Defiant upsizing?

[Praetor]

Hmm, in my head that looks good. Would you propose a smaller ship or a bigger one?

 

[Unicron]

I'd have to think about it. I hadn't really considered the possibility before, and my brain's tired.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I wonder if it would be possible to combine a Defiant hull with more conventional nacelles - say Galaxy type? I'm just curious mainly, since the Defiant herself has very small nacelles. Not sure how many kitbashing options would be possible.

In that case you would end up with something that looks every much like the Nova class with a pair of enormous phaser cannons mounted on the nacelle pylons.

 

[Unicron]

That's certanly one possibility, but I don't think it would be the only one. I'll have to think about it some more.

 

[hellsgate]

There's tons of kitbashing of the Defiant-Class out there. I once found a ship called the U.S.S. Solidarity with an overhead module & conventional looking nacelles.

USS Solidarity 3D Model originally by Ed Giddings, modified by Nick Cheski

http://alphaweb.us/solidarity/gfx/solstryk2_02.jpg

http://alphaweb.us/solidarity/gfx/defenderx2.jpg

 

[Praetor]

The one with outboard nacelles is basically what I'd pictured in response to Unicron's suggestion.

 

[miraclefan]

This was a quick sketch I did this a while back as a larger cousin to the Defiant for a similar thought in another thread:

I haven't gone much further with it.

NICE SHIP! Praetor.

 

[miraclefan]

There's tons of kitbashing of the Defiant-Class out there. I once found a ship called the U.S.S. Solidarity with an overhead module & conventional looking nacelles.

USS Solidarity 3D Model originally by Ed Giddings, modified by Nick Cheski

http://alphaweb.us/solidarity/gfx/solstryk2_02.jpg

http://alphaweb.us/solidarity/gfx/defenderx2.jpg

The one with outboard nacelles is basically what I'd pictured in response to Unicron's suggestion.

I don't know guys..the Solidarity LOOKS good, but something about those NACELLS just does'nt LOOK right

 

[Praetor]

Thanks for the compliment on my ship. And personally I find those nacelles a bit oversized on the Solidarity.

 

[miraclefan]

Thanks for the compliment on my ship. And personally I find those nacelles a bit oversized on the Solidarity.

THAT has got to be it, I mean look at them, the nacells are very easy TARGETS!

 

[Herbert1]

How many did we see during the war? 4 or 5?

By name the Defiant, Sau Paolo and Valiant. Also there are several in the fleet at the end of "A Call To Arms" and we see two in the task force in "Message In A Bottle", so there are quite a few on screen appearances.

Considering that the DS9 Technical Manual suggests that the class was originally to consist of as few as six,

Well original plans are often fairly meaningless in real navies, I can't believe that plan would be carried through all the massive changes we see in the show.

...and that the Federation building several hundred of anything would be a lot of trouble in wartime,

Why? All navies try to standardise on designs in wartime to ensure they can build enough ships to keep pace, especially with small combatants. The Royal Navy and USN in WW2 built literally hundreds of escort ships to a handful of designs.

this seems like a big leap to make even before tackling the idea of them building several hundred copies of a mothballed design that failed to meet Starfleet specifications in the first place. Building them as hurriedly as the original was built could only make things worse.

Well building anything new in a hurry causes problems, but how often after the Search did we hear of any of these? I can think of two occasions, once in "Shattered Mirror" where Sisko handily resolves them all for the Mirror crew and in "The Sound Of Her Voice" when the Defiant cannot go to her top speed of Warp 9.5 without taking weapons offline.

The design is built purely for combat and still manages a lot of science missions and diplomacy, and can still zip around faster than the early Nebula class' on-screen maximum speed (Warp 9.4 in that silly DS9 ep with the nutty professor).

I'ds say she was a big success and a logical standard design for the Feds in the Dominion War. We see a lot more Akira and Nebula class ships in the later DS9 battles so I would guess these were standards as well...

I agree. The Defiant-class shouldn't be upsized. Despite what Okuda and Sternbach wrote in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, the Defiant-class, according to Sisko, was the lead ship of a fleet of ships designed to take on and defeat the Borg. The Defiant-class is a gunboat built around four phaser cannons and six torpedo launchers (four fore and two aft.) Starfleet classifies the starship as an Escort.

