So, about those "functional differences" for new ships... (spoilers, maybe?)

Is that some industrial diving appliance?

The idea of flying under water is pretty old--probably as old as the first human to watch a penguin hunt--but as functional manned submersibles it's a product originally designed by Graham Hawkes and copied by plenty of others in the decades since.

Some old articles on the DeepFlight stuff:

The DeepFlight Aviator cannot submerge or stay submerged below eight knots. Some of the sumbersible jet-ski things cannot submerge until in excess of 20 knots.
 
The idea of flying under water is pretty old--probably as old as the first human to watch a penguin hunt--but as functional manned submersibles it's a product originally designed by Graham Hawkes and copied by plenty of others in the decades since.

Some old articles on the DeepFlight stuff:

The DeepFlight Aviator cannot submerge or stay submerged below eight knots. Some of the sumbersible jet-ski things cannot submerge until in excess of 20 knots.
That's like some concept design like that billionaire's tin cube that collapsed. There is no "flying" under water. Penguins look like they fly because they are sleek and elegant - and smol. Subs are way bigger and have less acceleration. The penguin also steers by moving forward down and up and not by "drag". It's quite pointless to have a sub that can't stay submerged unless it is propelled forward, too. Maybe for a tourist application.
Probably the best way to "fly" under water would be to encase your craft in a supercavitation bubble.
 
Is that not part of the heat dissipation system? Yes... "dissipiate into what"... but those sections on the OG python "open up" when heat is high, and so I assume that grill is part of that system... whatever space magic it uses.
The radiation is supposed to be much more inefficient than convection.

As for the "flying" sub - the better way to demonstrate lift in water is probably hydrofoils, which eliminate the drag of the body largely by moving it out of the equation.
 
There is no "flying" under water.

The principles are the same and the end result is closer to how aircraft work than to how conventional submarines work.

Penguins look like they fly because they are sleek and elegant - and smol. The penguin also steers by moving forward down and up and not by "drag".

A dozen of one and twelve of another. Flying and swimming both depend on deflecting the medium one is traveling through, which is always going to create drag.

Penguins look like they fly under water because they swim using the same basic principles and control surfaces as flying birds, just adapted to a different fluid.

It's quite pointless to have a sub that can't stay submerged unless it is propelled forward, too. Maybe for a tourist application.

That's like saying aircraft that can't hover are pointless. What would we ever do with aircraft that just fall out of the sky if they stop moving?

There are plenty of things one can do underwater, besides tourism (not that there is anything wrong with sightseeing), that don't require the ability to remain stationary underwater, which would also benefit from the ease of recovery of a positively buoyant craft. Sampling (water, not seafloor) and (sonar) survey work would surely benefit from efficient high-speed underwater travel and the ability to retrieve data that wouldn't be able to be sent from the ocean floor if something were to go wrong. I can also think of at least a few military and supply applications where these would be beneficial features.

About the only things it would rule out would be work on stationary underwater/seafloor locations and espionage or smuggling...and even here there are exceptions. In areas were there are persistent strong currents, craft like these would have an advantage, and if a smuggling vessel is unmanned, or an espionage one lacking in sensitive technology, then the opposing force being able to retrieve it may be a minor setback, but a second chance at recovery for those that deployed it may be a net advantage.

Probably the best way to "fly" under water would be to encase your craft in a supercavitation bubble.

Not as practical for many applications, especially given how it compromises both stealth and one's own sensors.

As for the "flying" sub - the better way to demonstrate lift in water is probably hydrofoils, which eliminate the drag of the body largely by moving it out of the equation.

That's less analogous to Elite: Dangerous spaceships that--should worlds with dense atmospheres ever become landable--will have to have some way to overcome potentially extreme buoyancy. Wings on our spacecraft make more sense in the DeepFlight-style sense than in the aircraft sense, because to take off from and leave a world all that's required is a thrust to weight ratio of just over one, which any ship with a planetary landing suite has.

