Now, the whole point of making this timeline was so that I could figure out the design attributes for the conjectural Starfleet classes, based on their time of commissioning, for an essay I'm writing in my spare time. Now that I have some ideas, I was wondering if I could get some help from any graphic artists around here.
I'd like to have small side-view illustrations of each class design idea I came up with to go along with the text. But I'm incredibly graphically-challenged, as can be seen from my hideous cut-and-paste job for my first ship on the list, the Antares class:
I would love the overall look of the ships to look much more like the Apollo class design Reverend came up with (and which I'd like to use in my essay, with his permission...)
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. The descriptions of the designs can be found in the addendums to the construction dates in the timeline, or if you just don't feel like reading my timeline, I could describe them for you :-)
*Disclaimer* My essay is going to pretty much repudiate what the guys at the ASDB have done (with the exception of the Apollo class), but that doesn't mean that I don't admire the work they did. Believe me, I certainly like Rev's design for the Antares class much better than mine, but I'm going with my timeline for this essay.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Thanks! And you're right about the Korolev. I was planning on using this design from Shipschematics (SciFi Meshes has a more accurate depiction, but I couldn't find it)...
...but I like yours better. It's not cut-and-pasty like this is, and it fits better as a sister ship to the Olympic class, which is also a contemporary.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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Just having a browse through the article and I note the Hokule’a is roughly consistent with our design...though it was never finalised and needs plenty of work. In a nutshell it was meant to be a post Excelsior, pre-Ambassador frigate IIRC. Oh and the Deneva is about right too.
posted
Am I looking at the right Hokule'a? The one at the ASDB appears to have design elements mostly from the Excelsior, with downswept nacelle pylons instead of upswept, and no neck. I rather envisioned it as an Ambassador version of the Stargazer, with four nacelles.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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Yeah that's the one and those images are ancient. I wasn't happy with the way it was shaping up so I re-jigged it to look more like Probert's Ambassador, but with the same basic configuration. I perfer not to just copy and extrapolate quite so literally as to make an Ambassador or Excelsior version of the Constellation or the Cheyenne. For one thing it gets a little boring and to be frank the logic behind that type of thinking is scratchy at best.
quote:2358: Oberth class U.S.S. Pegasus, NCC-53847, commissioned.
“The Pegasus” (TNG). Geordi states that the ship is twelve years old in 2370. Registry numbers do not apply in this case. Apparently the Oberth class has a separate registry scheme than other starships
I cant fathom that Starfleet was so enamoured of the tiny, underpowered, lightly armed science vessel that they'd still be cranking them out into the TNG era... I've often considered the possibility that the Pegasus was a "one off" prototype that was made to externally resemble an Oberth to avoid unwanted attention while testing advanced technology.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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The only problem with that theory is that both the Oberth class U.S.S. Cochrane and the U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky have even higher registries than the Pegasus, meaning that they were even newer, and there was nothing prototypical about them.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Maybe their resgistries reflect a re-deployment with upgrades....possibly a shortage of science vessels required the refit and return to service of several retired ships.
Such a shortage could have resulted from the expansion of expplored space during the generally peaceful span between the Tomed Incident and TNG (with the Cardassian War a brief, geographiacly isolated event).
It could also help explain the shortage of available combat ships in TNG- a lot of the fleet might have been science and service vessels (with popular sentiment in the UFP leaning toward diplomaccy as the main resolution to conflict.
A particular NCC number sequence might indicate a science-only or refit designation...or ships re-purposed for service only withn the relative safety of the UFP (due to advanced age and defensive weakness).
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Reverend: I shall take solace from the fact the Korolev fits in that timeline reasonably well and shall forgive your slighting of the Antares.
As for the Apollo...I may have something for you soon-ish.
Did you know someone kitted that design? Nice job of it too.
-------------------- 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 Reverend: I shall take solace from the fact the Korolev fits in that timeline reasonably well and shall forgive your slighting of the Antares.
As for the Apollo...I may have something for you soon-ish.
Did you know someone kitted that design? Nice job of it too.
Nope...which one? Still waiting for someone to do the v'teridix though. Must have had half a dozen permission requests on that one but never saw anything come from it.
As for the Oberth, while doing this I came to the firm belief that the Oberth is extremely modular in nature. Not in a swap out the saucer or hull kind of way but in a open up the hull and remove 80% of the internal volume kind of way. So it would make and IDEAL platform for prototype work since you just plug in your new engineering system, sensor platform or whatever and away you go. No need to design a new space-frame around it just to see if the thing with twitch on and function properly. I'm sure over the years/decades/centuries the Oberth has become a favourite with ship designers for precisely this purpose. The fact that I like to believe it was designed by Vulcans only re-enforces the justification to it's longevity. After all, why design something that won't even last your own lifetime?
Oh and as for that trident/medusa thing, I did actually come up with a vaguely credible idea that it's actually a container tug...now only if I can find the diagram I made...
posted
Roughly New Orleans-Class I think, maybe a little smaller. It never got any farther than what you see here and honestly I forget what the design brief for the Chimera was, but a vaguely recall it was supposed to be on the dinky side.
And apologies Fabrux, I sometimes forget most of you lot don't have a big widescreen LCD running at 1680x1050.
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