Nacelle sizes

[A Ruffian]

This is yet another question, this time on warp nacelles.
As time progressed and advancements in tech were made, the nacelles seemed to shrink in size, because they became so powerful.
That changed when the Ent - E was introduced in First Contact, again with longer nacelles. And it seemed to continue with some ships…
But why? I see ships with small nacelles(Voyager, Defiant, Protostar, for example) and then ships with larger nacelles(Ent - E onward, Cerritos, some of Picard ships).
Is this just because of design, or something else? Because if shrinking the nacelles was good/better than more elongated ones, why not keep it?

 

[Unicron]

It's an issue I've thought about as well, because we've seen a variety over the years (both canonically and in unofficial works). The Oberth design family seems to have more compact nacelles than contemporaries like the Miranda and Constitution families, but I've never gotten the impression it was inherently less powerful. Some of the Jackill's designs (like the Lobo class) had a type of advanced nacelle by the description, but it's not explained how this model differs in ability from other contemporary designs.

We've also seen shuttlecraft and small craft that can have nacelles of a similar design to parent craft, if not on the same level of power naturally. In TNG, Riker specifically says the shuttlepods lack warp ability in "Time Squared" which seems consistent with their description in books like the TNG Tech Manual. However, this idea seems to be contradicted by other episodes that use them, like Geordi's shuttle to Risa in "The Mind's Eye" and the commandeered one flown by Mendez in "Identity Crisis."

I do consider the Vulcan shuttle to be something of an oddball, in that I've never really seen an inherent advantage in having the warp sled be a separate component when it doesn't need to be. It would be more logical to have the engines integrated the way most other shuttle designs do.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Sometimes the nacelles get larger to show that a ship is more powerful than its predecessor (Excelsior), sometimes they get smaller to show that it's more advanced (Voyager). There was a trend during the Next Gen era for smaller nacelles, but when they designed the Enterprise-E they decided that it just looked better with bigger engines, and the 24th century has had giant nacelles ever since.

I think the Cerritos has oversized warp engines and a giant warp core because it was built to tow much bigger vessels, but despite that it's not a particularly fast ship. Meanwhile Voyager had incredible speed and endurance for its day with its tiny little engines.

The best I can figure, the ideal size for a nacelle is one that's balanced with the design of the rest of the vessel, with streamlined speedy ships getting small nacelles and heavy powerful ships getting larger ones. If the overall ship looks aesthetically appealing, it's probably correct.

 

[ngc7293]

I just want to say something that I see now and then. Nacelles aren't the engines. I am guessing you didn't mean it that way. It's like a car. The tires aren't the engine but they are the means of motivation. The Nacelles provided the motivation through space.
As far as nacelles size? I think most of the time it has to do with the the ship size. The Oberth never needed huge nacelles and the Nova or Sabre classes didn't need huge nacelles either. I THINK the Intrepid was Purpose built for that rip in space episode. (I forgot the name) Sort of make ships not "gas guzzlers".
As for why a lot of Fan fiction makes them, well, a lot of people like the look!

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I just want to say something that I see now and then. Nacelles aren't the engines. I am guessing you didn't mean it that way. It's like a car. The tires aren't the engine but they are the means of motivation. The Nacelles provided the motivation through space.

I've never really thought of them as engines either, I just needed another word so I didn't have to type 'nacelle' so much.

Though then again, an engine converts energy into motion, so what part of the warp drive is doing that? The warp core is a reactor feeding the nacelles with plasma.

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps at one point they had a purpose to the size of the nacelles, but I tend to think that over time it becomes an aesthetic choice on the part of the shipwrights and designers of the starships.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Spoiler: EC Henry - Warp Coils; Everything There Is To Know

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I think the Warp Coils in the Warp Nacelles go through several Technological innovations as StarFleet gets Faster through out the years.

