Nacelle Question

[Flight Control]

Tried searching for a thread and didn't really find anything relevant but I had an idea.
Let's say a ship, in this case I'm going with the Galaxy X dreadnought from TNG, is refit with two different types of nacelles. For example, the ship has galaxy style nacelles on the right and left pylons like normal, but the middle pylon has an Akira or Sovereign nacelle.
I came up with this idea when brainstorming concepts for a new ship in my headcanon TOS universe. I liked the design of the Baton Rouge class, but it has a near identical twin, the Nordenskjold class. The classes looking nearly identical bothered me until I toyed with adding an additional nacelle either on the top of the saucer or the top of the engineering hull, making this ship analogous to the Galaxy X to the Baton Rouge's Galaxy if that makes sense. However, the stubby Baton Rouge nacelles looked weird to me, so I added a longer TOS era nacelle instead. I don't know if it looks weird or even would work.

 

[Unicron]

If the question is whether you can mix two different nacelle designs on a single ship, I'd imagine you could but I can't see any benefit for doing so (since it's possible the different models wouldn't interact the same way as identical nacelles would, and the performance would suffer). The proto-Nebula model design had a pair of smaller Galaxy type nacelles in the position that would be the modular equipment pod, and I've always felt it looked a bit odd.

 

[blssdwlf]

You can have the exterior of the nacelles look like whatever you want as long as you build the warp engines in the nacelles to work together in you ship.

But if you were to borrow a TOS nacelle and jury-rig it onto a TNG era ship you'd have to sort out any incompatibility problems that comes from an 80 year difference in technology.

 

[Flight Control]

If the question is whether you can mix two different nacelle designs on a single ship, I'd imagine you could but I can't see any benefit for doing so (since it's possible the different models wouldn't interact the same way as identical nacelles would, and the performance would suffer). The proto-Nebula model design had a pair of smaller Galaxy type nacelles in the position that would be the modular equipment pod, and I've always felt it looked a bit odd.

Yeah that particular model never made sense to me because the second pair of nacelles was so small, but maybe they only aid in keeping the field stable or something; I have no idea. In my concept for the Nordenskjold class, this middle nacelle is used to lessen load on the two original nacelles, theoretically making it easier for the ship to stay at higher cruising speeds for longer periods of time, as well as test the usage of one nacelle while having a pair as backup. One of the reasons it is longer is because it carries more warp coils which is an attempt to create a more stable warp field and generate more power.

 

[StarCruiser]

As blsswlf brought up, a nacelle is just an enclosure - or housing - that covers the vitals of an engine. In aviation, that nacelle may be partially or fully blended with the wing structure or right out in the open, but it's what's inside of it that does the work of moving the aircraft.

On a star ship, same thing. The nacelle is a protective shell over the guts of the drive system. What it looks like is governed by a mix of aesthetics and practical needs. I prefer the practical approach more than aesthetics myself.

That may be why I still favor the TOS Enterprise over anything else - with the TMP version coming in a close second.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Or in the Klingon Bird of Prey's case, the Warp Nacelle's components is literally blended into the wings.

 

[BK613]

See B-36D Peacemaker

 

[Deks]

Putting a nacelle from a different class of ships onto say the Galaxy class or any other wouldn't make much sense or necessarily work (unless we're talking about using a nacelle from the same class of ships but one of its variants - in which case, nacelles would likely be the same or extremely alike).
Why?
Well for one thing, a given class of ships has its own nacelles for a reason - they were made to work with that class of ships.

Akira class of ships have their won nacelles that work well with that class of ship... and Akira is much smaller than a Galaxy class.
You have to take into account other things... such as a ship size, etc.

The only exception to this rule would seem to be the Obena class of ships.
It has Excelsior style design overall, but was shaped and given bits from Sovereign class.
For example the Nacelles, their pylons and the deflector dish are from a Sovereign class ship.

Even if the Obena class was said to be the Excelsior class (but just upgraded with late 24th century tech that made it a step up from the USS Lakota), the overall structure of the Excelsior bears a similarity to the Sovereign class ships... and if the Sovvie nacelles and Deflector dish were modular enough to work on a similar class of ships, then it stands to reason you COULD repurpose existing class of ships assets and put them on another class with some modifications.

However, putting an Akira class nacelle onto a Galaxy class to act as a third nacelle wouldn't make sense because the two ship classes are quite different in size and overal design.
In essence, the too dissimilar designs of the hull geometry etc. for a given size of ships wouldn't work on something the size of a Galaxy class.

It would be like trying to slap an Intrepid class ship nacelle onto a Galaxy class... the Intrepid itself is barely longer than the Galaxy class nacelle... the difference in nacelle sizes compared to the overall size of the ship would make it not work.

