posted
This is a little like what I envision- Large scallop doors on both sides of the saucer which could each take a Defiant Class in for repairs, the bay would extend down to deck 12, the lower decks of the saucer would be fairly standard but would contain more cargo bays for storage. It�d also still have the shuttle bays on the under side of the saucer. Eight 24m square landing pads like were used in DS9 added to both the port and starboard sides- everything from the phaser emitter out would be a large flight deck. Most of the windows are removed on the top forward section, and phaser emitters have been added up the hull.
Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
The doors are large enough for the Defiants to enter, and come down a couple decks on their own- or if it is that badly damaged tractor beams can be used. I think a lift of that size would take up too much room in the lower half of the saucer. The doors would then close. I think the framework should possibly be increased around the doors, but structural integrity would not be compromised. This would ofcourse be a "Don't do this at warp" thing.
Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I'd imagine that CLOSED, the clamshell doors would be strong enough to keep everything together, but keeping those doors upon during combat or maneuvers would be a no-no. I'm more worried about the massive internal empty volume being a killer for integrity problems.
Anyhoo, I'm still not convinced that a portable Defiant-sized hangar is necessary or practical. Technology aside, how worthwhile is it to bring one back like that? It's probably not about people - the small standard crew can easily be evacuated by any starship of comparable size. A small ship like that was apparently not turned out by the score in the Dominion War, so would it make sense to build a starship specifically to bring one or two away from a battlefield? There also weren't many combat ships of that size anyway - the next cloest in size that we know would be the Miranda, I think, or possibly the Oberth. I'm imagining a parallel of building an armed supertanker that would be able to swallow submarines whole. Oh wait, that's been done.
The principal use of spacedock structures in Trek is to support lighting and presumably larger structural components in place suring construction and refit; in practice, you wouldn't be doing this in battlefield conditions, and so you'd bring it back. And in the case of bringing it back at warp speed, we've seen that cute little Klingon-esque tug doing just that in DS9, towing the relatively massive USS Fredicksen away from battle. Maybe not very fast, but still...
But I'm mostly playing Devil's Advocate here, since the design itself is pretty spiffy. Now, think of the numbers of FIGHTERS you could carry in there!
posted
Ok then... yeah... when not repairing a Defiant Class- fill the big internal bays full of fighters... and then when the next time a ship attacks you can release a massive wave of fighters upon them.
I ponder if would also be nice to have nifty robotic arms and such inside the bay to help repair hull damage on the Defiants, or be able to swing out and repair hull damage on the dorsal side of the saucer- or even on other vessels that park above the saucer.
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posted
It's definitely a neato idea and nice job on the graphic, Shakaar. And it would go a long way towards explaining beyond desparation why SF would put so many ostensibly exploration/contact vessels on the front lines.
But I suspect the advantages of modifying even partially complete Galaxy saucer-sections would have to be balanced against constructing a specialty ship (one that might, say, repair 6 Defiants) or just building 3 new Defiants and retrofitting another Miranda. Stuff like that.
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posted
Thanks. and indeed.. I'm highly pondersome of their choice of vessels. We see the use of a lot of Federation fighters, Excelsior, Miranda, Galaxy, Akira in heavy numbers in Sacrifice of Angels- and I think I recall a Nebula Class, and perhaps other Defiant classes- but those were in very low numbers. There were zero Intrepid Class, which I guess one could rationalize is more an exploratory craft- but it should be tactically better than an ancient Miranda Class, and what of the Ambassador Class? We never see those though they are newer than the Excel or Miranda... the war was also totally devoid of the Prometheus and Sovereign Classes- I guess the Prometheus was Very new at that point� but still� no Sovs?
I know the Federation probably is very good about upkeep on their vessels- I know what the specs should be for a Miranda- but I�m sure all the ones we saw were �Lakotaized� to be in top fighting form� but still� no Sovs???
I guess they were at that other battle �that was more important� that was going on at the same time �somewhere else�
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posted
Well, they were keeping the Intrepid exclusive to Voyager and the reason Bellerophon was an Intrepid was because they were allowed to film on the Voyager sets. There was only one Prometheus and it really was a secret development. The Ambassador model had been damaged so that it couldn't be used and they were keeping Sovereign exclusive to the TNG movies.
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Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Are those giant lifeboats along the saucer's edge? Those are about 200% larger than standard Galaxy lifeboats.
Might be nice to see a large, warp-capable lifeboat though.
Designwise, I think you'd be better off having the clamshell doors at the saucer's edge: that way there are two huge independant bays and no saucer's edge for damaged ships to crash into.
I dont dig the four extra phaser strips: it breaks up the design flow too much.
As long as the saucer is one giant hangar, why not lose the standard CGS shuttlebay- mabye have two smallish nacelles stem from there instead (as the saucer's lack of FTL always bothered me greatly).
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Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
So no one likes the idea of a Defiant class being and auxillary vessel to a large craft?
That annoyed me with the Ambassador "oh we broke the model" crap. There have been several wonderful versions done by CGI artists on line - I think the one at Bernd's?? site - the comparison of the two types of Ambassadors is a fantastic model.
