From Star Trek The Next Generation Companion it states there were 16 new Starfleet designs for the opening Borg battle which got reduced to the 4 Steamrunner ( which was to be a quad engined update of the Stargazer) , Saber , Akira and Norway. I know of the Zandura , Goodson, Endeavor and another unknown reliant type. That leaves 8 unknowns. Does anyone know Alex Jaeger who did these - he was supposed to do an article in the defunct Star Trek Mag ?
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
There was a large image - obviously from the storyboard - showing several new classes in the Movie Sketchbook. But I don't know if they were just fillers to show a huge battle or if they were low-detail sketches of sctual shipclasses they were planning to do. (Besides something that looks like an Akira we have the usual enterprise-configuration, a ship that looks like a modernized Shelley, a ship that appears to be a saucer with a spoiler and two engines in front (!) of the saucer, two four-engined ships, a strange thing that looks like a D7/Akira-kitbash, some fighters and a ship that looks like the front end of the Seaquest with nacelles). Does anyone have the book? if not, I'll see if I can scan the image later tonight.
Edit: Page 124/125
Posted by Micromaniac (Member # 546) on :
No there were 16 designs not the storyboard sketch with the strange ships of which the Zandura was one.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Would someone PLEASE post a pic of this storyboard so i can build these designs! I'm beggin' ya!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
You want to build 'the front end of the SeaQuest with nacelles'!?! LOL!
Actually maybe it's that ship from Sternbach's early book?
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
Sorry for the delay. This is the image from the Sketchbook (two pages, I combined it and resized it). Sadly - on this smaller version - you can't see much of the details so here is a .zip-file containing high-res images of all the ships you can see on that sketch (13 images - 10 ships, 3 fighter squads - plus the original).
.zip-file should be ~600kb. (I'm too lazy to upload them all seperately. But feel free to do so if you want to... )
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
...and just for our unbelieving friend AndrewR, the Seaquest. Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
That's the Goodson, right?
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
The goodson looks similar, but I don't think it's supposed to be this ship. That one had a saucer that looked like the saucer of a Prometheus or Intrepid.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Looks more like a StarfleetizedTM Y-Wing to me.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
It it just me or do the nacelles on the Goodson look a lot like those on the Ageian?
I may have to build me that thar ship, pardners. Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
What about the new Enterpise doodles of Mark Moore on pages 84 and 85 of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook - The Movies which were based on conversations and brainstorming sessions he had with Bill George and John Knoll.
Could any of these been the basis of some of the other unknown classes? (BTW:
I especially like the design of the arrowhead-like primary hulled starship in the bottom right corner of page 85.)
The other ships could be nothing more than indistinguishable doodles and weren't worth reproducing in books or magazines Although, I cannot think of anything more primitive than John Eaves' Endeavour-class drawing. It looks like it was executed in ten or fifteen minutes with a blue colored pencil.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Is John Eaves the most uninspired, worst starship designer in Trek history!?!
Jeffries, Probert, George, Rodis, Sternbach, Jein, Martin - they crap all over Eaves' work.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So, you like Dominion nacelles on Romulan BOP's Andrew?
I like a LOT of Eaves' designs and feel that he's unjustly villified by us fans: after all, he does not have the final say on what designs to use: the producers pick the one they like from several thumbnails. As a Graphic Designer, I know from experience that any client is going to pick the worst of any concept you show. It's just the way it goes: some people are convinced that bright green and pastel pink would be great on a professional logo....
I think Eaves is the best of all the Trek designers when aliens are concerned, just not great with Fed ships.
Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
I don't quite understand the hostility some fans have toward the design work of John Eaves. He cannot be blamed for the hated Akirapriseor the brick-shaped holoship in Insurrection, its what the producers wanted from him.
My favorite rendering by John Eaves has to be his first design for the holoship, the ship with only a primary hull saucer and the two warp nacelles with the registry NX-75115. I even like his second try at the holoship. But the producers didn't like those and they wanted him to draw what looks like a brick or a shoebox with engines and a bridge module. Yuck.
I think that his designs for the Enterprise E, the Insurrection shuttle, Calypso, Argo, Breen attack cruiser, Son'a ships of Insurrection, quantum torpedo, Valdore, and Scimitar are just brilliant.
Perhaps some people object to his Volvo-ization of starship design, especially noticable in his shuttle and scout designs. They're boxy but they're good seems to be the approach.
