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3DSovereign Suggestions?

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  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    I think your Warp 8 figure for Defiant is also in error. According to "The Sound of Her Voice," Defiant could hit Warp 9.5 by siphoning power off of the weapons. IIRC, the warp 8 limitation was under cloak -- any faster and they risked detection.

    EDIT: I sort of feel like this discussion has wildly hijacked poor jrhottel's thread. Perhaps we should migrate it elsewhere?
  • BlueNeumannBlueNeumann615 Posts: 1,275Member
    Saquist wrote: »
    Indeed, Blueeumann, The Star Trek Scripts have always been divided into those Five Acts. However I tend to recommend the 3 Acts for beginners...it's simple and concise. What would say is the Matrix Five Acts?

    I haven't seen The original Matrix in a long time (years and years and years) so I couldn't break it down right in y head. The three act thing always threw me because I could never get a handle on that giant blob in the middle. And I think that's where movies tend to lag, in that blob.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    No concerns, wonderful discussion.
  • StormcloudStormcloud2 Posts: 0Member
    the star trek writers have obviously used scientific terminology to add a bit of realism but they dont understand it - hell if one in 500,000 people geniunely understand what little we know of the higgs boson and how is gives things mass we're probably doing well - and frankly for someone so insistant that the sov only goes at warp 8 your keen to make stuff up that wasn't mentioned in the show or tech manuals - and i still say that the warp graph is for galaxy class vessel only

    clearly the only way to settle this is to get our hands on someone who set out the design brief for the enterprise e and as them if the ship is slow or not


    now as for getting to the rooms in the nacelles i would suggest the easiest method would be the transporter under normal conditions - and jeffries tubes only for emergencies
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    For those interested in continuing the discussion, we've moved it here.
  • prisoner881prisoner881336 Posts: 30Member
    Saquist wrote: »
    @ prisoner881

    -Sovereign isn't bigger than Galaxy.
    Sovereign volume = 2,429,193 cubic meters
    Galaxy volume = 5,820,983 cubic meters
    Galaxy is 2.4166 Times Bigger and 6,510,000 Tons vs 2,717,00

    Reference:
    http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html

    I was admittedly surprised to see the volumetric calcs for the Galaxy come out so high. Essentially, this site says the volume of the saucer section alone is more than half again bigger than the *entire* volume of the Sovereign. This seems hard to believe. I haven't checked the math, but for the moment I'll proceed as if it's a solid figure.

    Calculating *tonnage* on the other hand is well nigh impossible. The Galaxy was designed almost like a spacegoing hotel with large, spacious quarters all over the place. Relative *density* of the spaceframe would drive tonnage, but we have no idea what the density of it really is. To put it in perspective, an M1 Abrams tank without depleted Uranium armor weighs around 10 tons less than one so equipped, yet the overall dimensions of the two variants are essentially identical. It's quite possible -- indeed, very likely -- the Sovereign is much denser than the Galaxy, making the overall ship heavier than one would expect. Given that it's obviously armored in ways designed to go up against the Borg, I'd be shocked if this isn't the case.
    -All Federation ships are cruisers. They are designed for solitary missions and combat.

    This is quite simply not true. You're essentially stating everything from the Defiant to the Sovereign is a "cruiser." Even basic logic will dictate that's absurd. You've got larger vessels like Galaxy's and Sovereign's clearly equipped for long-duration missions of widely varying types (exploration, diplomacy, defense, etc.) in adverse environments. Then you've got smaller ships like the Intrepid's that, while they may be faster, cannot match the larger vessels for duration, durability, or flexibility. Then you've got what are essentially special-purpose vessels like the Defiant's (combat) which trade nearly everything (no holodecks, bunk beds, basic replicators, etc.) to maximize the effectiveness of that special purpose.
    -Sovereign's speed: Canon = On Screen. On screen says warp 8 and explains why the ship was caught so easily.

    Canon extends to things well beyond just what's on screen. The Sovereign's top speed is well in excess of warp 8. The Enterprise-E was caught easily for one reason and one reason along: the crappy plotting required it to happen that way.

    Or, if you want to reason it out slightly differently, it's possible Shinzon's vessel may have a higher *dash speed* than the Sovereign but has a lower or equivalent *cruise speed*. It's been well established ships can go very fast for short periods of time, sometimes even in excess of their published design specs courtesy those magical Starfleet Engineers (with or without Scottish accents). There's no reason to doubt Romulan's can't do the same. And maybe Picard wasn't pushing the Enterprise-E as fast as she could go, although why he wouldn't be doing so begs the question. As well as why he was heading straight through a nebula that would cut him off from friendly communications. And a bunch of other silly plot points that really made the movie utter crap.
    -Torpedoes according to the manuals don't have engines but sustainer engines but that makes no sense otherwise they couldn't catch an enemy ship at warp unless they could generate and accelerate their own warp field. Trust me Torpedoes in Trek have huge problems other than the tube size.

    They have problems but the ones you raise are not beyond reasoning out. The TNG manual states the torpedoes get a "hand off" warp field from the tube when fired at warp. Clearly it would be silly to fire a torpedo at warp only to have it putter out in front of you and then you run into it from behind. Warp drives are defined as space-warping engines that, via the magic of subspace, play around with the apparent mass of things. The reasoning seems to be that if you have a rather small mass (say, a torpedo) acted on by a very powerful warp field (say, tube accelerator field coils), you can sling that mass very, very fast...but not for very long or very far.
    -What the power core looks like is less important to me than what that core is powering.
    The only time in the entire 20 years of the Galaxy being on screen the Enterprise "Didn't have enough power" was in the Best of Both Worlds. Geordi said pointedly that they couldn't fire the deflector at warp because they were using "everything they had just to keep up with the Borg". Thus Galaxy has more than enough power to operate max warp, max shields and max weapons.

    Your reasoning here doesn't make a lot of sense. There are plenty of times where the Enterprise-D "didn't have enough power" even though it wasn't explicitly stated on the screen. Anytime they couldn't get somewhere fast enough, or the shields weren't strong enough to fully absorb an attack, or the phasers weren't strong enough to blast something to smithereens in one shot, it's prima facie evidence they didn't have enough power to do everything they wanted. It was commonly -- and sloppily -- demonstrated that phasers, shields, engines, and just about every other gizmo aboard could be made to perform above and beyond its design specs just by throwing more power at it. And if you go through all the TNG seasons you'll find a plethora of examples.
    Prisoner, my deduction is that Sovereign cannot because the Regenerative shields might need and excessive amount of power and that is the only logical conclusion I can make that fits the evidence at hand. (I'm not ever going to conclude advanced means better in every way.) Is the Sovereign Core Better? I'd say so. They sustained multiple Direct hits and collided with the Scimitar. Identical situations have led to warp core breaches with the Galaxy Class Enterprise in TNG and Generations.

    P.S
    Personally I have no problem with the vertical core.
    Defiant (which I rate at 200 meters long and 6 Decks) clearly has a short core and outputs Galaxy class levels of power. Which is one of the reason it can't be 120 meters long and four decks with a 3 deck tall core.

    One can reason this out as well: the Defiant core may produce an absurd amount of power from a very small size, but perhaps it does it very, very inefficiently or perhaps it's very maintenance intensive (or both). These would be acceptable tradeoffs for a ship that was never designed for extended, unsupported operations...such as the Defiant clearly is intended. A contemporary analogy would be a fighter jet turbine versus a commercial jet transport turbine. The fighter engine is smaller and produces much more power than the commercial jet engine, yet it is appalling inefficient in comparison and must be torn down for major maintenance frequently. The former is fine for a fighter that is designed to maximize combat capabilities to the exclusion of everything else, but the latter is the only way to go if you want reliable, affordable operation.
  • prisoner881prisoner881336 Posts: 30Member
    Saquist wrote: »
    Clearly these numbers are thrown around loosely by the writing staff.
    However whatever power is to believed the concept is the same. Somehow Intrepid's design allows it to generate a significant amount of power over Galaxy. Clearly it doesn't show that power in Offense or Defense. Thus the only logical conclusion is they're is something extremely special about the Intrepid class starship warp nacelles.

