Thanks, Patrickivan! But I'm just getting warmed up. After looking at DEWLine's and Arkady's designs and then studying the DS9 runabout, I've concluded the streamlined look isn't quite TNG-ish enough. This sleek little craft needs a little roughing up. I need to peel back those panels a bit and show more of the guts underneath. Christopher, does the Needle's cockpit have windows? I'd like to put some forward-facing windows into the nosecone. Something that lets us all see into the ship so a certain poor, masochistic modeler has to put all those interiors into it. Also, my natural assumption is that this ship's landing gear are pads. But do you think wheels would be too retro?
Oh, I don't know about that. What I like about yours is that it's so obviously non-Starfleet. It has a distinctive civilian identity to it. The others are somewhat Starfleety, which is plausible given that they're from the same civilization and era. But if Starfleet could have a period where it was doing starship-as-sculpture like the Galaxy Class, then surely there could be civilian ship designers that go for style rather than pure functionality and come up with designs that are really distinctive. I don't think I specified. I have no objection to windows, though. I'm not sure what purpose there would be to wheels, since it would presumably get its lift from antigravs (it's got no wings) and wouldn't need to taxi along a runway.
That's the first time I've ever heard a screeching tires noise while dragging vertices around. Thank you for that smack across the back of the head, I almost chucked my advantage in favor of conformity! I do prefer a streamlined look, but I've always planned some additional detail beyond what the ship has right now. Details like a few windows, RCS thrusters, and transporter emitters on the bottom. I've been struggling with sensor placement. A small palette on either side just behind the nose cone and above the docking rings looks natural to me, but it may compromise the streamlining too much; when I get there, I'll do a rendering with and without and let your preferences guide me. This is a quick and dirty modification to the mesh to demonstrate my idea for cockpit windows. The only trouble is, this means the room behind those windows is about five to six meters wide. Even allowing for instrumentation, it's more airy than what your description of a cockpit bridge suggests to me. [chuckles] I'm so glad you didn't see the version with wings, then. And I agree about the landing gear, but I thought it would look cool seeing this thing behave like a huge airliner at a spaceport.
Smaller, subtler, but I'm having trouble reaching the intended cockpit space, and personally, I find this variation rather boring. Side windows simply aren't an option for the bridge, either. I might need to stop thinking of this thing as an over-grown runabout and ditch cockpit windows entirely.
Well, keep in mind that space is 3-dimensional. Maybe the windows shouldn't be so purely forward-facing, but should be angled to give an overhead view as well. Maybe something whose upper edge follows that curve you've got going there.
An update/revision of Deck One... And beginning a mid-deck with a Jeffries tube, room for consumables, lateral sensor arrays, etc....
Wow, you're radically rethinking the shape. I'm wondering what this one will look like in an exterior view. Combining the lounge with the medical bay? Considering that the lounge is probably where they take their meals, I kind of wonder about that one...
Sterile-zone forcefields are an option here, as are putting the MedBay down on deck two and setting up a separate compartment-module similar in size to the living quarters modules. Speaking of the latter, do we want...ahem...private facilities for their tenants-for-the-duration? Or just bunks, terminal/desks, closets and viewports?
Getting back to work on this, and going back to the near-literal "needle" idea, focusing on the exterior components. (I'd forgotten about the revision until looking at this page of the thread again!) As for the "where to eat" angle, I'm thinking "wherever they please, so long as it doesn't mess up operations". So, lounge and living quarters and maybe in the cargo hold(s), but not in the cockpit, the engineering alcove or the lab space.
Nice to see this again! I'd imagine there would be numerous sliding- and folding fixtures in order to keep common areas as multipurpose as possible, or just clear of clutter when not in use. Fold-down table, slide-out additional seating and countertops, etc., as in present-day boats and RVs. However, I do see the point about keeping it separate from the medical bay, or at least arranged so that the medical portion can be partitioned off when in use.
Yeah. Take parts of the design philosophy of passenger aircraft, passenger train cars, submarines, and so on. Mix according to the expected workload of the ship.