Sorry for not responding to you all sooner. Breaking the saucer and having to fix it to sort this out put me a bad mood, I needed some space to think about it all and to try an fix it.
Going forward I have less than two weeks before I have to stop - regardless of anything else, and my understanding is that it could be months before I come back from that event, so I need to get this sorted now.
The Ambassador Class is a weird duck of a ship. The model was rushed, and several key things were missed off it (like torpedo launchers, which I have put on this iteration). They were pushed for time and basically had to abandoned Probert's original plans for the ship. Now, his original version of the Ambassador Class has been realised and I don't need to go over that ground. Tobias did a wonderful job. My brief, as such as it was, was to show some love to the as-seen-on-screen version of the ship and sort some things out.
In hindsight, I should have looked at the impulse drives a lot earlier in the build than I did. I should have opened the floor up sooner. I didn't, and I have painted myself into a corner. Either I bolt something on to the hull, which to my mind doesn't sit well, or I have to shove something into the saucer as an after thought, which again, doesn't sit well.
So, here is what I propose;
I'm going to finish this ship off, with a single impulse drive above the separation line. I am then going to start work on a new ship class to address the designs issues as a class that sits between the Ambassador and Galaxy Class ships (of which there would be plenty I would imagine).
As a pre-curser to the Galaxy the new class could have saucer sep and reconnect built in. I can do that. I am going to pull a few things off my Ambassador class to do this - but that's ok, there is a relationship between the two. In fact... Yes, it will be the Ranger Class USS Ranger NCC-21179-A.
Going to finish the Ambassador Class today, and then start work on the new class.
Comments and the like welcome, more soon.
