TAS scoutship shuttlecraft...

[Warped9]

Even as I'm finishing up my TAS survey/transport model I've been starting to think about my revisiting my very first 3D model: the TAS scoutship type shuttlecraft (referred to as the Copernicus in "Slaver Weapon"). Like before the idea is to make a more "real world" version of the shuttlecraft the could conceivably have been seen in TOS.

I'm revisiting this to fix certain things I got wrong the first time around and because I'm reasonably sure I can do it a lot better this time around given what I've learned since that first model.

So here is the beginning.



One thing you should see right off is (like before) I'm rounding off sharp edges and adding subtle curvatures to the design to distance it from the very angular and boxy appearance of how the craft was drawn onscreen. Of course the scale has to be differnt while retaining the familiar overall concept. This time around the cabin is a little longer as is the bow section.

 

[Timo]

...How is the aft end going to work out?

Three problems with it: the impossibly disappearing doors, the suddenly vertical nature of a previously slanted stern, and the mystery of how our heroes get down from that considerable height.

One solution: the aft end of the ship in fact hinges down, becoming a ramp (while taking with it the impulse engine and other such likely stern features), and leaving a vertical cross section that is closed not by strong and solid pressure-proof doors, but just a pair of collapsible curtains.

The interior of the craft seems to feature several possible locations for such curtains, possibly used for partitioning off segments of the interior for privacy on those long scouting missions...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

The aft end of the craft can't be as dramatically angled as we see it onscreen. It just doesn't make any sense. So in keeping with the tempering I've done with other extreme angles on the design the aft end has to be much less steeply angled without being vertical.

As for the aft hatch I will resort to the idea I had initially. The lower part of the access hatch swings down to serve as a gangway and the upper part swings up. You could have the upper part dilate much like it does on the Galileo design, but you might not have as much room for a sizable opening. We'll see. And if you want you can have a small airlock inside, but then the Class F design didn't have one either.

Impulse engines are trickier. There obviously wasn't any evident on the onscreen version. One idea is to put them underneath the craft. This is what I did on my first model only I rationalized the device as an antigrav unit instead of conventional notion impulse engines.

There's room to adapt because how things were shown on TAS usually weren't very detailed. It's not just a matter of slavishly recreating what was seen on the cartoon version of Star Trek, but trying to imagine how it could have been done if made for live-action.

 

[Rattrap]

Good luvk with this. Can't wait to see how yours turns out. I tried to do one right off the episode model, and ran into every one of the problems you've mentioned.

 

[BK613]

^ Yes, it's a mess. Warped9 is good at figuring these things out though.

 

[Warped9]

Main hull done.



This certainly went a helluva lot easier and much faster this time around then when I made my first attempt a few years back. It helps immeasurably when you have a decent grasp of what you're doing and how to go about getting what you're aiming for. I made a couple of minor boo-boos along the way on this one, but nothing I couldn't fix easily enough.

 

[Warped9]

Some incremental progress. The nacelles have a very slight taper (.5 degrees) and the curving line running from stern to bow is continuous in a gentle arc. It looks more integrated than my original attempt and it also looks a bit swoopier. Mind you this version has a longer main cabin and the nacelles are also a bit longer. The aft end is also a bit more angled than on my original version.

 

[BK613]

Excellent. And quickly done; think it took you weeks to get to this point the first time. Keep up the good work.

 

[Warped9]

Yeah, I struggled and could get quite frustrated in the beginning.

 

[Sarvek]

Looking absolutely fantastic, well done!!!!!!

 

[Warped9]

Gettin' there, folks. Gettin' there.

 

[Kail]

I envy you your skills. Maybe I could devout a page to all your TAS work? It would be a huge plus for the website.

 

[Warped9]

Technically this is done because for now I'm refraining from adding any extra bits. But I do think it could use a bit of added detail here and there.

 

[Sarvek]

She looks fantastic, great work!!!

 

[Albertese]

Looks like the TV one is longer proportionally. May I ask why you chose to go shorter?

--Alex

 

[Warped9]

Looks like the TV one is longer proportionally. May I ask why you chose to go shorter?

--Alex

Simple. There's no way the TV version would actually fit into the hangar deck. All the TAS shuttlecraft were way oversized in tandem with the hangar deck itself being shown as greatly larger than it actually was. Also the aft end of the TV version is ridiculously angled such that the rear access hatch would be a nightmare.

My version can fit into the hangar but only as a temporary berth. It's still a bit too large to be carried as part of the regular shuttlecraft complement.

 

[publiusr]

I've always had this idea that each ship had its support equipment in an area of a certain starbase.

 

[Wingsley]

Ditto what Albertese just said. Are you trying to fit this proto-Runabout into the Enterprise's hangar-elevator?

 

[Warped9]

Ditto what Albertese just said. Are you trying to fit this proto-Runabout into the Enterprise's hangar-elevator?

No. This is my second go around with this design and it's actually a little longer than my first effort in order to get a better look for the design. From these efforts, though, I know the design will fit into the hangar deck, but it certainly will not fit onto the turntable elevator.

The scale (or size) of my version is distinctly smaller than the onscreen version even though I still have room for a standing interior. The onscreen version was a large craft with a seemingly oversized interior. If I had tried to stick to that scale the craft could never fit into the hangar deck at all. So my intent was to try evoking the original overall look while temporing some of the extreme elements and end up with something that could have actually existed in the TOS universe.

TAS allowed freedom from budgetary constraints, but it also allowed freedom from a sense of realistic believability. The hangar on TAS was depicted as cavernous and able to hold several large sized shuttlecraft. Of course, in TOS, that was impossible. So if I want a TAS style design to exist in the "reality" of TOS then we have to accept that what we see on TAS was a stylized (and exaggerated) representation of the "real" thing.

I freely admit I didn't mimick the lines of the TAS design slavishly. Instead I went for something that evoked the original yet adapted into some more believable in overall form and size.

When I adapted the design of the ship Huron from TAS I didn't need to be concerned with size so much because the ship could be any size that was reasonable. There were very few inconsistencies in the Huron design and all I needed to do was tweak it in a few areas for things to go together better. I also added more rounded edges and gently curved shapes to make the ship look less boxy.

When I started with the TAS shuttlecraft I sketched out the craft as we saw it on television. Then I began tweaking the lines to try for something that remained familiar yet made more sense as a real world vehicle.

 

[Warped9]

The question has been raised that my design isn't proportionately the same--particularly in length--as the original onscreen design. Some might wonder why I seemed to have diverged as much as I did with my take on the design. I thought an illustration would best clarify my reasoning.

The upper image shows an elevation view of the original TAS design as it appeared. If we accept that as exact and assume at least a 6.5 ft. ceiling as we saw onscreen then one can clearly see we have a vehicle insanely too large to fit into a starship's hangar deck. And this illustration doesn't even take width into account. Even if the sharply angled aft end opened up like some sort of landing ramp we still have to descend 6 ft. to get to ground level. So although the onscreen version is indeed an interesting looking concept it is also completely unbelievable if we want to accept this as something that also exists in the live-action TOS universe.

The only possibly recourse is to interpret the concept into something that could conceivably work within the "real" world of live-action TOS. You can retain much of the overall idea, but you can't avoid greatly reducing the craft's size as well as modifying its proportions.



For more comparisons sake I've placed a silhuoette of my design in scale with the onscreen version to show the clear differences in size.