Vents vs Spheres.

So for the end caps of the warp nacelles do you prefer the vented look or the spheres?

 

I think both look fine; I just wish they had gone with one and stuck with it.

Also, I wonder what the actual thought process was that led to the ball caps. Who ever had those before Star Trek?

 

Maybe the vents are when the ship is travelling at sub light and the orbs protrude when the ship is at warp speeds? The moments when the ship is in orbit around a planet and you still see them is before the engines have cooled down too!
JB

 

If I remember right it's the difference between the 3 ft and 11 ft model

 

I like both but I think the spheres make the already impossibly cool ship look even sleeker.

 

I know that they were used interchangeably through the series, but in my mind the vents were at the end of the nacelles in the Pike/"Where No Man Has Gone Before" era, and the spheres were there during the series proper.

And the spikes at the other end of the nacelles were only there in the Mirror Universe.

 

Boy those spikes look stupid.

 

Didn't GR want no "rocket looking propulsion" gizmos on the ship. Maybe he thought the rear vents looked too much like rocket exhaust vents. Globes show "no rocket in here".

 

^This.
The ship was able to extend the spheres or retract them and have the vents. So I don't really pick which look I prefer. It also had retractable spikes on the nacelle domes, the bridge module could raise and lower, and the deflector dish could extend to become larger.

 

And by Season 2, all these features were removed during its refit when they upgraded the Engine Room and corridors outside it.

 

What spikes? Are we talking Mirror, Mirror here or the ENT episodes?
JB

 

The three foot model the one with the solid red bussards also has brass spikes sticking out of the center of them. If I remember correct some where around middle of season three they change that and fitted globes on the rear of the nacells to match the eleven foot model. I may be misremembering all that but it's close.

http://www.shawcomputing.net/racerx/trek_stuff/history/1701-33-inch.html

 

The way I understand it, whenever the 11-footer was modified, except for when it got internal lighting, the 3-foot model got upgrades to match. But stock footage from the two pilot episodes kept getting reused, even in the third season.

 

I'll buy that for a dollar.

 

As the opening credits show, the vents are exposed by retracting the spheres whenever the ship settles on orbit of red planets and are then utilized to purge the warp drive for the next sortie. It's only in emergencies such as at the interseason border of DSC that such purging takes place in deep space.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yup, That's the reason we see different end caps. The flat plates were first pilot, the vents were second pilot, and they changed to the globes for series production. When you see anything but the globes, it's stock footage they shot for the pilots. I guess they figured they spent money on the stock footage and it would cost more money to make new stock footage, so what the hell.

 

The spikes were always there - they're just retractable.

As for the aft end of the nacelle - vents seem to make more sense if the front-end is a Bussard collector.

 

But if you need a sphere in front for sucking, you might need a sphere back there for blowing, too.

Perhaps these are diffusers of some sort, to control the flow of whatever? Compare to these.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Setting up the 11 foot model in the farmed out studios was a huge undertaking. I'd be interested on how many times they shot footage of the model over the 5 years from the Cage to the end of the series. I get the feeling it was less than 10 times. It looks like they got all their shots of the shuttlebay model and shuttlecraft take-off and landing was done in one setting.

 

This should get you started:
Tallguy’s Original Series Enterprise Catalog
A shot by shot reference to TOS FX featuring everyone’s favorite starship.