How would you re-imagine the NX-01 Enterprise?

[Wingsley]

Beef Squatthrust said:

Wingsley said:

Brutal Strudel said:
Vektor's Vanguard design is the only way to go. Barring that, his April Fools E (minus the turrets syndrome) woulda been okay.

Vektor really should be working for Paramount...

I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of seeing this design.

Could someone please post a sample of this?

Th thread seems to have been pruned from the BBS, but I did manage to find a similar thread HERE. It's pretty badass! hope we eventually see the finished product.

Hmmm. Fascinating.

Vektor's Vanguard design looks a little closer to the Constitution-class era, but still very inspiring.

I really like the mini-pod for the weapons and deflector dish. I also like the small, highly rounded and smooth space-efficient saucer. Vector's nacelles are interesting as well. They probably would've made better Warp 5 engines than ENT's.

I don't think the "shoulder" hulls on the topside-aft of the saucer would be necessary for the NX-01. They look more like a precursor to the Miranda-class in the 23rd century.

If the underside mini-pod were shaped more like a DYellow submarine, and the conning tower became the connection to the saucer, the impulse engines could be mounted on small winglets on the sides of the conning tower and the warp engines could be mounted on pylons rising up from the DY-shaped secondary mini-hull.

This would make it look more like an evolutionary ancestor of the Constitution-class, but still markedly different to be credible as having flown several decades earlier.

 

[B.J.]

No, Vector's Vanguard wasn't the April Fool's design, but the one you're thinking of was done by Vector! See this page:
http://trekmovie.com/2007/04/01/trek-xi-design-sketch-debunked/

 

[Sxottlan]

Jamee999 said:

Kal-L said:
I continue to maintain to this day that the Enterprise production staff already had a great design for their Enterprise, but for some reason (i.e., The Killer B's) they had to ignore it.

I refer, of course, to the SS Conestoga.

A lot of folks here have disagreed with me over the years about this, but I look at this ship and think it's got a familiarity and a new grace and sense of personality, which is something Enterprise as a whole was sorely in need of.

I look at this ship and I can see her reflecting what TOS said about the era of the Romulan Wars, about what was going on one hundred years before. All she needs is some UESPA signage and a name other than "Enterprise" and we'd be good to go.

My two cents.

Where's that froM?

Agreed. I've never seen these pictures before. They're spectacular. I liked the Conestoga, but now I positively love it. I wish it had been the NX-01, although it too looks almost like it's incomplete somehow.

My only real issue with the NX-01 was that it looked top heavy and seemed more like a sled.

 

[OylPslyk]

hey guys, I'm updating my NX dwg's and finalizing my cardmodel version.

back when I first created the files I had trouble finding good data on what the actual dimensions of the ship are...
the best source that I could find was the notations on the kennedy shipyards planset.
i never really trusted those numbers so they were really just a refernce for me...

Does anyone have any better info on what the acutal dimensions are supposed to be?

Thanks

 

[KirkTrekModeler]

Sorry, I never cared for that ship, so I never researched it. I might have some stuff on the Akira, but I don't think that will help. Good luck though.

OylPslyk said:
hey guys, I'm updating my NX dwg's and finalizing my cardmodel version.

back when I first created the files I had trouble finding good data on what the actual dimensions of the ship are...
the best source that I could find was the notations on the kennedy shipyards planset.
i never really trusted those numbers so they were really just a refernce for me...

Does anyone have any better info on what the acutal dimensions are supposed to be?

Thanks

 

[B.J.]

I got this from Ex Astris Scientia:
Rob Bonchune of Foundation Imaging tells us (thanks to Phelps at the Flare Forums): "The Enterprise length has been set at 225 meters. Width of the primary hull: 136 meters. The dimensions and specifics where given to us by Doug Drexler/Star Trek art department. Doug built the prototype."

 

[OylPslyk]

Ive come across that measure of 136 for the saucer's width before, but it is almost 10 meters out of proportion. Thats kinda why I put the feeler out here.

Here's a look at the dwg I created my papermodel from
http://www.mediafire.com/?8xybytlizxe
you can see that at 225, the saucer is closer to 129.
I used the FI meshe's high-res ortho scans to get my proportions, but that doesnt really help with hard numbers to work out accurate dimensions!!

 

[KirkTrekModeler]

Although I don't care for the Akiraprise, I've got to say, I always love your work! Keep on Trekkin! :thumbsup:

 

[OylPslyk]

I am now becoming very confused.......

I decided to take a new look at how i came up with all my dimensions in the first place...
I just overlayed the original FI high res ortho outputs back into my dwg again to take some new measurements.

once again I have stymied myself! sizing the images to 225m length, the saucer is now a hair OVER 150m wide!!!!!
I'm not sure how this happened. I cant imagine where I made a 25meter error at in my original files.

any help?

