USS Valhalla - Third time is the charm?

[Wingsley]

It all depends on the size of the Valhalla.

The overall shape reminds me of the Romulan Bird of Prey, and I envision is being the same size, give or take. Could it share some hull components with a TOS-era Oberth?

I think the illuminated saucer domes (a la TOS) are a great touch, but they look to be disproportionately small. I think that Dac's domes need to be larger. Just my 2¢.

 

[Venardhi]

I don't think they need to be any larger, it would overwhelm the design if they were much bigger. The bridge could be smaller, or it could be inset into the saucer below the dome. I intend to design the ship firstly and then work out the insides after the fact.

 

[Kaiser]

Cool Renders

 

[Venardhi]

What is a Trek ship without a variant or two? This came out of the below underside doodle, but I just might make a go of it at some point too.

 

[The Axeman]

I've had a quiet Monday at work too, so here's my quick attempt at a Valhalla model...




and just for good measure, here's my variant with more normal nacelle struts...



I'm not a huge fan of the dual deflectors, but I like the body shape and overall look of the thing. I'm a fan of the flat, wide family of ships like the Miranda class and the Romulan stuff from this era.

 

[Dac]

Oh I see now, so it's got the Defiant's "skimmed" semicircle profile as opposed to the the tubular one.

Also, nice one Axeman

 

[The Axeman]

I think its meant to be a bit defiant-ish, hence the back end I gave it. It still doesn't show up too well in pictures, it would need more definition.

 

[Kaiser]

Cool new renders and digital art

 

[Wingsley]

I think the nacelles on everyone's art would be too long. To fit more with this ship's apparent mission profile and to give the ship a minimal aspect, the length of the nacelles needs to be shorter.

You know, the way this design and its components are shaped, it could be either a close relative to the Oberth design, or maybe an direct ancestor of the Grissom herself.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

At the apparent scale, these nacelles would be half again the size of the Constitution's. Don't see the problem. Besides, I think that no matter how much you work on a ship's mission profile or practicality, aesthetics have to go into it at some point. The longer nacelles are something we're used to, and so feel more "right", visually speaking.

 

[sojourner]

I don't know, you could go for nacelles like Vance used on the Capella class.

 

[Dac]

^^^That's really not too far from the dimensions I'm using. Way I see it the nacelle is not only shorter but has a smaller diameter too. I'm not sure about Venardhi's intentions, but I don't see this ship being any bigger than 3/4 decks, and its probably smaller than the NX-Class, especially if it shares a similar timeframe too it. If anything it seems more like an evolution of the Warp Delta/Challenger class ship we saw in ENT.

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/ste-warp-delta-pictorial/

 

[Venardhi]

4 Decks sounds about right, with one or two being more of systems access decks rather than full of living space. How many decks high is a shuttle bay generally? Need to make sure there is enough room to fit a couple shuttles in there along with the necessary equipment. Windows I see as being more porthole-ish than the bigger windows we generally see on ships(which might throw off the scale for those who want them to be bigger). I have some new sketches coming that will lay out what I have in mind for the back and bottom, but feel free to keep riffing.

 

[Wingsley]

Maybe the Valhalla has a mini-hangar like Sisko's DS9 Defiant. I would imagine it could hold a fully-functional Class F Starfleet shuttlecraft or two, but maybe they regularly hold or deploy smaller, one- or two-man scouts shaped like a cross between a baby Class F and a baby NX-Alpha.

Your Valhalla is supposed to be a TOS allegory of Sisko's Defiant, at least loosely so, right?

I see Valhalla as a limited-production short-range Federation patrol and defense ship, kind of like a proto-warship like Sisko's Defiant. In peacetime, it would see very limited starflight. Small hull, small crew, oversized engines (for short-range ship), and packed with armor and weapons, and not much else. Kind of a "light destroyer" or "micro-dreadnought". Easy to build, not much to maintain, and it probably has a kind of "minuteman" type role in relation to whatever base or outpost is would be attached to. Maybe if the Romulan Bird-of-Prey had reached, say, Outpost 11 in "Balance of Terror", at least one of these would've been launched from the dark recesses of a cavern in some quiet asteroid.

It would be neat if Unit XY-75847 mentioned in "Errand of Mercy" turned out to be a code name for one of these ships, or for the listening post one of these ships would be attached to.

 

[Venardhi]

More of the Defiant of the Romulan War era. Because they were built so simple and sturdy, those that survived were fairly easy to refit for other purposes over the course of the next century. In the outline I wrote, the Valhalla is the last surviving ship of her class by the final episode of the trilogy, nearly 100 years after her commissioning.

 

[The Axeman]

OK, I decided I would go with a slightly modified version and complete it in that format. Here is progress so far, in between doing actual jobs at work.

I scaled it to 4 decks high, with 3m at least per deck. I played with the proportions and pulled the bow out a little sharper, reduced the nacelles a bit and added a shuttlebay at the rear. Overall size is about 130m long, and decks A and D will only be partial full height, with the rest for storage and machinery. The shuttlebay takes up part of B & C decks, and should be large enough for most shuttles or for a load of freight. May get more detailing on it tomorrow, too busy tonight doing real life stuff.

 

[Dac]

Well, here's where I'm at.

As you can see, I've narrowed it down a bit and made it slightly "sharper", personally I'd like to keep it away from harsh angles as everything from that area was kind of soft (at least in terms of fan art).

I've also included a more conventional shuttlebay. I toyed with the NX-Class style bomb bay doors but decided against it. I did however add some NX style pylon impulse engines.

I also began a stab at a Romulan War version, although I'm keeping the old, Pre Enterprise Rom War design ethic as opposed to the post Ent one.

 

[The Axeman]

Your version suits the pre ENT stuff really well. Not the simplistic flying boiler but an interesting shape with plenty of volume and character. Liking it a lot.

 

[Wingsley]

I love what both The Axeman and Dac are doing.

While the idea of pylon-mounted impulse engines is very interesting and a cute nod to ENT, I had envisioned the aft tip of the "dish pods" as being used for aft torpedo banks. But that's just me.

One silly little aside: the "Cage" / "Where No Man..." front nacelle caps were darker, kind of amber-colored. It would be neat to experiment with mixtures of colors and little hints at illumination to try and come up with a pre-TOS front nacelle tip scheme that is still illuminated (in a muted way) and darkly colored like the early pre-TOS Enterprise. Maybe a mixture of dark purple and bright violet "fan blades"?

 

[Venardhi]

My modeling software has been acting up, so I decided I'd just do some higher quality ortho views for now.

Here is the top view, missing a bit of detail here and there and with some refinement to come:

Not sure if this actually works, but this is the scale I had in mind: