Oberth questions.

[The Castellan]

I want to make the main ship in my stories an Oberth. Now this one's gonna be a bit amped up, so that it can handle itself in a fight, if need be. My questions are:


How big is the Oberth?

How many crew can be in the ship?

What's the shuttle capacity?

How large is the bridge in comparison to the rest of the ship?

Where is the cargo/storage bays?

Here's what the Oberth in my stories shall look like:

It (the upgrading) also solves the mysteries of where is the dish, and how one can travel from the upper hull to the lower hull.

 

[Tiberius]

That center neck is a good idea. I like it.

 

[The Castellan]

That center neck is a good idea. I like it.

Not sure who made this mesh, I would not be surprised if it were Madman.

Anyhow, in my stories, the Oberth here was given a makeover so that it can handle much larger adversaries. If a little ship like the Defiant has the fire power and engine output that if often seen in ships 2 or 3 times bigger than itself, it's fair to make an Oberth that has some claws and teeth of its own. Double that when out, on its own in deep space, that no one knows what is out there, so I think it's fair to make the ship a bit tougher.

I already got a 'teaser trailer' for my stories in the works.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The official size for the Oberth class is a piddling 120 metres. But, like the Excelsior, the windows and hull details suggest a ship much bigger - around 300 metres long.

Here's a page pointing out a few of the flaws in the design: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/oberth-size.htm

 

[Mysterion]

http://ussthagard.com/Thagardtour.html

 

[Timo]

120 meters seems to work just fine - the Thagard appears to be of that size.

Canonically, we know of Oberths with seven crew, and of Oberths with eighty. Both are consistent with how the Thagard is portrayed.

Canonically, we've never heard of Oberths operating shuttles, but a graphic in TNG "Hero Worship" showed a Type 6 stowed in the stern part of the lower pod. And the Thagard shows how very small auxiliaries might be stowed elsewhere, although I don't really see the point of carrying too many.

We have seen two Oberth bridges and a graphic portrayal of one more. The bridge from ST3:The Search for Spock was made of the same elements as the bridges of the big starships in the previous movie, but shot so that it more or less appeared to be a narrow ovoid rather than a circle. The bridge from TNG "The Naked Now" might have been of just about any size, including the same as in the movie, but it strangely featured a hatch on the wall that revealed space beyond, as if the bridge were mounted on the rim of the ship instead of the middle of the saucer. The graphic from "Hero Worship" seemed to portray a conventional bridge buried in the very middle of the top deck of a two-deck saucer, just as in the Thagard.

We have seen wide corridors inside various TNG era Oberths, and the exterior of the ship features many dark, ribbed surfaces that could be rolling doors. Indeed, the sides of the aft of the lower pod could be rolling doors, too, opening to reveal the framework inside; that might be how the shuttle indicated in "Hero Worship" would get out. Basically, then, every part of the ship could feature cargo or supply holds, or holds designed to house swappable instrumentation for the science mission.

No Oberth has canonically fired weapons of any sort, and there are no visible phaser turrets or torpedo tubes. But the rolling doors might again hide a few secrets and surprises.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

No Oberth has canonically fired weapons of any sorti

Given that even small shuttles carry weapons, it would be reasonable that most Starfleet vessels would have them at some "caliber." Plus phasers aren't just weapons, we've seen them used as tools too.

One of the existing conjectures about the Oberth that I agree with, is the idea that the lower hull/pod is easily swapped out. And sensor pods, weapons pods, personnel transport and cargo, can all be fitted to a Oberth. As needed

It can also run with nothing in that position.

 

[Timo]

...The problem with that is the diagram from "Hero Worship", apparently placing the warp core in the pod!

It wouldn't be surprising if the Oberth was originally built so that the pod was just inert payload, and the reactor was in the main hull as in the Thagard artwork - but at some point, the original engines were found antiquated and underpowered, and the modern, somewhat bulky replacement reactor was installed in the most convenient space available, which happened to be an equipment room in the previously separable pod. The original engineers would have had valid reasons for separability and modularity, but the later engineers would give priority to other things, and would decide to forget about pod separation.

Agreed that the Oberth could well be armed. It's just that all the other Starfleet ships and craft seen firing weapons have actually featured visible weapons emplacements - not counting the TOS hero ship, that is (and even that one got visible turrets in ENT).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

An Oberth DID fire weapons one time: In First Contact.

It's also worth noting that the damaged Vico model had a differring deck layout to the MSD seen in the same episode.

 

[Dukhat]

Seeing that artwork makes me wish that the TNG VFX department had "spruced up" the movie models to make them look more advanced instead of just reusing them without any changes.

 

[T'Girl]

The warp core in the pod might be located there as a separate source of power for the pod's equipment, independent of the "primary" warp core that powers the ship's propulsion.

 

[Timo]

Quite so. Although it's a bit difficult to imagine what might be down there that requires that sort of power...

The dialogue/handwaving combination in "Hero Worship" is somewhat ambiguous. Tiny Tim is found in "a hallway outside the ship's computer core", which LaForge nicely places next to the middle of the saucer, a traditional place for computer cores in MSDs. His mother's remains are then said to have been found "here inside the core", which LaForge indicates is the vertical thing in the middle of the lower hull.

