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If I recall the Ross is designed to be even more explorey: the Galaxy could be both an Explorer and a Heavy Cruiser, but the Ross is a Galaxy variant modified to focus solely on exploring. Generally, the rule is the more compact the ship designs in trek, the less separate hulls and the closer in the engines are pulled to them, the more a ship operates in or near Federation space. The more spaced out designs, with multiple hulls and long necks and pushed away engines, the further out it's designed to be. There's exceptions, and different trends in different design eras, but that's kinda the overall tendency. So the miranda  has very similar volume to the connie (the miranda's big extension on the back of the saucer is deceptively large):  and the nebula  has very similar volume to the galaxy  but the Connie and Galaxy are explorer ships, the Nebula and Miranda mostly stay close to home and patrol and things. The Sovereign is a big cruiser like the Galaxy and Connie, but eliminates the neck and so is a bit more compact:  It was meant to be a bit less of an explorer and a bit more of a heavy cruiser, staying closer to home being a powerhouse while still having the ability to project power and go on frontier missions. Intrepid class is similarly flattened but even more compact in shape:  it was meant to be a smart, fast ship that would dash around to do things but report home regularly. The Akira class is a mono-hull, mostly compact, mostly meant for being around home, not an explorer, but still stretched out a bit for more dashing:  While the Luna class is effectively the extended version of the Akira class, similar size, same engines, same detailing, basically the same production generation, but given a full-blown secondary hull as part of a mission to project out a bit more, do beyond-federation missions as well as being a local powerhouse, but not for 'throwing itself into the far wilderness' like the Galaxy and Connie were.  This is all stuff that's not really stated explicitly on screen but when you watch enough Trek and see different shapes in different roles you kinda internalise it and can see a ship and automatically recognise its rough role without knowing why. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 05:57
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MikeJF posted:This is all stuff that's not really stated explicitly on screen but when you watch enough Trek and see different shapes in different roles you kinda internalise it and can see a ship and automatically recognise its rough role without knowing why. This is pretty neat, and when you apply it to the Cali class you get "lovely little ship that's designed to operate way out in the frontier"
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Feb 23, 2023 09:57
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Well, Cali is still fairly compact, with the nacelles right under the saucer instead of pushed back behind it. Its design was deliberately a bit of a tribute to the Miranda-Class.  But yeah, I think it's a bit of a special case. The impression I get from the show is that the Cali is generally intended to operate in known space, rolling around doing maintenance tasks in its assigned sector. (Like the Cerritos clearly operates out of Douglas Station and attends to worlds nearby. We've seen them drop by Tulgana IV multiple times too) But rather than being the bespoke tailored-to-role made-for-certain-warp-field-dynamics layout most starfleet ships have, it's got a layout that's partly around it being modular. The writers of the show have confirmed that the whole thing is intended to be able to be plugged and unplugged on the fly. Need to lend someone a drive and warp engines? Pop the bottom off. Need to have a high-power warp generator for the research experiment? You can disconnect engineering and land it on a planet. And even when it's not being moved around like that, it's spread out to allow them to bring it up close and hook stations or ships directly into engineering conduits. And they're designed for long lives where the different elements can be replaced - I think it was said in an interview that the engineering pod and warp nacelles of Cerritos have probably both been replaced with newer iterations multiple times. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 11:47
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:This is pretty neat, and when you apply it to the Cali class you get "lovely little ship that's designed to operate way out in the frontier" I think that's where it falls down a bit. Calis to me read as an old (Ambassador-era?) saucer - maybe even surplus components - with basically a big old drive sled mounted to it. They're tug boats with enormous engines for tuggin' stuff, but they don't have the internal capacity/modern systems to operate far beyond the frontiers of Fed space. They'll follow up on the stuff the Galaxy (or Galaxy-equivalent) class ships have been doing, but it's the equivalent of building railroads after the exploration and mapping has already been done E; f,b
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Feb 23, 2023 11:53
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Barry Foster posted:I think that's where it falls down a bit. Calis to me read as an old (Ambassador-era?) saucer - maybe even surplus components - with basically a big old drive sled mounted to it. They're probably originally Ambassador Era (2330s), yeah - the Cali saucer is exactly the same width as the Ambassador Class saucer and they're mentioned to be pretty old and constantly updated. Basically the life of the C-130 Hercules, 70 years of updates but still the same basic workhorse body because there was no need to change it. The surface details and things like the deflector look more Galaxy-Era (2360s), but that's probably because that's when it last had a major refit. Hell, they added extra escape pods after the S1 finale and now it has both Galaxy and Sovereign (2370s) style escape pods.
