accurate Oberth-Class schematics

[Praetor]

Which shouldn't be much of a problem - the car could travel in whichever orientation, and would still be as big as the average lift cab of today.

It'd be smaller, actually, and that's why it's a problem.

But the whole silly curving->horizontal pylon structure looks like it was designed to make "classic" turbolifting as difficult as possible. Which is why I say that enlarging the dimensions wouldn't be all that rational: the structure clearly isn't optimized for this job, so it would be more fruitful to think of another job it might be optimized for.

It was just poorly designed, so scaling the ship up and/or thickening the pylons would make a lot of sense, actually.


Except externally there was no difference, and while it would be all fine and good to have an unmanned pod, why would you if you could just tweak it a bit and get a functional secondary hull.

But who says a ship that small needs an inhabitable pod?

Shuttlebays or cargo bays.

Except that the two side 'doors' are essentially blocked by the forward parts of the nacelles, or blocked enough that any departing craft would have to make an almost 90 degree turn to get out of it.

A design flaw in the shields, and as the gunner said, "a lucky shot". Though to be brutally honest I thought the BoP in ST3 was shown to be a lot stronger than a ship of its size should have been.

We must also remember that upon arrival at Genesis, Chekov detected 'for an instant, a scout class vessel' which Kirk suggested could have been the Grissom, suggesting in turn that the Oberth is a scout class. Of course, they actually detected the bird of prey, so then its possible that Starfleet considers them in the same type, and evenly matched and it was indeed a VERY lucky shot. Alternatively, Klingons are more aggressive and might focus more on armaments. Either way, I tend to cede the point that the BoP was shown too powerful.

Except it makes it harder to keep the bridge secure and easier to bring death to those on the bridge. At the very least there should have been an airlock system there.

Yeah, that was a poorly done set best ignored IMHO.

All the more reason to make slight redesigns in order to rationalize the design, either as a larger ship than depicted, or to correct the external design features to reflect a smaller size.

I don't think it needs 'rationalizing' though... 120 meters is the size it was originally meant to be and with a little wink to cinematic structure building I still say it works. I could buy a larger 24th century variant for the Tsiolkovsky, (a la the K'Vort class BoP) but to me the original still has to be 120-150 meters.

 

[Captain X]

But who says a ship that small needs an inhabitable pod?

To get at it so it can be repaired if nothing else. And I'm still not convinced the design makes a good "small" ship.

Except that the two side 'doors' are essentially blocked by the forward parts of the nacelles, or blocked enough that any departing craft would have to make an almost 90 degree turn to get out of it.

Which wouldn't be a problem for a cargo bay. Only the front one would need to be a shuttlebay.

We must also remember that upon arrival at Genesis, Chekov detected 'for an instant, a scout class vessel' which Kirk suggested could have been the Grissom, suggesting in turn that the Oberth is a scout class. Of course, they actually detected the bird of prey, so then its possible that Starfleet considers them in the same type, and evenly matched and it was indeed a VERY lucky shot. Alternatively, Klingons are more aggressive and might focus more on armaments. Either way, I tend to cede the point that the BoP was shown too powerful.

I don't think it needs 'rationalizing' though... 120 meters is the size it was originally meant to be and with a little wink to cinematic structure building I still say it works. I could buy a larger 24th century variant for the Tsiolkovsky, (a la the K'Vort class BoP) but to me the original still has to be 120-150 meters.

It was originally written to be a small ship, but it's pretty obvious that the ship was designed to be larger than depicted.

 

[Praetor]

Oh, I see what you're saying. You actually want to completely redesign it, externally. For some reason I couldn't wrap my head around that.

I'll agree the modelmakers meant for it to be bigger than it is, or just didn't know how big it was supposed to be, even if someone was keeping track of sizes.

 

[Captain X]

I wouldn't completely redesign it, I'd just make it either a larger ship and change some of the external details, or I'd redesign the exterior a bit to reflect the ship being only around 120-150m long. The overall lines would essentially be the same.

 

[Bill Morris]

So how's this? Still too tight, even with computer-controlled entry?

 

[Praetor]

I think it looks dandy.

