I'm trying not to overdo the greebles but at the same time add visual interest. Starfleet vessels of the 24th century seem to be hit or miss as far as actually having these arrays. I wanted to do one because I like them. The Ambassador class has one and it glows, the Nova class (Equinox, not sure on the Rhode Island has one and it looks like it should glow, but the ship was badly damaged. The Galaxy, (and kitbashes) Sovereign and Intrepid all have shuttles there. (that makes no sense to me, but it is what it is) The Nova class also has a shuttle, in front of the planetary sensor. Most other 24th century ships that aren't kitbashes range from having nothing there to having nondescript greebles. Like I said, I like the sensors, so my ship has one.
It's all fun and games until you put a window cutter in the ideal spot and it's intersecting a grid line:
Needless to say, moving the grid line was a lot of fun:
After fixing that, I set up a line of window cuts:
Two booleans modifiers and a join later:
The windows are all hand placed. This seemed easier to me than trying to rotate them in an ellipse. I tried that to varying degrees of success in Lightwave. After a few tries of that, I usually just wound up freehand moving and rotating the window cutters and lining them up with the curve in the part. I did that here and it looks OK. Aside from windows, I also added some RCS thrusters, phasers and registries.
There are still a whole lot more windows to do, but it's a start. I also need to start adding escape pods.
I didn't care for the window widths or the spacing on that row of windows, so I redid them.
I've noticed with a lot of Next Gen ships that the windows tend to be long and skinny, especially on the saucer underside. The length on mine looked pretty good, but they were too wide. Also, I didn't have enough space between them. I'm mainly using the Galaxy, Nebula and Wolf 359 ships as a gauge.
Trying to figure out where to put a docking port on this ship was a chore. The contours of the hull don't really leave a lot of somewhat flat surfaces. I figured out that just above and behind the deflector was going to be my best bet. I managed to carve out a little nook for the port. I may do one up top when I make the bridge too.
With the invention and widespread adoption of transporter technology, I figure that ship to ship docking was mostly a thing of the ancient past by the time this ship launched. It was widely used in Enterprise, but not TOS or any show that takes place afterwards. And even 24th century shuttles were shown on many occasions to have transporters. So, I figure this is mainly used for docking with stations. Using a tube as seen in the episode 11001001, there should be no problem for this ship to dock with a Starbase.
I went with the backup plan and I just cut a notch out of the edge of the saucer. It's not really what I wanted to do, but I didn't like the other options.
Edit: A whole mess of renders, showing how this doesn't really affect the lines of the ship.
It's visible, which is good so that people don't ask how the ship docks with things. But, it's nothing that ruins the look of the saucer edge, in my opinion. Once I add the sensor arrays on the edge, it should fit right in.
Always nice to see a "Golden Era" TNG design. IMO, there aren't enough pre-Defiant Destroyers, even though they should make up a vast portion of the Fleet. Sounds like you've been overthinking the placement of the docking ports. There is a reason most (Federation) designs place them on the edges of the primary hull. If you are at all concerned about the docking port ruining the shape of the saucer, I've seen models with moving parts (often landing gear and such).
I figure you have enough experience to design the docking port to retract behind a series of panels when not in use?
Sounds like you've been overthinking the placement of the docking ports. There is a reason most (Federation) designs place them on the edges of the primary hull. If you are at all concerned about the docking port ruining the shape of the saucer, I've seen models with moving parts (often landing gear and such).
I wouldn't say I was overthinking it, it's an important part of the ship. It's important that details are believable and, if you think the ship literally can't dock with something due to the placement and size of the part, then it takes you out of the design from a realism standpoint. IE: the incredibly small docking ports on the NX-01 that don't even match the size of the internal doors that we saw in a few episodes.
By TNG, most ships don't have them on the saucer edges. In fact, only a handful of canon designs do. The Constitution class, (refit) Miranda, NX-class, Intrepid type (from Enterprise) and Intrepid class are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The Titan-A/Enterprise-G might as well, but it's hard to find references for that side of the saucer and I don't own Picard season 3 yet. Of course, the Nebula class USS Leeds was seen docked at DS9 using an alleged docking port on its saucer edge starting in the season 4 opening credits, but there's no docking port modeled there on the Nebula or the Galaxy. But, I think that was one of those things where they realized they didn't model any docking ports on the Nebula class (a lot of ships have this deficiency) because they never figured they'd need to show one docked. When they did, they just faked it. Ships like the Ambassador and Galaxy have them in the neck.
I figure you have enough experience to design the docking port to retract behind a series of panels when not in use?
Yes, but that always feels like a cop-out to me. Going "oh, it's behind this panel" feels like an excuse to not actually model something, or even worse, to simply say that after the fact because you realize you forgot a detail.
That makes sense for the Liberty class because it's a TOS ship that follows the detail light aesthetic of the TOS era. I think we can assume that most details we don't see in that era are hidden behind panels.
A lot of people like to complain that the earlier era (prequel stuff) has more details, as does the later era, so they think the TOS stuff doesn't fit. However, that can be explained by Starfleet trying something different during that era. Trying something different doesn't always work out, hence why they went back to exposed details.
For the movies and later, we see more of those exposed details, so I try to go that route with stuff from that era. Of course, some ships still have stuff behind panels, such as the Defiant's escape pods. That makes sense for a heavily armored ship.
I might have to redo the windows again. I started adding escape pods and I realized the windows are way too big:
Now, according to TNG, the pill shaped windows on the Enterprise-D are fuggin' huge. Looking at these screencaps, you can easily see the windows in Picard's quarters are at least three quarters of a meter wide and two to three meters tall:
The escape pod hatches on my model are appropriately sized at 3m x 3m. (actually, slightly larger because that's the size of the pod itself and we saw this type of escape pod launch on Voyager where the hatch opens and the pod comes out) So, yeah, I need to redo the windows because mine are over five meters tall and 1.5 wide. Yikes!
I also added some more windows and more lifeboats. For clarity's sake, the area between C deck, which is the lower raised section on the upper saucer, and the phaser array is only 1 deck, due to the slope of the saucer. Due to this, there's only 1 row of windows, and those are skylights. The escape pods are actually in the deck below, (E deck) and they launch upward through shafts that go through the non habitable sections of D deck.
According to the TNG technical manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, the standard ASRV escape usually holds 4 people, but it has enough space and provisions for up to 6 people. There are currently 36 pods (with more planned) and the ship can currently evacuate 144 to 216 people. I'm thinking the crew capacity is probably around 300, but there will also be families and passenger accommodations. So, we need plenty of pods. Then Ent-D carried 400 pods, meaning it could evacuate 1600 to 2400 people and its normal crew was a little over 1000.
Sounds like you've been overthinking the placement of the docking ports. There is a reason most (Federation) designs place them on the edges of the primary hull. If you are at all concerned about the docking port ruining the shape of the saucer, I've seen models with moving parts (often landing gear and such).
I wouldn't say I was overthinking it, it's an important part of the ship. It's important that details are believable and, if you think the ship literally can't dock with something due to the placement and size of the part, then it takes you out of the design from a realism standpoint. IE: the incredibly small docking ports on the NX-01 that don't even match the size of the internal doors that we saw in a few episodes./quote]
I think that you misinterpreted my meaning. You were trying so hard to match the configuration of the TNG design elements, rather than making logical design decision. Sometimes, the most obvious choice is the best one to make. It just makes sense that the docking ports would be on the rims of the saucers of compact designs like the New Orleans and Challenger classes. If I'm not mistaken, the Intrepid class has them in her ovoid section section, because her primary hull and nacelles would be a liability to docking procedures.
By TNG, most ships don't have them on the saucer edges. In fact, only a handful of canon designs do. The Constitution class, (refit) Miranda, NX-class, Intrepid type (from Enterprise) and Intrepid class are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The Titan-A/Enterprise-G might as well, but it's hard to find references for that side of the saucer and I don't own Picard season 3 yet. Of course, the Nebula class USS Leeds was seen docked at DS9 using an alleged docking port on its saucer edge starting in the season 4 opening credits, but there's no docking port modeled there on the Nebula or the Galaxy. But, I think that was one of those things where they realized they didn't model any docking ports on the Nebula class (a lot of ships have this deficiency) because they never figured they'd need to show one docked. When they did, they just faked it. Ships like the Ambassador and Galaxy have them in the neck.
Those docking port locations only work because of the big, long necks. It makes sense that the docking ports would be on the saucer rim of ships like a Nebula class, because the Nebula class lacks a neck completely! Just because they weren't on the models, doesn't mean that they don't belong there.
I figure you have enough experience to design the docking port to retract behind a series of panels when not in use?
