U.S.S. Hecla - a TOS destroyer???

[Starscape]

Thanks, Lego Thrawn.

You'd think making orthos would be fairly straightforward. Well, it was until I discovered the ortho angles showed that there was far too much specularity in the textures. So, I've re-worked those and here's the orthos:



Click to enlarge


And as for stats... well I can give you some specs.

Decks: 12
Length: 191 m
Width: 100 m
Height: 39 m


If anyone has ideas for stats or mission profiles for the ship, I'd be interested to hear them.

 

[Kaiser]

Maybe a followup exploration ship?

like after say ship like Enterprise Discovers something it does a followup visit to get more details?

 

[Starscape]

Yeah, could be. Although I don't see her having much in the way of science labs, but there's a lot of room in the 2ndary hull for the installation of mission specific modules.

Perhaps, the Hecla would be better as a supplementary explorer. The Enterprise and other Heavy Cruisers get assigned the most demanding and resource heavy (A) missions for a sector, Cruisers get the B missions and the Hecla and her sister ships get to tidy up the loose-end C missions.


Well, I almost had this done before Christmas, but came across a couple of things I had to tidy up with the mesh. Finally, an "in-action" shot:


Click to enlarge

 

[Kaiser]

looks awesome

 

[trekriffic]

Nice design. I like that the impulse engine vents are not directly in front of the warp nacelle bussards.

 

[Starscape]

Thanks, Kaiser, Trekriffic.

Impulse vents directly in front of the nacelle bussards??? Surely, no-one would do such a thing!

 

[Kaiser]

Your Welcome

 

[Starship]

It´s a fine work, and fits very well in TOS.
Excuse me if it was already answered before, but... she was built in lightwave, max, sketchup, or other package?

 

[Starscape]

Thanks, Starship!

I don't believe I mentioned it earlier, she's built using Blender.

 

[TheWelshPirate]

Thanks, Lego Thrawn.

You'd think making orthos would be fairly straightforward. Well, it was until I discovered the ortho angles showed that there was far too much specularity in the textures. So, I've re-worked those and here's the orthos:



Click to enlarge


And as for stats... well I can give you some specs.

Decks: 12
Length: 191 m
Width: 100 m
Height: 39 m


If anyone has ideas for stats or mission profiles for the ship, I'd be interested to hear them.

Nice design! I just got Blender and am intending on teaching myself to use it. Never done any 3-D modeling before, and I'd like to work on some ship ideas I've been turning about in my mind. Anyways, let me see if I can figure out what your ship could be...

The small primary hull suggests a small crew, and the large secondary hull suggests lots of room dedicated to engineering machinery and/or cargo space.

If this was a warship, it would make sense that the secondary hull would be filled with larger and more numerous reactors to support stronger shields and higher phaser output. But the nacelles kind of kill that idea for me. The point of a small battleship is to be fast, and those small nacelles suggest to me that this ship is slower than, say, the Constitution-class.

With that in mind, I'm inclined to think that the extra room in the secondary hull is used for cargo space. So I would guess that it's a mid-range supply ship. Likely transporting supplies and personnel between various starbases and outposts in it's particular AoR. It might also be used to take preliminary settlement infrastructure to planets that have been deemed as candidates for colonization by exploration vessels.

 

[Starscape]

Thanks The WelshPirate and welcome to the board!

Interesting thoughts... I like the idea of the Hecla having a less than glamourous, work-horse type, role. Would the smaller nacelles really effect speed? I guess it's all depends on how you reckon warp drive works. Perhaps, larger or more numerous reactors would overcome the disadvantage of the shorter nacelles, allowing the ship the power to reach high speeds, but not maintain them for as long. With a role keeping her in or close to Federation space, with short mission durations, this wouldn't be much of a disadvantage.


Anyway, good luck with the 3D-ing. Blender's a good package, just try not to be too intimidated by the interface.

 

[Sgt_G]

First, let me say: very very cool. It's different, and it had to grow on me. My initial reaction was "what the flip"? But after a while, I started to dig it.

In the game Star Fleet Battles (by ADB), the Federation Police Cutter is about the size and roughly the shape of the TOS Constitution-class cruiser's secondary hull. The Burke-class frigate is about 1/3 ~ 1/2 again larger. The Saladin-class destroyer is another 1/3 ~ 1/2 larger yet.

See here for images:
http://www.starfleetgames.com/Starline 2500 Federation.shtml
http://www.starfleetgames.com/images/Mongoose/Starline 2500/Federation/Fed_POL_2_-_top.jpg
http://www.starfleetgames.com/images/Mongoose/Starline 2500/Federation/Fed_POL_2_-_side.jpg


Ergo, I would say this is at most a frigate but probably a cutter / corvette. That would give it a crew of about 100 to 125. (In the game, the frigate has a crew of 160, and the cutter has 100.) The smaller engines aren't a problem, as they are sized to the ship's lighter mass.

 

[Starscape]

Thanks, Sgt_G!

I was considering a crew of ~120, mainly because the "saucer" is about a quarter of the size of the Enterprise... so about a quarter the crew.


Perhaps, I should have posted a size comparison sooner. The Hecla's a fair bit bigger than your police cutter example:



Crikey, she really does look chunky next the Enterprise.

