Archer-Class Interior

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm a fan of the tiny Archer-Class ship from the Vanguard series; from the look of it, to its function, to the small crew, all of it just seems like a great idea.

I've found the interior deck arrangement, which gives the broad strokes of where the rooms are located. But one thing I keep wondering is: where is all the hardware?

The core of the mid deck is allocated for "machinery", but when you think about all the little bits and pieces Starfleet ships need (phaser cells, shield generator, SIF system, inertial dampners/stabilisers, environmental/life support, computer core) there really doesn't seem enough space. Then you need to add in the deuterium tanks and antimatter storage pods in order to power the ship.

Anyone care to hazard a guess where all of this stuff might go?

 

[Timo]

You could put all the fuel in the nacelles, say - but they are already very, very small for their supposed performance of warp nine'ish (heck, the whole scout is, almost shaking my belief in size being a prerequisite for speed in Star Trek).

But much of the rest could be in plain sight. Only on a large starship would one bother with "Jeffries tubes" and vanity covers; on an Archer, life support systems and the like would be lining the walls and ceilings, and be constantly accessed by the crew because of the lack of redundancies and the subsequent greater need of maintenance. "Rooms" as such would be of limited use, unless they were filled with useful things like tanks, valves, stem bolt manifolds and the occasional bunk in between.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I guess you could use any shuttlecraft as an analogue. They all have the various systems you describe, even the TOS versions, and they all seem to somehow fit it into a volume scarcely larger than the shuttle itself. Heck, even cloaking devices can be fit into an oversize suitcase if you had to do it.

The base conclusion we have to reach is that all the hardware is already tiny by our standards and thus doesn't take up THAT much space. Indeed, we hardly see ANY of the major hardware on a full-size starship save for a warp core and sometimes the computer core. I'm guessing pretty much everything save tanks for fuel and water would not take up any significant space in the Trek universe unless specifically shown as such.

Mark

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Also, can you link us to a source fort the interior of the ship, if available online?

Mark

 

[Mysterion]

Also, can you link us to a source fort the interior of the ship, if available online?

Mark

Here you go: http://www.davidmack.pro/vanguard/Sagittarius_Internal.pdf

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Thanks Mysterion, but that is the deck plans I've seen, which miss out where the fuel tanks are, what else is on the engineering deck and so forth. I will be buying the Vanguard books in the near future, until then I was looking to see if they mentioned anything more specific (I don't know why but I love deck plans and ship specs).

 

[Mysterion]

Thanks Mysterion, but that is the deck plans I've seen, which miss out where the fuel tanks are, what else is on the engineering deck and so forth. I will be buying the Vanguard books in the near future, until then I was looking to see if they mentioned anything more specific (I don't know why but I love deck plans and ship specs).

That's as detailed as I've seen anywhere, I'm afraid. If anyone else has got more, please share it with us!

The first Vanguard book does have a nice fold-out diagram of the station itself, though. Similar to the fold-out they did of USS Titan in that series. Here is a portion of it: http://www.davidmack.pro/vanguard/station02.jpg

I'm also a big fan of ship's specs and deckplans, and am equally frstrated when the essentials seem to get left-out/over-looked.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Cool! I hadn't seen that before and it didn't turn up in my searches.

While Masao had gone on about how cramped the ship is and how the decks weren't often at full height, that diagram seems to show near-full deck height for the main/red deck - unless the figures in the diagram are children. :P

This in turn leaves quite a bit of space in the upper part of the saucer for fuel and water tanks, various machinery, and ad-hoc stowage - there's arguably even enough space for a Jeffries tube crawlway up there to access it all. Likewise much of the lower/blue deck is apparently unallocated and has lots of space for extra stuff; and I'm thinking the computer core would fit nicely in the hull blister that has the navigational deflector in it, or up in the suitably-labelled "machinery" space in the upper/green deck.

