That's what I thought too. It might be kinda cool if the torpedo tubes remained retracted during regular operations and only came out when needed.
I love how the torpedo launchers seem to "float" free of the surrounding hull structure. Very nice. :thumbsup:
Now that I look at it a bit more closely, it looks like the torpedo launcher assembly is suspended on top of a huge freakin' spring... Wonder what the "K" value for that thing would be? A few hundred tons per meter? DAMN... Seriously, I originally thought "tractor beam" (as in the TMP Enterprise in about that location). Then I thought "top end of the reactor assembly," but now I'm just totally stumped...
What I never understood is how can a weapon system such as the Photon Torpedo launchers be aimed when the tubes are perfectly straight and stationary? You'd have to aim the entire ship directly at the target. It made sense to me that the launchers should be able to rotate at least a little to the left/right and up/down at least a little so that aiming could be possible. Perhaps you could incorporate an aiming gimbal into the launchers?
Vulcan... You're thinking of a torpedo as a bullet. Although some of the games have treated torpedos that way, the "real world" definition of a torpedo is something we need to consider. A torpedo is a limited range, self-propelled, SELF-GUIDED device. Normally, the payload on a torpedo is a warhead, though in real life, as in the case of Trek, other payloads can be loaded into a torpedo casing. Think of the shots from "Hunt for Red October" as a really good example of what we SHOULD be thinking when we consider Trek-nology torpedos. They can't just weave around constantly, because they have limited fuel reservoirs... but they certainly can, and should, be able to track onto single target's location and perform course-corrections as they approach the target. I always assumed that the "light" we see from a torpedo isn't the torpedo itself, but rather the propulsion exhaust. It's thrusting, and steering, all the way to the target... going faster and faster (and becoming harder to steer in the process) as it moves further and further away from the launch site. There's no reason to treat a "torpedo" as a "dumbfire" weapon. BY DEFINITION, a torpedo is a guided device.
Who's definition? "Guided" is not a part of any definition I've seen, and it certainly hasn't been used that way in throughout history. At one point, torpedoes were what we now call mines. Here's what Merriam-Webster online has: tor·pe·do Pronunciation: tor-'pE-(")dO Etymology: Latin, literally, stiffness, numbness, from torpEre to be sluggish or numb -- more at TORPID 1 : ELECTRIC RAY 2 : a weapon for destroying ships by rupturing their hulls below the waterline: as a : a submarine mine b : a thin cylindrical self-propelled underwater projectile 3 : a small firework that explodes when thrown against a hard object 4 : a professional gunman or assassin 5 : SUBMARINE 2 So, "torpedo" BY DEFINITION does not rule out dumbfire weapons. In Trek practice, though, they seem to have limited guidance, or at least they're going too fast to turn effectively. Back to vulcan's question, I had always assumed that they were locking the torpedo's guidance systems into the target, not aiming the ship and/or tubes. Did they ever say specifically they were "aiming torpedoes" or something similar in the show, or was it more like "locking torpedoes"?
One of Enterprise A's torpedos was rigged to track a Bird of Prey's exhaust in STVI. So, at least, some torpedos had the capability of self propulsion. Also, IIRC K'Ehleyr's transport in "Emissary" (TNG not DS9) was a torpedo tube modified to acheive warp velocity and/or support a being for some length of time.
I agree with Cary that, theoretically, that's the way torpedoes are supposed to operate on the show, but I can see where Vulcan is coming from given that, as Kirkunit demonstrates, it's rarely been shown on Trek that torpedoes do much more than go straight and then go boom. I think that originally this owes mostly to trek being inspired by old-style naval warfare. Torpedoes in trek are much more analagous to 17th century cannon carrying sailing vessels than 20th century submarines and their intelligently guided projectiles.
I would think that torpedoes have two "modes." One is a fully guided mode, which is used when the tactical situation is not complicated, and the tactical officer can devote more attention to a single weapon, and a partially guided mode, where the torpedo can manouver on it's own, but isn't as accurate as the fully guided mode. I don't think there can be any question about torpedoes being guided though. When you're talking the speeds and manouverabilities of starships we've seen in star trek, in order to hit a target at all a torpedo would have to be guided.
At one time I was toying with the idea of concealing all the heavy weapons on this ship, not including the phaser arrays, and the design of the torp launchers above and below the main deflector has its origins in that idea, but that's not really what's intended anymore. Frankly, the problem I'm having right now is that the torp launchers are just too big. I've scaled down the actual tubes, but the assembly as a whole is still bulkier than I'd like, especially considering that the same assemblies are supposed to appear in several other locations and I'm afraid they're going to stick out like sore thumbs. I'm debating on whether or not to scrap the assemblies I have, including the hull insets in the neck and deflector cowling, and start over with something similar but a little less obtrusive.