So, unless the ships are relatively close in terms of size and follow some resemblance between them, I don't think you could fit a small ships nacelle to a much larger starship (maybe if it was able to separate and the smaller nacelle could add Warp capability to it beyond the mere ability to sustain itself in Warp for a given time frame).

The Galaxy class saucer section doesn't have its own nacelles, but likely does have a Warp sustainer technology allowing the saucer to separate at Warp and maintain Warp velocity for a given time until it could get to safety.

The USS Prometheus has 5 nacelles in total. The top saucer has 1 small identically styled nacelle as the main nacelles (this one probably acts as something more than a Warp sustainer - but in comparison to a Galaxy class, the top saucer bit of the Prometheus can independently go to warp on its own - whereas the Galaxy saucer on its own can't - it can only sustain Warp for a given time)... whereas the lower saucer and lower secondary hull have 2 bigger nacelles, and the mid/top section of the secondary hull have the other 2 bigger nacelles.

 

[valkyrie013]

depends on what you do.
Think of a nacelle as a Jet Engine. You usually have a pair of nacelles, each with the same "thrust" so a matching pair so you don't get a lopsided warp field.
now if you have a mis matched pair say a nacelle with say 50 tons of thrust and the other is 40 tons of thrust you'd have to throttle back the more powerful engine.
So say an emergency, you tack on a nacelle that doesn't match the other, you'd have throttle to the lower performing engine.
Now as a 3rd engine, you could have any engine thrust.
you'd just have to juryrig the other nacelle to the ship somehow.

 

[Unicron]

I could see nacelles from the same family of ships working with a range of different classes, so for example any ship based on the Oberth hull could use the smaller Oberth type nacelles, while any class based on the Excelsior family tree could utilize those nacelles.

It does raise an interesting question of what would happen if a ship had to jettison a nacelle and needed a replacement to get home, but the nearest outpost doesn't necessarily have the right fit for their design. I'd presume Starfleet would allow some universal connections between designs to allow for such a contingency, but that doesn't necessarily mean a nacelle of different design would work as well as the proper one. Some interesting story concepts there.

I seem to recall FASA and perhaps some other offscreen sources suggesting that in the event of having to jettison a saucer or nacelles, it would be more ideal to have the ship fixed at a major base or drydock because of the repair complexity, although emergency options also exist. Both FASA and Jackill have mobile drydocks, and Jackill also has the Kentwood class specialized transports which can carry something like a spare hull or nacelle.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

I could see nacelles from the same family of ships working with a range of different classes, so for example any ship based on the Oberth hull could use the smaller Oberth type nacelles, while any class based on the Excelsior family tree could utilize those nacelles.

It does raise an interesting question of what would happen if a ship had to jettison a nacelle and needed a replacement to get home, but the nearest outpost doesn't necessarily have the right fit for their design. I'd presume Starfleet would allow some universal connections between designs to allow for such a contingency, but that doesn't necessarily mean a nacelle of different design would work as well as the proper one. Some interesting story concepts there.

I seem to recall FASA and perhaps some other offscreen sources suggesting that in the event of having to jettison a saucer or nacelles, it would be more ideal to have the ship fixed at a major base or drydock because of the repair complexity, although emergency options also exist. Both FASA and Jackill have mobile drydocks, and Jackill also has the Kentwood class specialized transports which can carry something like a spare hull or nacelle.

Didn't they have the Warp Tugs to tow back all the wrecked StarFleet StarShips during the Dominion War?

I could swear those guys got quite the work out and their demand was through the roof during the Dominion War.

 

[Unicron]

We only saw a single tug onscreen, but it's fair to assume they did get quite the workout during the war.

 

[Flight Control]

I agree that within ship families nacelles should be modular. It makes sense that any Excelsior style ship can use Excelsior style nacelles. But what about similar designs from the same era? I know there are massive scaling errors with the Curry type starship from the DS9 Frankenstein fleet, but it apparently uses Constitution style nacelles with an Excelsior body. If we do take the nacelles being scaled up by the engineers as true, then is it possible that nacelles from the same era would work on different ship families, or is this ship (which is barely canon) too bizarre to be an example, especially given the fact it already poses so many problems in canon and is just a background blur at best.

 

[Unicron]

I'm kind of mixed on it, as I know FASA was somewhat infamous for kitbashing elements of different design families together (and the TNG Officer's Manual has the somewhat amusing K'mirra battlecruiser, which is a variant of the Klingon B-2 battleship with Federation Excelsior nacelles and phaser banks as a hybrid design).

Sometimes I tend to think there's no reason a specific nacelle couldn't be scaled up or down, as we've already seen examples of this (shuttlecraft engines, in some cases). But I also understand the counterargument that this is problematic because it would throw off a proper scale of what the ship should be, based on some of its components.