So what do everyone think? Is a runabout a ship or a craft/shuttle?
I think runabouts are ships, since they have all the makings of a ship and seemed to have standard ship registries and not the name of some ship they are assigned to.
But, maybe [when encountered] it's not counted as a ship or shuttle and simply called a runabout[whatever the hell that means in naval terms].
Registered: Mar 2001
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Yes, I believe it to be the ship. In addition to the reasons you mention above, the producers said that they really wanted a "miniturized starship" for people to knock around on DS9.
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It's been referred to on a number of occasions as an independant interstellar ship. It has it's own class name, The Danube Class, and they all have their own registries, as you mentioned.
Definitely starships.
On the other hand, Danubes, at times seem to serve as shuttles to. Picard and company took one in Timescape. The runabout was either from wherever they were visiting, in which case they would've gotten there some other way, or it was assigned to the Enterprise. The runabout had no visible name or registry, but I'm in the "Assigned to the Enterprise" camp.
Either way, it seems that the runabout would be capable of landing in the Ent. D Shuttle bay and that the bay would be capable of storing and servicing the craft for at least a time.
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The runabouts were pretty clearly defined as ships (with USS names and NCC registries).. things got hairy when it came to the Insurrection scout. I am under the assumption the scout falls into the same type of vessel as the runabout, and had a name we just werent privy to.
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Registered: Sep 2001
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I believe that runabouts are definately their own ships, and that the one seen in Timescape was assigned to the Enterprise D, because wouldn't it seem logical for a deep-space explorer like the Ent-D to have a dedicated auxilary craft more durable and venerable than a shuttle that could do more stuff and go faster? And I also read somewhere that Galaxy class ships can carry up to 3 runabouts.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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It has the ability to carry many more than that. The main shuttle bay is huge. It may only be able to launch so many at a time, but could certainly store many more.
I agree though. It would make sense that a deep-spacer with the facilities to do so would certainly be assigned a more heavy duty support craft.
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we know that because the Galaxy class DID carry three runabouts.. the Rio Grande, Ganges and Yangtzee Kiang. They delivered them to DS9.
BTW, anyone see how big the main shuttlebay is supposed to be? i think they could carry a few more than 3, but it seems thats all they had with them at the time to spare or thats all the ones they were assigned to deliver
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Galaxy-class main shuttle bay interior = 58.64m in length and 65.80m in width. Length can accommodate 2.54 Danube-class vessels and the width can accommodate 4.80. So the main shuttle bay can hold at least 8 Danube's, possibly as many as 12.
I>Galaxy-class shuttle bay 2 interior = 25.50m in length and 21.93m in width. Length can accommodate 1.10 Danube-class vessels and the width can accommodate 1.60. So the 2nd shuttle bay can hold at least 1 Danube's, possibly 2. It will more likely be 1 in this bay as if there were two, neither would have room to move about and get through the door.
I>Galaxy-class shuttle bay 3 interior = 25.50m in length and 9.4m in width. Length can accommodate 1.10 Danube-class vessels and the width can accommodate 0.69. So the 3rd shuttle bay can hold no Danube's.
So the number of Danube's that a Galaxy can carry is between 9 and 14.
Please note that these measurements for the interior of the docking bays are just rough guesses and not exact. The heights are determined from page 11 of the TNG:TM and are taken to the point under the control rooms to where the hull starts to slope down and therefore restrict the height of a craft. The widths are of the doors and taken from page 8 of the same book. Measurements used are those given in the DS9:TM on pages 140 and 151.
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Registered: Apr 2001
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According to the Ent D blueprints, the main shuttle bay is actually comprised of almost two whole decks. Think of a parking garage for auxillary craft
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And it's much wider than the door. From the door, it goes straight back a bit, then fans out into the oval shape of every other saucer deck.
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Still, you probably don't want to cram your bays full of runabouts when you need to operate shuttles from those bays as well. The USN has toyed with flying Hercules transports or Fokker 100 jetliners from its carriers for logistics ops, but those take up awfully much parking space...
And during the first and second seasons of DS9, Sisko apparently liked the sound of "This is the UFP starship Rio Grande". I think "Vortex" was the first reference to "starship runabouts". When Sisko got the Defiant and some real starship muscle, he could drop that pretense.
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In "Emissary", Sisko calls them "Runabout Class Vessels". It's odd that the writers had the fact that all the ships were named after rivers down already, but didn't have the class name down yet. I guess we could argue that Sisko just didn't know the class name. Unlikely though since he was heavily involved in starship design.
At the time of "Timescape", runabout were still fairly new. I doubt the Enterprise is assigned more than 1. Obviously, it would've carried the 3 to DS9, but I mean under normal circumstances...
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