Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans

[Cary L. Brown]

Arlo said:
Ya know, staring at that diagram something rather fundamental occurred to me: there's no benefit for all the TLs to move horizontally.

Think about it; at its largest diameter, the saucer is 2 decks high, tops. A stairwell will get me up or down a deck faster. And without lots of hallways blocked by TLs, I can also walk from one side to the other pretty quickly.

All the saucer needs is a few vertical-only TLs closer to the core, where the deck numbers are the greatest. As the decks get smaller, the need for TLs is reduced, so they would stagger as they do in a tall building. You would only need a single horizontal TL to zip down to the engineering hull.

After I had this realization, I dug out my FJ plans, curious what his solution was. Turns out, he came to pretty much the same conclusion. He does have a few horizontal tubes in the saucer, but they're relegated to runs to the EH, and a few key locations like the impulse engineering room and 'battle bridge'. Otherwise, he has a number of normal elevator tubes in specific locations to service vertical movement within the saucer.

You're absolutely right.

Unless the ship is populated by cripples, on a "day to day basis" you'd actually the crew to walk most of the time, too. Otherwise, you'd end up with obese engineers and commanders...

The main role of horizontal shafts is to provide "crossovers" between vertical shafts, and to provide "looping" to allow for reasonable traffic flow.

The ship really OUGHT to have some stairwells in various places. We never saw those in TOS. We saw LADDERWAYS, but no stairwells. Well, the answer to that is that ladderways can be cut off by hatches (much as seen in TWOK) but stairwells need to be in isolated rooms to provide "sealing" between decks (in case of hull rupture, for instance). So the reason we never saw them in TOS was because they were behind closed doors!

The other issue with lots of horizontal runs is that you create these areas of the deck which are inaccessible from other areas of that same deck. But there's an easy solution to that.

Assume you need a complete "loop." Simply stagger that loop, so that (for instance) the forward and aft quadrants of the circle are on Deck 6, and the port and starboard quadrants are on Deck 7, with four vertical shafts (that's assuming that the 45-degree placement of vertical shafts is used, as opposed to the 90-degree placement which is more implicit in the TOS design, of course).

You need very few horizontal segments. JUST ENOUGH to allow for "no roadblock" transit between the different vertical sections, and the ability to reroute and provide access to the key decks if a section of shaft is disabled.

The rest of the time, the crew NEEDS to walk!

 

[FalTorPan]

Arlo said:
The ship really OUGHT to have some stairwells in various places. We never saw those in TOS. We saw LADDERWAYS, but no stairwells.

Why would a ship need stairwells if it has ladderways? Just curious.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

FalTorPan said:

Arlo said:
The ship really OUGHT to have some stairwells in various places. We never saw those in TOS. We saw LADDERWAYS, but no stairwells.

Why would a ship need stairwells if it has ladderways? Just curious.

Ever try to carry equipment up or down a ladder?

Steps really only require your feet (although it's NICE to have a handrail, just in case).

Ladders require both hands and both feet... though it's POSSIBLE to climb with just one hand (but both feet) or just one foot (but both hands) it's damned difficult, and pretty dangerous to boot.

Of course, if you have an over-the-shoulder pack for whatever you're carrying, you can get by with just ladders... but if you need to have ANYTHING in your hands... ladders really aren't a good idea!

 

[Arlo]

Cary said that, but I'll take a poke at this.

Ladders are for accessing small/irregular spaces. Stairs are used for general purpose mobility. Most ships of a size have both, so it stands to reason a starship should too.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Well, here's my approach with regard to the turbolifts (ignore the underlying FJ stuff, it's just there for a line guide):

It seemed the best way to have enough turbolift access without making large chunks of the deck inaccessible by any way but turbolift.

 

[Shaw]

I absolutely agree that there should be stairs... I had assumed that the only access to the outer ring of deck 6 was via stairs or ladders down from deck 5.

As for the turbolift arrangement, it is hard to get a complete view of this without taking other decks into account. So here is a very rough sketch of decks 1 through 6 to help illustrate what I was thinking on this subject.

The loop on deck 5 was only left in place originally because I only planned on it existing on that deck. The idea of too many of those types of loops cutting off the core of the primary hull seemed odd. I figured one would work just fine. Also, I haven't put any thought into what would exist on the other decks, so I either omitted corridor and room spaces or left something similar to deck 5's arrangement.

 

[Arlo]

CRA - Nice work, though I question the need to have so many TLs so close to each other. I'd lose the 2nd, 3rd and 4th outer ones on each side, they seem redundant.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I agree with Arlo. Think of the actual physical walking distance... and is the lost space worth it to save walking the distance from one end of your house to the other?

David, I'd really consider (it's YOUR project, this is a suggestion, realize!) splitting up the "loop" on deck six. IE, have two of the quadrants on deck six and two of them on deck seven (just for example). You get the benefit of a loop, but there's NO portion of the deck which is ISOLATED.

Just my 2cents...

 

[Shaw]

Cary L. Brown said:
David, I'd really consider (it's YOUR project, this is a suggestion, realize!) splitting up the "loop" on deck six. IE, have two of the quadrants on deck six and two of them on deck seven (just for example). You get the benefit of a loop, but there's NO portion of the deck which is ISOLATED.

Just my 2cents...

That is a great idea. The isolated area within the loop was bothering me, and that idea fixes it without loss of functionality.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[USS Mariner]

Cary L. Brown said:
I agree with Arlo. Think of the actual physical walking distance... and is the lost space worth it to save walking the distance from one end of your house to the other?

David, I'd really consider (it's YOUR project, this is a suggestion, realize!) splitting up the "loop" on deck six. IE, have two of the quadrants on deck six and two of them on deck seven (just for example). You get the benefit of a loop, but there's NO portion of the deck which is ISOLATED.

Just my 2cents...

I'm glad someone else has this concept in mind. Prior too having all my data trapped on a dead drive, this is exactly what I did with my AutoCAD deck plans, which I'm currently having to redevelop from scratch, starting with redrafting the ship.

Another thing to consider with these deckplans in the incredibly thick walls TOS used. People often complain that the ship wastes too much space via the large corridors, but I'd wager that most of the ship's machinery and structural framework is actually crammed into the walls, which not only keeps them safe from accidental damage, but also creates room for mission-specific equipment, or cargo space (as we saw in TAS, they didn't seem to mind leaving those quadrotriticale canisters lying around in those huge corridors.)

 

[ancient]

Personally, I like to divide the turbos and everything else into thirds in the saucer. It just seems more tos in style. On the other hand, it doesn't jive with those compartment things.

People often complain that the ship wastes too much space via the large corridors, but I'd wager that most of the ship's machinery and structural framework is actually crammed into the walls...

...along with all those door-opener people. This explains the large crew size.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

ancient said:
Personally, I like to divide the turbos and everything else into thirds in the saucer. It just seems more tos in style. On the other hand, it doesn't jive with those compartment things.

People often complain that the ship wastes too much space via the large corridors, but I'd wager that most of the ship's machinery and structural framework is actually crammed into the walls...

...along with all those door-opener people. This explains the large crew size.

200 crew, and 230 door-openers! That explains the difference between Pike's and Kirk's crew estimates! By jove, I think you've got it!

(Apparently, Pike considered these people "steerage." )

 

[Arlo]

Slightly off topic, after staring at a number of cutaways...has anyone come up with a logical reason for the primary hull "undercut"? I Find it to be one of the stranger aspects of the design, from a "real world" perspective.

I see how externally it makes for an attractive "lip" to the saucer, but internally, it's a complete waste of space and seems to pinch the thickness of the saucer to the point of structural weakness.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Arlo said:
Slightly off topic, after staring at a number of cutaways...has anyone come up with a logical reason for the primary hull "undercut"? I Find it to be one of the stranger aspects of the design, from a "real world" perspective.

I see how externally it makes for an attractive "lip" to the saucer, but internally, it's a complete waste of space and seems to pinch the thickness of the saucer to the point of structural weakness.

Well, my favorite version was the one that has the primary hull two decks thick all the way around out there... and the "undercut" isn't really an "undercut at all... but instead there's a RING of hardware around the outermost underside, containing the main "gravity ring" structure (key to generating artificial gravity and also to providing antigravity "lift" during planetfall).

 

[Data Holmes]

Arlo said:
Slightly off topic, after staring at a number of cutaways...has anyone come up with a logical reason for the primary hull "undercut"? I Find it to be one of the stranger aspects of the design, from a "real world" perspective.

I see how externally it makes for an attractive "lip" to the saucer, but internally, it's a complete waste of space and seems to pinch the thickness of the saucer to the point of structural weakness.

There was a guy who did wind tunnel tests on a model of the ship and found that those undercuts actually added in it's aerodynamics, providing lift and reducing drag...

 

[Arlo]

Interesting, but cramming two decks where one is normally is would make for an *awfully* huge ship...

^Like a frisbee, sure I can see that. Of course since it was never designed to enter atmo...

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Arlo said:Interesting, but cramming two decks where one is normally is would make for an *awfully* huge ship...

Not so much as you're probably thinking.

If you accept that the 10' ceiling height seen on-set was an "exaggeration" and that the "real" height was more like 8.5', and you accept the 1080' overall length rather than the 947' one... there's sufficient room in the TOS enterprise saucer for two decks there, with the outer ring being the "extra hardware ring" I mentioned.

Now, for the TMP version... the undercut is much deeper and there's no way to have more than one deck in that area (unless you're a set designer who assumes that the audience won't bring their slide-rules to the movie!)

 

[Arlo]

Slide rule? Next May I'm bring a laser pointer, sextant and night scope to the theater

 

[ancient]

I'm bringing my trekkie calculator, pre-set to round up to the nearest canon contradiction.

 

[USS Mariner]

ancient said:
I'm bringing my trekkie calculator, pre-set to round up to the nearest canon contradiction.

"Lame."