Different warp core configurations?

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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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Atekimogus wrote:
GrahamKennedy wrote: Yeah, I think it was the original TM that said each warp nacelle was a whole propulsion unit in one - reactor, drive, everything. Makes sense and would give redundancy assuming a ship could limp along on one nacelle.
I think it was a very elegant solution and made perfect sense with Franz Josephs modular star-ship design approach. Never quite understood why Roddenberry was so hell-bent on destroying Josephs work. (Maybe Money?)
As Joseph's family tells it, it was money. Gene was all in favour of Joseph's work when it was helping to keep interest in Trek alive after TOS was cancelled. But when TMP was authorised, Star Trek got a new lease of life - and the last thing Gene wanted was to have to pay royalties to Joseph for putting his material up on the screen. So he not only ignored Joseph's stuff, he pretty much went out of his way to discredit it. Some say Gene invented the whole idea of a Trek Canon for that specific purpose.
Galaxy class....maybe. But every other ship? Again, most of theses nice cutaway-pictures are not strictly canon, but still, most ships other than GCS are rather cramped imho and it's just not the warpcore, you would need to add twice the fuel-capacity, twice the plasma conduits etc. etc. but what would you REALLY gain?
It's hard to get across to people just how large these ships are and how tiny their internal systems are in comparison. Even Voyager, which is not a large ship, is absolutely huge. It's easily two or three times the volume of the largest Supercarrier in service today. Yet conduits are a couple of feet across, warp cores ten or fifteen. It would be TRIVIAL to pack these ships with vastly more systems.

Fuel tanks we don't really know about, though they seem quite small. But the ships have stupidly long endurance anyway, I'd happily forsake half their endurance for twice their power.
Your ship isn't able to fly any faster, since obviously the ability to travel warp 10+ depends more on techno-babble magic than on raw energy.
It's pretty clear that in "normal" flight, more power does indeed equal more speed. Though doing this routinely may require larger (or even more) nacelles, and this is one area where making larger/more systems would indeed be impractical.
You gain an (supposed) advantage in tactical situations but then we don't really know what kind of systems are "behind" each phaser stripe. We only see the stripe, have afaik a very crude cutaway from the TNG TM, but no idea were/how they are connected to the energy-grid and what kind of additional systems they need, so just doubling them could again tremendously increasy the complexity and expense of the ship, quite to the point where it is considered nonsensical when a ship with a single warpcore is expected to handle 99% of the situations that arise. And for the 1% were it isn't enough, it is tactiaclly more viable to just take the second warpcore, take the second set of phaser stripes and build a cheap second starship hull around them. (Cheap example but I guess you know what I mean).
We don't know how large the stuff inside the hull is behind a phaser strip, no. But I find it hard to believe that it's all that large, given how tiny everything else is. For example Defiant's phaser cannon are at least as powerful, yet they are about 20 feet long and 6 feet across.
The only instance imho where a second warpcore would be justified is the Galaxy Class. Not because it would have enough space to incooperate a second set without enlarging the hull, simply because - at least at first - it was fully expected to make widespread use of saucer seperation. Now while at first that sounds like a good idea (get rid of all the things you don't need/don't want in a battle, living space, civilians labs etc and go only into battle with the essential stuff) it falls completely apart when you realize that the civilians who are supposed to be safe are quite litterally sitting ducks without warpdrive and that the battle-sections just left the ships two biggest phaser banks behind. (Maybe protecting the sitting ducks?).
Yes, the Galaxy was a well thought out design most ways, but that was kind of silly.
Anyhow, having saucer seperation just as lifeboat...fine whatever. But making seperation a tactical doctrine and then fail to provide a warp drive for the saucer....epic fail imho. Now officially the reason we don't see more saucer seperations was that the special effects were to expensive....I wonder however if it isn't more the case that after season 1 or so they realized how stupid the whole concept was in the first place. (Just to have the even more stupid voyager writing stuff revisit it with an even more moronic seperation ship....I mean as cool as the prometheus looked...what a stupid ship imho. The only vialbe reason for saucer seperation was completely ignored)
I think the main reason they avoided saucer separation wasn't cost so much - they could simply have reused the stock footage of the separation once they had it, and building up a library of separated hull stock wouldn't have been that hard. But it just kills the story dead. One, you have to spend a couple of minutes of screen time showing the separation sequence, which is dull once you've seen it. Two, you then have two stories going on, the "what's the battle hull doing" story and the "what's happening to the saucer" story. It's one of those things that makes some sense in universe, especially if you're stupid enough to stuff a starship full of children, but as a story feature it sucks.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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GrahamKennedy wrote: As Joseph's family tells it, it was money. Gene was all in favour of Joseph's work when it was helping to keep interest in Trek alive after TOS was cancelled. But when TMP was authorised, Star Trek got a new lease of life - and the last thing Gene wanted was to have to pay royalties to Joseph for putting his material up on the screen. So he not only ignored Joseph's stuff, he pretty much went out of his way to discredit it. Some say Gene invented the whole idea of a Trek Canon for that specific purpose.
Well has Joseph done anything else besides the TOS TM? Because, interesting as it may be, it isn't exactly a huge book with relativly little information (compared to the TNG TM). So I wonder what order of magnitude those royalties would amount too.

