Starship design history in light of Discovery

[valkyrie013]

Possible explanation, head cannon stuff..
What if around 2260's there was a refit fleet wide being started? Minor refit between Pike and Kirk enterprise in 2265.

I mean every 5 years or so, ships have to undergo a typical refit. Replace things that have service limits, lets say, the warp naccelles have only, say 2000 light years in there service limit. At that time, they need to be overhauled. So they swap out nacelles every 5 years, and while doing that, swap out any parts that have excided or approch there service limt. ( I remember a voyager episode with them replacing the warp coils..)
So what if, square nacelles are just something that starfleet is trying the refit period? Seeing if they work better long haul? They don't replace the Connie's because they find that there warp coils are just fine, and don't need a complete swap??

We can think up all the head cannon we'd like, but in real world, Fuller wanted square nacelles and flat ships.. But he can't do that to the Connie ( though they did squish it abit) John Eaves is doing some head cannon to, he may not like putting square nacelles on Tos ships, but hey, he's getting paid.. Square nacelles it is!

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Nice! Could you make Discovery with round nacelles? Probably TOS Enterprise style? I have a theory the ship will look 10x better with those round nacelles.

I can give it a shot.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

@ITDUDE, Here's my result. I was in a bit of a rush so I couldn't do anything better in the time I had. I do like the result though.

Interestingly before I started came across this image when looking for pictures of the Discovery with a similar idea in mind. Much better than my work though. Credit to the artist whomever that might be.

 

[Longinus]

Valiant effort, but that design just is unsalvageable.

 

[Tuskin38]

It's a nice design already, no need to change it.

 

[Jinn]

It's a nice design already, no need to change it.

I think both are pretty neat.

 

[Tuskin38]

Going to amend my previous statement, I'd like for it to have shorter nacelles like we saw on a lot of the pre-release promo images in the months leading up to the airing, but moved further back like the current design.

 

[ITDUDE]

@ITDUDE, Here's my result. I was in a bit of a rush so I couldn't do anything better in the time I had. I do like the result though.

Interestingly before I started came across this image when looking for pictures of the Discovery with a similar idea in mind. Much better than my work though. Credit to the artist whomever that might be.

Very nice! Both of these, yours and the anonymous one. I am now thinking it was a mistake to make the extra long nacelles. The shorter round nacelles are a much better design!

 

[Groppler Zorn]

@ITDUDE, Here's my result. I was in a bit of a rush so I couldn't do anything better in the time I had. I do like the result though.

Interestingly before I started came across this image when looking for pictures of the Discovery with a similar idea in mind. Much better than my work though. Credit to the artist whomever that might be.

The round nacelles look much better I think - nice job!

The extra length at the rear end makes the ship look unbalanced somehow. The shorter round nacelles seem to fit better to me.

I’ll be honest I’m not a fan of the overall Discovery design, particularly the secondary hull - it looks awfully boxy. But without the long thin nacelles the ship looks nicer overall.

This is all personal opinion mind you - I also think the nacelles should be on pylons. I mean, the disco has a neck, sort of - without pylons the side profile of the ship looks kinda... flat.

Maybe the Discovery will have a Reliant moment in s2 and one of her nacelles will be blown off by a half dead, psychopathic augmented human bent on murdering the captain of the Enterprise.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

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[the Sisko]

In light of discovery:

The Excelsior makes more sense as being the successor to the discovery (oversized engineering hull relative to saucer, focus on new propulsion technology).

The Miranda class can be seen as more of the benchmark ship/style for starfleet as BoBS implies that non-engineering hull ships are very common. The Europa implies that even flagship level performance can be had without an engineering hull

Something about the Constitution class is an outlier (in prestige, and maybe design)

 

[Groppler Zorn]

The Miranda class can be seen as more of the benchmark ship/style for starfleet as BoBS implies that non-engineering hull ships are very common. The Europa implies that even flagship level performance can be had without an engineering hull

Necklessness appears to be the default for starfleet ships of that era. Maybe they’re harking back to the glory days of the NX-01?

But the only ships in the 23rd century that we’ve seen that have a neck are the constitution and excelsior classes.

Even the Oberth - which had a secondary hull - didn’t have a neck.

And yet, the Discovery does. Maybe they realised that having a neck was an issue and they couldn’t solve it until the Ambassador class was designed?

But ultimately the neck was abandoned as the intrepid, nova, sovereign, akira, steamrunner, nebula, etc etc classes in the late 24th century also are neckless.

 

[starsuperion]

I miss the days when starships had necks. So elegant, so stylish, and forsaken , but not forgotten.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Trying to make sense of starship design is a waste of time. Why is the Enterprise shaped like that? Best explanation I've heard is that although it's awkward in our world, it's the equivalent of aerodynamic in warp space/subspace/whatever. But that falls apart because they have all their kitbash rearrangement ships which are all shown to be just as capable, as are Klingon and Romulan ships which are totally different shapes. And the Klingons and Romulans and Federation never try to ape each others designs, so there's really no benefit to any of them.

It's all just visual stuff for us. Enterprise is one unique shape among sci-fi vessels, other Fed ships are the same parts rearranged variously. Alien ships all look certain ways so we recognize them. But none of it means anything beyond that.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, we're all here for the exclusive purpose of having our time wasted, so...

Starship design is supposed to tell the heroes from the villains, but also the heroes from other heroes. In that sense, NCC-1031 does very well indeed, as did NCC-74205. NCC-74656, not so well. But this is not just a matter of shapes - it's a matter of qualities associated with the shapes, no matter how indirectly. The Spore Drive Ship looks distinct; the Little Fighting Ship That Could looks a different sort of distinct. The Stranded Ship That Landed... Well, sorta.

So it's pretty simple to attach "meaning beyond" by associating the spore ship shape with spore drive, the fighting ship shape with fighting, etc. And it sort of flows from this that the distinct (that is, still distinct, and more so than ever) original design and its repeats would be there for a "reason", too - although we still lack in cues for what this in-universe reason might be, what with our myopia on what starshipping is all about.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gonzo]

Trying to make sense of starship design is a waste of time. Why is the Enterprise shaped like that? Best explanation I've heard is that although it's awkward in our world, it's the equivalent of aerodynamic in warp space/subspace/whatever. But that falls apart because they have all their kitbash rearrangement ships which are all shown to be just as capable, as are Klingon and Romulan ships which are totally different shapes. And the Klingons and Romulans and Federation never try to ape each others designs, so there's really no benefit to any of them.

It's all just visual stuff for us. Enterprise is one unique shape among sci-fi vessels, other Fed ships are the same parts rearranged variously. Alien ships all look certain ways so we recognize them. But none of it means anything beyond that.

Yeah its pretty much just a visual thing really, it doesn't seem to make any difference in space or on a planet.

Its just there so we can say "yep that's Klingon" or "that's a Romulan".

I think the designers of the new Klingon vessels thought they were being cool and unconventional, they ended up with generic ships of the week instead.

Truth be told the design of the Enterprise itself has never really made much sense in regards to structural integrity, aerodynamics or propulsion.

The only ship that does is the Defiant and that was probably by accident more than anything else.

 

[Rahul]

Truth be told the design of the Enterprise itself has never really made much sense in regards to structural integrity, aerodynamics or propulsion.

Actually, yes, it did.
Like, if you look at the real-life international Space Station ISS (or the Russian MIR, or Chinese Tiangong), from an armchair-scientist perspective, the design is way too fragile and doesn't make much sense on first look either. Even though in real life it of course has to work with the same problems (structural integrity the most - aerodynamics is still an issue in low altitute orbits, but with enough structual stability it simply slows the whole thing down over time).

The Enterprise operates under a very clear and obvious mantra: In the future, we have better structural materials. The thin nacelle struts are not an error - they were build purposefully to show that. Like that crane on the ISS that's super thin but has the power to haul an entire spacecraft, with such new materials, the thin neck and struts become a non-issue. Aerodynamics is the same: It's not built for optimal aerodynamics, because it's a spacecraft, not a plane, but with enough speed and the right pitch angle, even an elephant can fly. The interesting thing is propulsion: The impulse engines are located at the end of the saucer, nacelles above, secondary hull way below. If we assume the secondary hull is mostly hollow (containing the shuttlebay and such), and the nacelles mostly solid, the impulse engine is actually located very close to the center of mass. (The Ent-D is much worse in this regard - the Voyager OTOH supports that). The warp nacelles obviously aren't, but we don't know how warp bubbles work, but considering how often we see them located assymetrically, this doesn't seem to be an issue.

We know Matt Jeffries designed for the engines to be seperated from the crew quarters because of radiation and stuff, which is consistent with most Trek designs - really, the Defiant is the problematic ship in this regard. But if material stability is not an issue, there really is no drawback in the long, thin neck either, except that it serves as somewhat of a bottleneck to get from one part of the ship to the other - Thus, it would make sense crewmembers that work in the secondary hull also have their quarters there, and for the saucer vice versa. There is just no real-world reason for it either, so we have to assume an in-universe one. Could be as easy as seperating the laboratories and sensors on the saucer from as much influence (like vibrations and stuff) from the engine and deflector parts of the ship as possible. Since so many alien ships have some sort of seperation or modular method of construction as well (the klingon ships and their forward facing bridge module, the Romulans), but not all of them (Cardassians, ...) we can assume there is a reason, but probably not a necessity for it.

 

[Tuskin38]

The thin nacelle struts are not an error - they were build purposefully to show that.

Then why did they changed it on later ships designs?

 

[Rahul]

Then why did they changed it on later ships designs?

Because it was a pain in the arse for the real-life studio model builders...
Getting the electronics to work through the small space, and over time the struts bent under the weight.

(But yeah, that was originally Matt Jeffries intent, you can read up on this! That guy had a lot of thoughts on designing that ship - like, he made the ship purposefull top-heavy, so that it doesn't look like a model that has to work in gravity, but something that operates in real weightlessness. But yeah, a lot of the TNG era design stuff ignores many of his ideas for practical reasons - even though they were clearly well thought-out reasons for them)

 

[XCV330]

In light of discovery:

The Excelsior makes more sense as being the successor to the discovery (oversized engineering hull relative to saucer, focus on new propulsion technology).

The Miranda class can be seen as more of the benchmark ship/style for starfleet as BoBS implies that non-engineering hull ships are very common. The Europa implies that even flagship level performance can be had without an engineering hull

Something about the Constitution class is an outlier (in prestige, and maybe design)

Perhaps the Constitution class's design forbear, so to speak is the lovably ugly duckling Daedalus. Now there's a ship with a scrawny baby-bird neck.