Timo, I direct you to the screenshot linked below where it can be made out that there were two decks intended for the refit Enterprise. And considering that there were two rows of windows/portholes on the shooting model, I'd have been somewhat worried if there were anything less... Screencap of deckplan from TWOK - courtesy of TrekCore
The size of the ship must have fluctuated back and forth a bit during the design process. And the one thing we can be sure of is that the incidental graphics of ST2 were much less "intentional" or "thought out" than those of ST:TMP, the second movie being the more haphazardly put together of the two. And that's saying something, considering what was scraped together to create the TMP graphics. OTOH, it would make sense for there to be two decks on the saucer rim. It just happens to contradict the (noncanonical) notion that the ship would be less than 300 meters long - just as the presence of two decks on the Excelsior saucer rim somewhat challenges the idea that she would be as tall as the Enterprise. As for the TMP Rec Deck scene, the one thing we can discern from there is that the Rec Deck cannot be on the saucer rim. That is, if its floor is on level with the lower row of the back wall windows as shown, then the back wall windows cannot be the same we see on the saucer starboard aft rim. Otherwise the floor would bulge up quite noticeably as the saucer "caves up" on the underside a few meters inward of the windows. Moreover, the two turboshafts at the front wall would lead to empty space at their lower ends then. A more likely location for the Rec Deck (barring sighing acceptance of TARDIS interiors, YATIs, whatever) is right next to the central core of the saucer, with the eight "windows" being mere viewscreens much like the one later seen in closeup when Kirk, McCoy and Spock have their relaxed little chat. Such reinterpretation of design "tokens" is IMHO necessary in establishing the dimensions of the Excelsior to satisfaction as well. Timo Saloniemi
The turbo lift and the floor do suggest that the recdec should be elsewhere in the saucer but I suspect that was an over site when building the set for the movie. If you look at the windows on the recdec they are consistent with the pattern of windows seen in this shot. http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/images/excelsior/spacedock-st3.jpg The windows look the same plus where they are positioned on the saucer would be consistent with the angle of the starboard warp engine seen outside of the recdec windows. Also if you look at this poster. http://home.comcast.net/~thewoozle2/startrek/enterprise.jpg It shows the saucer is two decks thick on the edge. That poster may not be canon but is consistent with what we have seen in the movies. For example take a look at the cargo section and then look at these pictures. http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution/constitution_cargobay.jpg http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/constitution/constitution_escapepod_hull.jpg Plus if you remember in TMP when Capt, Kirk and Scotty fly around the enterprise you can get a sense of its size and how thick the saucer's edge is as they pass it. You can also see the scale towards the end of the movie when they walk out onto the hull of the ship. I think the fact that the excelsior appears to be the same height as the enterprise and was able to fit through the space dock doors might be because the model makers did not make it to scale with the enterprise model.
Well, the reason that the array would be towed is so that it's isolated from any potential "noise" sources. Put it into, say, a drone chassis instead, and you suddenly have the noise from engines, powerplant, etc, etc. You may REDUCE the impact of those things versus having the sensor array on the main vessel, but what you REALLY want is to have the sensor array completely isolated from those effects. (Or rather, at a kilometer or so distance from the closest source... the parent vessel.) The array itself would have nothing... NOTHING... except for a structure and a series of sensor devices. It would communicate via an optical fiber-based link rather than by any "field based" element (electrical wires) or by transmission. Both of those are generators of potentially interfering noise, while an optical link wouldn't have that impact. If you make it independent, the amount of hardware that you'd have to install ... all of which is potentially a source of interfering noise... would be a detriment to the operation of the device. I'm not saying that this would replace sensor drones... those are already there, and serve a valuable purpose. I'm saying that this would serve another purpose entirely. A way of gaining a higher degree of precision and discrimination than you can get otherwise. One thing that people sometimes miss... but I'd be surprised if you weren't following... is that you have limitations on the accuracy of measurements that have NOTHING to do with the accuracy of the hardware. Environmental effects are the biggest one. That's why we run electromagnetic interference tests in "faraday cages." We're trying, very hard, to eliminate the impact of stray electromagnetic interference by shielding the entire test chamber from external E/M influences. That's the only way you can get the level of precision you need to really see what's going on at a "fine" level with the device you're working on. Otherwise, anytime someone turns on a vacuum cleaner, your test would be invalidated. The advantage of a towed array is that it reduces the effect of "turning on the vacuum cleaner" on the parent vessel, and that the towed array (since it lacks any hardware not SPECIFICALLY associated with its function as an array) doesn't have a "vacuum cleaner" of its own to worry about anyway. Clearer now, I hope?
^ Pretty clear, yeah. From what I can tell, the main reason for the towed array is the need for the array to follow the ship, correct? As distinguished from, say, a sonobouy that you can just drop behind you and have it listen for signals over a given area. An array too big and too valuable to drop behind (or waste time coming back to pick it up later). Frankly, I could totally see this working at high warp, with a ship that has to cover alot of ground very quickly and in great detail all at the same time (something patrolling the neutral zone during expected hostilities). Since I could see that being mounted on Excelsior as a sort of irregular/specialty equipment for specific missions, I think the idea of the belly-bulge as a "multi-mission module" makes as much sense as anything else.
Unfortunately almost none of any Trek ship's interiors whose locations are reasonably well known jibes well with the exterior of the ship.
