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3DIngram Class - Odysseus Variant, 24th Century Refit.
Jayru
1150
UKPosts: 708Member
As many of you know (and if you donA’t - *shrug* guess youA’ll catch up as we go along) I finished a big ass mesh project when I built a version of Todd GuentherA’s Ingram Class Space Control Ship. I didnA’t just build the one mesh; in the end I built five distinct meshes, each A“slightlyA†different (down to panel and colour schemes as well). All part of a grand plan of mine and Todd GuentherA’s to demonstrate that if Starfleet was real, no two ships of the same class would really be the same - and to show that over time a ship class design would change and evolve with new builds as new ideas, new technologies and new needs came into play.
I havenA’t included the original mesh I built before Todd and I got into our grand plan - because that mesh is an archived version never to see the light of day again. And after swearing that I would never build another of these ships, I did; a distinct version for a fan-film project (and folks, those people are treating my baby with a great deal of respect and using it properly :thumb:).
So, over the course of the 7/8 years I worked on this, seven meshes in total :argh:
Yeah, youA’re right to think that in the end I get fed up with it - as well as all the crap that went along with having to explain that the whole Ingram/Excelsior shabang. Google it and find out what the difference is if you need to, but the two classes are different, they just happen to have similar lines. The Ingram - the Odysseus Variant in particular, happens to be a damn sight sleeker and sexier IMOHO. But then, IA’m biased
AnyhowA… and before I kill you all with boredom; given the last of the ships, the USS Kamcaira NCC-2605 was launched in 2297 and served for a good fifty-sixty years, I started to think about what would happen to the ship over time, whether it would ever have undergone the sort of extensive refit the original Enterprise did to bring it up to date.
And of course, yes she would have done. All Starfleet vessels would have done. The only reason we didnA’t see evidence of it on screen was because of the rather sucky fact that the production team didnA’t have the cash to splash out on new models and couldnA’t get away with extensively changing the existing movie models they ended up using. ItA’s easy to forget, but when TNG was first being made, the original cast had only made four of the six movies they would end up making, so those models had to be kept in case of movie needs
And yes, it goes against the grain perhaps and against canon (as far as what was shown on screen), but am I the only one bugged by the fact that every Excelsior Class ever built looked the same as the first one? Every Oberth Class the same as the one blown to dust in Star Trek III? At least the Miranda Class got varied a little - but at its core - the class stayed the same as originally built. You never saw any new technology on those classes of ship (that includes the Ent-B version of the Excelsior - none of the changes added anything other than 23rd Century tech).
Never heard a convincing argument as to why Starfleet never updated those designs as they built new ones (aside from the real world one that the production crew couldnA’t change the physical models too much).
SoA… Kamcaira as she would have been when launched in 2297;
And the beginnings of a 24th Century style refit circa 2332;
Will I be including TNG style phaser arrays? Yes. But more in line with the style on the Ambassador Class, who I shall be matching a little for details of the time period, including the window shapes and lifeboat hatches. I shall be looking at the colour scheme as well.
IA’ve started with the saucer section, reshaping it to be more TNG in style. IA’ve kept a small undercut, as opposed as to the sweeping one of old. I figure a refit would seek to improve things if technology allowed, so this change improves the internal space of the saucer by not cutting a deck out, and adds a larger dome underneath.
More details to be added, plan to work on a section, finish it and then move on to the next. Time permitting IA’ll try and get my idea sketches up so you can see where IA’m thinking of going with all this. I plan to do a refit of this baby as extensive as the one the Enterprise got in TMP, no section left untouched. And maybe then I can suggest that this girl got to hang around in service for a few decades longer before being retired off and sent out to pasture.
Comment away - BUT; do not ask if I would be willing to do another of these ships for your fan-film/fan-whatever project, or if you can have this one. The Kamcaira already has a home. I have no plans to build a ninth version after this one is done. The purpose of this is intellectual curiosity and to be pleasant distraction from the unpleasant
More as and when folks :thumb:
I havenA’t included the original mesh I built before Todd and I got into our grand plan - because that mesh is an archived version never to see the light of day again. And after swearing that I would never build another of these ships, I did; a distinct version for a fan-film project (and folks, those people are treating my baby with a great deal of respect and using it properly :thumb:).
