Project 1701-D. Redesign.

[OpenMaw]

At some point this topic may switch over to being a piece of fan-fiction, but for now i'm just going to take a crack at redesigning the Enterprise D in the spirit of the new movies. So we'll say "inspired by."

Some of the things I want to achieve:

• Larger size. Slightly bigger than the Vengeance.
  
• STID inspired drones and autonomous craft for defending from attacks in deep space.
  
• Triangular deflector dish.
  
• Flatter profile, with nacelles above the saucer.

One element of the original D design that I want to expand a bit is the idea of the ship separating into components.

The saucer section houses everything for the people living on board, the primary impulse thrust, shuttle craft, science facilities, medical facilities, etc... While the star-drive houses the majority of the weapon systems, drones, and everything to do with FTL capabilities.

This is a rough top down image of what it will look like. The slots along the sides of the engines are segments that I intend to have transform. While the ship is moving around at sublight those will be closed, then during the jump to warp they open up revealing the glow inside. (Just like the engines on the Abrams Enterprise.)

Roughly the scale of the Neo-D versus the Vengeance and Enterprise from STID.

The wireframe is actually my "study" model. It's very very ugly and just the beginning of deciding on shapes for the design. I know I want a very vibrant, bright color scheme.

"My God, that's a big ship." Indeed. Though I think that a lot of the space on board is taken up by raw material and massive computer systems that allow the Enterprise D to do a lot of really impressive things, i'd wager the crew complement is at least double what it was on Next-Gen though.

Shot inspired by one of the pieces of concept art from STID. This take on the D is heavily inspired by the Vengeance, though it won't be nearly as evil.

Bit of a cinematic shot showing Enterprise running from Enterprise.


*Note, the USS Vengeance and the USS Enterprise models are not mine. I merely used the images/meshes as a reference tool only. The Enterprise is WileyCoyote's and the Vengeance is MadMan1701A's.

 

[DFScott]

I like where this has started from, and I really like the silhouette cast by the forward view. Not everyone agrees with me on this point, naturally, but I always thought the horizontal balance between the back of the engine nacelles and the front of the primary hull was a "signature" element of the Enterprise design, that was lost somewhat when Andrew Probert pushed the engines down. I love Probert's work, and God do I ever love his finished Ambassador class (that should have been the Ent-D). But I think your initial sketch lends credence to my original argument that the bottom of the nacelles and the top of the primary hull should be one nice line.

I do have this suggestion for future iterations: The other signature element of Enterprise design which I think was lost in the "JJ-Prise" rendition is the idea that you could balance it right in the middle by sitting it on a pin and it would float -- that is, it appears to have equal weight on the back side as it does on the front. Matt Jefferies designed his original ship that way intentionally; and ironically, John Eaves' "Vengeance" does retain that quality while Ryan Church's 1701 does not.

I think that in your side view, there needs to be the appearance of more bulk, either by widening the struts or maybe fattening some portion of the nacelles. When I hold my hand up over the rear of the ship and my mind fills in the details, and then I remove my hand, I'm a bit startled to see how little there is there. In other words, I think your initial design is a bit front-heavy. Otherwise, other than repositioning the nacelles where they should have been from the beginning, it's clearly an authentic idea for the 1701-D.

SF3, no bloody A, B, C, or D.

 

[bullethead]

Not too bad, but I think the ship needs more mass, especially the engineering hull. Right now it's a bit too flat for its size - sure, the saucer is huge horizontally, but it lacks the depth necessary to hold all the stuff you say it does and there's no room for anything in the engineering hull.

 

[publiusr]

I love flat, expansive primary hulls.

 

[Shawnster]

I suggest you keep in mind what the ship will look like once the saucer separates, too. The E-D that we all know looks absolutely horrid when separated. Perhaps your design could do something to help maintain some kind of aesthetic quality with the separated stardrive section.

 

[Mycroft Maxwell]

As much as I hate the NuTrek scaling, I like this idea. Even if not "Evil" your new D looks Ominous behind the Jjprise. Has a lot of character.