Donny's TOS Enterprise Interiors

[Mytran]

The Saladin has never looked so good!
Nifty idea with the shuttlebay doors too and how they mirror the TMP docking ports. Two such large doors does seem excessive for what is essentially quite a small amount of deck space though, but I'd hate to loose those twinkly windows by mounting it forward.

 

[BK613]

Re: The Scout/Destroyer engineering spaces in the saucer.
Maybe these classes use the spaces that the Connies use for their 14 science labs.

Re: The aircraft power generation model.
Seems that people here may be unaware of APUs and their roles in aviation. Having power generation in the nacelles doesn't preclude power generation in the secondary hull as well.

Re: The USS Xerxes.
Awesome job. Suggestions:
1) Instead of the second pair of green/red lights on the nacelle, I would echo the blinking light found on the secondary hull of the Enterprise studio model near the hangar (which presumably would have a match on the port side).
2) Only one hangar door but keep its location. Adds a bit of asymmetry and hints at a design that maximizes its space.

 

[publiusr]

The FJ plans differ slightly in a few things, such as the shape of the structure the bridge rests on, Thoughts?

From my perspective, the FJ/Achernar ships look as if they should be smaller. The production bridge is smaller atop the 11 footer's B/C deck--where the FJ/Achernar is pretty wide. So (without recessing the production bridge), I would say the saucer of the FJ is also smaller, with a smaller nacelle.

Having a scaled down Saladin with FJ parts overlap your version of the 11 footer Heavy Cruiser might be something to do for another time. Now by using the 11 ft parts everything stays modular. Call that the true destroyer, but the scaled down FJ version the scout?

 

[BeatleJWOL]

What do you guys think?

That is a funky looking ship, but your renders give it a life that it really, really shouldn't have! Beautiful work.

 

[plynch]

Color is great. Just the overall ship design, for me, is a meh. The E looks like a victorious track athlete with arms upswept. The one-nacelle ship looks like a dish with a phallus. Which, in the initial photos looks very size-challenged, then in the ones below, is quite longer. The sensor dish must have seen something attractive. HA - in production if it were being threatened they could shoot it so it looks short; after a triumph, they could shoot it so it's long. Shwing.

Jung would like the one feminine (circle) united with one masculine (cylinder); Freud would like the cylinder growing depending on camera angle. To me it just isn't an elegant thing like the E. Your work, of course, is sweet, however!

 

[penguin44]

Thanks for that rundown!

Thanks for sharing this! I may use some cues from this as well.

I managed to paint the Saladin-class in one night, and get a system together for quickly changing registries. I've used "U.S.S. Xerxes NCC-505" from the FJ Tech Manual for the following renders. Let me know any feedback you all may have so I can take it into consideration before calling this "done".

This ship isn't as camera friendly as the Enterprise, unfortunately. It's almost as if every angle of the Enterprise is fantastic. This one notsomuch. But I still love the simplicity of the design.






A close-up of the hanging deflector assembly, and the starboard-side hangar doors above it. I've taken the colored lights below the Connie's hangar bay doors and added them to both the port and starboard hangar doors of the Saladin. Felt right. I imagine the Saladin-class to only carry two shuttles (and perhaps two work-pods), and the entirety of the two decks containing the hangar doors (Decks 8 and 9) being used for cargo space and the launch, maintenance, and storage of those auxiliary craft.


I've also added running lights on the port and starboard sides of the aft of the nacelles, and colored the forward dorsal edge a light brown in contrast to the Enterprise's blue/green.

What do you guys think?

Wow Donny. You know I never like this ship design when I saw it in the FJ prints, but now that I see her with your paint she looks great and I like it now.

 

[Norsehound]

I purposefully kept the hangar bay doors simple, which I prefer over making them corrugated or labeled with a giant number. I admit I didn’t even consider pointing them aft. I basically chose these spots because they’re in the relatively same spots as the Refit Enterprise’s underside docking ports and were in this location on the Saladin schematics I referenced earlier. When I get to working on the Ptolemy, perhaps I’ll fiddle with pointing the bays aftwards and see how that looks.

As for your suggestion about a starbase shot, that’s actually the ultimate goal for me creating all these: to create a busy shipyard scene over Starbase 11. It will all take a lot of work, but I just may get there.

