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Enterprise [TOS] Deck Plans - Perhaps the most detailed ever produced...

Jag2112Jag2112171 Posts: 3Member
For those of you who are fans of the old Franz Joseph 'Star Trek' blueprints which were the first produced deck plans of the original Enterprise, you're in for a treat.

Graphic artist Jim Botaitis has created a new set of deck plans that are among the most detailed I've ever come across.

See the set here:

https://cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/tos-enterprise-deckplans.php

Enjoy-

Posts

  • GuerrillaGuerrilla789 HelsinkiPosts: 2,865Administrator
    Moving to General Discussion
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  • sorceress21sorceress21269 Posts: 577Member
    edited July 2020 #3
    There's actually better deck plan out there.

    But interesting, and I disagree with a great many of his internal arrangement conclusions. He's got some scale errors that account for his "deck fitment" interpolations. The biggest one is the "height" of each deck. He states due to the height of the set walls being 10 feet, that doesn't allow for 11 decks to be present in the Primary hull. The problem here is he went too short with his scale reference marker. If you use the length he stated of 947 ft, measure that length out on his deck arrangement diagram with his posted scale marker and there's error one. Using his scale marker the length of the ship in his diagram is 937.5 ft. long. A full 10 ft. shorter then what he stated in his explanation and a 9 inch error per his represented foot converted from meters.

    Then measure his "people" icons based on that scale. His icon comes in a just under two meters making them right at 6 ft. Then using a people icon as a scale to measure 6 ft, looking at them placed on a deck does, as he say, make the internal deck height from floor to ceiling 8ft. However, being his scale marker is too short, once you correct that then the deck height from floor to ceiling goes up to about 11 ft. With a foot of deck between decks his "fitment problems" that he uses to re-design long standing deck plans becomes unnecessary.

    Also, there is zero canon reference for there to be a swimming pool on a Connie Class Starship or any Federation Starship for that matter.

    Yes I was bored.
    Post edited by sorceress21 on
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    edited July 2020 #4
    This ship is a scale mess. There's no way to line up a deck plan, as evidenced by the exterior view with the deck lines on it. You can see them intersecting windows in some places. The problem is, the ship was clearly supposed to be smaller in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. This is evidenced by the larger bridge dome that supposedly contains the same size of bridge and the fact that stuff like the saucer rim and teardrop only had one row of windows. When they modified the model for the series, they clearly increased the sizeof the ship by decreasing the height of the bridge and adding extra rows of windows. That's likely what threw the scale of the ship off. Matt Jefferies tried to fix it with his revised drawings, which is where the 947ft length comes from, but you just can't fix it.

    To get it to work with the amount of decks Jim Botaitis wants to have, you have to increase the size of the ship. (I've done the math before) To get it to work with anything resembling a deck plan that makes sense, you have to change the positions of the windows. This is why you don't resize your ship after you've already added details that set the scale.

    For the interior size, we can just use Leonard Nimoy, who was 6ft tall. Using the image below, you can clearly see the room he's in is much larger than what is shown on these deck plans:

    ictgam0znnh4.jpg

    So, yeah, obviously none of this actually works. Trying to assign a deck plan to this ship is the equivalent of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Either the peg or the hole has to be modified.
    Post edited by evil_genius_180 on
  • sorceress21sorceress21269 Posts: 577Member
    edited July 2020 #5
    Part of the issue too is he's assuming uniform dimensions for each deck.

    Deck 24, especially, doesn't need to be a full height deck at all, nor do a couple of the decks on the connecting dorsal. That reduced deck height spread out over the remaining decks along with his scale/length miscalculation gives plenty of room to make it work.

    The other issue is recognizing the little known production fact that, with few exceptions such as the transporter pad, TOS sets did not have ceilings. That was a production cost savings measure and if you really pay attention when watching the show, where a ceiling would be is always slightly out of frame. Therefore one really can't use something like the image above to justify a standard deck height as you have to dismiss production limitations out of the equation and go with more sound "hypothetical engineering."

    For the image above, you just have to "assume" the compartment's overhead is just an inch or two above the top of the door alcove. Had they made ceilings for the sets, that's about where it would be.

    Basing deck height off images of TOS sets is really the most widely mistaken assumption by artists who have attempted to justify the TOS interiors against the outboard design of the Enterprise to make deck plans. It's why it never works out.
    Post edited by sorceress21 on
    evil_genius_180
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804255 Posts: 11,034Member
    edited July 2020 #6
    You're right on all accounts, of course. No, there was no uniform deck height. There are definitely rooms that are taller than others. Even the decks themselves can vary. For instance, corridors can be much taller than the individual rooms. And, no, there are no ceilings on most of the rooms. Not only did that save them money in set construction, but bulky 60s filming equipment was also easier to maneuver in larger spaces.

    I was merely using the above image as an example of how tall some of the internal spaces can be. They're definitely taller than what is on the drawings. But, not all of them are.
    Post edited by evil_genius_180 on
  • sorceress21sorceress21269 Posts: 577Member
    edited July 2020 #7
    You're right on all accounts, of course. No, there was no uniform deck height. There are definitely rooms that are taller than others. Even the decks themselves can vary. For instance, corridors can be much taller than the individual rooms. And, no, there are no ceilings on most of the rooms. Not only did that save them money in set construction, but bulky 60s filming equipment was also easier to maneuver in larger spaces.

    I was merely using the above image as an example of how tall some of the internal spaces can be. They're definitely taller than what is on the drawings. But, not all of them are.

    You're good bro..wasn't referring to your example as the origin of that approach, was talking about his rationale he laid out in the notes on sheet 1 that I saw you as just illustrating. Sorry, I communicate on a message board about as good as Sheldon Cooper talks.

    Post edited by sorceress21 on
  • publiusrpubliusr550 Posts: 1,746Member
    At the trekbbs, Yotsuya at trek tech is working on some—and Kerr is working on a book project
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