Well in my head, most of the interior of the saucer is essentially hollow, so having a 4.5 meter deck height is not a bad idea as it allows for allot of the machinery like life support, the ODN & EPS conduits to be pushed into the in-between spaces around the "outer shell" that is the crew/habitat sections of the primary hull.
Also I would conjecture that the uneven nature of the outer hull is in part due to the crew sections being constructed in modules around the cargo sections, as opposed to a normal ship where the cargo areas are fitted in and around the habitats.
Okay, here's what happens when you match up Steamrunner at 355 m and Galaxy at 642.5 m total length at 2 pixels per meter. The windows? Yeah. Escape pods? Out of proportion, unless you make the Steamrunner bigger. But the design doesn't seem to go with a such a large ship, and 3.5 m deck to deck (after figuring in the extra space at the curvature of the hull and bridge. in the 315 m scenario does sound reasonable. The Nova class measures out nicely to 3.5 per deck, as demonstrated at Ex Astris Scientia.
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Perhaps keeping the kaboomables away from the main hull is a smart thing to do in the usual case?
Main engineering might only get buried inside the primary hull in those ships that are dedicated combatants and already destined to die horribly. Ships designed for more sedate lives take steps to minimize the risks and place their engines and powerplants far away from the important bits.
Granted, the Steamrunner is seen in frontline combat quite often. But her role might still be something else than ship-to-ship combat, something more oriented towards exploration, or transport. Another prominent characteristic of hers is very large warp engines in relation to overall size; perhaps she's intended to be very fast?
Timo Saloniemi
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