Sci-Fi World Building: Cruisers

A Cruiser is a relatively fast warship larger than a destroyer and less heavily armed than a battleship. This is its naval definition, but the same basic idea applies in Science Fiction.

Mostly, Cruisers are used for battle but can also be utilized as transport vessels. They can carry much cargo but are not as big as Freighters.

Cruisers tend to venture out into the front line of space battles, where they can board enemy ships and open fire on the opponent. A bad thing to do is to put cruisers at the back, as their intermediate weapons will not reach their targets and most likely be useless to the war effort.

Cruisers are also often used for defensive purposes, and can be tactically placed around important capital ships and space stations. They can also be positioned above planets, waiting to bombard the enemy’s land base.

Cruisers make good bombers because they are not easily stopped and their huge hulls can carry a large amount of weaponry, such as homing missiles and warheads.

Smaller cruisers are sometimes used as shuttles to transport platoons of soldiers to waiting ships above. This, however, makes them vulnerable to enemy attack from ground forces, which can include cannons and missile launchers.

Cruisers are usually equipped with basic weaponry such as surface turrets and AA guns.

The next post will be about Capital ships and Dreadnoughts.

Bye 🙂


Sci-Fi World Building: Shuttles

A shuttle is a form of transport that travels regularly between two places. This can be a shuttle bus or a ferry, but in Sci-Fi, a shuttle is usually a small vehicle used for planet-to-planet transportation.

Usually, it fits a pilot and a few passengers but you can make them however big you want. Remember though, shuttles are typically not designed for battle and should really only be fitted with minor weaponry.

Like yesterday, I will give you an example to refer back to when you start designing your own.

The Epsilon-M6 Authority Shuttle can fit a pilot, three passengers and some small cargo. It is armed with small Ion turrets and a weak tractor beam.

It does not have a shield, but two starfighters accompany and protect it wherever it goes. It has 360 degree proton scanners and an inbuilt autopilot.

The Ship does not have much weaponry, because it was designed only to be a transport vessel. In real life, we don’t equip buses or trains with cannons or guns because it is simply not viable and unnecessary.

Only vehicles that are guaranteed to get attacked, such as military vehicles, are armed, and even then, they are not fully armed with six guns and seven turrets on each side.

This will be a short post because I couldn’t think of any more to say on the subject, and I hope the next post will offer more.

The next post will be about Cruisers, medium-sized warships often equipped with heavy weapons and defense forces.

Please leave any suggestions on the “suggestions” post if you have any.

Bye 🙂

Sci-Fi World Building: Starfighters

Starfighters are spacecraft intended to be used like warplanes in outer space.

They are often equipped with light weaponry and minimal defense so to lower the overall cost of mass production. They are also usually quite agile, able to turn and roll flexibly and easily.

However, they are not typically fitted with hyper drives, jump drives, or warp drives. Their engines are fast enough for what they are and often have low fuel reserves.

It is important you don’t make your fighters all too powerful as this can affect how powerful or intimidating your capital ships or dreadnoughts are.

Today I will discuss one of my own designs, the IU-Class Invader Fighter, and how it works.

The IU-Class is a small ship, holding one pilot and a life support machine. It consists of a metal wire frame sphere filled with glass, and two wings jutting out either side. It is highly maneuverable and can fit through small crevices and holes.

It is equipped with two basic missile launchers (non-homing) and a Ion micro-torpedo cannon, which can fire a torpedo once every 30 seconds.

The ship has a basic shield which is easily penetrated and 360 degree object detectors.

Its top speed is 598 mph and can be used in space and in atmospheres.

It is not heavily armored with top-of-the-range defense systems or weaponry, but it is cheap and easy to produce.

A common thing to do with starfighters is to make up different variants for different purposes. You could have a bomber, a reconnaissance transport, a heavy weapons ship, etc.

This will make it seem like your starfighter lacks a lot of things the variants make up for.

Starfighters are the “infantry” in space battles, compared to the bigger ships, which may be classed as “cavalry” or “artillery”.

Starfighters are usually expendable so you don’t need to describe every one’s destruction. They are also good to use in battle, as they can make the screen seem a little more crowded, hence making the fight look bigger.

The next post will be about Shuttles, and I once again will be sharing an example with you for reference.

Please post any suggestions you have for this series or the site as a whole on the “Suggestions” post.

Bye 🙂

Sci-Fi World Building: Governments

A government is the group of people with the authority to govern a country or state; a particular ministry in office.

Most governments in real life are somewhat corrupt, but we do not see it. Governments usually have members that exploit their power to get what they desire, but no-one complains because it is not against the law.

If you want to include governments into your Universe, then I will advise you on a few things:

  1. Never make your governments “good”. This means you should never have a government without its flaws. If you do not follow this rule, you may end up creating a group which seems unrealistic. However, you may want this to happen so later on you can reveal than in fact it is not as good as it seems. Just never make them all good.
  2. Don’t create too many evil governments. If you do this, your reader/moviegoer/player will start to get confused with all the different villains. Create one primary villainous organisation, and focus on them. That way you can move their story on faster to keep your audience interested.
  3. Don’t give your governments unlimited money. This one isn’t a major problem, it’s just something to be wary of. If you create a government who rules a single planet, it is probably unsuitable to give them 100 fleets with 3 Dreadnoughts in each one. Keep their military under control and don’t let it get out of hand. Also, be careful of their power. If you have a single planet government, don’t give them too much power, because you want to save that for the intergalactic governments. e.g. If you give the single planet government a 60km long Star Dreadnought, then for the intergalactic government, you will have to create an even bigger one, which is just ridiculous.
  4. Do not create fanatical governments. This is a big one. Lots of people do it, which is okay, but just be very cautious. No government in real life wants to take over Earth for the heck of it. They’d do it for the money and rewards. For example, in Star Wars, the Emperor takes over the entire galaxy, and for what? What is his goal? None of the films ever tell us why he did it. For power, and… that’s it.

If you follow these guidelines, you will most likely create a realistic government with interesting ideas and views. If you choose not to follow the guidelines, then it really doesn’t matter. If it seems good to you, then it probably is good.

The next few posts will be about something I generally find more fun. I have decided not to do monarchies because I didn’t see it as important enough. I have decided to base the next few posts on Star-ships, which are a signature icon of Science Fiction. I will also be analyzing different movies’ and TV series’ ships to discover their flaws and their weaknesses, so you can try to avoid them.

The next post specifically will be about Starfighters and the most common errors World builders make when designing them.

Bye 🙂

Sci-Fi World Building: Nations













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Sci-Fi World Building: Civilizations













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Sci-Fi World Building: Planets











Check my blog tomorrow for another post about Civilizations.

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