posted
I believe Sternbach was brought on during the Phase II project, which soon after became the TMP project, to collaborate with Lee Cole on designing computer consoles for the Enterprise. (IIRC this was circa 1978.) But yes, as far as designing whole ships, Sternbach's first crack at that was in the Spaceflight Chronology.
Harry: I always kind of wondered whether the pods at the end of each nacelle weren't the impulse engines. As you suggested, they might be matter/antimatter fuel cells, but they do look quite similar to the fusion reactors we see in so many MSDs and blueprints of modern ships such as the Ent-D. (I think I'll ask Sternbach if he meant them specifically to be one or the other, but if it's indeterminate, I'd suggest making the pods the impulse system in order to avoid changing the structure of the ship to add one.) And as to a shuttlebay, I personally am unsure about whether one is really necessary for this ship, and would be hesitant to just arbitrarily throw one in.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
In regards to the name and registry; I'd be inclined to put them on the forward edge of the hull, like on the Daedalus or the Pasteur. It would be easier to curve the text down there for both views and it would be consistent with the only two Federation ships we've seen with spheroid hulls.
posted
Ah, but it's clearly established what those pods really are. Read the relevant passages of John M. Ford's "The Final Reflection". When "the heat sinks of the Manns glowed dull red" as the ships struggled to go to high warp, nothing was left unclear about which part of the ships Ford was referring to!
Apparently this was Rick's intent, too, since those pods are right where the "intercooler" tubes on the Constitution nacelles go.
The impulse engines I'd just hide somewhere in the dark shadows of the upper aft primary hull. And the ship need not have much of a shuttlebay. Either she makes do with docking ports, or then a bay could be at the bow, right next to the nav deflector dish and the torpedo tubes.
posted
I'm probably in the minority here, but I'd say leave the ship's structure as seen in the book and either just "pretend" there's "invisible" impulse engines somewhere, or leave it at calling it a design oversight, as has been seen with plenty of other ships.
Again, though I'm probably an oddball, I'm not a big fan of "correcting" or redesigning other people's ships.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Reverend: Call me crazy, but the lack of any sublight engines is a little more serious than a mere design oversight.
Of course! But I'm merely saying that while the ship must have impulse engines somewhere (indeed, they're noted in the specifications section in the book) they're just not visible to us. They're either "hidden" somewhere behing hull plates or there's some other undefined reason as to why we can't see them. I'd be against just saying: "Ah, this looks like a good place for impulse drives, I'll just stick them right here..."
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
These are probably the final schematics for this ship, and it comes in two versions. One is as close to Sternbach's sketches as I like to be, the other has some necessary upgrades in the form of an impulse engine and a modest shuttle bay.
And because I had some time left (well.. it actually took a bit longer than I anticipated), an MSD of the Mann class. I'm not touching the inner workings of pre-TOS nacelles...
posted
I'm sorry but that Mann class is one hideous ship!! LOL! I like the Raging Queen/Shelly/Curry better than that! Or EVEN the Medusa.
LOL @ the 'Plot Devices'.
And something I never got with MSD's - what is with the rectangle above the shuttles in the shuttle bay - I'm gathering it's an obs deck - but why is it along the side/at an angle?
Oh nice work BTW!
I reckon you could tackle the nacelle.
I remember seeing one of those large cut-away posters of the E-nil. It had the inner-workings of the nacelles. Not that they are 'canon' or anything - Psi Pub Tech posters weren't they?
The Mann class would pose a different task - as it doesn't connect in the 'traditional' way. The closest way would be the Steamrunner.
Re those Psipubtech posters - are there any online scans of them? How would you scan something so big? piece by piece?
I remember there was the well known E-D, then I saw the E-nil, and BRIEFLY at a convention saw an E-refit/E-A. Then in a magazine I saw a picture for a DS9 - but that looked UBER-dodgey. It's scale - even from what I could make out from the magazine - was ALL skew-iff. Then I remember after FC - there was the Phoenix and the E-E. How they would know what to put in the E-E is beyond me. I'm wondering if they'll end up doing a pre-E.
Also - maybe in that MSD above - you could have a warp (it's not the core in Enterprise they show is it?) core? like in Enterprise?
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
IMHO, we could capitalize on the total lack of forward and ventral views of the ship. A shuttlebay could be at the lower bow easily enough, without disrupting the known views. So could a deflector dish or two.
And as for the impulse engines, the ones you installed seem to fire periliously close to the red Easter egg things... To solve two problems at once, what about using the two oval things of the top view (just behind the bridge - you omit them from your rear view for some reason)? That area doesn't show in Rick's painting, and engines placed there won't fire at any part of the nacelles.
Sure, they are off-axis. But so are most impulse engines anyway. Screw Newton, like Starfleet apaprently does.
posted
They weren't glowing on the E-nil. But then again, nothing was glowing on the E-nil. I remember reading somewhere that the inside of the nacelles (those grilles) were even supposed to glow in a familiar blue fashion. Yuk!
Andrew: - The observation deck runs around all three sides. It's not at an angle.
- The cutaways of the 1701 are a bit iffy. For one, almost the entire engineering section is filled with tubes and nameless things, and the nacelles are no better.
- That sphere in main engineering IS the reaction core. The ENT reactor looks a bit underpowered for this ship, IMHO.
Timo
- Those ovals are VERY off-axis. It just doesn't look right from behind. I'll move the impulse engines above the eggs, but the ovals are going to have to be something else.
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And where might these be?
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