatched.

    --
    -><- no .sig is good sig.
  56. Let slashdot do the work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not have the slashdot servers check the links every 10mins or so. If the site is down then swap the links in the article to a slashdot page that apologises and offers you a cookie that will remember you and link you wanted. So next time you come to slashdot, and site is backup, it will remind you of the article and link you wanted to follow?

  57. Let's do it by ourselves, the community. by clarkie.mg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Offering to mirror articles on non-commercial sites locally for a week or so would be a good start.

    I think we can wait a thousand years or so before the slashdot team creates such a feature, even for subscribers (imagine how frustrating it must be for subscribers when they preview a site and it's already slashdotted).

    So let's move and make such a mirror by ourselves. All we need is a URL - say http://www.mysite.net/mirror/ - and when a site - say http://obscure-url.com/slashed.html - is slashdotted, the reader can read the mirror on http://www.mysite/mirror/obscure-url.com/slashed.h tml

    The site owner could even redirect the page and choose to mirror it. Otherwise, a benevolent member of the community would access the mirror site and ask to mirror.

    Any other ideas ?

    --
    Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel