Maybe, maybe not. The Akira class has a pair of warp cores located towards the rear of the saucer, while managing to have enough room for a considerable arsenal in her saucer alone, and a pair of impulse drives. And I believe that the standard Galaxy class is supposed to have a certain portion of its hull left over that can be used for additional equipment. So going by the Akira class example alone, and adding to the fact that my design is supposed to be bigger, I believe it should be possible fit all of the described equipment in a hull of the size I have in mind. The microfusion reactors wouldn't be a problem; I would imagine them around the size of a large trash can. I won't deny the possibility that the set of saucer warp cores are smaller than the warp core in the engineering section, but I would imagine them as having around the same output combined as the engineering warp core. If the Essex doesn't have enough room for a pair of nacelles in the saucer, than designs like the Arrogant and the Galaxy Evo might not work, which I'd hate to think, considering that I think that such designs are brilliant. Could the additional warp nacelles, combined with the additional warp cores, and separation systems take up a considerable amount of space? Eh, I won't deny the possibility. But I doubt that they would sacrifice more than several dozen rooms, and given the size of the ship that I imagine, which should be at least the total size of the Galaxy class, and probably bigger, I still think there would still be plenty of room for crews quarters, guests quarters, passageways, sensor pallets, etc. It wasn't my intention to make the Essex look like an uber; if I wanted to do that, I could have added a hyper phaser cannon similar to the ones on the Entente and Intimidator classes, but I felt that such a weapon belongs only on certain vessels. I also didn't add a fifth nacelle because I felt that: 1) Four nacelles are enough, and the saucer nacelles are there purely for the purpose of giving the crew a means of getting home at a reasonable pace, should the engineering section suffer a core breach, and 2) Because I felt that aesthetically speaking, it wouldn't be worth it considering the niche that the Essex is supposed to occupy. I feel that at this point, Starfleet vessels are going to become considerably more powerful so that they can stand up to new threats that are as or more powerful than the recent threats of the past, such as (and especially) the Borg and the Dominion, which I have no doubt will happen as the Federation uses the Quantum Slipstream drive to explore the rest of the Milky Way and other galaxies. If by multi-vector assault mode, you mean a ship that separates into three or more ships (ala Prometheus), I can agree. I would imagine that fighters actually aren't out of the question, especially during times of war, and same thing might go for other specialized combat vehicles, but I doubt more than a squadron of fighters like the Valkyrie, and maybe a few more specialized shuttles, would be assigned on board during typical exploration mission, and that is at the most. I will agree with you on the hyper phaser cannon: that belongs mostly on true battleships and dreadnoughts, not on something that is meant for exploration. I suppose that not too many torpedo tubes should be mounted, but I still think that the number mounted could still be around the same number seen on the Sovereign and the like, given that is the appears to be where things were going if you look at ships such as the Prometheus class and Luna class. [/QUOTE]I think saucer separation was probably useful for something like the Galaxy class back in the pre-Borg, pre-Dominion War days when Starfleet was still naively optimistic enough to put families and children onboard front-line starships, but also cautious enough to provide them with a way to be left behind in relative safety when everyone else had to go into battle. Design work on the Sovereign class first began during the same era, so it’s not surprising the separable saucer was held over one more generation, but I don’t see it surviving as a ubiquitous feature beyond that. Certainly not just because a ship happened to be named Enterprise.[/QUOTE] I think that the ability for a ship to separate still has it's merits. A ship with two sections, both having Quantum Slipstream and warp capabilities, would give the crew a means to survive and return home, should one of the sections become destroyed. It could also give the captain options for more tactics, which could come in handy if everything else fails, such as using one of the sections by remote control as a decoy or ramming an enemy that can't be defeated or outrun otherwise, giving the entire crew a chance to escape. I actually worried that I was pushing the envelope with four nacelles, but that seems to be one of the defining characteristics of a heavy cruiser in STO so I ran with it. Not that the Enterprise necessarily has to be a heavy cruiser but that is its traditional classification. Having said that, I don’t see the Starfleet brass making their