Topic: Ever wonder why a ship was designed the way it was? Your ideas...

[Atrahasis]

Some ships have really wierd designs that don't seem to make sense at first. But sometimes I either run across info or think of a reason why a design is as it is, and these reasons are rather neat at times, and so I thought I'd share some here. First, the Oberth.....

Why is it designed like that, with no connecting pylon in the middle for a turbolift?

Answer: I ran across a reference that the ship was originally designed to be able to do a routine saucer seperation so that the top part can fly through atmospheres, and even land. Quite useful for a survey/research vessel. That's why it's so FLAT on the bottom. This is intereting to know.

Next question: The Enterprie-B. Why for pity's sake are the warp engines located RIGHT BEHIND the extra impulse engines? Wouldn't that block the exhaust?

Answer: This is not an official answer, but it was a thought that struck me......What if the matter intakes on the warp engines are meant to PICK UP the impulse exhaust? I mean, why not? You get a high concentration of matter that is being expelled anyways, might as well RECYCLE it. That would mean it would be picking up helium particles as opposed to plain hydrogen, but then the intakes on the Enterprise-B are not red but for some confoudning reason glow BLUE. Does intaking helium, and not hydrogen, make the intakes glow blue? And to use the helium in the warp reaction you might need to break it down into hydrogen again, but even this creates an energetic reaction, which means more energy for the ship in the process. All in all, if this is correct, it seems like an experimental drive/fuel system that was being experimented with on the Enterprise-B.    

[Ducttapewonder]

I read somewhere (Can't recall where ) that the Oberth class secondary hull was unmanned, housing sensor arrays and such. I'll see if I can't find the site.

DTW  

[Steelviper33]

Personally ive always liked the idea that the secondary hull on the oberth is modular. The crew consits of about a dozen at the most. and they live all on the primary hull, along with all the systems.

But the secondary hull is modular. In the case of the Grissom it was a high-quality sensor suite. on others it could be a weapons pod or another warp engine, or anything of the sorts.

[Mainwaring]

I've been quoting the TNG manual in another thread, but this thread applies to some degree.

Yeah. i love knowing why stuff was degigned the way it was. that's why i buy technical manuals and stuff.  and why I put a lot of thought into my own designs-- so i have an answer when someone asks why the design is the way it is.

[Captain KoraH]

One idea that has occured to me, is that with the relative commonplace status of force fields and transporters in TNG Trek, it is possible that a site-to site transporter is built in to some ships so you could easily move to otherwise un-reachable  parts of the ship. But also, I think those pylons holding the Oberth secondary hull are thick enough for a jeffries tube if not a turbolift. I imagine that's how the crew got into the warp nacelle of the NX-01 in "ENT: The Catwalk". In these sorts of matters I like to remind everyone that the ships as seen in Star Trek are not designed for real world physics, or for real world practicalities. But in some cases I occasionally like to participate in some speculative imagination, and the Oberth is one of my favorite designs for that.  

[Raven Night]

I also think that, if these ships were actually real, the current situation in the galaxy dictates design to some extent. The main theme is the size of the saucer.......when you look at the TOS and movie era ships, you see smaller saucers and more basic robust nacelles, indicitive of the practice of the era to create ships that were better equiped for combat. As the mission of Starfleet changed, so did the policies of crew compliment, and the addition of families to the mix required larger saucers to house them, and the nacelles became more efficient and less armored. There was a burst of unorthodox design during the TNG movie series that I think was prompted by the invasion of the Borg. Almost all of the new ships presented completely ignored normal Federation design rules, and were more specific to mission needs (Akira as a Photon boat, Saber as a high speed high punch interceptor, Norway as a better armed surveyor, Steamrunner as a replacement for the light and medium cruiser lines, and of course the Defiant as an escort vessel that presented high punch and speed power in a small menuverable package).

I have tried to make my concepts follow this migration, and in some cases I have succeeded with accepted designs.