Six Defiant-class ships does not constitute a fleet. During World War II, the United States Navy had hundreds of Destroyer Escort (DE) class ships. I am thinking that the Defiant-class was intended to be built in similar numbers and could be built more quickly than a heavy cruiser or explorer class of starship. Remember, Starfleet was afraid of immenent invasion by the Borg and they needed to build a lot of ships fast!

If you upscale the Defiant-class to the size of the Intrepid-class, then you have justify why the Intrepid-class hull form isn't used and why time and resources are spent creating a bigger Defiant-class type of ship or the fan Valiant-class. I don't see why the Intrepid-class couldn't have the Defiant-class' phaser cannons and additional torp launchers. There could be a strike cruiser variant of the Intrepid-class. It might be a very poor explorer and might not offer the same crew comfort that USS Voyager (NCC-74656) does. Perhaps the areas of the ship where the holodecks are located on Voyager are used for photon and quantum torpedo storage.

During the WWII, the United States Navy operated Destroyer Escorts in groups of four ships called Destroyer Squadrons (DESRON). I presume that Starfleet intended to deploy the Defiant-class in much the same way. Remember, navies need small ships as well as large ones.

Also remember that Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien solved the engineering problems that plagued the Defiant-class design.

Nah, I'm thinking Praetor's design is closer to a Nova-Class / Defiant-Class hybrid, taking into account general size, plus the saucer configuration, & secondary hull, minus the new Defiant-like nacelles.

There's also this Valiant-Class by k_merse

http://armada2.filefront.com/file/Valiant_Class;91866

http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/16/files2/91866_2.jpg

http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/16/files2/91866_4.jpg

The actual designer of this class is named DJ_Curtis. k_merse modified the files created by DJ_Curtis.

Thanks for the compliment on my ship. And personally I find those nacelles a bit oversized on the Solidarity.

THAT has got to be it, I mean look at them, the nacells are very easy TARGETS!

Having the nacelles exposed like that is contrary to the intent of original Defiant-class design. The Defiant-class nacelles are surrounded by ablative armor and the design is meant to protect the nacelles.

 

[miraclefan]

WOW! that Valiant class vessel is a BEAUTY!

 

[Herbert1]

WOW! that Valiant class vessel is a BEAUTY!

DJ Curtis designs beautiful models and is probably one of the best Star Trek: Bridge Commander modders out there.

 

[shanejayell]

It'd be interesting if the nacells were movable. Deploy them out like illustrated for high warp, pull them in towards the ship for combat?

 

[miraclefan]

It'd be interesting if the nacells were movable. Deploy them out like illustrated for high warp, pull them in towards the ship for combat?

That's not a bad idea, BUT could it be done for a ship that size?

 

[SoM]

Also remember that Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien solved the engineering problems that plagued the Defiant-class design.

I always got the feeling that O'Brien instituted a bunch of workarounds that basically involved nerfing the overspecced systems (especially the engines) so that the other systems could cope. It's the big Achilles' Heel of the ship design - they started with a big engine and a load of guns, and forgot about the rest [in other words, Sisko started by thinking like a fanboy ]. Otherwise, they wouldn't have needed to trade systems off against each other (phasers vs. SIF) as late as Sound Of Her Voice (at the end of S6) to get to the sort of speeds other Starfleet ships of the period could manage without undue stress.

Now, perhaps with all the data they accrued with the ship in actual use they managed to fix many of the problems on the later Defiant-class ships, including the São Paulo/second Defiant, but I never got the feeling O'Brien fixed everything single-handedly.

 

[Lyon_Wonder]

I'm not sure I understand what is being asked, especially as regards the word "upsized." You can't simply scale up a design. With something as complex as a starship, if it's a notably different size, then you've basically started from scratch and are designing something new, even if its intended purpose is similar to that of its inspiration.

Well, there's the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which has 2 or 3 classes of different sizes despite they all look alike

 

[Praetor]

Klingons have no imagination.

 

[Patrickivan]

This was a quick sketch I did this a while back as a larger cousin to the Defiant for a similar thought in another thread:

I haven't gone much further with it.

Damn, I really like that, and I'm not a big fan of the uni-hull defiant design... That looks terrific!

 

[Praetor]

Thankya. Maybe I'll try to work on some orthos for that this week since I keep procrastinating.