Something I doodled in physics...

[USS Mariner]

Basically, this is a rough model of a sketch I did a few weeks ago as an alternate idea for a neo1701. I wanted to try and come up with something that would feel like a "new take" on the Grey Lady, but also sharing some ideas taken from the Church design (larger size, huge engines, huge saucer, thicker neck.) The engines are placeholders, and I still have major details to add, but this is the basic shape.

This is also a test project to refine and acclimate myself to Rhino, which I'm using exclusively now instead of Autocad because of it's excellent layout and NURBS tools. More later.

 

[Wingsley]

Wow! This design reminds me, at least a little, of another favorite: Icy_Penguigo's Vincennes thread.

There are many aspects of this design that I love:

Love the notion of the bow of the secondary hull being convex, instead of a "dish"; this would be especially neat if you could find some way of still incorporating the navi-deflector there, or putting it somewhere else like in the neck or the nacelles.

I love how you preserved the signature Jefferies undercuts in the saucer underside and the "fantail" of the secondary hull.

I also appreciate how you gave a slight dose of "TNG" to the neck to make it more practical.

The pointy-ended nacelles look really neat; if you develop them further, I hope you minimize the detailing on them in homage to TOS. TNG-era FX, with all that extra glowing and such is beginning to wear thin on me. I think it would be neat if the "kaleidoscope" effect of the front of the TOS nacelles were echoed here, with the rotating lights also seen dimly through secondary reflections through small vents placed along the length of the pods, as if the rotating machinery inside the nacelles continues throughout their length.

Are you planning to leave the topside and underside detailing of the saucer so austere, or will you put domes there? I hope the caps on the domes glow, TOS-style, but that they would be somewhat larger. Maybe the domes should be simpler than what we've seen in other versions of the Enterprise.

Have you figured out what to do with the impulse engines yet? I hope you incorporate them into both the saucer and the secondary hull.

Two things I'm not wild about: the secondary hull seems too short, bow-to-stern, and the nacelle struts seem too TMPish. I think Icy had a better take on the struts. And I would lengthen the secondary hull significantly, adding more to the aft end, but that's just me.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Shouldn't you be paying attention to your physics instructor?

Aw, I'm just razzing you. I like this--the nacelles remind me of giant-size Star Trek III hand phasers.

 

[USS Mariner]

That's for the comments guys. As it stands, I may port this over to Max 2010 as I've just gotten a student version of that, and Rhino sucks at mesh editing.

I should have something before Friday.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

^^Shouldn't that be by Tuesday?

 

[USS Mariner]

^How about half a year later?






The saucer is the only finalized piece, but everything else is pretty much what I'm aiming for. I've decided to go for an almond-shaped engineering hull, and the stardrive sensor system is now behind the "nose cone," as with aircraft radar dishes. The bridge is placed inside the primary hull, which leaves me free to place two sensor domes on the saucer. The neck is heavily based on Probert's design for the Galaxy, albeit less pretty. Building the neck had a steep learning curve for me, but this is almost exactly what I had in mind for the dorsal.

The "kink" in the pylons are my own trademark feature, something I've always included in my more recent Starfleet designs. Jefferies' Phase II pylons were the inspiration for that feature as they are essentially TMP pylons with a vertical slice. I decided to try and angle the slice, and I liked the shape. To me, it almost gives a hint of 50's Cadillac, which is entirely appropriate.

There's also another nostalgic feature, on the secondary hull. Try and find it.

Ironically, my biggest problem was trying to create a good lighting rig, which is saying something, considering that the next biggest problem was the secondary hull, which took 3 months of revision to get to this point. Spending so much time on the engineering hull also prevented me from roughing out a solid engine design, as the ones I'm using are simply proportional blanks.

 

[USS Mariner]

As a bonus, here's my evolving concept sketches/blueprints of this thing, ordered chronologically. If any of you wanted to know how I work, here's a little taste.

This is my first pass, actually done during my physics class:

I started on a detailed pass of the stardrive a few months later, around August:


I sketched this in mid-October. The "curved" note was me experimenting with putting a second bend in the pylons. That sucked, trust me. However, this sketch shows my attempt at turning the stardrive into an ellipsoid, as I added two side bulges to a still cylindrical hull.

I drew this two days ago. As you can probably tell, I printed out a few views of the 3D model of the saucer to work with. The prior sketch's saucer was entirely wrong, and I wanted to try and echo the saucer's proportions and shape in the secondary hull, or at least some up with something that didn't look like metal piece of shit at the end of the neck. The neck, pylon, and stardrive contours are obviously closer to what I came up with in 3D.


As a note, I scan my sketches into Rhino and overlay them as transparent guides, which allows me to mix-and-match features from any sketch I like, or all of them if need be.

 

[Wingsley]

This would've made a vastly superior JJprise, or a vastly superior TMPrise. It could've fit into either story beautifully. About the only thing I'd do differently is make the saucer domes larger.

Aside from that, I hope you either bring back the pointy aft-ends of the nacelles, or if you make them flat-ended like they are above, then do "Where No Man Has Gone Before"-style cheese-grater endings for them.

 

[Kaiser]

Good stuff

 

[Wingsley]

You know, with some TOS-inspired modifications, this USS Mariner concept could also work as a pre-TOS "missing link" cruiser. If you go back to Jefferies' draft drawing of the "final" design for the TOS Enterprise, there are possibilities in this thread's concept for some cruiser class that predates the Constitution-class starships. Maybe with straighter, TOS-style pylons and differently shaped saucer domes and a thinner dorsal "neck" and a little less curvaceous overall shape, she could be what I proposed a while back as a "Magna Carta-class star cruiser", maybe what the USS Valiant of Eminiar VII fame could've been.

There was a discussion about the number of Federation cruisers that cropped up in the Trek Tech forum a while back, which sprang out of a thread about Klingon ships.

Warped 9 also conjured up some photoshop art of possible pre-TOS starships in a Trek Art thread. And then there was MadMan1701A's thread about his JJ/Kevlinized Constellation to consider as well.

I put in my two cents in all three discussions, and I see pre-TOS possibilities in this design, so I couldn't resist bringing them up.

 

[judge alba]

very nice

 

[USS Mariner]

Someone else on another board asked about the size and it's currently 470m bow to stern, with an outer saucer rim of three (2.4m/7' 10.5") decks.)

Just an FYI till I can post my progress.