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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
why are they limiting these ships to warp 2.. concievably, while NX-01 has been out and about for two years, the Warp 5 drive technology could have been used to refit old earthships to top speeds of warp 3 or 4 at least.. this would allow for an Intrepid that could possibly be an intersystem patroller/explorer between Earth and Centauri or any other close star system. possibly for diplomatic trips to nearby friendly worlds like Vulcan too.
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I am disappointed. The artists have spent considerable time and money in designing and creating ships for the Vulcans, the Klingons, and a few no-body aliens. When they came to the designs for the Starfleet ships, no special effort was expended. Throw a few shapes together and, voila!, there was a Starfleet ship. Blech!!!
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I think retrofitting is harder than you think. I mean, can the nacelles handle it? Can the structural fields handle it? Hell, can the hull handle it?
I think in the end it's much better to make a whole new ship.
-------------------- "And they had other stuff (...) like pictures of the Vulcan woman on Enterprise." "OOOOhhh! Uhm, I mean: Nerds!"
- Willow and Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think that retrofitting freighters could be logistically a little less complex a task than retrofitting current more complex starfleet vessels that are out there. The warp drive acts as an enormous power source to the ship. Well it feeds power to other systems in the ship. Integrating new technology unto older hardware requires a lot of upgrading on the large scale to avoid any incompatibility issues. It's not as though the Starfleet Corps of Engineers could just easily take out an "old" warp drive and replace it with Archer's Warp 5 drive and hope for the best.
I must agree that the warp 2 on 99% of starfleet vessels does limit does seem like a ridiculous idea. If the warp 5 threshold was penetrated less than 100 years after Cochrane's Warp 1 Drive worked it would seem more likely that Starfleet should have vessels that should at least have a warp 4 drive incorporated as their main propulsive drive system.
As for the lack of creativity that illustrators have shown with respect to starfleet vessels is quite disturbing. This new series could be a great platform for illustrators to come up with wacky or crazy designs or at least show some good precursor designs for starfleet classes such as the Daedalus or even Constitution vessels. I personally would really like to see a Daedalus class hull being constructed at some point (maybe at the end of the series). OR something even more fun could be a small storyline of an engineer at Starfleet's Starship Design Bureau come up with the design for the Constitution class vessel and have one of his supervisors toss it aside as saying that starfleet would never use an idea so extravagant as the constitution. OR have a story that parallel's Jack Northrop's design of the flying wing. Jack Northrop came up with the Flying Wing idea back during WWII. The aircraft was formidable but complex as the technology needed to control it was just not there. The aircraft went through separate stages: from propellers even through jet engines. The program was cancelled because the AF went with another aircraft. It took a long time to get Norhtrop's Flying Wing design to come into reality with the introduction of the B-2 Spirit. I guess a storyline resembling the Constitution class could be so easily derived from this. How Starfleet chose to go with the Daedalus class design instead of the Constitution class which was just not ready yet. I know this is not the right thread to come up with this but I just couldn't resist.
-------------------- Amit =/\=
"Imagination is More Important Than Knowledge" - Albert Einstein
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Replacing a warp drive? Probably doable, even in ENT time.
Checklist: - swap out old core for new core, including M/AM injector assemblies - possibly replace PTC to handle new core's plasma - replace nacelles or drive coils and plasma injectors - uprate SIF and IDF, or replace - uprate navigational deflector, or replace - install support, control, misc hardware related to above systems - load the proper drivers and make sure the new warp field is calibrated to the ship's warp geometry - apply "Plot Device Inside(TM)" stick to side of hull - watch Archer cry like the sissy of a Captain he is because they replaced his father's engine, 2 episode arc of how he deals with it through water polo and bad Kirk impressions
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
That has, and always shall be, a bloody ugly ship.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Aesthetics alone fails to intrigue me. It's precisely the reason why the NX is so deplorable - it was designed with 'looks' in mind, and only looks. There's a lot to be said for ships that don't concentrate wholly on the wow factor.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
I'm so terribly disappointed that more thought wasn't put into those earth ships. Not because I think bunches of time should be spent on things that won't show up... but because it probably means they won't be used again, nor will we likely get any info on them.
Now... that said... if they made models for these earth ships, no matter how low-detailed... there must be schematics for them. Perhaps we can hope to see them show up in Communicator, but with the departure of The Magazine, there is a lack of official publications in which they might be reproduced.
Oddly, the ship right before Enterprise in the credits seems to have more internal space than either of these two ships. It has a saucer and secondary hull, where the engines are.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
You know that is quite right. Since not enough time into creating starfleet ships or even into starfleet itself is clearly shown in its portrayal. The ships that have been made so far aren't quite impressive and I have personally asked myself how humans were able to survive this long with such a primitive fleet and nonexistent planetary defense. I really wish that more emphasis was placed on starfleet. Enterprise is being portrayed a little too much like Voyager. Enterprise is being isolated too much and almost no emphasis has been placed on starfleet. A lot of what starfleet has done really won't make too much sense. Why would starfleet send only one ship, specially their only state of the art ship into such a dangerous area as the Delphic Expanse. IT would make more sense for them to send a small task force instead.
I almost think that starfleet should have been building another NX vessel during the time that Enterprise was out during its first exploratory mission. By now Starfleet should have at least one or two more active NX vessels and have one or two in production.
-------------------- Amit =/\=
"Imagination is More Important Than Knowledge" - Albert Einstein
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz took four years to build. From "First Flight" we can suppose that it took anywhere between 1-3 years to build Enterprise.
More importantly, I think they held off on starting NX-02 for several reasons. For starters, the NX class is their largest ship yet; they probably have only so much resources to build one at a time, including stuff like spacedocks and production facilities. NX-02 was obviously being assembled in a different dock than Enterprise; assuming they were keeping the NX-01 dock empty to service Enterprise or other ships and not for construction, I seriously doubt they'd have much more than that.
Also, I'm sure they wanted to make sure that Enterprise was built on a sound design before cranking them out. With the NX class being such a breakthrough design, it would make sense for Starfleet to make sure Archer and company worked lots of bugs out before ordering mass production. Note, for example, that six years went between the launch of USS Galaxy and Enterprise-D, with Yamato somewhere in between.
Regarding your other point, sending a warp two task force into the Expanse would take years to do. Enterprise is fast, heavily armed (for them) and equipped with characters that can't die. Besides, Starfleet was convinced that dealing with the Xindi is more important than re-sending Enteprise out to explore more stuff, and I would tend to agree. If someone's concerned that Enterprise whould stay home instead, why bother? The Intrepid and those triangular ships had phase cannons, and could presumably be armed with photon(ic) torpedoes as well. Unless Enterprise is tremendously superior to her predecessors in sublight maneuverbility (which doesn't seem likely according to onscreeen evidence), one ship probably wouldn't make a difference to the next Xindi attack.
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Besides, Starfleet was convinced that dealing with the Xindi is more important than re-sending Enteprise out to explore more stuff, and I would tend to agree. If someone's concerned that Enterprise whould stay home instead, why bother? The Intrepid and those triangular ships had phase cannons, and could presumably be armed with photon(ic) torpedoes as well. Unless Enterprise is tremendously superior to her predecessors in sublight maneuverbility (which doesn't seem likely according to onscreeen evidence), one ship probably wouldn't make a difference to the next Xindi attack.
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