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Thomas P
June 18th, 2003, 04:48 PM
I'm gonna stick my toe back in the water and show a WIP here. I plan on really finishing this one :D. I have been experimenting with single hull (no neck) designs between TOS:TMP and TNG era. This ship would be classified, in contemporary naval terms, as a destroyer. However, it won't really be well armed if it is armed at all. I think of it more as a courier or patrol ship.

I thought of it as a replacement to Masao's pre-TOS era Paris Class (http://3d.concept40.com/images_gal/task_force_8.jpg). The initial design was influenced by the Rigel Class over at the ASDB (http://www.trekships.org/index.htm) site.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_side.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_top.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_front.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_back.jpg

I actually have a lot to do to it but this is the basic shape.

scaramanga
June 19th, 2003, 05:16 AM
this looks very good, keep it up :)

skyhawk223
June 19th, 2003, 05:38 AM
What will be housed in the part that hangs below the saucer?

Thomas P
June 19th, 2003, 11:32 AM
- UPDATE -

Added deflector elements and impulse engines (impulse not in pic :( ).

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per2.jpg

Thomas P
June 19th, 2003, 11:05 PM
And some more updates. These show the impulse exhaust ports and panel details I've added. All the dark grey panels are modeled into the ship and engines. These panels will get there own texture treatment and will blend with the ship. These panels are to give nice relief to the ship in images. I also added, but you can't really see, the ridged rings you see on the 'Ent-D' style nacells.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per3.jpg
and
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per4.jpg

Originally posted by skyhawk223
What will be housed in the part that hangs below the saucer?
I figured that this would be for fuel cells that feed to the rear warp reactor. Also, some storage as this would be a 'jack-of-all-trades' ship used to shuttle between federation worlds. Many navies / airforces have thier own freight and liason craft when they can't or don't want to use civilian craft. Also, the forward are would have the sensors / deflector stuff.

Thomas P
June 20th, 2003, 09:46 PM
Update -

Changed the bridge completely and went for a conning tower look. The previous design looked too small or, rather, made the ship look too big. I've also started to experiment on the surface texture with a test on the saucer section.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per5.jpg

Thomas P
June 22nd, 2003, 08:14 PM
Decided that the escape hatches were all wrong for this ship and too large. Changed them to the rounded square you see on TNG type ships. Finished the base texture for the saucer and have mapped it to the upper saucer.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per6.jpg

Stu
June 23rd, 2003, 12:00 PM
Great work Thomas. You continue to amaze me. Great design, I love Masao's Paris Class. Good design elements, I'm really liking the hull plating/sheild grid design. Can't wait to see her finished. :up: :up:

Masao
June 23rd, 2003, 05:43 PM
I like it! Perhaps the nacelle supports (and maybe the nacelles themselves) look a bit heavy, especially the way they are parallel to the bottom of the primary hull. It might look interesting with supports angled downward. I like the primary hull a lot, but that deflector looks pretty damn big in that shot (skip per2). Maybe it's just the lens?

(Maybe I'll swipe this for a late TOS design for the museum!)

Thomas P
June 24th, 2003, 06:37 PM
Stu - Thanks!

Masao - In a very early concept I had slightly smaller nacelles with the current ones being 10% larger. I also, originally, had angled pylons with the engines seated perpendicular to the pylon. I think it looked okay but the Ent-D / Nova class type nacelle looked very odd at that angle.

BTW - The wip image convention skip_#.jpg is short for the class. The class I have come up with is 'Skipper'. I have no idea why :nuts:.

Here is the older nacelle arrangement:

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per7.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per7a.jpg

Masao
June 25th, 2003, 04:24 PM
I think that alternate arrangement looks good, but, as you say, the slab nacelles don't look so good canted like that. Maybe for a TOS-era ship with cylindrical nacelles...

Aldiwahn Teerod
June 26th, 2003, 12:54 AM
maybe rotate the nacelles by 90 degrees so that they have the same orientation like pylons

Thomas P
June 26th, 2003, 08:05 AM
The whole engine scheme is getting a serious review. I keep making nacelles but they end up looking like Galaxy class versions. I'm really wanting to have a small Ambassador class variant as that is the time period I'm trying to shoot for.

cardinalbiggles
June 27th, 2003, 06:01 AM
It looks like you're making the nacelles too squatty. The height-to-width ratio should be closer than you're making it.

Nova Class
June 27th, 2003, 09:54 AM
I dunno, I like the Nacelles the way that they are, very much like the Nebula class. And I think the strut thickness is fine too :) Cool design! :)

Thomas P
June 27th, 2003, 12:34 PM
I think that the overall dimensions for the nacelles are okay when compared to other 'cannon' ships and when compared to non-cannon, well..... :laugh:

I think I have it figured out and have a mock up but not rendered yet. I have been playing with textures and here is a shot with the hull 'mostly' done.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per8.jpg

Starship
June 30th, 2003, 02:46 PM
Looking very good Thomas ! ;) Any chance that I get I copy when finished ? :evil: :D

Masao
June 30th, 2003, 06:40 PM
That saucer rim in the dark shadow makes it look like the rubber-edged foot of an Masamune Shiro Landmate. Looks good.

Looking forward to seeing how the nacelles will be arranged!

PS: The name should be "McDivitt"

Thomas P
July 1st, 2003, 12:36 PM
Originally posted by Starship
Looking very good Thomas ! ;) Any chance that I get I copy when finished ? :evil: :D

Thanks and sure. Hope you don't mind heavy poly's (as I have yet to figure/master spline modeling).


