Hi all, since finishing my USS VIgilant I moved on to try and complete this little ship. Once again I've based the idea for the ship on real life situations and ideas, so this is my vision of what a Starfleet equivelant to the Hawkeye AWACs or Prowler might look like. It's meant to be a scout ship capable of monitoring comms traffic and scanning areas of interest, and if found it can make a run for it or fight it out if need be.
It's fairly small and inocuous, I see it carrying a crew of 6 for stretches of a week or so at a time, with the cockpit having a 'pool table' style situation desk in the centre and consoles with operators around the edges and the pilot at the front. Stairs at the rear would lead down half a deck to the mess and sleeping quarters in the belly of the ship, something like a cabin cruiser today. The windows in the cockpit are about 1.5 metres tall, if that helps give an idea of scale.
The bussards are mounted inboard with the nacelles on pivoting wings which alter to suit the flight configuration at the time, and of course fold up like a carrier aircraft for landings or stowage. I've given it pulse phasers along the front leading edge, and I'll probably give it one or two at the rear as well, but it's not meant to be a fighting ship, just an information gatherer. Suggestions as to what else to fit would be appreciated, so far i plan to give it a small escape pod just in front of the spine where the interior rooms would end, and add landing gear to the underside. Comments and suggestions are greatfully received.
Posted by Pensive's Unfudged up X-mas (Member # 1203) on :
Very impressive effort, at the very least, sir.
(Figure i would say something nice before the others smell the blood in the wate, err, spread their own compliments...)
Honestly, as CG art goes, it looks functional, indeed... Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
Hmm, other boards have been quick to trash the cockpit area as making the ship look bloated, although I cant see how, and some even suggested a much squarer cockpit area almost like that of a Y-Wing. I think they're smoking crack, but you never know.
Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
It looks like a Starfleet-ized Jem'Hadar bug.
Posted by Pensive's Unfudged up X-mas (Member # 1203) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mighty Blogger Snay: It looks like a Starfleet-ized Jem'Hadar bug.
and you know, thats a shape/design that could be a double edged sword for that class of ship...
Posted by Captain39 (Member # 1001) on :
Interesting idea, indeed. I love the idea of the folding nacelles in order to save space while being stowed.Keep up the good work!
Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
I think the nacelles are turned the wrong way. I realize it is a conscious and pioneering decision, but it feels weird. The Jem'Hadar capital ships also had nacelles that were thinner in the front, but the whole nacelle structure was different and the aesthetics favored it.
I don't think it would be as much of a weirdness if the blue areas of the nacelle wasn't mostly in the middle and back portions of it, looking like a reversed Sovvie-nacelle.
If you would just put a little red hubcap on the front ends, all confusion would scatter like piss in the wind of Tokyo.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
An ELINT ship, cool idea. Does the pod transmit or receive? Or both? Afterall, intelligence gathering is more than just actively scanning but also passively listening. Typical real world radars like SPY-1 which actively search land and air for contacts, but if another ship is listening and picks up the SPY signal they can use that information to know there's an AEGIS ship and get its bearing. Equipment such as the SLQ-32 passively listen to radar from other ships/subs/aircraft to determine where and what a contact is by the radar its using. And since it's a passive system no one else would know its in use.
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
I envisaged the pod to be mainly passive systems with some active search systems. As you say it's a lot easier to find someone if they're broadcasting a signal, even if it's meant to find you out. For example, a submarine will hear a sonar ping at something like 4 times the distance a sonar ping will register a submarine. Whatever this thing would use, it's big ear is going to be the main one and the conformal arrays on the ship itself could contain passive and active elements too, so even without a pod it's still got a fair ELINT capability.
Agreed about the nacelles looking somewhat like a Jem Hadar ship, I've turned them around and done a little ortho layout for your inspection. I'll own up right now and say the nacelles are a complete bitch to design, nothing can make or break your ship like nacelles and I am crap at doing them. If someone has a better design, show me it now and I'll probably use it, because it cant be any worse than mine. Probably.
I realize this is the beta stage and you will flesh it out with more detail, but the bellyside is very empty of stough. Could this be a design that rides piggyback on other ships before deployment? Like with extractable grappling arms, a la Millennium Falcon on the Star Destroyer? That would surely give lots of optional details to adorn the belly with.
