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Yes I am ;-) That is indeed the pilot's station. I even nicked the console from the Raven bridge set, which was also not down with the captain's chairage....yeah, that's a word!
On the other hand, there is a precedent. I forget the exact episode, I think it was one of those crap ones from DS9's 2nd season. I remember Bashir (possessed by something or other) sat at the captains chair on the bridge of a Federation freighter. Though, I'm inclined to ignore it.
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Yeah, the PRECEDENT episode has Bashir being posessed by some alien guy's DNA. He took over a freighter with a captain's chair and a couple flat top consoles. It was one of the earliest re-dresses of the "Starfleet Bridge" set that was seen as the Saratoga, Prometheus, Odyssey et. al.
And if you're looking for a two-man transport bridge design, you can always try this:
posted
No and yes, respectivly. Remember that the nominal crew compliment is only six and there are four sets of quarters, each of which can be converted to double bunks, so in reality there's room enough for eight. Before anyone says that's too crowded, remember that even with eight people on board, a three shift rotation means they're not all going to be sleeping at the same time, so in reality there's plenty of private time. Compare that to the bunk rooms seen on the refit Constitution (in ST:VI) and the Excelsior (VOY - Flashback) two to a room is nothing short of luxury for a ship that small. As I'm sure our resident ex-swabbie would agree. Actually, if I recally even the Galaxy class had double bunks for the junior officers, to say nothing of the crewmen.
For the Deneva, the way I see it, with a Crew of six you're going to get two senior officers - probably Lieutenants, or one Lieutentant and an Ensign, maybe even a Lt Commander - as "Captain" and XO respectivly, with cross training in helm/ops duties. A chief engineer (Probably an experianced NCO/warrent officer) and an engineer's mate (crewman, or even an Ensign.) That leaves two spots for say a cargo specialist, security officer and/or possibly a medical officer, at least until the 2370's when LMH's and shipwide holoprojectors are included in the scheduled refit cycle. I imagine most crew members on a ship this small would probably require cross training in medical, science and engineering, at least on a basic level so everyone would have at least two jobs to fill.
In the case of the USS Arcos, they only had a crew of two, which as I recall consisted of a pilot with no rank insignia (probably an NCO) and an engineer, (probably an elisted man.)
In that situation I imagine neither is technically captain and it'd have to be a relativly short cargo run in a "safe" area of space since you can hardly expect them both to pull 12 hour shifts alone. One would think the computer is technically on watch duty most of the time, especially while at warp.
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Is this a military transport? I doubt every small civilian ship would have a doctor, security officer, etc when their basically hauling crap from A to B. I would think the crew roster would be pilot/commander, navigator, engineer and 3 cargo guys. On a small ship probably one of them will be cross-trained as a medic, if not several of them, and they'd all have a modicum of engineering knowledge from helping out the engineer from time to time.
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posted
I wouldn't say it's a military transport exactly, at least not exclusively. It's supposed to be a small general purpose Federation freighter. The kind generally used for quick (re)supply runs to far flung, off the beaten track type colonies and outposts. Though the ones operated by Starfleet could certainly serve as troop transports, or even landing craft, with the appropriate refit and some well armed escorts.
But, yeah that's basically what I had in mind for the crew. Mostly engineer and pilot types with medical cross training as needed. Of course as I said by the 2370s that wouldn't be as necessary with the advent of EMH's & LMH's.
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Some updates to the exterior, most of the modifications were done to accommodate the deck plans - for example note the work bee airlocks. Also, I got tired of the BIG RED cargo modules. Dorsal Starboard I've also redesigned the landing gear and the phaser turret.
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Hmm... The new exteriors make me wonder if it wouldn't pay off to tweak the interiors a bit.
It's interesting how the container section of the ship is basically the same length as the enclosed cargo handling section aft of the engineering spaces, and both are of slightly different diameter from the engineering section forward of them. What would the ship look like without the enclosed area, with two lengths of container section there instead? Or with two enclosed sections? Perhaps the ship could fly with either one or two sections, and sometimes with none at all...
