Bad Ship Designs
Created | Updated Apr 4, 2003
BAD DESIGN #1
http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/images/badship1.jpg
NICKNAME:
Wind In Face, Big Punch
There were only two prototypes of this bad boy ever made, from the mid 21st century. It featured 2 very large MONDO-BUCKERO 8500 engines fueled by methane extracted from experimental chickens. It's main strategic purpose was to drop a very large bomb (seen underneath) on the enemy and to get out quickly, thus the large engines.
It never quite worked right. On the first trial, the bomb was released okay, but when the pilot fired up the SUPER TURBO-EXCITA THRUST FUEL DISPENSER ARRAYS, the designers discovered a rather embarrassing design flaw: They had forgotten to design the ship with a canopy.
The resulting force of wind ripped the flesh off the pilot and sent the ship tumbling into space never to be seen again.
On the second trial, a canopy was installed, and the engines were made even larger and more powerful (MONDO-BUCKERO BLASTER-9500XGP--the XGP stands for eXtremely God-like Power).
The bomb was released again, creating a crater 17 miles across, the pilot slapped the STETFDA's, gritted his teeth, and the engines ripped themselves from the fuselage and zipped past the pilot's field of view into space, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, the pilot started to freefall towards the testing grounds, and landed with a large thud.
BAD DESIGN #2
http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/images/badship2.jpg
NICKNAME:
Spinner
After years of war with "the other guys", the Federation Strategic Analysis and Do-Something Committee determined that current fighter vehicles were at a major disadvantage when attacked from the rear. In addition, the ships had all begun to look like erector sets and the pilots wanted more "designerly-looking" ships to impress the hometown crowd. The Bi-Directional Fighting Yacht was designed to fulfill both of these objectives.
The BDFY, fondly referred to as "Spinner", was the fighting vehicle of the elite. It had a bar, heart-shaped bed, and a revolving weapons munition all in a space no bigger than a restroom. All the pilots were thrilled to receive these beauties.
Until they actually had to use one in combat, that is.
Oh, the ship worked as designed. When attacked from the front, the ship could fire a large, multiple warhead missile that blanketed "the other guys" with a million pounds of high explosive, obliterating any trace of an actual being that had been there only moments before.
And sure enough, when attacked from the rear, the ship fired multiple rockets from the large cylinder thingy on the starboard side, ripping the trailing ship to shreds in the process.
Then, one day, veteran pilot Arno Feepot was simultaneously attacked from the front and rear. The natural reaction was to of course fire the large missile to the front and the multiple rockets to the rear. He did.
What happened next could only be described as a sight to behold. Upon firing both the forward and rearward firing projectiles, the recoil from both weapons sent the ship into a high speed spin that pilot Feepot couldn't recover from.
He spun into space, never to be seen again. Shortly after, the Spinner was laid to rest and work was begun on a sleek, superfast, supermaneuverable fighting machine--the "Blade".
BAD DESIGN #3
http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/images/badship3.jpg
NICKNAME:
Sleek, Yet Harmless
After the God-like power of "Wind in Face, Big Punch", and the superficial yet deadly elegance of "Spinner", the designers at FedSpace came up with the fastest, smallest, sleekest, most maneuverable fighter ever seen--"The Blade".
"The Blade" could outrun anything that "the other guys" could throw at it. No weapon or missile of any kind could catch this puppy. Of course, it was a good thing that it could run so fast--the designers failed to install any kind of weapons on the vehicle, which rendered the vehicle mostly harmless, or as it came to be known by the enemy, "Sleek, Yet Harmless".
FedSpace built 300 "Blades", content in the knowledge that it was a truly safe vehicle with a canopy and no opposite-firing weapons. Unfortunately, it was a bit too safe, and all it could do was annoy the enemy by flying circles around the enemy ships. This in itself is not a bad thing, except the enemy soon caught on, and ignored the "Blades" and went after meatier prey instead, realizing that they couldn't catch the "Blades" but that it wasn't important anyway.