Yes, but that always feels like a cop-out to me. Going "oh, it's behind this panel" feels like an excuse to not actually model something, or even worse, to simply say that after the fact because you realize you forgot a detail.
It's only lazy if it's not actually modeled and rigged in. It would only make sense for warships like the Defiant that need to be completely armored, including any possible structural liabilities including docking ports.
Those docking port locations only work because of the big, long necks. It makes sense that the docking ports would be on the saucer rim of ships like a Nebula class, because the Nebula class lacks a neck completely! Just because they weren't on the models, doesn't mean that they don't belong there.
The saucer rim of the Nebula and Galaxy have sensor trenches. It makes it really hard to pretend there's a port there when there's not really room for one. The truth is, the Nebula was a rushed affair, made as quickly as possible using the 4-foot Galaxy molds for the saucer and nacelles. They didn't even have time to change the window sizes to make the Nebula a smaller ship, as was the original intent. And, since the script for "The Wounded" didn't call for the ship to be docked, I'm sure docking ports weren't a priority. We first saw the Sutherland docked at the McKinley style station in "Redemption, Pt2" but that style of station doesn't require docking ports. The first time the model was docked at DS9 was in the episode "Second Sight," when it was the USS Prometheus. (no, not that one) Like when it was the USS Leeds, they had it docked at the saucer. Now, I'm not saying there couldn't port there, but the saucer molds they used weren't designed for it and the Nebula was never meant to be docked. So, when they went to do the comp shot, someone probably asked where the thing attached to the station and someone else was probably like "eh, just do it on the saucer rim." That's very typical of how they do effects shots, like when the nutrient beam from the Enterprise's "phasers" in "Encounter at Farpoint" came from the captain's yacht, and when tractor beams came from the Enterprise-D running lights. Though, the difference in those instances is that Andrew Probert designed the correct details and they were on the model, they simply weren't used correctly. (the "Encounter at Farpoint" error was corrected for the Blu-Ray)
I think that you misinterpreted my meaning. You were trying so hard to match the configuration of the TNG design elements, rather than making logical design decision. Sometimes, the most obvious choice is the best one to make. It just makes sense that the docking ports would be on the rims of the saucers of compact designs like the New Orleans and Challenger classes. If I'm not mistaken, the Intrepid class has them in her ovoid section section, because her primary hull and nacelles would be a liability to docking procedures.
That wasn't the most obvious choice to me. I didn't design the saucer rim with docking ports in mind. In fact, I didn't design any hull contour with docking ports in mind. However, I never thought I was going to put one on the saucer edge. My idea was always to have the sensor greeble trenches all around the saucer rim, except for where the thrusters and impulse engines are, like the galaxy. But, I had to alter that plan when my original plan of putting them on the "secondary hull" led to ugliness.
I hate the bridge modules on a lot of TNG era ships. To me, they look like ugly misshapen things that don't really say "bridge" to me.
So, for my ship, I kinda went with a callback to earlier ships, as well as later ships (Voyager, FC ships, etc.)
I'm also thinking about a large pod for up top. My idea is that this ship isn't necessarily a predecessor to the Nebula, but maybe a smaller sibling. Besides, I have an idea for the pod that I want to try out. Also, a pod will give me room for aft weaponry, since most of the upper aft phaser arcs would intersect the nacelles. I'll probably also do torpedo launchers in the pod, like the Nebula.
Did you ever watch "The Joy of Painting" and you'd really be digging a painting until Bob Ross decided to "have a little fun" and put a big f***ing tree right in front?
There are no giant wedge mistakes, only happy spots to place phaser arrays.
Heh, I definitely don't view it as a mistake. I just figure someone's gonna be like "Well, I liked it until you put a Dorito up top."
And yes, definitely will be getting some phasers. I never like to put weapons directly onto engines, that seems like a recipe for disaster to me. However, on the thing hanging over the engines is fine.
I felt the bridge was a bit on the small side and I didn't care for the shape, so I did a new one. I'm still trying to invoke the oddly shaped structures we saw in the TNG era but not have it be a blob. So, I took inspiration from the Constitution and kind of went with something inspired by the TOS bridge and teardrop. And I kept the spine going up onto the back of the bridge structure, because that was the part of the previous bridge that I liked best, but I refined it.
I might or might not add the turbolift nubbins. It's safe to say I'm on the fence with those. To keep with the TNG aesthetic, I'm thinking this is going to be one of those "guest bridge of the week" kind of deals, but I haven't decided if the bridge has two turbolifts or one, and I want to have a ready room too. I almost did a bump out on the sides for the ready room and conference lounge like Voyager, but I decided not to.
