The Wrongs of Starship Design (TOS Version)

[Vance]

I cringe at the multiple deflector dishes, particularly the aft-facing one, on the Federation-class "dreadnought" because I don't really understand the thinking behind them.

To be fair to Franz Joseph again, the Federation's aft dish was not a deflector, it was another sensor dish. Presumably the second dish was to give the DN a much greater 'strategic awareness' befitting the ship's function. Of course, with the dishes now being solely deflectors, it makes the Federation's design somewhat problematic.

This also hurts your arguments about the Saladin and so on, since a sensor in front of the nacelle sink isn't exactly a bad idea, though the nacelles do explicitly have their own sensors... fortunately, stripping the dishes from the Saladin and Ptolemy types is pretty easy without fundamentally changing the ship. The Federation's aft dish, however...

I hope I don't get yelled at for posting that; people sometimes stick up for certain ship designs because of their place in the history of fandom Trek tech, and certainly not because they represented any particular creativity or innovation in and of themselves.

Well, you have to keep in mind that the entire Technical Manual, the very nature of the beastie itself, was innovative and revolutionary in 1973. That kind of work had never been done before for any franchise, ever. It's honestly an alien world to think of that the only starship seen at that point was the Constitution class, period, and no one had really done anything else yet.

I do rather like the shape of the Federation-class primary hull, though, but not the whole concept of combat-oriented ships that make Enterprise a middleweight and not the pride of the contemporary fleet.

Enterprise was always a heavy cruiser, which is the biggest 'workhorse' of the fleet, which also works with what was on the show. The problem isn't so much that the Federation class existed at the top of the scale, but that the frigates, cruisers, and ships lighter than the Enterprise wasn't shown yet. Indeed, even today there's a derth of such things.

 

[Vance]

TOS Version... TOS Version... TOS Version...

I HATE the god-damn Miranda-Class with no visible deflector but I gotta admit it has decent armaments.

Why does it have to have a visible deflector? Remember, the shield grid performs much of the same function already. To me, it makes more sense that smaller ships would simply link the two systems outright and save on hardware.

The Daedalus-Class is just too damn brittle looking.

Part of the point of the ship, actually.

I hate most of the TOS/TMP-era of Klingon ships with the obvious "Shoot Here First" long, extremely thin pencil necks that look like they'd snap off if they wanted to enter an atmosphere & land somewhere for emergency repairs.

The boom seperates, and, also, the ships are not normally designed for atmospheric entry. As for 'shoot here first', like I've said elsewhere, take your gun, go outside, point it at the moon, hit the lunar lander. Let me know how that works out for you.

You'd think that the Klingons would've come up with a compact "Defiant-Class" of their own *first*, as they've been written-in as a warrior species, correct?

You haven't seen The Search for Spock, I take it? The Defiant was unique in that it was a Federation gunship, not that no one else had gunships.

As for the other comments...
TOS Version... TOS Version... TOS Version...

 

[B.J.]

I cringe at the multiple deflector dishes, particularly the aft-facing one, on the Federation-class "dreadnought" because I don't really understand the thinking behind them.

To be fair to Franz Joseph again, the Federation's aft dish was not a deflector, it was another sensor dish. Presumably the second dish was to give the DN a much greater 'strategic awareness' befitting the ship's function. Of course, with the dishes now being solely deflectors, it makes the Federation's design somewhat problematic.

Personally, I go with the theory that the dish (in most designs, if not all) is a deflector/long-range-sensor combo. So it doesn't bother me as much that the Federation has an aft-facing dish that is just a long range sensor.

 

[Vance]

Personally, I go with the theory that the dish (in most designs, if not all) is a deflector/long-range-sensor combo. So it doesn't bother me as much that the Federation has an aft-facing dish that is just a long range sensor.

When it comes to the uprated version, I actually prefer to do the dramatically extended 'Constitution hull' version rather than try to map things exactly. The move to deflector does make the rear dish rather silly, but maybe some sort of sensor component in the cut?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Here's what I cooked up for some other ship classes a while ago...

I start off with the premise of a central M/AM reactor, paired nacelles (Pathfinder has four nacelles, ala the Constellation class), and a hull that's suited to the overall mission profile of the ship.

 

[Wingsley]

Hey, Captain Robert April,

Starscape has images on his web-site of a Starship Spitfire (alternate views: 1, 2) that bears some resemblance to your Saratoga-class light cruiser. (I just had to plug Starscape's gorgeous 3D work; I'd also like to point out that this design seems to fit in well with my previous post in this thread.)

 

[Bernard Guignard]

And, of course, the very idea that strapping on a third nacelle and changing nothing else suddenly changes a cruiser into a dreadnought is ludicrous

I agree. At least the "All Good Things...." Enterprise-D in the future had a mega-phaser cannon added to use the extra power from the third nacelle - and that was still pretty retarded.

Very true, and none of the GOOD Dreadnought designs were done that way, though a couple look that way if you don't look too closely.

The first dreadnought, of course, was the TOS-era Federation class. But the one that gets the most "bad press" is the TMP-era Federation (uprated) class. The thing is, despite people thinking that this is just the TMP Cruiser with a third nacelle, THIS IS NOT TRUE.

I've got a half-finished Federation (uprated) model in my stable right now. Why "half-finished?" Because I've had to make an entirely new secondary hull as well as rebuild, from scratch, the entire upper three decks of the primary hull.

I've got a couple of comparison images I did a while back to help illustrate this.

Here's the upper side of the primary hull... compared to the unaltered AMT/Ertl "Enterprise" model. Yes, the shapes on the AMT kit aren't PERFECT but they're reasonably accurate, and provide a perfectly serviceable comparison.

Note that this region is MUCH larger. On the TMP Enterprise, the B/C deck region consists mainly of the "officer's club" (including the manual kitchen in the middle of C-deck, and the formal dining room on the port side of C-deck, the "ballroom" (with the "helm wheel" and emergency transmitter) forward, a "snack bar" to port, and of course the aft-facing lounge area) and the communications division (on B-deck, in the middle region not taken up by the upper levels of the lounge and ballroom). But in the dreadnought, this region holds a complete "fleet operations center" separate from the bridge... plus some basic "lounge/conference" areas... so the ship's captain runs the ship from deck 1 and the admiralty and their staff oversee operations from the large facility on the next two decks.

The secondary hull is also dramatically different. Here, I was able to get both hulls in a single shot. Note that the Federation (u) hull is almost 50% again larger (by volume). This hull contains not one but two separate reactor assemblies, and an enlarged hangar facility (with a bit less total cargo space). You'll also note a pair of aft-firing photon torpedoes. And, the dorsal is significantly larger, and thus commensurately stronger.

Nice work there Cary what is the lenght of your Dreadnought's secondary hull ?

 

[The Badger]

I cringe at the multiple deflector dishes, particularly the aft-facing one, on the Federation-class "dreadnought" because I don't really understand the thinking behind them.

To be fair to Franz Joseph again, the Federation's aft dish was not a deflector, it was another sensor dish. Presumably the second dish was to give the DN a much greater 'strategic awareness' befitting the ship's function. Of course, with the dishes now being solely deflectors, it makes the Federation's design somewhat problematic.

Personally, I go with the theory that the dish (in most designs, if not all) is a deflector/long-range-sensor combo. So it doesn't bother me as much that the Federation has an aft-facing dish that is just a long range sensor.

I had a quick look at my copy of the tech manual last night and it very clearly refers to the dishes as sensor arrays.
As far as I am aware, the notion that the dish is a navigational deflector didn't crop up at all in TOS. I think I first read about it in the TNG tech manual, or possibly Mr Scott's Guide To The Enterprise.

I also seem to recall some reference to the three big circles on the front of the Constitution Class primary hull as being deflector arrays, although I have no idea where I read that.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

As far as I am aware, the notion that the dish is a navigational deflector didn't crop up at all in TOS.

Not on screen, but as Christopher reminded me several weeks ago, it is mentioned on page 191 of The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield & Gene Roddenberry (Del Rey, 1968):

"The starship's main sensor-deflector (a parabolic sensor antenna and asteroid-deflector) is located at the front end of the secondary hull."

