Spoilers We now have Ship Class names for BotBS

[Romulan_spy]

The Fed ships are cool and keep to the starfleet aesthetic that we are used to. The Nimitz class might be my favorite. But the redesign of the Klingon ships is horrible. They look nothing like Klingon ships.

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[Timo]

Well, I sort of dig the Bird of Prey.

I just wish they'd stop calling those other designs of theirs Bird of Prey, seemingly at random.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

"Invisible" launchers were very much a thing in ENT and the 2009 movie, too, although for different reasons. In ENT, it was decided to have a highly detailed ship now that CGI tech allowed it, but to make it maximally flexible for the VFX folks by the inclusion of lots of nearly invisible hatches that could accommodate whatever the plots required.

That was a CONCEPT they were working on initially, to have weapon ports that could mount just about any sort of device you wanted and the ship would simply raise the proper device into position like the magazine on an old Navy missile launcher. So the same port that could mount a phase cannon could swap it out for a photon torpedo and then two seconds later move a grapple gun or a quantum beacon into the same tube. It was actually an awesome idea and you can see echoes of it at some points of the show, but they never fully developed the idea or followed through.

What actually happened was what always happens on television scifi: the people who developed the starship weren't fully in communications with the people who actually did the special effects, so the VFX people took the models and basically drew phaser beams and torpedoes coming out of anything that even LOOKED like it might be a launch tube (or they just drew on new ones because they couldn't remember where the old ones were).

Discovery probably has the same issue; the people who designed the ships (John Eaves et al) clearly had pretty specific ideas about where their weapons would launch from, but the VFX team either didn't get the memo or wasn't coordinating that closely with the original designers. There ARE moments where phaser pulses are coming from the general direction of where the phaser banks are actually placed on the model, but the torpedoes are flying right out of Lorca's ass.

If weapons action in DSC becomes important dramatically, I'm sure they can add popup torpedo launchers. As matters currently go, the phasers of the ships are not merely permanently exposed but also brightly lit with red dots!

They could, but I kind of doubt we'll get to see anything even remotely that cool. Unfortunately, even if we do, their location on the ships is bound to be rather inconsistent, which is going to give us tech nerds an aneurysm.

My number one wish would be for them to dust off the old ST:ENT concept book and show us that their phaser banks really ARE just weapon hardpoints and there's some sort of rotary magazine system below decks that can retract the phaser bank and then pop a photon torpedo into that same spot. I know it'll never happen, but one can always dream...

 

[137th Gebirg]

Well, I sort of dig the Bird of Prey.

I just wish they'd stop calling those other designs of theirs Bird of Prey, seemingly at random.

Timo Saloniemi

That's always been my problem with those nomenclatures. Seems that damn near every single Klingon and Romulan ship in existence now is either a "Warbird" or "Bird of Prey", in both the Prime and Kelvinverse. The writers should maybe try to exercise a little more imagination in that regard.

 

[Tuskin38]

"Invisible" launchers were very much a thing in ENT and the 2009 movie, too, although for different reasons. In ENT, it was decided to have a highly detailed ship now that CGI tech allowed it, but to make it maximally flexible for the VFX folks by the inclusion of lots of nearly invisible hatches that could accommodate whatever the plots required. In the 2009 movie, popup guns added movement and action to a scene, and highlighted the fact that a ship was moving from blue-eyed unpreparedness to badass combat readiness.

The end result in both was the same, though: the ships looked like the TOS one, with invisible guns. This was merely taken to the hilt with the ENT Defiant whose (rear) guns popped out just like those of the hero ship always had done (that is, only when the VFX folks thought the audience would notice).

If weapons action in DSC becomes important dramatically, I'm sure they can add popup torpedo launchers. As matters currently go, the phasers of the ships are not merely permanently exposed but also brightly lit with red dots!

It's a bit weird how the phaser beams are always drawn neatly and nicely coming from those red dots (that is, they seem to be doing that, by design or accident), but torpedoes come from literally all over the hero ship when Kol goes down.

Timo Saloniemi

According to (I think) Doug Drexler they intended that the rear torpedo launcher on the Defiant in ENT to be that hole in the middle of the Impulse engine on the saucer, but that concept got lost somewhere along the way.

 

[Timo]

t was actually an awesome idea and you can see echoes of it at some points of the show, but they never fully developed the idea or followed through.

Oh, I think it worked splendidly in the end. There are only two misuses in the whole show: one phaser shot coming out of the aft pod utility hatch thing (which was actually of the airlock door size and design, but who cares?), and one or two shots coming from the boom top "turbocharger caps" rather than the adjoining dorsal utility hatches.

Apart from that, we saw stuff emerge from existing utility hatches: plasma peashooter bolts, phase gun beams, people, Echo relays. Just as it should, and looking remarkably like TOS from any distance other than the point blank they used for effect.

Just give all the torp tubes the same sort of hatches that the aft pod tube of "The Expanse" fame had, and you get the smooth-as-an-android's-bottom TOS saucer.

Discovery probably has the same issue; the people who designed the ships (John Eaves et al) clearly had pretty specific ideas about where their weapons would launch from

We have gotten some pretty detailed views of the ship already. What might Eaves have had in mind for launching torpedoes? There's nothing there with holes in it. And certainly not the sort of TMP pairs of tubes that Eaves eventually put on some of his guest starship sketches.

My number one wish would be for them to dust off the old ST:ENT concept book and show us that their phaser banks really ARE just weapon hardpoints and there's some sort of rotary magazine system below decks that can retract the phaser bank and then pop a photon torpedo into that same spot. I know it'll never happen, but one can always dream...

I'd be happy simply with the twin red-glowing turrets on occasion retracting and getting covered up, perhaps for atmospheric flight where no fighting is to be expected. We would then have one more vote for the "TOS had pop-up phasers in all the spots where beams came from" theory, to support "IaMD", ST 2009 and ENT.

According to (I think) Doug Drexler they intended that the rear torpedo launcher on the Defiant in ENT to be that hole in the middle of the Impulse engine on the saucer, but that concept got lost somewhere along the way.

I'm happy it did. Having guns inside your engines is pretty silly; the Maquis ship already looked dangerously crowded astern. The lower-down location actually used might be taken to coincide with the prominent TMP features on secondary hull topside - the four grooves that Probert intended to be vents of some sort, but that might better serve as four small-caliber torp launchers retained from the TOS configuration.

Timo Saloniemi