Actually i forgot to put a dish on Ajax. Fixed! But putting deflectors into the phaser pods? Makes sense, since those usually have a clear front arc. Another one (with heavy phasers and a deflector dish) Hotspur class corvette
TO: Sean_McCormick, and everyone else here... I don't know if you've had a chance to follow the 23rd-century warptug thread in the Trek Tech forum, but my idea for a warptug starship (automated or manned, depending on configuration) bears some resemblance to some of your series of images earlier in this thread having to do with 22nd-century starships. The warptug concept is essentially an automated warp-sled, with places and apparatus for connecting cargo or starliner pods like those FJ envisioned in his 1975 "Tech Manual", as well as a crew pod that would make the ship into a "manned" robot warptug, a la TOS-R Antares. I brought this up in this thread because some of your designs for 22nd-century early starships are similar in shape to what I was trying to get with the warptug concept. These ships are designed to be simple, durable, reliable and easy-to-mass-produce robotic interstellar haulers. As such, their appearance would be an exercise in form-follows-function. I wanted this to be an alternative possibility to the TOS-R Woden, even though Woden was said to be an automated freighter, not a bulk-moving tug. Your Dauntless, Aeneas, and especially your Inazumas are all shaped very similar to my warptug concept. Here's what I'm getting at for a concept: the warptug is essentially an automated or semi-automated warpsled, built for hauling up to four FJ-style pods, possibly six, at a time. As you'll read in the thread, these tugs (I'll call them the Yellowknife-class, for lack of a better term) can also be fitted with the Antares-style crew module. The submarine-style shape is a logical tribute to the "original" Woden, and to Harry Dodemma's Imhotep. Most of the ship's internal volume is for (1: fuel storage, (2: engines, (3: automated machinery for ship's autopilot, tracking scanners, subspace radio for remote control, etc. There is a small bridge-style control center for personnel to board and take control of the ship if necessary. I would think a crude, Warp 1.4-capable smaller version of this was in use during the 22nd century for supply-hauling and asteroid mining, whether you factor in ENT or not. When Romulans started raiding, and later booby-trapping some of these robot ships, that's when things started to heat up and set the stage for the Earth-Romulan Conflict. The "modern" Yellowknife design evolved after the Federation was established, between 2161 and 2200. The submarine-style "conning tower" structure on the topside main hull would be a good place to connect the crew module to the warptug. This would make that structure a kind of "connecting neck". The nose-tip of the main forward hull houses a dish. aft of the dish is the bulkiest part of the forward hull, where the engine compartment (matter/anti-matter reactor) and automation is located. there would be a long, thinner tube back to a bulky aft compartment; the tube houses fuel tanks for long voyages, the aft compartment houses impulse engines. 180 degrees apart on either side of the main hull is a heavy wing-like pylon (think like FJ's Federation-class dreadnoughts' pylons, as opposed to those on Kirk's Enterprise) that leads to the warp nacelles. between the main hull and each nacelle, there is docking apparatus on the top and bottom of each pylon to grapple cargo pods for tugging. The main hull also has pylons extending straight up and down from the main hull to dock two more pods, for a total of six pods maximum capacity. The overall shape also has similarities to the NX-Alpha, insofar as the main hull and its orientation to the nacelles would be concerned. I was wondering if you or anyone else in this thread would like to use the toolkits to give a crack at this warptug concept. If you are, I'd love to see what you could do with it. Versions could be either ENT/22nd century/early Federation or pre-TOS/TOS-era. You're welcome to give it a try.
Hmm....I can only save the jpegs while browsing here in Explorer. I needed to come back on the site in Firefox to save the gifs and pngs - never needed to do that before...strange.
Am I the only one who thinks "heavy" and "corvette" don't belong in the same ship designation? There are some interesting designs here. How are y'all using those templates? They're just jpegs, right? Tony
I did not put "heavy" in the designation, the Hotspur is a corvette as you can clearly read. I just remarket that she carries heavy phasers (or megaphasers, if you prefer the SFPO designation), which i do not find odd for a ship of Starfleets military section. Actually they are gifs, but that also are just bitmaps. Layers with different interaction rules help in putting the parts together seamlessly.
The misunderstanding with the "heavy corvette" might have come from the rather big ship, so i changed the design of Hotspur. And the old design got relabeled: Constantin class patrol cruiser
Ah, didn't think of doing it that way. I'm a big Illustrator junkie, so I was hoping there was actually an EPS file package of these out there somewhere. Ah, well. <whimper> Tony
AFAIK Vance himself uses actually the same program i use, so i guess the stuff is actually created as bitmap.
What program is that, I would like to work on some designs myself and just working with things in windows photo editor can get tireing and time consumeing.
Sorry, didn't see the question. Vance (and i ) uses a version of Paint Shop Pro. After a long time another one from me, obviously this is my take at TOSifying the Kelvin Maxwell class explorer Roughly a decade before the "Four Years War" the Federation was at peace for a long time and people were questioning Starfleets politics on shipbuilding. The amount of time and resources going into building and maintaining a fleet of ships most of which were fully outfitted to serve in military roles in addition to their regular peacetime duties was critizised. The Maxwell class explorer was part of a ship building program of specialised classes, designed for minimum building and maintenance cost. Therefore the Maxwell was only lightly armed and was to be equipped with a new warp engine configuration -- two sets of warp coils in one pod. This was estimated to cost less than the traditional two nacelle configuration and due to favorable warp field harmonics led to a very low dilithium decay rate while being more versatile than a single nacelle confiration. Unfortunately the maneuverability at warp was considerable lower than in configurations with singles or pairs of traditional nacelles - this prevented this configuration to get into widespread use. The weapon configuration of Maxwell was limited to beam weapons, since this class was not supposed to be used in military capacity, torpedo tubes were deemed unnecessary. Nevertheless, when Maxwell was launched in 2235, she carried one, "mis"labeled as "Rapid Probe Deployment System". 24 ships were build, they were upgraded in 2257, the survivors were refitted into Schrödinger class in 2274. Maxwell as build Röntgen was launced with an experimental main sensor in 2238, which she kept to her upgrade in 2257. Faraday after 2257 upgrade
Must be nice. When I do my image-bashing, I just use the "transparent background" setting on Paint, do my overlay, then spend hours pixel by pixel erasing or redrawing the detail lines as needed...
The program i use is a old version, which i bought for ten bucks from the bargaining bin years ago. Also, i'm told, there are some freeware tools out there (The Gimp for example), that can do layers. Schrödinger (Maxwell refit) class
Zombie Thread!!! GEAAAHHHH!! RUN!! But seriously, considering it's called "Vance's toolkit". I would check with Vance. He posts on the board and has a website. Here's a copy. (scroll ALL the way down) http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/vance.php
Yep, basic rules for the toolkit are: 1) Somewhere where you post your image (it doesn't have to be in the image itself), say where you got the tools from. (Ideally, www.jaynz.info) 2) Credit any original design you've built from. (IF you've built a Miranda variant or Kelvin redeux, then mention it) Simple as that. Speaking of these, the first of the 'color' toolkits will be released for consumption by Friday. This will contain a number of TOS related parts, and will be found in a new area of the gallery at www.jaynz.info
Great, I'm looking forwards to that. It was your tool kits that got me into starship designing proper so to speak
Hey Vance, been meaning to ask. Why no Excelsior love in your toolkit? The only parts from it I saw were the nacelles. And come to think of it, where is the toolkit on your site? I can't find it. Oh, and all of the image links for the ships seem to be broken.