 

[JuanBolio]

Superman said:
I continue to maintain to this day that the Enterprise production staff already had a great design for their Enterprise, but for some reason (i.e., The Killer B's) they had to ignore it.

I refer, of course, to the SS Conestoga.

A lot of folks here have disagreed with me over the years about this, but I look at this ship and think it's got a familiarity and a new grace and sense of personality, which is something Enterprise as a whole was sorely in need of.

I look at this ship and I can see her reflecting what TOS said about the era of the Romulan Wars, about what was going on one hundred years before. All she needs is some UESPA signage and a name other than "Enterprise" and we'd be good to go.

My two cents.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Couple minor modifications and she would've made a fine ship indeed. Failing this, the unnamed "Delta Warp" Starfleet ship would've been okay.

 

[Wingsley]

You know, there was a mysterious spaceship appearance, seen through the lens of the Guardian of Forever, in the TAS ep "Yesteryear" about Spock going back and re-visiting his childhood. It was never made clear what the spacecraft was, but maybe it could fit into this thread:

http://tas.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=23&pos=78

I was thinking that the "Daedalus" design concept of corrugated, tubular hulls centered along a fore/aft axis like this "Yesteryear" mystery ship, with nacelles along the sides like the Phoenix in FIRST CONTACT,

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=140&pos=34

...might just do the trick. It would be interesting to combine Icy Penguigo's tube ship concept with these notions.

An even more interesting idea would be to eliminate the nacelle pylon-wings, and have that outer area filled with the crude beginnings of a flat saucer; the nacelles would be joined directly to the outer fringes of the saucer. The exposed saucer segments would be used for fuel storage in the forward areas, pop-out shuttlepod bays amid-section, and housings to give the impulse engines clearance aft.

 

[Warped9]

JuanBolio said:

Superman said:
I continue to maintain to this day that the Enterprise production staff already had a great design for their Enterprise, but for some reason (i.e., The Killer B's) they had to ignore it.

I refer, of course, to the SS Conestoga.

A lot of folks here have disagreed with me over the years about this, but I look at this ship and think it's got a familiarity and a new grace and sense of personality, which is something Enterprise as a whole was sorely in need of.

I look at this ship and I can see her reflecting what TOS said about the era of the Romulan Wars, about what was going on one hundred years before. All she needs is some UESPA signage and a name other than "Enterprise" and we'd be good to go.

My two cents.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Couple minor modifications and she would've made a fine ship indeed. Failing this, the unnamed "Delta Warp" Starfleet ship would've been okay.

I essentially must agree here. This looks a lot more convincingly pre TOS than the Enterfake they went with.

 

[Praetor]

Wingsley , I've never noticed that ship in 'Yesteryear' before! That would have definitely been a better direction for 'Enterprise' to go.

 

[Wingsley]

You're not alone. I just discovered it by accident after browsing around Ex Astris Scientia.

When I saw it, I thought: gee, that looks cooler than just about ANY design seen on ENT.

 

[Wingsley]

I'm still leaning towards possibilities with that "Yesteryear" design.

I'm thinking now that NX-01 should've been designed to look somewhat like a large, highly evolved descendent of the Phoenix, even to the point of the whole ship being able to make planetfall. (Thinking back on the content of ENT that I've finally been able to review on SciFi, I'm shocked that the show's makers didn't realize what an asset this would be to stories, if the "hero ship" itself could touchdown/splashdown.)

I think this "Phoenix III" school of thought could really have opened doors for ENT, and it's a shame if it were never seriously considered. ("Phoenix I" would have been Cochrane's home-made warp ship; "Phoenix II" would have been early warp ships like the Conestoga, and "Phoenix III" would've been the NX-class.) All of these early Earth warpships would have had aft hulls of either softly distorted cylinders into an oval fore/aft profile, or maybe a pair of parallel cylinders melded together. This larger hull would provide room for the nacelles to retract and be shielded while at sublight, in orbit or during planetfall. This mid-hull section would house engineering, fuel stores, and torpedo bays. A smaller forward hull would house command, crew facilities, and other weapons. An aft-hull, sized between the two, would house, from aft-forward: shuttlebays, impulse engines, cargo bay, sickbay/decontamination and a (primitive) transporter beam. One aspect of this arrangement is that the cargobay has it's own "bomb bay doors" so it could house a "mission specific module"; the MSM could be any one of a variety of things, including a small self-contained lab, a proto-mini-space-station, a planetfall base-camp module, or even a 22nd century precursor to the Runabout: a small, Phoenix-like warpship that could go on missions away from the mothership for extended periods.

Of course, the big drawback is that such a vessel would require interior sets be significantly different than ENT's "Akiraprise". But it doesn't hurt to dream, does it? The only thing I can't get a handle on is what the overall dimensions of the ship would have to be...

 

[Wingsley]

Praetor,

I'm a little vague on the shape of the front-most command/crew hull for this "Yesteryearaprise" concept. I was wondering what you would think of tapering the corrugated, tubular hull shape into more of a wedge shape, with the dish mounted on the front.

Any thoughts?

I also came up with a weird variant idea in my head, wherein the "Yesteryearaprise" would look like an elongated, broken up, segmented cross between this corrugated tubular concept and a huge saucer. That's pretty weird. I'm trying to draw it in pencil and it's a challenge.

 

[Praetor]

Wingsley said:
I'm still leaning towards possibilities with that "Yesteryear" design.

I'm thinking now that NX-01 should've been designed to look somewhat like a large, highly evolved descendent of the Phoenix, even to the point of the whole ship being able to make planetfall. (Thinking back on the content of ENT that I've finally been able to review on SciFi, I'm shocked that the show's makers didn't realize what an asset this would be to stories, if the "hero ship" itself could touchdown/splashdown.)

I think this "Phoenix III" school of thought could really have opened doors for ENT, and it's a shame if it were never seriously considered. ("Phoenix I" would have been Cochrane's home-made warp ship; "Phoenix II" would have been early warp ships like the Conestoga, and "Phoenix III" would've been the NX-class.) All of these early Earth warpships would have had aft hulls of either softly distorted cylinders into an oval fore/aft profile, or maybe a pair of parallel cylinders melded together. This larger hull would provide room for the nacelles to retract and be shielded while at sublight, in orbit or during planetfall. This mid-hull section would house engineering, fuel stores, and torpedo bays. A smaller forward hull would house command, crew facilities, and other weapons. An aft-hull, sized between the two, would house, from aft-forward: shuttlebays, impulse engines, cargo bay, sickbay/decontamination and a (primitive) transporter beam. One aspect of this arrangement is that the cargobay has it's own "bomb bay doors" so it could house a "mission specific module"; the MSM could be any one of a variety of things, including a small self-contained lab, a proto-mini-space-station, a planetfall base-camp module, or even a 22nd century precursor to the Runabout: a small, Phoenix-like warpship that could go on missions away from the mothership for extended periods.

Of course, the big drawback is that such a vessel would require interior sets be significantly different than ENT's "Akiraprise". But it doesn't hurt to dream, does it? The only thing I can't get a handle on is what the overall dimensions of the ship would have to be...

Beautiful, Wingsley! That would have been truly magnificent and different and really seemed like a bridge between our present and Trek's future. I love the idea of a landing ship (it's somethink I outlined in my own Star Trek prequel before Enterprise ever came on) and I've come to love the idea of retracting nacelles, partially explaining why they're nacelles to start with.

I think what you've outlined is great... but the fore section of the ship is quite a problem. A tapering wedge could be nice... if you've played Star Trek: Legacy, perhaps you're familiar with the 'Discovery class' scout of the Enterprise era that is essentially a Conestoga with a DY-100 nose... I think that would be ideal. I love the idea of having a small 'control tower' like the DY-100 that could grow into the interconnecting dorsal. As for the deflector dish, I could see it being enclosed in the nose of the ship with perhaps only the sensor 'prong(s)' extanding from it. For the life of me I can't find an image of the 'Discovery class' on the net and my Legacy is the 360 type or I would take a screenshot, but I think essentially it with retracting nacelles would suit your concept well.

I also like the idea of a small low-warp 'daughter' ship... something that would have made an INFINITE amount of sense on the show.

Maybe one of us should start sketching this stuff out?

 

[Wingsley]

I'll be busy this weekend editing some video, but I'm going to doodle whenever I get time.

 

[Wingsley]

I started thinking about my concepts, broken down to basic components.

First, the warp nacelles:

Instead of the rounded front-ends, the ENT and TOS examples of which always reminded me of either a buxom woman's breast (or a penis), I like the pointed tips and corrugated length like those of this example:

http://starfleetnet.com/forum/viewforum....;t_status=sNYfR

...of course, I want to preserve the pre-TOS-style of Cochrane's Phoenix, right down to the orientation of the aft nacelle caps:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=140&pos=34

I'll see what else I can come up with over the next several days.

BTW: I really like the Odonata class in Vance's Schematics II thread:

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=8155802#Post8155802

...but that's a whole different story!

 

[Wingsley]

Oooooooo!

Almost forgot!

No nacelle pylons, in the TOS/ENT sense. The nacelles are connected via a corrugated tube, like a big sluice pipe.