Sorry if you can't see. In the Facebook group, Michael Curran posted preview images of La Sirena and USS Zheng He. The box art includes the Wallenberg-class transport, so yay! https://www.facebook.com/groups/eaglemossstartrekfangroup/permalink/2864924563830868/
An article on designing La Sirena. So, John Eaves didn't design her. https://ca.startrek.com/news/designing-the-la-sirena One of her names during the concept phase was 'Cosmic Spider' in Spanish, 'Arana Cosmica'
I always thought the La Sirena was supposed to have cargo modules attached to the back of it (since IMHO it's too small and seems to have very little volume for lots of freight. Glad to see that the intent was for that very thing.
Also confirms my theory that part of the ship was inspired by the Runabout. Though I don't think the final design respected that choice, because there are visible engines on the rear. I guess you could put some narrow cargo containers in the middle Although, bottom centre, that almost looks like it could be a door.
So the class name for Oh’s ship in STO, the first part of the name had a typo, the name literally means ‘flagship’ in Romulan when spelled correctly:
Standard fare nowadays. Spinoffs, if cartoony ones, have remedied the shortcomings of several freighter designs that way: the Millennium Falcon and the Antares are both mere tugs now, hauling rows of containers even if also sporting some minimal indoors holds for precious special cargo. Perhaps those glowing bits around the towing fixture are custom jobs for Rios? Or then they come to play when the tug moves between towing assignments, improving overall economy by cutting down on idle transit time. Although how much transit a "speed freighter" like this would be doing at impulse is debatable. (Or are those heat vents for the warp drive?) Timo Saloniemi
Look’s like a giant swept wing version of Musk’s starship. Now in DC comics, didn’t Sulu command a similar craft called the D’Artagnan?
The impression I get from the California-class registry numbers we know of thus far is that this starship class came into service at least around the same time as the Ambassador class.
It was kind of ambiguous as to whether Mike was referring to the California class specifically, or just support ships in general. Yeah, that’s the best rationalization I can come up with. The USS Ambassador’s registry was 1XXXX, and the California could have been contemporary to it. But the class also has similarities to the much newer Parliament class, so that throws a monkey wrench into that theory. But I’m not going to make a huge stink about it unless we start seeing Californias with registries of 2XXX or whatnot. At that point they’re just screwing with us.
I'd be happy to plead refits so that ships from the early 24th century still would remain valid and serviceable in the late. But this puts me in an unhappy place because we then should be seeing refit standards all across the map, with Ambassador style or Galaxy style engines, with short and medium strip phasers, with different paint jobs at the very least. Where's my variety? Where are the deliciously ancient examples that put an evil smile on the faces of the crew of the Cerritos? Timo Saloniemi
The one over-riding thing I can't understand about the Zheng He is why the shuttle bay is in the front of the saucer. That just looks weird to me.
I speculated that the cargo containers would be attached to the top rear and just extend back from there, so no engines would be blocked.
I thought the Akira class had the shuttlebays in the back? You can see two areas marked 1 and 2 on the back when she sweeps past camera in First Contact. Or does it have three, like the Galaxy? A big one in front, two small in back?
Constellation-class starships have their main hangar deck at the front of the primary hull but that class is already over a century old by the time of PIC.
IIRC, the concept was it was one big bay that went through the middle of the saucer, launching from the front and landing in the back.