posted
All the configurations came directly or indirectly from the constitution. As for drawing them by hand, all the drawing are from material that was traced, improvised , or invented.
I personally have always loved this era of Trek, but the powers that be feel that new and sharper designs are better. I would have love to have had more fleet battles similar to the era of battleships and sailing vessels.
Starbuck "Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"
Member # 153
posted
Right, I see lots of people have had their two cents' worth, so it's time for mine...
Kitbashing There's kitbashing in the movies (Constitution and Miranda), in TNG (Galaxy and Nebula), and now the DS9 fleet. I think kitbashes are OK if done properly... I mean, most of the material put out by people like Jackill and Mastercom Data are kitbashes; even the original "Star Fleet Technical Manual" had kitbash designs in to make scouts, destroyers etc.
FASA Some FASA designs are OK, some are terrible. I tend to judge them on an as-and-when basis (ie when I find them), and modify them to suit.
Image Quality Cargile's pencil sketches and Adam Heinbuch's CGI are just two of the gems to be found... I don't mind lesser quality images, althouhg what I do hate is drawings which look like they were done with a Commodore 64! I mean, there's artistic license, there's art, and then there's usable Treknology...
More later - keep em coming!
[This message was edited by Starbuck on June 15, 1999.]
------------------ American Society of Newspaper Editors motto: "Proudly Maintaining the (Continued on Page A-4)". www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
posted
I'm neutral on the first issue. It all depends on the components and how they're used. I dislike it when peopel make ships that have too many weapons. It's unrealistic.
------------------ What bloke invented signatures?
posted
Personally I believe ASCII-art is an art form in itself.
About designs, I believe a ship must have flowing lines, as if it cuts through space, but not too much, keep them a little bulky. But one deadly thing, I believe, is big protruding nacelles in exactly the wrong places. Andrewr's example, er..for example, is a good example of a clean, balanced design. A kitbash, but a good one nonetheless.
[that's three times example in one sentence-how's that?]
posted
I wanted to jump into this again. I actually like engineering the ships I design. Where is the warp core going to be? How about the fuel tanks and the computer core? Where do I think the nacelles should be placed for optimum performance? What brand of headers should I use? Pirelli or Good-year? And of course, wheelbase.
Er, wait a minute. Back to starships. I'll do a lot of scribbling to get the shape right, then work with a ship for days--some times months, until I get it just right.
(and because someone will assume the above mentioned namebrands are meant to be answer the header question and tell me that I'm wrong. The namebrands are tires. I know that.)
------------------ "There are always bigger tits."
Qui-Gon Jinn in Mos Espa's sleaziest adult nightclub.
posted
Not to raise an old topic from the dead or anything...
Sometimes a ship may seem over armed, but in reality modern day vessels in the U.S. and other navies have massive armaments.
Take the WWII German Type-XX U-boat. This massive beast had six forward and twelve aft torpedo launchers, of course it only held 30 or so torpedoes. They had quick firing in mind with that rather than pure firepower, as reloading a torpedo was dangerous and lengthy.
And most of the old German U-boats had a single 20mm cannon for anti-aircraft use. Others that were customized had a quadruple 20mm cannon on deck along with smaller 7.25mm guns. (That partiular U-boat drove off two squadrons of Avenger aircraft at one time, heavily damaging all of them. Tell me that's not overarming!)
If the weapon can fit into the ship, then it's not over arming it (unless of course you have a special Defiant class ship with a million torpedoes, which is not only unrealistic but defeats the whole purpose of designing a starship).
In the way of actually designing a starship in hull shape: It can be anything you want. Whether it be a single saucer or a multiple-hulled craft like the Enterprise, it all depends on what you do to it to make it interesting to the eye.
Paul Cargile's ships are sometimes kitbashed (slightly, if I remember correctly the Prevaricate looks like a Defiant and a Runabout), but they're interesting to the eye because they seem to have their own way of combining it.
Adam Heinbuch's designs are interesting to me as well, at least the Sentinel is. It's a very streamlined organic-looking shape and it's never been done that way before.
posted
I didn't design the Prevaricate. The vessel was created by David Highlander for his fanfiction and the artwork on the SMR site was done by Tom Varvaresos. I would like to redesign the ship and give it a more Rapier look, but as it is not mine I will not.
I don't mind kitbashing. I can take several elements form a few starship in existance and merge them together in a sketch, but I don't cut and paste often. On CSD, the Chikara is blatanly a Galaxy c-n-p. But others do because that is what they can do to express their ideas. And that's cool.
------------------ I was right in the middle of a f*cking reptile zoo. And somebody was giving booze to these goddam things." Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
posted
Hey, if U-boats had multiple tubes for quick reloading, why didn't tanks of that time have multiple guns as well? *ponders* *lightbulb appears floating above RW's flaming hair* Erm, weight, I guess. And space.