 

[Reverend]

As for retractable landing pads, I don't seem any point. It's not as if shuttles need to sit on a solid surface in a zero gravity environment.

The idea would be that in order to dock with a collar, one needs centimeter precision; in order to squeeze through a door, one needs decimeter precision. But in order to bring a shuttle to micrometer-perfect halt against a solid surface of the ship, one only needs meter precision if said solid surface is a broad external landing pad. After that, the shuttle can then be rolled in through a very small and exacting doorway and anchored inside a shuttlebay that leaves only millimeters to spare.

Basically, the landing pad would be a means to match velocities without the need for precision engines or precision tractor beams...

Timo Salloniemi

If you look at the top view, there are a pair of smallish square apertures right above the aft cargo/shuttle bay. I choose to interpret them as an access way to the internal shuttle pads.
As you can see here: -

 

[Praetor]

Reverend, that is beautiful! Thanks for sharing that. I think your shuttle/cargo bay setup makes mounds of sense, and I prefer your access doors to the trapezoidal ones on the saucer being the entries. I'm curious, how do they get into the bridge with the turbolift shaft ending at that odd angle, do you have a different type of turbolift in mind? The more I see of your arrangement the more I like... are you close to finishing layouts for the secondary hull?

 

[Reverend]

That image is somewhat out of date. I've since lowered the bridge about 1/3rd of the way into into B-Deck to allow better clearance for the turbo shaft.

As for the secondary hull, I haven't made much of a start as of yet, but I should be reasonably simple. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether or not I should have a secondary bridge right on the bow. Mostly to explain how the bridge could have it's own airlock.

 

[Praetor]

Gotcha. I think moving the main bridge down slightly is the only sensible/feasible solution.

I think putting a secondary bridge near the front of the secondary hull is a pretty clever way of explaining the Tsiolkovsky's emergency hatch away. And if there are crew operating for periods in the secondary hull, and if most starships have auxiliary control centers, the secondary hull is a very logical place for one.

 

[Reverend]

I wouldn't completely redesign it, I'd just make it either a larger ship and change some of the external details, or I'd redesign the exterior a bit to reflect the ship being only around 120-150m long. The overall lines would essentially be the same.

If you read the thread title, you should get why I won't be doing that.

 

[Timo]

Then again, the doorway into emptiness didn't seem to be located in the front wall of the (auxiliary?) bridge: there was no viewscreen in the neighborhood, but rather a piece of railing and a couple of chairs facing the other way.

As for the "Naked Now" dialogue, Riker identifies the, ahem, evacuated area as "Their bridge". OTOH, when our heroes speak of emergency hatches, they seem to be saying that a starship has several: "an" e-hatch is blown, rather than "the", and when Riker gives his report, he even says that

Riker: "Apparently some were apparently blown out the emergency hatches."

So the ship could have several such features, despite the exterior showing essentially none. Perhaps there really is a practical need to blow lots of holes to starship walls in certain scenarios (say, evacuation in spacesuits, or intrusion into a dead hulk in spacesuits).

As for the feature itself, it is a round opening probably less than two meters in diameter, with a thick threshold to step over, and an equally thick upper beam to bump your head into (perhaps the lower and upper halves of a thick door that partially opened vertically?). It goes through a wall that is less than a meter thick, and then there are hints of thin door panels on the outer edge, opening horizontally. The outermost panel might have been the only one to be explosively removed, then...

One could also say there's a hint of white glare on the lower part of the vastness beyond, suggesting the closest hull surface is down there.

I might tackle this by placing the bridge in question on Reverend's Deck E, that is, in the lower dome that matches the upper bridge dome. It could be a tall, "through-hull" facility with upper and lower parts of conventional Trek bridge shape and with a vertical connecting shaft going right through the central computer for easy access to that crucial mission resource. That would take the term "bridge" back to its origins as a structure that spans the girth of the vessel to give visual access to both sides...

