Currently, we already have the very first Enterprise Ship design (from Star Trek: Enterprise.)
And also the Constitution class...
But almost every ship of the federation are just the typical two pylon, and a saucer...
No just "One pylon" under or upper the ship.
There should be design like this on the game, could bring more diversity, and maybe new class of ship why not?
Just interest in this design, feel free to tell your opinion about it.
As much as I like that particular Kelvin design. We won't actually SEE that Kelvin design in STO due to the fact; That particular Kelvin Design is a property of Paramount Pictures due to the fact it was made for the 2009 Star Trek movie. There's a lot of other single pylon designs in there. Such as the Freedom and others (Mentioned in this thread). the only reason why they were never really seen on screen (Saved for one in Best of Both Worlds as a destroyed Hulk). Is because it's against Rodenberry's Starship design theory.
But hey, there might be a chance we'll see a single pylon ship show itself. It's just down to CBS really.
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Cryptic Join Date: March 2010
"We will not go quietly into the night" ~Independence Day
I'm with you on this - I didn't find it to be a very entertaining movie. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was a bad movie, but I DO feel that it was a poor TREK movie.
Though I willingly admit, the 'opening' of the movie, the backstory if you will, involving the Kelvin, George Kirk etc, was great; my problem is that the rest of the movie didn't have the 'heart' that said opening/backstory had and became a dull explosion/aciton fest that didn't give you much to think about and expected us to swallow some, frankly, ridiculous coincidences that brought the crew together.
And so far as the destruction of Vulcan goes, I'll quote Bernd Schnieder of EAS fame on that one:
90% of the time the 1st 5 minutes of the movie will be the best. Because all the mover rater people only watch the 1st 5 minutes.
The single nacelle plus saucer designs originate in soft canon, specifically the TOS technical manual, circa 1976 or 77 and some novelizations. Soft canon designs typically are not owned by CBS and are tricky to acquire.
One could argue that JJTrek canonized it by placing it in the timeline before Nero's arrival, but that would still most likely make it an IP belonging to that film and not part of STOs package deal.
While I find the design unattractive, I also hate the quad nacelle designs, and I have no objection to them being ingame, just don't force me to fly them.
The more ship designs the better, so bring on the gimpy one nacelle destroyer/scout class.
PS On the big screen all JJ Abrams movies are fun to watch. I walked out of the theatre thinking JJTrek was the best thing since I saw TWoK in the same theatre almost 30 year before. Thing is, I can watch TWoK again and still be amazed....JJTrek on subsequent viewings just....I don't know, bores me?
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
The graphic artists who worked on the Kelvin in Star Trek (2009) did a great job. It looks beautiful on screen, but here is why I'm glad that it's not in STO.
These are the Unofficial (Federation) Starship Design rules "as told to (Andrew Probert, head of the design team for the Enterprise in ST:TMP and primary designer of the Enterprise-D) by Gene Roddenberry..."
Maybe these should be stickied somewhere in the forums?
If you have a good reason to break these rules, then go for it -- feel free to make your case. But 'know the rules before you break them' is the first step in building that 'good' argument.
There are both out of universe reasons (good fiction writing/storytelling, brand identity, etc.) for these rules and in universe 'technobabble' reasons. The 'tech' reasons have their own storytelling merit in universe, but largely the 'in universe' explanation exists to support the 'out of universe' reasons. A good reason to break the rules will have both a 'storytelling' and a 'technical' explanation.
Why follow those rules at all? Isn?t Trek all about being open minded? Yes, Trek is -- therefore that is the best of the 'poor' arguments (we will look at an example of an actual 'good' argument soon) that can be made -- but here is why I still prefer to keep those rules in regards to Kelvin and STO in general.
#1 -- Keep in mind these rules apply only to Federation (earth) ships. I'm all about ships from other factions, even other races not following these rules. In fact, I want other races/factions to break these rules -- but they should each follow their own set of rules (like the Vulcan and Caitian ships pretty much do). Why?
#2 -- It is about how you see the relationship between audience and author in fiction. It is not about what 'looks pretty/ugly' or what is 'open/narrow minded'. This is the major philosophical difference in the two sides of this debate. I don't want fiction to be bound by the laws of 'reality' (If that's what I wanted, I would be consuming non-fiction in the first place.) I want my fiction to be bound by the laws of 'internal consistency' -- whatever logic is established in the fictional universe.
From that POV, it is part of the unspoken 'contract' between author and viewer. It's not because "Gene said so. So it must be followed because I am a Trek zealot who cannot accept new ideas." It's because I want SOME set of rules to define what 'Federation' looks like. Since Gene gave us a perfectly good set, I say run with them.
