Hey guys, was just rendering most of the day on another PC, so that means the USS Pike, is Finished! So now onto new things, I'm going to be working on the Federation Class Battle Ship, Refit-Era. Unfortunately it's not the Federation Class exactly, I'm not a big fan of three nacelles... So instead I have decided to make a ship that is a "missing link" between the Connie class, and the Excelsior Class. So here are some block in's. I don't plan for this to be my main project, by expect for this to be finished for the 50th Anniversary. Right now everything is considered a "block in". SO, here she is!
It's refit era? The neck looks JJ-ish, although I guess you could relate it to the Excelsior. But I would try to reduce the neck.
Interesting, looks good so far. With the bulkier neck, it kind of makes the nacelle pylons look puny. Maybe beef up where they connect to the engineering hull. -Ricky
Why? It's a different class of ship. It should try and be it's own thing instead of a reconstituted Constitution class.
Why does everyone hate three nacelles? The depiction of the USS Star Empire on the original cover artwork for Dreadnought! shows a ship a step between The TOS-style Enterprise and the Excelsior, although with three nacelles. Kris Trigwell interpreted the cover art into a drawing and made a version with two nacelles as seen here.
Just an update so far, did another 3-4 hours work, mainly on the nacelles, little bit on the neck and saucer. That being said, I hope this takes the ship further away from my previous ship. Oh and unlike the Pike, her windows will be not be extruded outwards. Stay Classy, BBS (We need a ron burgundy emote) Edit: Ignore the USS Pike text in the pictures.
Looking interesting, except cause the four impulse engines. Excelsior had just two, only the Enterprise-B had four. My suggestion is to keep just two impulse engines and change them a bit, making them to appears as a step between the Connie class, and the Excelsior Class.
The big things that look like the impulse engines are not impulse engines, they are shuttle bays... She has only two impulse engines. The secondary hull opening; where the enterprise refit would have the shuttle bay/cargo bay, is strictly a cargo bay entrance... I should really make a blueprint... Oh, and thank you SPCTRE, I'm okay with the three nacelle design. Just really only on the Ent-D, the federation class refit not so much.
Agreed, I really like the way the nacelles are going. I'm not sure about the shuttle-bays though... maybe making them shallower will help? It looks like of bulked up right there. -Ricky
Well then, I'm glad I did. Well I made the entrances a little more shallow... But, I do want to keep the outer bulk. Hopefully these new renders will convince you. I'm really proud of this one here, the deflector light is so close to being 100% accurate! You might have to calibrate your monitor's brightness/contrast to see some of the detail in that one. Alright-y then up next, is the secondary hull, and the cargo bay that comes with it. Then a little more detailing all around the ship. Then comes the cavity displacement maps.. Stay Classy, BBS CJ
As much as I love how your work is coming along, the lack of the third nacelle is really throwing me off as far as her being an Alt Federation class. Hell, she doesn't even look like the Federation class at all. I would've been quite satisfied if you'd just said she was her own thing. But as far as looking like an intermediary between the Constitution and Excelsior class, you are fairing far better. You're blending in the two designs quite well, and the blending of the two design elements from the Constitution Refit and Excelsior's nacelles are a relatively simple but elegant blending. The aft of the saucer section looks blocky, which in turn makes it look a little cluttered, but then that is sort of what I'd expect from an experimental one off testbed anyways.
I like just two nacelles myself. The best bit is your new torpedo set-up. Nice to see something different. I'd like to see an alternate version with the nicek of the Pike used as nacelle supports--scaled down a bit--with aft firing tubes just below/behind the nacelles.
I definitely get what you're saying but unfortunately for the Federation Class, it was never seen on screen. That makes it Non-Canon in my books, and that means I can mess with the design as much as I want. I could legitimately make a cube, and call it the federation class design, and I could theoretically get away with it. But I'm not, because I'm not a jerk like that... or am I? The essence of the federation class to me is, a bigger badder enterprise, with more shuttle bay's it knows what to do with. A big honking torpedo launcher, and a bulkier neck. That's what I wanted to carry over, but for me that's never enough, so on TOP of that, I wanted the Federation Class, to be the missing link between the excelsior design and the connie refit. And I think that's working out pretty well so far. That's what I like to do, something different every project. This model is the last ship I'll do for a while. I'll be moving on to other projects soon. Not this ship, maybe a 24th/ 25th era ship. Might go and ping erifah, I really like his designs. I would not mind doing a collaboration piece with him at one point into the future. Anyhoo, here some stuff I've done, the first one here is a scale piece to show the difference in size between the ships. Next up are some renders and close ups of the secondary hull, torpedo launchers, and the shuttle bay cover (still got to push/pull verts on that one.) Oh and I did this as well... Alrighty then, Back to work!