Not that I think it's likely any of these shapes are anything other than purely aesthetic, but if they were made to be functional, overcoming buoyancy would be prime pretense for their existence.
 
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The principles are the same and the end result is closer to how aircraft work than to how conventional submarines work.



A dozen of one and twelve of another. Flying and swimming both depend on deflecting the medium one is traveling through, which is always going to create drag.

Penguins look like they fly under water because they swim using the same basic principles and control surfaces as flying birds, just adapted to a different fluid.



That's like saying aircraft that can't hover are pointless. What would we ever do with aircraft that just fall out of the sky if they stop moving?

There are plenty of things one can do underwater, besides tourism (not that there is anything wrong with sightseeing), that don't require the ability to remain stationary underwater, which would also benefit from the ease of recovery of a positively buoyant craft. Sampling (water, not seafloor) and (sonar) survey work would surely benefit from efficient high-speed underwater travel and the ability to retrieve data that wouldn't be able to be sent from the ocean floor if something were to go wrong. I can also think of at least a few military and supply applications where these would be beneficial features.

About the only things it would rule out would be work on stationary underwater/seafloor locations and espionage or smuggling...and even here there are exceptions. In areas were there are persistent strong currents, craft like these would have an advantage, and if a smuggling vessel is unmanned, or an espionage one lacking in sensitive technology, then the opposing force being able to retrieve it may be a minor setback, but a second chance at recovery for those that deployed it may be a net advantage.



Not as practical for many applications, especially given how it compromises both stealth and one's own sensors.



That's less analogous to Elite: Dangerous spaceships that--should worlds with dense atmospheres ever become landable--will have to have some way to overcome potentially extreme buoyancy. Wings on our spacecraft make more sense in the DeepFlight-style sense than in the aircraft sense, because to take off from and leave a world all that's required is a thrust to weight ratio of just over one, which any ship with a planetary landing suite has.

Not that I think it's likely any of these shapes are anything other than purely asesthetic, but if they were made to be functional, overcoming bouyancy would be prime presense for their existence.
Water is much more dense. You cannot achieve speeds like in the air. You also don't need to create a lift. You can sumply point the sub in the direction you want. It's not a matter of possibility, it's a matter of design and giving up a submarine's ability to manouver at exact depths for nor reason makes little sense.
 
Water is much more dense. You cannot achieve speeds like in the air. You also don't need to create a lift. You can sumply point the sub in the direction you want. It's not a matter of possibility, it's a matter of design and giving up a submarine's ability to manouver at exact depths for nor reason makes little sense.

Both water and air are fluids and are behaving as such - you can achieve positive buoyancy in both air and water by using ballast tanks (a zeppelin is just a nacelle suspended under a very large ballast tank) or you can create lift by using "wings" - a hydrofoil for example is using underwater wings

I do believe that in the future our subs will behave much more like planes and less like underwater zeppelins
 
I’m not sure I understand the idea that our current ships would primarily need to counter buoyancy when looking to land/descend inside of a dense atmosphere(and if it’s the one thing I comment on from this conversation).

On one hand, the why isn’t really something I have discerned throughout the different posts, and on the other… wouldn’t that be terribly impractical for trying to keep the ship grounded after setting it down on the surface?
 
Ok lol, so we have reached the following agreement in this debate: ED ships should totally have wings, otherwise they wouldn't be able to submerge and "fly" in some ridiculously dense and dangerously high pressure (and probably also very hot) atmosphere.

It's still not crystal clear why on Earth would we want to do that, but okay. I mean, all our ships are capable of atm is landing on airless or nearly airless bodies. I think the next logical step would be an Earth-like atmosphere, not Venus or Jupiter. And wings still don't seem to be absolutely necessary for that. :)
 
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Both water and air are fluids and are behaving as such - you can achieve positive buoyancy in both air and water by using ballast tanks (a zeppelin is just a nacelle suspended under a very large ballast tank) or you can create lift by using "wings" - a hydrofoil for example is using underwater wings

I do believe that in the future our subs will behave much more like planes and less like underwater zeppelins
Propulsion creates noise. Speed creates noise. It is the complete opposite of using the stealth advantage a submarine delivers when you need to move in order to prevent sinking.
 