TGT

 

[The Badger]

^ Interesting. And it does point out that the dish is used both as a deflector and as a sensor. So the one on the back of the Federation class could be just a sensor.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

^ Interesting. And it does point out that the dish is used both as a deflector and as a sensor. So the one on the back of the Federation class could be just a sensor.

Or, it could serve some other purpose.

One thing I've always wondered about is... well.. if they have the ability to deflect incoming meteors, why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing to incoming torpedoes?

I've incorporated this functionality into the Vega, largely due to having spent some time thinking about this issue. Vega has an aft-facing deflector, which serves two purposes... one, to help control the towed passive sensor array (aka "the net") but also to defend against incoming projectile weapons. This beam can be directed at an incoming projectile and even, if the projectile's type is well-understood, remotely detonate that projectile (say, a Romulan plasma weapon's torpedo).

Not sayin' that's a function of the Federation dreadnought's aft dish, but it COULD be.

 

[Vance]

One thing I've always wondered about is... well.. if they have the ability to deflect incoming meteors, why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing to incoming torpedoes?

If the torpedoes were 'dumb fire' torpedoes, then they could. You have to assume that the torpedo guidance system is cutting through shields and deflectors (and, since they explicitly say that, there ya go), well beyond the ability of a deflector to just push them out of the way.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

One thing I've always wondered about is... well.. if they have the ability to deflect incoming meteors, why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing to incoming torpedoes?

If the torpedoes were 'dumb fire' torpedoes, then they could. You have to assume that the torpedo guidance system is cutting through shields and deflectors (and, since they explicitly say that, there ya go), well beyond the ability of a deflector to just push them out of the way.

You're oversimplifying again.

Yes, the torpedoes aren't "dumbfire" weapons. So if they're under a vector-changing influence (say, from a deflector BEAM... note, not the same as a "deflector shield"), they'll be trying to correct in order to stay on-target. But they're still having to do so. It makes it much harder to stay on-target if you're being pushed, doesn't it?

In other words... you're thinking in absolutes... but that's not really the way to think of it. Every torpedo has a PROBABILITY OF HITTING, and this defensive measure would decrease that probability. Think of it sort of like contemporary ECM, or chaff and flares for that matter!

Furthermore, I noticed that you ignored my "remote detonation" trick entirely, which (if successful) would be a definite "not a hit" defensive measure, wouldn't it?

 

[JNG]

To be fair to Franz Joseph again, the Federation's aft dish was not a deflector, it was another sensor dish. Presumably the second dish was to give the DN a much greater 'strategic awareness' befitting the ship's function. Of course, with the dishes now being solely deflectors, it makes the Federation's design somewhat problematic.

This also hurts your arguments about the Saladin and so on, since a sensor in front of the nacelle sink isn't exactly a bad idea, though the nacelles do explicitly have their own sensors... fortunately, stripping the dishes from the Saladin and Ptolemy types is pretty easy without fundamentally changing the ship. The Federation's aft dish, however...

Yes, the idea that they are also sensors and/or for aft defense is how I deal with it, although the two little ones bracketing the big one still looks a little goofy to me. I always thought that much-maligned dish played an important role in establishing the ship's primary flight direction at a glance and was an easily recognizable element that seemed to focus tremendous energies, so the backward-pointing version just always causes a brief "wtf" effect in my brain.

I thought it was more of a "vent" thread on TOS ship design stuff one could never get into and not so much a technical evaluation of whether certain elements were plausible or not, so sorry if I was off course.

Well, you have to keep in mind that the entire Technical Manual, the very nature of the beastie itself, was innovative and revolutionary in 1973. That kind of work had never been done before for any franchise, ever. It's honestly an alien world to think of that the only starship seen at that point was the Constitution class, period, and no one had really done anything else yet.

Hey, that's why I'm here talking about it I just don't believe that means it's above reproach. I love my vintage TOS watch and wouldn't sell it for anything, but will confess that it doesn't keep very good time

Enterprise was always a heavy cruiser, which is the biggest 'workhorse' of the fleet, which also works with what was on the show. The problem isn't so much that the Federation class existed at the top of the scale, but that the frigates, cruisers, and ships lighter than the Enterprise wasn't shown yet. Indeed, even today there's a derth of such things.

