Does anyone know who Daniel Biringer was? He produced a number of blueprints which are on the Cygnus-X1 site- the Greynet-class Police Cruiser, the Whilwind-class Troop Transport, an Automated Bulk Freighter, the S-4000 Mobile Starship Dock and the Voltara-class Supply Ship. The last one is a favourite of mine, though I ditch the "experimental magnetic engines" for a pair of impulse drives and a couple of upper level warp nacelles. I use it as a sort of Federation Free Trader, mass produced and widely customised, Star Trek's Corellian YT-1300. It nicely fits in with the blocky rectangular aesthetic of the TOS era Independence-class Freighter and Sherman-class Cargo Drone. I have the blueprints for the Voltara and the Bulk Freighter and always have an eye out for the others. Starlog Magazine #10, from December 1977 has an advert that lists most of those mentioned here but also a sixth, a Tractor Tug. This is mentioned in the text for the Mobile Starship Dock but it's not on Cygnus-X1 and I've not been able to find any other mention of it. So, does anyone out there have this and is willing to give us a look at it and also does anyone know the whereabouts of Daniel Biringer?
Internet Archive only very few Starlogs from the early days, but #10 is one of them. He is listed on page 36 under blueprints and it does mention a tractor tug there. On the Mobile Starship Dock plans they mention Tug Hangar Doors and 40 Tractor Beam Tugs. I'm guessing those are the ones you're after? This might be his email, if it's the same guy and he's 66 and living in Washington state: [SIZE=4]biringer@yahoo.com That hit seems to be connected to the San Jose, CA that was on some of those blueprints.[/SIZE]
Thanks for the research but it turns out that I can't deliver an email to that address. Oh well. Yes, the text of Starlog 10 is on a few sites, and yes, it's that text that I was referring to on the Mobile Dock. They turn up for sale eventually, not so far on Amazon or eBay though, had to dig a lot deeper. I'll keep looking out.
There was a hotmail in the same record, but i assumed hotmail was long gone. I haven't gotten an undeliverable reply from it yet, so maybe..... writejan@hotmail.com
Hey, I use Hotmail! Anyway, sent and no refusal, so we'll have to see. Thank you for that, we'll track him down.
I like his designs. At the start of our current pandemic, I started to build a 1:1000 scale model of the Greynet Police Cruiser, but I never finished it. Cool little design. --Alex
Well, found out what the tractor-tug looks like. About a week ago someone sold a load of blueprints on eBay, including four by Daniel Biringer. Annoyingly my regular searches didn't pick it up. The seller didn't ship to the UK, but I might have been able to sort something out. I has a peeved. A few of these I already have but there was the Graynet patrol cruiser, the tractor-tug and the Detroyat-class heavy destroyer, which I don't. Also there was something called the Vadenda-class freighter which is one hell of a weird thing that I've never even heard of before. As for the tractor-tug. It's a brick. A flying brick. Probably made of Lego. https://www.ebay.com/itm/3341608004...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Well, Biringer's thing seems to be the creation of complex and comprehensive interiors, great for RPG'ing, but when you do that first and then draw an exterior to contain the decks... Who did the Vadenda? It has the appeal of a vast raft of timber, floating down a great river with amenities on huts riding on top of the logs. That is, unless it turns out to be really narrow in top view. Timo Saloniemi
Apparently Allie C. Peed III, same person who did the Gorn Defence Force Battle Cruiser and the Dreadnought blueprints.
Well (apologies for thread necromancy) it looks like I'll get to see what the rest of the Biringer blueprints are like after all. A week or so ago I found all six for sale on eBay so picked up the four I didn't have (yes, including that weird little tractor-tug thing). The seller even cut me a good deal on postage since I'd bought more than one, useful since they're coming from the States. No sign of a Detroyat alas. I've also since found that the Vadenda was created for an amateur sci-fi film around the late 70s called "Deceptions" by Allie C. Peed and Greg J. Gosian, found a single mention of it in an old Cinemagic issue online.
I have been looking for Vadenda…and Dark Viking. I used to have a non-Trek set of ship blueprints where weapons ports looked like the TOS sensor/deflector dish. Remember that one?
Dark Viking? You mean these? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/382288210567?hash=item5902272a87:g:k7EAAOSwTEJaEKDy
Anyone know which issue of Starlog featured a side view of an Enterprise refit with Excelsior nacelles? I think this was an image in a letter column, and I know I own the issue...but online I could find it instantly (with an archive link anyway), as vs. looking through many boxes of magazines... Damnit! Checking "other items: blueprints" just cost me $17.06 (ironically, registry of the starship whose fanfilm series was the first I saw) for Allen Everhart's "Reliant damage" one-sheet. (I met him at a little con in N. Carolina once. He told me his 4-ship set only featured ONE side of the Galactica as he lacked reference for the OTHER side (!!)).
A model website mentioned seeing an Enterprise with Excelsior nacelles in the Starlog letters page a few months after Star Trek III came out. So 1984, that would put it in the mid 80s to 90s issue range. There's a Starlog archive site here, had a quick look but couldn't see anything. https://archive.org/details/starlog_magazine-080/mode/2up
I know the one you are talking about. It was colorized here https://www.deviantart.com/morgandonovan/art/Transwarp-Connie-variant-784164441
Well, found out what the Vadenda class looks like, picked up the blueprints on eBay a while back and they've just arrived. It's a slab. A big fat slab over 1300 meters long. Makes me think of a slightly ironed out Red Dwarf. There are actually 12 pages of profiles and deck plans (the latter being a little limited on detail due to the scale). It uses a variant warp drive called a Raemar Drive that doesn't require dilithium and measures factors in X4 rather than the standard warp's X3. This does of course make it ridiculously overpowered, especially given it's size. Safe max cruising speed is Raemar 7, so 7x7x7x7=2401 times the speed of light! That's warp 13 in TOS ratings and even well above a Galaxy-class' maximum of 9.6. Emergency speed is Raemar 10! All this and no dilithium. Bet the Discovery crew wish they had one (apparently it does need dilithium for the antimatter generators used for the navigational deflectors, well you would wouldn't you if you're going at warp factor plaid). Armament is just a pair of phasers at the front. However these are a pair of Starbase level superphasers. Apparently though the best offensive tactic is ramming the opposing starship, which will hardly dent this monstrosity. It can even land, though only on low gravity planets and moons. There are 190 crew (including an accountancy department), with space for 50 passengers. In a nice touch the top level deck is given over to rental spaces and offices, you could have a little retail park up there, your very own Zocalo. Were I to use this for an RPG I would vastly depower the drive. Yes keep it as an alternative warp system but make it low powered, say warp 3.5 to 4 max. Might be useful if your plot requires a ship to move through space that would be destabilised by a regular high powered dilithium warp engine.