What's your favorite spaceship?

starman@programming.dev to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 119 points –
181

The Rocinante

One of my favourite things on the Roci are the point defense cannon (PDC).

In space they make a little brrrrrt noise

In atmosphere they sound like artillery. BOOM BOOM BOOM. And they act like artillery too, all you can do is try to cover your ears.

Just fun to think how powerful those "little" PDCs need to be.

+1 for the Roci

Finished the series this week and am already suffering from withdrawal.

Read the books! There's tons more. Unless that's what you mean.

Ah that book ending though. chef’s kiss

It was pure perfection. Like if you’ve only seen the tv show, the book ending isn’t something you need to read, it’s something you deserve to read.

Yeaah, I really need to get to them! Especially since the last 3 didn't make it to the TV series, from what I've read.

Oh that’s a good ship.

I was going to say the Trimaxion Drone Ship from Flight of the Navigator. Seems lame now. lol.

Love seeing Roci up top!

ahem

Definitely not the Chetzemoka lol

Although as much as I love the Roci, I might have to go with the Donnager as my real favorite. It's just so damned intimidating.

I'm a huge Expanse fan, but come on. Compared to the Enterprise, the Roci shouldn't even be hauling garbage, it should be taken away as garbage!

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Lexx is one of my favourite ships. It was such an oddball show as well.

Given how raunchy and insane that show is, the ship being an enormous dick and balls is so fitting. And I know it's supposed to look like a dragonfly.

Ha! I literally never thought of that until I read your comment. I always hoped in the end that it would grow some giant wings but I moved out to work in another city and didn't have cable so I never saw the end of the show. I guess I could download it and find out.

Apollo Lunar Lander

The Apollo Lunar Lander. The only real space ship we ever built. (I guess we built another one for the next trip now, though, so I'll go with "ever flown")

People can say it's ugly all they want, but, as an engineer, it's exquisitely designed for its purpose. That's true beauty to me.

Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath

I'm not going to say Meatfucker did nothing wrong, but I always liked A Frank Exchange of Views .

Killing Time is my all time favourite Culture warship. Especially because Peter Kenny gives it a pissed off London geiser accent.

xROU Killing Time: "Missed, fucker!"

Not sure in what context you're asking this question, but my answer is the International Space Station. I love how it's possible to see it at random sometimes at night, and the way it crosses the sky just looks different compared to a regular airplane flying at night.

Pedantic question! Does the ISS count as a spaceship? I feel like something that travels in an orbit is kind of the equivalent of something stationary on a planet… so it feels like more of a, uh, station, than a ship to me. It’s a good answer, though!

Feels like a tomato fruit situation. It's technically a ship, but we know it as a station?

A marine equivalent might be a floating structure with its own propulsion system. Technically a boat, but it doesn't move around that often and it let's other boats dock/undock from it.

The ISS’s propulsion is just for small orbital adjustments, right?

I think so, not sure if it can do much more.

True but it still has to be a ship!

Does the TARDIS count as a starship? That's kinda cheating though.

Being capable of both time and space travel honestly makes it less implausible than a ship that just goes FTL. The whole "is infinite" thing is pretty speculative even if it's cool, though.

The Kestrel Cruiser from FTL. Even though it's not even the coolest ship in the game, The Kestrel is still the most nostalgic for me.

It brings me back to when I first played FTL a decade ago. I was a kid back then and loved the game so much, I even built and painted a cardboard Kestrel model.

When it comes to FTL, The Lanius Cruiser is my favorite, but Kestrel was fun to play too. I remember going back to it several times, after unlocking new ships.

I can't decide between The Planet Express ship and the space Van from Spaceballs.

What about the one at the very beginning of Spaceballs that went on and on?

Moya, from Farscape

Moya's starburst has always been one of my absolute favourite VFX scenes.

It's just such a visually great kind of hyperdrive!

BC-304. The Prometheus was so ugly in comparison.

Shout-out to the basic cable show that was giving us Hollywood-level visual effects effects as early as 2004.

Atlantis gets visual effects Emmy nomination

The Atlantis Effect: An Interview With Mark Breakspear

GW: Visually, which is your favorite episode of Atlantis so far?

MB: “The Eye.” The Rainmaker team created their own CG software to create the stormy water for the ocean. The level of detail and control has never been seen in TV effects before. Dan and Jose at Rainmaker pulled out all the stops and created mind-blowing shots. I think we went about 3.5 times over budget on that one — but you can’t get away with crap. You guys can spot that a mile away, and nothing kills a show quicker than cheap looking effects.

