Is anyone else having the issue with the Magellan class science ship's impulse engines not glowing at all? No trails during flight in either local or sector space.
the Nebula has no impulse trials because it never had an impulse engine.
I know we have impulse engines in them but its probably because as int he show the ship never has one.
No Nebula in the game has an impulse trail. its not a bug its just trying to keep it cannon as with the Excelsior sometimes trans-warp clonks out and does nothing as it did in the movie.
Just because the model makers on TNG and Generations missed out putting an impulse drive on the thing. its no reason to repeat the same mistake. How the hell is the ship supposed to move? a group of Vulcans standing round the warp core holding hand willing the ship to go?
Honestly to hell with canon, they've broken just about everything else, subspace weapons, fed ships with cloaks, yada yada yada. The Nebula and Magellan look silly without Impulse drives period, since every other ship has one they need to address this, or perhaps put another saucer section option on the design to allow those of us who want our ships to look somewhat normal to do so. I paid for my Nebula and by god I want it to look right.
All Federation ships have an impulse drive of some sort visible, thats the canon I prefer to follow, not other people's mistakes.
Just because the model makers on TNG and Generations missed out putting an impulse drive on the thing. its no reason to repeat the same mistake. How the hell is the ship supposed to move? a group of Vulcans standing round the warp core holding hand willing the ship to go?
Honestly to hell with canon, they've broken just about everything else, subspace weapons, fed ships with cloaks, yada yada yada. The Nebula and Magellan look silly without Impulse drives period, since every other ship has one they need to address this, or perhaps put another saucer section option on the design to allow those of us who want our ships to look somewhat normal to do so. I paid for my Nebula and by god I want it to look right.
All Federation ships have an impulse drive of some sort visible, thats the canon I prefer to follow, not other people's mistakes.
The original model was designed and built by Ed Miarecki. When Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda came to do the upgraded look for the Nebula-class they also didn't include visible impulse engines on the 2nd revision of the ship.
This wasn't a mistake according to Rick Sternbach. He stated that the rationalization for having no obvious impulse grilles on the ship was that:
"If the Nebula-class was employed in a stealthy surveillance mode, it would be smart to minimize all overboard emissions. this would involve capturing and compressing the impulse fusion reaction exhaust and later releasing it from special non-propulsive ports. Since most all modern impulse engines involve no pure rocket thrust, but more of a sub-warp drive, one could say that the familiar orange Starfleet glowy exhausts could be modified or eliminated."
This is also the reason why there are no visible impulse drives on the 3rd version of the ship, the redesigned CGI Nebula as well. It is also the CGI version of the ship that is the basis for the one we have in-game now. The guys who worked on Star Trek: TNG/DS9/VOY had extra time given, twice, to alter this and didn't make any attempt to do so. I think we can make our own conclusions about what they intended with the Nebula's impulse propulsion system.
Well thats a good explanation, and about the only good reasoning i've seen anyone give thanks for the reply.
You do have to admit, the ship looks out of place in our game without the Drives though, afterall there are far more advanced vessels more suited to stealthy surveillance duties than this unmanuverable behemoth of a ship.
Besides in the game atm its being used as a Science ship, not in a Tactical surveillance role, therefore it doesn't need for them to be missing. Also the Magellan Clsss is a new game variant, why hasn't that at least got them for us to choose the saucer we want then?
My other reasoning, if this non visible impulse design was so good why didn't starfleet include it on all other vessels? Plain and simple it looks silly without some sort of impulse drive glow.
Would be nice of Cryptic to give us the choice like the Excelsior Warp drives of choosing an item with or without Glow, I bet most people would go for Glow regardless of Canon. As I pointed out they have broken canon so many times anyway, it wouldn't make any difference.:p
Thanks for the input guys, it's nice to know I'm not going bananas.
Some good points raised here and I think my bottom line is that both the Magellan and Nebula are science ships, not super stealth spy ships. If stealth were the primary consideration, then why is the hull bright grey? If they have gone to the trouble of creating a whole new drive system that doesn't glow faint red, surely they would produce a dark/black hull to minimise visible light reflection?
Canon is a fine thing, but occasionally you have to go with what LOOKS good.
Thanks for the input guys, it's nice to know I'm not going bananas.
Some good points raised here and I think my bottom line is that both the Magellan and Nebula are science ships, not super stealth spy ships. If stealth were the primary consideration, then why is the hull bright grey? If they have gone to the trouble of creating a whole new drive system that doesn't glow faint red, surely they would produce a dark/black hull to minimise visible light reflection?
Canon is a fine thing, but occasionally you have to go with what LOOKS good.
Because you don't detect ships in space at that range visually, it's their power signature that's the first thing you'll pick up on long range sensors. The power signature of a starship is a distinctive energy emission unique to each individual space-faring species. Aside from the detectable neutrino emission that starships produce, known as the warp signature, it's one of the main ways to identify approaching starships while not at warp.
For example, this is how Voyager in one episode in season four, was able to know that Hirogen ships were converging on all vectors, despite the ships being over 10 light years away. They couldn't visually "see" them but they could determine from their previous encounters who they were and how far based purely off the energy emission coming from the ships.
Let's take Baran's mercenary ship from TNG for example. It's a similar principle to that, though his vessel was encased in an energy-absorbing material that rendered the ship virtually undetectable to Federation long-range sensors. It wasn't visually cloaked, but without the power signature from Baran's ship the Enterprise had no idea where they were.
As a surveillance vessel, the Nebula-class limiting its energy signature makes it more difficult to detect at long range. It's not stealth in the conventional sense, but it does make the ship harder to find and allows it to do the job required of it much easier.
Comments
I know we have impulse engines in them but its probably because as int he show the ship never has one.
No Nebula in the game has an impulse trail. its not a bug its just trying to keep it cannon as with the Excelsior sometimes trans-warp clonks out and does nothing as it did in the movie.
Honestly to hell with canon, they've broken just about everything else, subspace weapons, fed ships with cloaks, yada yada yada. The Nebula and Magellan look silly without Impulse drives period, since every other ship has one they need to address this, or perhaps put another saucer section option on the design to allow those of us who want our ships to look somewhat normal to do so. I paid for my Nebula and by god I want it to look right.
All Federation ships have an impulse drive of some sort visible, thats the canon I prefer to follow, not other people's mistakes.
The original model was designed and built by Ed Miarecki. When Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda came to do the upgraded look for the Nebula-class they also didn't include visible impulse engines on the 2nd revision of the ship.
This wasn't a mistake according to Rick Sternbach. He stated that the rationalization for having no obvious impulse grilles on the ship was that:
"If the Nebula-class was employed in a stealthy surveillance mode, it would be smart to minimize all overboard emissions. this would involve capturing and compressing the impulse fusion reaction exhaust and later releasing it from special non-propulsive ports. Since most all modern impulse engines involve no pure rocket thrust, but more of a sub-warp drive, one could say that the familiar orange Starfleet glowy exhausts could be modified or eliminated."
This is also the reason why there are no visible impulse drives on the 3rd version of the ship, the redesigned CGI Nebula as well. It is also the CGI version of the ship that is the basis for the one we have in-game now. The guys who worked on Star Trek: TNG/DS9/VOY had extra time given, twice, to alter this and didn't make any attempt to do so. I think we can make our own conclusions about what they intended with the Nebula's impulse propulsion system.
You do have to admit, the ship looks out of place in our game without the Drives though, afterall there are far more advanced vessels more suited to stealthy surveillance duties than this unmanuverable behemoth of a ship.
Besides in the game atm its being used as a Science ship, not in a Tactical surveillance role, therefore it doesn't need for them to be missing. Also the Magellan Clsss is a new game variant, why hasn't that at least got them for us to choose the saucer we want then?
My other reasoning, if this non visible impulse design was so good why didn't starfleet include it on all other vessels? Plain and simple it looks silly without some sort of impulse drive glow.
Would be nice of Cryptic to give us the choice like the Excelsior Warp drives of choosing an item with or without Glow, I bet most people would go for Glow regardless of Canon. As I pointed out they have broken canon so many times anyway, it wouldn't make any difference.:p
Some good points raised here and I think my bottom line is that both the Magellan and Nebula are science ships, not super stealth spy ships. If stealth were the primary consideration, then why is the hull bright grey? If they have gone to the trouble of creating a whole new drive system that doesn't glow faint red, surely they would produce a dark/black hull to minimise visible light reflection?
Canon is a fine thing, but occasionally you have to go with what LOOKS good.
Because you don't detect ships in space at that range visually, it's their power signature that's the first thing you'll pick up on long range sensors. The power signature of a starship is a distinctive energy emission unique to each individual space-faring species. Aside from the detectable neutrino emission that starships produce, known as the warp signature, it's one of the main ways to identify approaching starships while not at warp.
For example, this is how Voyager in one episode in season four, was able to know that Hirogen ships were converging on all vectors, despite the ships being over 10 light years away. They couldn't visually "see" them but they could determine from their previous encounters who they were and how far based purely off the energy emission coming from the ships.
Let's take Baran's mercenary ship from TNG for example. It's a similar principle to that, though his vessel was encased in an energy-absorbing material that rendered the ship virtually undetectable to Federation long-range sensors. It wasn't visually cloaked, but without the power signature from Baran's ship the Enterprise had no idea where they were.
As a surveillance vessel, the Nebula-class limiting its energy signature makes it more difficult to detect at long range. It's not stealth in the conventional sense, but it does make the ship harder to find and allows it to do the job required of it much easier.