I think most people may confuse John Eaves' work with that of Alex Jaeger at ILM. I personally don't care for his designs of the St(r)eamrunner, Saber, and the unused Zandura classes. Plus the supposed capabilities of the Akira-class, with seven torpedo tubes and a thru-deck shuttle bay are absurd.
The line drawing that was posted to this thread that we are discussing now was drawn by Alex Jaeger, and not John Eaves.
So why do some people think that it's even appropriate to mention Eaves' talent in this thread or compare him to other beloved designers of Star Trek in the first place. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Why is a big box an inappropriate design for a ship intended to function as...a big box? Utility is a good thing.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
I think that ship that looks like the Prometheus/Intrepid hybrid is more like a variant of the Nova Class. It seems to have that square cut in the front of the saucer for it.
Wow, the things you miss while at SF for Pride weekend...
Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
Well I would have preferred that they had built a model of one of the more traditional Starfleet-style designs, which I found to be more aesthetically pleasing and more Starfleet or Federation like. A brick ship isn't very visually exciting, although it would offer the most interior space.
Hopefully they will be able to use the designs I like for another starship in the future, perhaps a scout for one and a science ship or surveyor for the other.
But the brick design goes contrary to just about all the articles we have seen in "Star Trek: The Magazine" and the treknology books about starship design when they discuss the importance of a stream-lined shape to increase performance at warp velocities.
Boxes are pretty much for the Alien universe in the design of starships like the USCSS Nostromo.
So that's what I find wrong with the brick shape.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
These would be the same rules that don't seem to apply to any other ship-building group other than the Federation?
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Is John Eaves the most uninspired, worst starship designer in Trek history!?!
Jeffries, Probert, George, Rodis, Sternbach, Jein, Martin - they crap all over Eaves' work.
I'm sorry, was the term "Alex Jaeger" not written in large enough letters across the bottom of that image?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Triton: So why do some people think that it's even appropriate to mention Eaves' talent in this thread or compare him to other beloved designers of Star Trek in the first place.
Cause I felt like it!
I forgot about Alex Jaeger... but his Akira design - torpedo port numbers etc. aside - is quite a nice design. I don't forgive him for the registry number fuck-up though.
Besides, I just don't like Eave's design - as I said they are uninspired. They lack imagination. They are quite... lazy... an arc here - a pointed bit here. They verge on the organic - which is easy to draw.
I think it's that his designs are easy to create in a CGI environment (i.e. that organic look) and as everyone knows it's harder to create 'real' box-straight-edged shapes like the Galor class or the E-refit etc. It's like Eaves takes the easy way out - where as designers like Sternbach and Jim Martin were functional and created ships that you could easily imagine being physical or real... as if you could touch the hull with your hand.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I just downloaded the 16 strange starships. Put Jaeger's name next to Eave's name.
These designers have become lazy in the CGI-age. Posted by Micromaniac (Member # 546) on :
Guys the sketch storyboard is not the 16 designs that were whittled down to the 4 . Remember we have the small pic of the Zandura and it is not on the storyboard - Alex was supposed to do an article on these in the defunct Star Trek mag thats why I asked if anyone had contact with him so maybe we could get them.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Besides, I just don't like Eave's design - as I said they are uninspired. They lack imagination. They are quite... lazy... an arc here - a pointed bit here. They verge on the organic - which is easy to draw.
I really have to disagree with you here, AndrewR. I find the majority of Eaves designs to be quite well thought out, as well as being pleasant on the eye. The Valdore and the Ent-E are a couple of my favourite designs actually, and some of the major ships he's done for Enterprise (the series) are also very impressive.
I don't think Eaves' work quite compares to that of Probert's but I do think that Eaves has more of an artistic touch (not technical, obviously) than Sternbach.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Eaves also design the Defiant and the Hideki?
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
I can't put my finger on it but the Breen early designs, the concept Scorpion shuttle, the Sona stuff, and the Dominion stuff and the Reman ship all have such a subtle similarity[well some are subtle LOL]... ...Is it because they all have sharp edges and looks like hunting knives with nacelles?...maybe.
And the Valadore is unoriginal on purpose, I think it was stated in The Mag.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Topher: Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Eaves also design the Defiant and the Hideki?
I dunno about the Hideki, but the Defiant was designed by James Martin, under the direction of Herman Zimmerman and Gary Hutzel...
