TOS Steamrunner - U.S.S. Dallas

[Bones]

enjoy guys here it is... simple

[pdmccool]

Cool stuff, Bones! I never would have though of a TOS era Steamrunner.

[hawkman67]

Dude! way cool! I never seen this one before how about this one?? a TOS era Akira.
Jeff

[ltla9000311]

Dude! way cool! I never seen this one before how about this one?? a TOS era Akira.
Jeff

Wow Hawkman, that one is cool! Did you do the artwork yourself?

[hawkman67]

Me? heck no, I wish I was that good at drawing. I got it from a Star Trek forum site. Journal of Applied Treknology - Index (http://www.treknology.org/) go to the forum part and there are tons of cool excellent pictures and schematics to go thru. I get a lot of my ideas there.
Jeff

[Paragon]

Wow, that steamrunner is really cool. The Akira is awesome too. Those are two ships that look good as TOS designs. I guess I might have to show off my non-canon TOS design soon too.

[hawkman67]

looking forward to it a lot, seems we are on a Trek roll now:D:D
Jeff

[pdmccool]

Love the TOS Akira, but the side view looks awfully deep. If I were designing it, I'd make it flatter, like the FC Akira and the NX Enterprise.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

I believe its an optical illusion. The thing is, the Akira has downward-sloping edges on the saucer, while TOS ships had upward-sloping edges. This leads the eye to believe the bottom is 'thicker', which creates the illusion of a 'fat' lower saucer. I've got a model of the Akira in my hand, and aside from the slightly different proportions it's about the same. Slightly thicker, but not by much.

[pdmccool]

I believe what you say about the Akira, as it was never really seen on screen in a straight on side view, and I can see where it could be taller than it looks. That said, I still prefer the flatter profile of the NX. <G>

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Ah, gotcha. It took me a while to get used to the NX-class, but the submarine look of the inside and the boiler-plate look of the exterior has grown on me. Still, I'm not about to forgive B&B for forcing the design team to use an existing design. Not that I don't like the Akira or the NX, but I'd like a *little* originality when it comes to new Trek.

[Paragon]

I guess I'm the only one who didn't mind the shape of the NX, or see why it was a big deal to have the similar design. It was pretty obvious that the catamaran hulls served different purposes on each. But when you compare the old Constitution class design to the new Sovereign, it seems to me the similarities in design are tantamount to those seen in the NX and Akira. People just accept those similarities more easily because of this faulty notion that the Constitution's layout is somehow the standard, most efficient or most logical.

[pdmccool]

When "Enterprise" debuted I didn't really expect the ship to look like the TOS Enterprise. Unlike some of the Luddites that insisted that the show should be some kind of throwback to what Star Trek was in the 60's, I immediately liked the NX ship. If you follow the mythology, even though they weren't "new" in the time frame of the original series, the Constitution class ships were supposed to be the most advanced ships in Star Fleet, so it would make sense that they would be radically different from their predecessors. As for the Constitution layout being standard, the design of Mirandas and Oberths has shown that to not be the case.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Like I said, I don't dislike the NX at all. I'm pretty much in love with the design and the 'feel' of it all, and I'd like to see more stuff from that era. The features of the NX-01 make sense, as well they should given they are based off the Akira, which was a well-designed vessel.

What I didn't like was the producers insisting it be an established design instead of allowing the designers to be free with their palettes, like they were with Voyager and DS9, not to mention the other two Treks. I hold the opinion that new shows should open up new designs for the main ship.

Again, I'm not at all opposed to the NX-01, just the reasoning behind its design. I prefer that artists be given free reign to come up with a good design and not be bound by as strict an edict as 'Make it like the Akira, but more primitive.'

[pdmccool]

MFH,

I think you've hit on the reason why Enterprise as a series never caught on with the audience. The whole series had a "been there, done that" feel about it. Yes, the design of the ship was derivative, but so was the rest of the series. I think Paramount really let down he Star Trek audience by leaving the same small group of production staff in place for almost 20 years. It always seemed to me that they just assumed the audience wouldn't care if they constantly recycled everything from props to ship designs to guest stars. The TNG-era movies were no better. Even with great actors (F. Murray Abraham, Anthony Zerbe, Malcolm MacDowell, James Cromwell, etc.) the movies all had a two-hour TV episode feel to them, because they always went cheap on locations and sets.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

You hit the nail right on the head, pdmccool. It could be either the producers were tired of doing Trek after 15 years (as I recall, Roddenberry didn't bring on B&B until TNG), or they just didn't care. Either way, they should have handed it over to someone who did care about Trek before it made a faceplant. Not to say Trek didn't have good stories and episodes in the later years; All Good Things was still a great finale. But by the time of Enterprise the show felt . . . tired. Even the series premier.

One thing I did like was how they carried over the weathering the Enterprise was receiving from years of space travel. In the beginning she was pristine and polished, but as the series progressed the shine gradually wore off, blasts and burns became more prominent, and the hull plating started to darken from use. Its like BSG, but less pronounced. Its what I wished they had done with Voyager, besides laying off the technobabble and recycled plotlines.

[pdmccool]

Agreed, MFH.

[bigfan321]

that's the one good thing about series that used miniatures rather than CGI: you could have models that received and retained extensive external damage and continuity would stay continuity rather than being repaired every other episode

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Enterprise and BSG were both all-CGI. ;) Miniatures would actually *disallow* you to weather the model because you'd have to re-shoot and re-shoot the miniature over and over each week to show the new weathering, which would be cost-prohibitive for a production studio. On the other hand, all you have to do for a CG ship is to apply the new texture and send it back to the render farm for a new shot. Cheap, effective, and realistic.

(Don't worry, I'm fairly certain what you said was a typo. ;) )