Another take on the Original Enterprise...

[Cary L. Brown]

Cary, I've gotta say [jog, jog, jog to the right] that this model is fantastic. [jog, jog, jog back] And the ten foot deck height [jog, jog, jog back out to the right] seems perfectly reasonable and [jog, jog, jog once more to the left] even leaves room for goofiness like Jefferies tubes [walk, walk, walk to the right] between decks if one assumes the tubes run like [walk, walk walk back to the left] duct work over working spaces.

(Just let ... me catch ... my breath ... a minute.)

Also, let me congratulate you [limp, limp, limp to the right] on creating a thread that burns calories. Could you please put in some turbolifts? 'Cause I'm done going back and forth and plan to stay right here for the remainder of the discussion otherwise.

Hey, I'm just trying to ensure the physical fitness of my peers...

Seriously.. didn't mean to cause problems. I have to admit, it's hard to judge by sight, since I'm running this 30" 120hz panel and those images only span half my screen. I did read PTrope's "pinned" thread and so I'll do my best to comply with that from hereon out.

And on that note...

I've done a bit more with internal layout and windows. The really interesting thing is that the "ring corridor set" used in the physical sets really makes a LOT of sense, especially at this scale. There are six decks where this is the ideal corridor size. The "weapons deck" has a smaller corridor (but since we've only seen this deck once, in "Balance of Terror," and only seen the corridor once as Spock ran back to the phaser control room) I don't have a problem with a minor tweak to what was seen on-screen there.

By the way, one thing I've done is created four big "lounge" areas at 45-degree angles around the primary hull outer diameter. I'm assuming one of these is where the Koridian Players did their performance, and one is going to be the gymnasium (from Charley X). The aft portion of the outer ring will be impulse engineering (including two control rooms which will look something like main engineering, but will be oriented tangentially to the ring rather than radially, and both facing towards the impulse engine core). I'm thinking that the lower portion of the ring may also include some 6-person lifeboats (ejected radially, much like was seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly" on the mirror NX-01).

All my internal walls are now 0.735m thick, to match the physical sets.

The good thing here is that six of the primary hull decks have the actual physical ring corridor, so pretty much every shot from the series (except for those involving main engineering) can be made to work.

Because I'm going with a lot of non-habitation space in the primary hull (and also in the secondary hull) the idea of everyone having their own cabin is, as expected, going to go by the wayside. A few lower ranked personnel will have private cabins, but this will be due to the requirements of their job (such as Rand, who serves as the Captain's secretary and works extensively from her cabin). Most crew will be 4-up, with higher-ranked ones being 2-up, as will the jr. officers (like Chekov). Higher-ranking officers will have private cabins on Deck 5, of course.

 

[FrontLine]

Cary, great work and I cant find fault with a decision you have made yet. I'm looking forward to seeing this project grow. In the mean time what CAD package are you using? I use ACA 2008 and seeing this work you are doing is really kicking me in the butt. I really need to learn how to work in 3D

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Cary, great work and I cant find fault with a decision you have made yet. I'm looking forward to seeing this project grow.

Thanks, I appreciate the comments from you (and all the rest of you too). I'm putting it up here for two reasons - one, it's just more fun to do this stuff when you can share it with people who'll appreciate it, and (2) because I'm (as always) actively seeking comments, both positive and negative (provided that the negatives fall into "constructive criticism" rather than what I've seen a bit too much of in other arenas on here from time to time). So please, everyone, feel free to chime in, suggest, criticise, etc.

In the mean time what CAD package are you using? I use ACA 2008 and seeing this work you are doing is really kicking me in the butt. I really need to learn how to work in 3D

I'm running Pro/ENGINEER, "Wildfire 2.0" at home. At work, I'm using Wildfire 4.0 (upgrades are expensive and I don't need the minor additional capabilities for home work), and they've just released another major build ("Wildfire 5.0").

I've used plenty of 3D CAD packages, but overall, Pro/E is my favorite. Which is not to say it doesn't have problems... and that some of the other packages don't excell where this one has troubles. Pro/E's rendering capabilities are minimal... but I have a few add-on rendering options I play with, as well as an old version (6.0) of Maya that I can interchange data with for nicer renderings, once I've got everything really worked out.

Now... on to today's work.

