If not the California-Class...
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
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Behind the scenes interviews have already addressed that concerning the California class, turbolifts in the connecting struts. Certainly the same idea can be applied to the Oberth class, no?
Wellllll... The California class is considerably larger than the Oberth. One could more easily accept turbo lift shafts in the California’s pylons than in the Oberth, whose pylons may be just a tad-bit too narrow to fit such a shaft, especially at the multiple bend points.
Then again, we have the Disco turbo lift fun house now, so dimensionally transcendental interior infrastructures like that are probably commonplace by the late 23rd so
Then again, we have the Disco turbo lift fun house now, so dimensionally transcendental interior infrastructures like that are probably commonplace by the late 23rd so
Wellllll... The California class is considerably larger than the Oberth. One could more easily accept turbo lift shafts in the California’s pylons than in the Oberth, whose pylons may be just a tad-bit too narrow to fit such a shaft, especially at the multiple bend points.
Then again, we have the Disco turbo lift fun house now, so dimensionally transcendental interior infrastructures like that are probably commonplace by the late 23rd so
Maybe Oberth's had only Jeffries tubes to climb up and down in?
It might be possible to squeeze in two half-width turboshafts, directly next to each other; the 1701 TMP has pylons roughly half the thickness of the neck. Youtube videos take much glee in showing the thickness of the neck is the width of an average minivan. Still seems inefficient, given the types of duties Oberth is generally assigned to - unless all the labs and storage areas are on the bottom section only... especially if site-to-site transporters are down, there needs to be a contingency. As TOS first showed site-to-site (or intranet beaming*) during season 3 ("Day of the Dove"), it's a recent enough development that they'd go bonkers and create a ship relying on it more actively. Like the novelty of the pet rock but only more useful...
* like what Snotty did to President Skroob in Spaceballs only he didn't get anything on backwards...
Well that would be the in-joke for lower decks...you’re stuck in the lower hull until spacedock.
Snotty beamed me twice last night, and it was wonderful.
I think if I had been creating Lower Decks, I would have had the USS Cerritos be a Nebula-class starship. I was thinking initially that a Saber-class ship like they used in the Star Trek: Corps of Engineers eBook series might be a good match, but I get the impression that the Cerritos crew is supposed to be larger than those on the Saber class. I considered an Akira, but I think Akira-class starships are a little bit too cool-looking; the Cerritos's mission profile is supposed to be lower-level support missions, and the Akiras do a lot of important tactical missions. I then considered the Excelsior class, since I imagine they have similar mission profiles to the Cerritos post-Dominion War, but those ships are probably pretty rare after the war. Then it struck me that the Nebula class is a good option if you're creating Lower Decks but don't want to create a new starship class; they're large enough for a decent-sized crew, they're variations on the "saucer-and-nacelles-under-the-saucer" design that the Miranda class originated, and they've canonically been usually depicted in support missions rather than on important tactical missions. They're also kind of awkward-looking the way California-class ships are, so you could still do the bumbling-looking starship maneuvers they do on the show sometimes.
Which is odd, considering The Wounded implies the Nebula class is something to be reckoned with. Gul Macet even talks about some ships being "no match for a Nebula class ship." And indeed, the Phoenix even makes short work of the Cardassian ships it goes up against, even the ones that had its prefix code.
Yeah, I think the change in the depiction came down to aesthetics: going forward, the producers tended to favor ships for fight scenes that slimmer and faster-looking. Hence the Galaxy being succeeded by the Sovereign class in the TNG films, the Defiant appearing on DS9, Voyager being much slimmer, and the Akira class essentially taking over the role that the Nebula class was created for.
In fairness, the Nebula design opens up a question -- if it's just a Galaxy engineering hull and saucer without the connecting mid-section, why didn't Starfleet just make a lot of Nebulas instead of Galaxys, since it would theoretically have all the advantages of the Galaxy without the extra cost in time/resources of constructing the connecting midsection? My theory is that the Nebula's warp profile could never match the speed of the Galaxy and the other large ships of the late 2360s/early 2370s (Akira, Intrepid, Defiant, etc), and that's why production of Nebula ships decreased after those ships were launched and the existing Nebulas get reassigned to secondary support missions (e.g., transporting Gul Dukat to his war crimes trial).
Funny, I thought the Nebula class was supposed to be a modernized Miranda class. The California looks more like a modernized Ptolemy class.
As for the California class itself, had I been in charge of designing it, I would have made it far more utilitarian and dirty than the rather simplistic design that we got, and it absolutely would have been based on a TMP-movie-era ship rather than a newer Galaxy-style. And I definitely would have made the actual 'lower deck' be the absolute lowest part of the ship, to, you know, emphasize the entire point of the show.
As much as the Nebula-class is kinda cool, I've always thought that it's a bit too much like the Galaxy.
I would have liked to see the Springfield-class (Galaxy family Oberth) or the New Orleans-class used a bit more.
I would have liked to see the Springfield-class (Galaxy family Oberth) or the New Orleans-class used a bit more.
I think that in terms of the ship's physical appearance, what would work best would be a design that is awkward and/or clunky and/or utilitarian. An old rust bucket could also work.
The California class works because of its awkward appearance-like a saucer on stilts.
The aft section of the "Intrepid variant" looks utilitarian/clunky.
The Constellation class has a utilitarian appearance, has been a work horse, and became an old rust bucket.
The Miranda class looks sleek, but became an old rust bucket.
The California class works because of its awkward appearance-like a saucer on stilts.
The aft section of the "Intrepid variant" looks utilitarian/clunky.
The Constellation class has a utilitarian appearance, has been a work horse, and became an old rust bucket.
The Miranda class looks sleek, but became an old rust bucket.
This was also going to be my choice. I always had a soft spot for it. Even though it wasn't the most attractive ship it had character and it looked like a workhorse that could slug it out in firefight.
I'd go for a Nova-class (the upgraded or refit version seen in VOY's "Endgame"). It seemed like a jack-of-all-trades ship to me, only smaller.
Starfleets jeep!
The Rhode Island sub-type maybe, but the original Novas were anything but "jack of all trades":
JANEWAY: This is a Nova class science vessel, designed for short term research missions. Minimal weapons. It can't even go faster than warp eight. Frankly, I don't know how you've done it. You've obviously travelled as far as we have with much fewer resources.
That's why I specifically said the upgraded or refit version.
That appears to have improved on the firepower and maybe the speed, but the fundamental limitation is the size of the Nova vis-a-vis "jack of all trades", I mean it might be slightly more versatile than it's "cousin" the Defiant, but everything I've seen suggests the Cali is supposed to be around 300-400m (similar to the Centaur or maybe Springfield) which even as a mono-hull makes it a lot larger than the est. 165m Nova.
Not really. It's simply a matter of scale, but otherwise the upgraded Nova-class can probably be assigned to carry out a wide variety of missions from scientific surveys, to interdiction, to search & rescue, to even routine logistical support operations. Not all missions require a large ship.
