Starship design history in light of Discovery

[Tuskin38]

If it was shown in season one I don't remember it and must mean we will be getting it eventually,

Oh no, sorry. I meant the location the hologram was located in the trailer was first seen in season one.

The ship wasn’t in season one. Bad wording on my part.




The Nimitz changed quite a bit between Eaves final Concept Art and the screen version.

According to the Eaglemoss booklet, The bridge was on the saucer but moved to the roll-bar, and the shuttle bay was on the roll-bar and moved to the main hull. The roll-bar also appears to be higher up in the show version.

 

[Tuskin38]

Nimitz with TOS style hull material

And TMP Era

 

[Rahul]

Nimitz with TOS style hull material

And TMP Era

They look both even better than how it was in the series!

 

[fireproof78]

Nimitz with TOS style hull material

And TMP Era

It's still a beautiful design. Still like the show's hull platting though.

 

[Rahul]

I think the brighter hull painting does so much in giving the ships grace and gravitas. I really miss that. Since ENT everyhing is always dark grey... IMO doesn't look nearly as good.

 

[fireproof78]

To each their own. The grays of the show remind me very much of real world ships so it appeals to my sense of naval aesthetics.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

I'm really liking both those hull panel aesthetics. Reminds me of Pacific 201's hull designs. The TOS one is my favorite. No surprise there.

 

[pst]

here's a pretty cool turnaround of the USS clarke and renders of the malachowski-class by an artist working on star trek: online.

 

[Tuskin38]

Apparently CBS didn’t send him the textures with the show model, so he asked eaglemoss to send him some high res renders of their model so he could make the textures for his.

 

[cooleddie74]

Nimitz with TOS style hull material

And TMP Era

That's a good-looking starship by Discovery standards! If only they'd gone this route with the hull colors and texturing.

 

[Rahul]

To each their own. The grays of the show remind me very much of real world ships so it appeals to my sense of naval aesthetics.

Huh. I guess that's exactly it why I don't really like it. It looks Navy grey.

I prefer the Star Trek ships in NASA white. I think I view the crews of Star Trek more as astronauts on an adventure. And I want the ships to reflect that.

I'm completely fine with that military look in Star Wars though, or (especially!) on Battlestar Galactica or B5, where it IMO clearly belongs. In Trek... not so much. Gimme' brighter Trek ships all the day!

 

[XCV330]

Huh. I guess that's exactly it why I don't really like it. It looks Navy grey.

I prefer the Star Trek ships in NASA white. I think I view the crews of Star Trek more as astronauts on an adventure. And I want the ships to reflect that.

I'm completely fine with that military look in Star Wars though, or (especially!) on Battlestar Galactica or B5, where it IMO clearly belongs. In Trek... not so much. Gimme' brighter Trek ships all the day!

I liked something Drexler said about his idea that the TOS Enterprise had some kind of smooth coating that reflected light or glowed in some high tech way, and that's why it looked like that.

 

[XCV330]

here's a pretty cool turnaround of the USS clarke and renders of the malachowski-class by an artist working on star trek: online.

Eaves nacelles always make me feel like they can be detached and used as some sort of high tech shaver

 

[Tuskin38]

The 3 bussard layout is similar to the inside of the Sovereign's nacelles

In fact, the Sovereign's bussards are very similar in design to the NX-01's and the DSC Connie's.

Huh, and look at the very rear of the interior, the 'off axis field controller" very similar to the TOS Connie and NX-01.

I don't know if Eaves designed this or not.

 

[fireproof78]

Huh. I guess that's exactly it why I don't really like it. It looks Navy grey.

I prefer the Star Trek ships in NASA white. I think I view the crews of Star Trek more as astronauts on an adventure. And I want the ships to reflect that.

I'm completely fine with that military look in Star Wars though, or (especially!) on Battlestar Galactica or B5, where it IMO clearly belongs. In Trek... not so much. Gimme' brighter Trek ships all the day!

Well, ultimately it's of little consequence. Give me the adventure rather than the color of the ship.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Huh. I guess that's exactly it why I don't really like it. It looks Navy grey.

I prefer the Star Trek ships in NASA white. I think I view the crews of Star Trek more as astronauts on an adventure. And I want the ships to reflect that.

I'm completely fine with that military look in Star Wars though, or (especially!) on Battlestar Galactica or B5, where it IMO clearly belongs. In Trek... not so much. Gimme' brighter Trek ships all the day!

I agree that Trek ships look best in white. I even recall an old novel saying the ship was actually made of some spaceage porcelain. Although I'm aware it's much to do with old TV's and broadcast quality (and even unpainted AMT models) when compared to the original model, I always imagine the Enterprise as bright white.

The Kelvin movies got it 100% right. This is the colour of MY Enterprise:

 

[Timo]

Well, Pike's "The Cage" ship was a slightly lighter shade than Kirk's "Where No Man" one. Apparently, baryon sweeps weren't a thing yet: the ship must have started out white...

Finally a more reliable way to estimate starship age than looking at the registry numbers?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cooleddie74]

It's a good thing we can't accurately estimate a starship's age by the registry because then the Constellation with its NCC-1017 number should be considerably older than the Constitution on which the former starship is based. Alas, the NCC-1700 came before any of the other ships of her class.

 

[Dukhat]

It's a good thing we can't accurately estimate a starship's age by the registry because then the Constellation with its NCC-1017 number should be considerably older than the Constitution on which the former starship is based. Alas, the NCC-1700 came before any of the other ships of her class.

And the Grissom (NCC-638) should look even older, but it doesn’t.

 

[cooleddie74]

Unless we conjecture that the Grissom is about eighty years old or even older and the way the Oberth-class ships look in that timeframe is due to a major Constitution-style refit to look newer. Which I can't say I buy without evidence to the affirmative.