Granted, I have no idea what authors are paid for that kind of thing but it seems incredibly petty from Roddenberry imho. (Especially even moreso considering that you could EASILY navigate around Josephs inventions without discrediting them. Hands down, all he did invent are three shipclasses which uses already there parts and a space station, all of which would be out of date anyhow by the TMP timeline)

GrahamKennedy wrote: It's hard to get across to people just how large these ships are and how tiny their internal systems are in comparison. Even Voyager, which is not a large ship, is absolutely huge. It's easily two or three times the volume of the largest Supercarrier in service today. Yet conduits are a couple of feet across, warp cores ten or fifteen. It would be TRIVIAL to pack these ships with vastly more systems.
Depends. Maybe we need to be more specific. Most TNG ships I completely agree with you, things like Intrepid, GCS, Nebula.....shouldn't be a problem. Constitution class refit however, for example, would be rather hard pressed to fit a second one into it's hull. (It pretty much would have to be somewhere in the saucer section and you would have to sacrifce a lot of space doing so).

If we stay with Voyager for a moment however, altough you CAN probably integrate a second core easily, you still would have to sacrifce space (which might be quite a bit more than we think it is) and we have to assume that it is so much that it impacts the intended role of the ship negativly. For example, we could sacrifce living space, but seeing as it is supposed a longe range explorer, ideally housing a bunch of scientiest and not soldiers this might be viewed as not acceptable.
GrahamKennedy wrote: Fuel tanks we don't really know about, though they seem quite small. But the ships have stupidly long endurance anyway, I'd happily forsake half their endurance for twice their power.
Intrepid is actually a good example. It is designed as a top of the line scienceship, a long range explorer. Firepower isn't it's foremost concern. But since it is supposed to stay away from home for years, long endurance and comfortable living space paired with a strong sensor suite, laboratories and high end computers with top of the line holodecks (why on earth are they mostly used for recreation when at least on a science ship they should be used to run simulations 24/7?) are probably more important. What on earth are they supposed to do with a second warp core, appart from doubling maintenance?

The same is true for GCS altough on a larger scale. It wasn't build to be a battleship and when battleships were needed, they didn't refit them with a second core, they'd rather built a much smaller, considering it's size, much more powerfull single core ship, the Defiant. We have to assume that you loose quite a bit of efficience somewhere using two cores. (Might be fuel, might be production costs etc. etc.)


GrahamKennedy wrote: We don't know how large the stuff inside the hull is behind a phaser strip, no. But I find it hard to believe that it's all that large, given how tiny everything else is. For example Defiant's phaser cannon are at least as powerful, yet they are about 20 feet long and 6 feet across.
True, but there could be other systems involved with the phaser cannons (energy storage, heat dumps, radiation shields etc.) that are not readily noticable as being a part of the phaser array and still need much room.

Maybe it is a bit like a multi-turreted tank. They can be and were built easily but somewhere along the line they discovered that it is more efficient to just build two tanks with one turret, than one tank with two turrets. Maybe bit of a stretch as example but I guess you know what I mean.

GrahamKennedy wrote: I think the main reason they avoided saucer separation wasn't cost so much - they could simply have reused the stock footage of the separation once they had it, and building up a library of separated hull stock wouldn't have been that hard. But it just kills the story dead. One, you have to spend a couple of minutes of screen time showing the separation sequence, which is dull once you've seen it. Two, you then have two stories going on, the "what's the battle hull doing" story and the "what's happening to the saucer" story. It's one of those things that makes some sense in universe, especially if you're stupid enough to stuff a starship full of children, but as a story feature it sucks.
Well it is not just the stock footage it is also that they needed one extra set, namely the battle bridge (I am not sure which room they redressed for that, it certainly never was a standing setpiece).