Also, dimensions?
EDIT: This just dawned on me now. You give this sensor ship eight pulse cannons (200% of Defiant's) and you give the Vigilant pinstripe regular phasers? How about switching packages in the phaser compartement?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
There's multiple types of SLQ-32 (pronounced "Slick 32"). Most DDG's use a AN/SLQ-32A(V2) which is passive only. CG's will use a V3 which performs all the functions of a V2 but also has an active jammer to interfer with hostile sensors so that the enemy can't ID the platform or get a direct lock on bearing and range.
So in your case you could say the pod not only receives active sensor signals from other ships but can jam them so the hostile ship can't get an accurate read on all the ships in a battle group.
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
Nim I had no plans to have it piggyback, but i suppose a ventral docking hatch is a good thing for some circumstances. I planned to give it landing legs since it's easily small enough to land on planets or in large enough hangar facilities. I am toying with the idea of a couple of ventral details running part of the length of the ship, but explaining would be a bit tough. The next update should have a bit more detail on the underside anyway, and we can see what comes of that.
Dimensions are just over 50 metres long and 12 high, I've also taken a snapshot of the side mesh view where I've taken the liberty of roughly drawing in the interior lines and a figure for scale. As I said already the cockpit area will be operations and the lower are in the body will be living quarters.
As for weapons loadout, I just basically cut eight holes in the front of the thing because it looks cool, nothing more. We could say they are straightforward phasers, prototype pulse phasers, minitorp tubes or combinations of each. I leave the actual specs to you guys, but it's definitely not meant to be a ubership. What would be a reasonable self-defence loadout?
Hobbes I thought of it not merely as a survey/ELINT ship, but as something able to fly into battle with small groups and do the ECM or Wild Weasel role as well, since it would be well placed to jam and run interference with the equipment it has and the knowledge about enemy frequencies, sensors etc that it would have collected. It's small enough that it could keep up with fighter groups or larger vessels if need be, so it may well be used in that role in wartime. I think of it like a Prowler or EF-111 Raven, running electronic defence while the heavy guns go in.
Posted by MarianLH (Member # 1102) on :
Originally posted by Axeman 3D:
quote: What would be a reasonable self-defence loadout?
I would suggest including a torpedo tube. That way you get both a weapon and the option of extending your sensor envelope using probes.
Then round out with a couple of short phaser strips.
Marian
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by MarianLH: I would suggest including a torpedo tube. That way you get both a weapon and the option of extending your sensor envelope using probes.
Smart girl- I always thought exploration ships should have a dozen or so probes relaying sensor data at all times. It's silly to think the Enterprise could effectivly explore jack shit one system at a time.
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
Very nice.
My one suggestion is to make the pod more distinguishable from the Nebula class pod. At first glance, they looked identical. I would change it sufficiently so that it didn't look like the pod was simply swapped from a Nebula, as if they were physical models.
Otherwise, great job!
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
Good call, a torp tube it is.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Designwise, it's be neat to see the cockpit up in the pod.
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
I'd prefer to keep the people as far away from the dirty great transmitter/receiver array as is possible, to be honest. It's an interesting idea though, but on this small design I think it'd look very reminiscent of the Skyflash from Thunderbirds, which had it's cockpit on the rear stabiliser/rudder. Over the New Years period I have drawn up some ideas for my next ship, possibly slightly larger than the Vigilant. This time I went for a more nautical style in that the bridge area is mounted far back and high up with a wide aspect, rather like the bridge of a ship. I think it will make a nice departure from the usual Trek bridge placement, but still be acceptable to most.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I was thinking of the entire (larger) lower part of the craft as the sensor pod and mabye the ship pivoting in space like a space telescope (but moving more like Slave One). Mabye one big mobile tachyon detection sensor platform for patroling along the NZ.
Mabye as a specialty ship operating with an escort or deployed from large starships- Galaxy ,Akira etc.)
Posted by jesus X (Member # 1201) on :
I like it, actually. Although I might make the nacelles bigger, since it's a small ship to start with. Those look like they're barely bigger than a shuttlecraft's nacelles, and a ship like that looks like it'd need to haul ass in a firefight.
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