Welcome to the Thread of Naval Architecture, where you can participate in the discussion of continued development of the ISDC's first Ship capable of true deep space travel.
A few key constraints and points which have informed the design so far bear reitterating:
The further proposal requirements have also been intimated to us by the ISDC command:
From this, and in order to create a starting point, the following basic design principals have been devised:
From this, first pass form studies were commenced:
During the initial concept phase it was found that The Ship's fighting ability was the primary driver of form as, while scientific equipment and laboratories, crew accomodation and the like could be moved anywhere, protection, sensor profile, firing arcs, etc are dictated by shape.
As such, a number of decisions were made as a starting point: