Sorry I forgot to attach the link oops my bad http://s699.photobucket.com/albums/vv356/nimitzco/?action=view¤t=conref_ortho_stboard2.jpg
I loved the TMP version, seeing it onscreen without any real spoilers. That said, I think I would've liked the "art" version seen in comic book ads prior to the movie. Not too far off from the TOS-E.
^ Of course this one has a look similar to those 1970's novel covers to it, with the greeblies & all. Any finished version would have probably been a little smoother & more "big-screen". I was thinking Star Trek Reader, but those don't seem to have the artwork I'm remembering. And it's not the Blish series either.
Ar-Pharazon, are you by any chance remembering this 1976 "The New Voyages"? (has a few good short stories) http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_New_Voyages T'Girl, I tried a quick test of rotating the nacelles, but not sure that worked... http://bloss1.home.comcast.net/pwpimages/Atest.jpg
^ That could be the series. So long ago, I just remember the artwork looking like that. I Googled for 20 minutes when I posted and couldn't find anything.
Actually design wise the Galaxy is the best concieved ship structurally and concept wise. It's the most functional vessel. When the TMP Enterprise was created they still didn't have a good idea how the warp drive and warp core worked. It introduced the idea of the super colider power plant but didn't do it correctly.... The Galaxy form wasn't just happenstance. The lowered nacelles were specifically positioned to clear the Saucer in the event of a aborted Saucer reintergration. The Saucer was shaped as an air foil for reentry. The design included escape pods for the first time and well place offensive weapons. The manual is a good understanding of the design that ACTUALLY went into the ship but it stands as the best design ship in Trek History. I rank them in this order. Galaxy Class Intrepid Class Miranda Excelsior Class Enterprise Class (Constitution II) Danube Runabout While this is the top of the list...The bottom or the Very worse Designed ships in Star Trek are. 1. Worst design: Prometheus 2. Sovereign. 3. Defiant I base these list on Primarily...The least contradictions in design. Best functional use of form. Best subsystem placement. Prometheus is the worse because for all the warp cores it has no core ejection ports infact it has very few ports period, the worse subsystem placement and one of the worse offensive weapons placements. The Enterprise & Excelsior Class ship had problems. The core was laid along the spine of the ship making it an easy target. Sovereign and Defiant have had numerous problems. Sovereign had one of the worse weapon emplacements I've ever seen for a Role of it's type. The refit was sorely needed. The ship was never finished even after Nemesis. While Defiant was well designed on the exterior...the interior design was poor...really poor as it is clear Defiant is not 120 meters or even 170 meters long but at the very least 203 meters long. There for the deck number iscompletely wrong. (There is no reason to have 2 to 3 decks worth of windows on the underside the underside of the ship if there are only four decks. Defiant is at least 7 to 8 decks. Comparable to the Miranda Class starship.
I'm inclined to disagree on the Enterprise, as it was designed during a period of trekdom when it was assumed that most weapons would slag an unshielded ship. Really, armor and physical defenses are futile. That's why the bridge is on the outside, that's why there's big windows, that's why the umbilicals are uncovered, that's why the crew hatches don't have armor plating. It's also why the warp engines have exposed bits, why the impulse exhausts aren't armored as well. If these ships were meant to partake in unshielded combat, all of Starfleet's ships would basically be different-sized versions of the Defiant. No dangly bits to "shoot off" and everything's covered under the hull, even the escape pods.
I can appreciate the enthusiasm for the design the of the Enterprise Class ship but in space there is little reason for the choice of the power plant placement. When I was younger I assumed the plant on the Enterprise Class worked the same as the Galaxy...like a supercolider. But in the show it's more of a series of conduits and the core is just a chamber. I could justify the collider running through the neck of the ship if sheer length was require for the collider but the particles aren't accelerated in the Enterprise Class. They are joined in a crystal lined chamber at the bottom of the ship. So as it is I can't find a structural reason to run these sensitive conduits under the skin of the ship. They should have been placed deep in the ship's engineering hull behind the deflector housing. But it served for dramatic effect in the movie. Weapons aren't the only consideration. There is collision and radiation exposure (yes even through 23rd century materials.) (However all that being said. I can think of two reason why the cores were placed next to the skin. a. Radiating Warp Core Heat. b. Venting plasma. At the same time 23rd century methods of Cooling should prevent the need of the first to resolve the NEED to put the conduits in such vulnerable positions) At least that's my expectation. Everything in Engineering is done with the motivation of a reason. Only artist work under the why-not-rules of form over function. That is the beauty of the Enterprise Class and even the original ship. They exude more function than form. And in some cases do a good job of striking a balance.
Question- Can you think of another sci-fi ship (of comparable screen time) with more interior-to-exterior design consistency than the TMP-E? It's engine core lines up with the impulse dome, the cargo/shuttle bay generally fits the outer hull shape, its large windows represent specific rooms, etc. The design was just comprehensive enough that nearly every set could convey an idea of its location in the ship. The Galaxy design is one of the best, but its sheer size and the budget limits of television made it rare for any given interior shot to correspond to a definitive location within the hull... there was just no need to. Of course there are a few threads working on that...
I'd say the Millennium Falcon would be such a ship. Remember that's one of few 1:1 Scale ships ever made of that size...but yes the TMP was most component.
Yeah, the Falcon wins the "I have got to get me one of these!" category. But I've seen at least three different interior layouts attempting to get the gunwell ladder to line up with the exterior turrets, and none of them got the angle of the ladder or the cockpit hallway quite in sync with the movie set. (And where was Lando's top hatch anyway?) Perhaps it was part TARDIS...
Yeah, what's this 'get hit with full phasers while unshielded & take heavy damage' crap? Anyone remember M-5 and what it did to shielded starships??? Unshielded = out for the count. Anyway, there was a time when TMP Enterprise was my favourite one, but with the advent of the remastered OS, the detail now visible has brought me back to the source. IT is the best.