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Feb 23, 2023 12:02
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Star Trek Online makes the assumption that all modern ships used by the galactic powers are modular in design. Technology in Trek, this game posits, tends to advance so rapidly that pretty much everything in a ship that's not a key structural element is designed to be unplugged and replaced at any shipyard as new versions of existing systems come online or any given ship needs to be refitted for a specific mission. STO's fluff also invoked the fun detail that this kind of 'make an entire ship plug-and-play' design was originally pioneered by the Klingons, as a way to simplify repairs for battle damaged ships. Ship's nacelle gets damaged? Pop it off and plug in a replacement, send the nacelle by itself to repairs and put it in the stockpile as a replacement part or just scrap it.
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Feb 23, 2023 14:26
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To a smaller degree that was part of the original designs for Trek ships: Matt Jeffries assumed that the nacelles would be replaced fairly often when he designed the 1701, and when he designed the Enterprise-D for TNG, Probert did up some things showing how the bridge/command decks, the computer cores underneath, the impulse engines, the nacelles, and the warp core assembly were all slide-out-and-replace at starbases.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:58
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Cythereal posted:Star Trek Online makes the assumption that all modern ships used by the galactic powers are modular in design. Technology in Trek, this game posits, tends to advance so rapidly that pretty much everything in a ship that's not a key structural element is designed to be unplugged and replaced at any shipyard as new versions of existing systems come online or any given ship needs to be refitted for a specific mission. It's called a war machine for a reason
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Feb 23, 2023 20:16
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I get that people who have gotten really into Star Trek have tuned into whatever design language that has become standard for it, but I just don't see it much. It's all just saucers and engines to me. Although speaking of ships that are just taking the "head" of an existing ship and building out a bit of a different body to make it into a different kind of ship with different purposes: The KDY Pelta Frigate.  It's clearly derived from the Tantive IV CR90, from both its general shape and the front of it having that kind of barrel head, but all the guns taken off. This guy's a peaceful ship. Also a comm tower and hinged engines. It can even land!  In the main episode I remember it featuring in, it was being used as a medical frigate, only for the onboard crew to get taken over by brain parasites so Bariss and Ahsoka had to fight to stop them from docking and infecting a whole space station. Then another one shows up in Rebels. Different paint, couple more guns.  But the main difference is that the rebels outfitted it with a wee little hangar to cram a few A-Wings into, so it could serve as Phoenix Home. Probably a nightmare to park inside. I think their usual MO would be to keep the ship a hyperspace jump away from whatever the action is so that they could sort through putting all the A-Wings back into the can in safety.   MikeJF posted:To a smaller degree that was part of the original designs for Trek ships: Matt Jeffries assumed that the nacelles would be replaced fairly often when he designed the 1701, and when he designed the Enterprise-D for TNG, Probert did up some things showing how the bridge/command decks, the computer cores underneath, the impulse engines, the nacelles, and the warp core assembly were all slide-out-and-replace at starbases. They also had the idea that the bridge would be at the very top of the saucer so that they could eject the whole thing out as one module if the ship is exploding.
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Feb 23, 2023 20:17
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SlothfulCobra posted:Although speaking of ships that are just taking the "head" of an existing ship and building out a bit of a different body to make it into a different kind of ship with different purposes: The KDY Pelta Frigate. It should be just a built-out CR90 (or CR70), which would make more sense, but they've clearly made the thing much larger that that.
