So here we have the secondary engine room located in the aft part of the saucer just ahead of the impulse engines (which are actually massive anti-grav generators). I can't really explain what everything in the room does, but we do have a central control panel and up against the back wall (or the forward bulkhead of the impulse engine housing) we also have a bank of monitor displays where anything can be called up in detail either as a schematic, status readout or actual visual display of what you might want to see. To reach the upper walkway you can enter either from the Deck 5 access ports or climb the ladders located on both sides of the engine room. Access corridors also go back around the sides of the impulse housing. So if everything is shut down it is possible to actually access the interior of the impulse housing. What are the units on the floor? I haven't figured that out, but I thought it looked interesting and somewhat evoked what we saw in TOS' engine room.
There's several nice callbacks to TOS there without going overboard (and I like TOS a lot!). Nicely done
I've figured out the likely location for Auxiliary Control in the saucer. It can be on Deck 6 aft of the turbolift hub. Forward of the turbolift hub will be Sickbay.
So this is how things stand presently. Decks 0-2 and 5-17 are layout as well as the Hangar Deck. So what remains to be planned out are Deck 3,4 and 18-27. What isn't visible in the X-ray profile view is the thickness of the dorsal. On each dorsal deck there is a corridor running the length of the deck with rooms on either side. I haven't detailed those rooms because I'm not sure yet what could be on those decks. Decks 16 and 17 I could see used in different ways depending how the rest of the ship evolves. They could be storage decks along with vaults and/or decks with recycling/processing/replicating systems and could even include detention areas. Each deck is saved as a separate group so I can go back and make changes. I still have plan out the access tube up the pylons and how they intersect the decks of the secondary hull. Despite my earlier panic (lost file) it seems the majority of what I lost were the layouts of Decks 3 and 4. I was able to find most everything else. The mishap (lost file) actually allowed me to fix certain small things I wasn't entirely satisfied with before.
Here's a look at the stairwell arrangement forward of the hangar deck. This should allow access from from one hangar level to another as well as from the hangar levels to the main decks forward of it. I still have to add the stairwells from the observation level to the deck below it. In these views you can see everything revealed, but in actuality as seen from the individual decks you would see only the entrance to the stairwells unless you looked over the railings.
When you're laying out decks for these things--especially when you have weird shapes like this secondary hull--you can't avoid wierd shaped rooms and left over spaces where you're left wondering: what the hell could possibly go in there? It's totally impractical (too wierd and/or too small) to be used as an actual room. WTF!!
If you've ever taken a tour of a battleship or other large navy vessel, you'll see weirdly shaped rooms everywhere!
^Exactly. I'm sure even in the 29th century they'll need various storage tanks, equipment nodes (comms. networking, a/c, plumbing), etc.
Okay, so here you can see where the warp nacelle access lift, alongside the main power conduit (smaller tube forward of the lift shaft) intersects the secondary hull on Deck 17. By good fortune the lift shaft intersects the main hull right at (or very near exactly) at deck level and in a less frequented part of the ship. There is a small room at the top of the shaft crammed with status and diagnostic boards and equipment. Generally this status/service room (and the shaft itself) is not accessed during normal operations. It is possible to go beyond the status room into the nacelle proper, but only when the warp engines are shut down. Also the nacelles are not environmentally controlled like the rest of the ship so the status room also serves as a sort of airlock where EVA gear is required to proceed into the nacelle. The pylon access lift is a small and short cylindrical pod that can hold up to four people if necessary. The occupants are seated as the lift has a ceiling only a bit over 5ft.
This model is the most complex thing I've ever done. It's one thing to design the exterior of a ship even while trying to take correct scale into account. It's something else to layout it out deck-by-deck and trying to make everything that goes into it (well, as much as I can think of) fit all together. I'm gratified with how it's turning out even though I know of mistakes along the way.
Not to derail (too much) bu I used to run in to this all the time when constructing space ships out of Legos. There would also be useless spaces, or odd shapes that would just be there. I hated it, so I always worked in either storage rooms, emergency supplies, or access to otherwise inaccessible parts. Or, if most naval vessels are to be believed, that is where the illegal distillery goes This is my first post in this thread, and I have to say, for such a large project, it looks fantastic. I don't have anything else to add except keep up the good work
It's been neraly two months since an update (due to real life variables) yet in the time I've been doing some thinking. There is a lot I like about this model and being able to pull off some tricky aspects in modeling it, but there are some things that irk me. I'm not totally happy with the secondary hull. It works fine enough, but I know it could be much better and it didn't occur to me until recently how it could be better. I still like the overall concept of how the secondary hull connects with the dorsal, but now I realize what I did wrong. Unfortunately to fix it would really mean remaking the entire model because ithe secondary hull can't be changed in isolation. The change I have in mind would effect the support pylons and the ship's overall shape to remain looking integrated. Note that I could probably salvage a lot of the interior work I've done. The Bridge, for example, could stay the same because changes to the outer hull need not affect the Bridge at all. A lot of the hangar deck could also likely be salvaged. So now I'm considering how to proceed: either keep going with what I have or start again from scratch. Hmm...
If it were me, I think I'd press on and then make a MKII with the changes, but then I do the same thing all the time and have yet to finish a model, so uh, yeah... lol
Is it worth making a quick'n'dirty mockup of the new secondary hull just to see how it looks? There may be additional changes required to make it look "just right" or the differences may be negligible between that and the original. But best to know, either way.
I was actually thinking about this approach. I could work up a concept model just to get a feel for it. Hmmm...
Fascinating stuff! I'll admit I was a little skeptical about the ship design, but the 3D visualisation does it justice.