I'm sure it wouldn't have taken them that long to create on at Digital Muse or Foundation Imaging or whoever did the CGI work.
Oh and another Defiant-sized/Miranda-sized craft - the Sabre class.
I've have alway held onto the idea that the Sabre class was another "in-progress" borg battling "weapon". And don't believe that silly 8**** registry number. I would say they are still in the 7****'s.
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posted
Well, I'm not sure of the Defiant itself as an auxiliary craft, but I would concur that Starfleet needs more diversity in the craft it builds- it seems for most of their history they churned out same type of craft, some slightly different, but many seemed pretty cookie cutter just growing larger over time. I am happy that the Dominion war showed the use of fighters, and the tugs, but they really lack a good carrier to deploy a lot of them. It�s good to have ships that are multi-functional for all roles, but sometimes it seems that some ships don�t really fill a needed role, and that there are also no ships designed to fill it either.
I�m also somewhat disappointed with what I consider a short-term memory of ship use. For classes we see only once and then poof. Take the Vulcan Surak Class- it�s one of my favorite ship classes from all Trek, its form is so simple and elegant, yet toward the end of Enterprise, when we saw their fleet several times, it was devoid of the Surak.
I love the carrier, I think on Earth they have fully been proven as being the more important ships in the fleet- I know the Federation has felt in the past that Starfleet should be geared toward peaceful exploration/ scientific research, and they do not believe in �warships� but Egads, you are also responsible for the security and welfare of billions and billions of people, and there has been one war after the next for centuries, the Xindi, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Borg, Dominion, and pretty much every species outside the UFP has pretty much had some noted period of conflict.
A Carrier need not fill a fully military role, they can do a lot of functions better. A carrier in peace time can be used as a ship of exploration. It can be sent to a sector and send smaller craft to all the systems there- you could send a small craft to scan each individual planet. In days you could have a lot of highly detailed information on every aspect of the sector. Carriers make good hospital ships as well, when it comes to large scale planetary relief you need a ship with a vast capacity and a wide reach.
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posted
The existance or otherwise of carriers in Trek is basically dependant on the utility of fighters. With FTL fire control of photon torpedoes there appears to me to be relatively little advantage of fighter craft.
On the other hand, I suppose they would be useful for long range surgical strikes, missions to disable enemy vessels for boarding and cheap system defence. Perhaps a role more like Light Attack Craft than fighters in the sense that we would think of them.
I don't think a specialised carrier design could compete with all the exploratory cruisers in times of peace. After all, the small craft complement of Starfleet's vessels is relatively high and if small craft could be used as a replacement for starship sensors, then I can't help but think they already would be.
A carrier design wouldn't necessarily have greatly increased capacity for planetary relief over an exploratory ship, especially a Galaxy, and we know Starfleet has specialised hospital ships.
Having said all that, I like the design Shakaar posted. The idea of a combat retrieval ship is a good one, but I'd think it'd be a tractor heavy, specialised design.
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Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Are those giant lifeboats along the saucer's edge?
Designwise, I think you'd be better off having the clamshell doors at the saucer's edge: that way there are two huge independant bays and no saucer's edge for damaged ships to crash into.
As long as the saucer is one giant hangar, why not lose the standard CGS shuttlebay-
As I said above with the image, those are landing pads, like what were used in DS9. The outter edge I devoted to smaller craft. The Clamshell doors won't really work well all the way to the edge, because the very rim of the saucer is not thick enough- I did ponder some sort of cut in with doors on the dorsal, rim, and ventral side, but that would require a lot more modifications, time, and a more complex door, and it seemed less sound structurally. If the person on the Defiant at the helm cannot manage the door (though I made the bloody thing large enough they could slide it in sideways) They could be tractored in- I pondered larger doors were good so as to suit future craft of different sizes. The saucer is not one giant hangar, I would estimate that 55% is standard (all below deck 12, and everything through the center as wide as the main shuttlebay- but that has been changed up some, into cargo bays and auxilary power systems. 25% of the room is devoted to the two Defiant bays, and the 20% around both sides of the rim for small craft flight bays.
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posted
Even the fighters in DS9 were apparently warp capable. In which case, why do they need a carrier? Under no circumstance is the UFP going to launch a large scale offensive warp-days away from their own systems/star bases - so you stage you fighters from a fixed point.
At most you would need tenders. It would have been far more trekish for them to have called them patrol craft or even torpedo boats/craft or something. If they are not warp capable then they are useless except for system defense, and not even much use then. Send a couple of warbirds in (for example) one side of the system, wait for the sublight fighters to run over that way, then the rest of the fleet warps into the other side of the system....
Modern day carriers are powerful because ships have much longer range/endurance than aircraft. Aircraft are useful because they are much faster than ships. If the aircraft have similar endurance and less speed than ships then they can self deploy, but how do they catch their prey?
As for warp capable lifeboats - wow that would be expensive and heavy wouldn't it? A gaggle of standard lifeboats and a handful of warp shuttles would seem a better bet.
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