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Feb 23, 2023 22:23
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SlothfulCobra posted:They also had the idea that the bridge would be at the very top of the saucer so that they could eject the whole thing out as one module if the ship is exploding. Probert originally envisioned sticking the bridge deep inside the saucer, but Roddenberry specifically ordered it put back on the very top, along with adding some length to the nacelles on the rear. I think the ejectable bridge module was a post-hoc rationalization and/or bit of apocrypha invented by Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda for the TNG tech manual, in which the development process for the ship included a special test-flight bridge module that could eject and serve as its own spacecraft if the ship experienced a catastrophic failure during flight testing.
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Feb 24, 2023 00:57
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Cythereal posted:The Reliant class, a modern update of the venerable Miranda class. Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
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Feb 24, 2023 01:42
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MikeJF posted:If I recall the Ross is designed to be even more explorey: the Galaxy could be both an Explorer and a Heavy Cruiser, but the Ross is a Galaxy variant modified to focus solely on exploring. Exploration and diplomacy. Cytheral's pic doesn't show it very well, but that blue ring you can kinda see on the topside of the saucer is supposed to be an entire promenade deck dedicated to ambassadorial work, with giant panoramic windows all running the entire circumference of the deck.
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Feb 24, 2023 02:17
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I think I'd almost like the Ross if the nacelle pylons weren't... like... That.
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Feb 24, 2023 02:34
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I wouldn't mind more Warhammer 40k ships in my life but I don't know where to begin.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:34
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tadashi posted:I wouldn't mind more Warhammer 40k ships in my life but I don't know where to begin. Take a random asteroid, carve down until you hit the hidden giant Cathedral that is at the core of everything, then add a giant space cow catching to the front. Done! A Warhammer spaceship! … and yet still more effort than the lazy and ugly kitbashing of anything made for NuTrek in the last 10 years.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:13
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tadashi posted:I wouldn't mind more Warhammer 40k ships in my life but I don't know where to begin. Technically these are 30K ships  Closer on the Tribune 
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Feb 24, 2023 18:14
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I've always been a fan of the Imperium's Cobra-Class Destroyer. Proper destroyers in terms of function have always been my favourite warships, and the Cobra is such a nice scrappy design. Not the biggest or beat ship in 40k by a long shot but a tenacious little brawler.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:29
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Arc Hammer posted:I've always been a fan of the Imperium's Cobra-Class Destroyer. Proper destroyers in terms of function have always been my favourite warships, and the Cobra is such a nice scrappy design. What you're describing is what makes me think of a Frigate or maybe a (very) light Cruiser. Independent ship on age of sail style adventures right? Destroyers are to caught up with ww2 roles and sizes and complete lack of armour to really convey that ethos I feel E. But that is a nice frigate right there, the Cobra-class Destroyer 
ThisIsJohnWayne fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 19:05
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tadashi posted:I wouldn't mind more Warhammer 40k ships in my life but I don't know where to begin. Before Battlefleet Gothic, there was Space Fleet, and the star of the show was the Imperial Gothic-class battleship, which was decanonized, I guess, but is still my favorite: 
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Feb 24, 2023 22:30
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I have no idea why they did this, but the people who wrote Star Wars reference books at the tail-end of the EU decided that the galaxy just became 40K for a bit, with humanity going around in cathedral ships hunting down alien heretics and fighting against Chaos.
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Feb 24, 2023 22:53
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Madurai posted:Before Battlefleet Gothic, there was Space Fleet, and the star of the show was the Imperial Gothic-class battleship, which was decanonized, I guess, but is still my favorite: looks very heretical to me. very eldar feel
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Feb 26, 2023 04:00
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redleader posted:looks very heretical to me. very eldar feel That's close to what I've always assumed Imperial ships looked like prior to everything going to poo poo.
