Wow, that is really impressive. I know this wasn't your point, but mad props to whoever built that. I'm left wondering, though: what are the two bits with the yellow flooring? That is, the oddly shaped room at the bottom of the layout, and the smaller one adjacent to the bridge. At least from this vantage point, they don't resemble anything I remember seeing on screen.
It was built by Matt Jefferies during the original series run as an aid for new directors to help visualise the sets, compose camera shots etc http://wrathofdhanprops.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-lost-set-matt-jefferies-old-school.html
I modified the image into a link because it seems to be hotlinked from Ex Astris. For future reference, please use an image host like imgur for inline images.
I don't consider it debunked at all. For one thing, in the 35 years since the Excelsior first hit movie screens, no one has made accurate drawings. I aim to rectify that and am nearly finished. While 546 meters fits some of the exterior details a bit better, 467 also fits. Sinking the bridge as Jefferies did eliminates that as an issue (and there are details that no amount of resizing can fix). The TOS and TMP ships have similar design features and in none of those cases is a change in scale required. It doesn't really fix anything and ends up breaking other things. And considering the structural design needed for these ships, modifying the space frame and replacing the hull would be a simple procedure. Every single part of the hull shape was restructured. And from a real world point of view, the Franz Joseph plans were the version of the TOS Enterprise that the TMP refit started from. And many of the design features are consistent with the established scale. I think scaling any of these larger ignores some very practical aspects of design. For one thing, it isn't until TNG that we get service tunnels all over the ship. The previous ships don't have 12 foot deck spacing because there was no need - no intended function.
Not just the external features but the deck layouts according to the Okudagrams were examined as well, from what I remember (although it's been a while since I revisited those threads). However, if you are not concerned with set dressing like that in a literal sense and are more focused on the structural and engineering aspects of building a consistent fleet, then of course your designs will yield different results. Regardless, I look forward to seeing your work and a fresh perspective on the Excelsior. Externally the two ships are and always have been a fairly close match in size. The main reason I suggested increasing the overall lengths from the "official" figures would be to accommodate the sets as seen onscreen - the width of the Cargo Deck is a good example of this, along with the long corridor outside the TMP Engine Room, the cavernous flight deck of TOS and everyone's favourite topic of the offset turbolift on the TOS Bridge. But if a literal interpretation is not your goal, then these aspects cease to matter. If that is the case though, will you still keep the Bridge/turbolift as offset? As far as I can tell, the only reason this was done is to make for more interesting camera shots so there really is no reason why it can't be situated at the rear of the Bridge; just like the USS Reliant, and far more in line with Matt Jefferies' aeronautical background. Does that go for the Engineering Hull as well? The TMP refit had several 12' decks; not just the Engine Room but the Cargo Deck as well. Would these have had a TOS equivalent or do you imagine that these decks were expanded during the refit?
Yes for the shorter decks I was specifically referring to the saucers in each of the ships. The engineering Hull in all three ship's is varied with some being really short and some being really tall. The solution I came up with in the Excelsior is that in one section the ports lead to work rooms in a warehouse type situation that are located on either side of the main cargo bay so externally the portholes line up to a much shorter deck height. And all the other port holes line up to regular decks. But the Excelsior has some added complications in that chasm in the bottom, which is a shuttle Bay as the modifications for Star trek VI placed two shuttles in that area. But the portholes that are along the hall below the top of that area have barely any so the portholes on models do not necessarily make sense at all times. What I've concluded is that what we all see is portholes may not all be portholes. Some could be access hatches for scientific experiments or special sensors or you could just have multiple ports in one deck in a very interesting configuration. And on all three ships the portholes that have the most problems are the ones on the edge of the saucer. In all cases they did not leave enough space between the two rows for a full deck unless the ship is absolutely huge. On the other hand, if all these portholes on the edge of the saucer lead to recreation areas then you have some that are a eye level and some that are higher, perhaps to see from some other feature of the rec deck. And the motion pictures make use of showing us how thin the decks are in many places. Engineering decks are spaced wider but nowhere are we shown a deck that is half a meter thick. The deck thickness is at most one foot on all ships. The TNG Enterprise is an exception but is from another time that I'm not covering. I think anyone who uses the TNG era to reverse-engineer the TMP era is making a mistake.any behind-the-scenes service corridors such as we see in Star trek V are on a regular deck between rooms not between decks. What are the tricks for understanding the original series sets is the way they were built. Only engineering and the bridge have ceilings of any amount. The rest of the sets had open ceilings and they had to make sure the walls were tall enough so that they didn't accidentally catch the rafters of the studio. so the 10ft height of the sets does not represent an intended 10ft height of the deck content but rather the necessities of filming in the 1960s. And in the TMP Enterprise that pesky corridor off the engineering room happens to lie right where the only logical place to put a turbo lift is on that deck. The rest of the layout we see on screen makes that corridor impossible because the deck thickness and TMP engineering Hall matches the portholes on the outside and matches the matte paintings of looking down the warp core shaft. Everything fits except that corridor so that corridor becomes a turbo lift. The convention we see on all the TV series is a single transporter room. It doesn't really make sense for a crew of 430 it doesn't really make sense for the crews of the TMP era, and really makes absolutely no sense for the TNG Enterprise. There has to be more transporter rooms then what we see. Not necessarily as Franz Joseph did them but that's probably where I'm aiming. We never see a cargo transporter but Franz Joseph analyzed the problem and saw no other solution and gave the Enterprise regular transporter rooms, emergency transporter rooms, and cargo transporter rooms. He failed in a lot of areas, but some things put good engineering to and came up with some very valid solutions that have never been contradicted. Rick Sternbach even duplicated some of Franz Joseph solution in his Enterprise D blueprints. He has 4 main transporters, but no additional ones, although the TNG transporter system is a century more advanced so it may be able to handle the other duties without dedicated pads. Such widely adopted solutions that fit the logic I'm not throwing out. Just resizing the exteriors, trying to fit Hollywood sets inside, and trying to fit the bridge above deck 2 within the dome. Jefferies lowered the bridge so that is the solution I'm using. I'm assuming the sets are approximations based on soundstage limitations. Kind of like the unfinished side of the TOS Enterprise we all flesh out. There is what they did and there is what it is supposed to be. I'm after that supposed to be. To get there I'm subtracting what doesn't fit with the sets.
