TOS Enterprise Internals

[Mytran]

I'm glad you would stick with Jefferies' cross section for any future projects; it's always impressed me that you took that sketch of his and made it functional!
The amount the undercut intrudes onto the corridor is fairly minimal - a small tweak would fix it, as per Yotsuya's suggestion:

In this case I've just dropped the floor a foot or so, but the effect would be the same if you raised the floor up instead

To anyone who's interested, this is an expanded explanation that Aridas gave for some of the components on his cutaway. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/federationreference/focus-1701-t324.html
The images are long gone but were just zoomed in snippets of various sections. The descriptions make for some fascinating reading!

 

[aridas sofia]

You are right, there is room for the engine room itself to sit atop the neck. That isn't the issue. It is access to Engineering as seen in the series. The corridor outside Engineering can only be as wide as the dorsal because of the undercut. Even using your front rendition of the undercut, the floor of the corridor as you have drawn it has to go up about 2 feet to clear the undercut. I also see that you swaped the ladder and corridor placement, which would make the problem even worse if you correct that to match the set.

Also, while you quite nicely used the wide neck to have two turbo shafts go around the piece of engineering you placed in the neck, at the base of the neck you have the shafts lining up to the front edge of the dorsal and that is impossible. They would be outside the hull. I really see no need to have the bit of engineering be in the center of the neck. We are stuck with that in the TMP refit, but we aren't in the TOS version. But in the TMP refit, they left room for the turbolift to fit in front of the warp core (you just have to omit a corridor that doesn't fit). Your plan would work much better if you use the 1st season set design for the saucer engineering room (the ceiling is 3-4 feet lower) and raise the floor and then omit the DTD from the floor and the shaft in the neck.

Other than those issues around the neck and undercut, I think your cross section is one of the best I've ever seen. I like how you pulled in so much from Jefferies. Very well done. And nice job inserting some of the less well remembered sets.

Have you considered a centerline location for primary engineering that would put it at the correct distance from the center for the set’s curved corridor radius? That might get it close to the beginning of the “reactor loop” topside the saucer extending forward of the impulse engine cowl. That location would line up the area behind the mesh cage with the reactor loop, keep it clear of the undercut, and make it sit right with the corridor.

 

[yotsuya]

Have you considered a centerline location for primary engineering that would put it at the correct distance from the center for the set’s curved corridor radius? That might get it close to the beginning of the “reactor loop” topside the saucer extending forward of the impulse engine cowl. That location would line up the area behind the mesh cage with the reactor loop, keep it clear of the undercut, and make it sit right with the corridor.

Well, for one thing we are working with different drawings of the ship. Your saucer is slightly wider and taller at the edge than what I show the 11 foot model to be, so the room is even less than what you have in your drawing. Second, for the 2nd season engineering, the set has the engineering foyer, the short corridor with the ladder, and then the cross corridor. With the back of engineering right at the edge of the saucer, that puts the cross corridor at a place where it doesn't work if you want to have the long corridor approaching from the port side like they have in the series.

My solution has been to take the 1st season engineering (which has a shorter ceiling) and lower the ceiling a bit and lift up the entire thing 4 feet to clear the undercut and take advantage of the raised piece on the back of the saucer to keep the ceiling as high as possible, and it fits. I have found no way to make the season 2/3 engineering fit in that space. You have to move it forward of the undercut if you want the season 2/3 engine room to fit in the confines of the 11 foot model at the given length of 947 feet. You can also enlarge the ship to take care of the problem, but with the parameters I set for my project, my solution works the best with the season 2/3 engineering being in the secondary hull on top of the main M/AM reactor.

 

[DSG2k]

SOT, but is the 500 for TMP canonical?

I'd have put a hundred bucks on it . . . in my head I can almost still read the pencilled-in numbers 'correcting' my Mr. Scott's Guide . . . but either I am senile or they pulled an 82 -> 2 thing again.

Why, yes, that's a conceit that makes me happy and, no, there's no need to contradict it, thank you very much for noticing. ;-)

All I can find from TMP actually gives the number as 431 (so 430 sans Kirk).

 

[Mytran]

Is there something about it in the novelisation? I vaguely recall mention of crew size in the chapter about the Rec Room scene.

 

[DSG2k]

Is there something about it in the novelisation? I vaguely recall mention of crew size in the chapter about the Rec Room scene.

Mr. Scott's Guide claims 500, according to the internet (alas, my copy is no more). Memory Alpha claims "over 300" appeared in the scene.

Speaking of the Rec Deck, though, while looking into this I came across the story of Harold Michelson rejecting Probert's terraced Rec Deck set design that would've fit properly in the ship's hull on the grounds that "no one goes to a movie with a slide rule in his hand."

If that's not evidence enough for trusting the exterior over the interior, as in this project, I don't know what is.

