I'd like to hear more about your opinions concerning 24th century humans, but this is obviously the wrong forum. Personally, I both respect Jellico and admire Picard.
The Wrongs of Starship Design (TOS Version)
- Thread starter Vance
- Start date
I'd like to hear more about your opinions concerning 24th century humans, but this is obviously the wrong forum. Personally, I both respect Jellico and admire Picard.
Heavier lifting in specific arenas, sure. But Kirk's ship is outfitted to be a jack-of-all-trades that goes anywhere and does anything. That DN has the space for it, but isn't outfitted for it normally, and doesn't get a Kirk; DNs would be commanded by folks who are even better at starship combat than Kirk, but who have much less diplomacy, don't bluff as well, and who never get the alien chicks.
A few of the names FJ picked don't make sense, I'll grant. But I don't see them as more elite, but rather as serving a specific purpose. Kirk's crew sees the galaxy and does amazing things. The DN 2100 Federation's crew sees the Federation and stands by to repel invasions. Yeah, they're better armed and all, but they don't get to have all the best fun, either. I assume that the FJ blueprints show the CH in it's detached duty optimized fit, and the DN in a hypothetical equivalent, in case the UFP designs a better DN or BB down the road and chooses to use the Fed DNs as larger CHs - militaries should always have contingencies for everything mapped out.
me neither.Well, no biggie; I don't want to call that one prop a "Ray Gun" either
*laughs*
Well, you figured out that it wasn't me. But 'Vance' is actually a humanization of my older handles 'Vanguard', which, in turn, is named after a Transformer character I had, which, in turn, was named after a MASK vehicle I had made out of paper when I was 10 years old or so. And that name, in turn, came from a Star Trek novel cover.
Well I hypothesized a "science suite pack" for the Federation and Ascension classes to give them something to do other then sit at starbase waiting for a war to break out.
It may be that the DN's were built in response to the fear of a Federation-Klingon War. They were still likely in development when that war (almost) happened (at Organia) and with the Organians making said war now moot, I could see Star Fleet adding a science suite to the DN design.
It may be that the DN's were built in response to the fear of a Federation-Klingon War. They were still likely in development when that war (almost) happened (at Organia) and with the Organians making said war now moot, I could see Star Fleet adding a science suite to the DN design.
But that's just it, the Ascension and Federation classes exist solely in case of a military emergecy. You don't want them going off and doing other things, ever, because their purpose is an immediate military response. If they're busy 'exploring strange new worlds', then they can't perform their primary function in case the need arises.
I think a little clarification is in order. FJ never did any blueprints for the dreadnought. In fact, the guy who did draw up blueprints for that monster violated FJ's copyright on the design and has drawn the wrath of Franz Joseph Designs.
Regarding the "deflector dish," the thing to consider (as is always the case) is... "what does it do for you?"
Basically, what I've noticed is that ships where "fuel economy" (or the Trekkian equivalent) matters tend of have this, while those where it's less significant (ie, ships that are primarily military in nature, mainly) can lack them.
Now... think about how you'd need to compensate for the lack of a "dish deflector." You'd have to make more frequent course corrections to avoid larger obstacles, and you'd need to keep the main shields on at higher power on essentially a continuous basis.
See where I'm going with this? Put a dish on, and you can fly in a straight line, not a zig-zag, and you can keep the main shields on "standby" mode rather than on full-power.
The dish's "deflector" function is mainly to allow you to do those things, and thus to conserve power, fuel, etc...
SO... it makes sense for the "transport-tug" ships to have it (they're just cruising in straight lines along trade routes and so forth).
But it makes sense for the Klingon BOP not to have one (it's designed to steer around obstacles and to shoot anything it can't avoid!). It makes sense for the Reliant not to have one (despite how it was being used in TWOK, it's really a military-heavy design, isn't it?), so it would act much the same.
The science ships (Grissom, etc) are slow-boats... they can afford to steer around and are generally tasked to go to just one location then return home.
I just don't see that you NEED a "deflector beam," it's just a nice-to-have item if you're gonna be flying "boldly, where no man has gone before."
In the case of the Federation-class, these dishes would mostly be serving in a sensing role, or (as I mentioned) in a defensive mode.
Basically, what I've noticed is that ships where "fuel economy" (or the Trekkian equivalent) matters tend of have this, while those where it's less significant (ie, ships that are primarily military in nature, mainly) can lack them.
Now... think about how you'd need to compensate for the lack of a "dish deflector." You'd have to make more frequent course corrections to avoid larger obstacles, and you'd need to keep the main shields on at higher power on essentially a continuous basis.
See where I'm going with this? Put a dish on, and you can fly in a straight line, not a zig-zag, and you can keep the main shields on "standby" mode rather than on full-power.
The dish's "deflector" function is mainly to allow you to do those things, and thus to conserve power, fuel, etc...
SO... it makes sense for the "transport-tug" ships to have it (they're just cruising in straight lines along trade routes and so forth).
But it makes sense for the Klingon BOP not to have one (it's designed to steer around obstacles and to shoot anything it can't avoid!). It makes sense for the Reliant not to have one (despite how it was being used in TWOK, it's really a military-heavy design, isn't it?), so it would act much the same.
The science ships (Grissom, etc) are slow-boats... they can afford to steer around and are generally tasked to go to just one location then return home.
I just don't see that you NEED a "deflector beam," it's just a nice-to-have item if you're gonna be flying "boldly, where no man has gone before."
In the case of the Federation-class, these dishes would mostly be serving in a sensing role, or (as I mentioned) in a defensive mode.
Or one might say that every ship has a compact emitter system that is sufficient for the debris-sweeping thing, but the hardware necessarily features a FTL projection field. If the role of the ship is to explore deep into the unknown, then she needs sensors and scanners that look far ahead, and they need FTL projection fields to do that in realtime. So ships of that ilk make use of their deflectors in a dual role, which calls for a bigger and badder deflector than the navigation needs alone would dictate.
Basically, the mirror image of your suggestion (high performance sensing absolutely requires the big dish, high performance debris deflection does not), but equally good at explaining why certain ships would have these dishes pointing whichever way.
Timo Saloniemi
Basically, the mirror image of your suggestion (high performance sensing absolutely requires the big dish, high performance debris deflection does not), but equally good at explaining why certain ships would have these dishes pointing whichever way.
Timo Saloniemi
Any design that doesn't incorporate a saucer for the primary hull -- and those that fuse the saucer with the secondary hull (Enterprise-E). I think there should always be some kind of connecting dorsal...but not a short stubby fat one like on the Excelsior (ugh-ly).
Anyone else like the Proxima class battleship from 'Star Trek: Legacy' as a companion (or alternate) to the Federation class? I rather do.
TOS era:
Refit/movie era:
If you don't like the 3-nacelles of the Federation, this one solves that nicely and it can be its replacement. If you do, then this is it's bigger, badder, more rare sister. I tend to think the latter, and if they were built in the 'real' Trekverse, I would imagine there not being more than three or four in peacetime, and they would sit mostly in mothballs, a la the real-world's Iowa class here in the USA.
TOS era:
Refit/movie era:
If you don't like the 3-nacelles of the Federation, this one solves that nicely and it can be its replacement. If you do, then this is it's bigger, badder, more rare sister. I tend to think the latter, and if they were built in the 'real' Trekverse, I would imagine there not being more than three or four in peacetime, and they would sit mostly in mothballs, a la the real-world's Iowa class here in the USA.
Plecostomus
Commodore
I like the big-ass dreadnought design from the Starfleet Command games that were out awhile back. Twin secondary hulls. Neat idea.
For a Federation warship, the best example is really the Defiant; nothing hanging out there exposed, not even the bridge. The traditional design of saucer-nacelles-secondary hull is really not a good thing to be in if you are certain that folks are going to be shooting at you. Too many critical components are just begging to get shot off.
I'd like to see someone take the design concept of the Defiant and expand it into a full scale battleship. I think we'd see something like six smaller nacelles, held in close to the hull, a fairly small profile, probably no saucer, not quite as long as a Galaxy class, with a much smaller crew.
I'd like to see someone take the design concept of the Defiant and expand it into a full scale battleship. I think we'd see something like six smaller nacelles, held in close to the hull, a fairly small profile, probably no saucer, not quite as long as a Galaxy class, with a much smaller crew.
twin secondary hulls. EEEEEEEWWWW!!!
HATE them...WTF is the point?
HATE them...WTF is the point?
Actually, the bridge dome is exposed on the Defiant, just not as obviously as other ships. Still, as I said before, when you're talking about yields that are three orders of magnitude more powerful than what destroyed Hiroshima, it doesn't really MATTER where the bridge is.
As for the USS Penis Envy, it pretty much embodies everything I hate about 'super ships' in Star Trek, and it's more at home in a bad Star Wars fan-fic than anywhere. Remember, if it took 20 years just to get around 15 heavy cruisers like the Enterprise built, and the Enterprise (U) was a huge deal, and the Excelsior was explicitly a huge ship that awed the veteran crew of the Enterprise, do you HONESTLY think Star Fleet has a class of ships that are eight times larger, with four nacelles six times the mass each of the PB-31?
As for the USS Penis Envy, it pretty much embodies everything I hate about 'super ships' in Star Trek, and it's more at home in a bad Star Wars fan-fic than anywhere. Remember, if it took 20 years just to get around 15 heavy cruisers like the Enterprise built, and the Enterprise (U) was a huge deal, and the Excelsior was explicitly a huge ship that awed the veteran crew of the Enterprise, do you HONESTLY think Star Fleet has a class of ships that are eight times larger, with four nacelles six times the mass each of the PB-31?
Plecostomus
Commodore
The version I had for the RPG group (they love stats, stat everything even if it's only mentioned once or twice. Sheeh!) had twin warp-cores, one in each hull.
Plus from the front view it reminds me of my wife. *AHEM*
^the mind boggles.
*boggle*
see?
*boggle*
see?
Here's that colony transport idea (with liberal use of Vance's pieces/parts):