    Conclusion:

    If we assume Sovereign is faster than Intrepid simply because of a statement or assumption that Sovereign is the most ADVANCED ship in the fleet. It really throws the tech out the air lock. Remember many assumed Defiant was faster than Voyager until the episode "The Sound of Her Voice" revealed Defiant is a warp 8 warship. Yet Defiant showed nothing special about it's warp drive. But people expected that because it was new...it was better. However, Star Fleet Moth-balled Defiant and despite being "advanced" Enterprise was ordered away from a Borg Invasion as well as having never been seen on the critical offensives against the Dominion.

    It's been my experience that fans have huge expectations of what "New" and "advanced" means.

    I think you're drawing too many conclusions from too few data points here. There are at least two major data points missing from this equation: duration and durability. You're assuming there's something fundamentally different about the Intrepid warp drives that gives them higher top speeds. I'm arguing there's nothing really big or new here, just a refinement. It's all about power-to-mass ratios. It's been established that the more mass you have to move, the more powerful the warp field you have to generate to move it. Take a core from something like a Galaxy class, sacrifice some efficiency and/or durability to make it physically smaller, and slap it in a frigate-sized spaceframe like the Intrepid. It's the spacegoing equivalent to putting a big-block supercharged Chevy V8 into a Mini Cooper. It'll go like blazes, but fuel costs will be excessive. And you'll likely tear stuff up (transmission, differential, etc.) quicker. But if you don't really care about that stuff -- and despite Voyager's visit to the Delta quadrant, the Intrepid's don't seem to go for long missions -- then you can get a lot of performance from a small design without making any revolutionary discoveries in warp drive.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    The technical discussion has been moved, http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?80720-How-Fast-is-the-Sovereign-Class. With a continuous mesh, I think, you can get a volume calculation pretty easy. Gross register tonnage (GRT) represents the total internal volume of a vessel, where a register ton is equal to a volume of 100 cubic feet (2.83168 m3), which volume, if filled with fresh water, would weigh around 2,800 kg or 2.8 tonnes, on earth. I plan to do some calculations myself.
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    So, uh, any updates post-hijacking? :D
  • SaquistSaquist1 Posts: 0Member
    I was wondering the same.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    A complete redesign of the stardrive is in progress. I'm less than half way through. It's not at a good stage of showing but I'm not patent enough to wait. Beside it might prove interesting. Again work in progress. Screenshot-(15).jpgScreenshot-(16).jpgScreenshot-(17).jpg
    104251.jpg104252.jpg104253.jpg
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    Yay!

    Obviously, as you said, WIP, but I'm curious why the normals all look goofy. Shouldn't this be a simple matter of recalculating/aligning/whatever-your-package-calls-it the normals to get rid of that weird blackness?

    On an unrelated note, did you reshape the aft shuttlebay doors? Are you planning to (if they don't already) make them openable? If so, how do you envision them opening? I had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to open those sorts of doors without creating massive gaps between each door segment unless the door was a perfect hemisphere (a la TOS Enterprise). Ended up just going with linear doors on my Ambassador, but I'm basically asking everyone working on ships with those style of doors right now what they did to solve it, if they bothered to. ;)
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    I'm not sure exactly what your seeing but these are screen captures and not renders. Likewise, I my video card isn't up to the task, there's some missing geometry, and I might have visibility dialed back on a couple of parts. The hanger doors are like a onion wedge. The doors share the same rotation pivot where they would meet but for smoothing. Also included image to show the construction method and how some geometry may be at present missing. Recall, this model is intended for use in making normal maps.