I too see absolutely no reason to discuss John Eaves (whose work, just for the record, I happen to like more of than I don't) in a thread about Alex Jaeger's designs.
-MMoM Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Instead of bitching about designers, lets try to pin down these sixteen designs and make them plausable. If someone would be good enough to scan and crop all the unused designs we could go over each one and tweak it into a completed design. Posted by TheYoshinator (Member # 1066) on :
I finally decided to register after lurking here for a couple of months.
I was very disappointed that Star Trek: The Magazine didn't follow through with that Alex Jaeger article. All we got was that tiny pic of the Zandura. I think the Zandura is a very interesting design and I'm sure the others would have been equally interesting. I mean this is the guy that designed the Akira after all. The first time i saw it grace the screen I said to myself- "Holy crap! Wow! That's different!"
My guess is that all the remaining mystery designs were all his.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Welcome to Flare, Yosh!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
What is that pointy ship that I asked about a few weeks ago that is in the FC sketch book... I though it could have been the origin of that chunk of starship that we see the Defiant zoom past.
I like that ship - who ever did it.
I agree that Eave's design all have that 'pointed' and in my opinion - unrealistic (not physically realistic) look about them. Yeah may it worked with the Son'a - but it's in everything.
I mean there's even the "eave's nacelle" term that people are all familiar with around here.
WHY did he have to 'point' up the bussards on the Shuttle and Captain's Yacht in Ins?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: What is that pointy ship that I asked about a few weeks ago that is in the FC sketch book... I though it could have been the origin of that chunk of starship that we see the Defiant zoom past.
What "pointy sip" do you speakth of, my freind?
quote: WHY did he have to 'point' up the bussards on the Shuttle and Captain's Yacht in Ins?
AT least it was'nt a "highlighter nacelle". Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Now, now... highlighter nacelles were a necessity when ships were physically created for a battle scene in the early 1990's unlike the late 1990, where the Dominion War was all CGI ship explosions showed a free for all. Both have pros and cons and that's why I respect George Lucas for using both mediums still in the Star Wars films. The two mediums compliment each other nicely.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: What is that pointy ship that I asked about a few weeks ago that is in the FC sketch book... I though it could have been the origin of that chunk of starship that we see the Defiant zoom past.
What "pointy sip" do you speakth of, my freind?
I don't have the original sketch - but here is a schematic done by someone...
quote:Originally posted by TheYoshinator: I finally decided to register after lurking here for a couple of months.
I like your member number. Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
Two Starfleet ships - besides the E-E and the 4 FC ships (in several design stages) - are shown. One is the early dropped USS Endeavour, the other one is an unnamed ship done by John Goodson. If we do not count the various Enterprise pre-designs shown in the book (all clearly labeled as USS Enterprise and thus not ment to be anything else), we have eight ships so far: Sovereign, Steamrunner, Saber, Norway, Akira, 'Goodson', Zandura and Endeavour.
Er, this Endeavour looks very much like an upsidedown Enterprise-E.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Well, I imagine a little more detailed design work would have made it look a little more unique but really it's no more similar to the Sovreign than the Nebula is to the Galaxy.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The Goodson schematic is nice, but the saucer is a bit too squared when compared to the sketch. She looks like a design from the Ageian line of thinking. Are those pulse phasers on the nacelle pylons? Torp launchers? I really plan on making that ship! I need your help with the following: Ship's length. Secondary hull. Forward view.
If you guys can help with these, I'll build the ship in the next two weeks. Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
quote:Originally posted by Wraith: Well, I imagine a little more detailed design work would have made it look a little more unique but really it's no more similar to the Sovreign than the Nebula is to the Galaxy.
I'm not sure I agree...flip the ship over and put the saucer on top or flip the ship insideout (unfortunately MSPaint can't do what I am saying)but it looks much more like the Sovereign than a Nebby does in relation to a Galaxy. It's hard to judge by the angle of the picture.
My POV from the picture I was looking at:
...as if you were looking up at the E-E from behind.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
I have to agree; the Endeavour-sketches do look like some of the early Enterprise-E drawings, also shown in the book. Eaves probably reused some of the dropped ideas for the E.
Posted by Micromaniac (Member # 546) on :
There is also another version of the Steamrunner in the sketchbook with the nacelle caps under the saucer and the final pod up instead of down. Top /side/front views.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Got a scan of the alternate Steamrunner?