 

[Sgt_G]

Have you given thought as to what it'll have for weapons?

I drafted the deck plans for the Police Cutter, but I can't post them as they are to be published as part of a game module. Being that I was confined by the already-published game stats, I was restricted to give it EXACTLY one photon tube and three standard phasers, with a refit/upgrade that added two smaller point-defense phasers and a drone (missile) launcher. Mine also has two ready-to-go shuttlecraft, plus one spare in storage that can be moved into the shuttle bay and made ready, given time that one usually doesn't have enough of in the combat game.


Is there any way to get a bottom and/or side-without-engines image? I'm trying to visualize the ducktail. Thanks!

 

[Starscape]

I haven't given the weapons much thought. Since there isn't a particularly definitive specification for the original Enterprise, I tend to view TOS designs as a kind of black box problem - we can see what goes in and what comes out, but know very little of what happens inside.


Having said that, I reckon the Hecla has a bigger hangar bay than the Enterprise and a larger shuttle complement, it would therefore be able to launch/land more shuttles per decompression cycle. (I did toy with the idea of a destroyer version possibly being outfitted with a small fighter squadron, instead of shuttles.)


Here's those extra ortho's you asked for:

 

[JES]

Well, I do.
When originally commissioned, I'd imagine she would have the following:
2x forward dorsal hull mounted twin phaser banks, 1 port and 1 starboard
1x forward ventral hull mounted twin phaser bank, forward mounted
3x ventral planetary sensor mounted defensive phaser emitters, 1 forward, one port, and 1 starboard
2x bridge module mounted torpedo tubes, forward arc
2x ventral fore torpedo tubes
Add forward dorsal and ventral tractor beam emitters along with aft arcs, and your finished with the Hecla as launched.
But this would only be the original complement, as further upgrades could see an additional:
2x dorsal aft arc single phaser emitters, 1 port and starboard each
4x ventral aft arc single phaser emitters, 1 port and starboard under the fantail, and an additional two mounted on the ventral engineering hull.
1 dorsal aft arc torpedo tube, mounted on either the bridge module (above or in place of the observational telescope), or in the upper surface of the engineering hull.
1 ventral aft arc torpedo tube, mounted in the engineering hull fantail outcut.
And this is what I consider to be the minimum. Further upgrades, and a complete refit, can see additional weaponry.

I find planning out the armament to be fun!

 

[Sgt_G]

JES, perhaps my opinion is clouded by the game I'm familiar with, but that's a heck of a lot of weapons for such a small ship. All the source material I've ever seen (two games, three different sets of blueprints, etc.), gives the Constitution-class cruiser four photons and three pairs of phasers on the saucer plus another pair on the secondary hull.

I would propose that this ship have two photons forward (but not in the bridge bubble ... I hate that idea as all the TV episodes have the photons coming from the under side of the saucer), twin phasers forward, singles phasers port/starboard, a single phaser aft, and twin point-defense 360-deg phasers on the ventral of the aft hull. A war-time upgrade would probably twin up the side and aft phasers and add another pair of 360 point-defense phasers on the dorsal.

 

[TheWelshPirate]

Thanks The WelshPirate and welcome to the board!

Interesting thoughts... I like the idea of the Hecla having a less than glamourous, work-horse type, role. Would the smaller nacelles really effect speed? I guess it's all depends on how you reckon warp drive works. Perhaps, larger or more numerous reactors would overcome the disadvantage of the shorter nacelles, allowing the ship the power to reach high speeds, but not maintain them for as long. With a role keeping her in or close to Federation space, with short mission durations, this wouldn't be much of a disadvantage.

Yeah, I'm not sure how much nacelle length affects their speed. But looking at the Enterprise, half of the nacelle sticks out past the aft most point of the ship proper, and that alone makes up for a good 1/4 of the entire length of the ship.

They gave the Constitution-Class engines that long for a reason. And whatever advantage that is, I would assume the Helca makes due without judging from how much smaller it's nacelles are compared to the ship's length.

But anyway, something about the ship makes me think it's more of a support ship than a battle ship. I always thought of the Miranda-Class as Starfleet's go-to destroyer.

 

[JES]

JES, perhaps my opinion is clouded by the game I'm familiar with, but that's a heck of a lot of weapons for such a small ship. All the source material I've ever seen (two games, three different sets of blueprints, etc.), gives the Constitution-class cruiser four photons and three pairs of phasers on the saucer plus another pair on the secondary hull.

I would propose that this ship have two photons forward (but not in the bridge bubble ... I hate that idea as all the TV episodes have the photons coming from the under side of the saucer), twin phasers forward, singles phasers port/starboard, a single phaser aft, and twin point-defense 360-deg phasers on the ventral of the aft hull. A war-time upgrade would probably twin up the side and aft phasers and add another pair of 360 point-defense phasers on the dorsal.

I suppose that seems like a fair amount of armament for a Starfleet Destroyer, and the aft weapons and point defense phaser emplacements might even be left out when first launched (it seems the Constitution class lacks these in most schematics, suggesting to me that they are added during upgrades, in order to amend firing arc blind spots) but I also think that would be the minimum by 2260.
It can be hard to tell though, since different sources suggest different weapons mountings for ships of that era.