The Excelsior - uncovering the design
- Thread starter yotsuya
- Start date
Reliant's more typical ball phasers may have been dead with the roll-bar units having offensive duties and science labs going were the saucer weapond ports are--the phaser turrets not connected to anything. Then too---I see Miranda as a science ship without a roll-bar and standard phasers and Avenger with a roll-bar...but that's me.
I wish I could take these back in time to FASA of 1984...And here we are, the cross sections. Close to final (just those pesky energizers left... if I even include them)
NX-2000 Mk I
NCC-2000 Mk II upgrade
Other ships built as Mk II
NCC-1701-B Mk III
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Just look at the physical features and what those mean. Phasers post TOS all have some raised feature to them. RCS never have a raised feature. In the Movie era phasers have a typical size gold plate and RCS have the same Gold plate. But varying in size and shape. By those rules, those gold rectangles on the Reliant are RCS. They don't match any phaser placement, but nearly all the RCS placements.
How does this look to you?
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threa...ps-whats-out-there.66710/page-20#post-5315361
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threa...ps-whats-out-there.66710/page-20#post-5315361
Well, assuming this is based on my plans, the sides of the impulse deck should angle in at the top. And the aft hanger shell is supposed to be inset from the edge of the secondary hull. Also, the details of the lower hanger have been omitted. And it is more of an artistic thing, but the aztec pattern is too raised. It should be done with color only, not raised texturing. The rest of the details seem about right.
And I disagree with most of the text. 27 decks. Transwarp wasn't a failure by any canon source. And following the deflection crystal down, as in the TMP Refit, the base of the warp core is over the delfector dish, not at the bottom of the secondary hull.
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I thought the conventional understanding was that Transwarp was a failure because it wasn't installed on later starships, such as the Enterprise-D?
dJE
Hmm. The gold rectangles (on the rollbar) lack the dots or thruster ports that go with the RCS placements. But they are on both sides of each of the side round protrusions that appear to be phaser emitters.
That’s because they are. 
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How do we know it wasn't installed on later starships? My personal favourite fanon theory on this is that the Excelsior's transwarp drive became the regular warp drive used in the 24th century, which is why the warp scale was recalibrated by the TNG era, and "transwarp" is just a catch-all term for any propulsion technology substantially better than the current generation rather than a specific technology in its own right. The NX-01 was the transwarp "great experiment" of its day.
Exactly! The recalibrated warp scale is what I go by. Plus the quick appearance of Ent B. The legend of the transwarp failure dates from 1985 when the Ingram plans came out. Long before Star Trek VI or Generations, or TNG. The failure is not canon. What is canon is a very successful class of ships.
All uses of the gold around phasers have the gold all the way around the phaser. Use of gold for the RCS either has a lit portion or is plain. These are plain, not surrounding anything which means RCS, not phasers.
Doesn't seem consistent though. Not all phasers have the gold all the way around it as the rollbar phasers are on a raised blister and not the regular hull. The rollbar gold rectangles however are flanking the raised phaser blisters on the regular hull. The RCS thrusters on the saucer have the dots (thrusters) on the corners yet the ones on the rollbar do not. It is unlikely the gold rectangles on the rollbar are RCS thrusters since they lack the thrusters.
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The revised Ingram plans also show that after the "failure of transwarp" the Excelsior-class was retrofitted with hilariously tiny conventional warp nacelles – which is emphatically not what we see on screen. Another reason to disregard that idea.
Always hated that mod. 
Exactly my point - in addition to the other points I mentioned up-thread.
Those raised things on the sides are not phasers. The two ends are the phasers and there is nothing around them. The gold rectangles are in isolation. And while in Trek timeline they are not close, in production the Ent D isn't that remote and its RCS have no lit portion. Same with Ent C, Voyager, and NX-01. Also, there are no obvious RCS on the TOS enterprise. So the lighted area is not a requirement for RCS. Nothing about the marks indicates phaser other than they are on the side of a double ended mega-phaser tube (with the phaser emitter at either end).
Nothing about the marks definitively indicates RCS either, yet you insist on claiming it so authoritatively without citing a source. Are there any interviews out there with the original ILM model builders saying that those things are RCS points rather than phasers ASIDE from the FACT that the bolts were seen emitting from that exact location of the filming miniature during Reliant's initial engagement with Enterprise? You have no corroborating evidence that they are RCS whatsoever other than your own opinion, and you have yet to dispute my original calculated assertions that they are, in fact, lateral phaser emitters based on film source and other visual cues elsewhere on the filming miniature.
It's your project, and you can do what you want with it, but when people are trying to assist you in making it as accurate as possible, employing a more open mind is probably a sage recommendation. Curious how it literally always comes down to a "yes it is, no it isn't" kind of sophomoric argument in this thread. A shame, really, I would love to see it through to fruition, but the constant alienation of potentially more experienced contributing voices when it comes to starship design seems to be the rule rather than the exception here.
It's your project, and you can do what you want with it, but when people are trying to assist you in making it as accurate as possible, employing a more open mind is probably a sage recommendation. Curious how it literally always comes down to a "yes it is, no it isn't" kind of sophomoric argument in this thread. A shame, really, I would love to see it through to fruition, but the constant alienation of potentially more experienced contributing voices when it comes to starship design seems to be the rule rather than the exception here.
The revised Ingram plans also show that after the "failure of transwarp" the Excelsior-class was retrofitted with hilariously tiny conventional warp nacelles – which is emphatically not what we see on screen. Another reason to disregard that idea.
FASA approves!
Before asserting anything, I watched the segment of the movies where they attached the effects to the ship. The FX come from the tips. They do not come from the side, they come from the tip. So there is nothing in the film to back up your assertion that those marks on the side are phaser markings. I'm basing my opinion on the other ships throughout Star Trek history. The ball phasers on the saucer of the Reliant and the Enterprise and the bottom of the Enterprise then the aft of the Enterprise and the Excelsior, All have the white ball in the middle of the gold square. The rollbar phasers on the Reliant are blue gray and have no gold accents anywhere around the parts where the beams come out of. But that gold is also used for all the RCS and those appear on many many more ships and later ships are lacking any kind of thruster indication on them. That's the basis of my assertion. It is logical, it is thought out, and is born out by what we see on screen. Specifically at 1:24:44 in the blu-ray. Even nicely glowing tips.
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