Lately I've been interested in this ship, seen in the background of various Star Trek productions: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(XCV_330) I decided to create a similar ringship, but making it an early freighter for the Earth Cargo Service, depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise. It's also a good way for me to further my knowledge of Blender, which I have been enjoying using a lot. Here's a close up of the area that has been modelled in more detail:
That's right. I want to make them a scifi version of these shipping containers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container
Perhaps another with concentric, nested rings? Maybe swept back? This would be what Tom Paris meant by not turning at warp—then a twin-hull cloud car version that can turn at warp—then one hull with two nacelles at last...
I've made a little progress on the primary hull, but for the most part, I've been spending what time I can on this model re-configuring it because the previous layout was starting to bug me. I got quite dissatisfied with the fact that the nacelles didn't sit in the centre of their ring segment, and moving them up threw off the balance of the design. So one thing led to another, and now the ship looks less like the XCV-330 that inspired it, and more like the Vulcan cruisers of Star Trek: Enterprise.
I like the way it is going, enough SF and also industrial looking, I really like the big rocket booster engine look of the central engine. To make it look a bit less refined and more early tech you could even make the ring a Dodecagon shape, that would maybe throw off the Vulcan look a little and make the ship more "hey us humans just figured it out! YEAH!" That's just a wild idea btw.
Thanks, but I think I like the smoother ring shape as it is right now. That 'early tech's feel will be accomplished via the liberal use of greebles. LOTS of greebles!
Clearly your "knowledge of Blender" is advanced. Both versions are beautiful and flawless. I would say the first version seems capable of handling larger containers, as they would be spread further out from each other. And as far as the nacelle placement, I wouldn't worry about that.They look fine in either version. So, is it a ship that relies on the ring, or the nacelles, for warp?
The second version definitely has less cargo capacity, as there are fewer containers along the spine and they are now sitting within alcoves. My thinking is the ship is a bit of a hybrid between the influence of Vulcan tech, and the traditional Cochrane style nacelle setup. There would have to be advantages and disadvantages for each type, I would suppose. So if I were to do a bit of trek-tech speculation, maybe the nacelles are mostly responsible for punching the ship into warp, and then the plasma is fed into the ring as a kind of sustainer engine? It's quite fun to speculate, because this ship is in the early warp era, and there would presumably be lots of evolutionary dead-ends before the tech gets well understood. That's very nice of you to say, I hope you like the end result!
You could always do multiple configurations. Keep one front/rear style and make different middle sections depending on the need. You could call it the Proteus class.
Magnificent! Which way is "up" for the crew? Is gravity perpendicular to the drive axis, like most of Star Trek, or is it parallel with the axis like a traditional rocket?