Posts
I'm trying not to overdo the greebles but at the same time add visual interest. Starfleet vessels of the 24th century seem to be hit or miss as far as actually having these arrays. I wanted to do one because I like them. The Ambassador class has one and it glows, the Nova class (Equinox, not sure on the Rhode Island has one and it looks like it should glow, but the ship was badly damaged. The Galaxy, (and kitbashes) Sovereign and Intrepid all have shuttles there. (that makes no sense to me, but it is what it is) The Nova class also has a shuttle, in front of the planetary sensor. Most other 24th century ships that aren't kitbashes range from having nothing there to having nondescript greebles. Like I said, I like the sensors, so my ship has one.
Needless to say, moving the grid line was a lot of fun:
After fixing that, I set up a line of window cuts:
Two booleans modifiers and a join later:
The windows are all hand placed. This seemed easier to me than trying to rotate them in an ellipse. I tried that to varying degrees of success in Lightwave. After a few tries of that, I usually just wound up freehand moving and rotating the window cutters and lining them up with the curve in the part. I did that here and it looks OK. Aside from windows, I also added some RCS thrusters, phasers and registries.
There are still a whole lot more windows to do, but it's a start. I also need to start adding escape pods.
I've noticed with a lot of Next Gen ships that the windows tend to be long and skinny, especially on the saucer underside. The length on mine looked pretty good, but they were too wide. Also, I didn't have enough space between them. I'm mainly using the Galaxy, Nebula and Wolf 359 ships as a gauge.
With the invention and widespread adoption of transporter technology, I figure that ship to ship docking was mostly a thing of the ancient past by the time this ship launched. It was widely used in Enterprise, but not TOS or any show that takes place afterwards. And even 24th century shuttles were shown on many occasions to have transporters. So, I figure this is mainly used for docking with stations. Using a tube as seen in the episode 11001001, there should be no problem for this ship to dock with a Starbase.
Thanks Eric.
Aligning the text on the opposite side was a minor pain because I couldn't just mirror it like I could the chevron, oval and stripes.
Edit: A whole mess of renders, showing how this doesn't really affect the lines of the ship.
It's visible, which is good so that people don't ask how the ship docks with things. But, it's nothing that ruins the look of the saucer edge, in my opinion. Once I add the sensor arrays on the edge, it should fit right in.
I figure you have enough experience to design the docking port to retract behind a series of panels when not in use?
I wouldn't say I was overthinking it, it's an important part of the ship. It's important that details are believable and, if you think the ship literally can't dock with something due to the placement and size of the part, then it takes you out of the design from a realism standpoint. IE: the incredibly small docking ports on the NX-01 that don't even match the size of the internal doors that we saw in a few episodes.
By TNG, most ships don't have them on the saucer edges. In fact, only a handful of canon designs do. The Constitution class, (refit) Miranda, NX-class, Intrepid type (from Enterprise) and Intrepid class are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The Titan-A/Enterprise-G might as well, but it's hard to find references for that side of the saucer and I don't own Picard season 3 yet. Of course, the Nebula class USS Leeds was seen docked at DS9 using an alleged docking port on its saucer edge starting in the season 4 opening credits, but there's no docking port modeled there on the Nebula or the Galaxy. But, I think that was one of those things where they realized they didn't model any docking ports on the Nebula class (a lot of ships have this deficiency) because they never figured they'd need to show one docked. When they did, they just faked it. Ships like the Ambassador and Galaxy have them in the neck.
Yes, but that always feels like a cop-out to me. Going "oh, it's behind this panel" feels like an excuse to not actually model something, or even worse, to simply say that after the fact because you realize you forgot a detail.
A lot of people like to complain that the earlier era (prequel stuff) has more details, as does the later era, so they think the TOS stuff doesn't fit. However, that can be explained by Starfleet trying something different during that era. Trying something different doesn't always work out, hence why they went back to exposed details.
For the movies and later, we see more of those exposed details, so I try to go that route with stuff from that era. Of course, some ships still have stuff behind panels, such as the Defiant's escape pods. That makes sense for a heavily armored ship.
Thanks. It's not my first choice (obviously) but it works.