The radiation is supposed to be much more inefficient than convection.

But it is indeed the only way to get rid of heat in space without using some sort of heat store and heating it up and ejecting it, you know, like a heatsink! The problem is you can only carry so much spare mass to use in the heatsinks, so for ordinary usage you have to have some sort of passive method, and this is the best we have, radiators.
 
I’m not sure I understand the idea that our current ships would primarily need to counter buoyancy when looking to land/descend inside of a dense atmosphere(and if it’s the one thing I comment on from this conversation).

On one hand, the why isn’t really something I have discerned throughout the different posts, and on the other… wouldn’t that be terribly impractical for trying to keep the ship grounded after setting it down on the surface?
I think most Sci Fi games had wave a lot of that away. Most don't have any reasonable design for atmospheric flights. Star Destroyers e.g. just hang there suspended. It's like that in most fiction. I don't DCS in ED.
 
But it is indeed the only way to get rid of heat in space without using some sort of heat store and heating it up and ejecting it, you know, like a heatsink! The problem is you can only carry so much spare mass to use in the heatsinks, so for ordinary usage you have to have some sort of passive method, and this is the best we have, radiators.
Yes, and then there is the convenient insta heat transfer from ship systems into the heat sink. Super efficient.
Reality doesn't work like that but in terms of game design it's a neat gameplay element.
 
giving up a submarine's ability to manouver at exact depths for nor reason makes little sense.

Not for no reason. Safety and recoverability are reasons. Volumetric and thus propulsive efficiency (no volume devoted to ballast or trim) is another.

Both water and air are fluids and are behaving as such - you can achieve positive buoyancy in both air and water by using ballast tanks (a zeppelin is just a nacelle suspended under a very large ballast tank) or you can create lift by using "wings" - a hydrofoil for example is using underwater wings

Yeah, air and water are almost completely analogous here.

I’m not sure I understand the idea that our current ships would primarily need to counter buoyancy when looking to land/descend inside of a dense atmosphere(and if it’s the one thing I comment on from this conversation).

An ultra light exploraconda build (~101k cubic meters and ~550 ~519 tons) is about four times as dense as air at sea level on Earth. There are scads of worlds with way more than four atm of surface pressure, many of which also have denser compositions at the same pressure. An exploraconda trying to land on the surface of Venus, for example, would need to overcome tens of thousands of tons of bouyancy.

Of course this assumes that the entire volume of our ships is isolated from space, which may well not be the case, but significant portions would have to be, doubly so for vessels intended for hostile atmospheres.

On one hand, the why isn’t really something I have discerned throughout the different posts, and on the other… wouldn’t that be terribly impractical for trying to keep the ship grounded after setting it down on the surface?

Yes.

ED ships should totally have wings, otherwise they wouldn't be able to submerge and "fly" in some ridiculously dense and dangerously high pressure (and probably also very hot) atmosphere.

I don't think they should have wings.

I think this is probably the only potential functional use for wings on spaceships in the Elite setting. If not for superdense atmopheres, then they are purely cosmetic...which they are. Which is why I don't like them.

And wings still don't seem to be absolutely necessary for that.

Not remotely necessary for less than about three or four atmospheres of pressure.
 
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Yeah. And wasn't there some sort of suction stuff, too, they had once created with the chassis bottom? It would sometimes fail and the car could then lift off and literally fly and explode in a fireball. That was definitely the more entertaining version of F1 back then.
WipeOut - we’re not quite into the anti-gravity racing league here on Earth just yet.

Although some of these ships would certainly do well in stylised racing.
 
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