Mentor Needed

[Warlock1971]

Apparently I require a mentor for Federation Starship design (Star Trek, post-Nemesis era). I attempted to pull off a design that was a very intentional deception, but all I got at SFM was a photon torpedo barrage. I have a WIP of a ship designed more for that era, but I think it's getting to the point where someone is needed to help with getting the ship finished.

A note to the admins:

I was never upset with anyone. I've been busy building a web domain I've just bought two weeks ago, as well as this ship I'm working on.

[olblue]

Lets see what you have so far and then the mentors can be getting an idea what help you need

[Warlock1971]

This is the fourth attempt at making this ship, as I've erased the other three. Two to a recent system crash, and one because of an all-out barrage on SFM.

The second image is a sketch of an image I've been unable to get out of my skull as the Mark V Saucer.

The third is the one that started an all-out barrage on SFM.

[ckirmser]

Eek!

Got enough warp nacelles on that sucker?

Holy-schmoley, if you tried building that dude with the Starship Construction manual, you'd use your entire budget up in propulsion alone...

What is the story with all those things? Just looks or is there some sort of functionality in there?

The other render looks - well, like a frog... Hate to say that, but just being honest. I think if you reversed the sweep and angled the pylons - I assume there will be nacelles attached to the end of'em - up about 40 or so degrees, it'd improve markedly. Why the big secondary hull? Is it a cargo carrier?

And, lastly, what is SFM?

[Kristopher_Lee]

Love that avatar though..

[olblue]

scifi-meshes.com SFM. Regarding Federation ships, the best place to start is a shuttle - you are aiming "for the stars" when you should be getting your feet on the ground (to murder a pair of cliche's) however you need to look at small ships.

Do a shuttle first to learn more about your overall designs - once you go to a larger ship you are looking at a shitload of detailing so a shuttle or even a small combat ship are ideal to learn how to start placing Star Trek based detail.

Star Trek is all plate, rivet and hidden detail with small well spaced greebles, so it will take a lot of work to make your ship look detailed. Hence start SMALL.

[sandmanninja]

I think another issue very worthy of considering is design.
OlBlue has heaps of experience (i.e. he's old ) and speaks the truth.

I'd do a shuttle - they are very boxy and easier to do. Get use to the style of a Federation ship.
Then do a 'Connie' - a Constellation-class ship. Get use to doing the Aztec design for detailing and how the hull lines flow.

Then consider your own Trek ship design.

But keep in mind that ship design should follow a formula or at least some sort of balance.
The Enterprise-D in the Series Finale had 3 warp engines - and it looked good! Obviously the warp engines themselves had been upgraded - they were a bit more square looking. And the addition of the 3rd engine just suggested raw power.

The Star Gazer is the only ship that I recall seeing that had 4 warp nacelles (movies or television).

There's always a symmetry when doing a warp engine design. I think you need to image the stress on the structure that it will have. Plus I've heard mention of 'balancing the warp fields'.

[PoopinClumpin]

This ship is clearly not Star trek canon and therefore has no rightful place on 3d-palace.

[Firestorm]

6 look like huge over kill.

Going to reinforce the start small, work your way up. Some of those highly details models take months and months to complete.

[Warlock1971]

There would be at least 2 inactive during normal flight on this little number. The ones attached to the Engine Hull would provide all the propulsion, and the saucer's nacelles would only activate during separation or in MVA mode. The ship was given that, but an improvement on the design of the MVA turns it into more of a divide and conquer mode. One ship, 3 entirely independent sections thereof should the multivector combat mode be necessary.

The avatar is as I appear IRL...the only thing missing is the beard half of a goatee that I began growing about 2 weeks ago.

Update, 27 January 2008:
The ship is supposed to be among the smaller editions, only housing 240 people normally. Unfortunately, the hard drive crashed recently, so I had to reinstall the program I'm using. But I do have some more images coming up.

The first two are nacelles that I have for the ship...just don't know which one I am going to use as yet. The third is one generation of the ship I've come up with since the crash.