Now, according to TNG, the pill shaped windows on the Enterprise-D are fuggin' huge. Looking at these screencaps, you can easily see the windows in Picard's quarters are at least three quarters of a meter wide and two to three meters tall:
The escape pod hatches on my model are appropriately sized at 3m x 3m. (actually, slightly larger because that's the size of the pod itself and we saw this type of escape pod launch on Voyager where the hatch opens and the pod comes out) So, yeah, I need to redo the windows because mine are over five meters tall and 1.5 wide. Yikes!
I also added some more windows and more lifeboats. For clarity's sake, the area between C deck, which is the lower raised section on the upper saucer, and the phaser array is only 1 deck, due to the slope of the saucer. Due to this, there's only 1 row of windows, and those are skylights. The escape pods are actually in the deck below, (E deck) and they launch upward through shafts that go through the non habitable sections of D deck.
According to the TNG technical manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, the standard ASRV escape usually holds 4 people, but it has enough space and provisions for up to 6 people. There are currently 36 pods (with more planned) and the ship can currently evacuate 144 to 216 people. I'm thinking the crew capacity is probably around 300, but there will also be families and passenger accommodations. So, we need plenty of pods. Then Ent-D carried 400 pods, meaning it could evacuate 1600 to 2400 people and its normal crew was a little over 1000.
The saucer rim of the Nebula and Galaxy have sensor trenches. It makes it really hard to pretend there's a port there when there's not really room for one. The truth is, the Nebula was a rushed affair, made as quickly as possible using the 4-foot Galaxy molds for the saucer and nacelles. They didn't even have time to change the window sizes to make the Nebula a smaller ship, as was the original intent. And, since the script for "The Wounded" didn't call for the ship to be docked, I'm sure docking ports weren't a priority. We first saw the Sutherland docked at the McKinley style station in "Redemption, Pt2" but that style of station doesn't require docking ports. The first time the model was docked at DS9 was in the episode "Second Sight," when it was the USS Prometheus. (no, not that one) Like when it was the USS Leeds, they had it docked at the saucer. Now, I'm not saying there couldn't port there, but the saucer molds they used weren't designed for it and the Nebula was never meant to be docked. So, when they went to do the comp shot, someone probably asked where the thing attached to the station and someone else was probably like "eh, just do it on the saucer rim." That's very typical of how they do effects shots, like when the nutrient beam from the Enterprise's "phasers" in "Encounter at Farpoint" came from the captain's yacht, and when tractor beams came from the Enterprise-D running lights. Though, the difference in those instances is that Andrew Probert designed the correct details and they were on the model, they simply weren't used correctly. (the "Encounter at Farpoint" error was corrected for the Blu-Ray)
That wasn't the most obvious choice to me. I didn't design the saucer rim with docking ports in mind. In fact, I didn't design any hull contour with docking ports in mind. However, I never thought I was going to put one on the saucer edge. My idea was always to have the sensor greeble trenches all around the saucer rim, except for where the thrusters and impulse engines are, like the galaxy. But, I had to alter that plan when my original plan of putting them on the "secondary hull" led to ugliness.
Thanks.
I hate the bridge modules on a lot of TNG era ships. To me, they look like ugly misshapen things that don't really say "bridge" to me.
So, for my ship, I kinda went with a callback to earlier ships, as well as later ships (Voyager, FC ships, etc.)
I'm also thinking about a large pod for up top. My idea is that this ship isn't necessarily a predecessor to the Nebula, but maybe a smaller sibling. Besides, I have an idea for the pod that I want to try out. Also, a pod will give me room for aft weaponry, since most of the upper aft phaser arcs would intersect the nacelles. I'll probably also do torpedo launchers in the pod, like the Nebula.
Did you ever watch "The Joy of Painting" and you'd really be digging a painting until Bob Ross decided to "have a little fun" and put a big f***ing tree right in front?
Heh, I definitely don't view it as a mistake. I just figure someone's gonna be like "Well, I liked it until you put a Dorito up top."
And yes, definitely will be getting some phasers. I never like to put weapons directly onto engines, that seems like a recipe for disaster to me. However, on the thing hanging over the engines is fine.
I might or might not add the turbolift nubbins. It's safe to say I'm on the fence with those. To keep with the TNG aesthetic, I'm thinking this is going to be one of those "guest bridge of the week" kind of deals, but I haven't decided if the bridge has two turbolifts or one, and I want to have a ready room too. I almost did a bump out on the sides for the ready room and conference lounge like Voyager, but I decided not to.
Thanks.