Kieran:
Why does it have to follow that an angled neck would preclude the presence of turboshafts? That, in my mind, would be incredible, nearly unforgivable stupidity on the part of the designer if it were the case, to design a ship(the Oberth) where the only way to get from section to section is crawling or transporting. So if you indeed could not have a turboshaft through an angled neck... then why the hell are there designs like the Oberth and Ulysses?
All I have to say is this:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/oberth-size.htmNow, proceeding from there... why exactly does an angled neck/pylon preclude the presence of the turboshaft?
And specifically, this:
If we postulate that the turbolifts are running through the pylons, we get serious problems. The pylon thickness seems to be less than 1.8m on the Fact Files front view (image), and the actual photos support this impression. A 1m x 2m turbolift car could barely fit through such a channel, and it would be impossible to make it follow the curves, let alone technically sensible. Moreover, the car would depart vertically in the upper hull and arrive horizontally in the lower hull, and it would have to be turned by 90° again upon arrival. The change of the direction of gravity, on the other hand, would be no problem, considering that the car has its own gravity generator. Anyway, the designer of such a turbolift must be a complete idiot! Or does the ship rather have a pneumatic delivery system like in "Futurama"? ;-)
I'm not saying that an angled neck
automatically precludes the existence of a turboshaft, but in practical engineering terms, I was thinking of the thickness of a standard turbolift car. As you can see from the turbolift picture in EAS' Oberth article, even with the increased width that a 150m (over a 120m) long ship has, the turbolift would arrive on it's side. Also, even if they were trying for stairwell access, you'd not manage it because of the thinness of the lower pylon sections.
Plus, you have to consider that a turbolift system takes up a lot of space on a ship. If we hadn't seen the bridge turbolift in STIII, I'd quite happily state that the Oberth shouldn't have turbolifts
at all. I mean, how lazy do you have to be not to walk somewhere that is never more than 100m and/or 3 floors away from where you are?
The angled neck of a Ulysses is different because of the sheer scale. The upper "prong" ends are widely spaced apart, and the neck struts are (will be) sufficiently thick to mount turboshafts. I see each Ulysses "prong" being as thick as a standard dorsal neck anyway.
The FASA Nelson, however, takes that standard dorsal neck and splits it in two and separates it at the top. that would probably make it the same thickness as the Oberth pylons. These "prongs", however, are of sufficiently steep angle all the way down that stairwell access is no problem. A case could be made in this instance that there is only one neck prong with a turboshaft doing down it as one in each would be wasteful and daft, but I don't recognise the Nelson class in my universe anyway. It
is just a license-saving rip off of the FJ's Saladin class.
I have no problem with turbolifts lying on their side while travelling. Hell, my Miranda-class deck plans has this exact thing happen to get them over the shuttle high-bay areas in Engineering! I'm just talking about designs which have been given to us as a certain way, and ship nuts like me trying to rationalise why they are the way they are. Like Smithy says about his silly SODs, theorists and engineers come up with stuff they think will be a perfect solution because it is on paper, but in real life it just doesn't work out. Look at Communism.
That is how the Oberth class was born in my STU, because that's the way I figure makes the most sense to my sensibilities. All in all, as a ship nut I'm looking at this from a practical engineering standpoint, and those pylons are too damn thin and curved to shoot a turbolift through it without a lot of soap.
There, my prompted engineering lecture from your impromptu rant. Now I'll read what the others said to you.
However, Andy, I personally believe it would look better if you replaced the Oberth pylons with something that goes with the ship, if you know what I mean.
I think I do, but to my mind, the standard dorsal neck does go with the ship. Or with the saucer section, at least. This was why I was asking for opinions. The underslung sensor pallet with Oberth pylons looks sleeker, but has the same problem as the Oberth, as above. This ship, with its 250 scientists and crew, would probably access the pallet far more often, so I wanted to give them stairs and a 'lift. So, a dorsal neck.
What do you think would "go with the ship" instead of either of the above?
Guv: Agreed, buddy. Although if you look at the EAS pic of the Oberth's pylons, you'll see he's pegged their width at 1.8m on a 120m long ship. My 150m ship has these pylons at 2.25m thick
on the outer surface, so internally they are well wide enough for a crawl space/Jeffries Tube, while still cramped and too curved for a standard turboshaft.
I too have the SS
Vico's MSD, which gives about 15 decks, but it is
completely out of the designer's established scale. Go read the EAS article I linked to above. It's how I decided to proceed.
Kieran & Guv: Okay, this quote from me:
Plus, a single, thick neck has more stability and strength than two narrow, angled necks, and the angled nature would almost preclude a turbolift and make it stairwell access only.
Also, the Guv's quote:
So in that, I agree with you. We know the Conny had turbolift access to the engineering hull. And she had an angled neck. On a neck with a severe angle, simple turboshaft redesign fits the bill.
I didn't talk myself out of anything. This supports my point I'm making: it is not the
longitudinally angled dimension, as the Constitution's neck is long enough to put a vertical shaft through despite being sharply angled at the fore and rear edges.
It is the
laterally angled dimension that screws this up. You can shoot a car through a straight turboshaft no matter which direction it goes in, angled, horizontal, vertical, whatever. But a
curved turboshaft requires a specifically adapted car, or has to be large enough for that standard car to curve around without getting jammed or scraping its edges on the shaft's inner walls. I'm saying the Oberth's pylons aren't large enough canonically, nor is the pallet accessed that often fanonically, for a specialised shaft/car to be fitted.
Also:
Now, if it's a question of thickness, as you mentioned, there I'd agree, but again, I have a very simple solution - design thicker pylons.
Ah, but it isn't just about thickness! It's about
shape too. You'd have to make the pylons straight as well, rather than curved, and if you're going to make it straight, why bother with
two channels to the sensor pallet? Just do a single dorsal neck - which is exactly what I did! Ta-Daaaa! *bows with a flourish*
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