If only I actually knew how to effectively use photoshop. I do have it (got it as a gift) -- but I have minimal knowledge in how to properly use it.
Then maybe a quick sketch? Graph paper can a scanner can do wonders. Or hell, even MSPaint can show an idea.
Why not just imagine a constitution class refit with the surface detail of the TOS enterprise basically...
Come to think of it, I've already seen a truly AWESOME re-imagining of the Constitution Refit. It was done a while back by Icy_Penguigo... Check it out here... http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=56367
My take on the "Refit"... Exterior… The original “Big E” was designed as a series of circles and cylinders; I would want to go with that theme as much as possible. So as the refit goes I would leave the exterior as is, with the exception of the engine nacelles and their support pylons. Over all beam and Length and Draft as per TOS/TMP. No uber ships (No bloody C, D, or E as Scotty would say.) One of the great losses from TOS is the turbine effect of the engine nose caps. So I would choose the cylindrical engines, same length, with an over all design along the lines of those on NX01. The engine support pylons would be similar to originals but, with a slightly larger chord and small fairings at the root and engine. Color to be either gull gray or left in bare metal finish... (6 of 1, half dozen of another) Shuttles… Runabouts from DS9, the rest are scrap, except for Work Bees…maybe Interior… There are many good possibilities already designed from other ST films and TV shows, the bridge for example would be from ST V, with the officers ward/briefing room based on the design from the Undiscovered Country. In the engine room I would just up date the TOS design (detail it out some) as I love the EMM portion of the set as well as the functional over all look and depth it adds. (All of the cute 50’s plastic walls and engine core tubes are definitely gone.) The railroad track photorp launchers would be replaced with something that more closely resembles an artillery piece. (This is the 23rd century) The Sickbay complex would be closely designed like those from Undiscovered Country. Transporter room from ST: NG as are most of the halls, turbo lifts and crew quarters… (No multi man bunk rooms.) two crewmen to a room…only. Senior Officers/Department Chiefs and VIPs get singles. (No families!!!) Uniforms... Put them all in the incinerator and back to the TOS stile…the only exception being the neat “Field Jackets” of TMP. Space suits suffer the same fate, keeping only the suits from WOK. Weapons et all… No hand vacuums, hokey push pin communicators, wrist watches, etc. TOS communicators, Phaser I’s, and Undiscovered Country stile Phaser IIs, Phaser Rifles from ST: Voyager. Note on crew duties: One man one job… the helmsman is the helmsman not the communications officer/weapons officer/navigator/helmsman/add nausium... NO, I repeat, NO beaming around/to and from the ship’s bridge or any other place on the ship for that matter...LOL Regards Chuck
Let's see if we can clean that up a bit... Problem: a Danube class runabout is rather large. The cockpit section alone is the size of a Class F shuttlecraft (like the Galileo). I doubt you'd be able to easily fit a runabout in the hangar bay. And what happens when the helmsman gets hurt? Or the communications officer goes balmy and shorts out the system? Or half the crew is down with the Rigellian flu? Knowing more than one job is a simple fact of reality on a starship on a deep space mission, where you can't just send back to base for a replacement.
I was of course refering to the over all design/stile of the runabout. The actual thing would have to be lets see "scaled" for the ship. Because other than that, they would have to back her up and run her in at about 1/4 impulse to fit her in the shuttle bay... One of the biggest problems I have with the later Star Treks is that there are only about 6 people seem that do everything on a starship. (I scratch my head) I agree, about cross trainning being a necessity, but what are the rest of the 400 + crewmembers doing? Originally, there were whole departments required to run a starship... Egad...are all the rest "red shirts?" Regards, Chuck
Exterior: I'd do nothing except to remove the hokey centreline divider that runs down the front of the Bussard Collector grills, and get rid of the lit Thruster ports - the modellers made them look like more spotlights instead of like thrusters. The overall dimensions, hull scheme, etc are all perfect as they are. Interior: I'd pretend the TMP-TSFS version of the bridge never existed. I never liked that gigantic jello-mould set, especially in all it's sickly beige-grey incarnations. TUC sets were a great nod to the TOS bridge etc, although I'd lose the digital clocks, and move the turbolifts back to the rear of the set as they were originally. For engineering I'd probably keep something similar to the TUC set, but enlarged towards the aft of the ship with only one PTC heading down towards the pylons, reminiscent of the TWOK set. I'd probably install some kind of "radiation room" opposite the Main Engineer's main workspace too. Sickbay would also be TUC-ified, devolving the TNG-style set. I'd keep a version of the TMP diagnostic sensor bed though - that was neat. Uniforms: I always preferred the movie era uniforms; except that everybody suddenly became a redshirt! So out with the maroon, replaced with a dark-grey/charcoal. I figure there's quite enough colour in the undershirts. I'd probably tone back the flared bell-bottoms a bit too - sometimes they looked a little excessive. Jackets and enviro suits were fine as they were (but again, replacing the maroon with a less-obtrusive grey). Equipment: STVI/STV phasers, communicators, tricorders, etc - with wristband communicators for shipboard use rather than having to run over to slap the nearest companel on the wall!
I love TMP and the refit! The only thing I think I would change is the captains chair and the other bride chairs! I would use the captains chair and the other bridge chairs from Star trek V!
