Danube class

[Reverend]

This is for the type 6. Maybe it's the one you're thinking of, Reverend. At least it seems similar to what I showed above with the type 8 and what we've pretty much collectively come up with on this point so far in the course of this thread.

So the warp nacelles are powered by a fusion reactor, that's interesting. I wonder what a dilithium exchanger would do in this context.

 

[Bill Morris]

Yeah, it's silly. But we're making progress, regardless. I guess the deuterium and antimatter tanks will go in the belly under the floor, and not that far aft. That reminds me of the exploding Pintos, with the gas tank almost touching the rear bumper.

 

[Reverend]

Well no, a fusion reactor still puts out quite a bit of juice, enough for a small warp engine to go say warp 4. Also, I imagine it's quite a bit safer than miniaturising a M/AM reactor and for that matter more economical too as all it needs for fuel is deuterium, for which the ramscoops will come in handy on extended journeys.
As for the placement, rear end collisions aren't that likely in space Besides, on a ship this small, once the shields are down it won't matter where the reactor is. It's only a shuttlecraft, after all.

 

[Bill Morris]

I was thinking more of phaser fire from pursuing hostiles. So I'd want the anitmatter storage and warp plasma in a little safer place.

 

[Reverend]

Well, like I said, once the shields are down it won't matter much on a ship this small, as I imagine a direct hit from a ship mounted phaser or disruptor would cut right through the hull and out the other side. These things shouldn't be built with combat in mind anyway, all they can realistically do is hope to outrun an enemy or safely crash on a nearby planet...which is exactly what we see quite often.

 

[BolianAuthor]

Checked YouTube. Data does describe the 6 having warp engines in "Parallels," which means VOY is not the earliest description of shuttles having warp. There may be other instances on TNG, but that's the closest one I could remember.

The Type 7 shuttles were the first established on TNG to have warp capability.

 

[Reverend]

And they gave Scotty a type-6 to go off wherever he wanted to. I doubt they would have given him a non-warp shuttle.

 

[Bill Morris]

I don't know what else to add. Seven of Nine, maybe? No shuttlebays or turbolifts. Anyway, having polished this one off first might make the Danube image come out better. I drew in the helm seat from VOY: The Raven, even though it's hard to pay attention to the curvature of furniture with Seven in the room.

Isn't the curvature of the hull of some advantage against phaser fire, where a glancing hit might just mar the hull a little but not penetrate it?

 

[Timo]

Type 8 is armed with at least nacelle-tip phasers, so those might be included in the MSD as well. Also, wouldn't it be nice to have something like four of those impulse cylinders per side, to account for the rather tall grillework? Plus, there's an onboard transporter there as standard, it seems. Draw a pattern buffer inside the dorsal cowlings?

I'd put the top speed for these at warp 2 or so, as in the TNG Tech Manual.

Where in TNG was it established that Type 7 could go to warp? Plenty of TNG and TOS episodes suggested interstellar capabilities for the onscreen shuttles, but none were truly explicit about it. There would always exist the possibility that the mothership drops these things off at impulse range and later recovers them. Only TAS showed what looked like "entire" interstellar journeys by (very large) shuttle.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

Didn't Picard get stuck with Wesley on a long distance flight in a Type-7? I'm reasonably sure that was at warp.
Regardless, it's rather obvious from the design of the nacelles they're supposed to be warp engines, not fuel tanks or something.

As for the MSD, I agree with Timo, there should probably be four impulse engines per side. From a purely artistic point of view, I'd have the flight console as a solid colour instead of an outline and have the window be a slightly heavier outline instead of a solid shape.

 

[Timo]

Didn't Picard get stuck with Wesley on a long distance flight in a Type-7? I'm reasonably sure that was at warp.

We never see warp streaks in "Samaritan Snare", no. And "long distance" is never defined there. The only time in TNG where a shuttle is explicitly said to be at warp is in "Skin of Evil", and this shuttle is not Type 6 or Type 7 or Type 15, but an unknown type which we only see half-buried in rock. Possibly an early 2360s runabout...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

Picard's team used the Type 7 Feynman to infiltrate the Cardassian base in "Chain of Command." The shuttlecraft in "Skin of Evil" was also a wrecked Type 7. Besides, the thing has big warp nacelles attached to it.

 

[Timo]

Picard's team used the Type 7 Feynman to infiltrate the Cardassian base in "Chain of Command."

Not quite. They flew the shuttle to a world where they purchased covert transportation from a Ferengi. Since the world where they found the Ferengi was not in Cardassian space, the E-D could easily have dropped off the shuttle within impulse range of that planet, Torman V.

The shuttlecraft in "Skin of Evil" was also a wrecked Type 7.

Not really. The crashed miniature doesn't look anything like Type 7 - apparently, the modelmakers didn't even attempt an effort at pretending to try. True, the computer graphics depicting the shuttle show a Type 7 outline, but computer graphics tend to use generic, inaccurate icons for such spacecraft-starship-thingies elsewhere in Trek.

Besides, the thing has big warp nacelles attached to it.

So do the TNG shuttlepods, and they are explicitly sublight only...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JNG]

Besides, the thing has big warp nacelles attached to it.

So do the TNG shuttlepods, and they are explicitly sublight only...

Timo Saloniemi

It has nacelle structures, but they have neither the Bussard collector or field grilles which are characteristic of warp nacelles and, for the various assumed-or-proven-warp-capable shuttles, appear to be designed to specifically resemble those of their mothership (the Type-6 shuttle is an exception). For those types of nacelles, the implication is clear that it is a warp-capable craft, but I don't believe any shuttlepods we've seen have warp prior to the Type-18.

