Questions about Star Fleet "NX" Ships

[BoxWhatBox]

Everyone, I'm working on developing a new fan fiction series about a "NX" ship that crashed on the surface of a primitive world embroiled in a world war. This "NX" ship isn't going to be an overpower fanwank ship with multi-vector attack modes, mecha shuttles, and transphasic torpedoes.

Instead, this ship will be designed to test a "ramjet"esque warp engine. Forgoing the traditional deflector dish in favor a ramscoop that injects collected particles directly into the warp reaction, building a more "efficient" reaction that places an economy on fuel. Could someone give me a good trek explanation of how this could work?

This ship, a Crighton Class, has been designed from the ground up to easily adopt new technologies for the purpose of "proof of concept" testing, and not a "halo" design such as the Prometheus. Also can anyone suggest any mundane treknologies the ship could be testing?

 

[trevanian]

so this is a proper nx as in experimental ship (a la EXCELSIOR) and not a 'this is a real class' NX like that Iittle Enterprise show?

 

[BoxWhatBox]

Yup, she's an early test bed for new "greener" warp technology.

I'm also thinking that the bridge module will be different in that the view screen fully immerses the crew, with stations sunken into the floor ala Mass Effect.

Although a true "NX" ship, she isn't like excelsior, prometheus, luna, or galaxy. They were all testbeds evaluating the integrated systems of a new class of starship. The Crichton class was designed to be quickly modified and retrofitted for evaluating new technology independently of other systems.

This ship would have been fitted out with transwarp drive months or years before the excelsior to collect empirical data for the design of a product transwarp drive. Were prometheus had the EMH 2.0, this ship would be equipped with EMH 2.0 Release Candidate 6.

Crichton class ships demand a unique crew who are willing to push the edge of technological limits, developing the technology that will be common place in the fleet five to ten years from now.

 

[Good]

I'm not sure what you are looking for with the "fuel efficient" warp engine. Are you sucking in matter or anti-matter? The bussard scoops on the nacelle caps already grab stray hydrogen and there's really not much antimatter floating around out there. The main deflector simply pushes stuff out of the way so you won't run into it at high speed.

 

[Robert Simmons]

What era will this prototype be in? The time frame will impact alot on what technologies that are available.

 

[AlxxlA]

So how does it work? Does it allow the engine to run on anything, hydrogen or otherwise, or does it just scoop stuff up more efficiently than the conventional system?