Help needed with photoshop: Ambassador class variants

[Dukhat]

I'm writing an essay about the conjectural Starfleet vessel classes and what they might possibly look like based on such factors as registry numbers, time of commissioning, verbal descriptions, etc., and I need some art help as, quite frankly, I suck at photoshop.

I've posted what I've done so far, just to give an idea of what I'm doing. Each class will have it's own analysis page, along with a placeholder of a canon ship that I think the conjectural class is related to. In the future, once the writing is complete, I want to replace the placeholders with a unique design.

http://www.box.net/shared/4q0gobr9o3

For now, I'm focusing on the Ambassador class. I'm going under the assumption that the Antares, Apollo, Hokule'a and Wambundu classes are all variants of the Ambassador, because they have similar registries, have only a few ships in service (like the Ambassador), and that the Ambassador class has no known variants like the Galaxy, Excelsior, or Constitution classes do.

I'm using the side-view diagram of the Enterprise-C as a place holder, but I'm looking for the following variant designs:

1. Antares: a Hermes/Saladin/Freedom style variant.

2. Apollo: a Miranda/Nebula style variant.

3. Hokule'a: a Constellation/Cheyenne style variant.

4. Wambundu: A Daedalus/Olympic style variant.

I only need a side view of the designs for the essay. I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thanks in advance!

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

You could easily argue that the Ambassador has two major variants: the one shown as the Enterprise-C, and the one that was otherwise seen with different bussard collectors, saucer placement, impulse engine arrangement, and extra aft shuttle or cargo bay. Not necessarily a radical change as the Connie or glued-on-bits mania like the Excelsior, but a variant nonetheless.

Mark

 

[Dukhat]

You could easily argue that the Ambassador has two major variants: the one shown as the Enterprise-C, and the one that was otherwise seen with different bussard collectors, saucer placement, impulse engine arrangement, and extra aft shuttle or cargo bay. Not necessarily a radical change as the Connie or glued-on-bits mania like the Excelsior, but a variant nonetheless.

Mark

My take on the two distinct "variants" is that they're analogous to the Excelsior vs. the Enterprise-B: A few different odds-and-ends, but not enough outward differences to warrant the ships not being the same class.

Of course you could argue the exact opposite with the Miranda vs. the Soyuz, but that's different. The modifications made to the Reliant model to turn it into the Bozeman were an issue of necessity, not design.

 

[CharlieZardoz]

Dukhat, I dig what you wrote here about conjectural classes and it got me thinking about why the Ambassador class had only a short run. Since it appears that Starfleet tends to introduce a new design (or designs) in small doses then builds them in bulk once they become standard issue, if we look back to that time that the Ambassador class was a new design we know that the Miranda's and Excelsior classes were being built in bulk (during the 10,000-45,000 registries). Now we know that by the time of the Dominion war the fancy new classes were the Sovereign, Nova, Intrepid and Defiant types with the Galaxy and Nebula classes filling the next wave of standard run type ships (at roughly 60,000-80,000). Where things go wrong is the time period when the Galaxy and Nebula were new and during the period of 45,000-60,000 instead of Ambassadors being built in bulk, we see Akira, Steamrunner, Niagara, New Orleans, Springfield, Challenger, Freedom, etc. which are all new, but not really capital ships.

So it seems to me that the Ambassador never got a second run and instead a large influx of other more advanced classes took over as the bulk of the fleet around that time. While in my opinion the real world reason for this seems to be that the show producers had access to the Akira, Steamrunner, Norway, Sabre, etc. designs and didn't have a cgi model for the Ambassador, the ships role became limited due to circumstance. This is of course assuming that the Akira, Steamrunner, Norway and Sabre classes are in fact older than the Galaxy which is arguable.

That said I have pondered recently that it is possible that the Ambassador may have had a second run somewhere in the 45,000-60,000's we just never saw them due to the model not available to the production staff. While there isn't much evidence to this claim I ponder that the USS Princeton NCC-59804 was such a ship having Ambassador type components with updated nacelles. It also makes an argument that there may have been a flaw in the Ambassador style warp nacelles or at the very least were less effective than the Galaxy style bussards. So who knows there may be Ambassador variants out there with 50,000+ registries and newer warp nacelles as well. While there is no real answer I respect your opinions based on what you write in this column so wondered what you thought about this?

 

[sojourner]

Find a good model of the Apollo class here:
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?77411-Apollo-Class&highlight=apollo

Two seconds on google:
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tomorrows-enterprise-star-trek-atl.204287/page-5

 

[Kaiser]

Is this the same Dukhat on Flare? Is there any way you or someone else will let me join there?

 

[lennier1]

Find a good model of the Apollo class here:
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?77411-Apollo-Class&highlight=apollo

Two seconds on google:
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tomorrows-enterprise-star-trek-atl.204287/page-5

Actually, there are two fan designs out there that tried to fill that void. The one in that image is one of them, the other is a 2D design by this site's Reverend. Been there, done that, don't care about the t-shirt.

 

[Blip]

I'm quite fond of the Apollo, as well as any other Ambassador variants (I think I saw the Hokule'a once as an Excelsior with Ambassador-ish nacelles, which I'm particularly keen on for reasons I can't explain)

I think the original design for the Pegasus from TNG was supposed to be similar to the Apollo wasn't it?

 

[lennier1]

I think the original design for the Pegasus from TNG was supposed to be similar to the Apollo wasn't it?

They wanted to re-use parts from the Ent-C because of the already strained budget, but after looking at that sketch I'm glad they went with the Oberth instead and left the Ambassador model intact. The limits just didn't leave Rick Sternbach enough freedom.