For people working on an established franchise the challenge is always how to keep things new/fresh but keep true to the core/spirit of the original. A set of rules like this keeps the new material 'intellectually honest'. It prevents new ship designs from creating 'cognitive dissonance'. Each race/culture should have its own distinct look to keep it visually set apart from the other factions/races. From a fiction POV it helps create an 'identity' or persona for each group. From a filmmaking/technical POV it helps the audience track the action on screen. Both are essential to visual storytelling.
Just like fictional characters should behave 'in character' (Han shot first) unless there is a major story arc reason for them to change (Han comes back to help fight Death Star), the ship design philosophies make it seem like the designs are 'in character'. Unless you want to tell a story where the Federation has a major shift in 'character' (like 'they no longer stand for the ideals that Gene wanted them to stand for', or 'we are in a different universe', etc.) then there is no good reason for the look of the ships to change beyond what is allowed in the guidelines.
This is exactly what we see happening with the "All Good Things" future Enterprise. The three nacelle ship is from a 'distorted' alternate universe in which something has gone 'wrong' and the crew needs to 'undo' the damage to the timeline. There is something not right about this twisted universe and even the look of the enterprise tells us that 'we are not in Kansas anymore'. So not only is the whole point of a third nacelle to subconsciously tell the audience something is 'wrong', but since it violates the in universe 'technical' reasons that support the rule, there is an in universe explanation of why the 'broken' universe is allowed to bend the rule:
Rule #1 Warp nacelles *must* be in pairs.
"The 'All Good Things' Enterprise is explained not to violate these because it has two warp field coils in each nacelle, thus creating three pairs. The Franz Joseph Designs single-nacelle ships are not official canon..."
These rules are part of what gives Trek (Federation ships) a unique flavor. As a consumer of entertainment, I want Trek to continue supplying this flavor. Otherwise I could consume Star Wars, BSG, or some other brand of Sci-Fi. I also want Trek to stay new/fresh/and bring in some (does not need to be all) new fans from each new generation that comes along. The rules allow artists to play with style/lines (blocky/sleek), ship 'skin' colors/patterns, ship configurations as much as they want within these guidelines and know that the core audience will still accept the new designs as looking 'Federation flavored'.
If the artists do great work, hopefully most audience members will never even stop to think about it, they will just accept the new design with no disruption to their "willing suspension of disbelief". The "willing" part means that I WANT to believe the story teller when they say "here is a new Fed ship design". Finding just the right balance of a loose, flexible, but consistent 'framework' is crucial to making this work. I think the rules we have a terrific set of guidelines for making this possible.
In real life, after enough hundreds of years, it might be more realistic if the Federation came up with a totally different design -- but this is fiction. The established guidelines make it more likely that the audience will react to new designs by thinking "Wow that is a totally new different look for a federation ship, but somehow it still looks totally like a Federation ship." If done well, by talented artists, this is like a magician's 'false choice'. New skin, configurations, etc. make a new ship look 'different' enough but the design guidelines make sure it looks enough 'the same'.
If a person wants to argue for throwing out any of these basic rules, then I'm happy to hear them support that argument. But they should just understand that it amounts to saying "I fundamentally dislike the traditional look of Federation ships". These rules are what make Fed ships look Fed. If a person claims that they love/want to keep the basic/core design elements, but yet they want to break any of these rules, it kind of falls under the heading of urinating on my leg and telling me it's raining.
Again, in "All good Things" the writers 'get away' with breaking the rules because they understand them. They want a way to visually communicate to the audience that something is 'off' in this alternate timeline, so they use their knowledge and understanding of the rules to come up with a way to make the Enterprise look 'wrong' on purpose. Unfortunately, there are already a few ships in cannon that break these rules without good reason (Oberth, Defiant, etc.), so naturally I don't expect Cryptic to leave them out, but I hope that Cryptic does not add any more original ships that violate those rules.
Why doesn't Cryptic just send off its lawyers to negotiate with Paramount to get permission to use their Trek stuff too?
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Why doesn't Cryptic just send off its lawyers to negotiate with Paramount to get permission to use their Trek stuff too?
Because there are better things they could spend resources negotiating for. Like more cannon music.
One of the things I love about the original STO opening scene is how well it clarified that STO is not the JJ universe. I hope it stays that way.:cool:
Based on what I've heard about trying to license music...
They'd probably have an easier time negotiating with Paramount.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I could go on, but three examples completely contradicting your current position is enough.
You're talking about adding additional costume elements (and by additional I mean randomly cutting a pasting components from one ship to another) to already existing ships, not creating entirely new ones. That, for STO, is the equivalent of a reskin.
You're right, because no matter how wrong it's shown to be, you're still sticking to the absurd notion that playing Frankenstein with ship components simply to satisfy your need to be unique somehow isn't a bad thing.
Yup, you are definitly understanding what YOU want to iunderstand.
Example
"Originally Posted by kuronyra76
Just imagine for a second with Odyssey class, armitage, Defiant, Galaxy-X, cruiser with nacelle on the top of there saucer.
And hybrid class.