The Prometheus may have been ugly, but it was my favorite because it was Earth's first. It was kinda janky and totally experimental, but it was absolutely a necessary step in our advancement of science enabling better and cooler ships like Daedalus. It was usually outgunned and outsized by everything it went up against, but still managed to leave a mark. It saved the day in the battle of Antarctica enabling the discovery of Atlantis.

Do I think it was a better ship? Of course not, it was totally inferior (and ugly). But it made for a better story. For a good portion of the show it was all we had and it was barely enough, but it became more of a character than a tool. The moment the Prometheus was blasted in half was just as serious as any character death (and not just because of Pendergast). It was a huge blow to us and let the viewers know the Ori were a real threat.

Earth's first

The 302 would like a word 😅

That doesn't count! It didn't work!

It did, for very short periods of time. And from that, we got the epic scene where they opened a window through a ship's shield for a Death Star run shot at Anubis.

Well the 303 worked!

Sure, with a salvage hyperdrive from an Al'kesh. At least until that broke down and they had to upend an entire planet's beliefs to get home. The original hyperdrive had the same problem as the one from the 302. And the working one came from the Asgard.

Idk. I just couldn't get over the captain doing his best James Carrey Kirk impression.

Earth: Give us things!

Asgard: lol no

Earth: Give us things!

Asgard: Give back the things you stole!

Earth: sudo We saved your skinny butts from the Replicators! Give us thing!

Asgard: Okay.

Asgard: Aight imma head out. We'll leave the light on for you.

The Swordfish from Cowboy Bebop. I recently bought a rather expensive model of it. Totally worth it though.

Battleship Yamoto.

Yamato is pretty nice, very unique and playfully design.

I'd also like to add The Mothership from Homeworld. Also awesome story, and the game had revolutionary gameplay for it's time.

I take one standard Culture GSV and Mind please.

I'm pretty sure the GSVs need three minds to run.

Oh come now, I won't be needing all of the bells and whistles. I'm sure they could come up with something. :)

Enterprise refit. Loved the original Enterprise and the Enterprise D when TNG came out, but there was something magical about seeing the refit on the big screen.

I am mildly obsessed with the Saturn V. It's just such a feat of engineering and human cooperation.

My pick was already mentioned (Rocinante) so for second place I'm gonna mention the Galactica.

BS Galactica was so cool. It was so sad in the last season how beat up it was. Amazing show

The Hail Mary currently. Just such a cool ship from a fun book. To think about what would go into building it and what that means to humanity is humbling.

Other notables:

  • Enterprise E from First Contact because it looks cool.
  • Cygnus from The Black Hole
  • Sulaco from Aliens
  • Trimaxion Drone Ship from Flight of the Navigator
  • The Abominator-class Offensive Unit Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints (my usual favourite lol)

Definitely the Soyuz, it's hard to beat the safest and most reliable spacecraft

If we're talking fictional I'd say Serenity, I love what's essentially a tramp steamer in space with little nooks and crannies for less than legitimate cargo

While I know it's easy to hate on everything MCU these days, I do still absolutely love the Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. The design doesn't feel practical at all, but it's still a really fun to look at and agile ship, which is something a lot of sci fi doesn't really depict very well.

The Pat Benatar was also so much fun to look at. It just looks like a ship you would want to make your home, like Serenity.

The USS Defiant. Coolest ship in Starfleet.

When it comes to fiction, I'm quite fond of the Gunstar in The Last Starfighter both in appearance and in its surprisingly practical pilot/gunner and mobility systems.

Plus it does that really cool spinny thing and blows away a hundred hostile ships who can't hit back for some reason.

I really like the Nostromo from Alien (1979). The Icarus II from Sunshine (2007) is pretty cool, too.

Yay! The Nostromo finally gets a mention. The attention to detail in the ship is amazing and a whole new set of warning symbols were designed for it.

There's a lot of ships I like in sci-fi, but the one that comes to mind at the moment is the garfish-class cruiser in robotech

Or if we're talking about real spacecraft here, I like the soyuz (and really the whole r-7 derived rocket family to be honest), as I like the look of it's side boosters and the four engine bells on each engine

The Yggdrasill from Hyperion.

The one from The Fountain was kinda similar. It was unique enough to stick with me over the years anyway.

I don't know if Ringworld really counts as a ship but I loved that too. The Out Of Band 2 from A Fire Upon The Deep seemed like it would be pretty baddass. Or the alien ship from Rendezvous with Rama.