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Feb 26, 2023 05:04
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Everything went to poo poo in like 20k. When The Emperor decided to "reveal himself" and united the Earth under his rule, he did so because the Earth was a barren, ruined, dying world. When once it had sprung forth an unimaginable massive space empire full of [heretical] wonders, that interstellar civilization had been shattered and disintegrated. When The Emperor rose up to reunite Earth and Mars and reach the stars again, most of the Great Crusade was just finding, conquering, and reuniting the old forgotten colonies of the old forgotten age of humanity spreading throughout the stars. Presumably there's still plenty of worlds out there he never reached before the Horus Heresy happened and everything went to poo poo again, but they came out of it with some snazzy cathedral aesthetics.
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Feb 26, 2023 06:31
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'Dark Age of Technology', which was basically mankind's golden age, was 15k-25k. Then all the chaos stuff started to rev back up, unrest started, all of humanity's robots that they depended on went full Cylon and rebelled, causing the end of that. Lots of places lost the tech they were depending on along with their databases and fabricator schematics and everything went backwards and the peaks of tech were lot. And then shortly thereafter the elves hosed a new gate to hell into the universe and everything went to poo poo, FTL became impossible for a couple thousand years. Once that settled back down and interstellar flight became possible the Emperor kicked off the Imperium and re-conquering all the universe in 28-29k, but that was basically cruising on what they'd retained from the age of tech, it was still nowhere near as good and the universe was still lovely. And then he got hosed up and turned into a life-support-chair zombie in 30k and it's been a slow slide downwards from there for the next 10k years.
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Feb 26, 2023 |
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Feb 26, 2023 06:58
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Closer on the Tribune For scale, that big dorsal gun is close to a mile long.
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Feb 26, 2023 08:06
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My favorite 40k ship design. This is what looks at those big flying cathedrals and smiles because it's lunch time.
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Feb 26, 2023 14:16
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Robot Style posted:I have no idea why they did this, but the people who wrote Star Wars reference books at the tail-end of the EU decided that the galaxy just became 40K for a bit, with humanity going around in cathedral ships hunting down alien heretics and fighting against Chaos. Was this when everything was set many generations into the future and they brought back characters as clones as it fit the needs of the series?
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Feb 28, 2023 21:57
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tadashi posted:Was this when everything was set many generations into the future and they brought back characters as clones as it fit the needs of the series? No you're thinking of Dune. Easy to get them mixed up.
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Feb 28, 2023 21:59
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tadashi posted:Was this when everything was set many generations into the future and they brought back characters as clones as it fit the needs of the series? Thousands of years pre-Empire, actually.
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Mar 3, 2023 19:57
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I don’t like Star Trek ships made after the 90’s because it’s usually obvious that the modern designers think Star Trek is beneath them and they’re trying to hide, minimize, or remove all identifiably Trek features. Shrink the bold prows and “noble” necks. Turn the Saucer into a rectangle. Turn the nacelles into generic engine blocks. Anything to tell themselves they’re not working on Nerd Trek. The Cerritos ironically is thus the best looking nutrek ship because, being a comedy/parody, it’s design is supposed to mock trek aesthetics, but to that it thus must actually have trek aesthetics.
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Mar 4, 2023 22:51
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galagazombie posted:I don’t like Star Trek ships made after the 90’s because it’s usually obvious that the modern designers think Star Trek is beneath them and they’re trying to hide, minimize, or remove all identifiably Trek features. Shrink the bold prows and “noble” necks. Turn the Saucer into a rectangle. Turn the nacelles into generic engine blocks. Anything to tell themselves they’re not working on Nerd Trek. The Cerritos ironically is thus the best looking nutrek ship because, being a comedy/parody, it’s design is supposed to mock trek aesthetics, but to that it thus must actually have trek aesthetics. Agree wholeheartedly.