I like the simplicity The TOS consitution was also simple, so it's a nice fit. I can also imagine, in that parallel universe where a Saladin filming model was made in the 60s, a shuttlebay being fudged into that space in much the same way. Then us modern folks in the early 2000s would be interpreting the bay exactly as you've done.

One reason to point the bays aft is that they don't interfere with the saucer's landing legs in the event of a planetary landing.

 

[Donny]

The simplest way to deal with the problem is to return to the FJ stick. He shows the dish on a ball mount. I know that is unlike the Enterprise dish which was attached as you have it - able to pitch up and down. But a ball mount would not only allow the dish a full hemispheric sweep, it would allow it to retract to a shallower extension and thus avoid interfering with the nacelle operation. It would even allow it to retract fully and operate as an enhanced version of the sensor dome it replaces.

In the end it’s up to you. She’s your baby. I’m just saying, the old way may be the better way. It might not be as cool looking. But it makes sense.

While I do appreciate the functionality that would be added by using the retractable ball-mount as you suggest, I have to admit that therefore giving up the lighted sensor dome as a result is something that I don't want to do. I really like the splash of light it provides. And I really really like the armature I've crafted. I've always been more artist than engineer so I think I'm going to stick with what pleases me aesthetically in this case. HOWEVER, I may try the retractable ball-mount setup when I tackle the Ptolemy and see which I like better.

1) Instead of the second pair of green/red lights on the nacelle, I would echo the blinking light found on the secondary hull of the Enterprise studio model near the hangar (which presumably would have a match on the port side).

The light you're referring to on the secondary hull of the Enterprise is rather large. I could scale it down and use in place of the red/green lights I have now, but I think I like the current lights just fine.

2) Only one hangar door but keep its location. Adds a bit of asymmetry and hints at a design that maximizes its space.

Now this I may fiddle with. I agree that two hangar doors is a bit excessive but I only did two for symmetry's sake. I'll use the Ptolemy as a test-bed for the single, asymmetrical hangar door and see which I like better.

From my perspective, the FJ/Achernar ships look as if they should be smaller. The production bridge is smaller atop the 11 footer's B/C deck--where the FJ/Achernar is pretty wide. So (without recessing the production bridge), I would say the saucer of the FJ is also smaller, with a smaller nacelle.

Having a scaled down Saladin with FJ parts overlap your version of the 11 footer Heavy Cruiser might be something to do for another time. Now by using the 11 ft parts everything stays modular. Call that the true destroyer, but the scaled down FJ version the scout?

According to the FJ Tech Manual, the saucer is the same size between the Saladin/Hermes, Ptolemy, and Constitution-class ships, so I don't think the Saladin or the Hermes are meant to have smaller components.
Granted, these are non-canon designs so we can go whatever direction we please, but I'd really rather keep all my pieces modular at this point. Thank you for bringing this up, however, as it my incentivize me to experiment with a smaller diameter primary hull for the Hermes-class.

Color is great. Just the overall ship design, for me, is a meh. The E looks like a victorious track athlete with arms upswept.....To me it just isn't an elegant thing like the E.

I think that's why I like this ship....because it's ugly! Having some less pretty designs for the lesser-class ships really helps sell the fiction that the Connie was a proud thing to captain or serve on, not just because of its capabilities but because of it's beauty!

One reason to point the bays aft is that they don't interfere with the saucer's landing legs in the event of a planetary landing.

Good point!

Thanks for all the feedback! Like I said, I'll probably keep the Saladin like it is for now and then experiment with some of the aforementioned suggested changes to the primary hull with the Ptolemy before I go and make heavy modifications to what is otherwise already solidly crafted.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Thanks for that rundown!

Thanks for sharing this! I may use some cues from this as well.

I managed to paint the Saladin-class in one night, and get a system together for quickly changing registries. I've used "U.S.S. Xerxes NCC-505" from the FJ Tech Manual for the following renders. Let me know any feedback you all may have so I can take it into consideration before calling this "done".

This ship isn't as camera friendly as the Enterprise, unfortunately. It's almost as if every angle of the Enterprise is fantastic. This one notsomuch. But I still love the simplicity of the design.