You can have some really nice design there."
You obviously didn't get what I mean here. It was New class of ship, like the Galaxy-X is for the "Galaxy-D".
I was meaning there a new class of ship taking the already know design of the odyssey class, but adding a new nacelle giving more turn rate for example and taking out another advantage.
Same for the other's post.
Understand what you want.
I understand myself, and that's the important.
Search2: Thank you for your explication about the design. Much way more clear that what the "other guy" say: only the same thing without explication.
Sad for the design, but if it's necessary regarding the "rules"...
Still, new there should be new class of ship available for low tier player. (It's basicaly take the ship in pair with your character typ and deal with it.)
Yup, you are definitly understanding what YOU want to iunderstand.
Example
"Originally Posted by kuronyra76
Just imagine for a second with Odyssey class, armitage, Defiant, Galaxy-X, cruiser with nacelle on the top of there saucer.
And hybrid class.
You can have some really nice design there."
You obviously didn't get what I mean here. It was New class of ship, like the Galaxy-X is for the "Galaxy-D".
I was meaning there a new class of ship taking the already know design of the odyssey class, but adding a new nacelle giving more turn rate for example and taking out another advantage.
Same for the other's post.
Understand what you want.
I understand myself, and that's the important.
Point of interest: accurate, intelligible and consistent communication typically helps when you're trying to convince others of something. By my count, you're zero for three.
The graphic artists who worked on the Kelvin in Star Trek (2009) did a great job. It looks beautiful on screen, but here is why I'm glad that it's not in STO.
A shame they butchered the size and scale of it, but that's a rant for another day.
Again, in "All good Things" the writers 'get away' with breaking the rules because they understand them. They want a way to visually communicate to the audience that something is 'off' in this alternate timeline, so they use their knowledge and understanding of the rules to come up with a way to make the Enterprise look 'wrong' on purpose. Unfortunately, there are already a few ships in cannon that break these rules without good reason (Oberth, Defiant, etc.), so naturally I don't expect Cryptic to leave them out, but I hope that Cryptic does not add any more original ships that violate those rules.
In all fairness, both the Defiant and Oberth classes adhere fairly well to the design philosophies (except for the Defiant and it's bridge, which to be honest makes complete sense for a warship, but that's yet another rant for another), they just do it in a less than traditional manner.
Point of interest: accurate, intelligible and consistent communication typically helps when you're trying to convince others of something. By my count, you're zero for three.
Again, understand what you want. You are just blind to yourself.
For the Defiant, first time I saw it, on a picture. My first thinking that it was a new ship for Star Wars or BattleStar Galactica (admit it, the Viper of this series is just pure win ).
But after saw it in action in DS9. Well, I wasn't still convinced that it was really a "star trek" look. Even at this moment sometime I'm asking myself "why this so particular design".
Yes it was designed specificly for fight with extreme firepower.
Still, he still look like just a "Honor Star Trek Federation vessel", and not a true one.
I'm not saying this design is bad. But I'm saying this design is weird for a Federation Ship... Probably what give him that sort of charism.
But I'm saying this design is weird for a Federation Ship...
That's because it, and the other designs slated for the borg task force, were designed around a concept that was completely alien to the Starfleet that had existed for over two hundred years: to fight.
Up until that point, everything was exploration and science with just enough firepower to hold back the barbarians. This was the first generation of ships built solely to drop the hammer.
The Defiant is the Federation response to the Bird of Prey:
Small, Quick and a nasty frontal firepower... And that's it.
Typically Starfleet designs it's ships with as wide a weapons coverage as possible, but sacrificing raw strength in the process.
The Defiant by comparison, is designed as a very small and resource light ship, sacrificing overall coverage, with a tradeoff in pure damage up front.
At the same time, it has a very small profile up front, making sence when you go for a head on assault (less surface you can target).
Is the design typical starfleet? no... Absoultely not... And it's not exactly something starfleet embraced even during the dominion wars (we only saw the defiant class being so diffrent), and we also know that there were definitive designflaws (for example the Valiant and Defiant both had to ignore certain safety procedures to even be allowed to go above warp 2 I think it was).
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Is the design typical starfleet? no... Absoultely not... And it's not exactly something starfleet embraced even during the dominion wars (we only saw the defiant class being so diffrent), and we also know that there were definitive designflaws (for example the Valiant and Defiant both had to ignore certain safety procedures to even be allowed to go above warp 2 I think it was).
While it wasn't taken up whole hog, you'll notice that warships built during the war (I'm specifically citing the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant classes here) all share the same narrower profile as compared to earlier era ships.
They're longer, flatter, and (relatively speaking) better armed than any predecessor their size and weight.
While it wasn't taken up whole hog, you'll notice that warships built during the war (I'm specifically citing the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant classes here) all share the same narrower profile as compared to earlier era ships.
They're longer, flatter, and (relatively speaking) better armed than any predecessor their size and weight.
