It's about fucking time!

[Master of Ossus]

It's even worse than it looks in that first pic I posted. Check out the view from the front:

"Gossamer-winged" is actually quite an understatement. Small wonder one of them had a wing sheared off; one must wonder why their enemies don't always shoot for the wings.

The whole thing is a wing. It's impossible to be shooting at the thing without aiming for its wings.

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that they're designing something which is supposed to look quasi-realistic.

Says who? Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that we would love them to try and make their designs look realistic from a millitary standpoint. However, the cold, hard truth is that this has never been an issue in Star Trek ship design.

Which is precisely what I'm complaining about; they don't give a shit, and it's getting worse. As bad the the older designs were, a GCS is far more structurally sound than this piece of shit. The problem is that the trend is not improving; it is worsening. They started out on the wrong foot and they've been hopping backwards.

It is all about making pretty ships so that kids will by AMT kits by the dozen for their personal collection. If 'realistic' ever came into it, do you really think that they would have given the Enterprise refit and Enterprise-A that incredibly skinny 'neck' and tinfoil-think nacelle pylons?

Actually, the refit Enterprise-A was far more structurally sound than the original TOS E-Nil (look at the shape of the warp pylons, and the use of rounded corners at the base to reduce stress concentrations), and the GCS was another step toward a structurally sound ship, although the saucer-separation thing was incredibly stupid. However, the Romulan ships have been getting progressively dumber, and the E-E was a step backwards in terms of rigidity (let's not get into the INTERNAL design issues of the GCS ).

Some advice: Shut down your 'reality' filter, kick back your heels and just enjoy the weird-looking ship-things.

I'm capable of looking past reality filters if and when it is suited. I even enjoyed "Treasure Planet", which throws reality to the winds. But Trek badgers us with its constant pretensions of technicality, which makes it difficult for me to shut down that filter. Every time they use a technical term, my engineering mentality kicks in: what does that mean? What the fuck are they talking about? How they fuck could they build something so goddamned stupid in the first place?

[KrauserKrauser]

You mean something like...

Luminal Electro-magnetic Radiation (Sunlight) that interfered with the tricorder

or

It only affects organic matter on the SUB-ATOMIC level (This one just boggles my mind)

Hell, they should tar and feather their technical advisors because I think he might be on crack.

[Howedar]

and the E-E was a step backwards in terms of rigidity (let's not get into the INTERNAL design issues of the GCS ).

How is the Sovereign worse than the Galaxy? Its got no neck to speak of, and the pylons appear to my eye to be mounted more solidly to the hull. Granted the nacelles appear to be flimsy, but what Trekship doesn't suffer from this?

[neoolong]

and the E-E was a step backwards in terms of rigidity (let's not get into the INTERNAL design issues of the GCS ).

How is the Sovereign worse than the Galaxy? Its got no neck to speak of, and the pylons appear to my eye to be mounted more solidly to the hull. Granted the nacelles appear to be flimsy, but what Trekship doesn't suffer from this?

The Defiant?

[Howedar]

You knew what I meant

[Darth Servo]

and the E-E was a step backwards in terms of rigidity (let's not get into the INTERNAL design issues of the GCS ).

How is the Sovereign worse than the Galaxy? Its got no neck to speak of, and the pylons appear to my eye to be mounted more solidly to the hull. Granted the nacelles appear to be flimsy, but what Trekship doesn't suffer from this?

The Defiant?

Hurray, one ship design out of hundreds is structurally sound!

[neoolong]

How is the Sovereign worse than the Galaxy? Its got no neck to speak of, and the pylons appear to my eye to be mounted more solidly to the hull. Granted the nacelles appear to be flimsy, but what Trekship doesn't suffer from this?

The Defiant?

Hurray, one ship design out of hundreds is structurally sound!

It means that they can. Because they don't means they are stupid.

[Darth Wong]

It means that they can. Because they don't means they are stupid.

And there was NEVER any excuse for the retarded Romulan designs, which have been brain-damaged since Day One.

[Howedar]

I ask again, in what way is the Sovereign inferior to the Galaxy structurally?

[Wicked Pilot]

And there was NEVER any excuse for the retarded Romulan designs, which have been brain-damaged since Day One.

You know that if you replace "Romulan designs" with "Voyager series" you will have made an even better arguement.

[Darth Wong]

I ask again, in what way is the Sovereign inferior to the Galaxy structurally?

I'm just working from memory; I haven't seen STFC in a while. But I thought they went back to the long, skinny nacelle pylons with that design, rather than the short pylons with a high moment of inertia in the bending direction that the GCS had.

