Romulan Warbird

[Timo]

Not sure if that justifies the effort Probert went into in giving his paired warp engines completely unobstructed view of each other... And we still have TOS and TOS movie precedent for designs that don't have line-of-sight, or don't have nacelled engines at all, so certainly it's possible to build ships in other ways than this. Whether line-of-sight is better than the other variants is of course still open to debate...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Probert]

Not sure if that justifies the effort Probert went into in giving his paired warp engines completely unobstructed view of each other... And we still have TOS and TOS movie precedent for designs that don't have line-of-sight, or don't have nacelled engines at all...

There was really no effort involved. I was simply trying to establish technological guidelines for design continuity because I personally work better and with more consistency when they are established. If my successors chose to acknowledge the guidelines, good for them (for the sake of continuity), if not, that's their prerogative. Obviously, my guidelines are not retroactive, so all designs prior to TMP stand on their own. Still, I'm guessing there are more line-of-site engine pairs than not.

And on the subject of misinterpreted ship body-parts,... as a designer, it's my job to establish a ship & it's components as completely and logically (and consistently) as possible. Hollywood loves to brag about how film-making is a collaborative business, yet no one collaborates with us designers once the designs leave our desk/computer. When people ask about various parts & their functions, on ships I've designed, I tell them what those parts are, as designed. How they're actually portrayed is beyond my control... beyond my ability to 'collaborate'. Instead of using the intended twin disruptors in the 'head' of the Warbird, for example, some uninformed SFX guy shoots 'rays' out of the Navigational Deflector... not unlike using the Klingon Battlecruiser's Deflector to launch torpedoes.

If an Aborigine from some unexplored deep jungle wanders into today's society and uses a hammer, for instance, to break open coconuts, that doesn't automatically make it a coconut-breaker... trumping design intent. It merely means it was used differently than intended.

Still, the point is valid that if the Aborigine ran back home and showed his village the new 'coconut-breaker', that is what it would be... to them. And that's okay.

For what it's worth,
Andrew-

 

[Saquist]

I can appreciate that.
Having a reason behind the form allows for the design to take a more functional direction even if you're just making it up. It allows me to be consistent not just from one drawing to another but even in the same design.

 

[Unicron]

It's really cool to see some additional details and information. While I've never liked the idea of the warbird being monstrously huge in comparison to the Galaxy or other Federation ships, it's always been one of my favorites. I wish we'd gotten to see them used more as they were in eps like "The Enemy" and "The Defector."

 

[Disillusioned]

I'd just as soon go with design intent, personally. And I'd always wondered if the Klingon "torpedo launcher" was actually supposed to be a navigational deflector.

Anyway, if I knew CGI and had a lot of spare time, I would totally go back and redo all the VFX to correct stuff like that.

 

[Unicron]

IIRC, there was a Klingon ship in TAS that had a deflector dish in that spot, or at least I think that's correct. I also keep thinking it might have been referenced as a torpedo tube in The Making of Star Trek, but I don't trust my memory.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Sometimes for my own consumption I just assume that Romulans and Klingons use their main disruptors as deflector weapons for high warp (which means disruptors could be interpreted as some kind of graviton weapon, "disrupting" the space time continuum).

But when I can help it, yes, I invariably go with design intent. The Romulan Warbird looks a hell of a lot more intimidating when you can picture all twelve of its disruptor cannons ripple-firing at its puny Starfleet counterpart.

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay, here it is revised, with design intent trumping disruputor-cannon canon, etc.:

 

[Maurice]

Okay, here it is revised, with design intent trumping disruputor-cannon canon, etc.:

Neat! The only thing I'm surprised by is that you didn't change the "Nullifier coils" label to be the "Main Engineering" and point it under the "hump" as that's what the design intent was, and would seem a trivial change (of course, it does imply the singularity would be up there, too).

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay. This one should be done now.

 

[Maurice]

Okay. This one should be done now.

Wait...you moved the impulse engines forward so now there are decks AFT of them (in the exhaust path)? Or is that an error?

 

[Bill Morris]

That'a according to Mr. Probert's description that you posted on page 3 of this thread. There is a vertical slit down the center below that shuttlebay door he poiinted out That would, of course, have enclosed space port and starboard. It was never seen on screen but would have looked cool.

