Designing A Trek Ship

[Deks]

I like the Achilles class.

I think building a ship the size of a Cube is unreasonable for Starfleet. I mean, it would take years or even decades to build something that massive and the majority of its systems would be outdated by the time its finished. They'd have to refit it afterwards. The Federation just doesn't have the tech to build ships that big quickly.

The existence of 'massive' star-bases that are mushroom shaped contradicts your statement.
True ... their original intent is to serve as orbital facilities ... however, it would be a simple matter of adjusting them for reasonable interstellar journeys (or to be mobile).
They have hundreds of them dispersed throughout the Federation ... so they clearly have the tech to construct them in a reasonable time-frame and most of them are not lagging behind in technology.

Their existence alone (because of the size in question) is somewhat in a conflict with a statement it takes years to construct a star-ship which is infinitely smaller by comparison.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

WEAPONS: Phased Polaron Beams. Sub-Atomic Disruptors.Transphasic Torpedoes.
The torpedo tube has a replicator and replicates the torpedoes when required, the ship can also beam the torpedoes using the ships transporter against the enemies shields. If the enemy has transporter inhibitors then torpedoes are fired as normal.

DEFENCES: Ablative armour in the form of blocks. When blocks get blown off the hull from weapons fire the ships replicator and transporter work together to replace the damaged armour segments.
The shields are multiphasic.

CLOAKING DEVICE: Interphasic cloaking device.

PROPULSION: Slipstream. The nacelles are located inwards to the rear of the ship in order to help protect them from weapons fire in battle.
Thrusters are locate at the two ends of the main hull by the side of the nacelles. In the event of Slipstream failure the ship can utilise normal warp travel.

ENGINEERING: Engineering is located on it's own segment of the ship. In the event of a warp core breach if the warp core cannot be ejected the entire engineering level can be detached from the ship.

POWERPLANT: 2 Warp cores. One utilised for Slipstream travel and other ship requirement and the other to power weapons and defences. In the event of one core going critical and being ejected the second core can take over the running of the entire ship.

 

[Wingsley]

I would say that in order for this Mystery Ship of yours to be considered superior, it would have to follow a Borg cue and decentralize its power generation. It was never clear to me if the impostor-ship Dauntless used Borg-like technology or something else to generate its power, but it certainly wasn't "conventional" matter/antimatter reactor-based. I remember reading in a TNG Writer's Tech Manual that the Borg used some kind of power source that taps subspace itself for energy.

If your Mystery Ship could use some new technology that would not be fuel-based (something like the Borg) and decentralized so that damage to one part of the ship would not hinder operations everywhere else on board, then that would be a step in the right direction. From what we've seen throughout TOS, TNG, etc., matter/antimatter fusion seems to be an unstable and excessively dangerous technology.

 

[Kross]

And how long do you think it took to build Stardock? According to MA, there's only four known stations like it aside from Earth Stardock.

I wasn't saying Starfleet couldn't build a Cube sized ship, but I'm questioning why? The logistics would be a nightmare, something that big would require more anti-matter and supplies than a conventionally sized vessel and if it were lost or failed to live up to expectations, then Starfleet Command is going to have to fill a lot of vacancies. I'd rather have a fleet of small to large vessels at the same cost as one supership.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Long description of one butt-ugly starship.

That is really cool. Not a design I would use for a hero ship, but still pretty interesting.

So basically it's Jupiter station with nacelles.

So basically you just started this thread to belittle other's responses by comparison to your own design?

A game of Asteroids, anyone?

More seriously, is this design like a sideways pie wedge, or more of a cone-shape? I'm trying to get a feel for the third dimension of it.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

So basically you just started this thread to belittle other's responses by comparison to your own design?

No.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm sorry, I thought you were asking for the most efficient Starship design?

Yeh that was just one of the questions. You basically went into detail explaining why Fed ships are efficient, you have yet to create a design of your own and answer all the other questions pertaining to it. The whole idea of this thread is to design your own ship which you haven't done.

I didn't want an essay on why Federation ships and the configuration of their design is efficient, I want you to design your own ship and explain the systems, weapons, defences and propulsion it would have based on what you've seen in trek.

You gave an interesting if long winded response but it wasn't what I was looking for.

Actually, that long explanation there does seem to have new ship design. If you draw out what is said, it makes a ship, whose configuration is clearly different than any ship configuration I've seen in the star trek universe...

From what the response says, the ship sounds like it looks kinda like this:

_____Front View_____________Port View______

I'm guessing that the primary saucer and engineering saucer could be different sizes, and the arrangement of how the nacelles look on the bottom could also vary.

It doesn't have as much detail about the weaponry and such as it does about the reasons for it's shape, but it doesn't have much less detail about the weapons/defense/engines than any of the other responses I've seen so far.

No, actually it would look something like this:

Replace the barrel shaped hull with two two stacked saucers, the engines with warp nacelles for a vertical "tripod" configuration. Back of the napkin sketch looks a little like this:

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm sorry, I thought you were asking for the most efficient Starship design?

Yeh that was just one of the questions. You basically went into detail explaining why Fed ships are efficient, you have yet to create a design of your own and answer all the other questions pertaining to it.

Yes, I know it's a long post, but you could at least TRY to read the damn thing instead of just sitting there eyes glazed over muttering "That's too long... no pictures... this isn't an answer!"

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Long description of one butt-ugly starship.

That is really cool. Not a design I would use for a hero ship, but still pretty interesting.

