posted
About those torps: the original model has a fancy recess, almost like an air intake, on the top surface just aft of the forward dome and ahead of the aft one. (It's very similar to, say, the recess on the bow of the Voyager, the one that ends in the Mess Hall windows.)
You could nicely fit four or more torp launchers there, side by side, and have them fire forward and slightly up to clear the forward dome. Much like many 1970s-2000s subs had side-mounted, slightly angled torpedo tubes so that they didn't have to fire through the bow sonar dome.
That's a big ship, BTW! I have always been thinking of her as being to scale with the Constitution saucer. But you have closely spaced rows of windows everywhere, as closely spaced as those on the saucer rim. It just looks funny when one knows that the rim windows don't correspond to actual decks on the Constitutions themselves.
Also, the original model had a big hollow space below the aft dome, so that the aft hull "spine" could slide in there - the telescoping action was apparently the big gimmick that was going to set the Excelsior apart from the Constitutions, in addition to the variable-geometry pylons. If you don't want to believe in a telescoping hull, you could still leave the box below the aft dome hollow, and call it the shuttlebay...
posted
She's not as big as you might think. I was conscious of the size issue as the ship was being constructed. Being based on the Excelsior I used the exact same dimensions on the saucer as the final Excelsior (although this study model's saucer is of a different shape).
So she's in scale with the Excelsior, windows and all. The final size of the ship came in at precisely 482 meters long, only 15 meters longer than the final Excelsior.
I'm not sure if that's a recess as you highlighted. Just a stripe that continues round the side. On my model there are windows in that area.
I'm not sure about the telescoping secondary hull, I've used that recess as a second shuttle bay!
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
Yeah, okay, on second thought that probably isn't a recess after all. It's just the aft end of the "pedestal" for the main bridge. I guess it just looks that way in the bow photo because the shadows on the "pedestal" sort of grow darker towards the stern...
So I agree that if this ship has torpedo tubes at all, they probably have to be below the saucer somewhere. Does the ship really need torps, though? It doesn't seem to be armed with phasers, either. Perhaps the mission does not involve fighting... Then again, what was it doing fighting the Borg in that case?
Naturally, this ship could also be a drive system testbed and nothing else - a "real" Excelsior prototype instead of an independent class. No reason why this prototype wouldn't be present at Wolf 359, since it would probably be stored at Mars anyway.
What about putting the impulse engines at the very aft end of the central boom? There isn't really that much surface area at the aft ends of the saucer "flarings" where you have the engines. Not that they'd look bad where they currently are, of course.
posted
I would put a pair of Voyager-launchers on the bridge housing, two stories under the dome but over the lowest window-row of the complex, follow me? It's the only space on the forward half of the ship that has a vertical surface, unless you can put the launcher in "Ten-forward" and sacrifice some crew compartments.
posted
For forward torps, a good idea. But if the aft ones were fired, Scotty wouldn't even have time to cry "Not me bairns!" before the engineering section blew up... Even if you angle the tubes out to clear the aft engineering bulge, you risk hitting the upper pylons. You'd get a much better field of fire by putting the launchers at the very stern.
This ship could also be very, very small - a subscale testbed with a fake saucer bolted to the bow, and with that second bridge dome necessitated by the fact that one couldn't fit a pilot inside the forward dome! Not unusual for prototypes of radically new ship or aircraft designs in the real world.
This would also allow for the telescoping function of the aft hull. Were this a full-sized starship, telescoping would mean that most of the saucer would have to be a hollow receptable for the aft hull boom, useless for anything else. In a testbed, such an arrangement wouldn't be odd at all...
posted
I would like to see those nacelles fold down, like the X-wing's closed S-foils, just some folding, once. Mmmm, what a luxury... (Baron Vladimir for President!)
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Well, this isn't intended to be a small ship. It's nearly 500M long. It appeared in the Qualor II suplus depot, and it definitely ain't small.
But there's no good evidence to suggest it was at Wolf 359 however. I tend to think that this ship is a one off, one of a kind. A proto-Excelsior transwarp testbed. It is not a class of ship, hence the NX-1 2000 regsitry which I made up (and no USS prefix). The next Excelsior study ship would be NX-2 2000, and so forth, before deciding on the final version which reverts to the full NX 2000, before becoming NCC...
As a testbed it probably never leaves the yard, except when conducting warp trials just beyond the solar system, so (possibly) it wasn't ever commissioned as an actual starship in full service. Taking this into account it probably doesn't have any weapons on her at all. There are few windows either, the internal volume being comprised of largely laboratories, and no full scale Starfleet crew would be assigned to this ship, just designers, engineers and technicians.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
Great job!!! Love the ship ... Love the idea of the Excelsior being a huge project and test bed for all kinds of new technology ... Any chance we could get a schematic viewing of this ship?
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posted
Yeah - the top of the saucer looks too... slippery!?! The pattern is same-ish... or SOMETHING, I can't explain it. It doesn't look physical - looks plastic or glassy or something.
Andrew
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I always thought that the large dome in the upper mid section could be a new (at the time) experimental phaser emitter, possibly the prototype for the 24th century phaser strips, it certainly has a wide field of fire. On the other hand it could just be an observation dome for the shuttlebay. As for the registry number, perhaps something more like the defiant pathfinder scheme would be more appropriate. For example, something like NXP1402TWP/A for this one and NXP1402TWP/B for the following prototype, and so on. The saucer does look a little too smooth, perhaps a deflector grid would help? Maybe even some hidden airlock/docking port panels like those on the E-A.
[ June 06, 2002, 14:02: Message edited by: Reverend ]
posted
I thought for quite some time about what the reg should be. In the end I thought NX-1 2000 was a good way round the problem. Then NX-2 2000 for the second prototype, etc.
Rest assured by the time the movie is completed the saucer, and all other elements will be finished. There are indeed a few minor alterations I want to make...
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
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