What I've done is make a simple computer program that draws the bulkheads accurately according to the room and corridor dimensions I assign to those variables, with a double row of rooms with a wall between and surrounded by corridors. I'm making the bridge 6 x 7 meters (relatively smaller in shown in the diagram in the DS9TM, but approximately the size seen onscreen). I've tentatively made the rooms 12 feet deep and corridors a tad over 6 feet wide, all based on 120 meters overall length of the ship. So what the program is showing me so far looks reasonable but of course deviates quite a bit in proportions from the TM diagrams. And, of course, I'll place the impulse engines, pulse phaser cannons, and quantum torpedo launchers differently than seen in the TM but in agreement with what was seen onscreen.
LCARS I wouldn't suggest altering the location of the Impulse engines or the aft torpedoes. Many sources are corroborating that impulse engines are rockets like so on Defiant it would seem to make sense to place them at the red circular recesses in the back of the ship... However Sternbach's placement of the Impulse engines in the last third of ship makes sense for the location of the huge vents behind the bridge. These might be a similar method used in stealth fighters to vent the exhaust above the wing to reduce it's signature. Also I've noted that if the impulse engines actually worked as some of the new manuals suggested then they wouldn't be capable moving backwards as Defiant has been seen doing aswell as the Enterprise D on numerous occasions and even the Enterprise A in TUC. And we know there is no forward impulse engine to counter thrust and ships like Sovereign even have engines that push against the top of the saucer instead of against the back of the ship so that means impulse engines are likely another type of field propulsion since they too use coils. Some here have said that force fields could be used to vector the exhaust but this isn't a proper fail-safe method of moving the ship in battle as any external force-field can be defeated by enemy weapon's fire. The torpedo tubes have ...no aft outlet on the surface model if the red recesses are to be impulse engines. But that would make them extremely large apertures. I don't envy the choices you have make on this model. -------------------------- My analysis of the physical model continues. I doubt I'll be done in time to give you any true deck section of 3D model but I can tell you this...Defiant is perhaps the most complicated and non conformity design we have ever seen in Trek by Light Years. I have identified 6 curves on the forward main hull and deflector that other drafters have completely missed that define Defiant's true shape. The render then as straight lines. These are obviously the reason for the flaws in the CGI and all the diagrams from the Fact Files and other sources. It's ...amazing but it doesn't help much knowing with out more photographs, in the end I may end of FUDGING it instead of precise descriptions.
Does anyone think it might be cool to include the "warhead" concept suggested by the DS9 TM? I kind of think the idea is cool myself, but that's me.
Sure, the warhead has its own impulse engines, shown on deck 3 in the DS9TM. For the main impulse engines, I want to put them in the first step aft (looking at the outline) of the nacelles, since that's where we see them onscreen. And impulse engines are not rockets, even though "specific impulse" is a standard term in rocket science. Trekiverse impulse engines, through their driver coils, affect virtual particles in space to create a situation tantamount to the ship's falling into a strong gravity well in the direction of flight (hence imparting no g-force on the occupants), and what looks like a rocket nozzle is just to release superheated plasma but not for the purpose of using Newton's Third Law of Motion. Deck 2 without the gumdrops and callouts (the other decks will be aligned with hese proportions):
The large polywell fusion reactors that provide the power for those impulse engines, between the rows of antimatter storage pods. But the actual impulse driver coils are off to the sides, just forward of the plasma vents that have been shown onscreen. The two central circles in the figure represent the upper level of the drop-launch bay on decks 2 and 3 from which we saw the Chaffee launched.
I hope this layout is okay. I've changed the innermost circle in the figures for decks 2 and 3, just making it thinner and darker, since that's not a bulkhead, and added the missing room dividers in the figure for deck 1. It should be ready to haul in the equipment now. I made the bridge 6 x 7 meters, like the set, and the corridors just a little over 6 feet wide.
Deck 2 and 3 It's extremely unlikely there are corridors (one on top of another) passing laterally through Deflector module...extremely unlikely.... My studies of the model don't even allow for a proper interface between the Deflector housing and the deflector module except in the aft module area and even then only one deck as we can clearly see the bottom of deck 3 has no kind of passage from the main hull to the deflector. The total shuttle bay area looks extremely small but considering how badly they screwed Defiant up for that one seen it doesn't really matter. I say other than it looks good to go.
We might argue that the central cylindrar hollow in the ship was originally meant to accommodate something characteristically cylindrar (say, a big computer core for defeating the Borg adaptation routine) but never received that hardware and was only later adapted for use as an empty volume and ultimately as a shuttlebay. This would explain the awkward shape of the "hatch" on the ventral side, as well as the unconventional overall shape and size. We might also consider the interesting characteristic of the bow module, its ability to dock with DS9 and provide airlock passage without there being externally visible docking and passage features. There are instead two elongated side-by-side panels there, something we could interpret as covers for said docking features (which would pop up much like refueling probes do from today's fightercraft bows). Why two docking tubes? Naturally because boarding tactics have demonstrated their effectiveness against the Borg so often before! The idea of detaching the bow module for a ramming run is in harmony with the clear separation line, but the purpose of the ramming might not be the futile delivering of a conventional explosive charge but instead the insertion of a boarding party. Echoes of antique Roman naval warfare there... Definitely lose the lateral access to the bow module. But perhaps rework internals to allow for two parallel bow exitways, and for rooms in which redshirts would wait for their fifteen minutes of glory in the original incarnation, but which would be converted to the more mundane use suggested by the MSDs when Sisko took purchase of the vessel. Timo Saloniemi
There might not be corridors in the warhead leading into deck 2, but the DS9TM does show them. Maybe this is one more detail on which I'll have to deviate from that, which I'm trying to do as little as possible. I've already deviated on the shape of the ship and the proportions of the interior layout, but that was necessary, as are some points where onscreen evidence has to overrule those deck plans. I'm still figuring on the deflector hardware being on deck 4 and the airlock on deck 3, as shown in the TM deck plans and every cross section published. My figures for decks 2 and 3 have the opening for the drop-launch bay (dark centermost circle) scaled at 10.7 meters in diameter, and the length of the Chaffee is 6.5 meters, at least according to EAS. So I should be on safe ground there.
Just to be clear, The Defiant wasn't my design. More like Jim Martin and the gang over at the DS9 art department. Rick
I really had nothing to do with the creation of the Defiant, though I did write about what I thought were particular engine parts, etc. for the DS9 Tech Manual. If anything about the descriptions sounds particularly screwy, then it's all on me. But the way stuff looks is for others to man up to. Rick
You see that the Chaffee scaled at EAS's recommended length of 6.5 meters seems to fit reasonably well, with clearance pretty much as seen in DS9: The Sound of Her Voice.
I wouldn't worry about the shuttle bay, LCARS24. The only thing that does concern me is that the TM has images of a hanger behind the shuttle as it sits on the drop pad. But shows the computer cores on the same deck and corridors in the front.