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Hi there! I don't believe we've been formally introduced. I'm Drake Zure, and I'll be here until midnight tonight, singing folk music off-key in the corner and telling bad jokes to women I think are pretty.
actually, no, i won't.
you may know me from my limited sucess on the captuion competition, but that is, sadly, neither here nor there.
what is here, is this:



the top left is from forward, to starboard, and below, just for reference. that puts the Nautilus' engineering hull and main deflector above the saucer.

she's a carrier that's been floating around in my head for a couple of years. she packs a lot of fighters and would be a dominion war thing, but her ability to launch a direct attack is limited by the fact that she uses mainly phasers and has only four very wimpy photon torpedo launchers to back that up. this model is highly preliminary and meant only to give you a rough idea of what she'll look like when i'm done.

one question: do you think she'd look better with four nacelles, because i honestly can't decide.



She's a TMP-era scoutship with light armaments and four--count 'em if you don't believe me--warp nacelles.

here's a more advanced version of the model.


top left: the different assemblies are visible here, conveniently highlighted in colors that appeal to small children. the phasers are blue, nacelles yellow, nacelle struts purple, and the impulse assembly is green.

top right: this view highlights the detail work (ha. detail indeed) on the upper hull surface. the impulse assembly, bridge, and phasers are clearly visible.

lower left: wireframe-overlay view showing the rear underside, loosely framed by the nacelles and, if you look real close, pointing out just how simple those impulse engines are to model. they're basically warped prisms.

lower right: okay, i'm showing off. in this part of the image, you can just see the complexity of the hull shape, which starts out concave at the edges, and then balloons back out to a convex bulge in the middle. also visible is the most badass sensor assembly in the world. believe it or not, that assembly is just two objects, a squashed sphere and an extremely simple, very warped cylinder.



at some point i'm going to break out my pet starship, the Tremor Class Support Cruiser, which comes complete with writeup, but is (sadly) non-3d.
by the way, does anyone know how to texture objects in Milkshape?

Meh. 3-D's overrated! (just kidding )

I really like that first design! I would have pegged her for a scoutship or a surveyor, simply because of how lanky she seems. I would always figure a carrier to be more ungainly and boxier so that they can carry as many fighters as possible.

Anyway, I really like Nautilus! Very graceful.

I say keep four on Gracerunner, so that it really looks different from a Miranda. Nice job in keeping with the era's style, too!

DBS wrote:Meh. 3-D's overrated! (just kidding )

I really like that first design! I would have pegged her for a scoutship or a surveyor, simply because of how lanky she seems. I would always figure a carrier to be more ungainly and boxier so that they can carry as many fighters as possible.

Anyway, I really like Nautilus! Very graceful.

I say keep four on Gracerunner, so that it really looks different from a Miranda. Nice job in keeping with the era's style, too!

it's a nice job until you notice that i did that compound-curve thing with both the top and the bottom in a moment of splendid brain-fartism.


as far as the four-nacelles goes on the Gracerunner, that's without question the way she's staying. i was asking about the Nautilus.

Well, it might help balance it, and I'd like to see it both ways! Maybe I would increase the thickness of the hull and saucer to give the ship more volume (and also balance out the four nacelles)

well, the thing it really needs is bulk, especially in the engineering hull, which also happens to house the fighters.
right now, i'm on kind of a poetry kick, so i won't be doing this kind of thing for about a week, but i figured the earlier i share it, the better.

The Gracerunner class is pretty good.

I would suggest making the Nautilus class bigger and boxier, those fighters have to fit in somewhere!

Grace Runner kinda looks like the MIRANDA

It is a Miranda, only with 2 extra Nacelles on the rollbar struts.

I could see Gracerunner being a kind of pilot design to give a Miranda more speed. I could easily see her being a prototype or pathfinder ship well on the way towards the eventual development of the Constellation class!

First of all, the ship as a whole could use some more bulk.
Next, this is purely from a practical view. The nacelles are (as far as I remember) intended to create a warp field. You place them quite far at the back, so the nacelles are forced to create a larger warpfiel to encompass the entire ship. If you'd move them further forward on the ship, it would be more compact (also harder to hit for enemy ships) and the warp field wouldn't have to be as big.

The nacelles are usually placed away from the ship to prevent the health hazards of some kind of radiation the nacelles produce. Also, since the warp field contracts space in front of the ship and expands it behind, It may make sense to have them further back, to have that extra reach to push the ship further.

very rough early concept for a spherical-hulled ship. if i decide to make the effort, this may end up not being a Star Trek ship at all.

Not bad... but I would say that the sphere needs to be much, much bigger in comparison to those strust and nacelles. Like two or three times bigger.

that's why i said very rough.

So thats where the Epcott center dome went!