www.ditl.org

Models are expensive and Star Trek budgets really have been tight. So every penny counts. You build a new great model of similar quality then you just took a way a whole scene or SFX shot somewhere.

McAvoy wrote:Models are expensive and Star Trek budgets really have been tight. So every penny counts. You build a new great model of similar quality then you just took a way a whole scene or SFX shot somewhere.

True, but on the other hand at that time they also had another series running, so every new model could be at least reused there. (Like the excelsior and mirandas were time and again).


On that note - and I imagine it was some kind of crazy hollywood union rules or something - I never quite understood why they didn't just get some Star Trek nerds to build them those models for free or for material costs. Everyone who dabbles a bit with models knows that altough the material might come in relativly expensive, the main cost is the man-hours put into it.

I am quite confident there were and are still enough model building star trek nerds who would have loved to do it for free as part of their hobby and maybe a mention in the credits. All it would have taken is a competent project lead and a bit of foresight imho.

(Heck, these are the kind of people who spent thousands of dollars themselves on their hobby. Get some who are star trek fans, tell them that material costs are covered and provide a workspace and they probably are more motivated and competent than anyone else you have to pay for a model. But than I never understood those hollywood rules in the first place. Just reading some problems the series had with having to hire a projector guy for each screen on the tos bridge and therefore having them blank most of the time, or the hassle with not having extras on the bridge on tng, whereas there are more than enough fans who would love just sitting there looking busy and bringing even their own costumes.....)

Seems Hollywood is quite a bit overregulated, at least for an outsider it seems that way.

Problem with hobbies is that you need an income to live off of while you are doing your hobby. Star Trek movies cannot sit back and wait for these Trek model nerds to finish the model.

Not to mention many of these needs probably never dabbled into the big model making projects either and mainly skilled at the small scales.

Well, I don't quite agree with you on this one...

I always thought that it was a nice touch of Starfleet to give Kirk another Enterprise and to make it a Constitution-Class ship. I mean, at the time he would have only few years of active duty ahead of him and the Constitution class was being faded out - but it was a very sentimental "coming home" scene

Giving him the Excelsior would not have had the same ring to it. STV was so clumsily executed that it would not have mattered wether the Enterprise would have been a messed up Excelsior or a messed up Constitution. But STVI would indeed be quite different without the "passing of the baton" on to Sulu and the Excelsior class.

BTW I never quite understood why Miranda, Oberth and Excelsior class would remain in service for a century and the Constitution would be sorted out relatively quickly.

PS: I have just noticed that I have been comissioned as an Ensign! Wow! 8)

Weaker design over the long term?

Mithrandir wrote:Well, I don't quite agree with you on this one...

I always thought that it was a nice touch of Starfleet to give Kirk another Enterprise and to make it a Constitution-Class ship. I mean, at the time he would have only few years of active duty ahead of him and the Constitution class was being faded out - but it was a very sentimental "coming home" scene

I agree that it was a nice sentimental scene. My objection is that it doesn't actually make any sense in terms of plot logic. I remember even at the time, as a kid, I walked out thinking that it didn't make a lot of sense.

Giving him the Excelsior would not have had the same ring to it.

Seeing that the Excelsior had been renamed Enterprise would have been a nice sentimental moment, IMO. Perhaps it wouldn't have been AS sentimental as seeing another Connie, but it would have made a lot more sense.

STV was so clumsily executed that it would not have mattered wether the Enterprise would have been a messed up Excelsior or a messed up Constitution.

Except that the transwarp drive would have handily explained how they could reach the center of the galaxy so easily.

But STVI would indeed be quite different without the "passing of the baton" on to Sulu and the Excelsior class.

Yes, this would have been one of the longer term issues that would not have gone as well. However, it's not like the makers of ST IV could have anticipated that.

It also occurs to me that a similar issue happens with the Enterprise-B. Clearly they wanted a "new" ship there, but there's only really room in the lineage for it to be an Excelsior. So their solution was just to trick up the Excelsior and make it different. Again, from a plot logic point of view it doesn't really work well IMO... the B should have been a simple Excelsior class.

BTW I never quite understood why Miranda, Oberth and Excelsior class would remain in service for a century and the Constitution would be sorted out relatively quickly.

