What's your "Ideal" Bridge Layout/Design for "Your StarShip"?

^ Yes, typically.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

The operative word in my post was realistically. There's not much terribly realistic about Star Trek's ships, sadly.

 

In the case of this specific design it depends which website you read, though I'm happy to bow to your opinion as I'm not 100% sure how a bridge differs from a CIC. What would one do that the other wouldn't?

 

^ In a nutshell, the ship is driven from the Bridge, while CIC is an overall sensor collection area/Tactical command point. A lot of the info between the two is redundant, but there is a distinction.

For example, during small boat operations like launching/recovering the boat, the Bridge would be the place putting the ship on course to launch/recover, direct the effort (I.e. tell the boat to come alongside, etc.), and do any maneuvers as such for the task/conditions at hand. CIC would just ‘know’ that the boat was being launched/recovered, but then would pass the course for the small boat to steer to its target, etc.

That’s butchering it a bit for brevity’s sake and from a Coast Guard perspective vice U.S. Navy one, but I’m pretty sure they’re similar (and my apologies to any USN posters out there if I screwed it up. ).

The other big difference between the two locations was mentioned earlier up-thread, I think. During GQ/wartime ops, the CO is usually in CIC (seeing the overall picture) while the XO is typically on the Bridge, ‘driving’ the ship.

Hope this helps and YMMV, of course.
Cheers,
-CM-

 

My question would be what advantages a spacious bridge would actually hvae. I mean, spacious lounges and crew quarters if your technology makes it possible, sure. But a bridge is focused on duty and it probably would be beneficial for efficiency to be "cramped", even if only to be able to quickly cast a look on another workstation, or take it over quickly in battle.

 

I think it has more to do with human psychology and comfort of not being crammed in like sardines.

 

My less-than-successful first thread was on this topic.

 

Having it in the core of a tactical cube would be the safest place to be

 

In terms of layout, I like the Cerritos bridge from Lower Decks. It really feels like a less “grand”, workhorse counterpart to the Galaxy class bridge while maintaining a similar design philosophy, including the ramps, which I prefer to stairs for both accessibility and safety. Also, no great big MSD at the back, which always struck me as the least useful place for it.