Other notes(sorry was away from thread for a few days--it's a good one):

In the following article Rick Sternbach appears to refer to a microtorpedo launcher on the runabout model--in the singular. http://www.starshipdatalink.net/art/runabout.html

Worth noting that in that interview he also calls the top-mount pod a "sensor dish"

Since the Type-8 shuttlecraft appears similar in many ways to the Type-6, but comes a number of years later, it does seem reasonable to me to maybe backdate the Type-6 a bit and give the Type-8 a somewhat improved warp capability.

 

[Unicron]

Not quite. They flew the shuttle to a world where they purchased covert transportation from a Ferengi. Since the world where they found the Ferengi was not in Cardassian space, the E-D could easily have dropped off the shuttle within impulse range of that planet, Torman V.

I'll have to watch the ep again, but I'm still open to the possibility that the shuttle could have warped there.

The crashed miniature doesn't look anything like Type 7 - apparently, the modelmakers didn't even attempt an effort at pretending to try. True, the computer graphics depicting the shuttle show a Type 7 outline, but computer graphics tend to use generic, inaccurate icons for such spacecraft-starship-thingies elsewhere in Trek.

Actually, the wrecked portions that are visible more strongly resemble the T7 than any other TNG design. It's true that they don't look exactly like the model used for the Sahkarov, but the wrecked Shuttle 13 clearly has the distinctive curved aft section and the nacelles which appear on the T7. Since the T7 was only introduced a few eps before ("Coming of Age"), I think it's a reasonable assumption that #13 was intended to be of the same class even if the modelmakers didn't create all the details identically.

So do the TNG shuttlepods, and they are explicitly sublight only...

The T7's are clearly miniaturized versions of the Galaxy's nacelles, though, as is also the case on the Danube. The warp capability is therefore more explicitly suggested. And the T15 was shown to be capable of being fitted for low warp travel, as with Geordi's shuttle in "The Mind's Eye."

 

[Timo]

Ah, but again, there was no warp travel in "Mind's Eye". We witness the pod at impulse, at what might be the beginning of LaForge's journey, considering he's making his first attempts at getting comfortable. The "dropped off the mothership at the edge of the star system for an impulse journey inwards so that the mothership can immediately warp away without bothering to go in and out at impulse" model would again fit.

As for trying to pretend that the shuttle in "Skin of Evil" was Type 7, I'd rather not, as the only thing the two have in common is "being rounded". Why not instead add another cool design to the family of cool designs? Continuity-wise, it would be nice to have a runaboutish craft for this era, too. And it having a forward cabin similar to that of certain Type 7s would just be a nice bit of standardization, much like all the Airbuses share a flight deck design.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

About four impulse engines on each side, that sounds good, but the model seems to suggest either two or three SIE-47s
on each side. So how about three, placed and spaced acording to the model?

As to the transporter buffer and biofilter, the page is a bit cramped for space. And I usually don't show phaser systems
in this kind of general-information cutaway.

About solid for consoles and outline for windows, sometimes consoles, cabinets, etc. are going to have some contents
displayed. So it's better to leave that option available and show windows solid in a standard color within the system to
differentiate them easily from other things that could be similar in shape, to make it easy for the viewer.

 

[Timo]

I'd actually like to see more substantial content to the large side cowlings here. The furniture inside isn't all that interesting, after all, either from the artistic point of view or in terms of what an MSD would be supposed to display.

Probably the fusion fuel tanks are in those fairings, for example. Drawing them in would completely obscure the upper half of the aft cabin, true, but I feel this is what an MSD should be all about... Especially in a craft this small, where the provision of an "interior map" for navigating from room to room would be nonsensical.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

To add more stuff to the type 8, I'll have the cut the image size a bit, to make room for more labels.

So what's in those side cowlings beside maybe some fuel tanks? Do these shuttles have atmospheric speedbrakes? If so, and if they're in the cowlings, they might take up most of that space. For a transporter buffer, I'd hope to locate it as far from the impulse engines and warp coils as possible and still have it encased in heavy shielding to prevent data corruption from radiation.

 

[Unicron]

Ah, but again, there was no warp travel in "Mind's Eye". We witness the pod at impulse, at what might be the beginning of LaForge's journey, considering he's making his first attempts at getting comfortable. The "dropped off the mothership at the edge of the star system for an impulse journey inwards so that the mothership can immediately warp away without bothering to go in and out at impulse" model would again fit.

Yeah, but frankly I haven't seen a lot of evidence that dropping off is better or more efficient than having warp-capable shuttles. Just because the shuttles were more often shown at impulse, which is conveniently less expensive than depicting them at warp, doesn't mean they can't operate independently. I just can't see a valid reason why this technology wouldn't be available or commonly used with the advantages they have in Trek. Shuttles without warp would also make them largely useless as escape vehicles in an emergency.

We may just have to agree to disagree, Timo. I do see where you're coming from, but I don't think there's a lot of solid evidence to back up the theory that the majority of shuttles (until DS9 and VOY) were limited to sublight speeds.

As for trying to pretend that the shuttle in "Skin of Evil" was Type 7, I'd rather not, as the only thing the two have in common is "being rounded". Why not instead add another cool design to the family of cool designs? Continuity-wise, it would be nice to have a runaboutish craft for this era, too. And it having a forward cabin similar to that of certain Type 7s would just be a nice bit of standardization, much like all the Airbuses share a flight deck design.

Yeah, and what other large shuttles have had this rounded design? It could indeed be an entirely new shuttle, but the wrecked components can go either way. Some of the later T7s reused the cockpit set for the T6, so I don't really know about the standardization.