Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
Any good reference pictures? Screenshots? I've nearly finished the command module, but I still need some good reference shots to see if I got it right.
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
OK, thanks. First results soon.....
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
And does anyone think the hot rod-section (nose) acts as a primary hull and the thing can seperate from the rest of the ship? Looking at the screenshots, there are two warp engines at the aft end of the container neck, but another two left and right of the hot rod. I can't tell if those are engines, but they look like engines.
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It's definitely modular. But I do not know if the ship itself can stretch to fit more modules. If so, then the aft part of the ship would be part enigneering section and the bow would be the command section.
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We do know the nacelles are mounted aft, so it's altogether possible that the Fortunate has a sort of accordion mode allowing for more pods to be attached. On the flipside, given the relatively primitive warp tehnology of the time, they may not be able to modify the warp field enough to account for the extra volume and mass - as I recall, warp-speed tows in the TNG era are a rather large to-do, no?
However, this does bring up an interesting thought regarding just how much cargo those ships carry. For argument's sake, let's say that the Fortunate and ships of her ilk can carry around an amount of cargo roughly equivlaent to that of an oceanbound freighter, which by the looks of it is pretty close. What would they be hauling about, and assuming a hefty resource cost to run those ships at warp speed for years at a time, what would be cost-effective enough to make the trip worthwhile? Doubtless they're bringing stuff to Earth that can't be found locally, but if they're only carrying around relatively small loads of it, why haven't we been encountering many more of them?
There's obviously no concete answers to a lot of the above, but with the technology of the time they probably must have been hauling about a load of cargo that had a very high value to mass/volume ratio in order to pay the bills. With dozens of people living on the ship for such long stretches, there wouldn't be much extra room for stuff. Plus, in the episode there was a lot of unused space, especially in the cargo pods where people were seen throwing a football back and forth!
posted
Good point about the cargo - and one usually ignored. Given the economics of the time, what is valuable enough to pay for the fuel/ship amortization/fuel costs of a months-long trip (minimum)? - manufactured goods or raw material/resources?
My opinion: raw materials - such as rare metals (which may be more plentiful in other star systems) such as titanium, molybdenum, uranium/plutonium (processed).
I really doubt finished goods would be shipped/in demand enough to be shipped in great loads.
Of course, there is always the triangle trade (more later).
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Any star system with planets capable of supporting life like us is going to likely be rich in metals. I'm not sure you can have one without the other. Which is to say, no one is going to need to ship element X from Alpha Centauri when they've got huge mountains of it floating around in their own backyard. (Or even, for that matter, underfoot, in the traditional style.)
So what sorts of things should constitute the backbone of Enterprise-era interstellar trade? From the colonies, I'd imagine it's mostly exotic items. Artifacts, organics, and so on.
I'd also imagine there would be a steady stream of manufactured items from Earth to planets without the industrial base to make them themselves. Computers, flying cars, etc.
On the other hand, the "boomer" trading culture seems to be slightly closer to something like Vinge's Qeng Ho than FedEx, and that implies its own definitions of what's worth shipping.
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
I think they'd transport machines, maybe vehicles, or large structures for colonies like shield generators or replicators, things that can't be produced that easily. Didn't they mention ships like the J class are even smaller than this one? So maybe dilithium or fusion reactors or even antimatter (allthough I wouldn't want to fly that ship!).
The freighter can eject the containers, but I guess this is not a standard procedure. The containers may be modular, meaning they can be replaced with other container, maybe even larger units. I thought the two 'engines' mounted at the front end of the ship could be some sort of 'warpfield expanders'. The longer the ship gets, the larger the warpfield. Those thing could help increase it (since the engines are covered by the containers and don't seem to be 'outboard' during the voyage, as most warp coils we saw so far.)
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In DS9, "ore" is often mentioned as a commodity hauled about by interstellar freighters. And those ships tend to be relatively small, not much larger than the Y-class ships and generally devoting less apparent volume to cargo holds or modules. This would suggest that some substances are geographically rare enough to be in great demand even in nonrefined or semi-refined ore form - so great that one doesn't have to build a huge bulk carrier for them.
Perhaps some low-price materials are also shipped. Even duranium, which seems to be a very common spacecraft construction material, is hauled about in ore form (at least in the "less developed" area of space near Bajor).
We also have to take into account that all Trek shows so far have used relatively small "barrel" and "container" props when depicting cargo ship interiors. CGI may change that for ENT, but still... To address this, we could indeed say that compact yet complex devices and extremely rare substances are being moved. Perhaps we simply never happened to see the insides of a ship hauling "ore", which is unlikely to come packed in blue 100L plastic barrels...
Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
You know Ego-shooters? You usually carry up to twenty weapons, from the small pistol to the heavy minigun, and somehow everything fits into your pockets and bag. Strange. STV:Elite Force presented a small and easy solution (can't be adapted for other games, but still very interesting): helmet, tricorder, phaser and every other weapon is stored in a small portable transporter buffer you wear on your suit.
What if the transporter technology of the 24th century has been adapted and what we see and call 'transport containers' are just enlarged pattern buffers; not as highly developed as the buffers used for beaming, but enough to reduce the mass of the ressource you want to transport to the size of the container - in other words: transporter suspension.
Of course they didn't have something like this in the 22nd century, but space is still limited in the 24th century; why build a huge vessel if you can have a small, compact vessel? Maybe one of those containers holds several dozen kilotons of ore? And it could also be the reason why we somethimes see containers with 'Hazard warning'-signs on it and characters standing next to them without being concerned at all (example: behind Troi, in Generations, the Spot-finding-scene with Data).
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Uh...we've seen this used only once as you describe, and there it failed 2 times out of three. (Or was it just 1 time out of two?)
The more "magic" we can strip away from the transporter the better, from my point of view, and once we start storing material goods this way (surely more expensive than building a ship large enough to contain them?) what prevents us from storing whole ships like this? Once you've compacted all the goods on your freighter, why not go ahead and compact the freighter, and transport your goods by runabout. Or just compact the runabout, put it in your pocket, and hitch a ride on some passing transport.
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
Maybe it's like zipping files; the more you compress them, the worse the quality. And we're just talking about very simple things, raw materials form example. Not humans.
But we still have the size problem, don't we? If you need 48 hours to ship 1000 tons of ore to a planet you don't win anything. You either need more freighters, more storage capability or compress the freight somehow. It's like trying to maintain earth with oil, only by using ships as large as modern day tankers. How many do you need? Or let's take iron. Or corn. Whatever it is, large amounts of a ressource can't be shipped between planets. Maybe if you take medical supplies or antimatter, something you only need in small amounts, but it doesn't work with 'common goods'.
I guess then either UFP uses freighters larger than everything we've seen so far or earth's and federation's technical evolution led to ways of doing all this with relatively small ships (transporter suspension, vacuum compression, maybe they store it in small subspace pockets; but just doing it the way we would do doesn't work.)
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
Containers or not? If I add all 8 containers, you can't see the drive anymore. I guess adding 4 containers (two each side, forward) and leaving out the rest would be the best solution.
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