Actually I don't think those were the only Endeaver sketches. Eaves said in an interview I read somewhere (Maybe in one of the last ST: The Magazines) that he disguised his work on the Endeavor as Enterprises by writing "Enterprise" ON the ships. IIRC, he said the Endeavor got axed but he kept working behind the producers' backs in hopes that later on it may have gotten an opportunity to find its way back in. I beleive those OTHER sketches in the sketch book of the "E" in developement where the nacelles are attached to the saucer are in fact Endeavors.
Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Wraith: Well, I imagine a little more detailed design work would have made it look a little more unique but really it's no more similar to the Sovreign than the Nebula is to the Galaxy.
I'm not sure I agree...flip the ship over and put the saucer on top or flip the ship insideout (unfortunately MSPaint can't do what I am saying)but it looks much more like the Sovereign than a Nebby does in relation to a Galaxy. It's hard to judge by the angle of the picture.
I saw a model of what looks like the same ship at Starship Modeler for their Dominion Wars Contest. The builder (Markus Nee) called it the USS Southern cross, Endurance class, based on an Eaves sketch.
-------------------- Darkwing If you don't drink the kool-aid, you're a *baaad* person - Rev Jim Jones It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion - William Ralph Inge Almond kool-aid, anyone? - DW [email protected]
Registered: May 2002
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posted
It still does'nt use as many of the same parts in common as the Nebula/Galaxy do. Definitely a nice sister class to the Soverign though.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Micromaniac: There is also another version of the Steamrunner in the sketchbook with the nacelle caps under the saucer and the final pod up instead of down. Top /side/front views.
Wouldn't that just be the Steamrunner upside down?
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posted
Kinda.....if you lose the deflector and add in the Akira secondary hull with deflector you get something kinda cool. Or my painkiller just started workjkknlnmj ,. m,hlik guk gu/
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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-------------------- "The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity´s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something." Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
One major plus over the actual Steamrunner: the impulse engines don't blast into the pylons!
This ship clearly has a much humbler shuttlebay, but appears equally underarmed and probably wouldn't have been a full ship-to-ship combatant. She's a lot prettier than the final Steamrunner, that's for sure... But perhaps even less "conventional".
posted
That problem would be nicely solved by flying slightly nose-down, which is a dignified way for a starship to move. The actual Steamrunner in turn ought to fly nose up, which looks just silly.
posted
Dignify? Your essay question for the weekend: "Justify, using diagrams if necessary, the dignity in having a starship fly at an angle to the intended line of direction."
posted
I always liked the concept streamrunner design. The front view has this "sinister" look to it...or have I been gazing at one too many Terminater drawings this past week?
The side view of the concept is meh and yes the deflector behind the raised bridge module is a winning combination for those that have a death wish.
Registered: Mar 2001
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quote: I'm not sure I agree...flip the ship over and put the saucer on top or flip the ship insideout (unfortunately MSPaint can't do what I am saying)but it looks much more like the Sovereign than a Nebby does in relation to a Galaxy. It's hard to judge by the angle of the picture.
Damn, you're right actually, it does look disturbingly similar. That USS Southern Cross looks a lot better, although if it's supposed to be a Miranda/Nebula equivilent, I'd expect it to have a pod of some description.
quote: I suspect someone had a quiet word in his ear about emissions from the deflector slowly killing everyone on the bridge. . .
"Starfleet denied today that deflector emmissions were responsible for an sudden increase in cancer among many of its personnel, saying the installation was as safe as old mobile phones and high powered Radar..."
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Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
The Steamrunner's concept drawing bridge module looks much better that way but the happy-face of a curved phaser strip is a bit sadistic. Another ship I need to build....mabye with a Akira torpedo pod in the deflector's place though.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
That probably isn't a phaser strip, since the top view shows it to be a very broad feature that also varies in width.
As for Lee's assignment:
Many theories have been put forth about the significance of starship shape to their function. The saucerlike primary hull shape has been attributed variously to the requirements of warp dynamics, somehow imitating fluid dynamics; simple aerodynamics, reflecting the reentry role of this ship element; or efficient ratio of volume and surface area while minimizing side profile.
Visually, though, the saucer harkens back to the classic flying saucers, familiar to audiences since 1947. And for those, there are three modes of flight, in the entertainment industry at least.
First, there is flight along z axis, suggesting a centrally mounted Newtonian thrust source propelling a symmetric, balanced hull, but resulting in great aerodynamic drag. As a spacecraft, a saucer moving in this mode would be a sensible design. However, for audiences accustomed to seeing atmospheric flight, it makes little visual sense.
Second, we have the edge-on mode. That makes one wonder for the reason to saucer symmetry. Why not an identifiable bow and a stern? Does the saucer perhaps rotate in flight, like a frisbee? Surely the thought makes the audience a little queasy...
Third comes the mode the audience is most familiar with: tilted flight mode. Seemingly making no aerodynamic or Newtonian sense at all, the mode still feels intuitively very "right" to the audience, since they have seen it before - in just about any war or action movie depicting the post-1950s. This is how helicopters, the sexy and powerful war machines of the modern military, behave in flight.
In fact, take any hovering vehicle and make the transition from hovering or vertical flight to horizontal flight, and the audience demands a forward tilt. The faster the vehicle goes, the more acute the tilt, up to 30 or sometimes even 45 degrees. As long as there is an up-down philosophy to the vehicle design, the audience assumes a gravity source "down" of the camera, and a forward tilt wrt that gravity source.
Remove hints to the vehicle's ability to take off or hover, and you can abandon forward tilt as a speed-establishing feature - at least if your vehicle is elongated in the direction of travel, to depict speed in a different way. But if you retain a saucerlike design, the tilt still serves you well, as seen for example in the opening credits of TOS.
Now, reverse the angle of tilt, and your "helicopter" seems to be braking for a landing. Or then your "planing boat" is slowing down and will soon settle deep into water again. At best, you could hope the audience to think that your "motorcycle" is "wheeling" or your "horse" is "rearing" in anticipation of a speed burst - but the burst should then follow, via a loss of the aft tilt and hopefully also a gaining of at least a slight forward tilt.
Illustrations omitted for brevity. Just go to a movie theater or video/DVD rental near you to verify the visual impact of the various modes of flight.
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