1) Everybody has simple Cylindrical/Square/Rectangular Warp Nacelles in the 22nd & 23rd Century early on.
There is no variation in Width along the tubular structure, everything is simple and straight

2) Later on in the later half of the 24th Century, the Warp Nacelles seem to get smaller, but it becomes larger in the aft and thinner as the Warp Nacelles progress through the front

3) Moving foreward to the late 24th & early 25th Century, the Warp Nacelles seem to be more standardized.
Thicker in the front, and thinner in the aft, while being long & slender

5) In the far future in the 32nd Century, post burn, Warp Nacelles become fully detached, largely flying in parallel formation with the main body, and seems to have it's own mini Warp Core & Fuel Source.
This allows more efficient STL flight and not have to worry about siphoning power from the Warp Nacelles when it comes time to go FTL, also allows more dynamic shaping of the Warp Field due to not being in a fixed position relative to the Saucer/StarDrive section.

I just want to say something that I see now and then. Nacelles aren't the engines. I am guessing you didn't mean it that way. It's like a car. The tires aren't the engine but they are the means of motivation. The Nacelles provided the motivation through space.
As far as nacelles size? I think most of the time it has to do with the the ship size. The Oberth never needed huge nacelles and the Nova or Sabre classes didn't need huge nacelles either. I THINK the Intrepid was Purpose built for that rip in space episode. (I forgot the name) Sort of make ships not "gas guzzlers".

I've always treated Warp Nacelles as the equivalent to FTL Motors.

They don't generate power, they consume it and use it to move space around the vessel, ergo allowing FTL.

That's why they need a Warp Core of some form to create that power to feed the Power Hungry Warp Nacelles.

 

[A Ruffian]

I just want to say something that I see now and then. Nacelles aren't the engines. I am guessing you didn't mean it that way. It's like a car. The tires aren't the engine but they are the means of motivation. The Nacelles provided the motivation through space.
As far as nacelles size? I think most of the time it has to do with the the ship size. The Oberth never needed huge nacelles and the Nova or Sabre classes didn't need huge nacelles either. I THINK the Intrepid was Purpose built for that rip in space episode. (I forgot the name) Sort of make ships not "gas guzzlers".
As for why a lot of Fan fiction makes them, well, a lot of people like the look!

Yeah, you guessed right. I didn’t think they were the engines, their actual purpose is like your “motivation through space”, they generate a warp field for the ship when at warp.

Intrepid’s nacelles were designed for causing less/no damage to space while at warp, unlike previous ships, so you were right also!

And longer nacelles seem to be very appealing, especially if looks sleek and balanced.

 

[DSG2k]

As time progressed and advancements in tech were made, the nacelles seemed to shrink in size, because they became so powerful.
That changed when the Ent - E was introduced in First Contact, again with longer nacelles. And it seemed to continue with some ships…

Good job catching this oddity. First, a little math support for your observation, based on my Starship Volumetrics page . . . simply take the nacelle volume, multiply by two, and divide that by the total volume of the ship. Doing so, and expressing it as a percentage, we get:

Constitution (A-type (TOS)): 26.4%
Constitution (B-type (TMP)): 22.7%
Miranda: 24.5%
Constellation (approx.): 16.8%
(edit: this is Constitution nacelle times four, and fails to account for Constellation nacelle difference)
Excelsior (A-type): 13.4%
Galaxy: 9.6%
Intrepid: 5.6%

This is actually quite interesting. I'd noticed before that the Constellation's large volume (about three times a Constitution) made the four nacelles make sense, but I had not realized that the Excelsior and Constellation were both achieving such a significant reduction in nacelle volume percentage.

Ideally, we would also see that the Daedalus was some high percentage, and the NX Class ought to have been quite high on that scale also. Unfortunately, we know the NX is not, even just by eyeball.

It certainly isn't clear why the Sovereign (and earlier similary-nacelled Nova) would feature larger nacelles. I haven't done the work to assess other nacelle sizes individually (it's on the to-do list along with 500 other things), but by eyeball I'd say it should easily be 20% for the Sovereign, if not more. It may simply be that the Sovereign's large nacelles and the Intrepid's tiny floppy ones were different approaches to dealing with the spatial damage problem that had produced the warp five speed limit . . . both vessels appeared at approximately the same time, and clearly took wildly different tacks in style of nacelles along with everything else. Certainly the Intrepid version seems superior to me.

