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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2006 20:02:12 GMT
Im goona be honest, It looks fine as it is. The idea about the aux shuttle bay is good, i like the way it is sleek an looks fast and there are many other things i like about it, a very classy ship it looks so far
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jared
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Post by jared on Jun 19, 2006 20:20:48 GMT
Oh yes, this.
I spent ages trying to make the saucer fit right as the shape and after some modification now have found a way, namely by adding the deflector dish to the front of the saucer, not the engineering hull.
I've done a general redesign of the ship because it occurred to me that we're designing in the wrong scale since this is meant to be a huge ship by Starfleet standards. Given that the Intrepid classes have trouble targetting shuttles, a ship of this size would have trouble targetting Intrepid classes and similar small starships. It would also be woefully outmanouevred in any field of battle because of the sheer size compared to the usual. Starfleet ships are small because they dogfight. This would be a bomber by comparison with all the same weaknesses.
I still need to upload the pictures, but the basic structure is now that of a battleship/carrier, not a fighter. As well as the usual phaser banks/torpedo bays, the design now features pulse turrets, large anti-capital ship (something the same size as this)/anti-ground turrets, protected bridge, saucer nacelles, different main nacelle structure and a hexagonal 'engineering' hull with a large fly through fighter bay.
The rough shape remains the same and the design from before might well work as a standard size ship, but I do think here we should look more at the less conventional designs due to the much larger size.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Jun 23, 2006 2:36:01 GMT
ummm... should'nt it be an explorer, not a bomber in design?
Not to mean it won't be armed, but it still shouldn't be fcused on fighting.
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jared
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Post by jared on Jun 23, 2006 22:49:12 GMT
My point was about performance in a fight, not the focus of the design. Basically its size makes its manoeuvrability and ability to target so poor that it would lose any given fight. The only answer is quick firing turrets as seen on bomber aircraft which suffer from similar combat problems. That way each turret can be manned by trained staff and not have to rely wholly on the computer's less than perfect targetting, although that would be an option as well.
As for general focus; the appearance should always be something of a battleship. Combat is the only guaranteed time the ship would be involuntarily in danger so is the only scenario it MUST be as prepared for as possible. Since scanners and sensors tend to be fairly discreet and don't need to be mounted all over the ship, the outside is essentially the combat area. Thus the outside will look aggressive but the interior may have a wholly different focus. On standard size ships the phasers are equally discreet be design, but as mentioned before, this ship needs a wholly different approach.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Jun 27, 2006 2:11:09 GMT
umm... turrets? we have pahser strips for that. any ship can fire in any direction with those. So it's not really a problem...
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jared
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Post by jared on Jun 29, 2006 19:54:10 GMT
Phaser strips have several disadvantages, although it should be noted that they would be present as well. 1)no manual targetting; if the targetting computer is offline or has a problem, you can't aim them. This is a terrible design fault 2)they can't track fighters and small ships. Even the dinky Voyager had trouble shooting smaller targets. A Leviathan like this is going to find it difficult to shoot Intrepid sized ships with the larger phaser strips, shooting fighters would be impossible. 3)no intimidation factor. This ship would be operating on its own. Since the ethos is to stop fights before they start, the best way to do this is to make a show of power before a shot even needs to be fired at the enemy. Having a giant battleship point all guns at you is going to rattle quite a lot of less experienced captains. Conversely, when the guns are in their resting position, it is a clearer sign of non-aggression then a vague reading of no weapons active, which can often be falsified. 4)long fire time. Linked to 2, this means that a lot of energy is wasted when the phasers miss. Also according to Murphy's Law of tracer bullets, phasers are a dead giveaway of exact position. It also removes the ability to attempt to scare off multiple enemies by firing blindly at them or by giving warning shots. 5)larger cannons and photon torpedoes. Torpedoes are irreplacable. When on long range missions, the larger turrets firing their pulses can be used instead of torpedoes against ground targets and other slow moving ones. That way torpedoes can be kept for faster moving ones.