And the figure above I mistaklenly posted before removing that stray impulse engine from that blank area. That's cleaned up now, as you can see here:

http://lcars24.com/schem41.html

 

[Kaziarl]

disruputor-cannon canon

I'm sorry, I know its off topic, but I find this insanely amusing.

Nice designs by the way, I love your work. Do you ever do non-canon ships? I'd love an MSD of the ship I use in my writing for reference purposes.

Anyway, keep up the good work! You are far more talented then I.

 

[SonicRanger]

Hope you don't have to leave the shuttlebay while the ship is using its impulse engines.

 

[Bill Morris]

Hope you don't have to leave the shuttlebay while the ship is using its impulse engines.

They're not rockets, and the little bit of superheated plasma they release is not a big deal or a particular navigation hazard. Propulsion is through the driver coils.

Besides, the impulse engines are probably pretty much idle when shuttles are coming or going.

 

[SonicRanger]

Hope you don't have to leave the shuttlebay while the ship is using its impulse engines.

They're not rockets, and the little bit of superheated plasma they release is not a big deal or a particular navigation hazard. Propulsion is through the driver coils...

You don't think "impulse" engines produce motion via an impelling force? If not, they have the worst names ever.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Hope you don't have to leave the shuttlebay while the ship is using its impulse engines.

They're not rockets, and the little bit of superheated plasma they release is not a big deal or a particular navigation hazard. Propulsion is through the driver coils...

You don't think "impulse" engines produce motion via an impelling force? If not, they have the worst names ever.

I don't think they do either. We have no indication of that at all on screen, especially since they can reverse engines and go backwards. They are simply exhausts whose gasses can even be temporarily held in place, so that the ship can't be tracked easily, such is the case with Defiant. It's probably like that for Warbirds too, that's why they can't be seen.

I always assumed that impulse name has something to do with impulse=force*time?

And btw, I can't accept those msd's without forward disrupter cannon, design intent or not, it's silly! It's like removing quantum torpedo launcher from Sovereign because somebody wanted it to be captain's yacht docking port.

 

[Bill Morris]

And btw, I can't accept those msd's without forward disrupter cannon, design intent or not, it's silly! It's like removing quantum torpedo launcher from Sovereign because somebody wanted it to be captain's yacht docking port.

Um, I could cite many examples, but to take one, Dax said, "deck 5" in DS9: Rejoined when she should have said, "deck 2, section 5," but that doesn't warrant adding a deck to the Defiant MSD. Mistakes are made in the hectic schedule of producing episodic TV, expecially something as complex as Star Trek. (That particular case appears to have been a script error, btw, but apparantly none of those smart people on the set caught it, either.)

And what I mentioned about the how the impulse engines work has been stated by people involved in making the show. I'm pretty sure Rick Sternbach included it in one of his posts on this board in the past year or so. It is unfortunate, though, that the word "impluse" in this usage is somewhat in conflict with the term "specific impulse" used in calculations for rocketry. Otherwise, it has a nice ring to it within Trek jargon.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Um, I could cite many examples, but to take one, Dax said, "deck 5" in DS9: Rejoined when she should have said, "deck 2, section 5," but that doesn't warrant adding a deck to the Defiant MSD. Mistakes are made in the hectic schedule of producing episodic TV, expecially something as complex as Star Trek. (That particular case appears to have been a script error, btw, but apparantly none of those smart people on the set caught it, either.)

A one off reference can even be attributed to Dax in this case. And there could have been a deck 5 that wasn't a full deck, we do see small windows on a level below deck 4, so there is something there and it's not shown on MSD because it might not be important.

Seeing Warbird fire from that disruptor on half a dozen occasions is completely different.

 

[Maurice]

That'a according to Mr. Probert's description that you posted on page 3 of this thread. There is a vertical slit down the center below that shuttlebay door he poiinted out That would, of course, have enclosed space port and starboard. It was never seen on screen but would have looked cool.

And the figure above I mistaklenly posted before removing that stray impulse engine from that blank area. That's cleaned up now, as you can see here:

http://lcars24.com/schem41.html

He also wrote "The reason there are few (if any) side windows at the back area of the ship is because that's where that engine & power plant would have been." This implies to me that's not an area with conventional decks and rooms. You can obviously do what you want with this tail end area, but it looked better in the previous version.