Constitution Cargo Derivative

[MatthiasRussell]

In non-canon works, there is a Constitution cargo ship derivative consisting of a saucer with nacelles extending below and multiple cargo pods attached at the base of the neck.

Do you like this ship? Does it even make sense? Could you make these Connie elements work in this configuration considering main engineering would have to be relocated to the saucer and the saucer’s structure would need different supports for the nacelles? At that point, it would seem to make sense to have an altogether different design for the different mission profile.

My biggest issue: Wouldn’t a chain of cargo pods (as seen on the cover of Vanguard: Declassified) extend outside the warp field, disrupting the field and destroying the pods?

 

[Albertese]

You only get to put on as many as 2 pods.

Also, this design was done back in the 70's by one Franz Joseph. He understood the enginnering deck to be in the saucer near the impulse engines, so no big problem there. My only problem is a cargo ship with no obvious shuttlebay.

I've sort of tweaked this ship (the Ptolemy-class, if you're interested) to make a little more sense in my own private Star Trek universe, but yeah, I have no problem with the idea of a saucer with it's own engines acting as a cargo vessel with trailer pods.

--Alex

 

[Wingsley]

I have wondered about all of these points, and more, over the years. The ship you seem to be referring to is FJ's Ptolemy-class starship.

There is an alternative: Forbin's Sultana. See also a thread I started almost four years ago about warptugs.

 

[Timo]

Regarding Ptolemy specifically, I'd argue that the saucer is a "military" feature, a rare type of structure intended for the mounting of weapons and military sensors. Few tugs would have any use for this, but Starfleet wants a few vessels that can fight their way out of a mess in addition to towing and repairing stuff. Most of the Fleet tugs probably look much less like heavy cruisers and much more like a pair (trio, quartet, symphony orchestra?) of nacelles bolted to a big powerplant and a teeny weeny control cabin.

As for extending the warp field to cover the pods, it would seem that starships are adept at extending their influence by several light-seconds (allowing the navigational deflector beam to reach forward, say). Accommodating, say, a thousand cargo containers might be fairly trivial from the field-stretching point of view, even if the standard field hugs the ship relatively closely (as seen when the Enterprise and Columbia fly in close formation in ENT, and Trip loses his transfer cable which then sparkles at the field border mere meters from the ships).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I have wondered about all of these points, and more, over the years. The ship you seem to be referring to is FJ's Ptolemy-class starship.

There is an alternative: Forbin's Sultana. See also a thread I started almost four years ago about warptugs.

I thought this was the Prolemy class but wasn't sure that is the standard name.

I like the look of that Sultana, however it still presents the problem of where's the warp core and can the saucer structure handle the loads in an area it wasn't designed to have major structural elements. Also, it would look better with Excelsior nacelles.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

You only get to put on as many as 2 pods.

Also, this design was done back in the 70's by one Franz Joseph. He understood the enginnering deck to be in the saucer near the impulse engines, so no big problem there. My only problem is a cargo ship with no obvious shuttlebay.

I just picked up those blueprints a year ago. I was shocked he put engineering on the impulse deck. it made no sense. What did he think those conduits behind engineering were? Engineering was obviously under the nacelle pylons.

The cover of Declassified shows 2 cargo pods but the second one extends FAR behind the nacelles. Interestingly, that cover was made by Doug Drexler.

 

[Knight Templar]

When I first saw the U.S.S. Reliant I immediately thought of the Ptolemy class. I had one of those big posters from the short lived "Science Fiction & Fantasy" magazine that featured the four starships from the original technical manual.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Has anyone ever created an interior layout for those cargo pods? The exterior shape is ideal for a pressure vessel but not as a cargo container. I'm curious to know if anyone ever theorized where the loading doors are, how the cargo containers are shaped, and if the crew can access them.

 

[T'Girl]

Has anyone ever created an interior layout for those cargo pods?

FJ's technical manual did, about a half dozen or so. Different configurations, including a "cruise ship" verison.

 

[danellis]

FJ's technical manual did have some internal layouts of the pods. I definitely remember a set of drawings for a cruise-ship version. Think there may have been cargo versions, too.

dJE

 

[Dukhat]

In non-canon works, there is a Constitution cargo ship derivative consisting of a saucer with nacelles extending below and multiple cargo pods attached at the base of the neck.

Actually, both this ship and FJ's scout/destroyer designs are canon, as they showed up on computer screens in TWOK. Also, the outline of the dreadnought (the ship in my avatar picture) was shown on the computer screens as well.

 

[Wingsley]

CARGO PODS - VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS - LINKS TO FJ'S "TECH MANUAL" PAGES

Products & Reefers

Dry Bulk & Liquids

Starliner Pods - Profile View & Upper Deck Layouts - Mid-Deck Layouts - Lower Deck Layouts

Note that there is nothing in the 1975 Tech Manual about warptug cargo pods for Starfleet personnel deployments, portable space station kit-pods, mobile hospital pods, portable planetfall colony construction pods, asteroid mining colony kit-pods, or portable deep space starship rescue & repair kit-pods. Those are just a few possible uses I can think of for this kind of technology.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

In non-canon works, there is a Constitution cargo ship derivative consisting of a saucer with nacelles extending below and multiple cargo pods attached at the base of the neck.