The presence of a new kind of weapon gives a certain advantage because it opens up more options and in this case covers some serious holes in defence. Like I said before, combat is the most dangerous situation this ship will involuntarily find itself in, so it's the one it needs to be best equipped for.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Jul 8, 2006 22:54:18 GMT
right. but the mission of this ship is not battle. keep that in mind. A pulse phaser bank is all fine a ndgood, but use themas supplkements, like in positions on the -A. mout those near teh phaser strips, 2 per bank, and that should do it.
But this ship is not being built for a War!
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jared
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Post by jared on Jul 11, 2006 13:26:28 GMT
Of course it is. There's no point sending a ship to do anything if it can't handle itself in combat. Otherwise it needs an escort at all times to make sure it's not destroyed. Any lone operating ship needs to be able to accomplish any task on its own. That means good scanners to scan things. Room for diplomats and cargo for trading and talking. And of course as much firepower as possible to make sure when Mr Klingon and his empire come looking to make it stardust the ship doesn't have to just abort mission and hope it can outrun them until it finds backup.
Like I said, the only time this ship would be involuntarily in danger is when it is attacked. It MUST be ready for that or else it's a dud from an engineering view from the start. A warship can have cargobays, diplomat quarters and of course powerful scanners which run off the same power source as the weapons when they're not in use, but a diplomatic ship with less guns is no good to anyone once it's dead. As an example, consider the opening scene of Star Wars; the diplomatic ship didn't stand a chance because it wasn't big and powerful enough.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Jul 27, 2006 17:50:17 GMT
this isn't star wars, in case you didn't notice. it is designed to be a lone ship- but it shoudl combine those tasks. Like I said, it is not being built for a war. it's capable to be used in a war, but it is not going to be built for one. The shape should not be determined just by war. the defiant was built jst for war, so it was shaped just for war. this sip is suposed to be capable of everything, so some should be shaped for scientific purposes- which would be a lot of surface area, unlike a millitary app. that way they could fit more sensors on there.
different shapes for dfferent purposes is all I'm saying, and we shluldn't soose everything based on it's millitary applications.
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jared
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Post by jared on Jul 28, 2006 11:10:24 GMT
First off I'll point out that Star Trek ships don't appear to have any external sensor arrays and tend to rely on probes for long distance scanning. Secondly, the Star Wars point was for illustration since all ships in Star Trek tend to be somewhat similar with less size and power difference as in Star Wars. If you want a Trek equivalent then imagine the Stargazer, a science ship vs the Ferengi warship. Or the Federation ships vs the Jem Hadar. In every case the warships won in a fight. If the flagship was made to be a utility ship then it would be destroyed first time it comes up against dedcated warships. Therefore the only reasonable thing to do is to make a warship, then give it whatever you can to make it as utilitarian as possible without compromising its combat effectiveness, as every military designer does today.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Jul 28, 2006 18:09:54 GMT
but we are not millitary desingers. the flagships of the fleets used to be the galaxy class ships. They wern't much good in a battle, but they could hold their own. the Ambasidor and excelsior classes were the same way- so were the constitutions and even somewhat the sovern class. the sovern was more focused for batttle, and was pretty close to the balance of the constituion.
Balance is the key. you're talking about completly millirary- the sensor palletes do need to go on the outside, in fact, you can see them if there's a close shot of the panel breakup, especally on the newer ships. Starfleet vessels have the high power sensors right near the deflector. the cutout on the Nova class ship is JUST for sensors. Starfleet vessels rely soley upon external sensorsto detect outside phenomenon.
Notice how all science ships are fairly flat and have a lot of exposed surface area? take the Oberth. Tons of surface area, verly little given over to weapons. take a look at starship spotter and the technical manuals- they give you a really good idea as to how ships operate in the star trek universe.
