Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans

I guess that means the bathrooms will be outside the hull just behind the camera crews...

 

... or in some cases people's trailers.

 

So, without spending too much time on this, I wanted to see what a possible corridor and turbolift network might look like on my largest deck (Deck 5). The two major constraints are the room depth (all being about 15 feet to match the cabin depth in this example) and the Pressure Hull Compartment layout. This is what I came up with.

 

That should actually be useful, thanks.

Now all I need is a computer to do the rest of the work.

 

Well, having it at the head of the ship would follow the Naval tradition.

 

Shaw, I admire what you're doing. I do want to point out that the turbolift layout -- which I understand isn't a final layout -- makes actually walking from one area of Deck 5 to another area of Deck 5 inconvenient. I would suggest that, since the deck is largely comprised of crew cabins, one could get away with fewer turbolift exits.

 

In terms of space allocation, it probably makes little difference whether you double up and hot bunk when allocating sleep space, and have dedicated workspace for each crewman away from that sleep space, or have dedicated workspace within each (single/double, non-hot bunked) cabin. The functional difference would be face to face contact between coworkers, but we can already see that the need for such contact will long since be a thing of the past by the 23rd century.

However, I believe there would be a lot going on in that saucer that isn't covered by the term "office space". The kind of things I mentioned above would require a great deal of square footage, and at least in my calculations, impacted the ability to allocate single accommodations for everyone, or even avoid non-hot bunked double accommodations for some.

 

That is beautiful. :thumbsup:
Do you have a higher res version of it?

 

Yes, I do. And thank you.

I haven't shared anything at a higher resolution because this, believe it or not, is a rough draft. I am involved in an on-again, off-again project with two other people, trying to take the sketches and calculations that led to this cross section and revise them, flesh them out, and develop them into a 3D walkaround. We got down to deck 4 and the project hit a snag because of the inevitable travails of real life. But it isn't dead, and we hope to get back to it at some point.

 

This sounds like a cool project
Are there any previews (images or anims) you could show us?

 

I was thinking the same thing..all those lift openings would make it a looong walk to get around! It make the deck practically a labyrinth.

 

Actually, part of the reason for not having more turbolift tubes was to make sure that you could get to almost any where on deck 5 by walking. Plus I wanted the outer most corridor nearly unobstructed for running (and I say "nearly" because the impulse engines are going to get into the way). I'm considering having less seeing as large equipment and the like can be moved via anti-grav units.

But yeah, I'd be very surprised if that layout ends up in any final work. This was to illustrate one possible way to have cabins and corridors (the size of the actual sets) work with turbolifts and the Hull Pressure Compartment bulkheads. I'm not really planning on putting too much effort (beyond discussing it with you guys) into this until some time in the spring. And by that point I'll most likely be going for a regular book on the general subject of the Enterprise of TOS rather than just a set of plans here and there.

When I reach that point this project looks like it'll branch off into two different projects. The one where I see (based on general set design and other evidence from Jefferies) if there was extended thought behind the design of the Enterprise. This version would leave unexplored areas of the Enterprise from TOS open, and just see if what Jefferies gave Star Trek in general actually fit together. The second is going to be a do-it-yourself document that will give people scaled versions of most of the rooms to attempt to organize with in deck outlines.

When this reaches that crossroads the first part (along with most of the book elements) will be done pretty much out of sight (I plan on having only aridas sofia viewing those works in progress). The second, going to the public more directly, I'll continue to do like this, out in the open.

But in either case, I'll stop way short of drawing up fictional plans of the Enterprise from the 23rd century. Pretty much everything I do is a 21st century look at some intriguing ideas from the mid 20th century about what a future starship might be like (within the constraints of a television show budget and schedule). Without putting too much extra into this, I mainly want to show what an incredible job was done on Star Trek at a time when shows like Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were getting away with massive amounts of internal inconsistencies. While Jefferies was a very pragmatic individual (saying that Star Trek was just another job), the amount of care and passion of his workmanship would seem to show that when it came to the Enterprise... it was very well thought out.

Besides, there are tons of others who can do the fictional plans better than I. And leaving areas that are "unknown" open in the end will let fans who don't have the ability to get that far have a foundation to let their imaginations fill in the blanks.

I'm planning on leaving large areas open if for no other reason then the fact that some elements of the ship's exterior suggest that something else might need that space.

The following image is of my test layout placed over a top view of my 33" Enterprise plans.