Actually, both this ship and FJ's scout/destroyer designs are canon, as they showed up on computer screens in TWOK. Also, the outline of the dreadnought (the ship in my avatar picture) was shown on the computer screens as well.

I don't remember this. When it the movie did they appear?

 

[MatthiasRussell]

FJ's technical manual did have some internal layouts of the pods. I definitely remember a set of drawings for a cruise-ship version. Think there may have been cargo versions, too.

dJE

Although this design is non-sensical to me, I like the idea of a versatile design. Still, a cruise ship version? I think that is stretching functionality a bit much.

I do like the Oberth's variants such as the Jester class. I can believe the Oberth being able to easily swap secondary hulls, not that the design makes much sense for egressing between hulls.

 

[Dukhat]

In non-canon works, there is a Constitution cargo ship derivative consisting of a saucer with nacelles extending below and multiple cargo pods attached at the base of the neck.

Actually, both this ship and FJ's scout/destroyer designs are canon, as they showed up on computer screens in TWOK. Also, the outline of the dreadnought (the ship in my avatar picture) was shown on the computer screens as well.

I don't remember this. When it the movie did they appear?

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/sftm.htm

 

[Albertese]

You only get to put on as many as 2 pods.

Also, this design was done back in the 70's by one Franz Joseph. He understood the enginnering deck to be in the saucer near the impulse engines, so no big problem there. My only problem is a cargo ship with no obvious shuttlebay.

I just picked up those blueprints a year ago. I was shocked he put engineering on the impulse deck. it made no sense. What did he think those conduits behind engineering were? Engineering was obviously under the nacelle pylons.

The cover of Declassified shows 2 cargo pods but the second one extends FAR behind the nacelles. Interestingly, that cover was made by Doug Drexler.

He wasn't alone in his placement of Engineering. FJ's internal arrangement very faithfully follows the description of it from The Making of Star Trek which dates back to the "pre-production" of TOS season three in 1968. What did he think the big tubes were? They were the sides of the impulse engines, and the grill looks into the open area between them. All of this is laid out pretty clearly in the Star Trek Technical Manual. I suggest you get a hold of a copy, it's almost certainly not what you'll expect, and it doesn't line up with TNG+ Sternbach/Okuda tech at all, but, back in the days before 1987, this is what there was and it's pretty amazing considering it was all done by one guy and all by hand! No computers were used at all in the production of that book.

Also, there are no "warp cores" at all. This book was released in 1975, four years prior to TMP's "vertical intermix shaft" (not referred to as "warp core" for almost another decade). back in the day it was pretty much universally accepted that power generation happened in the nacelles themselves. These days, the power generation layout of Kirk's ship is hotly contested between those who keep the original power in nacelles system and those who insist on ret-conning a central reactor model like in TNG. Then there are some (like myself) who prefer a somewhat hybridized model, as there is dialogue which could go either way in TOS.

For the record, the STTM includes a line that the Ptolemy has a "two in tandem standard maximum" when it comes to towed pods. I can't speak to Doug Drexler's reasoning behind making a long string of them, but that fact that he would use such ships at all, suggest to me that he must be a fan. More power to him. Drexler seems like a pretty cool guy and certainly a fan of the vintage stuff. I love it when he uses this kinda thing, even if he might have missed the 2-standard maximum line.

--Alex

P.S. After having actually looked at the cover art in question, I think just the ship in the foreground has two pods and elsewhere I can only make out pods without attendant ships. They are in strings of three. I propose that the ship-less pods are just hanging out in a storage pattern and are not actually attached "triple-trailer" style to ships. If I'm missing something, please say so.

--AM

 

[TIN_MAN]

Another thing to keep in mind, FJ's Destroyer/Scout and Transport/Tug were evidently designed with the AMT model kits of the Enterprise -that were then available- in mind, so as to make for easy kitbashes? If true, this would help us understand why he opted for these particular configurations.

 

[Forbin]

I thought this was the Prolemy class but wasn't sure that is the standard name.

Ptolemy, with a T. It's one key to the right of the R.

I like the look of that Sultana, however it still presents the problem of where's the warp core

Wherever I damn well please to put it

and can the saucer structure handle the loads in an area it wasn't designed to have major structural elements.

Yes, yes it can. Those major structural elements can be built into a new or adapted design easily enough, and structural integrity fields can mitigate any acceleration stress.

Also, it would look better with Excelsior nacelles.

No, it wouldn't. It would look like shit with Excelsior nacelles. Just because it has an Excelsior saucer doesn't mean it has to have Excelsior nacelles. Thinking outside the box is acceptable.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^

Ah...the age-old "where's main engineering" chestnut. It's almost good enough to turn it into a drinking game - chug a beer every time it's brought up in a thread.

I've always gathered under the FJ banner of the primary hull as being its location. There was a scene in TOS (name eludes me - "Ultimate Computer" or "Changeling", maybe?) where Kirk & co. are walking briskly down the curved corridor, make a right-turn and walk straight into engineering. No cuts that could be used to imply that they traveled further than they did - all one seamless cut. The secondary hull is not wide enough to accommodate that corridor. It's in the primary hull. Always has been.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

If engineering is in the primary hull, then why is the secondary hull called the 'engineering section' at times?