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jared
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Post by jared on Aug 6, 2006 12:49:36 GMT
That's the problem though; the people who write the manuals are civilian designers who just want to make a nice looking ship, they don't care about realism. The Constitution class was more of a warship than anything. It had no apparent external weak points and was expected to operate outside safe charted territory. The Galaxy class operated far more within known boundaries and the design of the ship suited Picard since he would try anything possible to avoid a fight. Consider if maybe the captain was chosen for the ship based on this fact. Also, at no point is an Oberth expected to ever enter heavy fighting and at no point is any given Federation ship meant to be a long way from help. The mandate of this ship was given as a lone explorer. Historically, warships have always been used when exploring was to be done. Cook, Darwin and Magellan (not Lin) all had ships and crews which could fight if needed and they didn't even expect heavy resistance. Given the potential for problems, only a civilian would send anything less than the best warship they had in case it was blown up. Of course, such a warship would be fitted with the best sensors and so on; traditionally the military has always had the best possible of anything on their vehicles. But the difference would be that whereas a dedicated science ship could have them fitted in vulnerable positions, the design of a warship would require that they be developed so that they are not a weakness. This would be by either by fitting them in shells comparable to radar domes or by simply fitting them that if attacked they just break right off and don't damage the fuselage.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Aug 8, 2006 21:51:38 GMT
No external weak points on the connie? what about the neck? the naccele struts? the Definat was the only real warship.
And remember, starfleet and the millitary are not seperate. Starfleet is primarally a defensive millitary organization, and then only secondarally. Starfleet is first and formost an exploratory organization.
Basically, we should not be thinking about millitary much at all. we should be focusing on a ship whose mission will be exploration first and formost. you cite Cook- yet he dind't know what he would encounter. Darwin you have on there mistakenly. The ship could have faught, but did not carry so much as a pistol during those voyages. she had 6 cannon in case of an emergency. hardly a warship.
My opinion is that you need to watch more Star trek. you're desiging from star wars manuals, which are scientifically improbable, and a warped veiw of starfleet.
And the Galaxy class was supposed to be a long range explorer, though that didn't turn out quite right due to plot conveinence. Notice how they're always "going where no one has gone before?"
Starfleet is an exploratory organization- who happen to be armed, jsut in case. not the other way around.
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jared
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Post by jared on Aug 9, 2006 11:45:55 GMT
The neck and nacelle struts were not intentional design flaws as shown by the later reinforcement of them. Clearly military design was at work. The shape was probably due to some sort of worry about the safety of the core since that's the only logical reason for having such an odd design. Given that the Roddenberry canon predecessor shape to the constitution was the Daedalus class with a large forward profile, it may well have been to minimise the forward profile. I am ignoring the NX class as it probably fits in with Star Trek movies 5 and 6 in that it doesn't seem to fit into established canon so is apocryphal. Either way, Roddenberry overrides Berman so Daedalus shape is the preceeding shape to constitution shape.
Cook is a perfect example; he did not know what he would encounter so he had an armed ship. Likewise Darwin went to some small islands he did not expect any resistance on, but still had more firepower than he thought he would need. The only reason Starfleet is seen as half civilian is because in a communist society like the Federation, the state provides a lot of the services so the words Federation and Starfleet blur somewhat. Either way, Starfleet is the military arm of the Federation and the only one too. It has the exploration mandate, but many expansionist regimes had similar military setups; the army was to explore and if not conquer then to entice those they met to join. You have to admit, that sounds a lot like Starfleet given the amount of times they turn up and attempt to entice people to join with the promise of military and economic aid once joined. Kirk's ship had minimal facilities, no civilians and an entirely Starfleet crew. It was a warship as much as an exploration vessel. Strangely we never heard of a Galaxy class being used as a long distance exploration ship; the Enterprise D seemed to operate always nearby to Federation territory or Federation allied territory.