The Constitution class were already quite old by TOS - how old is not certain, quite. A page from Archer's bioscreen in the mirror universe episode of Enterprise suggests the first one was launched in 2245. The canonicity of that is a little debateable. But the Enterprise was certainly in service in 2254 when it visited Talos IV. Which means that by the time we see the first Miranda and Oberth in ST II and III, in 2285, the Constitution class is at least 31 years old, possibly 40 years.

I find it quite easy to believe that the Miranda and Oberth are much newer designs, and both are designed for much longer service lives because of that. You see it in naval shipbuilding now - designs produced over the last ten or fifteen years put a LOT more emphasis on giving ships plenty of room for installing new or improved systems, exactly so that they can stay in service much longer. Hell, the new Ford class carriers are expected to be in service for fifty years each.

PS: I have just noticed that I have been comissioned as an Ensign! Wow! 8)

Congrats!

Nimitz class carriers or at least the newer ones were designed for forty or fifty years too. Ford class was designed from the start with room for electronic and computer systems.

In fact naval ships used to be weight critical but now they are more space critical.

I thought the E-B was the way it was because they didn't want to damage the model?

McAvoy wrote:Nimitz class carriers or at least the newer ones were designed for forty or fifty years too. Ford class was designed from the start with room for electronic and computer systems.

I thought the Nimitz class were designed for 30 years, and then it was extended in refit later?

I thought the E-B was the way it was because they didn't want to damage the model?

I think that's why they added the "skirt", but they did a lot of other stuff too.

GrahamKennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:Nimitz class carriers or at least the newer ones were designed for forty or fifty years too. Ford class was designed from the start with room for electronic and computer systems.

I thought the Nimitz class were designed for 30 years, and then it was extended in refit later?

I thought the E-B was the way it was because they didn't want to damage the model?

I think that's why they added the "skirt", but they did a lot of other stuff too.

I am not sure about the first three or four Nimitz but I know the ones built from the 90's on, were rated for 40 to 50 years. I know the Reagan and the Bush are rated for 50 years.

The 30 years could be the figure for the SLEP program.

GrahamKennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:Nimitz class carriers or at least the newer ones were designed for forty or fifty years too. Ford class was designed from the start with room for electronic and computer systems.

I thought the Nimitz class were designed for 30 years, and then it was extended in refit later?

I thought the E-B was the way it was because they didn't want to damage the model?

I think that's why they added the "skirt", but they did a lot of other stuff too.

Could just be the e-b was just an "excelsior batch 2.". No reason they couldn't have made some structural changes.

Plenty of real life examples of a ship classes like that. I mean take for example the US Battleships of the Tennessee class and Colorado classes. Identical in every way but what size of gun they use and how many.

That's pretty common actually. The US's Arleigh Burke class destroyers have gone through several "flights" that have altered the ship's outward appearance. The Ticonderoga's were originally designed with conventional SAM launch rails but after the first batch were redesigned with the modern VLS style systems. Hell, if you want to get more technical about it the Tico's were built on Spurance class hulls. Given how common they were I'm not surprised that Starfleet would have various models of the Excelsior built.

That is my point.

The super carrier is a good example too.

McAvoy wrote:The 30 years could be the figure for the SLEP program.

Okay, fair enough. But there's no reason Starfleet couldn't have run on a 30 or 40 year hull life design criteria up until the 2280s or so, and then introduced a much longer hull life for the Miranda and Excelsior class.

GrahamKennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:The 30 years could be the figure for the SLEP program.

Okay, fair enough. But there's no reason Starfleet couldn't have run on a 30 or 40 year hull life design criteria up until the 2280s or so, and then introduced a much longer hull life for the Miranda and Excelsior class.

No of course not. Going back on the Nimitz example, the newest one scare designed to last 50 years or more. Go back even 50 or 60 years, you got ships that are designed for half of that. Now at the time they last that long because of rapid technological progress. Some ships were lucky to get ten years before becoming scrapped.

It also could be because ships are incredibly expensive. So individual ships become more valuable and need to keep them as long as possible.

I think Starfleet increased the average life span of a ship because perhaps UFP was expanding more rapidly than Starfleet could expand its fleet.