I was talking specifically the Defiant.
All the ships you mentioned there, along with the Sov, are all part of what has become known as the "Anti Borg fleet". Designs invented to in some degree help fight the Borg.
If you take a close look, the general idea remains throughout most of thoose ships:
They all have a saucer, they all have a secondary hull, two free "hanging" nacells that we are used to see in starfleet designs, and they all are mainly equipped with phaser strips, rather than cannons.
The only ship from that design line, apart from the Defiant, that deviates from the above mentioned feature is the saber that is mainly a saucer only (much like the Defiant).
The Defiant is what it is: A warship... Small, Strong, with a now crew count (83 if memory serves) and not that expensive to build (meaning easy to replace).
But the rest of those ships are not that...
Generally Starfleet considers no one expendable. The Defiant (and Saber) class does not exactly live up to that design philosophy.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
The only ship from that design line, apart from the Defiant, that deviates from the above mentioned feature is the saber that is mainly a saucer only (much like the Defiant).
The Akira is radically different. With a heavy focus on torpedoes and strike craft as opposed to phasers or cannons. The Saber has it's secondary hull, but no neck, and the nacelles are mounted directly to the "saucer". And the Steamrunner's "secondary hull" is little more than a deflector on a string. Not to mention the nacelles that were practically poked through the primary hull.
As for expandability, I disagree. You don't take the effort to armor the hell out of a ship if you consider it a throwaway piece of cannon fodder. As well, the Saber I believe is radically undersized in STO in relationship to the Defiant class. It (Saber) should measure up at over 250m, more than twice the length of the Defiant if memory serves.
The Akira is radically different. With a heavy focus on torpedoes and strike craft as opposed to phasers or cannons. The Saber has it's secondary hull, but no neck, and the nacelles are mounted directly to the "saucer". And the Steamrunner's "secondary hull" is little more than a deflector on a string. Not to mention the nacelles that were practically poked through the primary hull.
As for expandability, I disagree. You don't take the effort to armor the hell out of a ship if you consider it a throwaway piece of cannon fodder. As well, the Saber I believe is radically undersized in STO in relationship to the Defiant class. It (Saber) should measure up at over 250m, more than twice the length of the Defiant if memory serves.
I agree, they are diffrent, but not as radically as the Defiant and Saber.
I don't think the Akira is that diffrent. Yes it has a weapons pod up top... So does the Patrol variant of the Nebula.
The only thing that truely sets it apart is the "secondary hull".
And if you look at the Steamrunner from almost every angle (except straight top, bottom and sides), it could just as well be a close relative to a small Ambassador... Feel free to seek out images from diffrent angles.
I still think both the Defiant and Saber, are generally designed to not be hard and expensive to replace. Hence in military terms, regardless of armor and weapons, it's considered expendable, over say, an Excelsior, Ambassador, Nebula or Galaxy Class.
About size: I never use STO as a basis for comparison... not sure why you bring it up here, but for comparison: during Operation Return, the saber didn seem much larger than the Defiant.
The Defiant is roughly 120 Meters in length, whilst the saber is 190 meters. so thats only 70 meters in diffrence.
In comparison the Akria seems to be about 500 Meters in length, and the Steamrunner roughly 375 Meters (All sizes are from memory alpha).
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
I agree, they are diffrent, but not as radically as the Defiant and Saber.
I don't think the Akira is that diffrent. Yes it has a weapons pod up top... So does the Patrol variant of the Nebula.
The only thing that truely sets it apart is the "secondary hull".
I completely disagree. The Akira not only carries more torpedo firepower than just about anything else Starfleet ever fielded (15 launchers all told), but it's the first (and as far as I'm aware the only) example of a Federation ship designed specifically as a carrier.
The weapons pod on an Akira is just that, 10 launchers and a magazine. The mission pod on a Nebula is a fundamentally different (and considerably larger) structure.
About size: I never use STO as a basis for comparison... not sure why you bring it up here, but for comparison: during Operation Return, the saber didn seem much larger than the Defiant.
The Defiant is roughly 120 Meters in length, whilst the saber is 190 meters. so thats only 70 meters in diffrence.
In comparison the Akria seems to be about 500 Meters in length, and the Steamrunner roughly 375 Meters (All sizes are from memory alpha).
Ex Astris puts the Saber at over 230 meters long (per the ILM size chart for First Contact. SoA is not the best source for estimating dimensions given the relatively short screen time everything had, and the lack of "hard" dimensions for any reference objects, not to mention the constantly changing PoV), which based on it's spatial dimension would make the ship somewhere in the 250-280 meters wide range. That would make it several times larger than the Defiant.
You guys do know that Paramount owns CBS... Viacom owns both of them right? So... Ergo, Cryptic through PWE has to go through Viacom to get the rights for any and all ships in the game.