Now that we know this layout, I'm honestly thinking there's a big Serenity-from-Firefly vibe about this ship. Not everything THERE was explained either, but they had characterized most fo the living space on the ship and it has pretty much the same sort of space, plus a very large cargo bay. If Starfleet is more advanced than that, I can believe the Archer class has more than enough space for all the extra things to make it go.

Mark

 

[bryce]

I just found this...but some of these interiors (like the hallway) look a little to big for such a small ship...

http://sknkstore.wordpress.com/2012...cher-class-starship-v2-the-u-s-s-sagittarius/

 

[T'Girl]

But one thing I keep wondering is: where is all the hardware?

Think of the way it used to be aboard older naval vessels, especially submarines, the crew would work, eat and sleep with the machinery completely surrounding them. If you were the radio operator, you slept in the radio room, the guys who handled the torpedoes slept on bunks immediately above the torpedoes.

So the crew of a Archer Class might not have discrete separate areas for working and living and equipment. The areas marked "crew quarters" is also the area with the deuterium tanks, and the crews beds are on top/below the tanks (it's just a type of water). The room that holds the food fabricators is where you go to eat.

 

[Timo]

guess you could use any shuttlecraft as an analogue.

I'd say the shuttles are a different beast altogether: their balance of low performance and high cargo capacity results in a very different vehicle where the components might be inherently easier to hide. Think delivery van vs. racing car, or delivery van vs. recce-configured APC.

Just like T'Girl sez, a volume marked in those blueprints is probably cramped beyond its seeming dimensions because it is actually full of stuff...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Ah, but either way a typical shuttlecraft is basically a fully functional, FTL starship with all the basic bells and whistles to travel in space. So it means that everything from grav generators to life support to SIF/IDF fields to shield generators must be contained within its volume; judging by this, none of this key technology can take up too much space on even the TOS shuttles. Assuming that this is at best a proportional scaling up to a ship the size of the Archer, all the stuff listed in the OP should be neatly tucked away in very little of the total volume of the ship to have "the basics" covered. IMO, this leaves more than enough usable space for other stuff. OTOH, a ship like this finally gives an excuse to work on a plot point in Engineering or the mess hall instead of a dedicated lab!

Mark

 

[Masao]

I worked up those deck plans just as a general guide for the writers. They weren't intended for publication so have just minimal detail. I didn't account for every bit of gear because doing so wasn't necessary for the writers. However, we must assume that everything needed was present because Archer seemed to function OK in the Vanguard novels. USS Enterprise, as seen on TV, works in the same way.

Also, Archer was described (in the first book) before she was designed (for the second book). Because of time constraints, I adapted one of my earlier designs from my website, shrunk it down, and tried to make the interior match the description in the book. So, Archer was designed backwards and outside-in.

(Regarding the people appearing smaller than normal, they're 5 feet 5 inches tall. That's normal, for me at least. I'm usually around that height.)

The guy who designs the deck plans for the ships my website (The Starfleet Museum) also did some detailed deck plans for Archer/Sagittarius but they weren't published, for reasons I won't go in to. I don't know if they'll ever be released.

 

[T'Girl]

a typical shuttlecraft is basically a fully functional, FTL starship

I've never gotten the feeling that you could live on a shuttle (or even a runabout) for a protracted period of time.

 

[Timo]

There may also be a massive threshold between doing shuttle speeds and doing the sort of speeds a scout needs. In TOS, any stupid old freighter could do warp two - but no more, despite supposedly being gigantic in comparison with the smallest craft capable of this feat. OTOH, small "scouting" craft such as those flown by Cyrano Jones or Carter Winston were larger than the theoretically interstellar shuttles, but only accommodated one person.

Even in TNG, the fastest we've heard a shuttle go would be warp 4, for the unseen Type 9 in "Resolutions". Something keeps the shuttles from being as fast as the slightly larger runabouts (at least warp 5). It might be something as simple as nacelle size - but also something more complex, involving stuffing the interiors with proportionately more machinery (as the Danube seems to have less crew-accessible space inside than the Type 6, proportionally).

Timo Saloniemi