I actually really like the USS McCall design with the open spaces in the saucer and the built up tower structures running from the aft hull all the way up to the bridge section. With those heavy phaser strips along the rim of the saucer it looks pretty mean to me.
If you zoom in and look inside the open section there may actually be a double shuttered shuttle bay hanger inside the open area of the saucer which is way cool... That would indicate two hangars on that ship.
Looks like maybe a pair of torpedo launchers on the aft section where the shuttle bay would normally be.
Being an image not based in realistic technology you can invent explanations to rationalize the design from separating the power systems of those massive phaser strips from the core hull (in case of battle damage resulting in explosions like on so many thick saucered ships) to protecting combat shuttles during launch and landings in a hostile environment by shadowing them with the ships actual hull and armor plating.
I hope you reconsider your initial impressions Tacofangs. I would love to see something done with it in game.
In modern times the A10 is an ugly hog of a plane but no one in their right mind would deny its effectiveness. Like the McCall its the RIGHT kind of UGLY when you think about it.
any decent gunnery system or gunner worth his stripes is not really going to have a problem aiming for the ship itself and not the big holes. Besides, there's two words that would ruin that ship's day in any battle where the holes actually made a difference (ie. no shields), those two words are: "Proximity Fuses." Any blast inside that hole is going to cause nearly as much damage (if not more so) as a direct hit to the hull itself.
any decent gunnery system or gunner worth his stripes is not really going to have a problem aiming for the ship itself and not the big holes. Besides, there's two words that would ruin that ship's day in any battle where the holes actually made a difference (ie. no shields), those two words are: "Proximity Fuses." Any blast inside that hole is going to cause nearly as much damage (if not more so) as a direct hit to the hull itself.
Dude, If I applied that kind of realism to federation ships the very first question I would ask is why they put the bridge with the command staff in this big exposed dome on the top of every federation saucer section. lol...
I like John Eaves' work for the most part, but I feel like all of his Starfleet ships are too blocky and armored looking. I think if both designs were smoothed out some, they would have a lot of potential. I'm also not so crazy about the speed holes in the saucer. I've seen that in a few designs, and it always strikes me as unnecessary, and makes the ship look flimsy.
Remember thesebadboys? (IIRC these images were published before beta had even started)
Also, I think the "peace sign"/cutout saucers could have played more of a role in Eaves' saucer separation design.
Dude, If I applied that kind of realism to federation ships the very first question I would ask is why they put the bridge with the command staff in this big exposed dome on the top of every federation saucer section. lol...
If you applied that kind of realism, the bridge would still be in a place that would be fairly obvious to spot externally, since one of the main purposes of an actual bridge is to be able to give an overall view of most of the ship (usually for steering purposes). However, most of the command functions wouldn't be in the bridge, they would be in the CIC (Command Information Center), located deeper within the hull. Most ships also have a separate Damage Control (DC) Center, primarily where damage control parties are coordinated, that can also act as a secondary command center.
I think if the 'holes' in the McCall Class had a massive sensor thing like the top of the Nebulas pod the it would make a pretty awesome future science vessel.
The USS Archer (Tahoe-class, IIRC, but I'm too lazy to google around for it right now) could be a mean sonovaship with a 2409 makeover. Small, light, maybe Tac-aligned with a Sci lean, like a Nova-class's bigger, meaner cousin.
If you applied that kind of realism, the bridge would still be in a place that would be fairly obvious to spot externally, since one of the main purposes of an actual bridge is to be able to give an overall view of most of the ship (usually for steering purposes). However, most of the command functions wouldn't be in the bridge, they would be in the CIC (Command Information Center), located deeper within the hull. Most ships also have a separate Damage Control (DC) Center, primarily where damage control parties are coordinated, that can also act as a secondary command center.
Oh god no. You would never steer a star ship by visuals, especially a ship of that size. It would all be sensors and automated systems.
Never use realism to argue anything about trek ship designs, the two cannot be reconciled.
Oh god no. You would never steer a star ship by visuals, especially a ship of that size. It would all be sensors and automated systems.
Never use realism to argue anything about trek ship designs, the two cannot be reconciled.
Not in high speed battles or everyday operations where you basically just point the ship and go, but similar to large ships in current times, you use visuals when doing tight, careful maneuvers (SLOW, and small movements), like (manual) docking. Basically, the bridge is just an observation deck, with some controls.
EDIT: Going by your logic, you should probably never try to use realism to argue anything about practically any science fiction that portrays ships with artificial gravity, since no one has come close to describing a way to move through space at anything approaching the speed of light in a way that wouldn't crush the organic life inside.