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You guys do know that Paramount owns CBS... Viacom owns both of them right? So... Ergo, Cryptic through PWE has to go through Viacom to get the rights for any and all ships in the game.
National Amusements, Inc might have a controlling share of both Viacom and CBS Corporation, but CBS spun off the Viacom as its own company name back in 2005. There's a lot of right hand/left hand business that goes on in situations like that.
If you read my message, you will see that the main problem is the licence... not the ship.
As I said, since the Kelvin was build before Nero joined the alternate timeline, it's technically canon, and not an issue on that point...
But yes... it was a very bad movie.
I agree with you on the part of the ship being canon. Even if Nero did not show up the Kelvin would have still been there. I do not agree that the movie was bad. I liked it a lot.
I agree with you on the part of the ship being canon. Even if Nero did not show up the Kelvin would have still been there. I do not agree that the movie was bad. I liked it a lot.
You don't have to agree with me... I can't force you to be right ^^ :P xD
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
At the end of the day, any Trekkies that give a care about Trek-Law will notice that Kelvin makes no logical sense. The Crew number and massive size asside!
This ship disobeys all Trek-Law in design; The most obvious one being that the ONE nacelle as opposed to Two+ has exaust/thrust coming out the back of it!
The more hardcore Trekkie you are, the less that ship or ANY of the Abram-Ships make sense.
It's on this basis that I think JJ made a great movie-Worst Trek... You can't respect a franchise by chucking out all of its Law!.. especailly a Science Fiction no less!
STAR TREK CONTINUES
Episode One - A Single MomentEpisode Two - InfancyEpisode Three - Unto the Breach Episode Four - Head Of A NeedleEpisode Five: The Duality of MenEpisode Six - Redemption Earned Episode Seven - Shattered UniverseEpisode Eight - The Gepetto ConditionEpisode Nine - One Room, Two Officers Episode Ten - Beyond The Farthest StarEpisode Eleven - It's OK, It Won't HurtEpisode Twelve - A Protracted Officer Episode Thirteen - SomewhenEpisode Fourteen - The Boy Who LivedEpisode Fifthteen - Empathy
Wait? A canon or soft canon one? I don't seem to remember that one...
If we count the Saladin the I am cool with it, but I don't remember a on-screen example of a single nacelle Starfleet ship, pre TNG.
If you can, please re-direct me there... I would like to add it to my memory banks.
(This was a serious, non-trolling request btw).
Technically it would be the Hermes since I don't believe you get a front-on schema of the Saladin like you do with the Hermes (to confirm that the ship in fact had only one nacelle).
You are correct in that there is no "On Screen" moment where one appears, but the sensor readouts are unambiguous as far as I'm concerned, even if it is only a bit appearance.
Technically it would be the Hermes since I don't believe you get a front-on schema of the Saladin like you do with the Hermes (to confirm that the ship in fact had only one nacelle).
You are correct in that there is no "On Screen" moment where one appears, but the sensor readouts are unambiguous as far as I'm concerned, even if it is only a bit appearance.
Schematic, sensor reading or battle scene... If it's been onscreen, its defined as hard canon.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Of course that ship makes no sense either since without a engineering hull there is no deflector and it would mean the reactor would be in the saucer section.
Not a TOS/TMP era ship however.
The deflector would have been on the front end of the saucer (deflectors don't need to be round), akin to how the Constellation is designed, and a saucer mounted warp core makes perfect sense in the absence of a secondary hull.
Comments
As much as I like that particular Kelvin design. We won't actually SEE that Kelvin design in STO due to the fact; That particular Kelvin Design is a property of Paramount Pictures due to the fact it was made for the 2009 Star Trek movie. There's a lot of other single pylon designs in there. Such as the Freedom and others (Mentioned in this thread). the only reason why they were never really seen on screen (Saved for one in Best of Both Worlds as a destroyed Hulk). Is because it's against Rodenberry's Starship design theory.
But hey, there might be a chance we'll see a single pylon ship show itself. It's just down to CBS really.
Cryptic Join Date: March 2010
"We will not go quietly into the night" ~Independence Day
90% of the time the 1st 5 minutes of the movie will be the best. Because all the mover rater people only watch the 1st 5 minutes.
One could argue that JJTrek canonized it by placing it in the timeline before Nero's arrival, but that would still most likely make it an IP belonging to that film and not part of STOs package deal.
While I find the design unattractive, I also hate the quad nacelle designs, and I have no objection to them being ingame, just don't force me to fly them.
The more ship designs the better, so bring on the gimpy one nacelle destroyer/scout class.
PS On the big screen all JJ Abrams movies are fun to watch. I walked out of the theatre thinking JJTrek was the best thing since I saw TWoK in the same theatre almost 30 year before. Thing is, I can watch TWoK again and still be amazed....JJTrek on subsequent viewings just....I don't know, bores me?
