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Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

Eh, let them. As big a nitpicker as I can be I sometimes just have to let the whole thing slide and realize "retro" isn't just a real world concept.
 
Or the Torpedo Tubes are canted slightly off of dead ahead by 5°-15° Port/StarBoard respectively for each tube.

Every Torpedo fired looks like their doing a wide angle turn and curving to their target
Oooh, possible, and as I think about it, having the tubes aligned straight ahead might actually NOT be best if you are likely to be making evasive maneuvers while firing them. The Titan fired and shoved off to the side at the same time.
 
I was right, that TOS looking version of the Phoenix was for ST09

John Eaves:

"It’s the Eleos!! Here is some concept are for the ship and thought you would enjoy seeing it. Long long ago, close to 20 years ago I did a very brief time on the Star Trek online gaming design crew up in San Francisco. Sadly the Perpetual company that was behind the game folded and Cryptic took the new lead for the game that is out today. However we did a variety of ship designs and a ship called the Phoenix was one of them. It caught the eye of Scott Chambliss on the first JJ film and we did an Original series take on it for the Starship Armada. It was never used but fun to get to carry the art in that direction. Fast forward to Picard and it also caught the eye of the production so with some tweeking and revamping of the design it wound up fitting perfectly into its new setting on the show. Basically it is a retired ship that has been reworked with a variety of new and old starship Tech so it is a mishmash of about 35 years of TNG architecture. Def a fun task to rework this old idea into something new. Once again Thanks to Terry Matalas, and Dave Blass for all the ship fun and especially a big thanks to my pal Doug Drexler who took those prehistoric 2D sketches and modeled them into a wonderful 3D model for the VFX crew. Always the best of times working with Doug!! Ok hope you like the art and have a good one.."
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Eh, let them. As big a nitpicker as I can be I sometimes just have to let the whole thing slide and realize "retro" isn't just a real world concept.
Retro style is one thing in the main shape but adding phaser banks that look retro would be pretty stupid in universe.

It's not a kettle or a car. They don't stick fake funnels on an aircraft carrier to look cool.

Let's call a spade a spade it was a mistake they made.
 
Looks much nicer as a TMP era ship.
Someone will probably give me a "good reason" but I think it's daft that the Titan A clearly has 23rd century phaser banks.
It has both banks and strips. I suspect the banks are used for close range point-defense pulse phasers (similar to Abramsverse use) and the strips are for long range persistent streams (24th century use).
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Screencap from Cygnus-X1
 
Not saying it's a serious problem, but it does stand out to me as the only example of a canon Starship design that obstructs its torpedo launchers. I mean, yes, the torpedoes are guided, but it just adds an unnecessary complication.

The Nebula-class has a launcher above the deflector, which would blow apart the captain's yacht if torpedoes were line of sight weapons.
 
It has both banks and strips. I suspect the banks are used for close range point-defense pulse phasers (similar to Abramsverse use) and the strips are for long range persistent streams (24th century use).
View attachment 33013
Screencap from Cygnus-X1
I like that. Technology gets recycled, upcycled, used for new things. Also, could the "banks" be phaser cannons now like what the Defiant has/had and that you see in STO?
 
Retro style is one thing in the main shape but adding phaser banks that look retro would be pretty stupid in universe.

It's not a kettle or a car. They don't stick fake funnels on an aircraft carrier to look cool.

Let's call a spade a spade it was a mistake they made.
Unless they are utilizing both, which stands to reason since on size should not fit all with weapons.
 
I like that. Technology gets recycled, upcycled, used for new things. Also, could the "banks" be phaser cannons now like what the Defiant has/had and that you see in STO?
I would think that it could easily be an upgrade from that, yes. Much better, even, as the Defiant's cannons were fixed and forward-facing hard points. You could only aim by pointing the whole ship at the target. Not as much a problem if the target was a huge-ass Borg Cube or Dominion Battleship (which it was admittedly designed specifically to fight), but against smaller quarry, I would think it to be quite limited. The T-A's banks use the older ball-joint phaser emitters, which provide a far more effective firing arc by comparison, coupled with a power output equal to, or greater than, Defiant's weapon systems.
 
I like that. Technology gets recycled, upcycled, used for new things. Also, could the "banks" be phaser cannons now like what the Defiant has/had and that you see in STO?
Could be. My head canon (until proven otherwise) is that the banks are the heavy artillery, and the strips are lighter calibre for tracking fast-moving targets.

DS9 in WotW also had a mix of fixed phaser banks and short strips.
 
Nice close ups.

I think I figured it out why the ships dont look as great as they could.

First a VFX ship primer, You have the actual mesh/model of the ship, you then "Texture" it with your aztec, markings etc, basically coloring the ship. In that texture you have plenty of options and sliders to mess with the texture. You can add a Specular Map, which is something like the aztecs of the Refit, how some paint reflect light more than another, and what color light it reflects. in another area You can have it glow, etc.

Now, there is another add area called a Bump / Normal map They basically do the same thing, fake geometry ( Details). Now this particular texture is valuable to game/low poly models, it fakes complicated details without having to model it in to the original model. Its great for games or far away ships, easy to render. Now these textures are usually large, 2000x2000 pixels are almost the smallest you can get away with, 4K or 8K even is better. This is for all the texture maps, color, specular, bump etc. bigger the better, but also the bigger, the more time it takes.

Now, from what i see of the Titan, I now see things that should have been modeled in are a normal map, things like hull lines, shield grid, etc. You have this on every movie model, but I belvie it is over used here. Things like the grid, hull lines, windows etc. should be modeled into your hero ship, because you can get close up to it and it still look good. It wasn't done here. and to me is the reason why it looks "a bit Fake" Once you get close to a normal/bump map, you can tell its normal maps geometry/details.

There decision, how much time, money etc. but just puting it out there on why it think it doesn't look as good as it could.

Edited for me being an moron, apologizes. Not to detract from there work. It looks good, just think it could be better. Sorry.
 
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Sorry, but I am diametrically opposed to this sentiment. Everything we've seen since the S1 finale has been worlds superior to the Zheng He copy/paste fleet. The T-A is beautifully modeled and the close-ups of the surface texture mapping hold up to high scrutiny. To say that anything this season is cheaply modeled is just objectively wrong and highly disingenuous. These absolutist Comic Book Guy "worst thing EVAAAAAR" comments are really starting to get on my nerves in their demonstrative incorrectness.
 
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