So, over the course of the 7/8 years I worked on this, seven meshes in total :argh:
Yeah, youA’re right to think that in the end I get fed up with it - as well as all the crap that went along with having to explain that the whole Ingram/Excelsior shabang. Google it and find out what the difference is if you need to, but the two classes are different, they just happen to have similar lines. The Ingram - the Odysseus Variant in particular, happens to be a damn sight sleeker and sexier IMOHO. But then, IA’m biased
AnyhowA… and before I kill you all with boredom; given the last of the ships, the USS Kamcaira NCC-2605 was launched in 2297 and served for a good fifty-sixty years, I started to think about what would happen to the ship over time, whether it would ever have undergone the sort of extensive refit the original Enterprise did to bring it up to date.
And of course, yes she would have done. All Starfleet vessels would have done. The only reason we didnA’t see evidence of it on screen was because of the rather sucky fact that the production team didnA’t have the cash to splash out on new models and couldnA’t get away with extensively changing the existing movie models they ended up using. ItA’s easy to forget, but when TNG was first being made, the original cast had only made four of the six movies they would end up making, so those models had to be kept in case of movie needs
And yes, it goes against the grain perhaps and against canon (as far as what was shown on screen), but am I the only one bugged by the fact that every Excelsior Class ever built looked the same as the first one? Every Oberth Class the same as the one blown to dust in Star Trek III? At least the Miranda Class got varied a little - but at its core - the class stayed the same as originally built. You never saw any new technology on those classes of ship (that includes the Ent-B version of the Excelsior - none of the changes added anything other than 23rd Century tech).
Never heard a convincing argument as to why Starfleet never updated those designs as they built new ones (aside from the real world one that the production crew couldnA’t change the physical models too much).
SoA… Kamcaira as she would have been when launched in 2297;
And the beginnings of a 24th Century style refit circa 2332;
Will I be including TNG style phaser arrays? Yes. But more in line with the style on the Ambassador Class, who I shall be matching a little for details of the time period, including the window shapes and lifeboat hatches. I shall be looking at the colour scheme as well.
IA’ve started with the saucer section, reshaping it to be more TNG in style. IA’ve kept a small undercut, as opposed as to the sweeping one of old. I figure a refit would seek to improve things if technology allowed, so this change improves the internal space of the saucer by not cutting a deck out, and adds a larger dome underneath.
More details to be added, plan to work on a section, finish it and then move on to the next. Time permitting IA’ll try and get my idea sketches up so you can see where IA’m thinking of going with all this. I plan to do a refit of this baby as extensive as the one the Enterprise got in TMP, no section left untouched. And maybe then I can suggest that this girl got to hang around in service for a few decades longer before being retired off and sent out to pasture.
Comment away - BUT; do not ask if I would be willing to do another of these ships for your fan-film/fan-whatever project, or if you can have this one. The Kamcaira already has a home. I have no plans to build a ninth version after this one is done. The purpose of this is intellectual curiosity and to be pleasant distraction from the unpleasant
More as and when folks :thumb:
Post edited by Jayru on
The watcher in the tower... Waiting, hour by hour...
- Mike Oldfield
- Mike Oldfield
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What you're saying about every Excelsior being exactly like the first one 100 years later makes sense, and I like where you're going with the design so far.
As always, glad to see you! And, your not the only one that was a bit irritated at the lack of resources durning TNG's run.. though was always happy to see the excelsior up on screen
Good luck with this, and looking forward to it! hope your health and sanity hold up!!
The trick is going to be to keep the lines of the ship so that it can still be said to be an Ingram Class (albeit an Odysseus Hull Variation), but update it so that it sits more comfortably within the early part of the 24th Century (post Ambassador Class, as I figure that would the eras yard stick to go by).
