Oberth questions.

[Timo]

it's inefficient for a turbolift (no matter how small you make it) to make at least two curves during its descent/ascent.

Why would the lift have to be efficient? It's unlikely the pylons have been designed to convey turbolifts; rather, they have been designed to perform some other job, after which the turbolifts will have to cope. The same with the neck of a TOS Constitution: a straight one would be better than an angled one, and a turbolift will have to do at least one S turn to clear the neck from top to bottom, or then travel diagonally.

FWIW, the "Hero Worship" Oberth had an internal layout consistent with a size of about 120-150 meters, unless the decks were higher than usual.

Also, the pylons didn't seem to have anything on their "decks" save for the floors. If the turbolift just travels down "feet first" but tilts enough to follow the curving of the pylons, it will be going down a shaft that can be up to two meters wide for a 120 m ship - wider than the standard turbolifts of TOS and TNG - and will only have to negotiate one shallow curve at the bottom and then flip 90 degrees. If it travels down "side first", negotiating the curve will be slightly easier, but another 90 degree flip will have to be introduced at the top end.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Why would the lift have to be efficient?

Because when I use an elevator, I want it to go up and down, not turn at a 45 degree angle.

 

[T'Girl]

If it travels down "side first"

If the turbolift traveled "side" first, with it's bottom facing aft, there would be room for a slightly smaller turbolift. The turbolifts presumably have their own internal gravity, and nothing says they have to have their gravity orientated the same direction as the rest of the ship.

It would work the same way for a corridor leading to the pod. the floor of the corridor would be in the aft direction, up would be forward (grav plating under the floor), the corridor would be about four feet wide. No latters, no stairs. At the beginning and end of the corridor (or the turbolift shaft) you would reorient yourself with the gravity in that part of the ship. A 90 degree "swing".

 

[Timo]

Because when I use an elevator, I want it to go up and down, not turn at a 45 degree angle.

Who's asking you?

I mean, the starship isn't built to take you from one deck to another. It's built to take you from one star to another. If your lift tilts as the result of this (and you won't even notice it, just like you won't notice a difference between the lift moving up or the lift moving sideways, apparently), who cares?

If anything, it's inefficient that the lifts should move in right angles. Every turbolift tube should rather be curving gently, forming a spaghetti maze inside the ship, and only coinciding with the deck-defined horizontal plane on those spots where lift-to-deck access is needed. Right angles are the result of unimaginative thinking, a bit like insisting on building your automobile in the shape of a horse-drawn carriage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ngc7293]

At some time there was another Oberth thread and it showed a car system related to a car system used in the St Louis Arc. It gave the impression that there was more room in the Oberth's pylon structure that originally thought.

 

[Verteron]

If anything, it's inefficient that the lifts should move in right angles. Every turbolift tube should rather be curving gently, forming a spaghetti maze inside the ship, and only coinciding with the deck-defined horizontal plane on those spots where lift-to-deck access is needed. Right angles are the result of unimaginative thinking, a bit like insisting on building your automobile in the shape of a horse-drawn carriage.

On the other hand, if you have nearly perfect inertial dampeners (at least when movement can be predicted in advance - as I'm sure it can be with a predetermined lift path) and advanced inductive acceleration that can stop the lift on a die and accelerate it back to full speed in a split second, right angles don't seem like that big of a problem, especially when trying to fit turbolift paths in to the relatively "grid planned" deck structure of your average Federation starship.

That's not to say that specialist turbolifts shouldn't do specialist things, going down 'sideways' to reach the Oberth's engineering section doesn't seem like a step too far.

I'm guessing the Oberth's turolift car dimensions may be significantly smaller than a Galaxy's class anyway (fewer crew and destinations after all), perhaps being two person only affairs, oblong shaped, narrowly fitting down the pylon, which as far as I can tell normally contain just structural components, warp plasma transfer conduits, and ODN network for control inputs on your average Federation starship! Plenty of space for one little shaft...

 

[Forbin]

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?

Sadly, the writers and effects people on TNG didn't consult me when they did that.

 

[Timo]

Canonically speaking, if we didn't have the diagram from "Hero Worship", we would be fully within our rights to believe that the big pod is the ship's warp nacelle...

On the other hand, the aft flanks of that pod have a ribbed structure that has always reminded me of rolling doors. That'd be an easy way to load and offload supplies, or to install or uninstall scientific instruments. A more or less workable way to launch a shuttlecraft, too!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Other than the obvious (lack of habitable space), another reason for assuming the Oberth class to be far bigger than 120m are the rows of tiny windows around the saucer and dome atop. They'd be barey bigger than postage stamps at 120m.

 

[Timo]

But if they were taken to be real portholes, the ship would dwarf the hero vessel and even the Excelsior. In order to plausibly challenge the Grissom, Kruge's ship would have to be a giant battlewagon as well, which isn't a good idea at all.

Postage stamp -sized sensors sound like a more palatable justification for the dots of light...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

I tend to agree with Forbin myself on the lower pod being a modular mission section, and some of the unofficial ships based on the Oberth design have included a set of small doors in the saucer for shuttles and small craft.

 

[Forbin]

Or it IS manned, but it's the steerage section. There's no mixing with the follks in first class.

 

[yenny]

Oberth Class Starship is 150 meters/492 ft. long, 82 meters/ 269 ft. wide and 44 meters/ 144.35 ft high. It has 10 decks. Each decks is 3 meters/9.8 ft. high. Jefferies tube are 1 meter/3.2 ft high. Note: There is no Jefferies tubes between decks. 3 of the 10 decks are engineering service decks, which are 1.5 meters/4.9 ft. high.