"Crossbow-class" - a ship, for a change!

[Ptrope]

First off, I don't model a lot of starships - at least not their exteriors. I've done a couple, about 5 years ago, but generally, it doesn't come up much in my workload.

A couple nights ago, though, I just had a thought I couldn't get out of my head. I went first for the sketchbook, did a few thumbnails, then I fired up Lightwave and started in. It was just an idea of a TOS-style starship, with many of the familiar design elements, but with a 'wing' connecting the nacelles together, and mounted to the dorsal neck. It pulled all the elements in tighter to one another, and I kind of liked the idea of the secondary hull floating out there with only one connection (kind of like Kelvin in AbramsTrek, but this one wouldn't have bricks in the basement ... )

I'm still playing with ideas, blocking it out, and then trying various renders in Poser, which has been a big headache (on top of the actual big headache I already had!); Poser Pro 2010 insists on smoothing things I don't want smoothed, even when I've split the vertices, and in order to keep sharp edges I want, I end up with edges where I don't want them, simply because of the angles. Looks like I need to go back to Poser 6 just to get good renders of my models! Or just stick to Lightwave, huh?

While I was at it, I added a 'spine' down the back of the dorsal and across the top of the secondary hull; I like what it does for the profile (although a straight-on profile of this ship isn't very informative, with all the elements pretty much overlappping - it's not elegant like Enterprise, at least from the side, but I think it does have many very good angles.

BTW, at this point, the textures are all placeholders, borrowed from other models - I wanted to render something a little more than big solid surfaces.

I'm still working on the the details and mapping; I've already rebuilt the hangar doors, added the 'forks' at the front of the secondary hull, lengthened the 'collar' behind the deflector somewhat, started adding the external lights; I still need to build the various details that belong on the nacelles and then the texturing is probably going to take the longest, actually. BTW, that 'pillbox' over the hangar is already modeled with a rudimentary interior, just so I could light it independently and possibly throw a person in there looking out .

Nothing groundbreaking about it; I'm not trying to approach the level of finesse and detail that deg3D, Vektor and others here do so (seemingly) effortlessly, or invent a new paradigm for TOS designs - I just had an itch that needed to be scratched .

 

[The Lensman]

I like it! I've seen a lot of the "kitbash" style ships, but I don't think I've ever seen one like this. Well done!

I'd be interested to see how it looks if you flipped the cross beam so that the nacelles swept back a little.

 

[Ptrope]

Well, I'm kind of a P-51 Mustang fan (the little Dart shuttle I made here a few years ago had numerous echoes of its design, for example), and I tend to pick up elements from it even without thinking about it - the 'wing' looks very similar in plan to the wings of the Mustang, which is already a great deal 'swoopier' than those straight pylons on the big "E", but I didn't really want to move the nacelles much further back - I tried it, and it just lost some of the 'brawniness' that I liked about it. In some ways, it very much reminds me of some of the big hood ornaments that announced the prows of several cars of the 1950s . BTW, that wing also has a very slight dihedral to it, as well - I couldn't just pop in a big plank there .

 

[Lieut. Arex]

I like the flexibility of the design. Either the primary or secondary hull could retain the warp drive in case damage to the ship forced a separation. An FTL lifeboat's way better than a sublight one.

 

[Forbin]

I like it, but the machinery and structure inside that neck must be ... complicated!

 

[Ptrope]

Probably so! I'm still working on the scale of this thing - I think I need to reduce the bridge about 30% to be more in scale with the decks, esp. the hangar deck, which should, by extension, make the dorsal less cramped-appearing. That wing is probably a couple decks thick, so the dorsal is even slightly thicker than that - that should be a significant amount of room (it's much thicker than the dorsal of the Big "E"). And the way things line up that vertical line of windows on the dorsal is actually aligned with a TMP-style warp core that runs through both hulls (I don't know if it's canon - don't much care ), which to me makes more engineering sense than trying to run a complicated network to the angled pylons that somehow seem anchored to the Connie's hangar deck . This way, at least, the warp conduits can come directly off the core, straight to the nacelles, and POW! warp drive!

As for an either/or proposition on which hull can take the warp drive with it, I think it's still a matter of the secondary hull being the horse and the saucer being the cart; the core could terminate within the dorsal, having just a power coupling to the saucer, but I don't see an arrangement where one could separate at either the upper or the lower dorsal joints. And I'm sad, sad, sad that I can even entertain the thought of that being a serious engineering consideration .

 

[Santaman]

I like it quite a bit. I only think you should move the nacelles a bit more forward.

 

[timelord1010]

Beautiful design. Here is my opinion or 2 cents which is that of a armchair novice starship designer

You could enlarge the cross beam slightly and put the warp core there, between the nacelles so in a emergency the primary or secondary hull can take the warp drive with them.
Also, by enlarging the cross beam you could add a rear facing photon torpedo launcher.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Probably so! I'm still working on the scale of this thing - I think I need to reduce the bridge about 30% to be more in scale with the decks, esp. the hangar deck, which should, by extension, make the dorsal less cramped-appearing. That wing is probably a couple decks thick, so the dorsal is even slightly thicker than that - that should be a significant amount of room (it's much thicker than the dorsal of the Big "E"). And the way things line up that vertical line of windows on the dorsal is actually aligned with a TMP-style warp core that runs through both hulls (I don't know if it's canon - don't much care ), which to me makes more engineering sense than trying to run a complicated network to the angled pylons that somehow seem anchored to the Connie's hangar deck . This way, at least, the warp conduits can come directly off the core, straight to the nacelles, and POW! warp drive!