Another thing that I would revise would be the size of the ship. This has come up in another forum that the original concept for the NCC-1701 called for a 540 foot-long ship design which Matt Jeffries changed to 1,080 feet. While Matt Jeffries had later stated the ship to be 947 feet in length, it would appear that at least one ST-fan had actually measured the ship based on various markings on the ships hull and confirmed the 1,080 foot figure. This would increase the Enterprise by approximately 14% (1080/947 = 1.1404435). The refit as a result would go from 304.7 meters to 347.5 meters (347.493m)
The facts are that Jefferies didn't change the length (at any point) to 1080 feet, and the hull markings you are referring to only supported the original 540 foot length which existed before the final plans were finished (and models constructed) and never implied anything else. In fact those markings only made sense (as I recall) if you included the original dome cover over the dish on the secondary hull (which was absent from the final construction plans). If you want a longer ship, use a longer ship. But please don't misstate the facts as some form of justification for it. If you don't care for the show's facts, ignore them (this is all fiction after all). But clouding the historical facts of the original production is messing with real history. Thanks.
First off... it doesn't look the same, it has different capabilities... it's a new class. So the very first thing I'd do would be to make it "official" that it's a NEW CLASS OF SHIP. And I'd stick with (since Enterprise was the first ship rebuilt to that configuration) "Enterprise Class." Second... I've always felt that the exposed-nernies-torpedo-tube design clashed with the rest of the ship. I'd use one of the earlier ideas (probably the retractable-shutters one) Andrew Probert proposed. Third, I'd make some clear detail on the underside of the secondary hull to indicate where the antimatter pods (and, potentially, the antimatter refill port) would be. This would occupy the location currently occupied by the four "lower phasers" most likely. Fourth, I'd add an aft torpedo tube, where the "neck exhaust" is now. The overall structure in that area would still look much the same as it does now, however. Fifth, I'd probably rework the general shape of the nacelles... eliminating the "stair-step" appearance and giving it a smoother shape overall (but keeping the same shape otherwise) I'd make the radiator grids on the outside flush or convex rather than concave (technical reasons) and I'd seriously revisit the front "copper bump" in front of these features... probably making them into a fully-spherical object which partially protrudes through the exterior of the nacelle (maybe even giving that the TOS-ish "swirly light" effect?) I'd keep the fin structures on the aft of the nacelle but transform them into something more technical and less artistic... something more reminiscent of what the original had (heat pipe-based radiator elements). I'd probably also eliminate the "intake grills" on the top surface (USELESS) and instead expand the amount of available intake surface on the front of the nacelle. Oh, and I'd totally eliminate the TMP "primary hull underside notch docking ports" and replace them with edge-of-hull ports (possibly modifying the so-called main gangway hatch for this purpose. But I'd keep the other hatches we see down there, and might well keep those hatches as well... but have them all be for "rapid replenishment" operations in port, to allow loading of foodstuffs, cargo, replacement of expended atmosphere processing hardware, etc. One last thing... not a "change" but rather something I'd work hard to KEEP... the main deflector dish on the 1701(r) wouldn't be blue all the time... it'd start as basic metal (maybe even "copper") but would gradually glow with energy output. They did something very close to this in TMP but abandoned it afterwards, and I missed that...
Shaw, I don't think the ship's overall length would matter whether it had that dome on the front of the sensor dish or not... Cary L. Brown, What do you mean regarding the torpedo design? The retractable shutter thing... CuttingEdge100
Rather than trying to describe it, I'll just give you a link... http://www.probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/TorpedoTubes.html
Okay... so this basically shows that you really have no idea what you were talking about when you said..."...it would appear that at least one ST-fan had actually measured the ship based on various markings on the ships hull and confirmed the 1,080 foot figure."It is even worse when you were misrepresenting something you know nothing about. Just out of curiosity, do you know what you were talking about? Maybe you could link back to the person you are getting this info from... but I sure hope it wasn't me. If you don't actually know what you are saying... consider not saying it. We don't need this misinformation. So again I ask, please don't misstate the facts as some form of justification for your wanting a large ship. Thanks.
Sorry, got it confused. It wasn't some desire for a larger ship. From what I read I thought it was the correct figure and as a result operated around it. CuttingEdge100
Still while I'm at it. Which figures seem to be the most accurate? Especially factoring in that the Constitution-Class (Pre-Refit) had 10-foot corridors (with almost certainly some space between the decks) at least a few inches of skin thicknesses and such... CuttingEdge100
The correct ones. But when you start actually putting some time into a study of this (rather than guessing), I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with. My studies show that 10 foot decks (with a few inches between) done exactly how Jefferies designed it works fine. But if you think you have to have two feet between decks and a three to five foot thick hull... use something bigger. Considering that the corridors have walls that are more than 2 feet thick and were shown to house all the stuff that people assume must be in the floors, what other reason would you need more than a couple inches between decks? Here is something to take into consideration, for anything you think would be needed size wise for supporting the Enterprise... divide that estimate by four! If you think the atmospheric equipment would need a certain amount of space, give it a quarter of that. Food storage, water storage, waste reclamation equipment, etc... quarter or less for them too. This is hundreds of years in the future, so less is more. Honestly, if I wasn't constrained by the show... everything would be even smaller than what I'm putting forward in my plans. Tons of wasted space because 20th century standards were being applied. The problem with most fans is that they want the Enterprise today... asking how could we do it today? rather than how might it be done hundreds of years from now. So don't feel bad if you can't imagine where technology might take us long after we are dead because you are in good company.