WideFoot

It has been a long, long time since I've made one of these. Nobody much cares for Sketchup anymore. The last good free version is quickly receding into obscurity. But, Captain Julian Locksley still makes excellent renders with my ships, so I'll make more ships.

Long ago, I made an experiment of a ship with the saucer sweeping smoothly into the nacelle struts called the USS Gamgee. It was primarily intended as an experiment in simplicity of design and spreading out components for appearance's sake. Prior to that ship, everything I had made was crumpled up and dense. They were unpleasant in the way of the Nebula class. The Gamgee wasn't particularly pretty. In fact, it was downright ugly. But, it did what I wanted.

The base idea stuck in my mind like a tiny sliver in my toe. It bothered me and itched that I hadn't made the thing look good. So, I'll try again.

The Gamgee had a number of design aspects which I really liked, but usually paired with something I didn't. The general layout was good, but the proportions were wrong, especially in that it was too thin for it's length. The bow-facing shuttle bay was my favorite part of the design, but it was awkwardly implemented and unevenly detailed. The engineering hull met the saucer in the right place, but completely disregarded the actual intersection of those things.

The only unambiguously good part of the design was that the top of the aft part of the swept single-hull design is at the same level as the bottom of the edge of the saucer. It is completely unnoticeable except in orthographics, but it makes me happy knowing its there.

I wanted to do something more directional than the whimsical experimentation of that ship. I wasn't going to pull over any of the stranger design elements like the bridge, exposed longitudinal warp core, or massive turrets. I wanted this ship to fit nicely into the TMP through TUC movie era. I also wanted it to have a intention and direction for the design starting out, unlike most of my designs which I draw first and then retcon with a plausible story to explain my design choices.

I have already done a deep space exploration ship, cargo ships, and a bunch of science ships. I refuse to make warships. So, diplomatic and humanitarian cruiser. This new ship will be in the style of the Excelsior, which is my second-favorite Enterprise (after the 330). It is a design style which I have not made before. I need to brush up on my art deco.

The Gamgee's large shuttle bay will be made even larger with a three-deck high through-hull design, occupying most of the saucer section. This alternatively facilitates the transport of dignitaries and their cargo, allows a huge cargo area for disaster relief supplies, or can be outfitted as emergency berthing for refugees. A deck directly beneath the shuttle bay will be outfitted with diplomatic suites, each with large window bays for views of the planet below. The ship will be fitted with extensive communication arrays and some moderate defensive capabilities.

This ship does not have a "neck," so it can't have the ribbed bit which echoes the ribs in the nacelles. Instead, I carried that detail into the shuttle bay doors. I have tried to pull details from some designs which would be "cutting edge technology" for a ship of the era. The impulse engine is similar in appearance to the pair on the Enterprise D saucer. The nacelles have a similar design to the Probert Enterprise C. But, the saucer is somewhat antiquated with it's echoes of shape from the 1701-A. I wanted the top of the saucer to be curved like the Excelsior, but the bottom has to be a mirror image per the Gamgee.

I'm still not sure I got the intersection of the engineering hull to the saucer quite right, but it is definitely better than the previous one. And I like the deflector much better.

The only thing about it that looks "off" IMO is that the windows and shuttlebay doors are placed a bit too close to the top and bottom edges of the saucer, making the ship look like it's hull has no thickness. The front shuttlebay for example seems to be leaving no usable space for rooms behind the windows directly above it.

You know, I was going to go into a whole tirade about how my windows are perfect and that I spent a lot of time making them smaller than any windows on any ship I've done before and that they're each in exactly the right spot for those decks. But, no. You're right. They were too low.

On both Deck 2 and Deck 3, I moved the windows toward the center of the saucer 5 ft. The nasty thing about it is that now they are unevenly spaced compared to the rest of the decks. But, they are more like skylights than windows in that position anyway. the Deck 2 windows were already higher than most.

Floor to floor spacing is 11 ft. on this ship. I figured 8.5 ft of living space and 2.5 ft. of utility space. (yes, I know, I know.... metric. I don't have a good grasp on typical metric sizes of stuff.)

The shuttle bay doors are staying put. I like the thickness of that space between the top of the door and the edge of the saucer. I figured a hull thickness of about 6". That is really very thick. if you saw a boat with a 6" thick steel hull, you would think it basically indestructible.. whatever they make Starfleet vessels from must be better than steel.

I started the process It is a bit rough. I may reform the mesh in a different way in the future.

Okay, I have not updated this in months! It isn't dead, it has just been severely backburnered. In the time of my absence, I had a girlfriend, broke up with her, got another girlfriend, bought a condo (moved, of course), swapped offices in my company, dedicated more time to getting fit, got horribly sick, and have just been generally busy.

But, I had some time recently to add some greebles. I am not completely happy with it all, but I am mostly happy with it. Most of this is adding windows, sensors, and nacelle details (not nearly done with either of those later two)

Windows are nominally complete. I still need to add a core ejection hatch, another set of transporter antennas, sensor greebles, decals, the shuttle bay door, and the waverider shuttle.

long list... it'll get there...

placed all the windows

Sweet Jesus

I always forget how massive this ship is

Well, How about this? Halfway between. I knocked down the top of the round bit and made it a sort of gibbous moon shape.

I like this shape much more than my initial attempt.

I don't think i've ever liked an initial blocking. They're always just good enough and then you move forward. Either way, this looks nicely proportional

Alright!

I go back to this a little bit. (I've been astonishingly busy, as always.)

The major change here is the installation of a second deflector dish set into the saucer. SO MANY people wanted this that I figured I had to give it a shot. (still not adding those additional RCS thrusters, though.) I'm not sure I like it overly much. My inspiration was this image by AdamJCross, which has a similar setup. I may lay the secondary deflector down a bit to make it more flush to the hull, or make it more of an ovoid shape like the main deflector, but I like the little Greeble in there, so I'm not sure. It does mess with the location of the registry number and ship name, though. I may need to put those on the sides in the only bare patch left on the saucer.

In other miscellanious stuff: Added sensor greebles, Added ribs to the underside of the saucer - echoing the Sovy, Added a shuttle bay door, added the holes for the probe (torpedo) launchers, added a warp core ejector hatch, and a few miscellaneous housecleaning things.

About the shuttle bay... I may want clamshells... I wanted the rolling door to mimic the Nova class (And it is SO MUCH easier to draw), but clamshells ight look better.

I love the cutoff saucer designs for smaller ships, too! I think they're really underutilized in Trek canon. But to me they remind me of Starship Creator; a really terrible PC game from 1998/2000. It had some interesting ideas about saucer design. (and, by "interesting," I mean "usually ugly"),

The details in this thing are excellent too. I like the idea that in smaller ships, things didn't fit comfortably inside of the hull, so it would be necessary that they squeeze through and are open to space. I also think your deflector is particularly good.

A thing that irks me is that spot on the top of the saucer, behind the bridge where the things in that equipment bay come really close to the edge. I think they're a bit too close and it would look a little more solid with some space added between the equipment bay and the edge of the saucer, (and maybe even more than in that little paint drawing).

I think your nacelles are interesting too. Sort of a transition between TOS and TMP with round nacelles from the former and saucer and impulse engine details from the latter.

Honestly, Galaxy Quest is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made. Certainly better than many of the actual franchise.

And they did an unnecessarily good job designing that starship.

I really love your deflector dish! It has a good amount of grit.