These are the Unofficial (Federation) Starship Design rules "as told to (Andrew Probert, head of the design team for the Enterprise in ST:TMP and primary designer of the Enterprise-D) by Gene Roddenberry..."
Maybe these should be stickied somewhere in the forums?
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/design.htm
If you have a good reason to break these rules, then go for it -- feel free to make your case. But 'know the rules before you break them' is the first step in building that 'good' argument.
There are both out of universe reasons (good fiction writing/storytelling, brand identity, etc.) for these rules and in universe 'technobabble' reasons. The 'tech' reasons have their own storytelling merit in universe, but largely the 'in universe' explanation exists to support the 'out of universe' reasons. A good reason to break the rules will have both a 'storytelling' and a 'technical' explanation.
Why follow those rules at all? Isn?t Trek all about being open minded? Yes, Trek is -- therefore that is the best of the 'poor' arguments (we will look at an example of an actual 'good' argument soon) that can be made -- but here is why I still prefer to keep those rules in regards to Kelvin and STO in general.
#1 -- Keep in mind these rules apply only to Federation (earth) ships. I'm all about ships from other factions, even other races not following these rules. In fact, I want other races/factions to break these rules -- but they should each follow their own set of rules (like the Vulcan and Caitian ships pretty much do). Why?
#2 -- It is about how you see the relationship between audience and author in fiction. It is not about what 'looks pretty/ugly' or what is 'open/narrow minded'. This is the major philosophical difference in the two sides of this debate. I don't want fiction to be bound by the laws of 'reality' (If that's what I wanted, I would be consuming non-fiction in the first place.) I want my fiction to be bound by the laws of 'internal consistency' -- whatever logic is established in the fictional universe.
From that POV, it is part of the unspoken 'contract' between author and viewer. It's not because "Gene said so. So it must be followed because I am a Trek zealot who cannot accept new ideas." It's because I want SOME set of rules to define what 'Federation' looks like. Since Gene gave us a perfectly good set, I say run with them.
For people working on an established franchise the challenge is always how to keep things new/fresh but keep true to the core/spirit of the original. A set of rules like this keeps the new material 'intellectually honest'. It prevents new ship designs from creating 'cognitive dissonance'. Each race/culture should have its own distinct look to keep it visually set apart from the other factions/races. From a fiction POV it helps create an 'identity' or persona for each group. From a filmmaking/technical POV it helps the audience track the action on screen. Both are essential to visual storytelling.
Just like fictional characters should behave 'in character' (Han shot first) unless there is a major story arc reason for them to change (Han comes back to help fight Death Star), the ship design philosophies make it seem like the designs are 'in character'. Unless you want to tell a story where the Federation has a major shift in 'character' (like 'they no longer stand for the ideals that Gene wanted them to stand for', or 'we are in a different universe', etc.) then there is no good reason for the look of the ships to change beyond what is allowed in the guidelines.
This is exactly what we see happening with the "All Good Things" future Enterprise. The three nacelle ship is from a 'distorted' alternate universe in which something has gone 'wrong' and the crew needs to 'undo' the damage to the timeline. There is something not right about this twisted universe and even the look of the enterprise tells us that 'we are not in Kansas anymore'. So not only is the whole point of a third nacelle to subconsciously tell the audience something is 'wrong', but since it violates the in universe 'technical' reasons that support the rule, there is an in universe explanation of why the 'broken' universe is allowed to bend the rule:
Rule #1 Warp nacelles *must* be in pairs.
"The 'All Good Things' Enterprise is explained not to violate these because it has two warp field coils in each nacelle, thus creating three pairs. The Franz Joseph Designs single-nacelle ships are not official canon..."
These rules are part of what gives Trek (Federation ships) a unique flavor. As a consumer of entertainment, I want Trek to continue supplying this flavor. Otherwise I could consume Star Wars, BSG, or some other brand of Sci-Fi. I also want Trek to stay new/fresh/and bring in some (does not need to be all) new fans from each new generation that comes along. The rules allow artists to play with style/lines (blocky/sleek), ship 'skin' colors/patterns, ship configurations as much as they want within these guidelines and know that the core audience will still accept the new designs as looking 'Federation flavored'.
If the artists do great work, hopefully most audience members will never even stop to think about it, they will just accept the new design with no disruption to their "willing suspension of disbelief". The "willing" part means that I WANT to believe the story teller when they say "here is a new Fed ship design". Finding just the right balance of a loose, flexible, but consistent 'framework' is crucial to making this work. I think the rules we have a terrific set of guidelines for making this possible.
In real life, after enough hundreds of years, it might be more realistic if the Federation came up with a totally different design -- but this is fiction. The established guidelines make it more likely that the audience will react to new designs by thinking "Wow that is a totally new different look for a federation ship, but somehow it still looks totally like a Federation ship." If done well, by talented artists, this is like a magician's 'false choice'. New skin, configurations, etc. make a new ship look 'different' enough but the design guidelines make sure it looks enough 'the same'.