    Screenshot-(19).jpgScreenshot-(23).jpgScreenshot-(18).jpg
    104254.jpg104255.jpg104256.jpg
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    jrhottel wrote: »
    I'm not sure exactly what your seeing but these are screen captures and not renders. Likewise, I my video card isn't up to the task, there's some missing geometry, and I might have visibility dialed back on a couple of parts.
    This is probably more descriptive than writing it out (click to enlarge):
    jrhottel_sovereign_normals.jpg
    The hanger doors are like a onion wedge. The doors share the same rotation pivot where they would meet but for smoothing. Also included image to show the construction method and how some geometry may be at present missing.
    Interesting! When I tried to do a curved-but-squashed door like that, the various segments didn't overlap nicely when in the open position, even if they were fine in the closed one and shared the same rotation pivot. Clearly, I need to revisit! Thanks very much!
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    I believe, I started with part of a sphere covering the area of all six doors. Then added shell and edit poly modifiers. Cleaned up angles on the bottom. Scaled down two duplicate door shells inside the first. Then cut/removed about two-thirds of each layer/shell for two doors each. Remember to account for a little door overlap. For my design the hard part is gaping between the doors and frame/hull as the doors move
    . Hope that made sense.
  • SaquistSaquist1 Posts: 0Member
    Oh, I wish I could speak this language!
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    Saquist wrote: »
    Oh, I wish I could speak this language!
    Just takes practice and time. :)
  • nightfevernightfever361 Posts: 585Member
    This is a really lovely Sovereign variant, but all the little bumps are hurting my brain. Seems quite impossible to iron them out at the end.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    I concur, it kind of hit home as I prepared these images. Improved the matter some last night but there are a couple panels for which no amount of retopology and smoothing will help. I'll need to start with from a fresh primitives. I'm hopeful it will prove fairly straightforward. It may not reflect well on my work but I'm not aiming at perfection. I'm about ready to start retopologizing the project into (LOD) models and try to bake normal maps.
  • SaquistSaquist1 Posts: 0Member
    JR....

    I'm working on a Sovereign too...but I'm having a hard time finding a schematic that's accurate.
    What was your base material?
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    Saquist, link to images sent to you via private message. I was wanting for accurate images myself.
  • SaquistSaquist1 Posts: 0Member
    So is it me or is the saucer ellipses not concentric?
    It seems like the images suggest that the inner circles have different shapes.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    No, I think it's all concentric. The small strakes are misaligned. Remanufacturing stardrive panels. Every time I go bake to the stardrive she gets a little wider in the waist.

    Screenshot-(33).jpg
    105823.jpg
  • nightfevernightfever361 Posts: 585Member
    They are concentric but they do have different shapes.
    I scaled down the outer-most green ellipse. Same on top.
    105824.jpg
  • SaquistSaquist1 Posts: 0Member
    So this isn't an error of the artist in these internet profiles...
    I'm going to take John Eaves drawing from Nemesis and see if they have the same result.
    ---
    JR. I really feel you might want to scale down the yacht. It's nearly the size of Defiant.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    Saquist, on inspection my yacht is 155' and should be 75'. The yacht has been a real headache. I thought, I had it right. keeps me humble. Thanks.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    Remanufactured stardrive panels. Much better but I have difficulty getting them perfect.

    Attachment not found.
  • mattcmattc181 Perth, AuPosts: 322Member
    nightfever wrote: »
    They are concentric but they do have different shapes.
    I scaled down the outer-most green ellipse. Same on top.

    A familiar image. This was rendered with no perspective by err...someone.
  • jrhotteljrhottel9 Posts: 0Member
    Sovereign Yacht Hanger Rough.
    Yacht_Hanger.jpg
    105893.jpg
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