The Rocinante is an obvious pick.

I also really like the ships in Starfield, mainly because I'm a cassette futurism shill.

Lakon Diamondback Explorer

OR

Faulcon DeLacy Cobra Mk III (Specifically MY Cobra Mk III)

I was gonna say MY Fer-de-lance. That thing is so fun to fly around and wreck shit in.

I wanted a Fer-de-Lance but was never in a system that had one while I had the credits to buy one

They're cool. I put a PAC on the big mount which probably wasn't optimal for that ship but being able to oneshot the smaller ships with it (assuming I could actually hit them) was really fun.

Get the permit for Shinrarta Dezhra and go to Jameson Memorial. Every ship, weapon, and module all in one convenient location.

I was a Krait Phantom guy. Loved the shit out of it.

I love my Krait! I had a bigger ship for a while but something about the medium-class just feels right in E:D. I did a lot of low-temperature diamond mining back in the day, but I loved how I could load out for bounty hunting or cargo runs or whatever else I felt like doing.

Imperial Cutter or the Majestic class Interdictor. Love Gutamaya designs!

o7 Commander. Totally forgot about this hame, it was a joy to pilot the ships. I enjoyed the Diamondback Scout the most I think.

I never got the hang of bigger ships. I think the biggest one I had was a Type-7. I think I had a Federal Dropship at one point but I didn't get any use out of it.

Dropship was my biggest. I was aiming for Python I think but fell of then. I also enjoyed the smaller, more nimble ones. I think most of my time was spent in a Vulture.

The Slave I

Sorry I meant: Boba Fett's Ship 🙃

How the fuck could they not even give it a new name?! One of my favorites as well.

Certainly not the Event Horizon 😈

“I’ll take the Lewis and Clark to a safe distance, and then I will launch TAC missiles at the Event Horizon until I'm satisfied she's vaporized. Fuck this ship!”

I'll pick the Bowie from Guardians of the Galaxy.

It's a fast ship that can flown solo, but also comfortably carry six people with their own quarters. It's fast, can cloak itself and defend itself from anything it can't outrun or hide from.

I don't want a big starship that needs a big crew to fly. But, I don't want a small ship that can't carry guests.

Despite the many, many problems with the show, I'd say The Lexx.

Rebel Blockade Runner, mostly because it's the first ship you really see in A New Hope and my first interaction with the Star Wars franchise as a kid in the early 90s.

That's how I think of it too, but apparently it's a CR-90 Corellian Corvette. I imagine that info was created later and didn't exist for the first movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantive_IV

Oh there you go. It was definitely called a Blockade Runner in the micro-machines set from the 90s!

Francisco Franco's PM, Luis Carrero Blanco's car turning him into a Good Fascist™ and Spain's first astronaut

I have real soft spots for the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels and the Normandy from Mass Effect.

For the Ghost though, I really love its strange shape, the WW2 bomber tail gun, and the attached shuttle. It's both so typically Star Wars and yet still new.

Discovery (2001) and Leonov (2010).

Or, from system shock 2, the Von Braun and the Rickenbacker.

... you know what, they're spaceships, so all of them.

The lexx of course it's the most powerful ship in both universes.

dune's guild heighliner. there are many depictions of it, but the general idea is awesome (an enormous tube)

The Lynch one is great. The huge baroque hangar doors clearly inspired 40k's cathedral in space aesthetic

yeah the lynch one is great. im definitely partial to the new dune's depiction however, it's much larger and the smoothness is so imposing. it resembles the sandworms a lot more, which i think is an interesting detail.

The wedge ships belonging to the Chitzas in the books from the "quantum series" by Douglas Phillips. they were bad ass ships ran by badass little porcupine dudes. They were able to travel beyond the visible universe in hours. The books were so much fun.

Lakon Spaceways Diamondback Explorer. Hands down. Like a little cicada with huge fucking engines hanging out of it. Cozy way to map the galaxy.

Asp Explorer took me far, far along the Perseus arm of the galaxy. All my paint was worn off when I finally got back to civilization!

I never liked the shape of the Asp, but that cockpit was so much nicer for exploring.

Lambda-class T-4a shuttle

I remember seeing it for the first time and falling in love with sci-fi forever

I've always had a strange affinity for Dark Star.

It's so hard to choose one, but I'll say that I'm a sucker for the Enterprise-E (this is just what I can think of right now)