I think the Goodson is probably about 350 meters long: not too mamy windows, but its's length is mostly nacelles. Looks like a Intrepid-style flattened triangle at the ship's bow: probably a row of windows should go there. The lifeboats would be the same as those on the Sabre. The secondary hull looks to be about as large as the Defiant class.
Posted by TheYoshinator (Member # 1066) on :
Thanks for the warm welcome!
Actually I don't think those were the only Endeaver sketches. Eaves said in an interview I read somewhere (Maybe in one of the last ST: The Magazines) that he disguised his work on the Endeavor as Enterprises by writing "Enterprise" ON the ships. IIRC, he said the Endeavor got axed but he kept working behind the producers' backs in hopes that later on it may have gotten an opportunity to find its way back in. I beleive those OTHER sketches in the sketch book of the "E" in developement where the nacelles are attached to the saucer are in fact Endeavors.
Posted by Darkwing (Member # 834) on :
quote:Originally posted by Futurama Guy:
quote:Originally posted by Wraith: Well, I imagine a little more detailed design work would have made it look a little more unique but really it's no more similar to the Sovreign than the Nebula is to the Galaxy.
I'm not sure I agree...flip the ship over and put the saucer on top or flip the ship insideout (unfortunately MSPaint can't do what I am saying)but it looks much more like the Sovereign than a Nebby does in relation to a Galaxy. It's hard to judge by the angle of the picture.
I saw a model of what looks like the same ship at Starship Modeler for their Dominion Wars Contest. The builder (Markus Nee) called it the USS Southern cross, Endurance class, based on an Eaves sketch.
It still does'nt use as many of the same parts in common as the Nebula/Galaxy do. Definitely a nice sister class to the Soverign though.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Micromaniac: There is also another version of the Steamrunner in the sketchbook with the nacelle caps under the saucer and the final pod up instead of down. Top /side/front views.
Wouldn't that just be the Steamrunner upside down?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Kinda.....if you lose the deflector and add in the Akira secondary hull with deflector you get something kinda cool. Or my painkiller just started workjkknlnmj ,. m,hlik guk gu/
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
One major plus over the actual Steamrunner: the impulse engines don't blast into the pylons!
This ship clearly has a much humbler shuttlebay, but appears equally underarmed and probably wouldn't have been a full ship-to-ship combatant. She's a lot prettier than the final Steamrunner, that's for sure... But perhaps even less "conventional".
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I suspect someone had a quiet word in his ear about emissions from the deflector slowly killing everyone on the bridge. . .
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
That problem would be nicely solved by flying slightly nose-down, which is a dignified way for a starship to move. The actual Steamrunner in turn ought to fly nose up, which looks just silly.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Dignify? Your essay question for the weekend: "Justify, using diagrams if necessary, the dignity in having a starship fly at an angle to the intended line of direction."
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
I always liked the concept streamrunner design. The front view has this "sinister" look to it...or have I been gazing at one too many Terminater drawings this past week?
The side view of the concept is meh and yes the deflector behind the raised bridge module is a winning combination for those that have a death wish.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: I'm not sure I agree...flip the ship over and put the saucer on top or flip the ship insideout (unfortunately MSPaint can't do what I am saying)but it looks much more like the Sovereign than a Nebby does in relation to a Galaxy. It's hard to judge by the angle of the picture.
Damn, you're right actually, it does look disturbingly similar. That USS Southern Cross looks a lot better, although if it's supposed to be a Miranda/Nebula equivilent, I'd expect it to have a pod of some description.
quote: I suspect someone had a quiet word in his ear about emissions from the deflector slowly killing everyone on the bridge. . .
"Starfleet denied today that deflector emmissions were responsible for an sudden increase in cancer among many of its personnel, saying the installation was as safe as old mobile phones and high powered Radar..."
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The Steamrunner's concept drawing bridge module looks much better that way but the happy-face of a curved phaser strip is a bit sadistic. Another ship I need to build....mabye with a Akira torpedo pod in the deflector's place though.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
That probably isn't a phaser strip, since the top view shows it to be a very broad feature that also varies in width.
As for Lee's assignment:
Many theories have been put forth about the significance of starship shape to their function. The saucerlike primary hull shape has been attributed variously to the requirements of warp dynamics, somehow imitating fluid dynamics; simple aerodynamics, reflecting the reentry role of this ship element; or efficient ratio of volume and surface area while minimizing side profile.
Visually, though, the saucer harkens back to the classic flying saucers, familiar to audiences since 1947. And for those, there are three modes of flight, in the entertainment industry at least.
