Ring Ship Enterprise

[rgold]

Hey there, I would like your thoughts and opinions about a 3D model project I've started! I've been interested in the mysterious "Ring Ship", seen in the Original Motion Picture, as well as an episode of Enterprise. Though the painting is achieved in canon, there was an actual diagram drawn by Matt Jeffries.

I have use information from the series and this drawing to come up with a concept for the ship that I believe works and, hopefully, fits both.

I would suspect that this ship could be conceived most "realistically" as something after Cochrans warp ship, but before the NX-01, and it could have been based on Vulcan tech of the time.

I envision it as a test ship, perhaps the first actual warp capable interstellar ship? Something that was used to make an inaugural trip to Vulcan, establish trade lanes?

When you see the graphic, please note I did work under the impression the "painter" may have taken some liberties, and as such it does not look exactly like the paintings. Though if you compare it to Matts diagram, it should make sense.

Also, this is a BASIC form model, many more details, image mapping has yet to be done, so yes, it looks primitive.

I would like your thoughts and opinions! I would love to see this accepted as official canon!

[image]http://www.rickgold.info/330.jpg[/image]

 

[aridas sofia]

 

[aridas sofia]

This is a promising start. I think if you study the cross section of the ring though, you'll see there is more there than is immediately apparent. The shape is much more differentiated, and infers greater functional complexity.

 

[rgold]

I think I see what you mean....the extra line the he drawing of the "nacelle", there is some depth to it in the painting to. Ideas?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Not bad at all, Mr. Gold... my main quibble with matching the diagram is that your "links" connecting the forward and aft ring elements seem too large.

Just FYI, I've done my own version of this, based more upon the image seen in the "Starflight Chronology" and less upon the original sketches done by Jeffries for the failed Roddenberry show concept "Starship" (which we know this design originally came from).

Here's a link to a render I did of my version recently. I've got the whole thing fleshed out internally, by the way. It's not like the "ENT" Vulcan ships, however, with the ... dammit, I can never spell this guy's name right... Albuquier?... gravity-wave FTL drive (Aridas knows a fair bit about this, don't you?)

Click the thumb to see a higher-res version.


In MY case, I decided that this was prior to artificial gravity coming along, so the ring isn't the drive system, it's a rotating "simulated gravity" section. Here's a basic internal layout of that section:


And here's how the rotation section works. There's a counter-rotating ring, fairly heavy and rotating much faster, to balance the dynamic effects of the (low density) inhabited section's rotation.

To put the whole thing into scale...



(the dims in that last one are in meters, by the way)

The main pylon and the central spire are primarily the ship's functional systems, and have no gravity. The main spire is generally not inhabited, except when maintenance work is required. The pylon is mainly cargo bays, shuttle and workpod docking, and the main engineering complex (which is the only zero-g section of the ship that's always manned). The front of the spire is a bussard collector, with a string of fusion reactors for power and propulsion at the back. It doesn't have "warp drive" but does have subspace field generators, allowing it to achieve limited FTL capabilities (below the "time barrier" of course) by reducing its apparent mass and increasing the local speed of light and using the main impulse system.

My main "tweak" to the design was adding the two subspace generators and a pair of additional support structures at 120 degrees from the main pylon. I just couldn't justify the fragility of the one-pylon concept. I plan to put black-colored radiator panels on these struts sometime soon... they were actually "there" on the painting, you see, but they were black and thus couldn't be seen.

I've laid out the structure in a lot of detail... I know how many crew the ship carries, how they're billeted, the complete layout of the habitation ring, etc.

By the way... you probably are wondering about the turrets you see here. They're not "weapons" per-se. This is before there were deflector shields, so this ship needed a defensive system. It has a pair of forward-facing high-output laser cannon (in the cowlings at the front, either side of the Bussard hydrogen scoop) which serve a similar function to the deflector... if something big is in your way, you shoot it with the laser cannon, and that should deflect its path enough to allow you to miss it.

It also has four smaller twin-turrets (two on the "chin" of the forward spire, one on the leading edge of the main pylon, and one on the trailing edge of the main pylon). These aren't offensive weapons, they're short-range plasma batteries, used to create a "flack barrier" that will protect the ship against incoming hostile fire.

I'd love to see the "ringship" brought into canon, too... though obviously I have a predisposition towards my own take.

I'll follow your own work with interest, in any case!

 

[rgold]

Hey, thanks for the words man, and that really looks like great work! What do you use for modeling?

I would agree, our ideas are very different, and we've each taken a few "liberties". This reminds me of the Rodenberry "Starship" idea more than mine defiantly, where as I am trying to cram it into Trek canon . Where did you derive your dimensions from? I've gotten mine from Matts drawings, thinking they are in feet, and as best as I can see, one of them, along the front of the ship is 55', making the nacelles 250'.

I've begun work on some great looking image maps and plan on details that bring it to life. I'm actually using some amazingly detailed renderings of the NX-01 from Polar Lights for reference.

Funny, I've had the same idea for the pylon, basically cargo..and access to "warp core" room at the top of the nacelles. Yes, I've made the connecting struts beefier, another liberty, thinking of them as fuel storage tanks for matter antimatter.

 

[rgold]

Does anyone have the drawings/whatever from the space flight chronology?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

rgold said:
Does anyone have the drawings/whatever from the space flight chronology?

Well, here's the side view...

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/ss_enterprise.jpg

taken from this page...

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/prefed_ships.htm

Here's a particularly good reference if you don't have it, on the "ringship" in general...

http://www.trekplace.com/article13.html

And here's an image of the page from the Chronology itself...

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y268/as...rationclass.jpg

Obviously I took some liberties... I tried to capture the SPIRIT of the design but (particularly since no two views of this thing ever looked alike, either in Jeffrie's sketches or in any other resource) I didn't feel obligated to keep anything else.

As for the size... I didn't "get" it from anywhere. Rather, I built my basic model, figured out how big the ring would need to be in order to avoid making the crew sick due to Coriolis effect on their inner ears, and scaled the whole thing against that. It just so happens that my overall size is VERY close to that stated in the "Chronology" but that's just coincidence, I wasn't trying to do that.

On the other hand, the Chronology called this a "Starliner" and gave it an embarked population (passengers and crew) of 800+. That's just totally unreasonable, and I didn't like the idea of it being a freakin' PLEASURE BOAT, so I dumped that and made it an early UESPA manned exploration vessel... basically a deep space probe.

Based upon the idea that the entire crew, plus much of the consumables, would have to fit into the RING... that's food, water, etc... I arrived at a crew of about 40 (a few specialists could be carried, with a maximum embarked population of 50 before life-support systems would be overwhelmed).

In my ring, I gave it three circumferential corridors... one big one in the middle and one at either end. The two at the ends have windows to space... and also have a track in the floor. If someone needs to transfer from the rotation section to the non-rotation section, you'd move anyone in the "viewing corridors" out, put the crewmen to be transferred into a "transfer car" which would race around on the track until it was "in sync" with the stationary portion... and you could move people into and out of the zero-g section that way. Most of the time, they'd live and work in the ring, however. The big, central corridor would be lined with all varieties of vegetation... this would provide a small amount of fresh food, and would also be the primary source of oxygenation and CO2-scrubbing for the atmosphere system (as well as much-needed COLOR to prevent the crew from going psychotic!)

As for what software I'm using... I'm a professional engineer, and I have a personally-owned licence of a package called "Pro/ENGINEER" which is primarily an engineer's tool, not a rendering tool. But I'm extremely good with this... better than anyone I've ever met, to be honest... and I choose to use it as much as I can.

I own a seat of Polytrans/Nugraf which is a cross-platform translation package, and has a pretty nice renderer. I bought it mainly to allow me to move information from Pro/E into MAYA, which is my preferred renderer. However, the first shot in that last post was done using the "NuGraf" renderer.

I haven't done any real work with this in MAYA yet, because I'm still working out just how I want to make my Bussard hydrogen intake appear, where I want spotlights and so forth... how to best show the illumination inside the inhabited section... etc, etc... Gotta have a plan before you start working, right?

 

[Unicron]

rgold, welcome to the board. I spoke with Ptrope, and we agreed that this thread is more suited for Trek Art since you're interested in doing a ringship model. I'm sending it over there.

 

[rgold]

Here is the same model with basic image mapping. There are some errors, and some rough spots in this..don't give me to rough of a time! [image]http://www.rickgold.info/330cx2.jpg[/image]

 

[FalTorPan]

rgold, this is Greg. Welcome aboard! I think you'll receive a lot of constructive feedback and ideas here.

Your model looks great!

 

[rgold]

Thanks, I can't wait! I think I'm going to add an actual object instead of just image mapping the panels on the nacells...to flat even with bump maps!

 

[Kaiser]

looks good so far :thumbsup:

 

[syc]

Wow, I really like the way you incorporated Enterprise-Era caution stripes and even the basic design elements into it. Looks great so far, cant wait to see more. :thumbsup:

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I kinda wished this was the ship they used in ENT (although, I liked the NX-01).

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Everyone, I think, would have PREFERRED a different design (ideally based upon the TMP illustration)... but since we didn't get that... oh well!

 

[ST-One]

Cary L. Brown said:
Everyone, I think, would have PREFERRED a different design (ideally based upon the TMP illustration)... but since we didn't get that... oh well!

Speak for yourself.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

ST-One said:

Cary L. Brown said:
Everyone, I think, would have PREFERRED a different design (ideally based upon the TMP illustration)... but since we didn't get that... oh well!

Speak for yourself.

The whole "pick a fight with Cary to get him banned" effort is over.

Didn't you get the memo?

 

[Ptrope]

No one is trying to get anyone banned - and keep in mind it requires participation on the part of the person who gets banned, as well. Back to the discussion.

 

[Ptrope]

rgold, you'll need to either reduce the size of your images (you can use thumbnails if you like, linked to the full-size pix) or we'll need to convert them to links; 800 px. wide is the rule of thumb (though some 'thumbs' are a little longer, occasionally ) in order to keep from stretching the threads too far sideways. PM me if you need assistance editing your posts. Thanks!