posted
I'm writing an essay about the conjectural Starfleet vessel classes and what they might possibly look like based on such factors as registry numbers, time of commissioning, verbal descriptions, etc., and I need some art help as, quite frankly, I suck at photoshop.
I've posted what I've done so far, just to give an idea of what I'm doing. Each class will have it's own analysis page, along with a placeholder of a canon ship that I think the conjectural class is related to. In the future, once the writing is complete, I want to replace the placeholders with a unique design.
For now, I'm focusing on the Ambassador class. I'm going under the assumption that the Antares, Apollo, Hokule'a and Wambundu classes are all variants of the Ambassador, because they have similar registries, have only a few ships in service (like the Ambassador), and that the Ambassador class has no known variants like the Galaxy, Excelsior, or Constitution classes do.
I'm using the side-view diagram of the Enterprise-C as a place holder, but I'm looking for the following variant designs:
1. Antares: a Hermes/Saladin/Freedom style variant.
2. Apollo: a Miranda/Nebula style variant.
3. Hokule'a: a Constellation/Cheyenne style variant.
4. Wambundu: A Daedalus/Olympic style variant.
I only need a side view of the designs for the essay. I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thanks in advance!
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
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Teh PW
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posted
ive seen one of those model looking ones that Jason makes of the Miranda-sorta looking Apollo.
posted
Well, our own Reverend has already done an Apollo as you've described and can be seen here. There are a few 3D meshes of this ship poking around as well.
As for the others, I might take a crack at it. They won't be nearly as good as Kris's work, however. I'm still stuck on raster.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
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quote:ive seen one of those model looking ones that Jason makes of the Miranda-sorta looking Apollo.
IIRC, Jason based his model on Sternbach's diagram of an "Ambassador-ized" Pegasus. Which is sorta like what I wanted for the Apollo, but not quite (i.e. the nacelle pylons are stuck to the underside of the saucer, which never made much sense to me, unless engineering was located in the saucer instead of the secondary hull. But Sternbach's LCARS display kinda refutes that.)
quote:Well, our own Reverend has already done an Apollo as you've described and can be seen here.
I know all about that design, and it's about 90% perfect as to what I want. However, I think Rev said he wasn't happy with that drawing, and I wouldn't want to use his design if he has a problem with it.
quote:As for the others, I might take a crack at it. They won't be nearly as good as Kris's work, however.
What you'd come up with would be infinitely better than what I could come up with, unless I drew the design on a piece of paper
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
There's a model kit conversion for the 2500th scale Ambaddasor that makes Rev's kind of Apollo- though the kit has a different pod.
Personally, I like Rev's pod design- though I'd have to add windows and lifeboats- it always seemed inplusable that the Nebula pods wither were unmanned (very unlikely) or lacked windows and emergency escape pods.
Besides, we've never seen evidence of a nebula's pod giving the design better sensors than a Galaxy has...which is unfortunate, They should be like mobile listening posts/telescopes/sensor arrays- making them vital to both research and defense.
...and there's always the chance to make a hangar pod- something that's just a giant launch facility for shuttles, Runabouts and fighters. Such a ship could serve as a mobile outpost for colonizing a system- or assisting a world in times of strife or natural disaster.
Gotta build a model with one of those on it- maybe through-deck is the way to go- open at fore and aft.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by Pensive's Wetness: ive seen one of those model looking ones that Jason makes of the Miranda-sorta looking Apollo.
Thsi is how mine looks- still an obvious Ambassador variant but the secondary hull is about a third longer than a standard Ambassador class. The greater internal volume, coupled with the engineering section being saucer-based- would make for a huge amount of research and lab space.
If nothing else, Rick Sternbach liked it! (he's a member of the Starshipmodeler.net forums)
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Teh PW
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Jason, there's nothing saying that you couldn't use both designs. they both appear to use Ambassador components... maybe not the same same class but simular functions?
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Well, our own Reverend has already done an Apollo as you've described and can be seen here. There are a few 3D meshes of this ship poking around as well.
As for the others, I might take a crack at it. They won't be nearly as good as Kris's work, however. I'm still stuck on raster.
Holy crap that's OLD...and really shite. I'm sure I did a much more detained rendition than that at some point. I'll have to check my old back-ups.
[EDIT]
Well it looks like I never finished it (the sheer size of the file gave my old PC fits as I recall) but it's much better than that old thing and all the major design features are in place: -
quote:Well it looks like I never finished it (the sheer size of the file gave my old PC fits as I recall) but it's much better than that old thing and all the major design features are in place:
Rev, if you ever decide to finish the side view, would you mind if I used it for my essay? It's like 99% what I'm looking for for the Apollo entry.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Well, our own Reverend has already done an Apollo as you've described and can be seen here. There are a few 3D meshes of this ship poking around as well.
As for the others, I might take a crack at it. They won't be nearly as good as Kris's work, however. I'm still stuck on raster.
Holy crap that's OLD...and really shite. I'm sure I did a much more detained rendition than that at some point. I'll have to check my old back-ups.
[EDIT]
Well it looks like I never finished it (the sheer size of the file gave my old PC fits as I recall) but it's much better than that old thing and all the major design features are in place: -
on suggestion for edit. the phaser strips. since this is a ambassator-type hull, shouldnt the phaser strips still be arc'd in the principle cardinal directions? from all the kitbashs & phyiscal studio models (as well as the STFC ships) the Gaxaly-type hulls had the full 300 degree (+/-) axial phaser strips on the primary hulls. the ambassator, Niagara & Freedom classes all had some form the segmented systems covering larger arcs. Now of course, the nature of the BoBW ships very kitbase nature makes them somewhat suspect on where the proper locations should be since some strips looking loike they could fire into their nacells.
anyway, im high 7 gassy on Taco-Smell so please review your art. perhaps generate a less current version (perhaps the full strips came with a major upgrade of the ship during a yard period? so what guns were mounted before? etc)...
posted
^Details like the bridge substructure, the hull markings and the phaser arrays differ from those of the Ambassador by design. I intended it too look like a closely related ship but also unique and not just a straight-up kit-bash (I hat kit-bashes!)
As for the phaser arrays in particular, it's an aesthetic choice but if you insist I can quite easily pull a treknical explanation out of my arse; these are early model linear arrays that pre-date those on the Ambassador and others. Though much more powerful than the earlier ball turrets they had a longer recharge cycle (by 0.37 secs) so later ships like the Ambassador were fitted with "shorter" independently powered arrays that could fire in sequence to compensate. It wasn't until the development of the Nebula-class that more efficient linear array were perfected.
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat:
quote:Well it looks like I never finished it (the sheer size of the file gave my old PC fits as I recall) but it's much better than that old thing and all the major design features are in place:
Rev, if you ever decide to finish the side view, would you mind if I used it for my essay? It's like 99% what I'm looking for for the Apollo entry.
Sure, go for it. The side view is already 90% done as is, it's just missing a few details. Structurally the design is all there but if I have time I'll see what I can do. Keep in mind though I haven't touched anything like this in a bloody donkey's age.
quote:I intended it to look like a closely related ship but also unique and not just a straight-up kit-bash (I hate kit-bashes!)
And I'm actually not looking for kit-bashes for the four designs. If it was just rearranging parts, I could do that myself. Rather, I'm more interested in showing "variants" of the Ambassador (a la Constitution/Miranda) rather than just rearrangements of the same parts. That's why I don't particularly like Sternbach's Pegasus concept, even though it could technically be a candidate for my Apollo class: because it looks too much like a kit-bashed rearrangement of the original parts, and the arrangement doesn't make a lot of sense design-wise.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Indeed. Mind you, I'd caution against oversimplifying your perception of some of these ships based on the registry alone. I remember back in the old ASDB days we had very lengthy discussions about just this sort of thing.
My feeling was always to keep the general "feel" of the era a ship was from without resorting to the kind of unimaginative component swapping a lot of fan designers lean on. I also liked to mix things up a bit so that just because the two or three ships we know of from one of these classes had regs within a certain range, that need not require them to have originated from the corresponding era.
Take the Hokule'a for example; a 10000 range reg as I recall, but we chose to make it a derivative of the Excelsior design, with the Tripoli being from a later production batch.
Same story with the Antares, (which I thought of as being somewhat related to the Hokule'a) a higher number but again, a late build or even refit of an even older design (late 2260's/early '70's.) The logic as far as I was concerned was that the big ships of the line come and go, but the utilitarian designs are the ones that stick around longer.
I also rather dislike the ridged idea that each era *must* have a "configurational equivalent" of the Miranda, the Constellation, the Constitution etc. etc. To me that's just coming at a design problem from entierly the wrong angle. Just take a look at the history of aviation and you won't see a nice neat progression from one era of craft to the next you'll see a process of trial and error shaped by the circumstances of the day. Sure there's a clear technological progression but there's also countless dead enders, failed experiments, promising designs that were sunk for political or commercial reasons, exotic designs that innovated and went way out there but were never followed up and just straight-forward no frills work horses.
More than anything, what I tried to do with all of my designs is to come up with ships that were A) NOT kit-bashes B) could add something new or different into the mix and C) look cool and unique.
quote:I intended it to look like a closely related ship but also unique and not just a straight-up kit-bash (I hate kit-bashes!)
And I'm actually not looking for kit-bashes for the four designs.
You'll notice that I kitbashed (stole) Rev's blue whatever the hell that isstructure from his bridge structure...hell, it's a (crappy) crib on his entire saucer.
Always steal from the best, that's my motto.
Hmmm...I wonder what that model would look like rebuilt (with my current skill level) and with a pod added...maybe on a Miranda-ish rollbar holding it up instead of the Apollo's central stem?
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