Looked interesting; thought I'd post it. Go to the page frequently because it always changes.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Nice to see this design come to life.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I must say the dorsal view is a little disappointing so far. If it were me I'd keep the lines of the secondary hull straight, rather than curve them back towards the aft, so as to move the nacelles slightly further out. Perhaps even shorten the hull a bit so it doen't look quite so much like a tail. The nacelles themselves could do with being a little more ellipsoid than circular, not quite as flattened as the Galaxy's, but just enough to give them more width than height. As it is their length makes them look too skinny.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I guess Probert is taking the concept of a "stepping stone" between Excelsior/Constitution refit and Galaxy very literally here. The tall and skinny nacelles morph into the broad TNG ones by going through this circular cross section phase; the stick-out superstructures and impulse assemblies begin to blend into smooth shapes; the canted edge of the saucer thins out towards the TNG norm; and the long, straight tail only slowly shortens and narrows into the truncated but broad and flat Galaxy version.
Aesthetically speaking, though, I'm all with Reverend's ideas. Then again, the resulting ship would differ only minimally from the Galaxy, which may be one concern here.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I agree with Reverend and Timo. It is too fat (or the nacelles are too close) and too much tapered (or too much of an concave curvature). Well, Probert was probably disappointed most of all that the Jein/Sternbach Ambassador wound up with a simple Constitution-like tube as a secondary hull instead of something almond-shaped.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
If you're curious, Probert himself (and Sternbach as well) has been providing a few comments on the design over at TrekBBS . (And yes, it's already been confirmed that it really is him.)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Tempted, but I'd probably get my arse shot off in there.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Actually, history seems to show that the shooting off of asses happens much mroe frequently here than there.
I always liked this design, though the "real" Ambassador remains one of my favorite overall shapes. In my mind, this is what bridges the "real" Ambie with the Galaxy. There was an earlier sketch of Probert's bridge module, which is a barely modified version of the E-D bridge set.
Mark
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
A great modeler called Jupiter Station made a nice Amby Prototype kit last year and I just posted pics of my completed version after hearing all the hubbub:
I got a early cast of the kit from the man himself, but it was before the kit's decals were ready so I used a combonation of JT Graphics's "Enterprise C" decals and some I made myself on Adobe Illustrator.
Piccys:
I'm happy with the end result- of course now Probert's going to probably go in a whole new direction with his...I know it'll have a more Galaxy-ish bridge than the Amby does, for example.
At first I was not thrilled with the nacelles being so close together, but now I sorta dig it- it makes the saucer that much more impressive to look at (sorta a forced-perspective thing) and really sets the design apart from the stock Ambassador (if it only had minor changes, I probably would not have bothered building it).
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Not bad, but I it would have looked nicer if the deflector had been a symmetric oval like in Probert's sketch. In any case, nice job.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The oval deflector makes the design look too far towards the Galaxy side of the lineage. Consider that (officially) there is no other ship class that looks anything like the Ambassador (either version)- it was the big "breakaway" design. Freakin' huge by the standards of that era: probably to support long-term exploration missions. For all we know, the Amby's massive size is to hold all the provisions, shuttles and even colony-building equipment needed for such a mission.... I always thought such a class would probably be the ones to construct those subspace relay stations (mostly from pre-fab parts) so they would have a line of communication with the Federation as they explored outward.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I like the Ambassador job! Though to my taste the nacelles are too close together.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Note that all of Andrew's in-progress pictures have been placed online here:
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)