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Mar 4, 2023 22:53
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Oh that reminds me of the other Tantive IV-alike that I wanted to bring up. The Resistance Transport. Basically just like the Pelta, take the blockade runner, strip it down. This one left itself a little more neck, but also sized the whole thing down a lot. I mainly know of it from seeing lego sets that it took me forever to realize it's not a Pelta.  But actually it's mainly from Disneyworld, where you can go see it in person as the entrance to a ride. I don't think it really appeared in any non-Disneyworld-related media, just made for the park and not picked up by anything else.  I also have some mixed feelings about it because there was already a Resistance Transport in Disney's Star Wars. One of the few original designs in The Force Awakens.  Which also admittedly, that one doesn't...look good. It's ugly, it has a lot of weird design decisions that don't really make any sense (it has the one gun way off center, not articulated so it can't really aim independently of the ship being piloted from the other end, and it's a big gun for using against other vehicles rather than an anti-personnel weapon like you'd want from a transport), but it's an original, recognizable design. I've even given it points in the past for being designed mainly around the cinematic purpose of showing off the big front door opening up from a much broader range of angles than the U-Wing's door does. But the main issue is that it doesn't even really have a name beyond "Resistance Transport" and it's been replaced. I don't even really disagree with the choice, but it kinda feels emblematic of how little Disney stands behind most of the creative decisions that were taken with the sequel trilogy (which also denotes how little thought or trust was put into those decisions in the first place).
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Mar 5, 2023 00:27
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Honestly they're iconic but Star Trek designs are just kinda ugly all around
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Mar 5, 2023 00:52
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SlothfulCobra posted:Oh that reminds me of the other Tantive IV-alike that I wanted to bring up. The Resistance Transport. I think the thing is, the TFA transport works in a movie, but is totally not fit for purpose for RoTR. You've got the entire front of the passenger compartment opening upwards, which means building a bespoke door system that can't be opened easily in an emergency (or worse, could fail and fall on a guest). Then when the door's closed the's no windows, and the pilot's off in his own seperate cockpit. The RoTR transport, on the other hand, uses normal elevator-style sliding doors, so they're cheaper and safer, and they're on both sides instead of just one. The pilot's also in with the passengers so you can have the animatronic pilot and look out of the front. There's also a window at the back between the engines, and blurry 'windows' on top so during the space battle sequence you can see energy blasts fly by. Also, having two doors means the main gimmick of that pre-show even works. You go in expecting to walk out through the doors on the other side, but the entire room moves during the 'flight' so you leave through the doors you came in through. Usually with the First Order officer who comes in startling a few guests by shouting instructions behind them while they wait for the fake doors to open. Having only the one door ruins that, if you can even get the giant gull wing door to work with a ride vehicle
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Mar 5, 2023 01:50
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I always thought that the prequels should've had a Bail's ship shown on-screen as the Tantive IV in both 2 and 3, but initially it's a shiny, brand new version of it with bright paint and without all the guns and with a smooth hull and aesthetic covers covering the greeble bits. And then over the course of the prequels, it gets grubby and between 2 and 3 it gets refitted with all the guns and stuff.
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Mar 5, 2023 |
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Mar 5, 2023 10:00
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galagazombie posted:I don’t like Star Trek ships made after the 90’s because it’s usually obvious that the modern designers think Star Trek is beneath them and they’re trying to hide, minimize, or remove all identifiably Trek features. Shrink the bold prows and “noble” necks. Turn the Saucer into a rectangle. Turn the nacelles into generic engine blocks. Anything to tell themselves they’re not working on Nerd Trek. The Cerritos ironically is thus the best looking nutrek ship because, being a comedy/parody, it’s design is supposed to mock trek aesthetics, but to that it thus must actually have trek aesthetics. What an odd take. Seeing anything from any of the Trek designers will instantly tell you they adore Trek, and are ecstatic about getting to contribute to it.
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Mar 5, 2023 15:10
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The_Doctor posted:What an odd take. Anyone feeling excitement of working on disco shouldn't.
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Mar 5, 2023 17:09
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The_Doctor posted:What an odd take. They’re paid to say they’ve “always been a fan” and “want to stay true to trek”. These days your contract has so many clauses about not disparaging the property you don’t get anything approaching the truth for a while. Like they trot out James Cameron every time they make a new terminator and he says “I thought the last one was poo poo but I’ve seen this one and it’s great.” He knows who’s rear end he needs to kiss.
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Mar 5, 2023 22:16
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"Help, for years I've been forced to design spaceships against my will," the designer screams internally.
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