22nd century star clipper...

[Kemaiku]

Sounds promising, I always saw the 22nd/23rd century designs being more modular and interchangeable. The smaller more workhorse classes would benefit from variations like this, something I couldn't see the original Daedalus being able to fulfill.

Then again, I always interpreted her as a warp drive testing class of some unspecified sort, and that any full production model would be far more refined and specific than her.

I wouldn't mind seeing the sensor pod being kept for at least one of the variations, I think a manned sensor deck sounds like a pretty good idea for the era.

 

[Warped9]

I think of starship development as being somewhat analogous to the first decades of flight or automobiles when a lot of things are experimented with in seeking that optimal formula and configuration. We could see all kinds of different things.

I envision it somewhat different than "official" Trek lore that has had nacelles from the beginning. I see the ringship as being the clue where the first ships had (comparatively) massive warp coils housed in the rings. Successive designs might have led to smaller rings until someone had the idea to put a series of smaller rings with a cylinder (or two or three). Eventually you could see designs where the nacelles no longer had to be cylindrical as evidenced in designs like the TMP refit and the TOS Klingon battle cruiser.

Another consideration: over the years a lot has been said about the TOS Enterprise's design, in particular the slim support pylons. as well as the massive saucer attached to the secondary hull by the narrow dorsal. In universe why would they design a ship this way? Perhaps design evolution led to a shape better suited to the kind of space warp propulsion they were dealing with and in tandem with advanced materials and construction methods that make such a configuration possible. The MJ design might look fragile, but it obviously isn't.

So I think it makes sense that earlier ships would have more likely been less exotic in design (progressively going backward) and configuration.

That leads me to the idea of a large spherical hull connected to a cylindrical aft hull by way of a skinny interconnecting neck or dorsal, and having nacelles supported by equalling skinny pylons. I don't see them having access to to the same advanced materials and construction methods as the TOS era particularly as the 22nd century is supposed to be "more primitive."

Of course my reason (out of universe) is that the design looks so dorky.

 

[Kemaiku]

I see the pylons being the result of megastructures being used in other ways around the galaxy, leading to large scale manufacturing being needed.

Maybe a starbase with walkways extended between parts of a planetoid mass, which needed single piece metal supports of some impressive size and tensile strength. Underground mining facilities from Devil in the Dark, Memory Alpha, early shipyards etc

Making smaller ones for starships to create thin cavaties in the profile for warp flight would seem easy compared to that.

Allowing something as heavy as the nacelles to be carefully carried away from the hull by only the bare necessary mechanical connections.

Starbases and starships have been shown to be similar in that era, there are bound to be a lot of shared manufacturing techniques going on there, saving time and resources by maximizing shared production.

 

[Warped9]

Here we can see some basic configurations and variants.



Numbers 1 and 2 are closest to MJ's concept sketches. For myself I'm just not crazy about these even with their altered proportions. To me Number 3 looks like a very early prototype we might have seen in early 22nd century.

Number 4 doesn't look bad because reducing the size of the forward hull seems to balance things out better visually---in my opinion, of course.

To me Numbers 6, 7 and 8 look best. 6 and 7 benefit from a smaller forward hull as I think it improves the overall look of the design. Number 8 was an accident as I was mixing and matching things. I just happened to see how it would look if a bit slimmer and it just clicked in a neat way that appeals to me. I think this would work with either a single nacelle or the conventional dual nacelle setup.

 

[PerfesserCoffee]

More incremental progress. One thing I’ve learned with 3D modeling: building up the major components to construct the basic overall shape isn’t that time consuming, but building up all the detail---now that’s very time consuming.

Would you believe the little component sitting atop the aft section (above the impulse engines) took me the framework of a day to put together? I started out with a different idea that didn’t work to my satisfaction so I fiddled until I came up with something more to my liking that seems to integrate better with the rest of the design. And that is inherent with a lot of the detailing---making the right bits integrate well with what you’ve done before.

Detailing is one of those things that can make or break a design even as a lot of it might be overlooked by casual observation. Often detail can be subtle and not really obvious. It’s certainly worth and necessary doing, but man, can it eat up your time.

I’m not really showing any images of the underside yet because I haven’t begun to add any significant detail there. But I’m not too far from completing the topside detail and then I’ll move on to the underside.

One thing I can say is that this design will not be sporting a lot of windows unlike later designs we saw in contemporary Trek, which could often seem like we were seeing cruise ships in space. This is meant to look like a piece of machinery (with some of it showing through the skin) and suggesting few amenities.

Looking good! At first the design didn't seem to gel but once I could see where you're going with it, it begins to make good sense.

 

[Praetor]

Wow, I don't know how I missed this thread. As usual, Warped9, you've put the remarkable degree of thought into taking a concept and developing it with common sense. I'm loving both the Hercules and your refined Daedalus/Independence concept.

May I suggest one thing? The shape you're using for the main hull on the Independence is basically a squat cylinder turned on it's side with a hemisphere cap. What if you tried those same configurations upthread, but replaced the main hull with a sphere, with the last third slice off where it meets the tapered cone you already have in place that joins the engineering section? Might at least make for an interesting comparison at the very least.

As it stands, I think 4 and 6 are my favorites.

 

[Warped9]

Presently I'm souring on the present Independence concept. It's just not gelling for me in a way that feels right. When I get something I like there's an "ah-ha" moment that just isn't happening with what I've got now. I'm going to have to rethink it.