Those were the ships about which I was especially curious, and precisely why I was most disappointed that no new elements were included for the scout and destroyer (even to the extent of differentiating the two from one another) when the dreadnought got a pretty bitchin' new primary hull. Simple as it was, I totally loved that egg-shaped scout that was designed for TAS.

It has not escaped my notice that no one seems to be sticking up for the Northampton

 

[CuttingEdge100]

TheBadger

^ Interesting. And it does point out that the dish is used both as a deflector and as a sensor. So the one on the back of the Federation class could be just a sensor.

Cary L. Brown

Or, it could serve some other purpose.

I think Franz Joseph just screwed up. I think it should just be re-drawn with a shuttlebay in rear part of the ship.

One thing I've always wondered about is... well.. if they have the ability to deflect incoming meteors, why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing to incoming torpedoes?

That's a very good point.

I'm guessing that asteroids are not propelled. They are flying towards the ship on momentum. The torpedoes are self-propelled and will continue pushing even as the deflector tries to slow them down. This almost certainly plays a role.

Also, in practicality if the torpedoes are guided (considering they're always locking them on target -- I assume they are) they could follow a path that would avoid the area where the Nav Deflectors are (let's say projecting forward 20-degrees either direction) and hit other parts of the ship as well..

The energy density of the nav-deflectors also strike me as very low (but spread out a large distance) so the torpedo might be able to partially neutralize its effects as well. The higher energy density of the standard deflectors and shields on the other hand are not so easily neutralized and apparently can stop the torpedo.


Vance,

You have to assume that the torpedo guidance system is cutting through shields and deflectors (and, since they explicitly say that, there ya go), well beyond the ability of a deflector to just push them out of the way.

Uh, I thought the torpedos were supposed to be stopped by the shields...

The only time in Star Trek in which they went through the shields were

1.) Star Trek VI where they just flew through the shields every single time
2.) Star Trek VII (GEN) where they figured out the shield modulation and fired it through the shields
3.) If the shields were really weak and the torpedo simply couldn't stop it.


CuttingEdge100

 

[Darkwing]

I like the Northampton, although it's too small to do the job FASA claims - it needs a Constellation style laminated hull or a Miranda-style extended hull to berth all those marines - as does the Chandley. In fact, I assume that the design we saw was the heavy destroyer proposal that was eventually modified to create a real frigate, with a Miranda hull and underslung photorps cribbed off of, IIRC, the Adamant - or was it the Thruxtun? - and the LN-60s of the Connie refit. I also tossed in the Monoceros' upper saucer sensor suite. Unfortunately, I can cut 'n' paste most elements, but haven't managed to satisfactorily redraw the batwings so they look good - too much pixilation. I'll gladly take advice on it.

I also like the idea of the Constitution being a middleweight - the Fed DN is more expensive to build and operate, so why would there be as many? The connies are as big and capable as needed for most things, yet small enough to avoid impractical expense. Note that the FJ blueprints do show the Fed DN has everything the FJ blueprints show for the Connies, but many spaces are larger. So the DN can do anything the CH can, but it also carries a lot more mass and costs more. I do like the added nacelle as redundancy - sure it provides more power, but it's more about retaining basic capability in the event of battle damage. It doesn't necessarily have to operate with all 3 at once, you can rotate which pair is online, reducing wear and tear and/or allowing running them at a higher rate without increasing overall MBTF - mean time between failure.

I really agreed with the argument in SF Prototype about the Class I tugs, and the stupidity of using a whole starship for the job, but prefer Jackill's answer to the one SF Prototype espoused. A class II hull with no physical connector, and a huge honkin' tractor array makes sense for some applications, but for hauling cargo, Jackill's class II hull (Fisher?) with the Ptolemy's connector plate makes more sense. The Ptolemy, and the later variations with two connectors make sense only as the SF equivalent of Amphibious transport ships - troop carriers that go in harm's way. You have the whole starship for the power, shields, and weapons to provide some protection until the troops and equipment are dropped off and the ship can get away from danger. FASA's frigates are a better idea for that in small-scale operations, so there shouldn't be many of the Ptolemy and super-Ptolemy types made for such purposes.

FJs scout makes sense as a back-designed fully parts-compatible knockoff of the connie for a scout mission, but his DD should have had two engines, IMO. I like the SF Prototype Scimitar for that reason.

I assume that Starfleet used to build wholly unique ships for each role, but that 20-30 years before the Connie commissioned (2240s for most, 2220s for those who prefer Mastercom's timeline), they began designing the next big class, which became the Constitution. The idea was that they would design various standard parts that could be used on a variety of ships for different purposes in order to standardize more effectively. Not only does it ease prefabrication and construction, but also emergency repair. Was it Starship Design that suggested the Decatur was built by reworking a decomm'd Ptolemy hull? After a major fleet engagement, some ships might be more easily cannibalized by other, less-damaged ships if the major structures are so standardized, as opposed to simply standardizing some internal components. OTOH, that can go too far, as so many designs become too derivative.

 

[Unicron]

The FASA editors weren't all that great at doing figures. Some of their designs are given way too much mass for their physical appearance. I tend to think that, since DNs and other heavy ships are indeed more costly to produce, there are naturally less of them than comparable cruiser and destroyer classes. If you can optimally produce, say 20-40 of a given design in that category, you'd probably only build 10 dreadnoughts. 20 if you're lucky, as with FJ's Federation design. This would support the idea that Starfleet designs are not primarily designed with offensive combat in mind, but would nonetheless give them a very capable range of designs.

 

[Darkwing]

I forgot yesterday to add: Back in the days of sail (as in Roddenberry's inspiration, Hornblower), fleets were made up of the ships of the line of battle, which phrase we later inverted and abbreviated to form battleships, frigates, and lesser vessels, such as snows, sloops, brigs, etc. the frigate was the smallest ship that could lie in the line of battle, but were usually attached to the fleet as scouting, surveillance, and skirmishing units. frigates independent of or detached from a fleet were referred to as 'on cruise', which eventually resulted in them being called cruisers, as in cruising frigate. Since Kirk's ship is a cruiser on detached duty, it makes sense for his ship to be a middleweight vessel. The largest battleships were the dreadnoughts, so we should actually have seen (preferably from FJ) a somewhat larger, more armed version of the Constitution as a BB, and then the Fed DN, as well as a few smaller classes.

 

[Captain Robert April]

If you want a bit of a shock, do a side-by-side comparison with a battleship and an aircraft carrier. Quite a size difference.

Here's a shot of the USS New Jersey as a part of the USS Midway's battlegroup.

http://www.bb62museum.org/images/BBNJ08.JPG

Lengths are pretty close, but the carrier is a lot bulkier.

 

[JNG]

I also like the idea of the Constitution being a middleweight - the Fed DN is more expensive to build and operate, so why would there be as many? The connies are as big and capable as needed for most things, yet small enough to avoid impractical expense. Note that the FJ blueprints do show the Fed DN has everything the FJ blueprints show for the Connies, but many spaces are larger. So the DN can do anything the CH can, but it also carries a lot more mass and costs more. I do like the added nacelle as redundancy - sure it provides more power, but it's more about retaining basic capability in the event of battle damage. It doesn't necessarily have to operate with all 3 at once, you can rotate which pair is online, reducing wear and tear and/or allowing running them at a higher rate without increasing overall MBTF - mean time between failure.

It's not that; it's that I got a clear feeling from TOS that the Enterprise and her sisters were the pride of the fleet, and not that there were larger and notably more powerful ships waiting in the wings to do the heavy lifting. All that business about what a special sort of man it takes to be a starship captain, and "Starship Class" on the plaque, but the dreadnoughts are, I guess, more starship-y and are even more elite? Kirk doesn't rate a dreadnought? The exploratory/scientific/defensive Starfleet, the NASA of the 23rd century, has heavily armed ships called "dreadnoughts" with names like Star Empire and Directorate? Narratively, it just never seemed to jibe with what I saw on the show. Some fans have them not coming into being until a year or two after TOS, making this a little easier to swallow, but I still can't get my head around it.

Well, no biggie; I don't want to call that one prop a "Ray Gun" either