If a person wants to argue for throwing out any of these basic rules, then I'm happy to hear them support that argument. But they should just understand that it amounts to saying "I fundamentally dislike the traditional look of Federation ships". These rules are what make Fed ships look Fed. If a person claims that they love/want to keep the basic/core design elements, but yet they want to break any of these rules, it kind of falls under the heading of urinating on my leg and telling me it's raining.
Again, in "All good Things" the writers 'get away' with breaking the rules because they understand them. They want a way to visually communicate to the audience that something is 'off' in this alternate timeline, so they use their knowledge and understanding of the rules to come up with a way to make the Enterprise look 'wrong' on purpose. Unfortunately, there are already a few ships in cannon that break these rules without good reason (Oberth, Defiant, etc.), so naturally I don't expect Cryptic to leave them out, but I hope that Cryptic does not add any more original ships that violate those rules.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Because there are better things they could spend resources negotiating for. Like more cannon music.
One of the things I love about the original STO opening scene is how well it clarified that STO is not the JJ universe. I hope it stays that way.:cool:
They'd probably have an easier time negotiating with Paramount.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Yup, you are definitly understanding what YOU want to iunderstand.
Example
"Originally Posted by kuronyra76
Just imagine for a second with Odyssey class, armitage, Defiant, Galaxy-X, cruiser with nacelle on the top of there saucer.
And hybrid class.
You can have some really nice design there."
You obviously didn't get what I mean here. It was New class of ship, like the Galaxy-X is for the "Galaxy-D".
I was meaning there a new class of ship taking the already know design of the odyssey class, but adding a new nacelle giving more turn rate for example and taking out another advantage.
Same for the other's post.
Understand what you want.
I understand myself, and that's the important.
Search2: Thank you for your explication about the design. Much way more clear that what the "other guy" say: only the same thing without explication.
Sad for the design, but if it's necessary regarding the "rules"...
Still, new there should be new class of ship available for low tier player. (It's basicaly take the ship in pair with your character typ and deal with it.)
Point of interest: accurate, intelligible and consistent communication typically helps when you're trying to convince others of something. By my count, you're zero for three.
A shame they butchered the size and scale of it, but that's a rant for another day.
In all fairness, both the Defiant and Oberth classes adhere fairly well to the design philosophies (except for the Defiant and it's bridge, which to be honest makes complete sense for a warship, but that's yet another rant for another), they just do it in a less than traditional manner.
Again, understand what you want. You are just blind to yourself.
For the Defiant, first time I saw it, on a picture. My first thinking that it was a new ship for Star Wars or BattleStar Galactica (admit it, the Viper of this series is just pure win
But after saw it in action in DS9. Well, I wasn't still convinced that it was really a "star trek" look. Even at this moment sometime I'm asking myself "why this so particular design".
Yes it was designed specificly for fight with extreme firepower.
Still, he still look like just a "Honor Star Trek Federation vessel", and not a true one.
I'm not saying this design is bad. But I'm saying this design is weird for a Federation Ship... Probably what give him that sort of charism.
That's because it, and the other designs slated for the borg task force, were designed around a concept that was completely alien to the Starfleet that had existed for over two hundred years: to fight.
Up until that point, everything was exploration and science with just enough firepower to hold back the barbarians. This was the first generation of ships built solely to drop the hammer.
Small, Quick and a nasty frontal firepower... And that's it.
Typically Starfleet designs it's ships with as wide a weapons coverage as possible, but sacrificing raw strength in the process.
The Defiant by comparison, is designed as a very small and resource light ship, sacrificing overall coverage, with a tradeoff in pure damage up front.
At the same time, it has a very small profile up front, making sence when you go for a head on assault (less surface you can target).
Is the design typical starfleet? no... Absoultely not... And it's not exactly something starfleet embraced even during the dominion wars (we only saw the defiant class being so diffrent), and we also know that there were definitive designflaws (for example the Valiant and Defiant both had to ignore certain safety procedures to even be allowed to go above warp 2 I think it was).
While it wasn't taken up whole hog, you'll notice that warships built during the war (I'm specifically citing the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Defiant classes here) all share the same narrower profile as compared to earlier era ships.
They're longer, flatter, and (relatively speaking) better armed than any predecessor their size and weight.
I was talking specifically the Defiant.
All the ships you mentioned there, along with the Sov, are all part of what has become known as the "Anti Borg fleet". Designs invented to in some degree help fight the Borg.
If you take a close look, the general idea remains throughout most of thoose ships:
They all have a saucer, they all have a secondary hull, two free "hanging" nacells that we are used to see in starfleet designs, and they all are mainly equipped with phaser strips, rather than cannons.
The only ship from that design line, apart from the Defiant, that deviates from the above mentioned feature is the saber that is mainly a saucer only (much like the Defiant).