Yeah, it's more like something you'd want to use as a colony ship or a sicence vessel of some kind. Like, if I was writing a story about a mission to colonize a habitable planet hundreds of lightyears away. Colonists and equipment carried on the Uglyprize, probably use a more conventional starship as a support craft.

 

[Wingsley]

This design reminds me a little of the proposed SuperWarp Wedge design in the 1980 Goldstein & Goldstien's "Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology".

 

[All Seeing Eye]

This design reminds me a little of the proposed SuperWarp Wedge design in the 1980 Goldstein & Goldstien's "Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology".

Any pictures?

 

[Tom Riley]

From what the response says, the ship sounds like it looks kinda like this:

_____Front View_____________Port View______

No, actually...

...Back of the napkin sketch looks a little like this:

Hmm... you're right, I was nowhere near what you meant.

Based off of your picture... which direction would this ship fly? You know, which way is forwards?
Would it fly ^ or would it fly >

 

[kv1at3485]

I don't even think it matters how the stupid thing looks. This is Star Trek: you could have a Giant Flying Pretzel and it wouldn't make any difference with what one claimed it could do.

Although in the Giant Flying Pretzel case, you could make a note that large space faring lifeforms who intercepted an ancient Earth "greetings probe" might be tempted to eat it.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

This is the Trek Tech forum. That argument is null and void in this forsaken realm.

 

[Tom Riley]

I don't even think it matters how the stupid thing looks. This is Star Trek: you could have a Giant Flying Pretzel and it wouldn't make any difference with what one claimed it could do.

Although in the Giant Flying Pretzel case, you could make a note that large space faring lifeforms who intercepted an ancient Earth "greetings probe" might be tempted to eat it.

Except we are designing a ship here, part of designing a ship IS how it looks.

 

[kv1at3485]

Not what I said. What I said is that how it looks doesn't matter since in this sort of thing you can justify anything. Really, given how this thread has turned out it seems like it would be more at home in the "Trek Art" forum.

I mean, how do you critique "pulled out of hat stats"? It's no surprise that it's degenerated into matters of aesthetics.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Really, given how this thread has turned out it seems like it would be more at home in the "Trek Art" forum.

It's not turned out like nothing, it's still going. It's not just about how it looks and aesthetics and it's not "pulled out of a hat tech". Designing a ship in here is about utilising the trek tech we've seen and how it could be put together to create the best kind of ship.
If everyone put together their own ideas of the best ship and what it would have we could then take a look at everyones designs, discuss them and then see if we can't incorporate details together to create and even better Trek Ship.

 

[kv1at3485]

It's not turned out like nothing, it's still going. It's not just about how it looks and aesthetics and it's not "pulled out of a hat tech". Designing a ship in here is about utilising the trek tech we've seen and how it could be put together to create the best kind of ship.
If everyone put together their own ideas of the best ship and what it would have we could then take a look at everyones designs, discuss them and then see if we can't incorporate details together to create and even better Trek Ship.

So why not just skip to the end and say: Ship=Q and get it over with?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I mean, how do you critique "pulled out of hat stats"?

Given that the real world purpose of any of these designs would be to assist in generating conflict as part of an interesting television program or book or what-have-you, and also on how well they fuel fanboy angst, then you could maybe critique them on how well they facilitate those ends.

Of course, by that standard, the designs presented so far as horrible, as they are waaaay too well thought out and reliable. So I present, for your consideration, the 2250-era U.S.S. Incorrigible, NCC-00412-W:

WEAPONS: Phasers and Transphasic Torpedoes.
The launchers have a tendency to stick, resulting in live, armed torpedoes being stuck in the launch tube. They have to be disarmed in time, or the ship could be destroyed. The ship has as many phaser banks as are needed for the plot at any given moment, even if that means that in special effects shots they are shown as emitting from shuttlebays or the deflector dish.

DEFENSES: Shields divert energy blasts that they are struck with to surge supressors located in consoles throughout the ship, but mostly to the ones on the bridge. Said supressors are never quite enough to entirely supress the energy, which results in them exploding, knocking the crewperson manning the console to the ground, burning or outright killing them if necessary for the plot.

On occasion, energy is redirected to hydraulic panels under each deck that wildly move the surface of the deck around to one side or the other.

CLOAKING DEVICE: Cloaking device hides the ship from detection in every energy range except the visual. Ship can fire while cloaked by pushing torpedoes out of a cargo bay manually - if they can get one unstuck from the launch tube to take to the cargo bay.

PROPULSION: Improbability Drive.

ENGINEERING: Every use of a replicator on the ship results in a very tiny but not statistically insignificant chance of an immediate antimatter containment failure.

APPEARANCE: Ship looks like a Connie-refit built with post-Dominion War parts, except for the addition of a large, turtle-shell-like compartment between the warp nacelles - nacelles that are bent outward at the front for no apparent reason.

The shell contains "Sub-Omega Particulates" that supposedly make the warp engines run "smoother" - but in actuality, the addition of the shape makes the ship look like the pictograph for a particularly obscene insult in the written language of a race the Federation hasn't encountered before - the one that kicked the butts of the Borg, Species 8472, and the Dominion on the way here....

Aneas - feel free to sketch out the Incorrigible, if you'd like.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

So why not just skip to the end and say: Ship=Q and get it over with?

You're just not getting it AT ALL.

If you're just here to flame, or troll or generally just moan about my thread can you just leave it instead? You're not really adding anything of substance to it.