Indeed, once more unto that damn sodden breach, lol. This is the project I have a love/hate relationship with, the biggest headache of my 3D life and the most rewarding. Swore I would never come back to it, but… meh. Amazing where a drunken conversation can take you. And of course, this isn’t really my ship, Todd Guenther designed the Ingram Class. I just built some of them, lol. But, doing this is actually easier than finishing off the Wolf Class project (which one day I will do…)
But yeah, here we go again. Dusting off the fighting gloves re the whole “this is NOT an Excelsior Class” - but here we go again. He he, let’s have fun with it.
- Mike Oldfield
- Mike Oldfield
its great that you're modifying the class.. i've been watching deep space nine recently and i was saying how it would have been nice to see a newer excelsior class in some of the episodes.. so i'm looking forward to see how she turns out.
looks like you're off to a good start..
But I like the idea and I'm definitely looking forward to that.
ItAâs always a pleasure to watch the development of your ships, not only cause your skills, but cause the background, the fundamentations, explanations and storylines you always add. ItAâs always fun and makes the project a success. :thumb:
I know what you mean about the Excelsior (as other ships) beeing (almost) always the same along the years. ItAâs like a car being always the same, no matter the year or the version.
Cars sometimes has few modifications (like the classics Porche and Mustang, for example), but sometimes are changed entirelly, like the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla, just to name a few better known all around the world. I think, as you, the same must be applyed to a starship.
Count with me here, sitting and watching this new story going ahead. :cool: Since you already teased us... can you say a bit more about the fan-movie?
But yes, itAâs something that irked me, and what the hell - I have the time and the inclination, so pressing ahead (updates soon I hope, depends on whether I can get more time to render stuff, lol).
Interesting point, BUT when you compare the TOS Enterprise to the refit version in TMP itAâs quite clear the ship underwent a major rebuild and whilst the basic lines remained, the ship ended up being far more sexy than before.
The basic lines for this ship will stay the same, but this is going to be a refit to the same extent. The purpose being to extend the useful hull life of a ship that (by this time) is 30+ years old and falling behind in terms of the new tech Starfleet has to hand. The upper lines of the saucer, and the rim have not changed, just the undercut and lower dome (so far). A refit should improve things. Adding more internal space is a good thing me thinks. Be curious to see how folks react when they see the new nacelles. The Ambassador Class is the yard stick IAâm using this time to do things by. The new nacelles are going to have a certain Ambassador vibe to themA⦠And the secondary hull is going to change as well, few things are going to move about...
The fan film project is called AâStar Trek: LexingtonAâ - a TMP movie era series. They already have some stuff up on youtube and a new webisode on the way (which yours truly has had a small hand in writing as well, lol - but itAâs there production, the hero mesh, some shuttles and some info is the real extent of my involvement). Because of when there series is set (post Trek IV, but pre Trek V) the history of the Class was fudged a little to fit in with them, which I was ok with. Adding the Lexington to the fleet for the AâofficialAâ timeline I have for these ships runs different to them, but thatAâs ok. Just pleased they wanted to use the mesh - built it with all that detail. ItAâs going to shine
Yeah, itAâs also fun AâplayingAâ with these ships. Loved creating the back history for them, that info is still knocking around on here on the old thread I think. If not, I have copies of it all. You spend years working on a project like this, you end up thinking about the story behind it. And originally I had been tasked with building one of these for a fan-film project that ended up not happening, so story (in part) was already there, Aâspecially for the Kamcaira, which is why I picked on it for a refit.
The Kamcaira had a long service, 60 odd years (if mem serves), primarily exploring and charting new systems, but saw some action. Off the top of my head, and if I remember from my notes correctly (away from my main machine at the moment) the Kamcaira was retired in the 2360s and ended up in StarfleetAâs orbital museum. She was briefly re-commissioned in 2375 after the Breen attacked Earth to serve as part of the planetAâs defence force, after the war was over she was returned to the museum, where she would still be.