Mainly, I've been working on the dorsal and windows today, with the real focus being getting the integration between the dorsal and the primary hull to make sense. (I've also added in the beginning of nacelle pylons, but those are mainly there to help me judge interconnections between power systems, and to START thinking about secondary hull structural elements.)

Here is the primary hull with the new dorsal. I think it looks very much like the real ship.

(FYI - My biggest gripe with the Casimiro plans is that they reduce the primary hull underside details a bit, and even if those are "more accurate" they don't look to me like the ship I see on my screen. I far prefer this version, with the slightly larger lower primary hull protrusion.)

Now, a section through the centerline of the ship. (Note that when you see solid material, you shouldn't assume "solid mass of metal" in the "real" ship... those are just regions which are heavy with structural materials and hardware, but are not necessarily "solid volumes." That includes walls, decks, hull, and the big regions you see here. Basically, I'm modeling habitable spaces and leaving everything else solid. Make sense?)

Now, realize I've taken a few liberties here to make everything work, and one of those is here. I'm not "exactly" matching the window locations on the model (per ANY of the sets of prints I've seen). Here are my window locations as compared to the Sinclair window locations.

What I did there was to choose a "dorsal deck height" (in this case, 8' even) and a "dorsal deck thickness" (in this case, 2') and start shifting things around 'til everything lines up as well as it can. I thought about altering deck thicknesses in the dorsal, but didn't end up having to do that. The region up at the top is where the interconnection occurs... about halfway between the ceiling of deck 8D (that's "eight, dorsal") and the lower lip of the primary hull.

Once I had everything "tweaked in" (remarkably, I didn't even have to change the deck spacing or deck thickness numbers this time, though normally that's unavoidable) and I'd made my decks inside the dorsal's volume, well... I had to decide how to handle windows. I wanted them to be at a consistent height and size... they're 1.6m wide, 0.75m high, and 1m from the deck at the lower edge, by the way. It actually matches up very nicely, and some are pretty much exact. I moved a few windows longitudinally, to avoid having them go across any "split lines" (which can cause problems when making windows the way I do), but I don't think this is really noticeable, do you?

I'll add in the round "sensor windows" on the primary hull underside and the dorsal once I'm done with the square windows.

Now, I've also STARTED on the secondary hull's mechanical structure. One of the big "whines" I frequently hear about the TOS Enterprise is that the pylons are just "Popsicle sticks" stuck onto a cylinder, but that's not really true. Jefferies clearly thought through how this would all integrate, and I believe that if handled properly, (ie, build the rooms around the mechanism, not the other way around!) you can have a very robust structure here. What you see here is the very beginning of my secondary hull structure... the pylons come together at the centroid of the secondary hull (the inside corner of the "V" is exactly at the axis) and also are supported by "heavy ring" structures at the leading and trailing edges. There will be similar "heavy ring" structures at the dorsal leading and trailing edges. There will be several "heavy beam" elements going between the two ring sections, but a central axis "heavy beam." My plan for the secondary hull is to build the structure first, then start laying in decks and rooms and so forth.

One of the most common topics of conversation re: Trek has always been "where is the engine room?" Well, I imagine that the "triangle of pipes" falls right in the middle of the "V" made up by the pylon frame members. I'm not sure of exact details yet, though, obviously... I want to let the geometry drive the location, not vice versa.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I suggest you do yourself a favor and forget trying to use that tube assembly to determine the location of Engineering. Besides the obvious (opposite orientation, wrong angle), that approach also puts Engineering right up against the hangar deck, with no room to play with whatsoever.

Divorce that thing from the struts, so that yout can put it anywhere you want, and life does get a bit easier.

 

[sbk1234]

That is frickin' awesome!

 

[Psion]

... Seriously.. didn't mean to cause problems. I have to admit, it's hard to judge by sight, since I'm running this 30" 120hz panel and those images only span half my screen....

Okay. Now I'm trying to decide if my envy for you has spilled into loathing. I hope you get whiplash using that thing, you ... you ... you glutton!

I've done a bit more with internal layout and windows. The really interesting thing is that the "ring corridor set" used in the physical sets really makes a LOT of sense, especially at this scale. There are six decks where this is the ideal corridor size. The "weapons deck" has a smaller corridor (but since we've only seen this deck once, in "Balance of Terror," and only seen the corridor once as Spock ran back to the phaser control room) I don't have a problem with a minor tweak to what was seen on-screen there.

Well done! As a youngster I remember looking at the FJ blueprints and being disappointed that all the TV action appeared to occur on only one deck in one particular corridor. I love big corridors and all, but this standardization makes the show make sense again. Thank you!

Hey ... that gizmo on the front circular glowing ports looks kind of familiar. Did you intentionally evoke Nomad? Okuda did almost the same thing, sticking the shape in engineering on 1701-D.

 

[USS Mariner]

I'd strongly encourage you to explore testing observation lounge designs using the ring of windows on the underside of the primary hull. Even at a 945ft scale (because, at that size, the 11-footer becomes at perfect 1/84th), the view and set possibilities are fantastic. My favorite use of the space was as double-height areas, emulating the Rec Dec's intended design with slopes and multiple levels, including an open space in the center and walkways along the windows for up-close views of the outside. It was a glorious mock-up, using as many TOS set elements as possible, like the ubiquitous angled support beams.

Shame. I'll have to rebuild the thing from scratch someday. I scrapped the model a long time ago, and I never thought any of those test shots were good enough to keep....

 

[BK613]

This is insanely great! Keep up the good work!

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well done! As a youngster I remember looking at the FJ blueprints and being disappointed that all the TV action appeared to occur on only one deck in one particular corridor. I love big corridors and all, but this standardization makes the show make sense again. Thank you!

Well, you're welcome... but believe me, I'm as pleasantly-surprised as anyone at just how easily this is all falling together. Almost as if the guy who did the original work might have actually had some of this in mind... sorta makes you go "hmmmmm."

Hey ... that gizmo on the front circular glowing ports looks kind of familiar. Did you intentionally evoke Nomad? Okuda did almost the same thing, sticking the shape in engineering on 1701-D.

Glad someone caught that... even though I altered it later on to look a bit LESS "nomad-y." My first-pass looked exactly like Nomad in-section like that, but I thought that was maybe just a bit TOO "cheesy."

FYI, the "gizmo" is a long-range, high-power scanner. There are three of them, with one facing directly forward and one to either side a few degrees offset (with overlapping cones of observation). Along with the dish (which is a totally different technology and which collects other forms of information as a result) you have the main "eyes" of the starship.

What you see on the main viewer, in fact, is a computer-generated image composited from the data collected by the many sensors and scanners throughout the ship, and with significant processing associated with the resultant imagery. You're not looking out a "window into space," but rather at a "composite data representation" of what's REALLY out there, but altered to make it more useful (for instance, making ships which may be millions of kilometers apart seem to be a few hundred meters apart, so that both ship's actions can be seen at once... or altering the nearly-imperceptable levels of light in space into something which seems almost like "studio lighting.") And of course, as a typical rule, the image seen omits any visual indication of the starship hull unless otherwise requested.

What you see in there are these three "scanner-telescopes" sharing a common ... well, think of it as a "water cooling jacket." You only see the aperature from outside, of course, but there's a lot more hardware inside.

Anyone who's familiar with my "Vega" class ship (originally my Titan design submission, and seen in small scale in my avatar) knows about the "nose" that seems to rub some folks the wrong way. But realize, that "nose" on the Vega is just a larger, more complicated and more sensitive version of this same "forward scanners" concept which I've been in favor of for as long as I can recall. But while the 1701 has three "telescopes," the Vega has an array of several hundred, all more powerful than the ones on the 1701, forming a "synthetic aperature array."

 

[Psion]

Awesome. You do realize though that you and I are in the minority of opinion about the function of those ports? Most everyone thinks they're windows ... they are, after all, the same color as the other windows. Not that it matters -- most people think it's all just a TV show so what did they know?

And my apologies if I've missed this, but is it your intention to leave the turboshaft exclusively vertical? I wasn't paying close attention to your Vega because while I found the technique fascinating, the subject of your work wasn't as interesting as this old girl, but I just assumed it had the usual run of turbolift tunnels. Here it looks like just a single shaft in the primary hull. And if you are running a shaft to the secondary hull, will the car tilt and go down diagonally, or do you prefer the more orthodox sidestepping shaft?

