Oh yeah, one more thing. I am drawing these 2D plans based on a deck-to-deck height of 3.5 meters. That's 2.75 meters (9') of head-height on each deck with 0.75 meters (2.5') of between-deck space for piping, wiring and ductwork. What about Jeffries tubes, you ask? Well, I never have understood why you would need half a meter or more of crawlspace between every square inch of every deck. Certainly there are Jeffries tubes and crawlspaces but only where they are needed. I figure any special areas that require more than 9' of head-height would simply expand to 2 decks tall. Using 3.5 meters, the ship is currently exactly 25 decks tall.
Vector... I really appreciate the fact that you seem to be thinking this through. Your inter-deck stuff is similar to what I've been doing. I have a ~.65m inter-deck space, typically (see my WIP thread if you want to know the specifics). However, I do have a few locations in the ship with sub-standard deck heights (basically at the primary and at the secondary hulls in the general vincinity of the interface), and I will have "crawlspaces" in those areas. I'm only going to call the engine-area crawlspaces "jeffries tubes" however. A side note... if you look at the refit 1701, there's an entire ring of sub-deck-height space on the underside of the primary hull. This isn't a "jeffries tube" either... but it is a technical space. I always found it odd that TNG-and-later-era Trek showed the massive tunnels going through the entire ship. This never really made much sense to me... why not just have the stuff right there in corridors (behind access panels, or under floor panels, or whatever?). With a <1m inter-deck space, this would be easy enough. Anyone have thoughts on why (other than to reuse a claustraphobic setpiece) they had these funky little crawlspaces everyplace? Has anyone ever tried to lay out the "jeffries tube" network inside of the Enterprise-D or the Voyager? I doubt that there'd really even be space for them... but it did make for some interesting technobabblish storylines!
Vek, Wow. This design just goes to show that the neck didn't have to be done away with. This ship is elegant, majestic, and graceful. Everything a ship called Enterprise has come to be known to possess. Oh well... Anyway, you remain The Man... The Batman
Aside from what you've already mentioned, I'd say they were rather frequently used as an alternate route through the ship if they wanted the characters to remain unseen, or at least if the characters wanted to remain unseen, since it didn't always work. I'd say that they may even semi-officialy be there as an alternate route. They need not go everywhere, but they do seem to connect criticle areas of the ship.
Okay, more progress on the 2D views. The top view is currently the most up-to-date. For those who are paying attention, you may notice that I flattened the secondary hull by one deck. I thought it looked better that way, especially the front view. I also detailed most of the area surrounding the docking bay hood in the top view. This is where all that saucer separation stuff comes into play. I think it will actually work this time, but I'll have to build the test model before I'll know for sure. Anybody have any comments or suggestions on the major proportions or any of the details thus far?
I think you've got it almost nailed this time, to be honest. Perhaps this is the time to worry about minor technical details (such as where to place another impulse exhaust on the secondary hull--assuming the ship is supposed to separate)
Here's the latest on the upper surface of the primary hull: In case you're wondering, there are 62 escape pods. I figure that's enough relative to the Sovereign's 100 or so considering this is a smaller ship with a smaller crew. Besides which I couldn't figure a way to squeeze any more on there without it looking cluttered. I went ahead and did a few gridlines, though they're mainly just for reference at this point. I'm still counting on you, Commander, to add the finer details when the time comes. Now is a good time for all of you to let me know anything you absolutely love or absolutely can't stand.
So are these 3-man escape pods? (Like sovereign is supposed to have...) If so, you'd be able to evacuate 186 people with that many pods. Of course, you also have some shuttlecraft... with four shuttles, about ten people per shuttle... we'll say that's another 40 peole, or 226 evacuees. So, I'm curious what the complement of the ship actually is? It is definitely a smaller ship than Sovereign... and we know that Sovereign lacks enough pods to handle the entire crew... On the other hand, even though these are the "pseudo-hex" shaped pods, maybe they're five-person pods, or something like that? (Or maybe only the women and children get to evacuate???) I'm letting my detail-oriented side show.... I know. But I really enjoy seeing an actual, well-thought-out design.
Well, there are 62 pods just on the upper side of the primary hull. There will be a similar number or maybe a few less on the underside, plus however many on the secondary hull. These pods are actually about 18 feet in diameter, so I would think you aught to be able to squeeze at least four in there. I'm guessing there should be enough pods to evacuate between 500 and 600 crewmembers when all is said and done.
Okay, then... let's say, for the mo', that there are 62 topside, 62 underside, and 31 on the secondary hull... for a total of 155 lifeboats. At four people per boat, that's 620 people. So you could cut the number down by a few where necessary and you'd easily hit your evacuee numbers. Sounds good to me!
Well Vektor as you know we get to see your great work over on the Grandeur Forum. But I did not want to be a stranger over here, so I just thought I would say great Job, it is really coming together. Thank You for your hard work and persistence hanging in all this time to complete her. The sketches are great, and will help for the Tech Manual, when the time comes.
Okay, I finally got some time today to make real progress on the test model. I'm just blocking out shapes and I've only got about an hour into it so far. I'm hoping to finish off the secondary hull by tomorrow.
I finished blocking out most of the secondary hull. I'll probably slap together some stuff for the deflector assembly and then start working on the nacelle struts.
Vektor, the lines on this revision flow together SO much better, especially in 3-D; your "work" model is better than 90% of the crappy "real" models one sees at scifi-meshes.com these days. Unfortunately, the flow is now so velvety smooth and liquid that what I can only presume is a shuttleboat or "captain's yacht"... ...looks completely, jarringly out of place. Unless this feature is going to be exactly the same color as the surrounding hull and will only be a faint outline on the finished product, I'd either hide the entire thing under retractable flush-mounted doors that follow the existing lines of the Grandeur, modify the profile of the "yacht" so that it better matches the surrounding ship, or consider scrapping the feature entirely.
^^ I'm guessing, given the loction and what we already see of the model, that that outline shows the hidden vehicle that would be inside that hangar. (What, no "crossed fingers" smiley?! ) As always, looks beautiful, Vektor. I'm going to reserve any comments about features I don't like until you've added some more detail to define and delineate; when all we have to go on are the basic shapes and profiles, items that might look odd now could provide much-needed contrast and tension as they are further developed. I realize that by then it might be too late, of course, but, hey, we all know how much you love recreating Grandeur from scratch ...