NOT the Charlie X Antares (yet again)

[Reverend]

It must be that time of the decade again since I'm redoing an old favourite (those too young to know what I'm talking about, look here) this time I decided to push it slightly out of the TOS era and into the grey abyss that is the "Phase II" era.




Not quite finished yet, still need to do the ventral view and I'm thinking perhaps the registry needs bumping up a bit too.

 

[Kaiser]

Actually this is my favorite version of what the Antares could have been

 

[Beef Squatthrust]

Very nice design! I'm not overly fond of a lot of the homemade fan designs that I see floating about the net,but once in a while there is a nice little gem. This is fantastic! A nice bridge to fill in some of those missing years...

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Very Sweet work Kudos

 

[Reverend]

Actually this is my favorite version of what the Antares could have been

Really? I thought the TOS-R solution was much more elegant. Anyway, this is meant to be the pre-refit Antares-Class that this ship belonged to. Not the "Charlie X" Antares as the title says.

And for those who are interested, here's a better look at the new nacelles.

 

[Kaiser]

Still looks awsome to me

 

[USS Mariner]

Really? I thought the TOS-R solution was much more elegant. Anyway, this is meant to be the pre-refit Antares-Class that this ship belonged to. Not the "Charlie X" Antares as the title says.

And for those who are interested, here's a better look at the new nacelles.

As nice as the TOS-R Antares was, why did they refit a robot ship instead of using the Huron? It looks just as "silly," and the addition to the ship was pretty tacky.

Oh yes, the nacelles are amazing.

 

[Reverend]

As nice as the TOS-R Antares was, why did they refit a robot ship instead of using the Huron? It looks just as "silly," and the addition to the ship was pretty tacky.

Oh yes, the nacelles are amazing.

You'd have to ask Okuda & Paramount Digital to answer that, though I suspect it was partly because they knew that later on they also needed to replace the Woden with something other than a DY-100 and it's more economical to make one model you can adapt for both appearances than making two separate models.

Anyway, quick update for the side view.

Added some more detail to the airlocks, some Work Bee Airlocks, smoothed off the rear ends of the nacelles a little and tidied up a few things that were bugging me.

 

[TheSeeker]

I have to say I really like this. Nice work!

 

[Intelligence]

Excellent design and much more plausible as a vessel that houses some crew. I also find it remarkably how your design is without doubt Federation but shows so many differences.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Very nice work there

 

[Vance]

As nice as the TOS-R Antares was, why did they refit a robot ship instead of using the Huron? It looks just as "silly," and the addition to the ship was pretty tacky.

You got it backwards, the Antares-type came first, and some were 'refit' to be automated like the Woden. It makes sense when you consider the dialog from the two shows.

Keep in mind, the Huron was a manned freighter as well, and an armed one, so refitting that to downgrade would make somewhat less sense than what we're given.

 

[USS Mariner]

How would stripping the weapons off of a manned freighter be easier than installing life support systems onto an unmanned drone ship? That's like saying it's more difficult to strip a car of it's radio than to install a robot driver.

I guess that means that those MIT students competing in DARPA's Grand Challenge are retards.

 

[Vance]

There's no proof that the Antares is the "original" or a "refit" in the series anyway. WE do however know that they borrowed the design from TAS, and then altered it with what I can only assume is the crew section. If the ship was originally manned, why would you need to add living space?

Emotional and somewhat baiting statements aside...

Well, proof is a slight bit subjective here. But both the Antares and Woden are described as 'older ships' at various points, but only the Woden is described as converted explicitly. It's the Woden that's changed from her original specs, not the Antares.

 

[USS Mariner]

Caught me in the middle of editing (and shoveling show.)

I honestly doubt the remastering crew's intentions extended beyond giving a nod to TAS fans.

The argument that it would be too much work to build another model isn't all that solid, because both designs are pretty simple, and I'm sure a large chuck of their modeling work is done after-hours to begin with (thanks to CBmount's delightfully short budget.) Besides, this isn't going to "replace" the original, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

 

[Rico]

Great job man!

 

[Reverend]

Caught me in the middle of editing (and shoveling show.)

I honestly doubt the remastering crew's intentions extended beyond giving a nod to TAS fans.

The argument that it would be too much work to build another model isn't all that solid, because both designs are pretty simple, and I'm sure a large chuck of their modeling work is done after-hours to begin with (thanks to CBmount's delightfully short budget.) Besides, this isn't going to "replace" the original, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

At times like this I wish Okuda would do a search for his name like Sternbach dose, so he could come defend his own decisions.
Anyway, taking less time to do it one way isn't the same as the other way taking too much time and it's only a presumption on my part anyway, you'd have to ask Mike Okuda or one of the Paramount Digital guys to get the real reason. Personally though, I think it was a case of them knowing they would need the robot drones down the line for the Whoden (and according to MA. the Yorkshire too) so that was a given. Taking an extra 40 mins to stick on a crew section & fiddling with the image maps is easier than spending several hours building a different design from scratch. Now that's several hours that can now be spent working on something else. This may seam trivial, but trust me, when you're under a deadline (especially a weekly one) this sort of thing can make a huge difference.

As for a canon explanation as to why the Antares is manned and the Whoden is automated, remember that for the Antares they specifically added an extra crew section to the front, so you could assume that the Class was designed to be modular and easily adaptable to either function (remembering that a starship is largely automated even with a crew.)
It might also be of note that from the registries they're using, the Whoden (NCC-325) is a bit older than the Antares (NCC-501) so you could presume that the Whoden had done it's service as a manned vehicle and had now been relegated to robotic cargo duty.

Regardless, this is the sort of the discussion best taken to the tech or the TOS forum. As I've already stated, this isn't ment to be THAT Antares.

 

[USS Mariner]

I have worked under time restraits. I'm just pointing out that it would only take 40 minutes to make the Huron. They simply chose to refit the Sherman instead.

 

[Reverend]

...and stick a spork in it, I'm done.

 

[Harry]

What do you mean, done? You were also working on the refit version back in the day, right?

(Although this is now indeed a 'half-way' Phase II style... maybe the refit is now 'proper' TNG/Ambassador-ish style?)