So: does it evolve into the prototype for the Constitution-class and get rechristened after yet another refit a hundred years later? Just another crazy dead end? What say you, fellow geeks?
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:So: does it evolve into the prototype for the Constitution-class and get rechristened after yet another refit a hundred years later?
I'm not sure what you mean by that statement, but basically Drexler took a design that I absolutely hate and made it better. QED.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Looks good to me.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Looks great to me- better than the Akira or NX-01. I like how the nacelle pylons extend downward into the secondary hull. looks very sturdy.
Hmmm...maybe that's what the Springfield's secondary hull set-up should look like.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I'd like to see the front of the ship. I want to know if the new "pod" has a deflector, and if they removed the one at the front of the ship.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Since Doug was talking about redundancy on his blog, the saucer's deflector would probably still be there along with a new one on the secondary hull.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I'm intrested in all the re-arranging needed to move the hangar to this new secondary hull- talk about a major refit!
Hmmm...I bet this configuration has a much greater ranger/mission duration capacity- what with foodstuffs, antimatter and duterium storage and whatnot.
Or maybe the entire secondary hull is devoted to Orion lave girls and hot Vulcans in Pon farr.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I don't think "moving" the hanger would be that difficult, since you're not moving it, you're installing one in the new hull and decommissioning the old one. It'd just be a matter of stripping out all the heavy equipment (grapple, fuel tanks, etc.) and just convert what is essentially open space into a cargo bay...or something else.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
He's not said that the old launch bay would ve removed, but the new neck does seem to go where the hanger bay was before.
BTW the cargo bay doors port and starboard on the saucer - I suppose they could be used as launch bays. We did see them with the occasional pod or whatever in them, so I guess its doable.
Also, Drexler actually says the deflector will "co-exist" with the new one on the secondary hull. The ship is warp capable with the secondary hull damaged or absent, due to the old enginering also being retained.
Nice idea for redundancy but it does seem a bit odd that you'd bolt on a new engine and leave the old one in place (unless you expected the new one to break?).
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
With the frequency of major damage, computer viruses, alien saboteurs, weirdo space 'weather', and random-ass malfunctions, I think Starfleet would be pretty stupid to *not* expect it to break.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
^ What? And remove their greatest plot device?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Well, the families of the dead might appreciate it.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Oh, they're never taken into consideration Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
But then again, with two warp cores you're going to increase the other plot device....
"Coolant leak! Coolant leak! We're going to have to eject the core!"
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
That's my problem, this new secondary hull doesn't replace anything. I see it as the starship equivalent of an external harddrive. I would have thought it freed up some space in the saucer, but it really doesn't.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Increased storage volume means increased range and mission duration. Some of the cargo and engineering spaces in the saucer could be converted to other uses (extra quarters, labs, expanded sickbay etc.) and I'm sure the new deflector and new nacelles have some increased functionality to the warp drive and sensors. I'd say it significantly increases the useful life of what must have been an increasingly limited design.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Agreed. I always got the impression that the NX class was built with an eye on lifespan upgrades to begin with, and surely they ratcheted up ideas for compatibilty for new technology one Enterprise and her sisters got out there and found much cooler tech to copy or reverse engineer (or whenever the Vulcans got de-analized about their own stuff with humanity).
I see no problem with a warp 7 engine requiring a whole new space that the old Engineering hull simply could not accomodate, so they slapped one on using the exisitng infrastructure above the shuttle bay (where the grappler arms needed a solid frame anchor on the ship, etc.) to hold onto. Needing new power transfer conduits from said engine resulted in the new pylons, running through the exisitng catamaran to get to the nacelles. There's a small shuttlebay (or something) in the aft section of the secondary hull, which should concievably hold a shuttlepod and arguably be better to accomodate visitnig shuttles than the smaller footprint pod bay they originally had.
IF the original warp 5 engine was still there as a backup, it may have been an intended redundancy for the new engine if it failed on an extended mission and Entrprise needed to limp home. Voyager had one 200 years later (which they never used), so why not this?
As it stood, you could argue that a ship the size of this was way too huge for its original crew of 87, where the Constitution primary saucer was not that much larger for its initial crew of 202, which doubled. No reason why that can't happen here...
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I always found crew size estimates based on ship size to be a little silly since it really depends on how you arrange things.
As I understand it, in the real world navies (on subs especially) the crew are practically living on top of each other and even sharing bunks between two or more people on a shift rotation. We see in ST:VI that the Ent-A had this arrangement, so I really don't see a problem with small ships having several hundred people on board. I think it's fair to say that it wasn't until the earth 24th century that automation got the the point where they could afford to have smaller crews on bigger ships with enormous quarters, almost deserted corridors, vast cargo bays made up of mostly empty volume and two deck tall holodecks that don't even appear to ever have a queue.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
True but consider that exploration is still a big unknown quantity at this point- nice accomidations would make up for a lack of shore leave and would be an incentive for such a risky mission.
Also, larger quarters allows for easier potential doublingup during evac/rescue missions- it's possible that the bulkheads even slide back to provide larger rooms -or the occasional emergency hospital space, sports or onboard training.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Aesthetically, this is a very good transition to the 1701.
But from a technological sense, I can't go with it as a refit. Two separate deflectors, two separate warp cores? Just build a new ship!
It seems to me that this would be a revision to the NX class for newer builds, rather than something they'd bother to refit. I'm thinking of an example like, say, the Challenger's keel is laid but before they go too far they upgrade it to this "NY" class.
Because otherwise, all that tech and space taken up by it in the saucer that's dedicated to engineering still goes to waste, and now becomes dead weight being hauled by this extra warp core and secondary hull. Think of the warp supercharger things just sitting there doing nothing.
And to put another deflector on the front? Not very original. I can see a widened deflector, one which might even look a little silly poking above and below the hull rim. Might look a little ungainly, but it would be functional, and would make a good transition. The main complaint against the NX (and Enterprise itself) for years was that they basically got everything 'right' on the first try. This would be a case where they didn't. The front of the new hull could be the new landing bay or something else or a shape like the later Daedalus, and it wouldn't be until the next class starship that they moved everything to the "right" place.
Nah, in my personal little book this would be the design for something like NX-06 or so. Stick the reactor in the secondary hull, lose some of the extra catamaran hump space, complete the saucer on the back, and expand the deflector dish.
Then you have a situation were the Constitution (or some other next class starship) can do away with the impulse catamaran altogether by sticking the impulse engines on the saucer, putting the deflector dish on the nose of the secondary hull and moving the shuttlebay to the secondary hull rear. Nice and easy.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: True but consider that exploration is still a big unknown quantity at this point- nice accomidations would make up for a lack of shore leave and would be an incentive for such a risky mission.
Also, larger quarters allows for easier potential doublingup during evac/rescue missions- it's possible that the bulkheads even slide back to provide larger rooms -or the occasional emergency hospital space, sports or onboard training.
Judging by what we've seen of Starfleet's entrance exams and psych evaluations I don't think Starfleet has much of a recruitment problem, so "incentive" really isn't an issue. People WANT to be on those ships, it's a privilege.
With the early ships especially, space should be at a premium and every kilo of mass and cubic meter of volume should count. One of the things they did actually get right with Ent was the set design. You really got the feeling that everything had a function and there weren't just miles and miles of deserted corridors, serving no day-to-day purpose.
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Aesthetically, this is a very good transition to the 1701.
But from a technological sense, I can't go with it as a refit. Two separate deflectors, two separate warp cores? Just build a new ship!
It seems to me that this would be a revision to the NX class for newer builds, rather than something they'd bother to refit. I'm thinking of an example like, say, the Challenger's keel is laid but before they go too far they upgrade it to this "NY" class.
Because otherwise, all that tech and space taken up by it in the saucer that's dedicated to engineering still goes to waste, and now becomes dead weight being hauled by this extra warp core and secondary hull. Think of the warp supercharger things just sitting there doing nothing.
And to put another deflector on the front? Not very original. I can see a widened deflector, one which might even look a little silly poking above and below the hull rim. Might look a little ungainly, but it would be functional, and would make a good transition. The main complaint against the NX (and Enterprise itself) for years was that they basically got everything 'right' on the first try. This would be a case where they didn't. The front of the new hull could be the new landing bay or something else or a shape like the later Daedalus, and it wouldn't be until the next class starship that they moved everything to the "right" place.
Nah, in my personal little book this would be the design for something like NX-06 or so. Stick the reactor in the secondary hull, lose some of the extra catamaran hump space, complete the saucer on the back, and expand the deflector dish.
Then you have a situation were the Constitution (or some other next class starship) can do away with the impulse catamaran altogether by sticking the impulse engines on the saucer, putting the deflector dish on the nose of the secondary hull and moving the shuttlebay to the secondary hull rear. Nice and easy.
As refits go, I'd say this is much less extensive than the Connie refit. That practically WAS a totally new ship! This is more like building an extension on your house.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Besides, they would not simply scap the NX-01- Starfleet's first true "Hero Ship". Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
More new pics of the upgrade, along with the ol' ringship.
Ooh. Pretty. Me likey. Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I like it... I'm just not crazy about how the saucer AND the engineering hull both connect to the pylons. It's a logical step towards the Connie for sure... And maybe future scratchbuilt NX class ships would eliminate the double connection.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well it certainly looks more structurally solid than the connie. I suppose it stands to reason SIFs were less able to carry a ship's structural load so combined with a lack of shields, a compact and re-enforced design make sense.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
It would be cool to see the Intrepid design get this treatment....the underslung secondary hull would be waaay back or forward in a nebula sorta configuration.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I think the added structural strength the multiple connections provide is a nice touch, it rather harks back towards the Intrepid-type, and also anticipates the dersigns of the other ships seen in the new film.
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