As for an either/or proposition on which hull can take the warp drive with it, I think it's still a matter of the secondary hull being the horse and the saucer being the cart; the core could terminate within the dorsal, having just a power coupling to the saucer, but I don't see an arrangement where one could separate at either the upper or the lower dorsal joints. And I'm sad, sad, sad that I can even entertain the thought of that being a serious engineering consideration .

Well, that being a series-era design (or close enough), I look at it with MJ's original intention of the warp systems being housed completely within the nacelles themselves. In other words, they don't need no stinkin' warp core. Viewed that way, either/or's a snap.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

I like it! Very cool.

 

[Buck Rogers]

I love your design Ptrope,and would to see an orthographic or blueprint complete with bridge,engineering using your Victorian colors,and design elements.
Again awesome work .
Signed
Buck Rogers

 

[erifah]

Well, I, for one, HATE it.

(No, not because of the design or execution - both are VERY well done; the work of a true craftsman and artist. I hate it because it is SO unfair this Ptrope person can dream up an innovative & creative design, and put out a finished 3D product from start to finish in just a few days - whereas I still can't figure out how to make a decent sphere in my student copy of Maya.)

(I also hate Ptrope because I heard he has a bigger penis than I do.)

 

[MadMan1701A]

Awesome.

I agree with The Lensman, though, I wonder how it would look if the pylons were swept back slightly, instead of forward.

 

[erifah]

Awesome.

I agree with The Lensman, though, I wonder how it would look if the pylons were swept back slightly, instead of forward.

Or, how about if the pylons were sitting directly on top of the engineering section?

 

[Ptrope]

The 'wing' isn't actually swept forward at all, though it does have a deeper trailing edge than leading edge:

In the meantime, I've started on some of the detailing of the nacelles, although I still need to work on the overall scale of the components. I'm basically using the hangar deck as the yardstick, and I scaled down the bridge and sensor domes on the saucer, since the bridge was way to big - which, of course, means the saucer is now larger by comparison . For the moment, I'm experimenting with breaking from some of the traditional symmetry on the nacelles ('they have flux chillers on both sides, they have intercoolers on both sides, those 'chin things' are symmetrically placed, etc.'); for now, they have only one intercooler, on the outside of the nacelle, and one flux chiller nearly opposite it on the inside, although both nacelles are symmetrical with each other. Also, since I rotated the insets upward, and the combo of the nacelles and the 'wing' are reminiscent of the P-38 (not just the Mustang ), I decided to try something like the P-38's superchargers at the fore end of the insets, as on the engine booms of the P-38. It's still a work-in-progress .





I'm still not so sure about the mechanics of an either/or attachment for the warp drive; I can think of a couple possible ways, but not without trying to make it clear in the design itself, and that would mean going back and redesigning the dorsal, something I'm not especially keen to do - I like the lines at this point and don't really want to 'clunky' them up with a mechanical configuration . I supposed I could just add seams, but to me, that would be a cheat.

 

[Patrickivan]

I'm torn. I like it and I don't. I like the clean simple classic trek lines. I like the departure from the norm, while maintaining those familiar shapes and rules that make it a recognizable Starfleet ship.

I'm not sure how the engineering would work with pylons running through the dorsal like that. There's a lot of plumbing running though that small space.

I'm not concerned over the fragile look at that connection because I've always believed the technology of the time allowed for it to be stronger then it looks.

I don't know. I'll have more of an opinion when it's fleshed out more.

Oh- and as for leaving out the bricked basement, well done. But tell me the repelling ropes are staying?

 

[Kaiser]

i like it cus it looks more aggressive on the front view than a 2260's Constitution plus the Bussard collectors are not blocked by the saucer section

 

[Ptrope]

Looking at the Connie, though, the connection of the nacelle pylons is, if anything, much more fragile-appearing than this dorsal connection; while they appear to go into a large mass, the secondary hull, we've all pretty much seen that they go through the hangar deck pressure hull, if one is to believe the onscreen evidence of the interior space. They're both longer and thinner than this 'wing', and the dorsal here is about 50% thicker than that on a Connie, as well. I'd say that this setup would actually be substantially more robust than the 'canon' arrangement.

The big issue, and which has already arisen in this thread, is where one postulates the location of main engineering, and how the arrangement between it and the nacelles exists. If the nacelles are self-contained warp cores, than there's no problem - any plumbing is supporting that, and since we know the dorsal has always needed to be a mass of transfer conduits of some sort, from one hull to the other, this arrangement isn't really adding much to that. If we go with a TMP-style engineering, where we have a large, vertical core, then placing it where it only has to, at most, go a short way up into the dorsal and then make a single 90° split to either nacelle, makes a lot more sense to me than one where it has to wend around the secondary hull and then finally up the pylons to the nacelles. This arrangement, particularly, while I favor it, also goes a long way to negate the chance of making the warp drive a module that can separate with either the primary or secondary hull (maybe that's why they invented the dreadnought, originally ).

Think of that wing as a conventional wing on an airplane: when in flight, the roots of the wings are stressed by both supporting the weight of the plane, and, for larger planes with engines on the wings, carrying all of the thrust as well as the lift. Engineers have had billions of hours of experience in making a strong joint - I'd be certain that in 2 centuries, they could make a wing that's 20' thick, with a length not much longer than the thickness of the root, which could handle the stress of transferring the thrust from the nacelles to the body of the ship, and at the same time, provide sufficient space for mechanical concerns and even allow for habitable spaces within, whether they are engineering spaces, scientific or ship's services (I doubt they would have any living quarters there).

YMMV, of course

 

[Ptrope]

Still not complete, but closer - there is probably about 5% left to the modeling, and I keep finding little things to fix or tweak, then I need to create the textures; everything here is a placeholder, although the ship ID is unique. I'd had a request for ortho views, so here we are:

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Very nice. Not sure I get the color scheme, though.