Creating a separation line just aft of the computer cores would require some minor tweaks on the interior - truncation of the lateral corridors and creation of a centerline access to the cargo sections, mainly.
But there could also be a separation line aft of the current upper transporter - and if that transporter were brought one deck down, things emerging from there could then be directly shoved to the central corridor of whichever cargo section type was carried. That would mean having a shorter enclosed cargo section than container section, but the former could then easily be stretched to be the same length as the latter, possibly with improved aesthetics.
Modularity isn't always good, but in this case I think it would make some sense to have a variant that only hauls those small containers; perhaps another that only has a big bulk tank for a cargo section; and just a few individual ships that have all this multimission versatility. IMHO, this ship is lacking in humility - it's too survivable and too capable to really be a Star Trek ship, especially a damsel-in-distress kind of Star Trek ship!
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I have to say I agree in part with Timo, I think the majority of these ships would be all internal or all container.
I too dislike the way almost every fan designed Trek ship has to be built to try and handle every situation and have special equipment handy for it. If a ship is supposed to be a cargo ship then it will be a flying box or container tractor with the minimum of living space for the people looking after the tractor. It would likely have no weapons, or very few small ones anyway, engines and some bunks, etc. Cargo ships handle cargo; they dont fight, they dont race, they dont rescue, they just haul boxes from A to B.
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posted
Then again, I would have no problem with this class ship NCC-6200 having become a "showpiece" vessel, generously bell-and-whistled in order to impress the potential customers.
I mean, six auxiliary craft of four different types for a ship that sports a crew of six? Each and every one of them could serve a function, and specific customers might be attracted to specific types. But probably only the Reverend Yards Sales Dept would need all of them at once.
Incidentally, since the lifepod is the forward section of the Nenebek type civilian shuttle anyway, how about (normally) equipping this ship with multiple examples of that only? It could serve as a light shuttlecraft with the "booster stern" attached; as a lifeboat and a travel/inspection pod without it; and perhaps even as a heavy duty workbee for serious cargo hauling.
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If this were the real world, I would agree. I mean for what's essentially a flying lorry it as all the usual Starfleet kit, shuttle bay, transporters, phasers and work bees aplenty. However this is not the real world, it's Star Trek and in Star Trek ships as small as a runabout have proportionally the same kit as a starship, even torpedoes (which, I might add the Deneva doesn't have.)
Having said that of course I didn't design this as a pure bred cargo hauler, like say Bernd's Java Class. I designed it to be a long range, resupply ship with an eye to some of them being outfitted as mid range surveyors and transports. Think of them as the workhorses of the early 24th century colonial efforts, flying in convoys to support the bigger ships, landing to help establish the first beachhead colonies then later becoming the colonies own transport/freighter fleet.
This comes from the mandate that of the two Denevas we know about, the Arcos was a two man Starfleet freighter that operated near Turkana IV (a failed colony) and the LaSalle which reported an anomaly. Of course reporting an anomaly doesn't make it a surveyor, but I can't see a "flying box" freighter being named for a 17th-century French explorer.
As for the modular nature, I think making the cargo handling section detachable takes the concept a step too far. It already has a detachable command section, aft impulse block and of course the modular cargo pods.
Remember that although it's a small ship with a small crew, all those aux vehicles are mostly for the loading and unloading people at the other end, plus a spare or two. Remember the Discovery from 2001 had 3 pods for a two man crew. As for the escape pods, I had originally intended for them to be docked to the outside of the hull (like the narcissus shuttle on the nostromo) but couldn't come up with a design that looked good so I opted to sit them in the shuttle bay as they are clearly not meant to fit inside dedicated launch bays liek the ASRVs.
You are right though, the NCC-6200 as shown is in the baseline configuration. In practice it can hold up to nine sets of cargo pods, with special spacer modules with extra landing gear every three sets or so.
posted
I dont like the thought of a modular cargo handling section either, it would be a step too far. However I think there would be enough commonality of parts and engines that a fully enclosed version could easily be built, one that didn't carry those modules but was a complete, one-piece starship with good hold-space rather than modules.