A hole blown in the aft wall of the lower dome would not be unduly visible in the "Naked Now" visuals, of course. And there would be maximal space there on Deck D for this "main corridor" that our heroes say adjoins the part of the bridge that they are accessing. You know, the one they beam onto, said to be right next to the bridge, and yet featuring a long straight stretch and a rectangularly branching layout rather than tight curves.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain X]

I wouldn't completely redesign it, I'd just make it either a larger ship and change some of the external details, or I'd redesign the exterior a bit to reflect the ship being only around 120-150m long. The overall lines would essentially be the same.

If you read the thread title, you should get why I won't be doing that.

Just my own musings and opinions - no offense intended.

 

[Reverend]

Then again, the doorway into emptiness didn't seem to be located in the front wall of the (auxiliary?) bridge: there was no viewscreen in the neighborhood, but rather a piece of railing and a couple of chairs facing the other way.

As for the "Naked Now" dialogue, Riker identifies the, ahem, evacuated area as "Their bridge". OTOH, when our heroes speak of emergency hatches, they seem to be saying that a starship has several: "an" e-hatch is blown, rather than "the", and when Riker gives his report, he even says that

Riker: "Apparently some were apparently blown out the emergency hatches."

So the ship could have several such features, despite the exterior showing essentially none. Perhaps there really is a practical need to blow lots of holes to starship walls in certain scenarios (say, evacuation in spacesuits, or intrusion into a dead hulk in spacesuits).

As for the feature itself, it is a round opening probably less than two meters in diameter, with a thick threshold to step over, and an equally thick upper beam to bump your head into (perhaps the lower and upper halves of a thick door that partially opened vertically?). It goes through a wall that is less than a meter thick, and then there are hints of thin door panels on the outer edge, opening horizontally. The outermost panel might have been the only one to be explosively removed, then...

One could also say there's a hint of white glare on the lower part of the vastness beyond, suggesting the closest hull surface is down there.

I might tackle this by placing the bridge in question on Reverend's Deck E, that is, in the lower dome that matches the upper bridge dome. It could be a tall, "through-hull" facility with upper and lower parts of conventional Trek bridge shape and with a vertical connecting shaft going right through the central computer for easy access to that crucial mission resource. That would take the term "bridge" back to its origins as a structure that spans the girth of the vessel to give visual access to both sides...

A hole blown in the aft wall of the lower dome would not be unduly visible in the "Naked Now" visuals, of course. And there would be maximal space there on Deck D for this "main corridor" that our heroes say adjoins the part of the bridge that they are accessing. You know, the one they beam onto, said to be right next to the bridge, and yet featuring a long straight stretch and a rectangularly branching layout rather than tight curves.

Timo Saloniemi

I may be misremembering, but I was under the impression the airlock was on the port side bulkhead. Of course I don't have TNG on DVD so I'll have to rely on someone else to confirm or deny that.
Regardless I don't thing the lower dome is big enough at this scale to fit the entire bridge inside so that the outer door clears the ventral hull.
As for referring to is as THE bridge, I would submit that determining which bridge is the primary and which is the aux would be dictated by the requirements of the mission, just as much as the module configurations and the crew compliment. In some instances, say when there's a large civilian science team it may make more sense to have the command bridge down with the engineering section with the crew while the dome in the primary hull becomes "mission control" for the science team.

 

[Timo]

I may be misremembering, but I was under the impression the airlock was on the port side bulkhead.

Hmm... It wouldn't be easy to tell port apart from starboard because all we see is a very partial set: essentially just two TOS movie chairs, and then the hole which is part of a flat plywood wall. It's not even a reuse of the TOS movie set or anything, it's just that wall. The wall in turn is a nice iterative process: the right side is just painted plywood, but the left side consists of the same console that Riker uses for viewing the scene! I think the console is stock material from Paramount's scifi vaults, and later sees use whenever sections of the Main Engineering set are blocked out for a role as other areas in early TNG.

As for whether it's an "airlock" or not, we see the less than a meter of thickness between the outer doors (of the TNG cargo hold / holodeck door type) and the inner wall (which has no corresponding doors visible, but does feature grooves that would allow door halves to slide up and down. The space is not very practical for somebody in bulky spacesuits, but might in theory still be an airlock. The blowaway nature is the main argument against this - but perhaps the "blowing" referred simply to a rapid opening of the sliding doors, in some sort of emergency mode, rather than the irreversible use of explosives?

