This is something I started about three weeks ago. Some of the Nova love here recently made me want to attempt it again, but I still can't figure out that damned back corner on the saucer. Given that, I decided to try something a little different first. This is the Defiant as it could have been. Having only one image to work from, I've been able to take a bit of artistic licence. My goal here was to stick as true as possible to the concept image, but also the idea of the Defiant.
Length of this ship is 120 meters, with 4 decks. I've used 3.5m deck heights, except for deck 3, which is 4m high. I wanted that extra bit of depth so cheated there. My rational is that engineering shall be on that deck, so the extra height is fine. I still need to figure out where to put the pulse phasers, I have some ideas, but suggestions are welcome. I've always been bugged by how the Defiant doesn't have any airlocks, but I like the way it looks when it docks with the station. I've been thinking of putting one above the torpedo launchers, right in front of the bridge. I think I may keep Nova type sensor pallets and ditch the launchers in the saucer side. May put an aft launcher in.
I've even been able to build some decent-ish phaser arrays at last. (They need redoing, gotta figure out how to taper and rib them.) I've thinking the aft saucer arrays may stay on the same level as the main ones. If not, I'll put them where they are on the concept and final Nova.
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http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Defiant_pathfinder
Looking goos so far, Vortex. I've always liked this design. For the pulse phasers, I'd suggest putting them where the sensor arrays are on the Equinox, to the left and right of the cut out. That's what I think is there in the Defiant Pathfinder drawing.
Evil, they were more torpedo launchers. Apparently it was to have 6 forward launchers and be a torpedo boat. I guess the cannons hadn't been imagined by that point, but it's a change I may well make. I just don't want such a big cut out. Space is valuable here. I need to figure out how to make the RCS thrusters as well.
Far more pronounced than the secondary deflector on the Galaxy-class, but still just the same type. A backup system....
Now, those blocky things represent the cannons. I'm wondering whether to place both there (Looks like it loses a lot of sensor equipment.) or put one there, probably the outer one. Question then is, where to place the other one? There current position has a flat plane of firing, whereas the Defiant has almost its total height. I have been thinking of maybe putting them in the trench just above the deflector, which would use that space up and keep them well protected. However, they would be fairly close together there.
The front cut with the torpedo tubes could be going less inside the saucer (maybe cut it off at the point where the phaser banks are, and the nacelle pylons could be a bit more 'beefed up'.
Other than that, I find this looks like a better Nova class (even though it was originally meant to be the Defiant).
The secondary hull in particular looks much better compared to what we got with the Nova.
This just works better.
Deks, you're right about the pylons. Admittedly, I also agree with you about the cutout. It's a matter of deciding how close I want to stick to the initial concept. I may try and close it off a bit if I can find a way to get an airlock in there as well.
However:
Beefed up the pylons and altered there shape slightly. Much sturdier looking now. Left the torpedo launchers but build out a nose above them. I'm thinking a pop up panel/airlock in there maybe. Not entirely sold on it yet. It certainly gives more volume (and somewhere to place the registry number), but doesn't look as aggressive.
Yes, I know about the big whole. It's a single face but I've mirrored the saucer to do the sensors.
EDIT: Also, I noticed that my hard drive has been unusually low on space the past few days. Turned out Cache BVH was on, could have sworn I'd turned it of for default. Anyway, cleared the cache and have my space back.
Looking good so far. I like the idea for the cut out.
Here's a couple of more angles:
Anyway:
I had thought of that, Stormcloud but they looked tacked on. I've put them in the Deflector trench, so they're well protected there. Hopefully some new renders up tonight.
WOOOOOO!!!! I've finally figured out the placements for the cannons. After a couple of days aresing about with booleans trying to create the tubes to put the saucer cannons in, I finally got it. By not using a boolean. I used on inset on the face I wanted to could into, subdivided each edge to give me 8 vertices to match the circle I was using, used a shrinkwrap set to project and that did the trick. A little pushing about of vertices and manually creating the faces and then realizing that the inset had given me a smoothing error, prompting me to subdivide edges of the original face and then merge the vertices together and BAM!! Not difficult at all. Just took a bladdy long time to get there. xD
Anyway, got that done and it's my only control loopcut at the minute to keep the circle clean. It also has a mean crease of .5.
It is a fairly narrow firing pattern compared to the original Defiant, but since this ship has arrays, I can live with it. I also started detailing the pylons, gonna need to redo that bit. I did the vents as separate objects, but think it'd be better to build them in first and then separate.
And here we have some proof of firing line. Making sure that we aren't going to blow our own dome off.
That didn't sound quite right.
A question or two here, depending how many I remember:
How many escape pods does Defiant have? I've only been able to count 8.
Does anyone know the dimensions for the escape pods? I'm thinking of using the same type.
Escape pods like what the Equinox and Rhode Island had are 3m X 3m. They allegedly carried 6-10 people, depending on which design you're using. I'm not sure what size the ones on the Defiant were. The escape pods aren't marked on the Defiant deck plans but, if I'm reading the symbols correctly, it has 14 pods, 8 that launch on the dorsal side and 6 that launch on the ventral side. I'd guess they're supposed to hold 10 people a piece, because the same manual claims the ship has a 150 person evacuation limit. I'd assume that means filling all 14 pods and the 3 or so shuttlepods the ship carries to capacity.
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You'd thing the cannons could be pointed to thing rather than relying on where the nose is pointing, but I guess that's a budget issue with the physical model and not worth showing with the CGI. One thing I like about this narrow stream though is it's right in line with the torpedoes. Use the cannons to take the shields or hull plating down and lob in a few torpedoes after them.
I'll take a look at roughing some escape pods at 3x3 later this week, then. I have a rough idea of where I want them to go. The Defiant evac capacity is 150? But assuming what size for the ship? Even at 170m, I don't see it being able to carry more than two small shuttles. Even with it's self replenishing shuttles, at least Voyager had a shuttle bay and was thought out from the onset.
I also need to figure out how to build the RCS thrusters. The method I was using earlier on doesn't work with subsurf, particularly on that back corner of the saucer.
Stormcloud, thanks. It's definitely an improvement.
Ships size:
Length: 120m 15.6cm
Width: 71m 36.3cm
Height: 20m 15.6cm
Decks: 4
I figured that some people may be interested in some quick and dirty looks at the wireframe.
And Bob is back. Bob is 2m tall, if I'm remembering correctly.
Thanks for a look at the pre-subdivided wires. That's good stuff.