I was wondering if Timo or anyone else has an updated guide. I love this work, and find it interesting.
Well, I keep tinkering with it, so v47.314 might be of interest to somebody. But it's still just desk drawer writing at its worst. Links to three rather large pdf sections of the Guide: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/partia.pdf/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/partib.pdf/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/partsiiandiii.pdf/ Have you all looked through R. E. Mandel's chronology thing? It has pictures! http://www.jh.kobarg.de/k7/timeline.php?q=fsc Timo Saloniemi
How do I download them? And for the record, I think you have the best History of Starfleet out there Timo.
I just right-clicked on them and hit "Save As..." and now it lives in my "TrekBBS" folder. Easy. --Alex
It's just a chronologically arranged encyclopedia of UESF and UFP Starfleet starships, in the style of Bill Gunston combat aircraft books, with a list of specs first, followed by a freeform article on the ship that describes the design, the reasons Starfleet wanted a ship like this, and possible associated pseudohistorical hijinks. It contains all the canonical starship designs plus at least thrice as many ships from popular noncanon sources, primarily from RPGs (such as FASA or Star Fleet Battles), from computer games (Starfleet Command, Legacy, Starfleet Academy) and from classic books that turn unused sketches by the show's artists (Jeffries, Probert, Sternbach) into actual starships (Ships of the Star Fleet). It also adds ships mentioned or described in novels, and sometimes even in comics. The backstage "making of" books and tech manuals are also included. It takes considerable liberties with the material to make it maximally consistent with modern canon. It tries to steer clear of introducing all-new, original ships, though, as the wider Trek universe is already chock full of designs. Also, if there exists a shape without a name (say, a study model or a background kitbash) and a name without a shape (a mention in a novel or sometimes even in onscreen dialogue), it tries to merge those two to keep things more compact. Googling for "Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet" turns up surprisingly many older versions in circulation, mostly at rather filthy upload or torrent sites... Timo Saloniemi
Oh, it's cool. Thanks for the guide. It helps me a lot with the ships that I wanted to understand more. Just curious, why I can't find Sisko's Defiant there.... (maybe it just slips from my eyes) and why Nebula and Akira are older than Galaxy Class? I thought Nebula is created with Galaxy Class as it's base, and Akira is built to stand against Borg invasion.
These are fascinating. I'm gonna enjoy reading through them *twitch* those nuTrek ships should be far far bigger *twitch*
Timo, do you have the latest version condensed into a rar / zip file for easy downloading off of 1 site?
This is riveting, Timo. I'm just now getting to the Verne ship construction and I'm sitting back enjoying reading this on a Sunday night. Thank you.
I stayed up past 3am the other night reading this. And that was just the first one. Did you have specific pictures that you've seen in mind when you wrote the captions, or were you hoping to get folks to make stuff for it?
It's about 90% wishful thinking. Some of the captions are for images that do exist, but usually with a nasty twist to what they are supposed to represent. Say, when I merge the Daedalus class with the Horizon of Spaceflight Chronology fame, I see no reason to dismiss the illustration from pp. 92-93. I just think that's how a neo-cubist would see the familiar sphere-and-cylinder vessel. Dick Mandel did the opposite with his chronology, wrapping the captions around existing images, sometimes from wholly different representatives of the genre. I do that a bit, too - see the old Jeffries shuttlecraft, say. Basically, none of the pics match the captions yet, except perhaps by happy coincidence. The pics are there mainly to give an idea of what already depicted ship the text is referring to. That's the problem with constant tinkering: I seldom have the patience to wrap the results that way. Have patience, I'll zip it some time this week again. I've divided the ships in three major categories: big "actual" ships, smaller "coastal" types, and very small "craft". And Sisko's ship is small enough to be bumped down from the category of "real" starships to Part II where I also list other escort class vessels, corvettes and whatnot. That's where the Saber class goes, too, on account of being equally diminutive. So, the third pdf, the first half... On account of their registries: the lowest known Nebula ones are lower than the lowest known Galaxy ones. Also, on account of the "nacelles down" ship being more numerous than the "nacelles up" one. I see the Nebula as the basic model which was then taken to luxurious extremes by adding the fancy saucer separation functionality and other bells and whistles. Only a few of the luxury model would be built, as opposed to the barebones design, and the luxury version would only be created after the basic model proved the concept. Akira has low registries, too. And it looks sufficiently like a member of the family, with the same nearly round saucer, similarly bulging ramscoops and whatnot. There are few exceptions to the rule of low registry meaning an old ship type in the Guide, at least in the 24th century. Oh, I have played a trick or two with FASA registries there, but canon ones (even for barely glimpsed kitbashes) tend to be treated as sacrosanct and "chronologically revealing". Timo Saloniemi
There's an address towards the bottom, in a box right above the About/Advertising/etc links. It looks like the address the links in OP go to, but they are actually directly to the .pdf's. Copy-paste that into your address bar; if you have some sort of PDF reader, you should be fine. I had the same problem at first.
I'm in the process of reading the files now. So far I'm in early-TNG territory and there's a lot of good, well-thought-out stuff. A definitive thumbs up!
I'm not sure what sort of a storage medium would be practical for these things. Where do I upload a bunch of .pdf files for free and for ease of access? My usual storage slot ImageShack allowed me to do this once, but now it's claiming incorrect file type... ...Incidentally, does anybody know of a way to connect the gaudy Star Fleet Battles fightercraft names (Tomcat, Hornet, Eagle, Phantom - SFB reveled in the total absence of innovation from the writing!) with the assorted designs? I'll try and complete the small craft section some day, and I sort of like the little star-destroyer-with-canards-and-two-engines craft that appears to be the F-14 Tomcat of the SFB universe. The other ugly ducklings might warrant an entry, too. Is there a resource, say, a miniatures sales page, that could shed light on this? Or are the names and the artwork actually unrelated? Timo Saloniemi