Of course all this could have easily been solved by just making the battle bridge THE main bridge of the ship in the first place. (Alas Roddenberry insisted on it being on top again). Now the story would largley take place just on the bridge as usuall, so apart from a seperation sequence no need to show the civilians at all and no extra set-piece required appart from those frew instances were something interesting happens there.

And it would come with the added bonus that the mainbridge isn't that exposed when running the ship in normal operations mode. Again, the basic concept is quite good imho, for a long range explorer ship (there is danger? just dump the unnecessary stuff) but it wasn't really thought through imho.

(Now I seem to remember that in the episode where Geordi had command for a time with the planet where the weapons got progressivly better and better, that it was stated that the saucer CAN maintain warp flight, but it basically needs to be catapulted up to speed first. Watching that episode it is pretty obvious that the concept is very sound, but the execution is rather clumsy and would work so much better with the saucer just having it's own warp drive.)
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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Atekimogus wrote:Granted, I have no idea what authors are paid for that kind of thing but it seems incredibly petty from Roddenberry imho. (Especially even moreso considering that you could EASILY navigate around Josephs inventions without discrediting them. Hands down, all he did invent are three shipclasses which uses already there parts and a space station, all of which would be out of date anyhow by the TMP timeline)
Well Gene was an incredibly petty person in many ways. This is the guy who wrote never-used lyrics to the Star Trek theme tune so that he could steal half the royalties for it from Alexander Courage. Who invented the Vulcan IDIC pin and stuck a scene about it into "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" so that he could sell the pins at conventions. Who boasted that the main way for a female actor to get a guest star appearance was via his casting couch. And so on.
Depends. Maybe we need to be more specific. Most TNG ships I completely agree with you, things like Intrepid, GCS, Nebula.....shouldn't be a problem. Constitution class refit however, for example, would be rather hard pressed to fit a second one into it's hull. (It pretty much would have to be somewhere in the saucer section and you would have to sacrifce a lot of space doing so).
In TOS, the connie's warp reactor was about ten feet across.

Image

You could easily have put another of them just in that room. And the engineering hull as a whole could have quite a few rooms like that.
If we stay with Voyager for a moment however, altough you CAN probably integrate a second core easily, you still would have to sacrifce space (which might be quite a bit more than we think it is)
Actually, if we go to those MSD diagrams that you mentioned Voyager already has a second warp core. It's too big to put here but check out the image :

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... ss_MSD.jpg

According to the guy who designed the ship, the second core is a non-functional "spare" they carry for some reason. Apparently the events of Day of Honor would invalidate that idea... but there is certainly room in the hull for a second core, because it's right there on the diagram.

And cores are only about ten feet across. Either or both of those could have another one alongside it very easily.
and we have to assume that it is so much that it impacts the intended role of the ship negativly. For example, we could sacrifce living space, but seeing as it is supposed a longe range explorer, ideally housing a bunch of scientiest and not soldiers this might be viewed as not acceptable.
We have to assume that, but that's kind of the point. I'm perfectly willing to say that there's a ton of supporting equipment that occupies half the ship and thus makes it impossible to stick more of this stuff in. I just think it's a real shame that it's always that way - that these ships are so huge but all we ever see of them are these tiny little rooms that really should be insignificant. I agree that we can rationalise it away, I just think it's a shame that we have to.

It's one reason I love the engineering sections in the new movies so much. I don't care if it is a brewery, the thing has a sense of scale to it that nothing in prior Trek has had. Take a look at the warp core Kirk goes into and you can instantly see that this isn't something they could just stick another half a dozen of into the ship. And you don't have to pretend that the core is surrounded by massive support systems, because you actually SEE them.