Now, plot logic would suggest that "the core" here is actually the computer core, since that would associate Tiny Tim with her mother. But LaForge's handwaving clearly separates the locations of the two bodies and thus breaks the connection. Since Mom is a "systems engineer", she might well be operating the warp core; Dad is 2nd Officer and supposedly died on the bridge, which would create the necessary plot-logic step for Timothy being at a location proximal to the center of the saucer.

We're juggling five balls here: person A did the model, B did the diagram, C did the sets, D did the dialogue, and E did the handwaving, and these people didn't necessarily interact much. Now, the diagram certainly portrays a warp core where handwaving and dialogue put "the core", and the sets and model are neutral with all this. What we do with this is up to us.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

The warp core in the pod might be located there as a separate source of power for the pod's equipment, independent of the "primary" warp core that powers the ship's propulsion.

agreed, but it wouldn't be called a warp core if it didn't power the warp drive - then it would just be called an antimatter reactor.

 

[Forbin]

Quite so. Although it's a bit difficult to imagine what might be down there that requires that sort of power...

The dialogue/handwaving combination in "Hero Worship" is somewhat ambiguous. Tiny Tim is found in "a hallway outside the ship's computer core", which LaForge nicely places next to the middle of the saucer, a traditional place for computer cores in MSDs. His mother's remains are then said to have been found "here inside the core", which LaForge indicates is the vertical thing in the middle of the lower hull.

Now, plot logic would suggest that "the core" here is actually the computer core, since that would associate Tiny Tim with her mother. But LaForge's handwaving clearly separates the locations of the two bodies and thus breaks the connection. Since Mom is a "systems engineer", she might well be operating the warp core; Dad is 2nd Officer and supposedly died on the bridge, which would create the necessary plot-logic step for Timothy being at a location proximal to the center of the saucer.

We're juggling five balls here: person A did the model, B did the diagram, C did the sets, D did the dialogue, and E did the handwaving, and these people didn't necessarily interact much. Now, the diagram certainly portrays a warp core where handwaving and dialogue put "the core", and the sets and model are neutral with all this. What we do with this is up to us.

Timo Saloniemi

I think I actually followed that! No, wait, where does tab A fit into again?

 

[Verteron]

The problem with the original Oberth design still seems to be that in the original design there's no obvious way to get from the primary to secondary hulls! Anyone have any thoughts on this?!

Seems a bit unnecessary to use site-to-site transports just to get around your own ship.

Can the nacelle struts actually fit a small turbolift? Perhaps one that can only be used while at impulse, to avoid getting nasty exposure to subspace fields when the ship is at warp speed...

 

[C.E. Evans]

The problem with the original Oberth design still seems to be that in the original design there's no obvious way to get from the primary to secondary hulls! Anyone have any thoughts on this?!

Seems a bit unnecessary to use site-to-site transports just to get around your own ship.

Can the nacelle struts actually fit a small turbolift? Perhaps one that can only be used while at impulse, to avoid getting nasty exposure to subspace fields when the ship is at warp speed...

The struts seem to be at least as big as an entire deck. A standard-sized turbolift cab would need to change direction twice if moving through them (once after leaving the upper section and once again prior to entering the lower section), but it should be possible and may not even require the cab to change its orientation, IMO.
http://images.wikia.com/startrek/images/4/41/GrissomOberth.jpg

 

[F. King Daniel]

At it's official size of 120m, a turboshaft wouldn't fit.

Also, site-to-site transports were considered dangerous in the TOS era, so I seriously doubt they were used.

Obvious answer: the ship must be bigger than 120m.

 

[Forbin]

The problem with the original Oberth design still seems to be that in the original design there's no obvious way to get from the primary to secondary hulls! Anyone have any thoughts on this?!

Seems a bit unnecessary to use site-to-site transports just to get around your own ship.

Can the nacelle struts actually fit a small turbolift? Perhaps one that can only be used while at impulse, to avoid getting nasty exposure to subspace fields when the ship is at warp speed...

Well, as I've said every time the subject comes up (which seems to be monthly), I firmly believe the lower hull is a modular, swappable mission pod full of automated scientific sensors, with NO crew at all. Any maintenance is handled back at space dock. Any emergency maintenance can be handled via transporter, work bee or spacewalk.

 

[Verteron]

Well, as I've said every time the subject comes up (which seems to be monthly), I firmly believe the lower hull is a modular, swappable mission pod full of automated scientific sensors, with NO crew at all. Any maintenance is handled back at space dock. Any emergency maintenance can be handled via transporter, work bee or spacewalk.

That would work fine - even if the warp core and other major engineering systems are in this modular section, a ship crewed by a small number of scientists and mission specialists may not have sufficient engineering staff to do any detailed maintenance anyway. Presumably the response to anything serious going awry would be to dump the module and move to a safe distance.

BUT, we've seen on-screen evidence that the shuttle bay is in this section. How exactly do the crew access the shuttle bay in this scenario?

 

[Dukhat]

At it's official size of 120m, a turboshaft wouldn't fit.

Also, site-to-site transports were considered dangerous in the TOS era, so I seriously doubt they were used.

Obvious answer: the ship must be bigger than 120m.

I agree that the ship is probably larger than that. According to the "Hero Worship" MSD, those nacelle pylons have decks, and there's a shuttle bay in the rear of the pod, so obviously crew are traversing between the upper hull and the lower hull all the time, presumably by ladders or stairs, as it's inefficient for a turbolift (no matter how small you make it) to make at least two curves during its descent/ascent. Can I get a vote to make the Oberth the most inefficient ship design ever?