Discovery ship design has changed considerably

[urbandefault]

I think it's still way too soon for any judgment one way or the other. They've said the ship in the teaser wasn't done, but that doesn't automatically mean there will be big changes. If there are, great. If not, great. As far as I know, the only thing that's settled for sure is that there will be a ship called Discovery.

 

[aloha62]

Will have to wait and see, it could be quite difficult but they may have made it even worse.

 

[OpenMaw]

Based on what we saw in the trailer, has anyone taken a guess as to the size of the Discovery?

 

[Christopher]

Based on what we saw in the trailer, has anyone taken a guess as to the size of the Discovery?

Again: Test footage. Not the final design. Star Trek ships have a history of getting their size re-evaluated as they go. The TOS Enterprise was initially assumed to be smaller than it ended up being -- "The Cage" gave it a crew of only 200-odd people, and someone recently posted an early hype piece by Roddenberry where he said it was 14 decks high. Similarly, J.J. Abrams decided at some point to make the Kelvin-timeline Starfleet ships 2-3 times bigger than initially intended in the design process, which is why the Kelvin Enterprise is bigger even than the D or E. I think the Defiant and the Delta Flyer also both ended up larger than initially intended.

So whatever size the ship in the test footage appears to be, the final ship is likely to be bigger if the pattern holds.

 

[Tomalak]

Yeah, the Defiant was originally a beefed-up Runabout with a windscreen etc, before becoming a big starship. The Delta Flyer infamously couldn't fit through the shuttlebay doors, and later gained things like a rear compartment, Jeffries tubes and escape pods, which would have required an even bigger ship. Must have used Gallifreyan technology.

 

[Christopher]

Must have used Gallifreyan technology.

Not the first Trek ship that was bigger on the inside. The TOS shuttlecraft interior set had a higher ceiling than the exterior mockup. The TMP rec deck can't fit into the saucer (due to the concave undercut on the saucer underside), and the TMP engineering set includes a forced-perspective-painting corridor extension that would stretch clear through the deflector dish and beyond.

It's pretty common, actually. The Jupiter 2 in the Lost in Space pilot had just one deck. It was given a lower deck in season 2, and the miniature was modified with smaller windows to reflect the change, but the show still used stock footage of the unaltered miniature in some shots. And then in season 3 they added an engineering deck and a space pod hangar, without altering the miniature again.

Not to mention all the various sitcoms and such where the interior sets are too big to fit inside the houses used for their exteriors. Or the inconsistent size of UNCLE headquarters in The Man from UNCLE. Or the fact that M*A*S*H's 4077th compound out on location had a lot more space between the tents than the version on the soundstage. One of the few cases where an interior set was not too big for its corresponding exterior was Jim Rockford's trailer on The Rockford Files, but there were some episodes where fight scenes or the like inside the trailer set crossed over where the fourth wall should've been.

 

[Galileo7]

...
It's pretty common, actually. The Jupiter 2 in the Lost in Space pilot had just one deck. It was given a lower deck in season 2, and the miniature was modified with smaller windows to reflect the change, but the show still used stock footage of the unaltered miniature in some shots. And then in season 3 they added an engineering deck and a space pod hangar, without altering the miniature again.
....

True. The Gemini-12[single deck] footage that was used as the Jupiter 2[two deck, then three deck] . I never minded that because the addition of the multiple decks including the Pod bay for the Space pod added to the series. As the Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea second season Seaview interior control room changes with the addition of the flying sub improved the series too. These Irwin Allen's additions increased the storytelling options for these shows.

 

[Ronald Held]

Not enamored by the exterior. Concerned more about the interior sets.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The current USS Discovery has a bit in common with the USS Kelvin, IMO.

 

[OpenMaw]

So whatever size the ship in the test footage appears to be, the final ship is likely to be bigger if the pattern holds.

That's not what i'm asking though. I was asking if anyone had tried to take a stab at sizing it based on what we saw. People have already done up orthographs, after all. This is Trek fandom we're talking about.

 

[Deacon]

[Maybe the ENT hull colours]

Anything is better than that dark beige they've got going on

 

[eyeresist]

someone's put together a relatively simple model and animation that gives a sense of how this kind of shape looks from various angles and perspectives. It's really quite striking and cool.

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This video has some kind of a perspective distortion, so that seen from behind the saucer looked tiny, but seen from the front it looked huge. So, not reliable as far as proportions go.

Hoping the final version is closer to the McQuarrie concept art. Not fond of the curves added to the saucer top or the nacelles in the prototype footage.

I like the top of the saucer and hope they won't change it too much. The details look functional and give it personality.

 

[OpenMaw]

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There's a slightly updated version of that video.

 

[Timo]

I was asking if anyone had tried to take a stab at sizing it based on what we saw.

The good old method of window row count would probably be the best approach at this point. The saucer rim appears to have two full decks, rather than the TOS 1.5 deck weirdness, so a saucer bigger by a third, on a ship only about as tall as Kirk's (some 25 rows of windows) but longer and wider by a half at least, would be my bet. Of course, there's a lot more volume in that triangle hull than in Kirk's cigar...

The bridge dome would appear tall enough to house two decks, then. But so did Pike's, more or less.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

Anything is better than that dark beige they've got going on

I think he meant Columbia's more silver tone rather than the golder finish of Enterprise.

 

[Seven of Five]

The last HD video really grabbed me. Still liking the retro feel it has.

 

[jamestyler]

I'm still not loving it. Mainly as with the larger engineering hull, it feels like it's carrying the saucer as an add on.

But I can see some decent angles in that video. I don't think it'll be a model purchase, but it'll do!

 

[EnderAKH]

Mainly as with the larger engineering hull, it feels like it's carrying the saucer as an add on.

Almost like a hat, or a... sombrero.

 

[jamestyler]

Almost like a hat, or a... sombrero.

Historical TBBS references! Well that suddenly explains the popularity of the design!

 

[Mudd]

This video has some kind of a perspective distortion, so that seen from behind the saucer looked tiny, but seen from the front it looked huge. So, not reliable as far as proportions go.


I like the top of the saucer and hope they won't change it too much. The details look functional and give it personality.

Yeah, that's not distortion as such; it's a choice of lens. Any image that incorporates perspective realistically is " distorted;" railroad tracks don't actually meet in the distance.