About rows of windows on starships, they can be used as a clue about the decks, but there can be anywhere from zero to three rows for one deck (that I've noticed). An easy example to point out is the Defiant, which shows three rows of windows facing inward for deck 4, as seen in the DS9 intro starting with Season 4. If we had access to the Guardian of Forever we might see a very different (more accurate?) picture of these things! Anyway, I don't want to assume that those extra lines on the MSD for the Ent-B are Jefferies tubes or staggered decks or some other silly thing but just a matter of insufficient information when the original MSD was made. That leaves the top figure shown above (following the original exactly but deleting every second line that may be mistaken for a deck), unless someone has a better explanation, since the deck pitch and therefore ceiling height can't be less than the minimum for today's buliding codes. With the first layout above, deck pitch would be just a foot or so less than that of the Ent-D.
I hadn't seen ST: Generations in years, until it was on TV the other night, and I taped it. KIRK: Where are the deflector relays? DEMORA SULU: Deck 15, section 21 alpha. And there were two scenes from outside the ship showing the location of deck 15 (mentioned twice again), where the schematic from the TNG Sketchbook shows deck 25.
A caveat here: the ship might have two sets of deck numbers, one for the saucer and one for the rest of the ship from neck down. After all, the TOS ship did have this "engineering deck five" thing going on, and one could argue that it best fits a system where the saucer has a separate set of deck numbers. This because Demora later says that the ship suffered damage on decks 13-15 (or at least that those have their forcefields up), and we see a hole blown into the secondary hull portside extension. This would make the ship less than twenty decks high overall, which is rather unlikely - and it definitely contradicts the MSD unless we go for the caveat. The deck numbers might originally have made better sense, as the damage was at first scripted to strike at the uppermost bow part of the secondary hull, above the deflector dish. If that's where Deck 15 is, then the E-B could have decks arranged much like the E-A. Timo Saloniemi
I remind from my earlier post that Excelsior and Connie-Refit have almost the same height despite the different lengths. Given this, it's entirely possible they have the same or similar deck count overall, with slightly different deck heights accounting for a height of about 24 decks (or maybe it only has 29 decks and half of them are tucked into a quantum hyperbole like in Enterprise-E?)
I would just disregard everything else (including the Generations' diagram deck count) and scale your ship from Bill George's original intended length of 467 meters. Use design elements from the GENS diagram by all means, but don't feel limited by it. It makes no sense. That said, you're very good at this and you should just go with your gut.
I might argue for discarding those 467 meters just to make the ship scale up better with the E-D - the ship that is most often seen in a scale comparison shot with an Excelsior. The rear shot from ST6:TUC is not necessarily all that definitive, because the E-A could be much closer to the camera than Sulu's ship. (Remember how our heroes supposedly are able to watch that big ship from their vantage point, which is the E-A viewscreen showing a forward view...) The "E-A and Excelsior equally scraping the doorway" shot from ST3:TSfS might in fact be the one piece of evidence that we would most wish to disregard... Timo Saloniemi
I personally sometimes disregard quoted references from the episodes and movies and go with the technical drawings. Seems to me like the writers and the designers/CGI people aren't always working from the same page. I tend to reinterperet the reference and just make it right in my head. The ENT-B at 467 Meters long could concievably have a deck count in the high 20s, whereas a 17 deck count would seem to make the decks quite spacious. I usually equate deck count with building stories. I might expect a starship like Excelsior to be as tall as a 27ish story building. I try to imagine what it would look like if the ships were coming in for a flyby over Manhattan to get my perspective.
Another thing with the spacedock doors, they are at an angle. If a starshipp changed it's approach vector, the doors could accomodate a larger starship. I would think the Excelsior could come in/out vertically oriented, not horizontally oriented.
This is a distinct possibility. After all, we never see the Excelsior clear the space doors in ST3. All we see is her emerging from behind the lip of the station, establishing that no, the contractors did not make the elementary nistake of building her ten meters wider than the doors... It's just that the interior of the station is rather "shallow" there, close to the doors. It wouldn't do to dip the stern of the ship too much when negotiating the doors. Exterior Interior A tall (that is, long as well as high) ship like the Excelsior couldn't tilt up more than perhaps 30 degrees. But that might still be quite helpful. Timo Saloniemi
Just using the scale of the 1701-A and the NCC-2000, the Enterprise is 140 meters wide, and the Excelsior 183 meters, and by looking at the doors fully opened, it's not too much of a stretch to see the Excelsior clearing it with some room to spare. (The 1701-D however.... ) Just using your picture, and the 1701 clearing the doors, the spacedock doors appear there to be approximately 2 Constitution-class saucers wide. James
Looks like the excelsior could easily fit through those doors considering they are not completely open in that picture.
Funny how the spacedock doors don't match from within and without. Inside the doors have a sawtoothed edge, which doesn't match the straight edge on the outside as the Enterprise backs out. As the ship goes IN you can see a flat edge on the outside and a sawtooth inside, but once inside looking out, that flat edge is gone. Oops.
^ I never noticed that before, but considering the ShroomDock interior miniature was in large part recycled by ILM from the Death Star II reactor chamber featured during the climax of ROTJ it is entirely possible that the "sawtooth" doors were also a Star Wars leftover. TGT