Building my own star ship
- Thread starter Johnny
- Start date
Thanks!
- I've added some floor markings. Probably should be textures, but meh!
So with the internal structure I figured I'd start with the turbolift network. I feel like that's going to define how everything else fits in. Weirdly, and though I never really thought about this before, you can't just put a massive ring around the outside of a deck cus that just cuts off the outer sections to the inner. So I figure I'll do something similar to what I've done here with the inner ring and step them as I go round.
(And jefferies tubes... that's a tomorrow problem...)
Trying to figure out where to place engineering, I was going to put it under the shuttle bay but there's ended up not being enough height, so I've found a spot in front of it. But because most of the secondary hull is going to be taken up with the deflector dish and a relatively stupid idea that all three torpedo launchers should go in there too, I'm going to have the core ejection shaft going up and out the top of the ship rather than trying to clear a long route through the bottom.
The engineering set in there was done before the hull based on 3m deck height, so it's at 2.5m (I'll adjust that later) and it's still not finished, but it was the trial to see how the 4m x 4m sections could fit together.
The engineering set in there was done before the hull based on 3m deck height, so it's at 2.5m (I'll adjust that later) and it's still not finished, but it was the trial to see how the 4m x 4m sections could fit together.
Yeah, that moment you're starting populating a ship's interior and realise hot damn, that's a lot of ground to cover. And I even had that with a smaller science vessel. This? This is a bona fide cruiser. That's a whole lot more...
Well I'm half way through adding two side loading cargo bays... another two couldn't hurt!
And storage tanks has just reminded me I need to add M/AM tanks. :/
I should have started with a shuttle :s Got any links to yours? Wouldn't mind a peek!
Sure thing! If you hit the image, it'll take you to a bigger version. Probably easier to spot details like that. If you context click and "view image" on that bigger one, it'll take you to an even bigger version! Pixels galore...
Ah thanks! I really need to learn how to do a cut through! The most annoying thing I'm grappling with at the minute is how exactly I'm going to deal with the outer hull connections to the inner hull. Like, the surface wraps round the inside of a window and connects to the inner wall, but then I want to replicate inner sections around the saucer, so either all the windows have to be in sync or I need to build everything with a certain split on the inner windows... argh... it's too late for this kind of thinking!
Either way I've started working on (one deck's) quarters...
With a round saucer it's easier, but yeah, you'll find that windows in relation to the crew quarters vary every. sinle. deck. I don't know how other software handles recurring objects, but in SketchUp I create components out of the crew quarters and then have the shape of the window as an extruded object that I copy together with my components. The components stay the same, the extruded part gets cut off onto the hull.
Wow! Your ship really is spacious, @Johnny. I don't think I've ever seen this type of interior view of other ships, so I'm glad you're sharing these work-in-progress images. Normally, I find it difficult to conceive of just how much space there is inside starships - an MSD-style cutaway, or interior sets really don't sell the sheer volume that's there. 
Blender will do linked objects (ie create it at 0,0,0, then any changes made apply to everything linked), I think I can create at the right distance from the centre that they'll rotate around the centre point, but then that means creating the object for every single deck, which might have to be the compromise. Linking the window blocks for future removal may actually be the best way, do it at the end. I'll look in to setting that up.
Wow! Your ship really is spacious, @Johnny. I don't think I've ever seen this type of interior view of other ships, so I'm glad you're sharing these work-in-progress images. Normally, I find it difficult to conceive of just how much space there is inside starships - an MSD-style cutaway, or interior sets really don't sell the sheer volume that's there.
Yeah didn't have a clue what I was getting myself in to... This video was interesting on the space within a ship. Does somewhat explain how they can transport several thousand people.
My initial thought was to aim for something bigger than the Galaxy, I'm so glad I didn't! However I think it's about here... 602m.
Tbh it never crossed my mind. I started building and just defaulted to movie nacelles. It might be that I just cant imagine a variation of the galaxy nacelles that would be better, without it looking like a ripoff or copy and paste.
The galaxy is quite a specific design though and good, almost the oddball out of most of the otherships, specifically the rear mounting of the nacelle pylons. I think it's a pretty different approach to overall design that wouldnt lend itself to working unless it's a very VERY well thought out design. And I'm making things up as I go along so maybe it's just not something I can do off the cuff.
But i really have a soft spot for the ambassador class, think that's where my circular saucer comes from. I'm not too fussed about the sovereign design but I think the Nova class got the nacelle proportions right.
I did see a Galaxy MK3?? somewhere on the net which was a halfway galaxy/sovereign mix which I thought was quite good.
But at least for this design I'm not sure I'm skilled enough to make galaxy nacelles work. Maybe when this is done next century I'll give it a go
no kidding! when i tell my trek buddies that i prefer ambassador to galaxy, they call blaspheme. i have the eaglemoss XL models for A through D, and although it bothers me that they are all roughly the same length (about 10.5") rather than being proportional to one another, the size and feel of the enterprise C model is perfect.
That is true geek-dom! "My models aren't proportional to each other!" Love it!
when you see them drawn alongside each other like in the TNG technical manual or the enterprise owners' workshop manual it's just crazy how much larger the D is to the TOS ship. i've always wanted to be able to show that scale on my bookshelf.
sidenote: the TMP refit (including ships like the reliant and the bozeman) is my favorite trek design era of all time. nothing can beat those nacelles in my eyes.
I think you're in need of a 3D printer!
Yeah those nacelles are cool, thin, tall! I really like the Constitution Phase II nacelle setup. Mid mounted pylons just make me go gooey!
