Is DS9 a bad design?

[Mikey]

Which is ridiculous anyways as you could have compressed the station into a much tinier volume by not having dozens of pointless docking points.

There's a lot that could have been done, I was just pointing out what had been said about the curvature of the pylons.

[Deepcrush]

Which is ridiculous anyways as you could have compressed the station into a much tinier volume by not having dozens of pointless docking points.

Thing is we have nothing to say all those docking ports were useless.

[Tyyr]

What was their point then? They're too small for bulk material transfer. About the only thing they'd be good for is connecting to station power and allowing people to walk on and off the ships. If you've got a good explanation for them let me know because I'm not seeing one.

[Captain Seafort]

What was their point then? They're too small for bulk material transfer. About the only thing they'd be good for is connecting to station power and allowing people to walk on and off the ships. If you've got a good explanation for them let me know because I'm not seeing one.

Look at the size of your average Trek packing crate (such as the ones that were always piled up in DS9's cargo bays) - they'd fit through those ports easily. Sure, they wouldn't be able to handle the sort of volume a modern container port could, but with the possible exception of the Cardassian Groumall-type we've never seen anything in Trek resembling a container ship. They ship everything around in metre-and-a-half cubes.

[Deepcrush]

A motored beltway of some sort would allow for very simple loading. It would also make some sense out of why everyone uses the same damned crates. Just a easy way to know that your cargo can be traded easily.

[McAvoy]

The inward pylon design I can forgive because of the shield bubble as it has already been said.

I just wonder how hard it would have been to make the thing a a disk with pylons than a bicycle tire shape. Basically make all the open wasted space solid. My best guess is the Cardassians lack the resources to build truly massive starbases like the UFP. So to hold even medium sized ships they would have to 'spread out' the design. Also the largest Cardassian ship we have seen is a Galor or Keldon class. There may be a handful of larger vessels in their fleet. Off of the top of my head I do not remember many commerical ships larger.

Another would be the docking ring where various ships like the Defiant docks at. It seems to be a fairly limited way of docking especially with those little 'arms' around the port. Maybe a unseen docking arm extends out.

I guess you could swtich the mini weapons pylon for the larger ones. So that larger ones are closer to the central area than the weapon pylons. It would fix alot of things.

[Jim]

What was their point then? They're too small for bulk material transfer. About the only thing they'd be good for is connecting to station power and allowing people to walk on and off the ships. If you've got a good explanation for them let me know because I'm not seeing one.

When grain/coal/etc type goods are transferred onto a train/ship they are spewed in via a very thin boom arm. A system like that could easily have been in place for loading ore. With ships coming up from the planet, ships coming in from space, ore transfers, personnel transfers etc etc etc... the station could have easily been quite full of ships at every port/dock.

[Mikey]

The inward pylon design I can forgive because of the shield bubble as it has already been said.

I just wonder how hard it would have been to make the thing a a disk with pylons than a bicycle tire shape. Basically make all the open wasted space solid. My best guess is the Cardassians lack the resources to build truly massive starbases like the UFP. So to hold even medium sized ships they would have to 'spread out' the design. Also the largest Cardassian ship we have seen is a Galor or Keldon class. There may be a handful of larger vessels in their fleet. Off of the top of my head I do not remember many commerical ships larger.

Another would be the docking ring where various ships like the Defiant docks at. It seems to be a fairly limited way of docking especially with those little 'arms' around the port. Maybe a unseen docking arm extends out.

I guess you could swtich the mini weapons pylon for the larger ones. So that larger ones are closer to the central area than the weapon pylons. It would fix alot of things.

There are possible reasons for making the main ring a ring, rather than a solid disc. Remember that the station was meant for refining and transport prep, not defense or a main staging area. The open design allows smaller (read: orbital) craft more usable maneuvering room, as well as saving on resources like you mentioned.

[McAvoy]

I agree. But where did they do the refining? I don't think they did it in the outer ring. From what I saw in that one epuside where they triggered anti-uprising computer program, it seemed to be multiple decks tall. I think it is one room of many too.

It would make sense to do the refininf close to where you would have ship it to a transport, though.

[Mikey]

If the refineries were multiple decks tall, it becomes immaterial whether you have a ring or a disc regarding the refineries themselves.

[McAvoy]

No I was just asking where they were located. Because if they were in the outer ring, then it would be easy access for transports. But if they were in the center then it would be harder to transport them to the outer ring.

[Captain Seafort]

No I was just asking where they were located. Because if they were in the outer ring, then it would be easy access for transports. But if they were in the center then it would be harder to transport them to the outer ring.

They would also be as far away from any potential boarders as possible.

[McAvoy]

Well as possible in Star Trek with transporters.

[Captain Seafort]

Well as possible in Star Trek with transporters.

That can be scrambled pretty easily. Assuming, of course, that the heaps of junk the Bajorans use even have transporters

[Coalition]

No I was just asking where they were located. Because if they were in the outer ring, then it would be easy access for transports. But if they were in the center then it would be harder to transport them to the outer ring.

From Memory-alpha.org, the six Docking pylons were the ore refining locations. A ship might unload ore at the top/bottom of the pylons, the ore is processed internally, and the transports pick it up from the equator docking points (as most of the slag is removed before then, making the results smaller in volume).

Here is a picture of the station. In the group of five on the left, the 4th note down lists "Ore Processing Center", and points to one of the upright arms. Ditto for the other arms.

The best way to prevent boarding attempts from Bajorans would be to make the station over 40,000 km away from Bajor (out of most transporter ranges), and make sure the ore is kept in vacuum while in transit. The distance prevents transporter activity, and lack of air is often fatal to Bajorans. The sneaky stunt is to slowly pressurize the ore bay with excess nitrogen, then suddenly open the valves to vent the air to space. The sudden pressure change means that whatever Bajoran survives the nitrogen narcosis and the vacuum will not present a problem at DS9.