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Andrew Probert discusses his 2010 SotL Calendar Submission

aridas sofia

aridas sofia

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Thanks to Matrioshka Brain for letting me know about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSnUFEtIkNY

Does this mean Probert has abandoned the vertical orientation warbirds, or do they just pull in sideways? :p Seriously, the thing I really don't get in this Romulan dockyard design is the lack of any kind of flexibility as seen in Probert's great TMP dock. Are the Romulan docks we see here for this class of warbird and only this class of warbird? If there were a vertical warbird -- or any other kind of warbird -- how would it be tended in such a structure?
 
It stems to reason that a different 'bird requires a different drydock. Compare, for example, the Sovereign to the Galaxy. They both use a different hull geometry which means that they both need different drydocks.

So... No, I wouldn't say this video gives us reason to believe that he has abandoned the vertical warbird.
 
The alien fleets of Trek have always been less varied than Starfleet for practical purposes. We only ever saw less than a half-dozen ships from any of the major powers, including shuttles and such. Dominion, Cardassian, Klingon, Romulan, Borg... no more than a handful of ships for each empire per era, compared to the dozens we have for SF.

So it does stand to some reason that such alien empires would build ship-specific dock facilities if they only have a handful of designs. Since the warbird has been the backbone of the Romulan fleet for minimum 20 years, likely longer, it's not unfeasible. It's even praticle from a construction stand-point. If the empire only has one primary class of warship, designing your docks for such makes a sort of sense.
 
Frontier said:
The alien fleets of Trek have always been less varied than Starfleet for practical purposes.
Click to expand...
In TV show production, yes, it was too expensive to build a new ship everytime one was encountered in the story. In universe, I am not sure what you mean by practical purposes? Wouldn't that infer that starfleet built multiple designs for impractical purposes?
We only ever saw less than a half-dozen ships from any of the major powers, including shuttles and such. Dominion, Cardassian, Klingon, Romulan, Borg... no more than a handful of ships for each empire per era, compared to the dozens we have for SF.

So it does stand to some reason that such alien empires would build ship-specific dock facilities if they only have a handful of designs. Since the warbird has been the backbone of the Romulan fleet for minimum 20 years, likely longer, it's not unfeasible. It's even praticle from a construction stand-point. If the empire only has one primary class of warship, designing your docks for such makes a sort of sense.
Click to expand...
In universe, it does not follow logic that the federation is the only "race" building multiple designs. I could see a race or 2 that specializes in a single ship type, but not all. They simpler view is that we just did not see alot of other ship designs by other races.

Remember: absence of proof is not proof of absence.

As for the question of purpose built dry docks, I would have to base it on number of ships built. If you have a large number of a single type, you would build custom docks for the servicing of those ships to make the servicing process more efficient. Limited run designs would be serviced by generic "one size fits all" space docks.
 
My problem is this -- let's say the Romulans have a destroyer class. It was never seen onscreen. It is smaller than the warbird, but bigger than the scout that Doug Drexler designed. It might have a vertical orientation, or it might be shaped like a (Romulan) Bird of Prey.

If one of these ships gets mauled in battle and limps to the nearest base, and that base is only outfit to service warbirds, well... that seems impractical to me. Not that I think every base should accommodate every kind of ship. But every base SHOULD be able to accommodate every kind of ship operating in that base's vicinity.

So, does this illustration show us that in the area of Stations Gray and Red there are only warbirds operating? If so, that says a lot about the Romulan Fleet and the warbirds. At the least, maybe that they operate a little like Starfleet on the Federation frontier of the 2260s, where thirteen very similar starships were usually all that there was to be seen.
 
BorgMan said:
So... No, I wouldn't say this video gives us reason to believe that he has abandoned the vertical warbird.
Click to expand...

It seems to me that the helmsman on a vertical warbird would merely have to Press Z Or R Twice to fit it into one of those docks.
 
Mr. Probert,

That is so awesome... the Romulan drydock is a great blend of both style and function. The idea you had for suspending the dock lights was brilliant, because again, it makes sense, to be able to direct the lighting just where a repair crew would need it most. I can't wait to get my SoTL calendar now. :)

-BolianAdmiral
 
My first thought was why didn't he make the drydock capable of getting larger/smaller like that mysterious automated alien station on ENT.

I'm wondering if his reasoning is that different typed of ships get different types of drydocks. These are advanced sprawling spacefairing civilizations - couldn't they have many varieties of both ship and station? A single type station for a single type ship seems a bit much to me, but I don't imagine they'd waste the same drydock for a Nova class that use for a Galaxy Class.

So question...what kind of drydock do they use to build all these different huge drydocks?!
 
They dont: drydocks are merely modules that are connected to eachother. You would probably build the modules in a station and then tow them into place, where they are then connected to eachother to form a dock.
 
aridas sofia said:
Thanks to Matrioshka Brain for letting me know about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSnUFEtIkNY

Does this mean Probert has abandoned the vertical orientation warbirds, or do they just pull in sideways? :p Seriously, the thing I really don't get in this Romulan dockyard design is the lack of any kind of flexibility as seen in Probert's great TMP dock. Are the Romulan docks we see here for this class of warbird and only this class of warbird? If there were a vertical warbird -- or any other kind of warbird -- how would it be tended in such a structure?
Click to expand...
These stations have been designed for the largest of their standard fleet ships. They are, of course, also able to service any of the other ships... up to four at a time, for the smaller ones.

The vertical and much larger command ships, however, are a different story.

Andrew-
 
You are a saddist, Mr. Probert ;) But it's WAY cool to see that the vertical warbird is even bigger than the original. It's not because they have something to... "compensate" for, right? ;)
 
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