One thing that brought this home to me is that I used to have a friend who designed her own Starships, right down to doing detailed deck plans for them. And it used to drive her crazy trying to fill the ship up. "I've given everybody quarters as big as a senior officers, and they still only take up half of one deck..."
Intrepid is actually a good example. It is designed as a top of the line scienceship, a long range explorer. Firepower isn't it's foremost concern. But since it is supposed to stay away from home for years, long endurance and comfortable living space paired with a strong sensor suite, laboratories and high end computers with top of the line holodecks (why on earth are they mostly used for recreation when at least on a science ship they should be used to run simulations 24/7?) are probably more important. What on earth are they supposed to do with a second warp core, appart from doubling maintenance?
Well it is at best unclear just how long the ships are supposed to be away from home. Kirk's ship was on a 5 year mission... but it regularly stopped off at Starbases along the way. In one episode he claimed that the power "regenerates" and would essentially last forever, whilst in another they state that engaging in heavy combat even for a short period threatened to leave them so short of fuel they wouldn't get back.

The Enteprise-D also did exploration, but again rarely was far from a Starbase or Federation planet. They did seem to think they could spend years getting back to Federation space from system J25, though. But then Kirk's Enterprise was going to spend 300 years travelling to Andromeda without resupply, too.

Voyager is a weird case... they were whining about conserving energy and finding new sources from about three episodes in, and they were out of Deuterium within 4 years. Yet they never once so much as mentioned being short of antimatter, which is really the only thing they should ever need to worry about when it comes to energy.
(Now I seem to remember that in the episode where Geordi had command for a time with the planet where the weapons got progressivly better and better, that it was stated that the saucer CAN maintain warp flight, but it basically needs to be catapulted up to speed first. Watching that episode it is pretty obvious that the concept is very sound, but the execution is rather clumsy and would work so much better with the saucer just having it's own warp drive.)
Arsenal of Freedom.

Actually the idea that the saucer can coast at warp for an extended period is never mentioned in canon. But it was touted as the explanation for Encounter at Farpoint, where the saucer is detached in deep space and then arrives at Deneb independently from the battle section. That's only really possible if the saucer did warp speed for a considerable time after detaching.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

Post by Atekimogus »

GrahamKennedy wrote: In TOS, the connie's warp reactor was about ten feet across.

You could easily have put another of them just in that room. And the engineering hull as a whole could have quite a few rooms like that.
Agreed......if that really is all there is to the reactor. It could well be that it extends for multiple decks below with heavy shielding and what we see here is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The only part that needs regular servicing etc. .

However, I think we should dismiss the TOS Connie when discussing this since it is hugely inconsistent in the first place. (Engine room location, "warp core" and how it's connected etc. etc.)

If we have a look at a TMP Connie however....
Image

Now here it wouldn't be quite as easy to squeeze a second one into the ship, the rest of the secondary hull is cramped with shuttle bay, storage room, fuel etc. so you pretty much would have to cramp them into the saucer. (Or give up and just enlarge the ship accordingly. Granted, if you just double the thickness of the necksection, one should be able to squeeze two parallel cores into it somehow).
GrahamKennedy wrote: Actually, if we go to those MSD diagrams that you mentioned Voyager already has a second warp core. It's too big to put here but check out the image :

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... ss_MSD.jpg

According to the guy who designed the ship, the second core is a non-functional "spare" they carry for some reason. Apparently the events of Day of Honor would invalidate that idea... but there is certainly room in the hull for a second core, because it's right there on the diagram.
(On a side note....the thing which probably bothers me the most in all those MSD diagramms are the computer cores. The are fucking huge, easly one of the biggest single pieces of equipment and it's always only one, two or three...very centralized....very 1960 imho, whereas I feel they should be more decentralized being spread over the whole ship like a neural network)

Now I might be wrong but I seem to remember that the E-E also had a spare? At least Geordi pointing to a space behind him and quoting "We just ran out of spares". So I guess this is a common feature on newer ships of a certain size.

Still, it is nonfunctional and in storage which means it shouldn't take up quite as much space. (No additional fuel-storage, no adittional plasma conduits or whatever energy transfersystem they use etc. etc. . Having a spare isn't quite the same as running two at the same time imho).

I do agree however, it would easily fit into it.
GrahamKennedy wrote: We have to assume that, but that's kind of the point. I'm perfectly willing to say that there's a ton of supporting equipment that occupies half the ship and thus makes it impossible to stick more of this stuff in. I just think it's a real shame that it's always that way - that these ships are so huge but all we ever see of them are these tiny little rooms that really should be insignificant. I agree that we can rationalise it away, I just think it's a shame that we have to.
Agreed.