First, there is flight along z axis, suggesting a centrally mounted Newtonian thrust source propelling a symmetric, balanced hull, but resulting in great aerodynamic drag. As a spacecraft, a saucer moving in this mode would be a sensible design. However, for audiences accustomed to seeing atmospheric flight, it makes little visual sense.
Second, we have the edge-on mode. That makes one wonder for the reason to saucer symmetry. Why not an identifiable bow and a stern? Does the saucer perhaps rotate in flight, like a frisbee? Surely the thought makes the audience a little queasy...
Third comes the mode the audience is most familiar with: tilted flight mode. Seemingly making no aerodynamic or Newtonian sense at all, the mode still feels intuitively very "right" to the audience, since they have seen it before - in just about any war or action movie depicting the post-1950s. This is how helicopters, the sexy and powerful war machines of the modern military, behave in flight.
In fact, take any hovering vehicle and make the transition from hovering or vertical flight to horizontal flight, and the audience demands a forward tilt. The faster the vehicle goes, the more acute the tilt, up to 30 or sometimes even 45 degrees. As long as there is an up-down philosophy to the vehicle design, the audience assumes a gravity source "down" of the camera, and a forward tilt wrt that gravity source.
Remove hints to the vehicle's ability to take off or hover, and you can abandon forward tilt as a speed-establishing feature - at least if your vehicle is elongated in the direction of travel, to depict speed in a different way. But if you retain a saucerlike design, the tilt still serves you well, as seen for example in the opening credits of TOS.
Now, reverse the angle of tilt, and your "helicopter" seems to be braking for a landing. Or then your "planing boat" is slowing down and will soon settle deep into water again. At best, you could hope the audience to think that your "motorcycle" is "wheeling" or your "horse" is "rearing" in anticipation of a speed burst - but the burst should then follow, via a loss of the aft tilt and hopefully also a gaining of at least a slight forward tilt.
Illustrations omitted for brevity. Just go to a movie theater or video/DVD rental near you to verify the visual impact of the various modes of flight.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Mmm. . . OK, I'll allow it. I'll give you an A-. 8)
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
I'd downgrade that to a B- as I challenge the sources he's using and the theory behind said sources. The only saucer movie i can think of where the ships 'tilt' in any conventional way is the bloody awful 'Earth v's the Flying Saucers' where the model saucers were animated using stop motion, and that's only really when they are being interfered with magnetically by our square-headed hero and a large magnet. Speaking as an occasional animator I fully realise how important it is to do little things like the tilt in helicopters and having landing gear sag as a helo lifts off, (check this helo animation I did for demo )it helps make a model appear to have weight and inertia. In Trek, inertia is negated by machinery and all flight controlled by fields and exotic tech which makes such moves redundant. When I animate such things I tend to avoid adding inertial effects, it adds to the high-tech authenticity if stuff uses non-ballistic motion now.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
And you get to stay behind after class and write out one hundred times, "No one likes a smartass." 8)
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
By the DS9 era, ship designs come down to very few needed criteria:
Unobstructed main deflector (for those ships that use the big glowy deflectors- not the Miranda)
Unobstructed weapons ports and phaser strips (part of why I altered the Niagra's nacelle placment)
Impulse engine vents
Warp engine vents (the glowy part of the nacelle)
escape pods (not always visible from the hull)
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
What about: a bridge that sits ontop of the ship's main habitable section?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
That's mostly true....except for the Sabre. That one sits over the shuttlebay (although not by much).
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
ASSUMPTION!!! Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
No....that's definitely the small shuttlebay at the ship's front. It's a recurring theme in Alex Jaeger's First Contact designs.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
ASSUMPTION!!! Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Oh, just build the model already! You'll see! I'll show you! I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!!!!
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
There's only one way that can be a shuttlebay: The DS9TM-dimensions are correct. Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, now, that's just crazy-talk, that is.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov: There's only one way that can be a shuttlebay: The DS9TM-dimensions are correct.
And we now they are not. AT 179 meters long, the Sabre could still hold shuttlepods or the "Chaffe" shuttle design. The whole "scoop" part of the sabre would have to open though and not just the part under the bridge. I guess it could be torpedo launcher....although te thought of the bridge being directly over the torpedo room is a bit dicey.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
I never assumed there was a shuttlebay under the bridge of the Saber. I'm not even sure if there was ever supposed to be one on the CGI, which is rather coarse.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
What would you think is in there? Aux deflector? Torp launcher? Snapple machine? Giant grinning teeth? Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: Giant grinning teeth?