A close-up of the hanging deflector assembly, and the starboard-side hangar doors above it. I've taken the colored lights below the Connie's hangar bay doors and added them to both the port and starboard hangar doors of the Saladin. Felt right. I imagine the Saladin-class to only carry two shuttles (and perhaps two work-pods), and the entirety of the two decks containing the hangar doors (Decks 8 and 9) being used for cargo space and the launch, maintenance, and storage of those auxiliary craft.


I've also added running lights on the port and starboard sides of the aft of the nacelles, and colored the forward dorsal edge a light brown in contrast to the Enterprise's blue/green.

What do you guys think?

So these hypothetical ship designs would have no shuttlecrafts; so if the transporter doesn't work then the crew would have to tough it out whether the engineering techs can fix the problem, go to a starbase for repairs or wait for a Starship Class vessel to assist them.

 

[BK613]

@Donny I think we may be referring to different lights. The one that I am referring to is not the big dome on top (which blinked on the 2nd pilot version) but the one on the side of the secondary hull near the undercut. You can see it in action on the E at the Smithsonian in this Trekcore interview:

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[Donny]

So these hypothetical ship designs would have no shuttlecrafts; so if the transporter doesn't work then the crew would have to tough it out whether the engineering techs can fix the problem, go to a starbase for repairs or wait for a Starship Class vessel to assist them.

Nah, I like the idea of these ships having small auxiliary craft facilities and one or two shuttles because of the reasons you just listed. Even the smaller Oberth class we see in STIII and beyond has what appear to be hangar areas on it's primary hull.

@Donny I think we may be referring to different lights. The one that I am referring to is not the big dome on top (which blinked on the 2nd pilot version) but the one on the side of the secondary hull near the undercut. You can see it in action on the E at the Smithsonian in this Trekcore interview:

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Ahhh. I think you mean what Remastered TOS has dubbed the "ion pod" in Court Martial. Sorry for the confusion.

Even still, I think I prefer my bulbous red/green lights to mirror those on the saucer. To be honest, I wish I could put similar running lights on the Enterprise's nacelles, but...canon...won't....let....me

 

[BK613]

Your model. Just never been a fan of multiple instances of the red/green. The existence of the colors implies some version of "rules of the road"(RotR) and I've always felt that using them twice would create confusion. For example, using a red light and non-red light would give orientation information about the ship being observed if the RotR specified that a blinking white light be aft of a blinking red light. The observer could discern the ship's front and back and its likely direction of travel. Two blinking red lights do not tell anything other than one is looking at the port side.

 

[Donny]

Your model. Just never been a fan of multiple instances of the red/green. The existence of the colors implies some version of "rules of the road"(RotR) and I've always felt that using them twice would create confusion. For example, using a red light and non-red light would give orientation information about the ship being observed if the RotR specified that a blinking white light be aft of a blinking red light. The observer could discern the ship's front and back and its likely direction of travel. Two blinking red lights do not tell anything other than one is looking at the port side.

Ahhhh. I see your point, and I admit I hadn't realized there were rules to such things. Thanks for bringing this up, as I'm now reconsidering my choice!

 

[Donny]

Straighten out the nacelle pylons and that'd be all right. It looks like a crab otherwise.

To be fair, I recently saw some of @Tallguy's models of @aridas sofia's Surya-class and it looks less like a crab in 3D than it does on that front ortho

 

[Tallguy]

 

[aridas sofia]

It is nice to see both iterations of these designs come to life- what FJ drew for his TM, and what Todd Guenther drew for his Ships of the Star Fleet. In our mythology, the ships based on the 11-foot model’s parts preceded those made with the different FJ, SFTM parts.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

I think your Saladin looks terrific (your paint job really sells it). Some of the renders are especially evocative... a lonely little ship, swimming along in the deep, dark cosmos.

 

[publiusr]

The E looks like a victorious track athlete with arms upswept.

You get it.

It is also a smiling swan. The lower sensor dome is like a nice smile--a dragon that smiles while spitting fire.

 

[aridas sofia]

You get it.

It is also a smiling swan. The lower sensor dome is like a nice smile--a dragon that smiles while spitting fire.

If I were to anthropomorphize the E design, it looks like the figurehead on the bow of a sailing vessel.

OTOH, Saladin has the feel of a cobra with upraised head, ready to strike.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I'm now envisioning custom hood ornaments mounted on every Starfleet vessel, akin to the "Festoon" from Discovery.