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.
The Apollo that's sorta a Nebbie-ish Ambassador hybrid. I'll see if I can dig you up some links.
I just finished painting up two Lakat class cruisers -Cardie designs by Bernd himself, I believe. Dont know if (but hope) permission was obtained before it was kitted....the design is pretty..er...plain, but lends to a lot of creative expression on all those undetailed surfaces,and I went to town. I'll post pics of that later this week. I dont have the Apollo model- not a fan of that design (though you rendered it nicely).
There's a better version of that Anteres class that's now a kit- it's got an extended nacelle and some saucer-embedded deflector. Dont own that one either.
I dig that Medusa-as-a-tug concept: having built one a fewyears back, I can vouch for some unidentifiable greebles behind the saucer that cold easily be docking hardpoints for containers. http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2210/657989/1301771/22724972.jpg It's be a nicely armed cargo transport too- if the ship can detach from the containers to engage an enemy, it'd be very formidable (lots of engine power, phaser mounts and low overall mass). Add a seperate ashield generator for the containers (possibly contained in the docking connection) and the cargo would be safe while the ship defendes it. Just an idea.
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:I prefer 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.
But, in all fairness, that's kinda what you did for the Apollo; you made an Ambassador version of the Miranda and Nebula, and that design turned out to be great!
The reason I asked for people with graphic art know-how to design the ships for my timeline was because if I did it, they would be exactly as boring and cut-and-pasty as you describe. I guess the general idea I had was to have different variants of the Ambassador class, but still have design elements that would make them unique, and not just the crap that I came up with for the Antares class, for example. But if that's not your thing, I'm cool with that.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
No, that's exactly what I did with the Apollo and it's the one and only exception I'll make. The thing is, if you start applying that brand of reasoning to every starship design then you get a ludicrous amount of totally superfluous ships. It's boring and frankly lacks any imagination. Although I wasn't with the ASDB from the get go, i gather the whole point was to avoid just making kit-bashes that are some random re-configuration of the "flagship" class of the respective era.
The design process was to boil the known facts about each class (which was often next to nothing) and come up with a logical design that fits the brief.
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I think one of the problem with that concept, Reverend, is that 'rearrangements of components' is EXACTLY how we've seen 'canon' Trek handle starships since TWOK came out, and how 'official' Trek has handled it since TM.
Now, with FJ, there was nothing before it, and making the destroyer a one-engine ship made sense and all. But, since then, we've seen TONS of 'here's my new cruiser, it's got the secondary hull ON TOP!' designs, and much of that has shown up on screen (DS9, I'm looking at you!)
In that sense, the 'ASDB' approach, while laudable, isn't actually what Trek itself has done.
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It's a little tricky. Personally I look to the cold-war era US Navy to see about how many variants (and why they're variants) of different ship classes there are. So, it's reasonable that there would be a lot of destroyers out there, even if they're functionally nearly identical.
Now, this changes dramatically as you go higher and higher up in ship types. By the time you get to cruisers (and up), you're looking at technical innovations being the primary reason for new classes.. and even then, the ships are likely to be more variant builds than an outright new class.
So... shorting up this steam train of thought...
I've got little problem with a lot of destroyers, scouts, and frigates. Different shipyards will put out different designs (even if it's just an arrangement difference, in some cases). But as you get bigger, there's going to be fewer and fewer of them. It's easy to justify, say, a 'different ship similar to a Miranda in function' than it is a 'different ship similar to a Constitution class in function'. To say nothing of all the 'dreadnoughts' out there.
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Which is why most ASDB ships tend to be on the small side or failing that they're from classes that had limited production runs. Actually very few are even 'front line' ships, most being transports, surveyors and other utilitarian designs.
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The variance in designs from the TOS movie-era, a lot of them being near-identical is one of the primary reasons why on my page I listed them as individual ships and not classes. May as well have a single class of vessel and just have variants in the class for specific roles.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, the TOS era is somewhat hurt by that both FASA and TM made a lot of 'rearrange the parts' ship classes. While TM made sense, and the first few FASA ships (Loknar, Larson, Derf) did as well, a lot of what would come later from FASA clearly just... didn't.
That said, I think a lot of people don't think in terms of Star Fleet appropriation. If there is only 13 CAs of a certain type, and they're still 'top of the fleet' in 2265, then would there REALLY be 500 'almost' CAs all over? Would there be a ship in 2265 that is suddenly far far better than the Enterprise?
(In FJ's defense, the Federation class, for its part, was a NEW ship design for the TOS era, and was meant to be the battle-first heavy ship.)
In a sense, it's a bit like game balance. The Federation class may be 'up top' for the period, but it's expensive to operate, and isn't good for the exploration missions around. Etc.
Think of how Star Fleet appropriations would decide on ship construction, and you'll suddenly start making a lot of sense of things.
posted
That dreadnaught take is pretty intresting- looks like a refit of the original (what's with that that red stuff in the deflector area though- bleah!).
I figure the Federation class was a showboat- something like the HMS Hood- to demonstrate military prowess and "show the flag" at trouble spots. I figure it would have had a very limited production run with each ship being somewhat unique.
quote:Originally posted by Vanguard: Would there be a ship in 2265 that is suddenly far far better than the Enterprise?
Yes, quite possibly. All it takes is one new Federation member joining with their uique technology to give birth to a whole new breed of starship- and the Connie had been refit several times by that point, I'd imagine.
I can only imagine that newer classes are more modular or easier to outfit with new systems than the Connie- possibly explaining the long lifespan of the Miranda and Oberth classes.
These technology jumps might account for the radical design shifts between STVI and TNG- and the FC ships bearing little design lineage to older classes.
P.S.- dont bag on the FASA stuff- some of their designs are great- Chandley, Thurfir, Andor, etc.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I wasn't bagging on ALL of FASA's stuff, but for every Loknar there's five or six Ambassador Paine's out there. If I'm going to use more of FASA's work, it's going to be VERY selective.
As for a new ship in 2265 in the Federation far far superior.. no, there isn't. Why? Because we know that she's the 'best' ship (on average) than anything else in the Federation in 2266 (TOS), and then again in 2272 (TMP). In fact, she's not 'one-upped' really until the Excelsior in 2283 (TSFS), and only then once they got it working right (TUC).
I know a lot of fans like to make their own super-DNs and BBs and all, but there just isn't a lot of room for them in Trek. The Enterprise is ALREADY a CA, which means that there aren't a lot of ships bigger than that , SFB's fleets not withstanding.
quote: That dreadnaught take is pretty intresting- looks like a refit of the original (what's with that that red stuff in the deflector area though- bleah!).
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