And while many people think that the exterior of the TOS Enterprise is sparse, what details that are there most likely require something logical behind them. And without knowing what that would be, I'd most likely leave that sort of space unfinished rather than attempt to figure out what would go there (which is beyond the range of what these plans are intended for... a strictly would-it-fit look at the Enterprise).

 

I'd like to think that my layout isn't that bad. It should actually be easier than navigating your way through, say, an aircraft carrier of today.

On the Constellation you'd often have to go up or down one or two decks to get to another room that was on the same deck level but on the other side of the ship. I don't believe that is any different with the active carriers of today (and internally both the Kitty Hawk and Enterprise are laid out similarly to the Constellation).

 

Interesting point, I didn't realize that.
One thing I would do is actually rotate the turbolift tubes 45°, so they are actually forming an "x" relative to the centerline. I think this would maximize access while keeping critical areas, which tend to be closer to the center, a bit clearer of the tubes.

 

Well, there has to be a lengthwise tube to reach the dorsal, so I'm not sure that rotating would change the layout in any way other than esthetically.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this layout is very dependent on the Hull Pressure Compartments. At no point do I have a turbolift tube bisecting a compartment. Most of the plans I've seen have never taken the compartment structure into account when determining the layout of everything. I sort of feel that these compartments would define the internal spaces and that all other factors have to work with this primary foundation in the same way that they would have to deal with the ship's exterior hull.

I could throw out the Hull Pressure Compartments and come up with something on my own... but that would defeat the whole reason for doing this (to see what comes from the information found within the design of the show itself). So yeah, I consider the Hull Pressure Compartments to be as important as the shape of the ship itself when figuring out how things would be laid out.

Of course this is just a sketch of what might work... I haven't invested any real time in this as yet. For example, there are two compartments that are rather large, but I have them laid out similar to the rest of the deck right now (which is designed for back to back rooms that are 15 feet deep). But those areas are perfect for a totally different arrangement for rooms that are significantly different than the standard cabin.

But for what I'm doing, the only major constraint is that everything should fit within the individual compartments, and that no compartment be bisected in such a way as to cut one half off from another when the emergency bulkhead doors are in place.

Edit:
Of course if I ever decide to do a TMP Enterprise, the X layout would match perfectly with the diagram in the turbolift in TMP.

 

D'oh! Didn't think of that. Of course, aesthetics aside, the tubes would go where they need to regardless of the desire for visual symmetry.

 

That layout seemed awfully convoluted to me. And IIRC Rick stated once on this BBS that he threw that together pretty fast, without having time to really lay it out rigorously.

I actually like the simplicity of your layout. It is similar to what I have sketched out, though a little more involved. And mine goes the 45 degree offset, "x" route, but not nearly as involved as on the turbo map from TMP.

 

I have asked the other guys that are working on the 3D walkaround if we can post any images, etc. The response has been positive, and once we have decided which images to post, we'll start another thread.

 

Another point, regarding turbolift shafts.

It's a good idea to have "passing zone" stops (without doors) along longer runs. Since these tubes are two-way, but only one-lane, you'll inevitably have places where you'll have two cars trying to pass each other and not be able to... and end up with traffic jams.

Yes, if you have an unoccupied "car docking station" (which you clearly HAVE considered) you can use those. But it's impossible to predict what's happening when, so it just makes sense to have a few "side stop" points where one car can move to the side and allow another one to slip past it, then slip back into the tube and move on.

Alternatively, you COULD try creating complete "loops" (each tube only goes one way!). In a Galaxy-size ship, that's actually pretty practical. But in a smaller vessel, it's damned hard, just to route (and it also takes up a lot more of the available space). So I think just adding a few "passing zones" would fix the problem more effectively.

 

Ya know, staring at that diagram something rather fundamental occurred to me: there's no benefit for all the TLs to move horizontally.

Think about it; at its largest diameter, the saucer is 2 decks high, tops. A stairwell will get me up or down a deck faster. And without lots of hallways blocked by TLs, I can also walk from one side to the other pretty quickly.

All the saucer needs is a few vertical-only TLs closer to the core, where the deck numbers are the greatest. As the decks get smaller, the need for TLs is reduced, so they would stagger as they do in a tall building. You would only need a single horizontal TL to zip down to the engineering hull.

After I had this realization, I dug out my FJ plans, curious what his solution was. Turns out, he came to pretty much the same conclusion. He does have a few horizontal tubes in the saucer, but they're relegated to runs to the EH, and a few key locations like the impulse engineering room and 'battle bridge'. Otherwise, he has a number of normal elevator tubes in specific locations to service vertical movement within the saucer.