Your comments regarding the location of the bunks match a dialogue I had this weekend with the author of those plans. He's been mulling over tweaking them to have the bunks occupy two of the swappable modules and having the lounge fill up the entire aft compartment.
posted
Yah, "Timescape" really flubbed up the Runabout's interior due to that transverse corridor thingy. It just doesn't work out.
------------------ "The sons of the Prophet were valiant and bold, And quite unacustomed to fear. But, of all, the most reckless, or so I am told, Was Abdulah Boul Boul Ameer." Aban's Illustration www.alanfore.com
posted
Perhaps it wasn't a corridor, but rather another "antechamber" with a toilet to the left and a combined love tester and soft drink vending machine to the right, and a door in the middle - and we didn't recognize this sliding door for what it was because it was confusingly painted like a wall? :-P
Frankly, modularity is all fine and good, but sometimes you can be pretty sure a runabout will be used for a single mission only. In such a case, it makes sense to rip off the modules and install fixed hull parts instead. If this was the personal VIP ferry of a starbase commander (or even of Picard's), then all the modules were possibly replaced by a permanent conference hall or a pool room, or some other space that was separated from the utilitarian forward part and the comfy aft sleeping/eating space by heavy-duty walls to keep the noise safely inside.
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[FANBOY] I'd love to see a combat-module that incorporated pulse phasers and dorsal torpedo launchers.[/FANBOY]
------------------ At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.
"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"
posted
[fan-of-rw-militaria-boy] What I'd love to see would be some sort of a "reality-limited" arrangement: perhaps four quarter-modules, one of which housed the launching optronics and guidance and power systems, and up to three held 2-3 full-sized torps each in drop-launch racks. Or then you could install one phaser cannon in a quarter-module, but you'd have to dedicate one quarter-module to targeting and power systems again, and the heat dissipators couldn't take more than two phaser modules, or something. [/fan-of-rw-militaria-boy]
In essence, you *could* overarm a runabout, but in most cases it would be a very complex operation, and in some cases the increased mass and power drain would in fact make the ship a poorer combatant than before.
Incidentally, one wonders how O'Brien changed these modules. Apparently, they have to be loaded and offloaded from underneath the craft. What sort of derricks or repulsorlifts or Brikar laborers did O'Brien use for lifting the runabouts? Is the odd scaffolding to the left in the DS9 TM picture of runabout bay innards supposed to show a module-swapping mechanism?
posted
See, they never really mentioned module swapping on the show. Methinks that was something they made up later on for the books. The closest they came to swapping anything was the little rollbar pod on the top of the crafts which also have mission specific types.
------------------ "The sons of the Prophet were valiant and bold, And quite unacustomed to fear. But, of all, the most reckless, or so I am told, Was Abdulah Boul Boul Ameer." Aban's Illustration www.alanfore.com
posted
Agreed. However, Rick did go to the trouble of designing the model to have those obvious "holding straps" for the ventral module(s), and obviously intended the craft to have that capability from the very start. I guess we have to group this with the cetacean navigators and Captain's Yacht of the E-D - cool things that the creators intended to be there but that were not completely proven to exist.
I wouldn't mind saying that the E-D never had a flightworthy Yacht attached because Picard opted for an energy beam generator instead (obviously because his future self from "AGT" had hinted that the ship would have to breast-feed a gigantic space jellyfish on her first mission). I *would* mind if the whales weren't there, after Geordi's comment in "Perfect Mate". And I would also mind if the runabouts didn't have module-swapping capability.
posted
There's a Transformers microbots carrier that looks awfully like a runabout from the front. Armed to the teeth it was once I butchered all my cousins toys
------------------ At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.
"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"
posted
Micromasters. And they sucked more than the aformentioned jelly-jelly fish on the Enterprise's virtual-breast.
------------------ You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston." -Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
LASERS COMING OUT OF THEIR BUMS AND SPRINGY MISSILE LAUNCHERS IN THEIR EARS AND MOBILE SCOUTS UNDER THEIR FINGERNAILS!?!?
?
------------------ At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.
"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"
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