 

[Praetor]

I know just you mean. I'm sure if you put it aside for a bit and revisit, it'll formulate for you.

 

[sojourner]

You know, I was never a fan of the Daedulus class until I saw Madkoifish's take on it. Damn, it is a gorgeous bit of modeling. I highly encourage browsing that thread for the close up images of the detailing he's done.

 

[Warped9]

You know, I was never a fan of the Daedulus class until I saw Madkoifish's take on it. Damn, it is a gorgeous bit of modeling. I highly encourage browsing that thread for the close up images of the detailing he's done.

I have to give credit where due. He's done an awesome job on that. I really doubted that design could be made to look good, but he's done a good job of it. My only small quibble is that as is it fits right in with the TNG/ENT aesthetic, but it doesn't look like it would blend with TOS. It's not a criticism of his execution---which is flawless---but of his choice of approach. I think he's got the overall shapes and proportions just about perfect.

 

[PerfesserCoffee]

I have to give credit where due. He's done an awesome job on that. I really doubted that design could be made to look good, but he's done a good job of it. My only small quibble is that as is it fits right in with the TNG/ENT aesthetic, but it doesn't look like it would blend with TOS. It's not a criticism of his execution---which is flawless---but of his choice of approach. I think he's got the overall shapes and proportions just about perfect.

Yeah, the placement and attachment points of the components are superior to other ways I've seen them done. And I agree that the detailing is a little out of sync with TOS sensibilities.

BTW: (Only semi-related) Has anyone ever worked a Daedalus primary hull into a Grissom-like starship configuation?

 

[largo]

i think its clear that the TOS era was marked by a relatively short-lived dalliance in 1960's modernist styling, with little impact on long-term design and aesthetic trends.

 

[Warped9]

i think its clear that the TOS era was marked by a relatively short-lived dalliance in 1960's modernist styling, with little impact on long-term design and aesthetic trends.

No. If you look at other sci-fi productions and sci-fi hardware of the time they all had a very similar aesthetic. In terms of having a clean look. And it's a look I still very mich prefer to some of the overdone detail following in the wake of Star Wars. Don't get me wrong---lots of detail can work within context of a given work, but I find it odd seeing it applied to Star Trek. Even TMP got more detailed than TOS (understandably), but it still wasn't in SW territory.

 

[Praetor]

What's more, the cleanliness of the ship's exterior was intentional, and hard-fought by Jefferies; he felt that outer space was the worst possible environment for humans, and so you want everything you need to access to be accessible from the inside, hence little detail on the outside. Apparently GR fought him on that and what we ended up with was a minor compromise.

 

[sojourner]

i think its clear that the TOS era was marked by a relatively short-lived dalliance in 1960's modernist styling, with little impact on long-term design and aesthetic trends.

No. If you look at other sci-fi productions and sci-fi hardware of the time they all had a very similar aesthetic. In terms of having a clean look. And it's a look I still very mich prefer to some of the overdone detail following in the wake of Star Wars. Don't get me wrong---lots of detail can work within context of a given work, but I find it odd seeing it applied to Star Trek. Even TMP got more detailed than TOS (understandably), but it still wasn't in SW territory.

Pretty sure Largo meant "in universe".

 

[Warped9]

i think its clear that the TOS era was marked by a relatively short-lived dalliance in 1960's modernist styling, with little impact on long-term design and aesthetic trends.

No. If you look at other sci-fi productions and sci-fi hardware of the time they all had a very similar aesthetic. In terms of having a clean look. And it's a look I still very mich prefer to some of the overdone detail following in the wake of Star Wars. Don't get me wrong---lots of detail can work within context of a given work, but I find it odd seeing it applied to Star Trek. Even TMP got more detailed than TOS (understandably), but it still wasn't in SW territory.

Pretty sure Largo meant "in universe".

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. What I neglected to address was this sense of revisionism that has cropped up since TNG. On one level I can see why it happened, but it's also partly the result of TOS being something of an orphan because even while being first it is separated by decades from the spin-off series.

 

[Warped9]

Looking over that 3D Daedalus I find one of his model's strengths is that he wisely abandoned the proportions and very plain lines of MJ's concept sketch rather than accepting them near exactly as the DS9 model did. He used the basic idea as a jumping off point and then put some curves into the design. The more I look at the 3D model the more I like it. I do have a couple of quibbles, though. The support pylons meet at a juncture where the neck meets the support hull. It thus looks like you have to go through Engineering to get into the support hull. It isn't that different from the TOS Enterprise because the interconnecting dorsal is likely under an engineering section of the saucer, but on this Daedalus it seems more apparent. He's also placed the impulse engines behind the spherical forward hull---again similar to the Enterprise layout, but I'm wondering with older bulkier systems how much room in the forward hull this would compromise. His scale seems a bit odd, too, because of all the windows. It works if you go with the idea the average window size being smaller than the those on the Enterprise and thus makes the Daedalus seem larger than it is.


I haven't finalized any colour choices yet and I've still got a ways to go all around, but the underside detailing is coming along.

 

[Lego Thrawn]

That new underside detail is looking nice.

 

[largo]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. What I neglected to address was this sense of revisionism that has cropped up since TNG. On one level I can see why it happened, but it's also partly the result of TOS being something of an orphan because even while being first it is separated by decades from the spin-off series.

well, when you had even gene "klingons always looked like that" roddenberry doing it...

 

[Praetor]

Looking beautiful!