Sadly, I have noticed a few sites have info about the NCC-2601 to NCC-2605 now. None of them have got it correct *sigh* - buggers even changed the names of the ships as well. According to one site IAâve seen all the Ingrams (including the five of the Odysseus sub-class) were decommissioned by 2297. Bit of a bugger when you consider the USS Kamcaira wasnAât launched until 2297 and served well into the 24th Century (and she was by no means the only one of these ships to do that). Apparently IAâm not enough of an authority, there are others that must be considered when looking at these five ships (IAâd like to know who, last I checked no one has hacked the TMM network and nabbed any of the meshes or related files. IAâm still the only person in the universe to have those five ships and the ability to do anything to them). Had this happen when I started the original WIP threadA⦠annoy as hell, and it annoys me when people try to correct me with the info others have made up about these ships.
But I am looking forward to getting this done - having two versions of the Kamcaira for two different eras will be cool. And itAâs going to be interesting seeing how people react to some of the changes.
More soon folks.
- Mike Oldfield
Retrofit, as per the dictionary, simply means upgrading a ships systems with the latest technology and equipment.
Overhaul means disassembling entire parts and reassembling them according to the newer standarts with the latest technology.
So, in essence, a refit is also a rehaul (I'll still stick to those terms in colloquial speech), but not the other way around.
Personally, I see the TMP-Connie as a rehaul and not a refit...
Looking great so far. You know I enjoyed your original Ingram project, so I'm looking forward to this one. You've definitely got a nice start there.
Of course ships would have changed over time and that has bugged the hell out of me. But, as you said, they did what they could with the available models. Though, once the shows went CGI, they again had a chance to change this, but all of the ships of the same class in the big CGI battles on DS9 all looked the same. At least, with the NX-02 on Enterprise, they finally started showing the trend of ships of the same class not looking the same. The Columbia wasn't the same color as the Enterprise and it had a different deflector dish.
@ All - Prob the only time IAâm going to put something like this up, but just to highlight the difference between the Ingram and Excelsior Classes (and why Todd Guenther was right to rationalise the Excelsior design into the Ingram design);
Some of you will have noticed the size of the Excelsior bridge module in the second render. The scale between the two ships is correct (as per the official length of the Excelsior Class that Paramount has said is correct). When I built the Ingram/Odysseus variant I built a bridge module that you could actually fit a working bridge into (I have the original project renders with the scaled bridge set and people, and used the better designed Connie refit as a ref for size and what not.
The Excelsior was not so well thought out and designed, and hence the bridge module designed for use by Smurfs.
Anyway, as I said, this was to highlight the differences between the two classes (with a Connie thrown in for scale as well) and to give those of you new to the Ingram an idea of just bloody massive these ships are. If helps to boggle your minds further; The AâOdysseusAâ variant hull design is actually smaller than a proper Ingram.
More as and when folks.
PS: the scale renders? PRE-refit of the Kamcaira
- Mike Oldfield
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/excelsior-size.htm
Your Ingram is probably closer to the size that the Excelsior should be.
- Mike Oldfield
New shield grid layout and phaser arrays built, refined the shape of the saucer a little as well whilst I was at it. The overlaid image is with original pre-refit mesh so some details that shouldn’t be are sticking through, but it should give an idea as to orientation and the like.
More as and when folks.
- Mike Oldfield
I wouldn't say it was badly designed. It was badly implemented. The problem (and this is all too common with Star Trek stuff) is that you're taking a six foot model and a three foot model and filming them. The three foot model is supposed to be larger than the six foot model, but it's obviously not. Or, even if the six foot model is supposed to be larger, the models are not to scale. So, some person takes them into the computer and "scales" them. Then, for another shot, somebody else scales them, but their scale doesn't match what the first person did. Then somebody else comes along and slaps a number on the ship for a book, and that becomes the "official" scale, even if it's not right. And you wind up with a FUBAR mess that's especially bad for those of us trying to actually build this stuff and have it fit to a logical scale so that we can make it as realistic as possible.
The really sad part is, this trend didn't even stop when they started doing CGI models, where you can actually scale models correctly, no matter their size.
