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Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

I wasn't sure whether this should go here or the creativity (non-canon) forum, but since I'm talking about starships, I'll put it here.

In case no one knew, back in the late 80's FASA had put out their version of the Tech Manual not long after the first season of TNG. Apparently, this book was the reason why TPTB decided to renounce FASA and revoke their license to produce ST items. The reason I'm posting is because there were some things I found amusing about the book.

First of all, here's the FASA version of the Ambassador class: http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/heavycruiser_ambassadrhardn.jpg
Keep in mind that at the time of writing, there was no design for the class, as the Horatio was referred to as an Ambassador but not shown.

Also, at the time there was no correlation between the Ambassador class and the Enterprise-C. In FASA's universe, the Ent-C was an Alaska class battleship: http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/battlecruiser_alaska1.jpg

Finally, the Thomas Paine, which is canonically a New Orleans class frigate, was actually the class ship of the "Paine class" frigates: http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/frigate_thomaspaine.jpg

The book stated that the Enterprise D also had transwarp drive, but that's a discussion for another thread...

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Star Trek: Legacy

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

You missed the Wellington-class as well.

I had this book; still have it memorized. It had a lot of cool concepts & drawings in it. Always DID like the Decker-class destroyers.

Oh, & the Galaxy-class was an UltraWarp vessel, not a transwarp one.

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"You just push off....and the falling sort of happens on its own." ---Dave Titus

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

I have a copy. I ordered it used from Barnes & Noble. I actually liked it as well; I wonder why The Powers took such offense of it. I especially liked the "fact" that Starfleet had two interim uniform designs before the 1st season TNG uniforms. That's more believable than having the red and black movie uniforms as the only pre-TNG uniforms.

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Star Trek: Legacy

Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :

interesting, I have never even heard of this book before. I like the Alaska-class, it seems to match the golden model in the E-d briefing room.

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

I *had* this book. Bought it at a con, then sold it at the same con the following year. Personally, I think the made-up ships are still ugly as hell, regardless of how little information there was at the time. Typical FASA-ness IMO - everyone remember the Keith-class scout?

Granted, the book *did* have some nifty things in it (like the Medusan crew chambers, or the classrooms), but IIRC nearly all of it was eventually contradicted.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

The Alaska is nearly identical to the painting Andy Probert did sometime after TMP - a painting that got Roddenberry convinced that this was the way to go with the main ship of the new show. The long 45-degree pylons are there, as is the general nacelle shape and flat secondary hull. Probert had a somewhat less beamy hull, though.

I think that whoever built the Observation Lounge wall display used this painting as the E-C model, and not the later famous and detailed painting Probert did on "Ambassador class" (the one which was turned by Sternbach into the actual Ambassador design).

The Paine curiously echoes the later Miarecki-built Springfield, although with too long pylons; all original FASA ships have pylons of excessive length...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Quatre Winner (Member # 464) on :

I have a copy of it.

Anyone want it?

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

God, what a shite collection of fanwank bollockships. Now we know the real reason Paramount disassociated themselves from this lot - who would want to canonise anything shat out by this bunch of arsewipes?

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Yeah - their ships would have looked far better if they DIDN'T use cut-and-pasted Constitution-refit saucers and LN-64 nacelles with those wavy hand-drawn low-res secondary hulls of theirs. The contrast between the detailed Enterprise parts and the rest of the mess is too jarring.

Obviously, visual excellence wasn't a prime criterium back when FASA operated...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

You're not kidding, Timo :0)

Presentation, Presentation, Presentation!!

And what was their deal with needing to stick the nacelles way the hell out on those spindly little pylons?

*shudders*

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Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

This book is NOT the primary reason that Paramount and FASA decided to part company. On Paramount side there was the fact that the FASA products had become increasingly militaristic in tone - which was fine before 1987 but became a problem when touchy feely TNG started. FASA was planning products which included a Federation Ground Forces Manual (infantry, tanks, etc.) and a board game depicting all out war between the UFP, the Klingons and the Romulans.

Paramount also thought that the RPG market was too small to bother with. Which is why they didn't issue another license for ten years.

On FASA's side there was the fact that Paramount were a pain to deal with - they took ages to approve everything (something that also affected LUG much more recently) - and the Trek range was not their best seller, that was Battletech, by a long way. Also the original developers had jumped ship, because they too were not happy with the increased military focus of the products.

The quality of the artwork in the FASA books wasn't really any worse than the artwork in other RPG products of the 1980s. It wasn't until after White Wolf published Vampire: The Masquerade that you regularly got high quality artwork in an RPG product.

The guy who drew the ships did it because loved drawing starships but he didn't understand Treknology. But look at what LUG produced in their TNG Player's Guide. It might be colour with glossy paper but the ships are even worse.

The Alaska class was mentioned in the TNG Officer's Manual but was not illustrated. The pictures on the SSD site come from another, non-FASA, publication.

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

Yah. LUG's ships suck too. But at least they got presentation down a touch better

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

FASA, by the way, is going out of business in a month or two. I was under the impression that Microsoft had bought them, but that was apparently a fevered hallucination on my part.

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Yes, the LUG and FASA ships generally blow chunks. I believe that in general, RPG designs fail their savings throw against sucking.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

By the way, does this designer of FASA ships have a name? Although I agree that a lot of the ships are bad, he (I assuming, it's a he) probably does hold some kind of record as the most prolific published designer of movie-era ships. And, as we've mentioned before, not all of the designs suck. If I had to crank out a few dozen ships under a deadline, I'd bet a lot of them would suck as well.

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Many of the LUG ships may LOOK like suck, but at least with the Spacedock supplement (available on the fan website) you can design your OWN ships and have them look like what YOU want them to, as long as you can draw.

They also have a Ship Recognition Manual coming out (in pdf format) that should cover more canon/semicanon ships. I'm interested in seeing that.

I don't remember whether FASA had a ship design handbook, or whether you were stuck with what they gave you.

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"My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

I don't mean to slight the artist - he did a good job on at least some of the designs. I liked the Chandley-class frigate and the Solar-class cutter, for example. Still no rationalization behind these absurdly long nacelle pylons, though.

I happen to have the FASA ship reco menuals. [scrounge scrounge] The ship design and writeups are by Forest G. Brown, Dana Knutson and Robert Oswald.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I remember a friend (who got me into Trek - way back when) had a brown and white silouhette SP? chart of all these starships. I gather that was FASA?

Anyone have a list of these ships?

Andrew

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Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

Thanks, Mark. Never heard of them. I'm assuming these guys did the work on all the FASA Rec Manuals. Does anyone know if they did any work on fan-produced blueprints or books?

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Psi'a Meese on :

Purrrr....

I also own a copy of "the purple book", as me and my friends like to call it. It made for interesting reading, but had little use for role-playing purposes as the game was currently published. It was highly speculative on several fronts and proved very unpopular. At the time, FASA was expected to follow-up with the Official Galaxy class blueprints, that were later designed and released elsewhere.

FASA did follow-up with a "Year One Sourcebook" (black and red cover) for the Next Generation. Much higher quality publication. Dealt specifically with characters, equipment, and starships as seen in Season One ONLY. It did not speculate on the future concepts of anything. I felt it was one of the best publication's FASA had to offer. Unfortunately, the licensing issue was already being confronted (as stated in above postings) and FASA was unable to follow-up with the annual sourcebook concept.

Purrrr....

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Excuse me, but (IMSHO):

YUCK!!
Those are some ugly semi-kitbashes!

sorry..

So, Psi'a Meese, are you a Caitian?

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Posted by will harless on :

hey first of two what is the address of that fasa fan site.... i have most of the old fasa trek manuals and some of the designs are decent and some are just plain bad.... i think they just didn't understand what they needed to do for those books back then.... plus a little care for just making things line up in each view could have been a plus....

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I think I used to have this book. I remember the "Ambassador"-Class design they gave was really funky. In fact, I remember being told that the Enterprise-C would be seen in a TNG ep as "Ambassador"-Class and expressed shock because it didn't have the traditional design elements (i.e.: saucer, neck, engineering hull, pylons and warp nacelles).

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Posted by RAMA (Member # 380) on :

I'd like to point out in defense of the FASA tech manual, that the ships were awful, but there were a multitude of great technological innovatiosn that STNG SHOULD have incorporated into the series. Plus it has some nice diagrams of equipment. Consider it an early, alternate historical archive. :-)

RAMA

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :

I've actually been able to do nice things with the Chandley, Larson, Loknar, Wilkerson, and one or two others in AutoCAD. Most are total write-offs, though. Remember the Northampton? Pylons go out and down, then straight down a long ways, the down and in, then straight in, then up and in, and there are the nacelles. Add the fact that this whole assembly is angled back at 45 degrees... By the time the warp plasma gets to the nacelles, it wouldn't be much more than a warm breeze! And OO! what targets...

I for one am rejoicing the fact that Decipher now has the rights to produce RPGs and miniatures for all Trek properties. If they have access to a decent CAD/CAM setup, with the CGI models they have... *siiiiigh*

And I've already made sure some of the team know to haunt Bernd's and Steve's and several other intensive ship-research sites, so they get the designs right (what was UP with the LUG guy?!).

*dance of joy*

--Jonah

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--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Posted by Psi'a Meese on :

Purrr...akesh,

Yep. Caitian here...purrrrr...and not those ugly ones from ST:IV's council chambers either...purrr

Actally, Psi'a is from an old FASA rpg I once played. She was the Chief medical officer of the USS Lexington during the 2270's. Ah, the messes she got into with ship's captain, Seren (a vulcan).