Lore / story behind ship designs being centuries old?

[Vasious]

So ultimately IMO, you do NOT need lore to explain why a design (chasis) is centuries old — but lore for better sensors/thrusters/powerplant/etc. blablah would be great.

The Sidewinder is the perfect example of showing the better sensors/thrusters/powerplant/etc.

When it was first in use it was a SLF needing a carrier, and carried

Come the 3200s the current drives allowed for a Class one to be fitted and it could jump just under 7 light years, and could carry a few tons of cargo and fuel for 2 jumps, if you wanted sensors, a single pulse laser, a radar mapper, and a cargo scoop

Come 3300s and the Sidewinder carries a FSD allowing it to cross systems in minutes not weeks, jump twice as far, carry much more, the sensors and radar mapper(the thing you need to id ships for a bounty) are now one unit and comes as standard, as does the cargo scoop, and can carry a pair of beam lasers that weigh half as much together as one did in the 3320s

 

[metatheurgist]

They were going to change it but too any people complained on the shipyard forums.

 

[SAB380]

I want to know the lore behind no branding on ship parts and all parts being swappable between every ship in the galaxy, limited only by the ships size.
That seems ....odd.

 

[Wolfman]

I want to know the lore behind no branding on ship parts and all parts being swappable between every ship in the galaxy, limited only by the ships size.
That seems ....odd.

Several different well known manufacturers of DvD players all using standard DvD discs made by different anonymous DvD disc manufacturers? - Admittedly a basic example.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Have you seen a modern utensil, called a knife? They're usually pressed steel mated with some form of metal, wooden, polymer or composite handle. Like this guy, now that's a knife!

http://www.bt.dk/sites/default/files-dk/node-images/933/8/8933653-crocknife.jpg

We don't even know when knives were invented. We've had a need to cut things for millennia, and we've found evidence of some form of cutting implement for several thousand years; it's probably tens of thousands of years old in concept. Sometimes? A thing works and you can iterate the thing but it can still be a millennia old concept.

Aircraft? Still use wings (well, for the most part). We've had aircraft with wings since forever, which is really just an adaptation of the concept of a kite, and those have existed in some form for thousands of years. The point I am making? Technology can change, but basic concepts in design can last for hundreds or thousands of years, because we've simply not figured out how to improve on them.

A knife, even made from the most advanced materials, using the latest metals and composites, is still a millennia old design. In much the same way, that a projectile weapon will work just fine in space (assuming you have a self-contained method to propel). There's a bit of a recoil situation to resolve (for every action..) but if you lob a chunk of depleted uranium, for example, at several thousands meters per second at a target in space, it's going to have an impact.

At much higher speeds, it can be catastrophic. There's been more than one instance when folks on the ISS have had to strategically relocate because of a very close, very fast moving projectile. None of this, needs any handwavium to explain.

We still use chemical rockets to lob stuff into space, which are thousands of years old in concept. Because we simply haven't figured out a better way of getting an object into space more effectively. It's not the specific implementation of a thing that really matters; it's the core design concept.

And that is what Frontier is presenting. The notion that concepts can be hundreds, or even thousands of years old. Mankind has been in space for thousands of years at that point. If it works, it works. And will forever do so, until we find something that works better. SpaceX is iterating rocket designs, but at their simplest definition, they are simply a very capable, controlled firework.

Fret not about the 'lore' or 'reality' of this; it's quite literally all around you. Every day. Science and engineering, man, it's cool as hell.

Lastly? It's a game. The developer is free to express some artistic licence. But what amuses me the most; is it's often the most likely thing we'd actually see, being called handwavium. It's hilarious.

Ok, how about launching a new ship? When was the last time Lakon, FalconDelacy, etc. made a new ship? It doesn't need to be dealbreaker but I hear about a new plane every 5 years roughly speaking. Not the same with the ships we have We also need to consider that a knife isn't very complicated at all, it is just a piece of metal with a sharp edge. Not much you can do about it.

 

[Vasious]

Ok, how about launching a new ship? When was the last time Lakon, FalconDelacy, etc. made a new ship? It doesn't need to be dealbreaker but I hear about a new plane every 5 years roughly speaking. Not the same with the ships we have We also need to consider that a knife isn't very complicated at all, it is just a piece of metal with a sharp edge. Not much you can do about it.

Well the FSD is only 13 years old so getting them in all the current ships is probably what they have been doing

I am not sure how old the F63 and GU97 but they have recently been developed replacing the Eagle Mk.II Mk.III Falcon and Ospreys from the Federal and Imperial Navies

The Lakon Type 7 is from 3290

We know the Lakon-Alliance ships are all going to be new ship from 3304 and the Type 10 if a direct response to the Thargoids will be a contemporary development as well

 

[kofeyh]

Ok, how about launching a new ship?