It’s long been known that all the movie ships were designed from just the outside (as opposed to being designed from the inside out… it will become clear what I mean, lol). Even the refit Enterprise, which had more time and energy put into its construction and design, suffers problems. The windows round the rim of the saucer are a good case - they don’t line up with supposed deck structure. In fact, very few of the external details line up properly at all with how internal decks would sit within the structure. Oh, I am well aware of the time and energy that went into the Enterprise design, and the fact that some things (like the rec deck) were well thought out and then buggered up by other people on the production.
The ship, like all others in Trek, was designed from the outside, with a rough idea of where decks should be - but if need be external detail placement was considered paramount (pun intended?) with little thought given to lining things up with actual decks.
To be honest? Most of the official ships from Trek suffer from this problem. Some are well designed (the Intrepid Class USS Voyager is probubly the most well designed and thought out), but those are exceptions to the rule of “make it look good.”
Bernd’s article on the Excelsior is well thought out, but even he acknowledges that the official length stated by Paramount is really the only one that’s workable, even with the caveat that the changed bridge design for Trek VI simply cannot be used by normal sized human beings, as well as other problems with alignment with detail. The reason for the detail change in Trek VI was to give the impression that Excelsior was massive, even though the production team had an agreed scale to work to (the Excelsior is supposed to be 1.5 times the size of the refit Enterprise) - visual was more important.
When these ships were designed they never considered that people (fans) would ask how many decks, or how they would fit within the structures and how things would line up from an internal point of view. This design credo (if it can be called such) persisted to this day with Trek and new ship designs. The Sovereign Class? Yeah, bridge for Smurfs again - and how many decks does that ship have? 24? 26? 29? And to be honest? Most people don’t really care if the designs are right and the scale of things make sense, and the people working on the models know that, so they can get away with lazy/hazy details such as not worrying about whether things actually gel together right.
Personally? I don’t consider that to be the best way to design things - BUT, we are talking about TV and film production, they don’t have years to spend on working all this out, sometimes they only have a weeks.
So is the Excelsior a well designed class of ship? No. It wasn’t designed for close scrutiny, and sorting it’s scale out won’t fix all it’s problems.
But all that’s meh, and not something I’m gonna worry about, my focus is gonna be this ship
- Mike Oldfield
Its nice to see you back at it. I hope everything is going well
Will there be an old&new wallpaper, like the TNG scenes where the Galaxy is flying alongside an Excelsior?
All true. One time, I tried lining up a deck plan with the windows of the TOS ship. After that, I stopped trying to apply logic to "canon" designs. That's why I do a lot of non-canon ships. I can fix these things without the rivet counters saying "you have those windows in the wrong spot."
Not shown is the new window layout (TNG style windows) and the new lifepod hatches (right for the era). Those need to be cut in and sorted.
@ Bernard guignard - cheers mate.
@ lennier1 - itAâs an ideaA⦠think itAâs now established that the last of these ships was retired before any of the Galaxy Class launched, but certainly the Ambassador Class is going to be around (I believe the USS Ambassador launched 2325), so something would be possible with regards to thisAâ¦
@ evil_genius_180 - likewise, itAâs why I keep away from the canon ships myself.
Right back to the moveA⦠such funAâ¦
More as and when folks.
- Mike Oldfield
Cheers mate
- Mike Oldfield
Now this might be an odd request, but having your Ingram but turned into Excelsior with the same nacelle attachment points might be a nice departure. That would eat into the shuttlebay up top, but that secondary hull has a layered look. Having Ingram with Excelsiors forward facing neck gives you room to play around--maybe a mirror universe version.
No. The purpose of this is, is to upgrade the ship, whilst retaining the lines that make it an Ingram. It will still only have 23 decks, it will still have two hanger bays. There will be an arboretum. The neck will still angle back. Details will change, but the lines will remain the same - otherwise what’s the point? As you can see from the scale renders - the ship is already pretty big, I already have plenty of room to play with
Quite seriously, this is the very last version of this that I will ever be doing.
- Mike Oldfield
Are you ABSOLUTELY sure of that?? :devil: