I was wondering what the two tubes on the saucer and one underneath the enginnering hull were? I read that they were torpedo launchers? But they look a little big to me for that. I always took them for impulse engines.
Comments?
RS
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
My guess is that they are either weapon pods or really large sensors. Impulse engines really don't that many nor that large for a ship.
Posted by DoughBoy (Member # 804) on :
I believe they were pens!
No honestly I'd say they were Torpedo Tubes or a specialized sensor platform.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Smart-ass answer: They're Hi-liter pens.
Real answer: They were extra bits that Mike Okuda added to the model so that it wouldn't look so similar to the Galaxy class.
Star Trek Universe answer: Who knows.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
I thought they looked like intakes of some sort.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Orleans".
And the answers "weapons pods" and "sensor arrays" are the two answers you're going to hear from almost everyone. But since there's no official word or evidence about them at all, there's no real answer. Just opinions.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
*snigger*
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Well, perhaps we could speculate on the most probable function for these little add-ons? Perhaps they're swappable equipment pods. One set of pods could be for weapons, one set for sensors, etc. I'm not exactly sure how big they are, so I can't say if they'd be big enough for more shuttle storage or for expanded sickbay facilities or something like that.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Looking at pictures of the miniature, there already appears to be the torpedo tube in the neck so others wouldn't necessarily be needed. Also, the marker things on the top side strikes me as being a risky place to put a torp launcher - too likely of blasting your own saucer IMO.
I also highly doubt that they're any form of additional engine. So maybe they are sensor equipment? I really aren't sure.
It's a shame though, I personally think the ship would've looked better and made more sense without the marker modules.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The launcher in the neck may have been rescaled to oblivion, though - being half the size of its Galaxy counterpart, the muzzle may be too small to let a torpedo through...
Even though we have only seen one type of torp casing prop used in the shows, I see no reason to think that there couldn't be varying sizes of torpedoes in use. In the various tech man pics, the torpedo casing seems to be crammed quite full of equipment, so one could think that size is a bottleneck in creating bigger and badder weapons. So why not install a special large-caliber weapon on some ships?
The caliber of the highlighter pen "muzzle" is impressive enough - one could launch shuttlecraft through it! Presumably, such weapons wouldn't be needed too often, so it makes sense to pod them.
Proximity of the pod to the hull doesn't seem to be a problem, really. The fwd tubes of an Intrepid are in a far more precarious position...
I suspect these pods could be fitted to some other ships of the era, too. Swap the ventral pod of a Springfield for two or four of these babies and you get a nice little battlewagon. Gives a raison d'etre to these ships, too (something specifically built to accommodate the pods and yet be smaller and cheaper than an Excelsior).
Once you've got the hardpoint for a torpedo pod, you can then install other kinds as well. The highlighters don't look much like "sensors", not with the prominent "muzzles", but it wouldn't be difficult to glue a different household object to that position and call it a sensor dome.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Fighter launchers? Probe Launcers? Updates of the Soyuz class 'additions'? Warp field stabilisers? Warp enhancers? Ion pods!?! ;o) Emmiters for opening rifts in to dimensions like Fluidic Space ;o) Exhaust ports? Large-scale tractor emitters? (for pushing/towing)?
Andrew
Posted by Fedaykin Supastar (Member # 704) on :
Maybe they're bowling allies????
[come on its 2 in the morning!]
well like a few people have said they could be anything, i'd just say they are multi-purpose equipment pods: which could be swapped out or configured for extra weapons, or science labs or sensors and watnot - like what the Nebula has.
that way we could encompass a wide range of answers - even a bowling ally!
Buzz Posted by U//Magnus (Member # 239) on :
"come on its 2 in the morning"
Maybe you should go to bed.
Posted by Malnurtured Snayer (Member # 411) on :
None of my allies bowl.
Posted by U//Magnus (Member # 239) on :
"bowling allies...bowling ally"
"non of my allies bowl"
See, that's because you made spelling errors that Tim failed to correct. And because you are, like, so wrong.
Posted by DoughBoy (Member # 804) on :
Hey Dukhat I see I beat you to the smart ass pen answer...sorry about that! Next time you can be the smart ass and I'll be the runner up Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I would point out that there's no saying whether or not I would have corrected that spelling, since Jeff got to it before I'd even seen the post.
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