Indeed, canonically, we don't know that the Sovereign was even fast . . . the Equinox of the Nova class was supposedly limited to warp eight, though it isn't entirely clear if this was a design limit or an issue of condition (I prefer to assume the latter, though the statement suggests the former). If the former, then the Sovereign might not actually be terribly fast, which would certainly explain the wacky Scimitar being able to keep up with it. There's real-world precedent for this . . . the F-35 has significantly slower top-end than a lot of earlier-generation fighters.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

There's real-world precedent for this . . . the F-35 has significantly slower top-end than a lot of earlier-generation fighters.

But that top end was literally written in the JSF spec based on IRL combat sorties in the past and what is "Necessary".

And practical combat carrying capacity with 2x 2,000 LB JDAMs + 2x AMRAAMs in the weapons bay + Fully Loaded fuel allowed you to hit the manufacturered listed top speed.

The old F-16 and F-15's had signifcantly de-rated top speed specs once you filled it up with weapons hanging on external hard points due to weight & drag.

So in practical situations, the F-35 is ALOT better IRL when it came time to fight with a "Standard Load Out".

If the former, then the Sovereign might not actually be terribly fast, which would certainly explain the wacky Scimitar being able to keep up with it.

The Scimitar is what you get when you have Multiple Warp Cores powering the vessel, you can brute force your way to high speeds.

 

[A Ruffian]

Good job catching this oddity. First, a little math support for your observation, based on my Starship Volumetrics page . . . simply take the nacelle volume, multiply by two, and divide that by the total volume of the ship. Doing so, and expressing it as a percentage, we get:

Constitution (A-type (TOS)): 26.4%
Constitution (B-type (TMP)): 22.7%
Miranda: 24.5%
Constellation (approx.): 16.8%
(edit: this is Constitution nacelle times four, and fails to account for Constellation nacelle difference)
Excelsior (A-type): 13.4%
Galaxy: 9.6%
Intrepid: 5.6%

This is actually quite interesting. I'd noticed before that the Constellation's large volume (about three times a Constitution) made the four nacelles make sense, but I had not realized that the Excelsior and Constellation were both achieving such a significant reduction in nacelle volume percentage.

Ideally, we would also see that the Daedalus was some high percentage, and the NX Class ought to have been quite high on that scale also. Unfortunately, we know the NX is not, even just by eyeball.

It certainly isn't clear why the Sovereign (and earlier similary-nacelled Nova) would feature larger nacelles. I haven't done the work to assess other nacelle sizes individually (it's on the to-do list along with 500 other things), but by eyeball I'd say it should easily be 20% for the Sovereign, if not more. It may simply be that the Sovereign's large nacelles and the Intrepid's tiny floppy ones were different approaches to dealing with the spatial damage problem that had produced the warp five speed limit . . . both vessels appeared at approximately the same time, and clearly took wildly different tacks in style of nacelles along with everything else. Certainly the Intrepid version seems superior to me.

Indeed, canonically, we don't know that the Sovereign was even fast . . . the Equinox of the Nova class was supposedly limited to warp eight, though it isn't entirely clear if this was a design limit or an issue of condition (I prefer to assume the latter, though the statement suggests the former). If the former, then the Sovereign might not actually be terribly fast, which would certainly explain the wacky Scimitar being able to keep up with it. There's real-world precedent for this . . . the F-35 has significantly slower top-end than a lot of earlier-generation fighters.

Thanks for the math!

As for addressing the spatial damage problem, Voyager came about a year before the Ent - E, and according to MA(Memory Alpha and a few other sources) the E was the result of when it was realized that nacelles didn’t need to flip to do the exact same thing. Both seemed about equal(except that the Intrepid’s stubby nacelles took time to “sync” for warp and they couldn’t see each other when at impulse speeds). But that’s just me…

The F-35, slow? Guess I’ll need to check that out.

 

[DSG2k]

But that top end was literally written in the JSF spec based on IRL combat sorties in the past and what is "Necessary".

And practical combat carrying capacity with 2x 2,000 LB JDAMs + 2x AMRAAMs in the weapons bay + Fully Loaded fuel allowed you to hit the manufacturered listed top speed.

The old F-16 and F-15's had signifcantly de-rated top speed specs once you filled it up with weapons hanging on external hard points due to weight & drag.

So in practical situations, the F-35 is ALOT better IRL when it came time to fight with a "Standard Load Out".