As for Star Wars, yes, my designs come more from that ilk (which in fact is closer to the Asimov ideas which are generally used in science heavy science fiction) but that is for the reason that Star Trek ships are small, the suggestion for the Zenith is to make it big. If you look at any given Star Wars battleship you see real military engineering. The best example is the Star Destroyer; it has few weak spots, a flat surface which is easily defended and if you stand in front of it then every gun on the front of it can point at you. Fact is that Star Wars is far more scientifically valid than Star Trek which relies on pseudoscience and impossible concepts. Even if hyperspace is questionable, the science of Star Wars was worked out by fans with a background in engineering and science, the science of Star Trek was worked out by Steinbach and Okuda who have no scientific background at all.
It doesn't matter what Starfleet's mandate is, the design of the ship has to reflect its own individual mandate just like the Akira is a warship and thus designed as such. Any long range exploration vessel needs to be able to survive in a fight. The only way to do that is to make it as much a warship as an explorer. Otherwise you just end up creating the same old sort of ship by thinking too politically correctly as Starfleet has historically done and like all other Trek ships, it would be destroyed in a fight by anything but plot convenience.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Aug 10, 2006 20:57:37 GMT
Uh. huh. the reason the Enterprise wa designed as such wasn't anything close to logic- it was looks.
and star wars designs for WAR, damnit! Star TREK desgns for a Trek (exploratory) thorugh the galaxy. apples and oranges! the two should not be crossed, simply because they ARE NOT COMPATABLE.
while what you're suggesting would be good for a battleship, that is a very different thing then a long range explorer.
Read trek manuals- trek ships have a lot more going for them then Star wars ships in terms of design and technoligy, and ST technoligy is accually more likley. more scientifically plausable (case in point- the super laser on the death star. show me a laser that joins up like that- you won't find one.)
I could offer more examples, but this is a STAR TREK sim, not a star wars one. And if you think Star trek is warlike, you need to watch a lot more trek.
Let's stick to Star trek federation design, please.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2006 21:05:21 GMT
On that note stop patronising people, please.....you will get a lot more help out of people that way.
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jared
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Post by jared on Aug 11, 2006 18:48:12 GMT
So far most other people have given up here anyway. Any other ideas would always have been welcome and always will be.
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Aug 11, 2006 20:56:27 GMT
why don't we stick with the idea that we had before? we all agreed on that...
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Jamey Gaz
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Post by Jamey Gaz on Aug 12, 2006 0:46:16 GMT
Guys ... I, at one time, was on this flag ship project before I went Trivia Only. (... added a new member to my family ... a baby boy ;D ) ... anyway ... I just wanted to try to help here by saying ... The Federation ... after all the wars ... has found that very large explorer ... galaxy ... style ships are a thing of the past. The need to have ships that could hold their own in "dog fights" was important. I could point you to several web sites that talk about this ... but I'm sure you know them already. Now ... I know that this is S47 and we are some years in the future ... However ... I still believe that any ship that is designed here should keep in mind that protecting itself, other Federation Members, other potential Federation Members ... along with ... exploration ... even war ... is where the line of thinking should be kept. Star Wars ... Star Trek ... Star Gate ... all deal with stuff that isn't here yet ... so make it believable and it will "fly" ... I mean ... bad Sci-Fi is bad because it isn't believable ... turrets ... strips ... both ... heck ... even the Nebula Class ships had the pod above to improve all kinds of tasks from sensors to weapons. I agree with Reman Jared about the strips vs turrets ... ... and I also agree with the statement that star wars doesn't ... go with ... star trek ... but ... this is our (S47) ship ... if it is believable ... ... ... ... what the heck difference does it make? not a rhetorical question
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Aug 13, 2006 5:30:54 GMT
making it belivable. If it looks too star warsy, then it will not be belivable within the Star trek realm. We have to stick with phaser strips and a scientific mssion becasue we've seen the future- Look at Kim's ship from endgame. it's a top of the line NOVA class. the NOVA class is a science vessel. It's been modified in terms of design, showing that starfleet is still focusing a good deal fo resources on it's primary mission.