If you applied that kind of realism, the bridge would still be in a place that would be fairly obvious to spot externally, since one of the main purposes of an actual bridge is to be able to give an overall view of most of the ship (usually for steering purposes). However, most of the command functions wouldn't be in the bridge, they would be in the CIC (Command Information Center), located deeper within the hull. Most ships also have a separate Damage Control (DC) Center, primarily where damage control parties are coordinated, that can also act as a secondary command center.
How do you intend to fly a ship from the bridge via windows when the bridges don't have windows?
How do you intend to fly a ship from the bridge via windows when the bridges don't have windows?
Depends on your definition of 'fly'. What I'm talking about is fine movements (aligning yourself with another ship/docking maneuvers), not high speed battle maneuvers.
Star Trek's bridges have always been more of a CIC than an actual bridge, with the main viewscreen acting as the window (until JJAbrams decided it would be "cool" to make a command center with actual windows, with glass that cracks in every battle)
Depends on your definition of 'fly'. What I'm talking about is fine movements (aligning yourself with another ship/docking maneuvers), not high speed battle maneuvers.
Wouldn't that better be done from a controlling station at/near the docking port in question?
Depending on what you dock with
Star Trek's bridges have always been more of a CIC than an actual bridge, with the main viewscreen acting as the window (until JJAbrams decided it would be "cool" to make a command center with actual windows, with glass that cracks in every battle)
Don't you mean suicudal?;)
Babylon 5 had the good sense to add blast doors that move into place to protect the windows and the people behind them.
Current Warp drive research, which is based on the Alcubierre proposal : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive neatly circumvents this problem as the ship itself doesn't even move, hence the issue of converting the entire crew into salsa is neatly side-stepped.
IIRC, one of the potential flaws with the Alcubierre drive is that while it is traveling at FTL, it would still collect particles in the front of its "warp bubble". When it stops, those particles get released, unleashing an equivalent of a black hole's Xray burst, obliterating anything that was in front of it.
However, Romulan ships at least have a precident for having large open areas within their structures (i.e. D'Deridex). I don't necessarily mind having open areas between components (i.e. Odyssey), but don't like when the holes are cut through the main body of a single component (i.e. saucer)
The Wells doesn't have any cutouts, though, does it?
And I always figured it looked like a jet because it would probably spend as much or more time in atmospheres than space.
It has transporters that can cross space and time fairly broadly but I'd imagine away missions would generally involve sending a Wells or an Aeon to historical points that need fixing whereas the transporters would be used to infiltrate starships given the risks associated with sending a timeship directly.
In that respect, it's backwards, which is fun.
Space missions involve beaming to a point in time or deploying a shuttle. Planetary missions involve deploying the spaceship.
Remember thesebadboys? (IIRC these images were published before beta had even started)
Also, I think the "peace sign"/cutout saucers could have played more of a role in Eaves' saucer separation design.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
So, Taco, are there any starship designs YOU would like to see one day show up in STO?
Not in high speed battles or everyday operations where you basically just point the ship and go, but similar to large ships in current times, you use visuals when doing tight, careful maneuvers (SLOW, and small movements), like (manual) docking. Basically, the bridge is just an observation deck, with some controls.
No, not ever. Why would you? Even modern spacecraft using instrumentation and docking cameras.
EDIT: Going by your logic, you should probably never try to use realism to argue anything about practically any science fiction that portrays ships with artificial gravity, since no one has come close to describing a way to move through space at anything approaching the speed of light in a way that wouldn't crush the organic life inside.
On the contrary, when it comes to science fiction, breaking "realism" is a common practice, however it is important that when you break realism you maintain internal consistency. In Star Trek starship design breaks from reality but generally maintains a certain level of internal consistency. (unfortunately even this has been broken pretty regularly as the series went on) It isn't realistic (Centers of thrust not aligned with centers of mass, obvious weekpoints connecting portions of the hull, exterior mounted easily targetable command center, and so on) so trying to say something isn't realistic as a way of arguing against a design doesn't really work.
I hear that current research is actually intensely secret, a factor that I personally find intriguing, perhaps we are much closer to a breakthrough than the powers that be would have us imagine.
No, it's quite public - it just isn't proceeding very quickly. Since we have no means yet of creating large amounts of exotic matter, the only way we have of generating negative energy density is by use of the Casimir effect, which requires two masses to be less than their Planck length apart. The generation of a microscopic Alcubierre-White warp could be detected with a modified Michaelson-Morley experiment, employing lasers to measure the distortion of the space - but with such a tiny space between the masses, the entire assemblage can be thrown off by the smallest seismic vibrations. (This has been overcome before; Dr. Forward's original mass detector was finding transient "gravity" signals that turned out to be caused by trucks passing on a nearby highway. Constructing equipment to separate the experiment package from any possible vibration, though, is a slow and expensive process. Pity they can't just send the whole thing up to the ISS, then put it in a separate device so that even vibrations aboard the station wouldn't affect it, but that would probably wind up being more expensive than the device they're building.)
Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
While I understand the sentiment I've never understood the argument, one which Eaves himself used to justify the Enterprise-E having no neck (yet still having incredibly flimsy warp pylons :rolleyes: ).
If your shields are down, and you're under torpedo fire, it doesn't really matter where you get hit; you're going to be losing large chunks of your ships structure either way, and really there's more important targets on a ship that an enemy would be targetting at rather than the front of your saucer section.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. "Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off."
Now tell that to the Klingons with their ships having long, thin, giraffe-like, necks. Or the Romulans with their massive hulls that are paper thin. It's space fantasy and so many of the hull features we look to justify logically are really there because the designer is into art and thought they looked cool and applied a flimsy explanation just thick enough for the average fan to go along with it.
Really when I look at many of Eaves later designs for Trek and Perpetual I see an attempt to make FED ships look less clunky, more streamlined, and elegant. He seems to be taking the bulk from the hull so it doesn't look like a fat stub.
I will never be a real fan of all the "Voltron Trek" ships he has tried to introduce either though. I find them silly and demeaning to the IP somehow. Just build three little ships or one big one. From the Prometheus on...
I will never be a real fan of all the "Voltron Trek" ships he has tried to introduce either though. I find them silly and demeaning to the IP somehow. Just build three little ships or one big one. From the Prometheus on...
I am actually a fan of the Prometheus, but I think MVAM is a silly idea.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
May I challenge you with an old design of my own. i made this several years back while making fictional storys for another cast of characters. Id like your opinion of this.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
Torpedoes don't do enough damage in STO to break the whole front off in a dozen hits, let alone one.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
I can't take this statement seriously given a certain famous ship class has a neck that looks like it would snap from the weight of the saucer alone none the less a torpedo.:P *cough cough*constitution class *cough cough*
I can't take this statement seriously given a certain famous ship class has a neck that looks like it would snap from the weight of the saucer alone none the less a torpedo.:P *cough cough*constitution class *cough cough*
Wow, this is the first this has been brought up with out 20 nerds wrestling over the first spot to quote Mr. Spock on this matter. :O
Comments
If you zoom in and look inside the open section there may actually be a double shuttered shuttle bay hanger inside the open area of the saucer which is way cool... That would indicate two hangars on that ship.
Looks like maybe a pair of torpedo launchers on the aft section where the shuttle bay would normally be.
Being an image not based in realistic technology you can invent explanations to rationalize the design from separating the power systems of those massive phaser strips from the core hull (in case of battle damage resulting in explosions like on so many thick saucered ships) to protecting combat shuttles during launch and landings in a hostile environment by shadowing them with the ships actual hull and armor plating.
I hope you reconsider your initial impressions Tacofangs. I would love to see something done with it in game.
In modern times the A10 is an ugly hog of a plane but no one in their right mind would deny its effectiveness. Like the McCall its the RIGHT kind of UGLY when you think about it.
Dude, If I applied that kind of realism to federation ships the very first question I would ask is why they put the bridge with the command staff in this big exposed dome on the top of every federation saucer section. lol...
The McCall is essentially STO's Bellerophon with longer upper struts
Remember these bad boys? (IIRC these images were published before beta had even started)
Also, I think the "peace sign"/cutout saucers could have played more of a role in Eaves' saucer separation design.
Raptr profile
If you applied that kind of realism, the bridge would still be in a place that would be fairly obvious to spot externally, since one of the main purposes of an actual bridge is to be able to give an overall view of most of the ship (usually for steering purposes). However, most of the command functions wouldn't be in the bridge, they would be in the CIC (Command Information Center), located deeper within the hull. Most ships also have a separate Damage Control (DC) Center, primarily where damage control parties are coordinated, that can also act as a secondary command center.
Raptr profile
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Oh god no. You would never steer a star ship by visuals, especially a ship of that size. It would all be sensors and automated systems.
Never use realism to argue anything about trek ship designs, the two cannot be reconciled.
Not in high speed battles or everyday operations where you basically just point the ship and go, but similar to large ships in current times, you use visuals when doing tight, careful maneuvers (SLOW, and small movements), like (manual) docking. Basically, the bridge is just an observation deck, with some controls.