This is my rough first draft based on other TOS plans but rooted in Jefferies cross section and a few details about the sets that I feel are important to include. I decided that for TOS and TMP, the deuterium tanks will be on the bottom. For Excelsior they will be in the oversized neck.
I really like that you're incorporating aspects of MJ's sketch into your design. This has not been properly attempted since @aridas sofia a few years ago and is definitely worth a revisit.
Yep, perhaps used in case of saucer separation? There's also the S1 Engine Room slightly modified to look like the one seen in the animated series: https://i.stack.imgur.com/mag2G.jpg
That is partly based on this which I believe came from Doug Drexler. However, it is too different from the NX and TMP warp cores. For my version I laid the warp core on its side with the dilithium crystals at the mix point just as in TNG. The strange object at the back of engineering becomes the element that siphons power from the reaction to run the ship's systems (the energizer?) and another stage siphons some of the plasma for the impulse engines. The anti-matter (the large structure over the yellow circle on the bottom of the ship) and the warp core (the key section under main engineering) and the deuterium processor/prep can all be ejected or removed for service. The deuterium tanks are in front of the anti-matter (port and starboard tanks with piping running to either side of the antimatter. For TMP the antimatter and the warp core are stacked so they can be ejected as a unit and the deuterium would be tanked aft of that. The change in engineering clears up most of the center of the hull to be the new cargo area we see in TMP. I've directly based the layout on Jefferies partitioning with deck placement based on the ports. In the saucer I'm leaning toward some of the decks being more mechanical, such as decks 2 and 4. Some of the decks in the neck as well, with deck 8 being separation machinery and turbo lift shafts. Being faithful to the model actually gives more height overall than Franz Joseph provided, though the positions of the ports make some difficult to place. With the bridge lowered for the Series version, deck 2 will not be accessible via turbo lift or have any space to work comfortably in. Ent D was designed with some areas like that so I'm not concerned. The important thing is enough room for the crew and equipment to run the ship. And since I forgot one part of the image, here is a new copy with the hanger inserted (original Jefferies drawing with forced perspective removed and shoved into the space he alloted for it). In trying to fit the hanger in I have found it is vital that nothing be in front of it because that is the only place to stick in the sets used in Journey to Babel when Sarek and Amanda come aboard. There should be a small vestibule there leading to a Turbo lift (perhaps not quite what the episode shows, but the same concept). The episode does not really allow for any other orientation for the scene that can fit in the ship. The side is impossible as there is no room. This also fits with the Star Trek V hanger.
It's nice to see that drawing in full for the first time. But I have a number of issues with it such as no turbolift between the saucer and the secondary (the way it blocked) and the engine room at the aft end of the saucer (there is no room for it and even if you cram it in, there is no room for same deck access (the hull curves up making any flat deck access impossible). It does seem to follow many of Jefferies suggestions except for his turbo shafts which go right through where the engine room is in this drawing. And from where the entity exits in Day of the Dove, Engineering has to be in the middle of the secondary hull. Franz Joseph did not do us any favors by placing it in such an impossible place in his drawings. I've placed it where I believe Jefferies indicated.
It's an interesting anomaly/feature that MJ sketched the Hangar Deck with forced perspective, given the there was none in the hanger miniature itself. The Engine Room in the saucer is on a higher deck level than the rest of the level, negating the problem of the undercut in that area at least. As for turbolift access through the connecting dorsal, there is a shaded area with the red power conduit suggesting a turboshaft there.
I believe Jefferies drawings were accurate to the miniature. Forced perspective makes a lot of sense when dealing with a camera and a miniature like that. It corrects for flaws that can crop in when shooting something like that. Jefferies cross section is quite clear as to the limits of hanger and when you adjust it to that it looks pretty good. But I think it is also clear that engineering is on the same deck as the hanger. That agree with Day of the Dove, though that episode has it all the way in the front rather than in the middle. Most of the newer cross sections I've found put it there.
From what can be seen of the miniature for the TOS Enterprise flight deck it doesn't have any forced perspective in it.
Mr Probert has a real gift for evolutionary design that other designers do not. Mr. Sternbach did pretty well with Voyager, too. It definitely looks like a TOS Enterprise from the TNG era.