Well, this was all born out of the fact that most shows have ships fighting on a plane instead of using the freedom of three dimensions that space offers you. That's a result of how most SF writers think of ships that "move forward" and have guns that are pointed in fixed directions like naval ships of the day. It makes sense to readers because that's sort of how we expect objects to move, because we are bound by rules of gravity and so forth.
I'd be okay with ships being boringly designed if it didn't mean that the tactics were also derived from WW2 carrier battles.
I don't think that ships having a front or fixed guns means it can't engage in 3d combat. Nor do I think that ships having a forward is a result of braindead authors just copying current ship design and plopping it into space. Having a front just makes sense. Humans naturally move forward, it's what we're wired for mentally. Controlling a ship that's moving down and backwards from your physical orientation is weird. Further, propulsion is propulsion, so far every method we have and are thinking of has a very clear direction of force, backwards, so again, if an author is using any established or currently in the theorized stage type of technology to move their ships it's going to have a front because, well, the engine's moving it that way.
The gun thing, well lots of shit have turrets too! I don't see what this matters. A turret will of course have a wider range of fire but it's going to be smaller than what you could build if it were fixed. I'm sure that'll hold true well into the future.
I think the main thing in sci-fi is that it still features humans. Again, humans move forward, need gravity and we haven't figured out any method of propulsion that'd allow infinite maneuverability. Fictional ship designs are not limited by a lack of imagination but limited because in the end the ships are carrying humans and these are human stories. I can almost bet you that even if humanity discovered some kind of drive that could propel a ship in any direction they'd still make their ship have a forward because, well, they're humans!
As for military traditions, well we'd bring some of those with us, again, because we're humans. The primary theme of sci-fi is not to bring space to people but to bring people into space. We're not submitting our species to the laws and expectations of space, we're fucking squishing it's damn lack of rules under our boots. We're not modifying our bodies to live in the vacuum of space, we're building vast ships that are essentially little pieces of artificial Earth to carry us around in. In most sci-fi we're not adapting to space because to adapt to space means we'd have to give up being human so if you're setting has humans in space it's only natural ships be designed to be flyable by humans, be designed to be comfortable to humans and human traditions to be carried on, else, why make them humans in the story? Why not make them martians? Or Hideauzae?
If your story features ships with a front, fixed guns on the front and there's not a one bastard who attacks from the top or bottom like a scrub then that's a failing in the story not because the ship can't turn and fly up like a modern plane can. Clearly not all stuff plays out like ww2 carrier battles, some play out like battles between destroyer groups! I'm not sure there's more options than that but neither of those options necessitate giving up the third dimension just few write it.
I'm just talking about hard military scifi in general, of the Baen books variety. lol
I have nothing with guys in fancy uniforms who constantly salute each other and all that, but of course, it just leads to the same types of ships and the same types of war story retellings that we get over and over again.
Well, what other kinds of stories are there? I hate to tell you this but I don't think space will bring any new plots to the vault of human storytelling, just new settings.
With Star Citizen specifically, I'm talking about this recently released "commercial":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96E3COnJW-E
Again, I have no problem with that, and it's clear that Carter has a fondness for the WW2 military fetish aesthetic - "Wing Commander" comes from the British term for CAG anyway - but if you are focused on schematics and blueprint fetishes, you're going to be bound by "realistic" design whether you want to be or not.
I guess I just have a problem with calling things realistic when in reality they're just more plausible than another but not necessarily realistic.
Yamato is pretty ridiculous. But interestingly, it actually has the ability to fire in all directions! lol
Damn thing even has an anchor, lol.
