U.S.S. Budapest MSD

[JNG]

The big question IMHO is, what do we make of the Amazing Sliding Nacelles?

I mean, the way the pylon structures cradle the nacelles is very suggestive, as are the pronounced rails atop the nacelles. And there seem to be nine round features atop the nacelle that might suggest nine positions to which these things can lock, as they slide forward or back.

I sort of like to think that the sliding is for real, and is intended to accommodate the rebalancing of the ship as something really massive is deployed from between those engine booms.

What is the closest real-world analogy to such a thing? It would be a barge carrier - a vessel that loads up on very large "auxiliaries" by virtue of doing some creative self-flooding, and utilizes rails and other sliding functionalities for handling those barges. A barge carrier might be a very nice ship to have when one assaults a defended planet: a massive, armored barge dropping on enemy positions could stand a greater chance of achieving something than a wave of tiny shuttlecraft or an easily disrupted transporterbeamful of troops and vehicles. OTOH, such a ship would seldom be seen outside planetary assault scenarios, and might not be part of the very first wave on those, either.

Timo Saloniemi

Interesting...one of the Excelsior study models had some kind of extendable neck-like business as well, didn't it? I wonder if the Norway-class ships can carry various sorts of modules and such back there. That would be...kinda awesome.

 

[Rarewolf]

Why would it need to land? Just because it happens to be small? Starfleet ships do not land. The one canon exception being the Intrepid-Class, and even then it is a silly idea. Just because you have a small ship doesn't mean it HAS to land. Just because you have a large ship doesn't mean it HAS to separate.

Interesting...one of the Excelsior study models had some kind of extendable neck-like business as well, didn't it? I wonder if the Norway-class ships can carry various sorts of modules and such back there. That would be...kinda awesome.

The unique thing about the Norway to me is that it appears to have a very flat base, in some ways it looks like half a ship that has separated - a bit like the aft sections of the Prometheus.

Could this suit landing - or clamping on to something?

 

[Praetor]

Sound cool guy.. I love this ship.

Here is the MSD I did for it.

^That's beautiful work!

And to address the 'sliding nacelles', even though we made no mention of it in the MSD, I'd tend to agree that the purpose of the ship's shape and the nacelle strut framework probably is indeed designed for some sort of carrier module that fits nicely in place there. I'm not sold on whether or not the nacelles actually slide (although sliding as far back as possible might yield itself nicely to landing...) Perhaps this is the 24th century's tug class? Or perhaps a type of 'amphibious lander' designed for deploying large landing modules (for cargo, shuttles, or in wartime, people and hoppers) to a planet's surface?

 

[Bill Morris]

Oh, Joe's version has landing struts!

 

[Praetor]

I noticed that too. I still think the flatiron is heavy enough to balance out the nacelles.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Why would it need to land? Just because it happens to be small? Starfleet ships do not land. The one canon exception being the Intrepid-Class, and even then it is a silly idea. Just because you have a small ship doesn't mean it HAS to land. Just because you have a large ship doesn't mean it HAS to separate.

Well the MSD on the Defiant-class ships had landing gear: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Defiant_class_msd-2.jpg

I think the Prometheus-class had them as well, though I can't be sure of that.

 

[JoeRalat]

Yeah my version can land! I am 75% happy with my version. I would love to do another version. The only issue I see with landing this is, are the nacelles. I am not happy with my versions of the landing struts in the nacelles.