 

[Irishman]

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!!!!!

Well done, sir.

 

[Praetor]

Wow, Cary, I barely visit for two days and then I find this. Amazingly awesome. I'm looking forward to following the developments of this project. It's remarkable how much life improves with a 1080' ship. Also, count me in as one who favors the very clever 'nomad' telescope setup.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Awesome. You do realize though that you and I are in the minority of opinion about the function of those ports? Most everyone thinks they're windows ... they are, after all, the same color as the other windows. Not that it matters -- most people think it's all just a TV show so what did they know?

Well, most of them ARE "windows." They're just not "sightseeing, viewing windows." So I can live with the them being described this way.

Technically, I can only recall twice during TOS that we actually saw windows on the ship. Once, where there were tons of faces staring in (but Shatner was too busy trying to seduce the last woman on the ship), and another, when we really couldn't see out them (and Shatner was too busy trying to seduce a psycho-actress-type). And in both of those cases, the windows were rectangular.

What I'm doing with MOST of these is having them be little round porthole windows, leading into "broom closets." Inside of those little "closet spaces" are whatever sensors happen to be inside, looking out.

I considered using some of them as "RCS thruster ports" but the positioning just doesn't make sense to me, so I'm going to have covered RCS ports in several locations (behind slide-back hatches, just like the phaser emitters and torpedo tube ends are).

And my apologies if I've missed this, but is it your intention to leave the turboshaft exclusively vertical? I wasn't paying close attention to your Vega because while I found the technique fascinating, the subject of your work wasn't as interesting as this old girl, but I just assumed it had the usual run of turbolift tunnels. Here it looks like just a single shaft in the primary hull. And if you are running a shaft to the secondary hull, will the car tilt and go down diagonally, or do you prefer the more orthodox sidestepping shaft?

Well, so far there's only one lift tube that I know the location for. And I deviate quite a bit from some folks, because I think it's crucial for the crew to actually walk as much as possible, just for fitness's sake if for no other reason. Still, there is a reason for SOME horizontal tubes. Just not the maze of tubes we often see.

So, I intend to have a fair spread of horizontal tubes on Deck 6, with "loop over" connections between the ends of those tubes on Deck 5 and Deck 7. This is something that also came up in Shaw's thread a while back, and he did a fine job with implementing it. I may have a few less tubes, total, but not dramatically so.

Also, with the exception of the ends of the lift chain (top and bottom) I intend for cars to have to "pull over" to a separate alcove, off of the main tube, when stopping. This will allow other cars to move past. I may also have "shoulder pull-over" stops in a few locations in case two cars come head-to-head at some point which is distant from a lift station... these will probably be more relevant in the Deck 6 "spurs" off of the inner region, and there won't be very many of them.

Part of my concern is sizing the lift cars properly. We've never seen any drawing or image of TOS lift cars, except for a few fan-made ones (which I believe don't work). My take on the cars is that they have very little internal hardware, and are entirely slaved to an infrastructure within the starship. That is, they have no life-support of their own (they get air from air which is pumped into the lift tubes), they get power from rails inside the tubes, and they aren't self-propelled, but rather are propelled by hardware in the lift tubes.

That's why I built the "box" around the vertical lift tube you see. The four corners each have "driver coils" in them which propel the car up or down.

The car will have some internal circulation machinery for climate control, a grav plate set (incorporating inertia-control), lights, a control system interface (not an actual independent car control, just a "dumb terminal") and a wireless intercom interface.

Also, probably, some sort of brake system for positive retention at "docking terminals" inside the tube system - cut power, and the brakes deploy automatically, apply power, and the brakes can be retracted.

The trick is to figure out where those various tubes and elements need to be located. And so far, my only guidance is from the bridge set and the single TOS corridor set (which, interestingly, has a lift tube at approximately the correct location relative to the corridor ring).

But in answer to your question... decks 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10 will only be accessed by a single common vertical tube. Deck 6 will have several major horizontal tubes. Decks 5 and 7 will have limited extensions of the system on Deck 6, mainly to allow "looping" without totally subdividing Deck 6.