By the way, the Discovery had a crew of 5. Three scientists were in hibernation as they weren't needed for the long trip to Saturn, just the two astronauts looking after the ship were active.
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posted
Would those scientists ever have had a need for the extra pods, though? (And which parts of the Discovery were designed for the supposed original mission, which ones added for the TMA-2 rendezvous? What was the original crew complement supposed to be? Even 2010 or the novelizations don't dwell much on this.)
Yes, I think that even if there was "modularity" in choosing the midhull configuration, it would be a factory option, not something that could be altered afterwards. But up to nine container sections? Good for outer space, but landing that thing would be awkward to the extreme. Not the least in terms of the patch of flat ground that would be needed as the landing area...
Incidentally, with just one or two container sections, this Deneva would look quite a lot like the "Merchantman" at a distance - which would be nice if we ever got a HDTV version of the visual effects that showed that this was used for the nondescript blip that precedes the explosion. But perhaps you had this in mind already?
As regards the auxiliaries, I think it would be nice to have a bit more commonality, when the lifepod design indeed can serve in multiple roles elsewhere in Trek. Replacing the travel pod (what are those good for anyway?) with one of these would go a long way.
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I don't think it'd be particularly smart to have you lifeboats in constant use and exposed to wear and tear. I'd rather have them safe and sound and largely untouched in the shuttle bay and subject to regular safety inspections. Having the travel pod there was just an idea I had to make the ship visually interesting. It would also give the aft section - from which most of the docking and cargo operations are managed and which would double as Aux control - a degree on independence. For example, during a busy cargo operation, if someone in the aft section needs to disembark, it would be more practical for them to take the pod from the aft airlock than to traipse through to the shuttle bay or take the transporter (the transporter requiring another person to run it.) The pod would also be useful if they need to make an exterior inspection of the hull in deep space (like the inspection pods the NX-01 carried). While a Work bee could certainly do it, they're a little cramped and can only hold one person, so a pod is better. There's also the possibility that the walkways between the fore and aft section become impassable due to an accident/leak/hull breach/whatever. Remember that this is from a time before site-to-site transports were common place and there was still much more reliance on physical transportation.
As for the size/landing issues, nine modules is the MAXIMUM, but by no means common or even optimum configuration. You're right, landing a ship of that length in a 1G atmospheric environment would certainly be challenging, though with anti-grav thrusters and a robust SIF generators by no means impossible. Landing sites would have to be carefully chosen; an old seabed like the Arizona salt flats or the arid plateaus in Peru should suffice. Of course a 0.1G, class-D planetoid shouldn't pose any problem at all, nor should a station like Starbase 74.
quote:However I think there would be enough commonality of parts and engines that a fully enclosed version could easily be built, one that didn't carry those modules but was a complete, one-piece starship with good hold-space rather than modules.
I'm not opposed to that, though the idea of modules is to allow for greater versatility in the types of cargo it can carry. An empty cargo bay is great for storing boxes of self sealing stem bolts, spare tricorders and jars of Ne'sKaf'ehh brand instant Raktajino, but if you need to transport Quadrotriticale in bulk, a bulk storage silo would be more useful. Likewise if you needed to transport liqids, compressed gases or the like, a dedicated and specially designed pod is more efficient than stacking up a bunch of smaller canisters and barrels.
quote:Incidentally, with just one or two container sections, this Deneva would look quite a lot like the "Merchantman" at a distance - which would be nice if we ever got a HDTV version of the visual effects that showed that this was used for the nondescript blip that precedes the explosion. But perhaps you had this in mind already?
As I recall from the screen caps there were 2 candidates for what they actually used. One was the old Merchantman, the other was the Lysian sentry pod. As you say, it is passably of a similar shape to the merchantman and as for the other design, I ahve planned for that too. I you look at the dorsal view there are a set of 3 comb like hingey looking details. These are hatches that cover some very hefty docking latches, to which can be attached a heavy duty harness which enables the ship to support a very large pair of cargo containers (or a size that I think Kenny would approve) that are proportionally equivalent to the engine pods on that generic miniature. I've just never gotten around to designing it, though the intention has always been there.