Every race in star trek has it's own desing ethic that has been developed over time. you can see the evolution of these ships, to the point where you could predict what the next desing might look like. if you want your ship to be belivable, then you have to follow those established guidlines.
if that wasn't clear, plase tell me so, and I'll try to clear it up.
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jared
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Post by jared on Aug 13, 2006 14:04:16 GMT
As I stated before the design still looks like a Federation ship, it isn't designed to ignore all design lineage, but to be both radically new and identifiably old at the same time. The trouble is that the designers so far have only taken ideas from the Star Trek universe and none else. Really we need to look at why the Zenith is as it is and ignore Endgame since the future there couldn't possibly be the same now. Firstly; Federation ships often have trouble against multiple foes and often one single warship can take out Federation ships (Jem'Hadar vs USS Odyssey?) Secondly; phser strips cannot target small, fast moving objects (Voyager vs Talaxian vessels) Thirdly; the Zenith is to be twice normal size, meaning dogfighting as Trek ships do puts it at a disadvantage (Galor class vs Peregrines) Fourthly; the Zenith class was always going to be designed with combat in mind since one of the main new features was a large shuttle/fighter hangar.
So, the question is do we want to react to these problems and design a wholly new type of ship without throwing away Federation design lineage, or ignore/minimise them by resizing the Zenith back down to a normal size and not really making it anything special?
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Magellan Lin
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Post by Magellan Lin on Aug 13, 2006 16:40:12 GMT
I would suggest a more reasonable size - Politically speaking there is no reason for S47 to have a monster ship.
The Victory A was a huge ship - one of them Wells/Relativity class things, it didnt last long - not many CO'd by Loc did LOL. But such a large ship with such a large crew never seemed in keeping and I dunno didnt sim to sim great - but perhaps that was just coz I was a green eared newbie back then on my first posting LOL
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Jamey Gaz
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Post by Jamey Gaz on Aug 14, 2006 4:25:19 GMT
I agree with making the class a smaller ship ...
and about those turrets ... after doing some web surfing ... the Soyuz class ship (USS Bozeman NCC-1941 to be exact) had turrets ... very Star Wars looking turrets. The Soyuz class was the class that Greg Jein modified the Miranda model for TNG: "Cause and Effect".
DS9 had turrets ... the ones that were saw in the later seasons.
Heck ... even the Prometheus Class looks like a X-wing fighter ...
(and that is just just some of the examples I found during my web search)
so ... believable ... yeah .... very believable
I think they could be done in an updated ... new way that it would fit
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Jamey Gaz
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Post by Jamey Gaz on Aug 14, 2006 4:28:43 GMT
Please go to this web site ... www.trekships.org/sketches.htm... and look at the one called "Chimera (3)" After reading all the posts on this thread ... I think that this is what we are looking for ... ... along those lines anyway ... rounded primary hull, easy accessible hangers for fighters, warp on the bottom ... kick the tires a bit and tell me what do ya'll think ...
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cptjeff
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Post by cptjeff on Aug 15, 2006 18:36:25 GMT
It looks like the perfect comprimise ship. Trouble is, I dont' like the lines. too flat to me, I think we should have a distinct saucer and engineering section, and make it about sov. size. I think it was planned that this would have saucer sepeation, and that clearly doesnt' do that.
on another note, I'm fine with rollbar turrets. and on that note, what about the Chimera 4 with pylons connecting the nacceles to the engineering hull as well? That way, in a SS scenario, you can choose which section would need them more. For example, if you wnat to ahve a mobile defense in orbit of a planet whil the saucer goes off scouting, that's doable. you could also use it in the traditonal stardrive/saucer strategy.
That has tactical advantages as well. If one section's about to blow, the otehr can get away at warp. we saw that with the ent-D in gen. It needed to get away faster. Also more parts that starfleet dosen't have to rebuild.
We could also tinker with it more to get it jsut right but I think that's a good direction. It only ahs one big shuttle bay, but again, we can modify it.
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