Everything not on this list, is a new ship, as far as the Original Elite (of which this is the next chapter). So we already have a bunch of new (but old) ships. All of the thargoid ships, so far -- scout notwithstanding -- are new.

--

Adder
Anaconda
Asp Mk II
Boa
Cobra Mk I
Cobra Mk III
Constrictor
Fer-de-Lance
Gecko
Krait
Mamba
Moray Star Boat
Python
Shuttle
Sidewinder Scout Ship
Thargoid Invasion Ship
Transporter
Viper Police Ship
Worm Class Landing Craft

--

So things like Federal Drop Ship, Federal Gun Ship, Federal Corvette, Imperial Cutter, Imperial Clipper, Type-6, Type-7, Type-9 are all "new" relative to the above original list. And more are coming. So..

When was the last time Lakon, FalconDelacy, etc. made a new ship? It doesn't need to be dealbreaker but I hear about a new plane every 5 years roughly speaking. Not the same with the ships we have We also need to consider that a knife isn't very complicated at all, it is just a piece of metal with a sharp edge. Not much you can do about it.

Yes, but planes share similar technology like powerplants, avionics, communications and so on; that is just endless iteration of the same thing. Why? Reliability. It's the same thing with space technology; it's itterative and very conservative because it has to cope with radiation, vibration and so on.

Innovation isn't just "we should have a new thing now, because it's been 2 years" it's almost entirely based on other factors. We also haven't just got bored of combustion-based rocket engines -- because that's boring and we need something new -- it's because it's the most effective way, currently, to lob stuff into space.

Again; this is a game. But Frontier isn't entirely off base with the concept that spacecraft might be in operation for extended periods. Shuttle was (decades). SLS will reuse a lot of that technology. Soyuz is still going strong, and it's many decades old. It's all iterative design because reliability is massively important when you lob people into a hostile, airless void with pretty much everything trying to kill you (much like most of the wildlife in Australia, but I digress).

Most of the things we send out into our own solar system can be several years old, by the time they get to their mission point; some are decades old. Voyager I and II are still rocking along barrelling into the endlessness of deep space. And they are still sending data back, and probably will for decades yet!

So the concept of spacecraft being fairly old designs, is pretty much exactly how it works. Even if space ships become as common as cars, those too are simply a new look on an old design; 4 wheels, Fuel and some form of Propulsion. The basic formula hasn't changed since the Model T, even though there has been massive development in all manner of technology. A car is little more than a mechanical horse and cart (where the horses are now under the bonnet).

Unrelated: I am looking forward to Frontier finally putting out, and dropping the Chieftain into ED. It looks sick (great).

 

[Gunnet]

The real world rate of technological advancement is far from consistent. We're lucky enough to have lived through (or in close proximity to) what is probably the fastest period of advancement in our species' history. It's hard for us to imagine there being only incremental improvements to existing technology over the course of centuries, but there's a good chance that it will be that way again someday.

 

[Punished Mobius]

I can't quite picture a society where no technological advances have been made in 600 years...

I can think of one...

 

[NW3]

I think a fair comparison is water craft.

Some boat and ship designs are much the same as they were hundreds of years ago. Dugout canoes, kayaks, sampans, junks, outrigger canoes, schooners, etc.

 

[Viking84]

Lots of interesting discussion here chaps I must admit though I don't buy the comparison with products such as knives, pens, canoes and what have you. They are simple products, often with only one purpose and few areas of improvement.

Comparisons with older planes and ships make more sense, however even now we see that 60-70 years is starting to become the limit for conceptual designs without them being changed so much that they qualify as an entirely new product. 600 years is an awful long time for not a single ground breaking revolution in hull design to have occurred.

Ah well, it's only a game, but it would be fun if there were some more interactive lore available in game to "set the mood" so to speak, and make the galaxy we are spending so much time in feel as believable as possible.

 

[NW3]

I'd like to see more and varied ships in the game, even if they were only flown by NPCs.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Are some current war ships like 40+ years old? The Apache gunship is about 40(ish) too. I think.

I can imagine something as complex as a starships design would remain fairly similar throughout the ages, while just getting facelifts and internal upgrades.

Of course, if you look as spaceships as the 3300~ equivalent to cars, then they should change every year or so.

*Shrugs*

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I imagine that at some point technology advancement will reach a point where things slow down and certain designs will simply work.

So while a certain ship hull design might be hundreds of years old the internal parts have most likely been improved.

http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1307627

The above link is a good example of a ship over a hundred years old still in service and never ship designs are not that different.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I just assume they keep the names but the ships do change.

Its like having a brand name. The Ford Escort has been in production for decades, but there have been changes.

