2290s Superscout. The intent is a ship able to do everything a 2280s Saladin refit AND a 2280s Hermes refit could do, hence the larger, laminated hull of the Constellation. This allows a full-size shuttle bay, and plenty of space for equipment. But because the complete laminated saucer is so much larger than is needed, some portions are excise, just like the Akyazi. I also went with the lower-profile Constitution saucer bulges, not the larger Constellation ones. I know the different views don't quite line up; I used Vance and Ian Keldon parts, but had to use a pic off the internet for the saucer, I think it was originally from Star Trek the Magazine. I also haven't yet figured out how to wrap the text on the saucer, so no names / hull numbers, just the bare bones drawing. I was thinking about the Ianetos / Arusha / etc Superscouts mentioned in Ships of the Starfleet as commissioning in the 2290s, and wondered what they'd look like. I figured a Superscout should be faster and more capable, and threw in the idea that, since it wasn't that long ago that the Council was blocking destroyers and other scary warship types, that the admiralty would start writing the specs of superscouts to make them capable of doing the destroyer job - which leads eventually to a Galaxy class that gets called "Explorer" in one univers, and "Battleship" in another (Yesterday's Enterprise), where "explorer" essentially means "heavy cruiser optimized for exploration, but renamed to sound less like the military we pretend not to be". So, trying to decide what Ianetos et alia might look like, I thought about Saladin / Hermes analogs using the Excelsior architecture, but wanted to see something different. Another possibility was the Ariel saucer, but it didn't feel right. So I ended up going with the Constellation analog to the Saladin / Hermes, but I also decided it had to be either two linear engines, or one ACE, and I didn't want to play withe ACE just yet. Some sources say the Saladin & Hermes were refit, no problem. Others say it couldn't work. Others say it was troubled and never say if it was eventually worked out. I decided it can be worked out, but it's more efficient and effective to just design with two nacelles instead, and an LN-52 is easier and more efficient for single-nacelle applications. A single-nacelle LN-64 has to be capable of better performance than the LN-52, or we'd never see it, but the bean counters probably hate the idea, and it should suck somewhere - something like "sure, we can beat an LN-52 by half a warp factor, but at anything over warp 4.5 we blow a lot more dilithium and antimatter than that LN-52 - and don't ask about the extra maintenance!". So a new-build ship would probably just go straight for two nacelles to begin with. After whipping this up, I decided it'd be USS Audacity, hull number not yet assigned. I thought about Hemingway or Bolitho before I remembered a quote I heard attributed to Napoleon: "de l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace" Apparently, that was Georges Danton, not Napoleon, though. so, thoughts, suggestions, ideas?
You kept it clean and unencumbered. Now we see how the saucer hull was made deeper as with Stargazer. I wonder what can be done with a solid secondary hull to match that look...
How do you mean? something like the Challenger, with the Connie secondary hull, or something else? What role would you envision it having? Feel free to use the pieces here to play with. I'm fixing the issue with the lineup, will post it when ready.
here's my first idea. It would mean no bussards, so either it doesn't work, or it means the ship's endurance is low, and requires resupply more often. That'd limit it to point defense and short-range patrolling. So I nixed it and developed the first picture in this thread. The lineup of perspectives has been improved. Here is the new version: Thoughts, suggestions, critiques, or ideas?
I don't have a problem with the design, but I question Starfleet's judgment for the class name. Do they really want a starship to be thought of as rude?
It depends on whether Starfleet intends to memorialize the quote or Danton, a victim of the Revolution he helped govern. I'm afraid my knowledge of that period is limited to playing Marat in Marat/Sade, and I think the name was mentioned in one of Marat's lines. I did do research during the play, but that was over 40 years ago. Perhaps "Daring" would be a better choice for the quote. Wikipedia says about Danton... ...so perhaps a class name honoring him can come from that, or just call it the Danton.
Daring is already an SFPO design, so that's out, but that's the sense I was going for, and keying in on the word in the quote.
I don't particularly have a problem with the class name. Webster kind of combines both meanings of the word in that definition, which kind of annoys me. Less than "rudeness," the word "audacity" has the mood that it defies expectations. In a cultural/social sense, "audacity" might be a bad thing - somebody who has the audacity to refuse dinner with a dignitary, for instance. However, it can be positive, too - somebody who has the audacity to stand up to an oppressive regime.
In the same way the saucer is made taller--maybe the same could be done with a segment running lengthwise where a section makes the cigar hull taller, and flat on two sides. It would be something new.
That was actually from the comics. I like that take as well. I suppose what I meant was make the sec hull thicker even as the primary hull is thicker than the refit saucer. One thing else might be to flip the Stargazer engine supports 90 degrees, and omit what is now the lower pair of nacelles.
Based on Vance and CanisD, here's what I think has to be done to make the FASA Northampton big enough to carry so many Marines. And my treatment for the Chandley (one of my favorites), to answer the same complaint:
Nice hulls--thank you for that. Having a refit saucer that is also very wide (Ariell class) might be nice.
I thought they could be better; if I were doing them for a project of my own, I'd probably still be trying to clean them up better. But thanks. The big picture is as scanned; the rest should all be resized for Vance's toolkit. And yes, that's the Constellation pic I got my laminated hull from.