After a long break...
inspired by the fantastic Axanar project I finally built my first star trek ship ever, the USS Tisiphone. The model is almost finished. Currently I'm working on the final details.
The Tisiphone is an old exploration vessel built in the era between Enterprise and Axanar. To match that particular epoch I have integrated style elements from the old NX-class starships and the ships Tobias Richter has designed for Axanar.
When the war with the Klingons breaks out the ship has already been on duty for many decades. Instead of decommissioning the old vessel Starfleet decides that every warp capable ship has to be refitted and rearmed to compensate the heavy losses Starfleet suffered in the initial battles with superior Klingon forces. So the former USS Burton is retrofited to become a light cruiser. For her new role she is renamed as USS Tisiphone.
Together with other old ships she is then assigned to a naval unit known throughout Starfleet as "junkyard fleet", a taskforce whose mission is to slow down the rapid Klingon progress and buy the Federation more time at
any cost...
Posts
:thumb:
I'm waiting for more pictures.
Keep it up.
Akira
-The minuses against Akira is that the front doors are smaller than the aft doors forcing launch and landings down the same approach.
-The Pontoons don't seem to serve any purpose at all and they're shape is a large waste of space as they taper down
-It only has 3 phaser arrays
+It does have (apparently) a lot of torpedo tubes.
+The Impulse engines are aligned along the Axial Center of Gravity
USS Tisiphone
+Unlike Akira you Pontoons have a use
+The ship is well armed with phasers and four forward tubes
-The pylons pass right through the middle of the flight decks limiting space for other shuttles and maintenance
-You seem to lack any aft weaponry
As compared to Ares...
I think you've done better than Tourangeau. You've made better use of the same or similar construction.
You did without mounts on either end of the pylon and it looks more like TOS and looks good.
I've noticed Ares Primary hull looks like a Turtle shell mated to a duck butt and the flat and curved contrast throws me off.
Like the original Constitution your ship stays pretty simple just a different configuration. It's cylinders and rectangles but there is just something more pleasing about this and it's not just the greebling.
@ Aresius: You are right, not everyone likes the Akira's original design.
@ Saquist: I appreciate your constructive critisism.:) You are totally right regarding the problem with the pylons and the flight deck's length. It annoys me quite a bit that I couldn't find a better solution. One annotation: the Tisiphone has two aft torpedo tubes and four phasers on the pylons, one on the dorsal and one the ventral side of each pylon.
What program are you using?
That design concept would easily buckle under stress.
But here is a (sort of) example of bulk heads used to strengthen a starship structure.
Example 1
**NOTE**
(I don't entirely agree with this construction either.
This is more cage than bulkhead.
Example 2
This is what he'd be looking for in the area where that pylon passes through. The pylon would be bolted or welded to two of these on either side as they passed through the Pontoon.
Example 3 &4
http://www.nassco.com/images/bp_gallery/BP_B603.jpg
http://i1005.photobucket.com/albums/af174/sscott_album/DSC_0030.jpg
Notice some of these bulkheads have HUGE holes through them (That's to save weight) others are more like walls. That's when you need A LOT of strength. Because sea going ships are supported by the surface tension of the water below and they'll only be turning left and right they don't necessarily need huge bulkhead walls. They don't have huge support pylons passing through them either. But if you lift a ship out of the water or over load one side, thin weaker bulkheads will collapse like the Titanic. Starships take stress from all around they fly through space unsupported except for by Inertial Dampers and Structural Integrity Fields but what happens when those fail? So, if it's constructed properly that ship would have no useable space for people where that pylon goes through.
Titanic & Video of Titanic Bulking
http://www.exploretitanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Titanic-Breaks-Up.jpg
Video Below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s
Of course...this is all very literal and unnecessary.
I'm working with Blender (was a former Softimage user).
In sci fi one can do just about anything they want.
But constraints give way to creativity. (..The mother of invention)
P.S
Warp doesn't move the ship it moves space.
You're making this look much better than any or most Blender WIP's I've seen. It looks like Maya or something. How long have you been working with it?
@Saquist: I started in april 2014 with long breaks between the modelling sessions.
What are the objects hanging from the bottom of the pod in that shot?
Oh it was a long time ago, right my old friend?
Two minor comments
- I think the pontoons need to flow into the main saucer - at the moment, it looks rather strange, just tacked on. I think you could make the lower side flush with the pontoons.
- I see you have recessed airlocks. These look cool, IAâd just think about how they are about to be functioning - no shuttle can dock here, so it is basically just an exit for a spacewalk.
Looking forward to how itAâll look textured!
Indeed, a long time ago. Blender has already been my secondary app for years, so migrating wasn't such a problem. But I still miss my good old and reliable Softimage.
@ stoli
To be honest, I'm a hardcore trekkie neither. I do like the shows but I can't recite the technical manuals or the episode guides. I never left the board but life interfered and I had to take a longer break from modeling for almost a year. Will try now not to disappoint your expectations
@ tobiasrichter
You are absolutely right. I never liked the transition between the saucer and the pylons. Today I remodeled this section. The curvature of both sections is quite tricky but the new solution should now be more pleasing.
I'm aware of the problem with the recessed airlocks. These are a homage to the NX-01's design. I think the docking mechanism is retractable. I will modify them this way when I do the final details.
Something seems different with the pylons between the two shots. In the first it looks like you moved the pylon on top of the pontoon and the other looks like it's passing through. Perhaps and illusion.
Maybe this picture clarifies the change a tad better