decision about which ship will be the next to carry the name Enterprise based on how many nacelles it has. It’s a matter of prestige, not specific hull configuration. What’s the rationale for having four nacelles? More power, higher sustainable warp factors, greater redundancy. Perhaps they even found a way to make warp drive itself more efficient by dividing the nacelles into tandem pairs. Whatever the rationale, it’s well established within the STO pantheon of ship design and that’s good enough for me, especially since my entry was one of the few to take that approach (aside from all the badly Photoshopped Sovereigns with nacelles hanging off them like fruit on an apple tree). So, you’re arguing that, even though the NX-01 was named Enterprise, it didn’t have to have a separable saucer because it wasn’t technically a Federation starship. Somehow I doubt that Starfleet’s shipwrights would base their decisions about things like separable saucers on such finely and irrelevantly split hairs.[/QUOTE] Again, the one of the upgrades planned for the cancelled season five, according to one of the posts that I read on John Eaves's blog, was the ability for the saucer to separate from the engineering section, if I'm not mistaken. Even if you do not take that into consideration, the NX class was still not as advanced as the later Constitution class. I find it reasonable that ships from the ENT era didn't have hull separation abilities because the technological and architectural limitations at the time, and the possibility that it wasn't seriously considered enough at the time is also a possibility. But for the most part, it seems indicated that most ships classes whose lineages coincide with starships to carry the name Enterprise have the ability to separate their hulls. And Doug Drexler's Congo class Enterprise G also has the ability to separate her hull sections, and I believe that this design is considered to be semi-canon, unless I'm mistaken. I will allow for the possibility that maybe I'm wrong in that case, and if the Congo class isn't canon, then I will admit that the Enterprise F might possibly abandon the hull separation feature. But if the Congo class were to be accepted as the canon Enterprise G, than it is a fair bet that the Enterprise F would also retain this feature. Which would be fine for your design, because with a bit of work, I think that a hull separation ability would put the Magellanic's four nacelles to good use. It may seem logical if you’re trying to arrive at a pre-ordained conclusion, but otherwise no. Case in point: Every Federation ship named Enterprise up through the Ent-D had a neck between the primary and secondary hulls. By your logic, the Ent-E should have had one as well, but it didn’t. Clearly such assumptions will only get you so far and no farther. I simply chose not to make such assumptions with my design.[/QUOTE] I suppose that my logic in that case is somewhat flawed in this case. So let me supplement this with another reason. Any benefits that a neck can offer are outweighed by the disadvantages at this point, so they are mostly obsolete, and I feel that they would mostly be present only on niche classes starting in the 2380's. I think that the ability to separate however still has it's merits, as shown with the Prometheus class. I think that Starfleet would continue to utilize and refine this ability in quite a few of their front-line ship classes.
There are no merits to the Prometheus class and it's separation abilities. Just building 3 ships has more merit.
I'd say there is little merit in the class as a concept but the design is so awful it's not worth it This ship was just a flavor of the week of Voyager. The question is what the MVAM do that it can't do as one. Isn't this why ships have multiple arrays?
Yeah, just middle click [edit] Or failing that right click and open in new tab/window. If you have a 1 button mouse (apple) you might be screwed [edit] Coincidentally, I settled on "Frontier Class" as a nod both to the "Final Frontier" and to my home state, the "Last Frontier" (Alaska.)
Hey lookit! http://yfrog.com/h2uxalkvj Unfortunately I don't appear to be up there but you are Vektor!
I was meaning more the context, but I found Dan Stahl's Tweet. "Cap'nLogan reviewing some submissions for Enterprise design contest. Tons of awesome submissions still to review." http://twitter.com/#!/Cryptic_dStahl
Really you and I don't know any more or less about our chances than we did this morning, as we know there will be 25 semi-finalists and 4 finalists, and that board had 10 pictures on it. The final round is judged by a single person. We now know that person is a CBS exec or employee. I'd always wondered. The rules don't say. Anyone care to speculate on who exactly it might be?
It's a good sign Vektors (Vecktors?) is up there. I have high hopes for this design. It truly is the most original within the parameters of not just Star Trek but for the Game aswell. I was just astonished at it's dedicaton to design and stunned by the new style (and I don't go for Four legged starships as a rule)