Re: Some nice starship schematics

Phillip Thorne wrote:

But there are just *so many*. (Okay, download in bulk so I can
compare quickly with thumbnails...) What's the performance advantage
to three ships with the same arrangement of components, but slightly
different placements of interconnectors?

As DDay points out, this site combines from at least three
different sources. A more comprehensive approach to combining
these into one fleet would take in three steps:

1 "Roll together" the similar ships. Pick your favorite of the
classes. The others can be described as variants of this class,
either the prototype for it, or developments from it, or
experimental platforms, or one-off goofball projects, or even a
mistaken description.

2 Reconcile weapons load-outs, classifications and terminology.
FASA is notorious for miscounting weapons in the stats they
provide (simplified stats for ease of gameplay?) That may not be
an obvious need just for looking at pretty pictures, but one
thing that shows as an obvious need is what things are called.
Take "frigate." SFB uses Frigate to designate one of the
smallest ships in the Line of Battle. MasterCom has Frigates
falling between Destroyers and Heavy Cruisers in capability.
FASA has Frigates sometimes heavier and generally better armed
than Cruisers (there's a bit of variation in armament among the
ships in a class as well as the uncertainty mentioned above, I
base this statement on the Klingon Stronger Bird and Great Bird
resizes of the Bird of Prey hull configuration). MasterCom
classes the Reliant among the Frigates, for example, FASA among
the Cruisers.

3 Conflate the histories. OK, this isn't really necessary, but
it should be kept in mind that these three sources at least
detail three histories; each is missing stuff from canon (eg, the
Soyuz class) while canon is "missing" most of their stuff.



The problem is, there are no rules of "warp naval architecture" to
constrain the designs. They'd take the form of: Nacelles must have
clear space between them. They must have a certain size and spacing
relative to the hull. Pylons must be as short as possible. If a hull
is blocky, it must assign additional power to deflectors to
compensate.

You seem to be covering nacelle placement well, I would like to
add a word or two about the hull.

The hull obviously has some effect on warp travel, else everyone
would simply fly spheres with warp engines attached. One idea is
that they are constrained by the warp envelope (the reason
secondary hulls have an undercut is that anything there would be
left behind). While I agree the warp envelope constrains the
overall size of the ship, but I don't think any ship has been
built out to the limits of the envelope, so it's not an absolute
determinant of the look of the ship.

I like the idea from the TNG Tech Manual that the warp field
interacts with the shape of the hull -- modify it slightly that
the warp field interacts with the deflector screens. The shape
of the deflector screens are determined by the layout of the
deflector grid, which depends on the shape of the hull. Or,
rather, the shape of the hull depends on how it needs to be built
to hold the deflector grid in the shape needed to shape the
deflector field to interact with the warp field for desired
characteristics. (Can one imagine a ship with masts, running the
deflector grid lines as rigging away from the hull? No, I would
imagine the grid needs to be rigidly held to the structure.)
Focusing on the grid rather than the whole hull allows easy minor
changes (a different bridge module, a larger landing bay apron,
the nacelle caps on the Odyssey, the Cage/Pilot/Production
Enterprises).

The above still boils down to the design rule, "A starship must
be aesthetically pleasing to fly," but with special prohibitions
against "just bolting another warp nacelle on." Obviously
additional warp engines would change the warp field, so must
change the hull for its interactions with it.
Hmm... the site in question doesn't seem to have the Ascension DN
from the Belknap Cruiser, an offender, but it does have the Marko
Ramius "frignought" development of the Burke, and the Chicago
Heavy Cruiser upgrade to the Kearsarge Light Cruiser. They add a
bit of hull around the nacelle, (to hold more systems as part of
the upgrade,) but for balance I think there also should be
something on the "opposite" side of the ship (however that is
determined). As a canon example, take the "All Good Things..."
E-D. It balanced the aft hull addition under the third nacelle
with the box around the ginzu beam under the saucer, and even the
masts beside the bridge. (Deflector screen emitters? Maybe.)

--
-Jack



.

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