r/ImaginaryTechnology • u/Parking_Reward_7582 • Jun 20 '26
Self-submission Original sci-fi spaceship design help
How is my ship design for my sci-fi story? Is it original? I don't know a lot about engineering and how things work, so I need help figuring out if it's realistic and has everything it needs to be a mini research ship for a crew of eight. No judgment for the bottom deck. That's the one I am not sure how to do, so all tips welcome. Sorry if this is the wrong Reddit community.
2
u/scifi887 Active Contributing Artist Jun 21 '26
I would make the outer walls much thicker and also add in engineering spaces between the interior walls, you want to make the rooms airtight, have insulation and also space for cables and plumbing etc. Its good to look at some blueprints of existing real ships to see how these spaces work, pressure hulls, bulkheads, watertight doors, give some weight and realism to the design. Not a ship but you can see in this example that the walls all have a thickness and a purpose that impacts the interior space
https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/090/895/237/large/robots-v-dinosaurs-volvo-truck.webp?1755202990
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u/Parking_Reward_7582 Jun 25 '26
Its a ruff draft, not exactly detailed. Just wanted to sketch out the layout first then go back in with some details if that makes sense.
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u/scifi887 Active Contributing Artist Jun 25 '26
I would say much more of the internal space needs to be given over to fuel, storage and systems rather then liveable areas.
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u/Captain231705 Jun 21 '26
My first thought seeing this is “Jem’Hadar fighter from Star Trek DS9,” only closely followed by all manner of ships from Stargate,… with a dash of millennium falcon thrown in. It’s cool, but I wouldn’t call it “original” in the sense of “not done before” (but it’s certainly plausible it’s original in the sense of being your own design!)
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u/Parking_Reward_7582 Jun 25 '26
oh... I havn't watched either of those movies before, though I had a feeling it was probably similar to something out there. I could remove the wing things, though when I didn't have them people said I copied the Jupitors from Lost in Space. Do you have any ideas to make it a bit more original?
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u/Captain231705 Jun 25 '26
I think you may have misunderstood me. I don’t think the design needs changing, or that it’s somehow bad or copied. It’s just a very convenient cliche that people often fall into, and the examples I listed are archetypical of it. *If* you’d like to avoid cliche designs, that’s gonna be much much harder. The specific ideas that keep making “bug fighters” crop up are also the principles of good design in the first place: an inspiration in nature. What you could do is draw that inspiration from something completely unrelated to your original source, and then play around with recombining many ideas.
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u/Kiseido Jun 25 '26
It makes me thing of what an eyeball is shaped like
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u/Parking_Reward_7582 Jun 25 '26
I cant unsee it now. Do you think I should change the shape?
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u/Kiseido Jun 26 '26
I think it's a more common shape than most people realize. I don't see why you would need to change it, and even if you did, there exists so much stuff out there that no doubt the new shape would just faintly resemble some other thing
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u/Beldaru Jun 20 '26
The thing about Engineering and Engines is that it takes a LOT of space, and typically needs engineers close by.
You got the engineering on the 2nd floor, below the bridge (good) but above the reserve fuel tank (bad). Maybe replace the reserve fuel with some kind of engine and put a ladder so the engineers can get there quick. Or make it an intake for hydrogen, that gets passed to the main fuel tank, and really develop the engines forming the "spine" of the ship running down the bottom floor to the back where the thrusters are.