quote:Originally posted by Siegfried: Some of those runner-up entries are certainly inspired. In particular, I'm curious what all the orbs built into the hull on this entry would have been for. Observation domes? Energy swirl thingies?
The designer said: "the blue "bubbles" (for lack of a better term) are potential science labs/stations and/or sections with new scientific equipment to be used in the Titan's deep space exploration missions."
Possibly the single worst design I've ever run across online- that's saying quite a lot, really.
If those "bubbles" were science labs, they'd be several decks high....though not half as high as the judges that thought this was a contender.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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I moderate in a forum where the designer of the Titan is a member and as such its my job to make sure people are civil to each other there
Ask him exactly how his entry qualifies as "original" in terms of the contest....that should be amusing.
I think TPTB had a definite look in mind (akira) and then just selected designs from the flock either to show diversity in concepts or to give select loyal online fans a pat on the ass.
In no way do I think there were not dozens- possibly hundreds of better entries than the "runners up". They probably had a tough time finding designs that were not completely awful and not obviously better than the winning design either.
Almost everything in JOAT is better than those (in concept if not always execution).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
The contest gave just as many points for originality as for a design that fit in with the current starfleet ships. I don't get what the big deal is that the ship looks simmilar to other ships.
A) It was in the rules and B) Not unlikely given the way we've seen Starfleet do things
If they had such a preconception about what they wanted, why hold a contest at all? Is it so hard to accept that a ship designed in people's spare time in a few months doesn't look like the work of a team of professionals?
It also doesn't ring true that the people judgeing this would pick this design over ones that were better, especially based on the kind of response its getting. These people aren't stupid, they wouldn't do something that would enrage the fanbase that they want money from.
Had you thought that maybe the people out on the internet who are so much "better" didn't want their work to become the property of Paramount? Or that they weren't elegible? Or that they didn't like working in the confines they were given?
I myself don't see what everyone hates so much about this ship.
Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I'm not saying he lacks talent- his execution is very good, the design is not original at all though. Really, it's a kitbash: a nice one, but still a re-arrangment of parts- and it's the exact same thing EVERYONE complained about with the NX-01, so why go with another obviously Akira-inspired ship?
As to "why have a contest at all?", that's obvious- publicity. I doubt the last season of Enterprise generated as much online speculation as this contest, and i'm certain it boosted their book sales (and the story itself sure was nothing special- I'm not bothering to buy the second part).
A lot of guys on Subspace Comms (for example only) could have done far better, but might not have submitted- not because "they did not want paramount to have their work" -thats's silly- but rather apathy (as with us Flarites) thinned the entries a lot.
Not that it in any way explains that horrid ship with the blue sphere things all through it- no way could that be in the top five- even if there were only five entries!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I saw a few people say that they wouldn't submit because they didn't want to give up ownership of their work.
Anyway, the term kitbash doesn't really seem acurite here to me. Derivative perhaps, but no one part is exactly the same as anything we've seen before, and the placement of little details is different (and to scale) while I see a kitbash as using parts directly from something else in many cases with no corrections made for scale.
But again, this may be because of the other sites I visit. On Scifi-Meshes kitbash is almost a dirty word because of the kinds of poor workmanship that people usually display when kitbashing 3dmodels, usually without premission from the original author and without crediting them. So I might see the term "kitbash" differently than others and react more harshly.
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posted
There's a difference between having an Akira-inspired vessel built at around the same time as the Akira, and having an Akira-inspired vessel built hundreds of years before the Akira existed.
Having said that, I don't like the winning Titan. Nevermind the kitbashyness, I just find the lines ugly. The pod looks out of place, the nacelles give it an odd "personality" and I don't know what the wobbly front edge of the saucer is about, but it looks like the engineers sneezed while putting her together.
posted
Er...according to the novel, the Luna class is supposed to be a "completely new approach" and is an explorer. Sure does not sound like an Akira to me.
It's odd- if someone had submitted a fresh new design and then Alex Jager had used it as much as the winner used the Akira as a starting point, there'd be no end of uproar over the lack of orignlty.
I just expected something more and this sure is not it (though it's so laughably better than the others it's sad).
They shoould have just tweaked one of Eaves' Soverign concepts and called it a day.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Ahh, the Chariot-class from scifi-meshes.com! Beautiful, if Trekkishly implausible in the design lineage sense (that's a lot of lift-hopping to get from place to place). Still, I'm a big fan of "bridge-forward" design, and the load-balancing impulse engines. Assuming a plausible explanation could be found for the disproportionately tall secondary hull, I'd accept it as a nice experimental explorer starship design.
posted
That is a really big departure. Homeworld Mothership/Sovereign transporter accident. With maybe some Slave-1. I don't think I like it. It's original, but it's maybe too weird. Damn, well executed, though.
I think maybe some of us here were intimidated by the prospect having seen some great fan trek designs. And so were upset when the choice went to something that looked to be no better than some top/front/starboard kitbashes we've seen. (and when I say kitbash, I mean taking parts we've already seen and re-arranging them to make a new ship: in this case, a Sovereign saucer with the beginnings of Akira catamarans going into a swoopy secondary hull with a Miranda and then a Nebula pod mounted on a Miranda rollbar.) I really think I'd like the design without the "backpack" thing. It still wouldn't be all that 'original', but I think I'd like it. But since I didn't submit anything (kitbash or otherwise), maybe I should STFU.
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quote:Or that they didn't like working in the confines they were given?
I'd have to agree with this statement. I didn't like the whole idea that the Titan would be a "small" ship, when it's supposed to be exploring deep space. I personally envsioned a Sovereign-sized ship in a Constellation-class configuration, since the Stargazer-type ships looked so perfect for a deep-space exploration design.
quote:I myself don't see what everyone hates so much about this ship.
It's very simple, really. There are essentially three reasons why people don't like the design:
1. We just had four years of a Star Trek series where the main ship was a ripoff of the Akira class. The winning design, is, yet again, if not a "ripoff" of the Akira, then strongly based on it, especially in the front-view. Anyone who cannot see this needs to get their eyes checked.
2. Most people were under the impression that Pocket Books and the judges wanted something new, original, and that didn't look like anything we've previously seen, design-attribute-wise. Instead, the winning design was a kitbash of parts from already-established designs, or parts that were "slightly" altered, but not enough IMO to warrant it being different.
3. As mentioned above, what little hints Pocket Books gave for the design attributes (i.e. a small ship) didn't really gell with the ship's supposed mission.
(I am not knocking the winning design. No, I'm not really thrilled with it, but I'm happy for the winner and glad he was able to get the chance to have his work in print. But people tried to justify the design of the NX-01 four years ago as well, and that didn't work all that well either.)
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