From this:

To this:

Both are Ford Escorts, and both have the same general design - 4 wheels, saloon/sedan body, and generally you can look at an Escort from any era and say, yeah, that's an Escort.

So, ok, the CM3 is still the same CM3 in name, but in terms of specs, its quite different from the CM3 in the original Elite and the CM3 in Frontier.

 

[Goose4291]

Are some current war ships like 40+ years old? The Apache gunship is about 40(ish) too. I think.

I can imagine something as complex as a starships design would remain fairly similar throughout the ages, while just getting facelifts and internal upgrades.

Of course, if you look as spaceships as the 3300~ equivalent to cars, then they should change every year or so.

*Shrugs*

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

Yep.

I was just on a ship that was a Falklands war vet, and wasnt exactly a spring chicken back then.

 

[Morbad]

Anything that has had time to sufficiently mature is going to start to take a common, long lived, form...at least until there is some paradigm shift that renders the old form less suitable.

However, I also get the impression that this isn't an officially-endorsed paradigm and that's how come we've ended-up with superpowers and corporate entities co-existing with drug-empires and outright lawlessness.

Coexistence, even of the competitive sort, is a lot easier when there is room for it.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

I can't quite picture a society where no technological advances have been made in 600 years that wouldn't make any hull design entirely obsolete? It would be like us outfitting the Santa Maria with a nuclear powerplant, cruise missiles and a Bofors 120mm auto-cannon.

in your own example you mention a ship from the middle ages... a time period where we humanities technological advances have been rather slow for 900 years.
if you take a look at history, you will see that we currently live in a very fast paced timeframe, and its very unlikely that the pace will keep up.

especially not if we start to expand into the universe, where travel time is sooooooo unbelievable long, even for signals.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Everything not on this list, is a new ship, as far as the Original Elite (of which this is the next chapter). So we already have a bunch of new (but old) ships. All of the thargoid ships, so far -- scout notwithstanding -- are new.

--

Adder
Anaconda
Asp Mk II
Boa
Cobra Mk I
Cobra Mk III
Constrictor
Fer-de-Lance
Gecko
Krait
Mamba
Moray Star Boat
Python
Shuttle
Sidewinder Scout Ship
Thargoid Invasion Ship
Transporter
Viper Police Ship
Worm Class Landing Craft

--

So things like Federal Drop Ship, Federal Gun Ship, Federal Corvette, Imperial Cutter, Imperial Clipper, Type-6, Type-7, Type-9 are all "new" relative to the above original list. And more are coming. So..



Yes, but planes share similar technology like powerplants, avionics, communications and so on; that is just endless iteration of the same thing. Why? Reliability. It's the same thing with space technology; it's itterative and very conservative because it has to cope with radiation, vibration and so on.

Innovation isn't just "we should have a new thing now, because it's been 2 years" it's almost entirely based on other factors. We also haven't just got bored of combustion-based rocket engines -- because that's boring and we need something new -- it's because it's the most effective way, currently, to lob stuff into space.

Again; this is a game. But Frontier isn't entirely off base with the concept that spacecraft might be in operation for extended periods. Shuttle was (decades). SLS will reuse a lot of that technology. Soyuz is still going strong, and it's many decades old. It's all iterative design because reliability is massively important when you lob people into a hostile, airless void with pretty much everything trying to kill you (much like most of the wildlife in Australia, but I digress).

Most of the things we send out into our own solar system can be several years old, by the time they get to their mission point; some are decades old. Voyager I and II are still rocking along barrelling into the endlessness of deep space. And they are still sending data back, and probably will for decades yet!

So the concept of spacecraft being fairly old designs, is pretty much exactly how it works. Even if space ships become as common as cars, those too are simply a new look on an old design; 4 wheels, Fuel and some form of Propulsion. The basic formula hasn't changed since the Model T, even though there has been massive development in all manner of technology. A car is little more than a mechanical horse and cart (where the horses are now under the bonnet).

Unrelated: I am looking forward to Frontier finally putting out, and dropping the Chieftain into ED. It looks sick (great).

The problem is that I don’t see much iterations in spaceships. For example, the Asp Explorer is the third iteration of its kind and I believe it’s like centuries old but please correct me if I’m wrong. I also want to comment that in 50~ years of RL space career we have seen many different rockets, Atlas, Soyuz, Space Shuttle, Saturn, Falcon, etc. For what I’ve read in this thread, the last ship to be launched was the Type 7 thirty years ago. Same goes for military and civilian planes and the amount of iterations they have.

Edit, thirteen years old not thirty.

 

[bigity]

I can think of one...

https://i.imgur.com/blHJOTI.gif

The Emprah's infrastructure is perfect and holy! Please report to your local detention center for re-education and the purging with the holy fire you heretic.