The Defiant is what it is: A warship... Small, Strong, with a now crew count (83 if memory serves) and not that expensive to build (meaning easy to replace).
But the rest of those ships are not that...
Generally Starfleet considers no one expendable. The Defiant (and Saber) class does not exactly live up to that design philosophy.
The Akira is radically different. With a heavy focus on torpedoes and strike craft as opposed to phasers or cannons. The Saber has it's secondary hull, but no neck, and the nacelles are mounted directly to the "saucer". And the Steamrunner's "secondary hull" is little more than a deflector on a string. Not to mention the nacelles that were practically poked through the primary hull.
As for expandability, I disagree. You don't take the effort to armor the hell out of a ship if you consider it a throwaway piece of cannon fodder. As well, the Saber I believe is radically undersized in STO in relationship to the Defiant class. It (Saber) should measure up at over 250m, more than twice the length of the Defiant if memory serves.
I agree, they are diffrent, but not as radically as the Defiant and Saber.
I don't think the Akira is that diffrent. Yes it has a weapons pod up top... So does the Patrol variant of the Nebula.
The only thing that truely sets it apart is the "secondary hull".
And if you look at the Steamrunner from almost every angle (except straight top, bottom and sides), it could just as well be a close relative to a small Ambassador... Feel free to seek out images from diffrent angles.
I still think both the Defiant and Saber, are generally designed to not be hard and expensive to replace. Hence in military terms, regardless of armor and weapons, it's considered expendable, over say, an Excelsior, Ambassador, Nebula or Galaxy Class.
About size: I never use STO as a basis for comparison... not sure why you bring it up here, but for comparison: during Operation Return, the saber didn seem much larger than the Defiant.
The Defiant is roughly 120 Meters in length, whilst the saber is 190 meters. so thats only 70 meters in diffrence.
In comparison the Akria seems to be about 500 Meters in length, and the Steamrunner roughly 375 Meters (All sizes are from memory alpha).
I completely disagree. The Akira not only carries more torpedo firepower than just about anything else Starfleet ever fielded (15 launchers all told), but it's the first (and as far as I'm aware the only) example of a Federation ship designed specifically as a carrier.
The weapons pod on an Akira is just that, 10 launchers and a magazine. The mission pod on a Nebula is a fundamentally different (and considerably larger) structure.
Ex Astris puts the Saber at over 230 meters long (per the ILM size chart for First Contact. SoA is not the best source for estimating dimensions given the relatively short screen time everything had, and the lack of "hard" dimensions for any reference objects, not to mention the constantly changing PoV), which based on it's spatial dimension would make the ship somewhere in the 250-280 meters wide range. That would make it several times larger than the Defiant.
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Ask Cryptic: June 2011
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=556501
[...]until CBS/Paramount come to some sort of agreement over the new movies, we will not be able to add any items or references from the "JJ" movies.
I agree with you on the part of the ship being canon. Even if Nero did not show up the Kelvin would have still been there. I do not agree that the movie was bad. I liked it a lot.
You don't have to agree with me... I can't force you to be right ^^ :P xD
This ship disobeys all Trek-Law in design; The most obvious one being that the ONE nacelle as opposed to Two+ has exaust/thrust coming out the back of it!
The more hardcore Trekkie you are, the less that ship or ANY of the Abram-Ships make sense.
It's on this basis that I think JJ made a great movie-Worst Trek... You can't respect a franchise by chucking out all of its Law!.. especailly a Science Fiction no less!
Episode Four - Head Of A Needle Episode Five: The Duality of Men Episode Six - Redemption Earned
Episode Seven - Shattered Universe Episode Eight - The Gepetto Condition Episode Nine - One Room, Two Officers
Episode Ten - Beyond The Farthest Star Episode Eleven - It's OK, It Won't Hurt Episode Twelve - A Protracted Officer
Episode Thirteen - Somewhen Episode Fourteen - The Boy Who Lived Episode Fifthteen - Empathy
Wait? A canon or soft canon one? I don't seem to remember that one...
If we count the Saladin the I am cool with it, but I don't remember a on-screen example of a single nacelle Starfleet ship, pre TNG.
If you can, please re-direct me there... I would like to add it to my memory banks.
(This was a serious, non-trolling request btw).
Technically it would be the Hermes since I don't believe you get a front-on schema of the Saladin like you do with the Hermes (to confirm that the ship in fact had only one nacelle).
You are correct in that there is no "On Screen" moment where one appears, but the sensor readouts are unambiguous as far as I'm concerned, even if it is only a bit appearance.
Schematic, sensor reading or battle scene... If it's been onscreen, its defined as hard canon.
Not a TOS/TMP era ship however.
The deflector would have been on the front end of the saucer (deflectors don't need to be round), akin to how the Constellation is designed, and a saucer mounted warp core makes perfect sense in the absence of a secondary hull.