 

[Mytran]

Mr. Scott's Guide claims 500, according to the internet (alas, my copy is no more). Memory Alpha claims "over 300" appeared in the scene.

Speaking of the Rec Deck, though, while looking into this I came across the story of Harold Michelson rejecting Probert's terraced Rec Deck set design that would've fit properly in the ship's hull on the grounds that "no one goes to a movie with a slide rule in his hand."

If that's not evidence enough for trusting the exterior over the interior, as in this project, I don't know what is.

I still have mine and I'm pretty sure it says 500 crew. I was just wondering if there were any other "near-canon" sources.

The Rec Deck debacle is a whole thread by itself! I recently ran some measurements (there's a couple of nice, flat shots in TMP and Deforrest Kelley is a known height) and I reckon each window bay (from strut to strut) is around 13 feet. Matching this to the windows on the model would mean a ship length of around 1,800 feet!

 

[David cgc]

Yep. MSG says 428 enlisted and 72 officers.

 

[Mytran]

I dug out the novelisation...interesting!

 

[yotsuya]

I still have mine and I'm pretty sure it says 500 crew. I was just wondering if there were any other "near-canon" sources.

The Rec Deck debacle is a whole thread by itself! I recently ran some measurements (there's a couple of nice, flat shots in TMP and Deforrest Kelley is a known height) and I reckon each window bay (from strut to strut) is around 13 feet. Matching this to the windows on the model would mean a ship length of around 1,800 feet!

Are you talking about the rec deck scene? That scene has people standing in front of the windows and I come up with about 8 foot wide windows, which matches the 1000 foot length of the ship. De is no where near the windows.

 

[Henoch]

To anyone who's interested, this is an expanded explanation that Aridas gave for some of the components on his cutaway. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/federationreference/focus-1701-t324.html
The images are long gone but were just zoomed in snippets of various sections. The descriptions make for some fascinating reading!

I can envision relocating the saucer engine room forward to connect off the main ~50 foot circular corridor with a full size pipe structure laying in the trough made by the dorsal neck. This still leaves room behind the pipe structure for large impulse engines and reactors plus room for the turbolift connection to the secondary hull. There is also space under the engine room for the doohickey in the floor center, and space for the ladder to go down to something below it outside the foyer.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

There is also space under the engine room for the doohickey in the floor center,

Interesting idea, which I know you have said before but I can picture better as you state it now. I like this as a way to tie in the appearance of older Daedalus-class ships, as then the center of the saucer would correspond to the sphere, and the pipe structure could extend through the tube-shaped neck through the entire secondary hull. Is there anything on the outside of the primary hull that could relate to the bottom of the triangular device on the floor?

Does anyone have a scale overlay of the engine room and the ship exterior from above? The top of the saucer has L-shaped red-outlined covers at area in front of the impulse engines, and I was wondering how they relate to the size of the engine room.

 

[aridas sofia]

Doesn’t the number of 500 crew - 428 junior/72 senior - originate with the Kimble TMP plans by Pocket?

 

[yotsuya]

The plans list 428/72 and the cutaway poster lists 420/72.

 

[yotsuya]

Interesting idea, which I know you have said before but I can picture better as you state it now. I like this as a way to tie in the appearance of older Daedalus-class ships, as then the center of the saucer would correspond to the sphere, and the pipe structure could extend through the tube-shaped neck through the entire secondary hull. Is there anything on the outside of the primary hull that could relate to the bottom of the triangular device on the floor?

Does anyone have a scale overlay of the engine room and the ship exterior from above? The top of the saucer has L-shaped red-outlined covers at area in front of the impulse engines, and I was wondering how they relate to the size of the engine room.

The L shaped outlines are gray, not red. Here is my top view with the two different engine room sets to scale (947 length).

And here is a closeup that should have more detail.

 

[Mytran]

Are you talking about the rec deck scene? That scene has people standing in front of the windows and I come up with about 8 foot wide windows, which matches the 1000 foot length of the ship. De is no where near the windows.

I thought the Deforest Kelley reference would have been enough, but I am happy to expand on my work.
No, obviously De is not in the Rec Deck scene. But since the rear walls were reassembled into the set that became the "Officer's Lounge", we can use his height to get a much better understanding of the wall's dimensions, especially those details on the same level as Kelley:

And while the Rec Deck is a less clear image, we can still measure the dimensions of the outer window frame and the size of the bay and see that they match those of the Officer's Lounge

Finally, while 8' is more or less in line with the width shown in the various scenes (it's hard to be sure because of those angled frames) I really can't see how how they are in any way comporable to the Rec Deck windows shown on the model.
In this photo of the model the saucer rim height and Rec windows are both visible.

Knowing that a 1,000' long Enterprise will have a 20' thick rim, we can deduce the following dimensions:

Now that image isn't entirely flat to the camera so the windows might be slightly wider, but not twice as wide!
In fact using Big Jim Slade's plans (with do feature a flat orthos of the Rec deck octant) the windows measure out at 4'9" wide which is not unreasonable:

However, to fit 13' bays in there would require expanding the windows to near gigantic size!

Suffice to say, no part of the Rec Deck set can fit into the rim of a 1,000' refit Enterprise

 

[yotsuya]

That isn't entirely true. I've measured the back wall many times and what I keep getting, even doing it different ways, is that the height of the back wall is 17-18 feet. That fits very well in the 20 foot thickness. Now, what they did with the rest of the set is tricky, but the back wall, from which everything else extends, is the right size. The ceiling in those scenes is a matte painting. What I figured out is that if you take the set as they built it and try to fit it in the saucer, you have issues until you cut the set in two (inboard and outboard) and fit those two sections into the saucer and then add in the missing section, which would be raised to account for the undercut. That also increases the capacity of the rec deck to hold all crew gatherings with closer to 500 people. There are over 250 people in the shot so if you make the area they are gathering in twice as big, you can fit the entire crew in there. The only discrepancy I see is that the windows on the model are smaller than the windows on the set and spaced proportionally closer together. My guess is that they made the windows as big as they could so you could see the $30,000 mural through it, and even then it is hard to see. In the lounge scene with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, that is a viewscreen, which can be any size. The rec deck scenes can be almost any scale depending on who you pull out of the back to for your guess at height. I typically pick this guy in the middle and assume he is 6' even. But you could pick the upright figure to his left or right and come up with a slightly different scale for that back wall.

 

[Henoch]

Does anyone have a scale overlay of the engine room and the ship exterior from above? The top of the saucer has L-shaped red-outlined covers at area in front of the impulse engines, and I was wondering how they relate to the size of the engine room.

Going back a few posts, I finally got around to putting words to sketch. I hope @yotsuya doesn't mind me using his artwork, but here's my concept of putting the S2/3 Engine Room in the saucer off the main 50 ft. dia. corridor (my scaling maybe a little off, but you get the idea). The turbolift path is up one deck (upper rim deck), and the Engine Room sits on the bottom rim deck extending up into the upper deck:

 

[Mytran]

That isn't entirely true. I've measured the back wall many times and what I keep getting, even doing it different ways, is that the height of the back wall is 17-18 feet. That fits very well in the 20 foot thickness. Now, what they did with the rest of the set is tricky, but the back wall, from which everything else extends, is the right size. The ceiling in those scenes is a matte painting. What I figured out is that if you take the set as they built it and try to fit it in the saucer, you have issues until you cut the set in two (inboard and outboard) and fit those two sections into the saucer and then add in the missing section, which would be raised to account for the undercut. That also increases the capacity of the rec deck to hold all crew gatherings with closer to 500 people. There are over 250 people in the shot so if you make the area they are gathering in twice as big, you can fit the entire crew in there. The only discrepancy I see is that the windows on the model are smaller than the windows on the set and spaced proportionally closer together. My guess is that they made the windows as big as they could so you could see the $30,000 mural through it, and even then it is hard to see.

I'm not sure what the relevance of the ceiling as a matte painting is, since in the movie is represents a roof of at least 25' in height. However, height really isn't the issue as the ceiling of the Rec Deck balcony is no more than 20' high which easily fits inside the saucer rim of a 1,000' ship. However, width is a major issue which is why I used those figures as my starting point. Maybe they did make the windows larger on the set to show off their fancy backdrop painting, but it is clear that the room itself had been built at a certain scale that really does not match well with the model's viewports:

In the lounge scene with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, that is a viewscreen, which can be any size. The rec deck scenes can be almost any scale depending on who you pull out of the back to for your guess at height. I typically pick this guy in the middle and assume he is 6' even. But you could pick the upright figure to his left or right and come up with a slightly different scale for that back wall.

The lounge wall may depict a viewscreen in the movie, but it is constructed from the same set piece which made up one of the lower levels of the Rec Deck and as such has the same dimensions. That's why I used Kelley to scale the widths.
The Rec Deck scenes cannot be any scale, because we know the ballpark dimensions based on the Wardroom scene

 

[yotsuya]

There are quite a number of ways that set doesn't fit inside the ship. Unless you modify it. Same thing I've been saying all along. But the point I was making is that the wall they build DOES fit. The windows don't line up right, but the wall itself fits. With some relatively minor adjustments I can make a room of that general feel fit inside the ship where it is supposed to. It's another case of them building a set to the stage for filming rather than building a set that truly fits inside the ship. From my understanding, Probert had a logcial design that got axed in favor of a very illogical but beautiful set.