Having been a great admirer of the spherical primary hull since becoming a Trek fan, I thought I'd chip in with my own vision. This is my attempt to consolidate the spherical primary hull with a more traditional neck and stardrive. It's a very early model so a lot of refinement, additions and revision to come.
There absolutely should be more spherical hull designs, I'm a big fan of them too, and of the early Earth/Starfleet ships in general. I think you've got a solid start here, the secondary hull is coming along well. I think the interconnecting dorsal could be tweaked so that it integrates into the sphere with a bit more of a mechanical connection, but as you say, there are still a lot of details left to do. I hope to see more of this ship!
Thank you all for your replies, they are genuinely encouraging. The neck as it connects to the primary hull will mostly stay the same as I want to show how the outer elements of ship design started to transition inwards to where we get to the Constitution where virtually all of the ship machinery in encased within a beautiful, flowing hull. There will of course be parts that are strictly on the outside. I might change my mind, we'll see how it goes. As for scale, take this as three quarters the length of the Constitution with a launch year of 2220 and was retired in 2286 without undergoing the near all-fleet refit of the 2270's, putting it firmly between the retirement of the Daedalus in 2196 and the launch of the Constitution circa 2245.
Apologies for the delay, as we all know, life has curtailed itself recently but I'm back into this project and restarted it all. Plenty more details have been added and the superstructure dimensions have been finalised. I intend to update weekly and of course reply to any comments when they come in. Again, comment away with suggestions and advice, I'm happy to incorporate design ideas.
Looks nice, although I can’t help but see hints of Marvin the Paranoid Android (movie style) in the sphere/neck area. Cheers, -CM-
Now that you mention it, I can't unsee, curses. Anyway, I'll just have to trudge on with my tribute to our favourite moaning-faced robot.
Very good so far. I've seen a number of attempts at redesigning the Daedalus and making other ships of that era and this is one of the better efforts.