Found the F-35 fan! (kidding)

I'm aware that she's only really slow on paper, as it were, and that it's due to a few different factors. Her selection pressures are for stealth over raw speed . . . the faster interceptors and such were never trying to be stealthy, and could include non-stealthy bits (e.g. movable intake deflector doodads) designed to support higher speed. Further, the internal weapons bay means she won't be as svelte as a 'clean' F-16 or F-18 with nothing on the wings, and thus will have higher drag.

All that said, if I were a pilot who'd just expended all my ordnance, I'd rather anything fired at my flaming behind have to work harder to catch me.

The Scimitar is what you get when you have Multiple Warp Cores powering the vessel, you can brute force your way to high speeds.

I'm not aware of any canonical reference to multiple cores.

 

[DSG2k]

Thanks for the math!

As for addressing the spatial damage problem, Voyager came about a year before the Ent - E, and according to MA(Memory Alpha and a few other sources) the E was the result of when it was realized that nacelles didn’t need to flip to do the exact same thing. Both seemed about equal(except that the Intrepid’s stubby nacelles took time to “sync” for warp and they couldn’t see each other when at impulse speeds). But that’s just me…

I'd only ever heard that specifically regarding the Intrepid Class, but even then it was just backstage info. I'm not sure we ever heard of the Sovereign Class Enterprise being at any particular warp speed, much less anything 9+.

 

[A Ruffian]

You could be right, the backstage info is probably a topic not wholly discussed often.
We’ve seen the E at warp, but I’m also not aware of the E exceeding 9, too.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Found the F-35 fan! (kidding)

I'm not, I'm a real F-35 fan. I've posted plenty of times on F-16.net within the F-35 section as well in the past.

It took me literally 6 years of delving into the F-35 forums, technical documents, public knowledge, etc; to figure out how the F-35 is made, how it's Governmental program works, how the system architecture and what it does. All the BS that the public slanders the program with.

It's literally ground breaking for US Aviation compared to all the legacy systems.

It's a really good solution IMO for what it tries to cover.

I'm aware that she's only really slow on paper, as it were, and that it's due to a few different factors. Her selection pressures are for stealth over raw speed . . . the faster interceptors and such were never trying to be stealthy, and could include non-stealthy bits (e.g. movable intake deflector doodads) designed to support higher speed. Further, the internal weapons bay means she won't be as svelte as a 'clean' F-16 or F-18 with nothing on the wings, and thus will have higher drag.

1) F-35 is a Ground Attack Stealth Fighter First, 2nd Best Air-to-Air fighter in the US inventory, 2nd to the F-22.
2) It's primary objective during war time is to get rid of HVT (High-Value Targets) on the ground in the Day 0 & Day 1 of WarTime operations.
3) It's Surface Area is a bit larger, but it needs that for internal Weapons & Fuel volume to meets it's design operation target. Something the F-16 or F-18 can't do without having external weapons & fuel tanks while being Wildly Un-Stealthy. If you compare a Fully Equivalent Loaded F-16 & F-18 with the F-35 with same weapons load and fuel load out, the F-35 will win hands down.

All that said, if I were a pilot who'd just expended all my ordnance, I'd rather anything fired at my flaming behind have to work harder to catch me.

If they're shooting at you from behind, you screwed up your approach in the first place or you're high tailing it out of there.

I'm not aware of any canonical reference to multiple cores.

My bad, I got confused.

It was Primary & Secondary Shielding.

It has 2x sets of Shield Generators, not multiple Warp Cores.

Although, it doesn't hurt to have both.

 

[A Ruffian]

My bad, I got confused.

It was Primary & Secondary Shielding.

It has 2x sets of Shield Generators, not multiple Warp Cores.

Although, it doesn't hurt to have both.

Well, thanks for establishing that for both of us(DSG2k and me).
And no, it doesn’t hurt to have a few more cores.

 

[think]

OMG all the topics here in Trek tech I didn't know all this was going on.. silly me. ... I have been posting on the forums for years and this is right here.. I like that this is discussed .. I have a image and I'm not sure where to post it.. it gives a size of the enterprise to a size of a person..

 

[ChallengerHK]

. it gives a size of the enterprise to a size of a person..

Well...it gives a graphic artist's impression of the size of a person compared to the size of the JJprise. It is a cool pic, though.