One might even reinterpret the dialogue here, and claim that our heroes are talking about "emergence hatches" that are standard exit features used even in non-emergencies.

Regardless I don't thing the lower dome is big enough at this scale to fit the entire bridge inside so that the outer door clears the ventral hull.

If the lower bridge is inset halfway into the hull, this still allows the upper rim of the hole to clear the lower surface...

As for referring to is as THE bridge, I would submit that determining which bridge is the primary and which is the aux would be dictated by the requirements of the mission, just as much as the module configurations and the crew compliment. In some instances, say when there's a large civilian science team it may make more sense to have the command bridge down with the engineering section with the crew while the dome in the primary hull becomes "mission control" for the science team.

Makes sense. Also, if the ship has multiple bridges, "the" bridge for Picard and Riker would be the one where the hatch was blown.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

Perhaps it's the old trek convention of filming the bridge from stage right that left me with the impression that it's supposed to be the port bulkhead. No way to tell for sure from that image alone but we can make a few logical assumptions; firstly that it is most likely not on the forward wall, since that's where the viewscreen would be and secondly that it's most likely not on the aft wall since that would place the turbo/corridor access on either the port or starboard wall, which would mean the hull structure in which the bridge is located would have to be somewhat wider than the bridge and have a flat rear face with an unobstructed view of space. That would place it in the aft tip of the secondary hull, which I just can't see happening.

With that in mind, the forward section of J-Deck (between the deuterium tanks & the deflector) still seams to be the most logical place.

Out of curiosity, where are they viewing this image from? I have vague memories of a long stretch of corridor that's supposedly right outside the bridge and if that's correct then again, the secondary hull is the almost certainly where it should be.

 

[Timo]

They wanted to beam onto the bridge but couldn't, because there was no life support and spacesuits hadn't been invented yet. So they beamed into what they called the "main corridor", which was the wide straight-angled section of the corridor set, just outside Main Engineering in usual usage. There were branches to left and right, and Yar and LaForge went there to study the crew quarters. Riker and Data took a few steps straight ahead, which brought them to the end of the corridor, with the ship's dedication plaque to their right, and with a monitor (identical to the one we see to the left of the hole) straight ahead. Presumably there would have been an access door to the bridge immediately left of this console, had the camera panned that far, and had the set builders bothered. Riker then watched the bridge through this convenient viewer - and no, it didn't look like the one from "Airplane II" that doubled as a window on a door!

So one might assume that our heroes approached the bridge from astern, which of course doesn't tell us anything about their viewing angle. Except probably that Riker knew what the bridge of the ship looked like, and was able to immediately choose a viewing angle that would show the hatch to advantage. He didn't do much panning there (and the partial set wouldn't have allowed that anyway).

The fact that Yar and LaForge accessed crew facilities doesn't mean they were on that same level, but it's a distinct possibility. However, if the ship really held 80 people, there would probably have been quarters down in the pod as well, allowing this deck to contain both their auxiliary bridge and some serious personnel accommodation.

Anyway... If the bridge is to fit on the top of the ship, then a hole on the port side would indeed be nice, as we never see the port side up close (but we get a good view of the starboard side e.g. when Wesley pushes the ship to the approaching lump of nastiness). If it's on the bottom, then we probably wouldn't see the hole no matter where it pointed, but port, forward and aft would be preferable directions. Mad zooming might allow us to disprove an aft-pointing hole on a topside bridge during our first sighting of the ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

I think based on the straight corridor alone, J-Deck (deck 10) is the best bet.
Based on that description, I've roughed out what the layout might be and it seams to fit:-

I know the bridge doesn't match what we saw on the partial set, it's just a placeholder to see if there's enough floorspace. Plus I can't seam to find a floor plan for Ilea's quarters (I assume that was the set they used) so I gain I just dropped in rough placeholders

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Very nice work there Reverend, I'm really enjoying this thread

 

[Sarvek]

I am also enjoying this thread. Great work Reverend, your designs always make a great deal of sense and always well thought out.