GrahamKennedy wrote: One thing that brought this home to me is that I used to have a friend who designed her own Starships, right down to doing detailed deck plans for them. And it used to drive her crazy trying to fill the ship up. "I've given everybody quarters as big as a senior officers, and they still only take up half of one deck..."
It always bothered me, that the E-D was flying around with barley 1200 people onboard and that is WITH civilians. Giving the size of the ship it could easily have a standing complement of 10k people imho. And a vastly higher evacuation limit. Now alas the few times we saw her carry colonists or evacuating a colony, I don't seem to remember that we get a quote as to how many people she's carrying but it should be quite a lot.

(But then those were the limitations of 80-90ties television. Places like the GCS and DS9 are absolotely huge...yet we never really get to see even a 1/10th of them. Shame, I can only imagine what TNG would look like today were pretty much every setpiece is a greenscreen anyway. The places we would see on the GCS alone.......)
GrahamKennedy wrote: Voyager is a weird case... they were whining about conserving energy and finding new sources from about three episodes in, and they were out of Deuterium within 4 years. Yet they never once so much as mentioned being short of antimatter, which is really the only thing they should ever need to worry about when it comes to energy.
Soso...Voyager was weird that way...now there's a shocker. :twisted: But yes, I agree, they are all very inconsistant with this and is next to impossible to say how long a ship is supposed to last without refills. Alas they never took the time to work such considerations into the story and being consistent about it. I guess we can only go by what was "intended" and ignore those instances were the story "trumped" such inconvienient concerns.

GrahamKennedy wrote: Actually the idea that the saucer can coast at warp for an extended period is never mentioned in canon. But it was touted as the explanation for Encounter at Farpoint, where the saucer is detached in deep space and then arrives at Deneb independently from the battle section. That's only really possible if the saucer did warp speed for a considerable time after detaching.
It isn't? I could have sworn it is mentioned somewhere in the first season when they still did those from time to time. Ah well, time to rewatch them but imho it is at least heavily implied from just what we see, since the saucer is often seperated while at warp and doesn't drop out of it but rather just flys away.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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Atekimogus wrote:Agreed......if that really is all there is to the reactor. It could well be that it extends for multiple decks below with heavy shielding and what we see here is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The only part that needs regular servicing etc. .
Well yeah, but like I said earlier then we're back to rationalising it all away by saying there's a bunch of stuff that we don't see. Which isn't impossible, but I find it increasingly unsatisfying.
If we have a look at a TMP Connie however....
Image

Now here it wouldn't be quite as easy to squeeze a second one into the ship, the rest of the secondary hull is cramped with shuttle bay, storage room, fuel etc. so you pretty much would have to cramp them into the saucer. (Or give up and just enlarge the ship accordingly. Granted, if you just double the thickness of the necksection, one should be able to squeeze two parallel cores into it somehow).
Sure it would. You could put one next to the one that's there quite easily. At most, they'd need to be maybe a few feet shorter because of the hull curvature. Maybe thicken up the neck by about double.
(On a side note....the thing which probably bothers me the most in all those MSD diagramms are the computer cores. The are fucking huge, easly one of the biggest single pieces of equipment and it's always only one, two or three...very centralized....very 1960 imho, whereas I feel they should be more decentralized being spread over the whole ship like a neural network)
Yeah, it's really a hangover from the days of the "giant computer of great power" that was just going out as TNG came in. They imagined the ultimate mainframe, essentially. Really every padd and screen and desktop on the ship should be one giant decentralised network.
It always bothered me, that the E-D was flying around with barley 1200 people onboard and that is WITH civilians. Giving the size of the ship it could easily have a standing complement of 10k people imho. And a vastly higher evacuation limit. Now alas the few times we saw her carry colonists or evacuating a colony, I don't seem to remember that we get a quote as to how many people she's carrying but it should be quite a lot.
Oh god yes. If you packed a GCS even remotely like a modern warship, it would hold about 50,000 people.
(But then those were the limitations of 80-90ties television. Places like the GCS and DS9 are absolotely huge...yet we never really get to see even a 1/10th of them. Shame, I can only imagine what TNG would look like today were pretty much every setpiece is a greenscreen anyway. The places we would see on the GCS alone.......)
Soso...Voyager was weird that way...now there's a shocker. :twisted: But yes, I agree, they are all very inconsistant with this and is next to impossible to say how long a ship is supposed to last without refills. Alas they never took the time to work such considerations into the story and being consistent about it. I guess we can only go by what was "intended" and ignore those instances were the story "trumped" such inconvienient concerns.
Agreed.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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On a GCS, all rooms should have their own dedicated computer and maybe a much more powerful one for the warp drive.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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GrahamKennedy wrote: Well yeah, but like I said earlier then we're back to rationalising it all away by saying there's a bunch of stuff that we don't see. Which isn't impossible, but I find it increasingly unsatisfying.
Depends.....when viewed with the limitations of it's time I think especially TNG/DS9 did incredibly well. (Almost no greenscreen/CGI, every set has to be built etc.) That was one of the reasons I never really could get into Babylon 5....the horrible horrible CGI. (Yeah shallow I know, but I was a kid when it came out and Star Treks real life models just looked better imho).