Obviously, the dorsal will require at least one horizontal "jog" and the secondary hull will almost certainly have a "box" which will be very much like what Shaw created in his version.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Sorry if I seem to belabor the point, but here's a pic of Shane Johnson's take on the TFF turbo shafts. The concept seems to lend itself to what you're doing here?http://i671.photobucket.com/albums/vv73/tin_man_2009/0001.jpg

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Sorry if I seem to belabor the point, but here's a pic of Shane Johnson's take on the TFF turbo shafts. The concept seems to lend itself to what you're doing here?http://i671.photobucket.com/albums/vv73/tin_man_2009/0001.jpg

No worries...

I don't intend to implement this in my approach, however... two main reasons.

First... I consider this to be a dramatic "safety issue." The only reason I can envision for wanting a person inside the lift shaft (other than poor scriptwriting) is for extraordinary maintenance (when the tube would be shut down... and most likely in zero-G as well) or if a car was permanently lodged in place by a mechanical failure of some sort (and even then, this wouldn't be the first choice, since the majority of the time you could get access through an existing door panel or through a bulkhead).

Second... we've seen ladderways in the ship, and even know where they are (at least in the "central corridors"), on-screen.

The biggest problem with doing this sort of design is determining the line of separation between "earthbound engineering" and more application-specific engineering. I'm afraid that this idea, to my eyes, falls into that category... carrying too much from earthbound "elevator shaft" design into a dramatically different application.

I like most of what Shane has done, but I don't consider his work to be authoritative (then again, he probably won't consider mine that way either, and since it's all fictional that's perfectly fine! )

Can you give me a reason I haven't thought of for having the tubes (which are currently close-fitting to the exterior of the car) enclosed in a volume which incorporates a trio of ladderways?

At MOST, I can envision some handholds in the smooth metal tubing along one edge... not easy to climb, but serviceable in an emergency. But I'm having a hard time imagining a time that you'd really need to use those...

 

[TIN_MAN]

Can you give me a reason I haven't thought of for having the tubes (which are currently close-fitting to the exterior of the car) enclosed in a volume which incorporates a trio of ladderways?

Nah, not really, It just seems that such a design might explain the differance in the external and internal circumferance of the T/L shaft (behind the bridge) at the 1080 length you're using? But maybe it's not as big a differance as I'm assuming, and at any rate, I'm sure you've got it all thought out anyhow, so keep up the good work!

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Can you give me a reason I haven't thought of for having the tubes (which are currently close-fitting to the exterior of the car) enclosed in a volume which incorporates a trio of ladderways?

Nah, not really, It just seems that such a design might explain the differance in the external and internal circumferance of the T/L shaft (behind the bridge) at the 1080 length you're using? But maybe it's not as big a differance as I'm assuming, and at any rate, I'm sure you've got it all thought out anyhow, so keep up the good work!

Ah, that makes sense then.

No, it's not a big difference at all. Note that various plans I have show different bridge dome dimensions (and lift shaft locations and heights) anyway... in this case, I'm using Sinclair's bridge dome, but have tweaked his lift shaft nub a bit (making it slightly taller, though I may reduce that once I know exactly how I want my cars set up.

I was working from the plan view, and basing my location on McMaster's bridge plan (with his centerline to centerline - bridge to lift tube - distances). I then added in sufficient thickness for internal "tube" and also added a full hull-wall-thickness. It came very close to Sinclair's diameter for the nub, and almost exactly at his location, too. I'm still very slightly taller than his, but if you look at my section earlier in the thread, you can see that I left a LOT of headroom above the lift car ceiling... and I'm prepared to reduce that.

That said... here's an image of the shaft... from the inside of the tube to the outside hull. Remember, the tube is one element... the hull is another... and it's not all solid, though I've portrayed it that way here. The car is a relatively thin-walled element that will add a bit more wall thickness on top of what you see, into the shaft obviously. But I think this illustrates that there's not nearly as much "extra diameter" as you were thinking that there would be.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess I'm just used to seeing all those differant plans over the yaers for the 947 footer, that always show a very thin T/L "wall" back there, that it never accured to me that a thicker wall would actually make more sense.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Before going to bed tonight, I wanted to take a quick look at something... and I decided to go ahead and share it with you guys. Obviously, the 1701 isn't completed, but this should be sufficient to convey scale among the various designs...

 

[Praetor]

Spiffy! I've always liked your take on the ringship.