[Howedar]

These are shots of a pretty damn accurate fan-made CGI model (I know where these are, but not actual model shots).

E-E
http://hippiesatemysangies.whoadude.com ... ee_top.jpg
http://hippiesatemysangies.whoadude.com ... e_back.jpg

E-D (AGT version, but the pylons weren't altered)
http://www.shiporama.org/Images/Galaxy/future7.jpg
http://www.ditl.org/gpaf/GEdOrbit1.jpg


I see no real difference; if anything the Sovereign seems to have superior mounting of nacelles.

[Darth Fanboy]

What puzzles me is the Scimitar's design. Its sole purpose is to being a Thalaron Radiation Generator, and not only does it seem to fire while cloaked, but it's being hit by Picard and the Romulans WHILE cloaked, doesn't that nullify the advantage the device is supposed to give you?

I don't even remember it being explained how the ship fires while cloaked.

[Darth Wong]

I see no real difference; if anything the Sovereign seems to have superior mounting of nacelles.

Thanks for the pics. My memory was obviously hazier than I thought; I'd agree that without thorough analysis, it looks like a tossup between those two designs; certainly no clear winner either way.

However, the Romulan designs are still shittier than ever. Egg-shells in space.

[Howedar]

No winner on the pylon-nacelle connection, but the Sovereign clearly has a better engineering hull-saucer connection and probably a better pylon-hull connection (the pylons go into the thickest part of the hull, not as a sheet off of the ass).

[Durandal]

Wow, turning the Valdor must be a bitch. With high concentrations of mass near the outer edges, the inertial moment is increased, thus requiring more torque to induce a given angular acceleration. Then again, the old warbirds were the extremity of this concept.

Quick quiz: Which travels down a slope faster? A ring of a certain mass or a solid wheel of the same mass?

The solid wheel, because it has the same amount of mass closer to the axis of rotation.

[Howedar]

It might not matter. The Valedor may have all of the mass near the outside, but therefore it probably also has all the RCS thrusters near the outside. With the sleep I have right now, this seems like it should even out.

[BenRG]

I must admit that I've never understood the underlying philosophy of the D'Derex-class design. Why on Romulus do they have that enormous empty gap in the centre of the fuselage? It is an enormous vulnerability, especially if the particle shields aren't working. In one licensed novel, someone parks a Defiant-class destroyer inside that huge open space and picks the ship apart piece-by-piece.

The only idea I can come up with was that the D'Derex was originally some form of carrier spacecraft and it was meant to carry either mission pods (self-contained troop barracks or bombardment weapons) or fighter-class ships in the empty space, within its' shields and warp field.

[Vympel]

I think it was to make the ship look big and scary without actually expending the resources to make it so. If we were to compress all that strucutre, you'd probably get something smaller than a Galaxy-class.

[Kuja]

My first thought when I saw the Valdor:

"Holy shit, it's a BoP!"

Seriously,someoneripped off the Klingons on that design. The Rommies have done it before (TOS) but this is getting ridiculous. If you wanna design a new ship, design a NEW ship.

[Darth Servo]

These are shots of a pretty damn accurate fan-made CGI model (I know where these are, but not actual model shots)....I see no real difference; if anything the Sovereign seems to have superior mounting of nacelles.

Still, you don't need to be a professional engineer to know that if someone tried to design ships like those in real life, the Nacells would break off in no time.

[Howedar]

Considering we know nothing of the mass of the nacelles, the speed at which the E-E maneuvers, or the materials available, or the stresses with which Federation ships operate, I'd say thats a hasty generalization.

[Captain Kruger]

Regarding the D'deridex design, there's only one possible justification I can think of for the big gap in the middle. They wanted the outer surface area of a 1,200-meter-long ship for the sake of weapons mounting without having to push the mass of a solid 1,200-meter-long ship. That's the only thing I can think of.

[Graeme Dice]

I'm capable of looking past reality filters if and when it is suited. I even enjoyed "Treasure Planet", which throws reality to the winds. But Trek badgers us with its constant pretensions of technicality, which makes it difficult for me to shut down that filter. Every time they use a technical term, my engineering mentality kicks in: what does that mean? What the fuck are they talking about? How they fuck could they build something so goddamned stupid in the first place?

I got that feeling when I was watching Eight Legged Freaks the other day. Everything was going along just splendidly, then all of a sudden everybody complains about the smell of natural methane. Then they worry that firing a gun will make it explode, but still drive their dirtbike around. Then they power the entire electrical system of a mine off of a stun gun. I'm willing to accept toxic waste making giant spiders, but not smelly methane.