Like I said, nothing so specific was ever intended. That slatted grill look is used in a few other locations around the ship, especially on the warp nacelles, so I just decided to throw it in here as well, but as mentioned in my previous post, there are issues with the whole design of the torp launcher assemblies that are likely to result in some significant changes.
You know, I was initially inclined to reject this idea, but another thought just occurred to me... As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm having a problem with the bulkiness of the torp launcher assemblies, not so much in their current locations above and below the main deflector, but looking ahead to the other locations where I intend to mount more of them. I could always make the other locations less bulky but how then to explain the difference? It just now occurs to me that the difference could be that the ones I've already modeled are, essentially, gimbal mounted turret launchers while the others are all fixed. Now, I personally look at photon and quantum torpedoes in the Star Trek universe as analogous to today's submarine fired torpedoes. They come out of a tube with a fixed orientation and begin tracking their target from there. We've seen torpedoes do this in Star Trek, most notably in the final battle against the Bird of Prey in Star Trek VI. In reality, starships would probably engage each other at distances of thousand or hundreds of thousands of kilometers, not within spitting distance as was usually portrayed, so guided torpedoes would be almost a necessity. However, in those cases where engagements occur at very close range, an aimable turret launcher could be quite useful, even if only one or two of them had that capability. So, I'm now rethinking the launcher design yet again. I could probably leave the mounting recesses pretty much unchanged, but I'll have to make some modifications to the launcher assembly to reflect a gimbal mounted turret. Fortunately and serendipitously, I'm already a good part of the way there. :thumbsup:
I know the reasoning behind these things isn't nearly as important as their sculptural interest, but I have to say that a torpedo that can't guide itself in a universe with computers advanced enough to track every single untrackable subatomic particle in your body when its being transported... it just doesn't make sense. Those things would probably be able to think their way to a target, as I'm sure targeted weapons will be able to do very shortly in our own reality. As for that giant coil -- get rid of it if you must, or keep it if you can. But as a little aside, it is very reminiscent of the integration of the linear intermix chamber and torpedo apparatus originally laid out for the TMP ship by David Kimble. I haven't posted much in this thread, but let me just take this opportunity to note that this is the first post-TMP ship I've seen that manifests the same regard for sculptural interest and yet retains restraint in quantities reminiscent of both that design and Matt Jefferies' original. And yet you have managed to make it fit with canon designs that didn't go in that direction. I'm impressed, and will continue to follow this thread with great interest.
Grandeur is coming along very nicely and as most of you have noticed for some time the ship has seen some changes as Vektor refines certain things here and there. Ocassionally The Commander will take one of Vektor's in- work pictures and add some cool backdrops to it. Even tho this is up on our website, and I may have put a link to it here before, I thought I would show it again as we are waiting for more great updates. Thanks once again Vektor for all of your hard work, we can not express it enough http://www.sextondesign.net/ussgrandeur/Grandeur-A_progress.jpeg
Believe it or not, I have been working on the old girl. This is not exactly a WIP image, but I was tinkering with some new texturing and rendering effects and I thought this was worth posting. You really need a large image to get the full effect so I rendered this one at 1280x1024. Click the thumbnail below to see it full-size. I'll leave it up to all of you to spot what's new in this image. Just be advised that not everything is final, most notably the deflector ring.
Actually, I'm kinda diggin' that deflector.. except for the fact that the "brass ring" seems sort of monochromatic (I'd be inclined to have it be much more "backlit," so it looks like a real piece of brass photoetch laid on top of the "dish" in that location. I do notice that the torpedo launcher in the secondary hull looks a bit different... not able to pick out the changes too clearly, but they're definitely there (the main difference I can see now is the single little red dot in the middle of the big black area... versus the two old "TMP-style" red-lined tubes we saw last time... and the apparent loss of the "springy-support system?"). Was that torpedo launcher in the saucer underside (where the TMP E's forward scanner was) there before??? The forward primary-hull "notch" seems a bit sparse... I know you've gone through dozens of iterations re: this, but I'm curious what you're planning to do with this now? Obviously, you don't have windows in... and no markings. and I note the lack of any "nacelle pylon edge-grillwork" that I've just sort of become accustomed to seeing. I'm assuming that some, or all, of that is "coming soon?" Overall, a very nice looking ship... but during your work on this, you've had a dozen or so very nice looking designs that have come and gone. I still like one of the earlier ones better... but that's just personal taste. Then again... is it possible that you've "rolled back" some of the details, so we're seeing elements of my personal fav (this one) again?
Actually, not much has changed recently, though there have been numerous additions, many of them long planned. The underside of the saucer, particularly in the vacinity of the lower sensor dome, had stubbornly defied my efforts to finalize its design for some time, but I think I've finally gotten it about 99% of the way there. From here on out, it's all in the details.