Finally!! A starship with nose art! Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
A waste disposal hatch which was put there by accident. This is why all Sabers needed to be refitted with signs "Do not flush the toilet while in spacedock."
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Ewwwww.....is that why it's called "the poop deck?
You got any updates to your fleet charts on the way? I'd love to see the Nemesis ships added to the large chart. ....and theres tons of aliens to be added. It's why I started visiting your site after all. Posted by Micromaniac (Member # 546) on :
This is the thread I posted several years ago about the 16 designs from First Contact- - from it we can add the 4 engined Steamrunner ( mentioned but no pics/sketches and the alternate Steamrunner design and the Goodson so that leaves 4unaccouned for.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Thank you, Mr. Eaves.
My only issue is that all his big bad alien designs seem to look alike (i.e. semi-flattened Marauders with curvy nacelles and excessive greeblies). Jaeger Starfleet ships were at least variable.
Can't nobody beat no Probert & Sternbach, though. Oh helllll no.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
In terms of thought and real-world reasoning put into starships, P & S rule the roost indeed. Just look at the care being put into Probert's new/old Ambassador design, and Sternbach's (diminishing but still very cool) memories of his work on TNG and especially Voyager. It puts most of the "modern" CG art stuff to shame, as IMO the shortcuts taken have allowed too many mistakes to happen due to sloppy storage of the models and lack of time to examine them - for example, all the mis-labelling we've seen over years of the Galaxy-class CG model, or the Nebula, whose errors are glaringly obvious on the SOTL calendars. All the artists are extraordinarily gifted, but those errors would never have been made on the old models, where you ironically wouldn't even SEE the names.
Mark
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Agreed Mark!! Agreed Guardian!!
P & S models - amazing... they take time to invest the concept of the design evolution of different species starship design...
I mean look at the creation of the Vor'Cha - I love it - has a bit of a back story - like it's a little lighter green, the nacelles etc - because of the coming together of the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
The Cardassian Galor Class Warships... the top 'saucer' can eject - copied from the Federation through espionage etc.
What was that concept they used for the designs of the Enterprise "technology unchained".
The Enterprise E might look nice but it's such a radical departure from it's immediate forebares - the Galaxy and the Intrepid.
Things are put on those ships etc. for a reason. Even though I'm not a huge fan of them - the Voyager nacelles that is - they were made smaller because it was thought Federation technology advances resulted in a more compact nacelle for the same warp speeds.
At least the Prometheus had nice design elements from the Galaxy, Intrepid and Sovereign class starships. And the Nova class. That was the Equinox/Rhode Island's class wasn't it? That had design elements of The Galaxy, The Intrepid, The Sovereign AND the Defiant classes.
The Jaeger ships annoyed me a little because they were such a complete departure from established starship appearances and then they gave them the lower registry numbers.
At least the Norway had some design links between the Intrepid and I guess the Akira (but that came out at the same time).
The Steamrunner is probably the most jarring of those ships. Couldn't they have put some older features on the ship like square lifeboats etc?
That's just getting picky though! Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Oh, I dont know- I think the designers need an occasional kick in the pants every now and then- both Jaeger and Eaves are good at that.
Sternbach is a great artist, but I doubt he could have made such menacing ships as Eaves made for the Dominion, nor the eye-candy of the First Contact ships (who's secondary purpose was not to look like the Enterprise/Galaxy and confuse the general audience).
I think designers get stuck on the 'ol "saucer-and-nacelle-plus blob" makes a starship guideline and we get (at most) a re-arrangment of parts in various scales to represent new ship classes instead of innovative ideas.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:The Jaeger ships annoyed me a little because they were such a complete departure from established starship appearances and then they gave them the lower registry numbers.
I think that this was a mistake on the VFX guys' part, kinda like their goof-up on the Prometheus' registry. I think they thought that new ships were supposed to have registries of 5XXXX or 6XXXX, and didn't realize that those regos were actually for older ships.
Posted by Ahkileez (Member # 734) on :
I'd give my left nostril for some new info on the Akira.
There *must* have been a bunch of unreleased sketches and stuff right? I know Jaeger put up a couple more concept pics of the Akira on his site that I hadn't seen anywhere else. But that's all.
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