I don't recall having any preconceptions about the design of the Enterprise-E. I just remember not liking any of the designs that we were shown -- preliminary or final.
Meh, liberal amounts of C-4 is more fun. The ship just look like someone decided to have a taffy-pull with a starship.
While I appreciated the design of the 'D, I was never a huge fan of it. To me, it looked overly passive and too "pretty." On the other hand, when I saw the 'E in First Contact, I remember thinking, "Now, that's more like it!" The only design element that really bothered me was the way the nacelles attached to the struts. This never looked resolved to me -- it just seemed like the nacelles were sitting on them & not integrated into the design.
perhaps you were thinking of Vektor's Grandeur? this is his Vanguard: http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/3d-wips/414-ues-vanguard-work-resumes.html
The only problem I have with the Sovereign is the nacelles are too big. Scale them down a bit, and it'll be fine.
Blaxxer: I have no idea what "Q.F.T." means. Secondly, for those of you that haven't seen these references I've used yet. The Arrow-Class Captain's Yacht/Runabout (from the Legacy-Class starship,) by Galen of SciFi-Meshes.Com http://www.geocities.com/startrek_challenger/specs3.html The Legacy-Class by Galen of SciFi-Meshes.Com http://www.freewebs.com/startrekprotector/protectorpix.htm The Morpheus-Class Captain's Yacht/Runabout (from the Interceptor-Class starship.) http://www.geocities.com/trekfan1975/morpheus1.jpg
I would have made a impulse pod on each warp strut as an homage to Voyager and maybe a small central impulse engine for the saucer in case of sepration.
If I had envisioned an Enterprise-E, I think it would've been like the Excalibur class which I don't have a link to. It has a number of similarities to the Sovereign but is about twice the length and looks alot sturdier. That said, my dream ship would incorporate elements of Vektors Grandeur class, Galen's Legacy class...........and of similiar size to the Excalibur. I truly believe for dramatic purposes, the E should've been at least notably larger in overall size than the D rather than just being 63% of the Galaxy class.
I'm a big fan of the "Legacy" (which, as I recall, was originally his proposed Titan, wasn't it?) Anyone have a link to pictures of that design posted by Galen? I have a few I downloaded but I don't want to repost his design (any more than I'd want someone else reposting MINE). While I like Vektor's stuff... I'm a little concerned that the "wedgey-inset" thing on the top of the primary hull isn't going to line up with windows... and we'll end up with the same "decks on a hillside slope" problem we got with the Sovereign class. Vektor... any word on how you plan to lay out the interior?
My intent is to lay out all of the windows along horizontal deck lines, which is fairly easy to do considering I can literally slice the hull into deck sections. If I do run any windows along any sloped edges, that doesn't necessarily mean that the internal decks follow that slope, only that the ceiling line and the windows do.
I really didn't like the new theme that the TNG movies developed, which was: Battleship Enterprise, Darker, more angular interiors, more primitive shapes, and dark unifroms. The ENT-E bridge looked more like the ENT-A bridge than the ENT-D bridge, for example. The whole ship looked like an offshoot of the ENT-B. Keeping the general shape & outline of the ENT-E, here is one of my designs: Granted, that's a pretty primitive pencil drawing. Here's some attempt to pretty it up using the magic of com-pew-tur: Basically, it's the Enterprise D in the shape of the Enterprise E. The impulse engines and so forth are in the same basic location, though I added impulse engines to the aft of the engine hull.
Ancient's comments and drawings are very interesting and right on the money. And yes, the Ent-E was probably the best Excelsior derivative ever shown in TREK. Things I like about Ancient's U.S.S. Quest: The saucer retains many of the lines of the Ent-E. The return to Galaxy-class/Ent-D-type nacelles. The impulse engines on the secondary hull. Things I would do a little differently: I like the round navigational deflector array on the Sovereign/Ent-E better. The Sovereign's nacelle pylons are nice, too. Make the ship's nacelles a little longer, and definitely thinner and trimmer with a more smooth rectangular solid shape. Retain the basic shape of the saucer, but inject a little of the simplicity of the original NCC-1701, with a smoother hull that looks less busy. And use the block lettering style for the hull markings, like TOS did.