posted
This has been bugging me recently. Almost all the websites out there list the length of the workbee as 4.11 meters, which is from the DS9 Tech Manual. This is the size I drew it up as in Corel Draw, but it looked big to me, especially considering the cutaway view from the DS9TM that shows a single seat. Recently, I came across the TMP blueprints from 1979 that has the workbee shown at 2.7 meters. These also have the added feature of the silhouette of a person in the cockpit. This shorter length seemed much more reasonable to me, so I decided to test it:
The person is 1.8m tall, the Type 15 is 3.6m in length, and the Type 6 is 6m long. As you can see, the person I drew in matches the 2.7m length version nearly perfectly, and the scale compared to the shuttles looks much better as well. So, where did the DS9TM come up with the 4.11m figure, and why?
Why did Sternbach even do it - when he really worked on Voyager. Did he even work that much on DS9? He added to the 'communal' design of the station. Designed the runabouts. That's about it isn't it? Jim Martin designed the Defiant and the Jemmie Bug.
The Galor Class was Sternbach's, but from TNG.
Hideki? Jemmie Cruiser? The Kitbash info could have been done by anyone.
More about the unseen sections of the Station would have been better.
Comparisons between the Cardassian Occupation use and the Federation use of the station - i.e. Ore Processing, different promenade etc.
Someone else could have done it - infact someone else could STILL do a better job. Even the artwork was reused from the Encyclopaedia - which was still Drexler's work anyway. There at least could have been some conformity of art styles used between all the different classes though. Some are thin-lined, others are shaded with squares etc.
Even other inner workings etc - Jemmie Bridges, Cardassian Weapons Platforms, Starbase 375, the inner workings of the Wormhole - like what the hell were those Verteron Nodes from "Playing God"?
Still, a DS9 tech manual could be redone to be much better than the tech manual that exists now.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Though there's no overriding reason to think that the workbee in the credits is scaled the same as the original, especially when all we've got to compare it with is the station.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Mabye 4.11 size refers to the Workbee with the manipulator arms attached? That would be about the right length... After all, the Workbee (as shown) is pretty useless with the arms aor the cargo sled.
The DS9TM has it's charm....I think Sternbach got it dumped on him because he was fast with Illustrator (while Eaves' stuff seems to be more traditional sketches than technical illustration) and Jim Martin was replaced with a Founder or something.
I like the 4.11 length of the Workbee- it's more of a shuttle and less an obvious deathtrap at that scale. At 2.7 meters, the workbee's hull must be paper thin......fuuuuck that noise. Same for the pictured "shuttlepod"- the worst design from TNG (well, aside from the laughably lame Exocomps, that is). Better to just be inside a powered EVA suit in that case.
B.J., try sliding the pilot forward some, putting him in a EVA suit and (mabye) adding a back seat or equipment locker behind the seat....I think that might work for the larger size... Though something between the 2.7 and 4.11 scales would be ideal.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
So the intitial design of the Workbee is suppose to be 2.7m then from the TMP sketch?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
Thanks for spotting this error, B.J. I never cared about the workbee size as long as it was just spacious enough for one pilot. Well, I would prefer the 4.11m version over the 2.7m tin can though.
The only reason for scaling it up I can imagine is that whoever did it wanted it to have the same clear height as the Type 15.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Speaking of which, The TNG TM tries to claim that Type 15 could perform some of the functions of the workbee. For example, changing the external sensor pallets of the ship would be possible by using a shuttlepod.
Anybody care to postulate what sort of manipulator arms the pod would carry? Are they a permanent fixture, stowed underneath the pod in that boxy lower part that carries the weight of the prop? Are they attached somewhere, perhaps to the hatch things aft of the personnel entry doors? (They'd probably block personnel access, then, though...)
If we take the Type 15 to be the 24th century answer to workbee, could we correspondingly postulate that the 23rd century workbee could serve as a personnel transport with suitable attachments?
posted
Me neither. But why do you have to take off your clothes to do it? Are the workbees that cramped?
(Or did Probert just have a limited color pallette available? I swear, the first thing I thought when I saw the zoom-ins was that Probert was taking some crazy Roddenberry memo a bit too seriously...)
posted
Hmmm.... Just doing a quick-and-dirty look at the Workbee with the arms fully extended, it still doesn't quite match the 4.11m dimension (comes out around 3.7m). HOWEVER, it does match if you scale up the workbee proper to around 3m, and it has the added bonus of looking closer to Probert's concept painting (comparing the scales of the people with the workbee). I'll have to do up a proper comparison and upload it later.
posted
A double-wide -3 meter version- might me nice- one pilot and one constructiuon worker for the manipulator arms and detailed assembly stuff.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
It won't fit another person - it's only slightly bigger than the 2.7m version. But it looks comfier, and much closer in scale to the version in Probert's painting.
posted
One of the Jackill's guides is filled with workbee variants, including, as I recall, a two-seater, and a whole host of modules for them to pull.
Ships of the Fleet volume II, is the one.
Registered: Mar 1999
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