Originally posted by Masao
Looking forward to seeing how the nacelles will be arranged!

PS: The name should be "McDivitt"

Well first, McDevitt is 'Jack McDevitt' the SciFi writer. That's how he spells his name.

Second, the nacelle arrangement looks like this:

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per9.jpg

Textures are just about done.

Masao
July 1st, 2003, 05:32 PM
Oh, Jack McDevittt! Never heard of him! I thought you were continuing the tradition of naming ships after dead astronauts.

The ships looks very nice. How big is it supposed to be?

Hyperspace
July 1st, 2003, 06:04 PM
Awesome! This is the best original Trek design I have seen in quite a while...

Thomas P
July 2nd, 2003, 04:46 PM
Originally posted by Masao
Oh, Jack McDevittt! Never heard of him! I thought you were continuing the tradition of naming ships after dead astronauts.

The ships looks very nice. How big is it supposed to be?

One - I feel crappy not remembering one of the 'dead astronauts' and then being smart enough to name the ship after him. Jack McDevitt writes stories that, for the most part, take an archaeological bend towards past civilizations. He has a series of books that have humans chasing around our local arm of the galaxy trying to find a civilization that has developed as far as we have and not been destroyed. The books have remains of past giants and a few barbarians. Fun read.

Second, it's about this big -

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/scale.jpg

Masao
July 2nd, 2003, 05:44 PM
Wow, that's a tiny ship, around Daedalus size. But, I think the modern era needs some small ships to get away from the trend toward gigantism. Is the bridge going to be big enough?

Thomas P
July 2nd, 2003, 07:28 PM
Yeah, I was figuring that even a 'moneyless' society like the Federation would still have to have resource management issues. The need for many ships to patrol shipping lanes and run errands would require small utility ships. I just can't see those runabouts from DS9 being the design they would use. I like to think of it as a corvette or, at a stretch, a frigate equivalent.

The bridge is that entire 'hump' that rises above the spine that runs the length of the ship. The dome on top is a sensor array. The elevator tube is to small and needs to be fixed - but this is not done. The bridge is about 4x7 meters (13x23 feet) which is the size of a large room. I figured it had sufficent room to comfortably house a navigation, science, engineering and command station. Given the smaller size of the ship, some of the stations would double up on what few other items they would watch for.

The escape pods each hold 4 ideally but could accomodate 6. I only figured a ship this small would have a crew of about 40.

Thomas P
July 2nd, 2003, 07:53 PM
Ahh..what the heck, while I was at it.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/sizecomp.jpg

Starship
July 3rd, 2003, 02:07 PM
Originally posted by Thomas P


Thanks and sure. Hope you don't mind heavy poly's (as I have yet to figure/master spline modeling).



Don´t worry !! I don´t mind. ;) :)

seanr
July 3rd, 2003, 02:50 PM
Jack McDevit wrote Eternity Road, which is an excellent novel, IMHO. A similar story concept (modern civilization lost and the attempt to recover or at least understand it) is the Greatwinter trilogy by Sean McMullen. Souls in the Great Machine, The Miocene Arow, and Eyes of the Calcular are three of the best books I've read.

Rogue Starship
July 4th, 2003, 04:40 PM
Yes! Jack Mcdevitt is my favorite author!

Engines of God is my Favorite book out of the series including

EoG, Deepsix and Chindi and another one coming out in december...

Thomas P
July 5th, 2003, 08:40 AM
Yeah, the new book is OMEGA . Sadly, it will be the last of the series that started with EoG. But, for those that know these stories, it should be cool as we likely learn what the Omega Clouds are.

Thomas P
July 6th, 2003, 10:59 PM
Okay, back to updates :D

I think the ship is just a tad small and so it will likely be bunped to about 180-200 meters. I'll have to go back and change the view ports on the hull body but not likely on the saucer.

The textures are done but I have a few impulse engine details to complete.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_per10.jpg

ST-One
July 7th, 2003, 12:09 AM
Nice looking ship.

There are no navigation lights on the saucer (yet?)

Thomas P
July 7th, 2003, 06:53 PM
All done - and yes, there are nav lights :D

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/skip_fin.jpg

Aldiwahn Teerod
July 8th, 2003, 08:21 AM
hmm... you really think it's done?
for me there are still things missing/half-finished

Thomas P
July 8th, 2003, 12:35 PM
Such as?

General Phoenix
July 8th, 2003, 11:37 PM
I think the model itself is fine, though the bussard lighting seems a bit "flat".

I'd love to see some more views of the finished product. :)

Melvin the Dork
July 9th, 2003, 12:51 PM
I think it looks good, the only nit picky thing I have is that the deflector dish looks flat, like it is a sticker. I don't know, I think it would look cool it the section was recessed or if it dipped back in on the dish itself. But then maybe its just the angle.

Thomas P
July 9th, 2003, 01:26 PM
It's the angle (or your eyes :D ). The dish is both raised and recessed.

Starship
July 10th, 2003, 09:10 AM
Very cool Thomas.

Some suggestions:

- Play a bit with the bussard textures
- Maybe you could add 3 small phaser stripes on top
- A small torpedo launcher, underside the dock bay would be cool too. ;)

I don´t worry about heavy poly's... :) I´m waiting a copy of this baby.... :drool: :) ;)