EDIT: Going by your logic, you should probably never try to use realism to argue anything about practically any science fiction that portrays ships with artificial gravity, since no one has come close to describing a way to move through space at anything approaching the speed of light in a way that wouldn't crush the organic life inside.
Raptr profile
How do you intend to fly a ship from the bridge via windows when the bridges don't have windows?
Depends on your definition of 'fly'. What I'm talking about is fine movements (aligning yourself with another ship/docking maneuvers), not high speed battle maneuvers.
Star Trek's bridges have always been more of a CIC than an actual bridge, with the main viewscreen acting as the window (until JJAbrams decided it would be "cool" to make a command center with actual windows, with glass that cracks in every battle)
Raptr profile
Wouldn't that better be done from a controlling station at/near the docking port in question?
Depending on what you dock with
http://images.wikia.com/memory-gamma/images/6/66/Galaxy_class_docked_at_DS9.jpg
you wouldn't see a thing since the darn saucer totally blocks the view.:P
Don't you mean suicudal?;)
Babylon 5 had the good sense to add blast doors that move into place to protect the windows and the people behind them.
IIRC, one of the potential flaws with the Alcubierre drive is that while it is traveling at FTL, it would still collect particles in the front of its "warp bubble". When it stops, those particles get released, unleashing an equivalent of a black hole's Xray burst, obliterating anything that was in front of it.
Raptr profile
The Wells doesn't have any cutouts, though, does it?
And I always figured it looked like a jet because it would probably spend as much or more time in atmospheres than space.
It has transporters that can cross space and time fairly broadly but I'd imagine away missions would generally involve sending a Wells or an Aeon to historical points that need fixing whereas the transporters would be used to infiltrate starships given the risks associated with sending a timeship directly.
In that respect, it's backwards, which is fun.
Space missions involve beaming to a point in time or deploying a shuttle. Planetary missions involve deploying the spaceship.
Yup, not a fan of those either, or Eave's Saucer Sep concept. Again, it looks flimsy. Looks like one torpedo hit would break the whole front of the saucer off.
So, Taco, are there any starship designs YOU would like to see one day show up in STO?
No, not ever. Why would you? Even modern spacecraft using instrumentation and docking cameras.
On the contrary, when it comes to science fiction, breaking "realism" is a common practice, however it is important that when you break realism you maintain internal consistency. In Star Trek starship design breaks from reality but generally maintains a certain level of internal consistency. (unfortunately even this has been broken pretty regularly as the series went on) It isn't realistic (Centers of thrust not aligned with centers of mass, obvious weekpoints connecting portions of the hull, exterior mounted easily targetable command center, and so on) so trying to say something isn't realistic as a way of arguing against a design doesn't really work.
While I understand the sentiment I've never understood the argument, one which Eaves himself used to justify the Enterprise-E having no neck (yet still having incredibly flimsy warp pylons :rolleyes: ).
If your shields are down, and you're under torpedo fire, it doesn't really matter where you get hit; you're going to be losing large chunks of your ships structure either way, and really there's more important targets on a ship that an enemy would be targetting at rather than the front of your saucer section.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Now tell that to the Klingons with their ships having long, thin, giraffe-like, necks. Or the Romulans with their massive hulls that are paper thin. It's space fantasy and so many of the hull features we look to justify logically are really there because the designer is into art and thought they looked cool and applied a flimsy explanation just thick enough for the average fan to go along with it.
Really when I look at many of Eaves later designs for Trek and Perpetual I see an attempt to make FED ships look less clunky, more streamlined, and elegant. He seems to be taking the bulk from the hull so it doesn't look like a fat stub.
I will never be a real fan of all the "Voltron Trek" ships he has tried to introduce either though. I find them silly and demeaning to the IP somehow. Just build three little ships or one big one. From the Prometheus on...
I am actually a fan of the Prometheus, but I think MVAM is a silly idea.
Raptr profile
May I challenge you with an old design of my own. i made this several years back while making fictional storys for another cast of characters. Id like your opinion of this.
http://catstarsto.deviantart.com/gallery/34503468#/art/Assorted-Venturers-Designs-276804903?_sid=78d444b7
Torpedoes don't do enough damage in STO to break the whole front off in a dozen hits, let alone one.
Maybe he really meant the Kinetic Cutting Beam? You know? Every Cruiser's torpedo replacement ...
I can't take this statement seriously given a certain famous ship class has a neck that looks like it would snap from the weight of the saucer alone none the less a torpedo.:P *cough cough*constitution class *cough cough*
Wow, this is the first this has been brought up with out 20 nerds wrestling over the first spot to quote Mr. Spock on this matter. :O