And on a bigger budget...well TMP shows a rather large engineering and we even got a nice view with matte paintings of the (I don't know what they are) "plasma conduits?" running the length of the secondary hull up the warp nacelles. So at least they made an effort.

And that is why I don't really like the "brewery" engineering. Yes I understand it for all the reasons you stated but compared to the motion picture I just have the feeling they purley went for looks without any idea what the stuff is supposed to do. Especially when you look behind the scenes things it is amazing how much thought went into every little detail of the Enterprise in TMP and while still much was sacrificed to budget realities it shines through. The new engineering however I feel all they went for is "make it look cool, doesn't matter what it's supposed to do".

It just seems very very lazy to me, altough I agree with it's better to have a real set than just greenscreen/CGI. Still, I guess not a lot of thought went into the new "engineering". It looked cool, got a bit trimmed to "futuristic" and thats it. (Now mind, I haven'T seen the new one yet, missed it in the cinema, now waiting on the bluray, so I am just commenting on the "old" new one.)
GrahamKennedy wrote: Sure it would. You could put one next to the one that's there quite easily. At most, they'd need to be maybe a few feet shorter because of the hull curvature. Maybe thicken up the neck by about double.
Agreed, pretty much what I wrote above;). Considering that it runs through the neck-section though, even one warpcore seems incredibly stupid to put there imho. That being said, one has to agree though that at least on the Connys there is hardly any wasted space and it fills up quite nicely. (As I said, they really put much thought into everything on that ship, probably moreso than on every other star trek ship-class included the GCS.)
GrahamKennedy wrote: Yeah, it's really a hangover from the days of the "giant computer of great power" that was just going out as TNG came in. They imagined the ultimate mainframe, essentially. Really every padd and screen and desktop on the ship should be one giant decentralised network.
Another thing about the Voyager MSD which just came to my mind...how on earth do they make use of the spare warpcore? Seems the only choice they have is jettison both and plugging the new one in from the outside in a EVA maneuvre. Now that's probably not that big of a deal anymore but still......seems a bit overcomplicated compared to just build the spare alongside the active one, and if one goes south just throw a switch and be back in a few minutes. (Or yes, as you stated, just run the ship with both when needed. Or at least create the possiblilty to do so with a few upgrades in case the ship is ever needed in a tactical role.)
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

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Atekimogus wrote:Depends.....when viewed with the limitations of it's time I think especially TNG/DS9 did incredibly well. (Almost no greenscreen/CGI, every set has to be built etc.) That was one of the reasons I never really could get into Babylon 5....the horrible horrible CGI. (Yeah shallow I know, but I was a kid when it came out and Star Treks real life models just looked better imho).
They did well for the budget they had, agreed.
And that is why I don't really like the "brewery" engineering. Yes I understand it for all the reasons you stated but compared to the motion picture I just have the feeling they purley went for looks without any idea what the stuff is supposed to do. Especially when you look behind the scenes things it is amazing how much thought went into every little detail of the Enterprise in TMP and while still much was sacrificed to budget realities it shines through. The new engineering however I feel all they went for is "make it look cool, doesn't matter what it's supposed to do".
I'd certainly have preferred something built on that scale but purpose designed for it as a sci fi set piece. And they actually wanted to do that - have you seen the concept art for Engineering that they started out with?

Image

Image

Image

But again, budget. And I'd rather have the sense of scale and an industrial ethic than the sense of sci fi shrunk down and have to imagine the scale. Just my preference.
It just seems very very lazy to me, altough I agree with it's better to have a real set than just greenscreen/CGI. Still, I guess not a lot of thought went into the new "engineering". It looked cool, got a bit trimmed to "futuristic" and thats it. (Now mind, I haven'T seen the new one yet, missed it in the cinema, now waiting on the bluray, so I am just commenting on the "old" new one.)
The new one is a step up from the old, in respect to having a sci fi look. Keep an eye on the DITL Into Darkness page, there will some pics going up there in the next 24 hours or so.
Another thing about the Voyager MSD which just came to my mind...how on earth do they make use of the spare warpcore? Seems the only choice they have is jettison both and plugging the new one in from the outside in a EVA maneuvre. Now that's probably not that big of a deal anymore but still......seems a bit overcomplicated compared to just build the spare alongside the active one, and if one goes south just throw a switch and be back in a few minutes.
If I recall, that was the deal - you'd EVA and take it out the bottom, then feed it up into the hole the other one left. Spend a while connecting it up and be ready to go.
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Atekimogus
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

Post by Atekimogus »

GrahamKennedy wrote: I'd certainly have preferred something built on that scale but purpose designed for it as a sci fi set piece. And they actually wanted to do that - have you seen the concept art for Engineering that they started out with?
Holy S.... ! No, haven't seen those, thanks for posting them! Now that certainly looks quite cool and the scale is amazing. Doesn't "feel" Star Trekkie though imho...more something you would find in Mass Effect or something similar but I guess that is just the current sci-fi trend, just like the ipod-bridge.

(And while the scale is great........I don't know...lots of huge empty spaces....maybe that is something which speaks for the star trek approach with only small rooms and the size of the equipment just hinted at......not so much wasted space.)
GrahamKennedy wrote: The new one is a step up from the old, in respect to having a sci fi look. Keep an eye on the DITL Into Darkness page, there will some pics going up there in the next 24 hours or so.
Thanks, but I try to stay as spoiler free as possible for now. I still haven't even an idea if the movie was any good. (And damn....it is so hard nowadays not to be spoilered)
GrahamKennedy wrote: If I recall, that was the deal - you'd EVA and take it out the bottom, then feed it up into the hole the other one left. Spend a while connecting it up and be ready to go.
Well I just remembered that they are supposed to have 10+ workbees for that (which we also never see) so maybe it's not that big of a deal. (Actually, showing them how they repair patches of hull even ONCE would have gone a great deal explaining how the ship always looks prisitne even after armor-shattering battles the week before.......Voyager....when things got lazy!)
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

Post by DarkMoineau »

^^

You know what is fun about the mainframes in Star Trek and today? It's that every computing company or almost all of them want to return to the mainfram of the 60's which are at the core of Star Trek Computing. They call it Cloud Computing. It's like the Enterprise was using Google ChromeOS based computers with all the heavy calculation on the mainframes.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

Post by Coalition »

What could be working with the warp cores is the longer cores are more efficient, allowing for more endurance. The 'width' of the core is what determines the power output.

So the Defiant can put out a lot of power, but the short core means it doesn't have the endurance. A narrow scout vessel might have great endurance, but poor peak power.

Galaxy class has both.


For computers, I'd see a mix of systems. The PADDs and similar would be for local calculations, while the cores would be for the heavier number crunching, i.e. holodecks. Charging and heavy data exchange would be via induction, with a number of locations available (and depressions sized to fit the PADDs to make it easy).

As to filling up systems, there are lots of engineering items we can use. Power conduits, life support systems, water, recycling, and coolant pipes can be snaked through the ship, plus accessways to reach them. You could have the ship with 27 decks, but the 'nice' areas are only the odd numbers. The even numbers are the engineering decks, with all the cables and accessways needed. Even then, you'll still have lots of room available.
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Re: Different warp core configurations?

Post by DarkMoineau »

Coalition wrote:What could be working with the warp cores is the longer cores are more efficient, allowing for more endurance. The 'width' of the core is what determines the power output.

So the Defiant can put out a lot of power, but the short core means it doesn't have the endurance. A narrow scout vessel might have great endurance, but poor peak power.

Galaxy class has both.


For computers, I'd see a mix of systems. The PADDs and similar would be for local calculations, while the cores would be for the heavier number crunching, i.e. holodecks. Charging and heavy data exchange would be via induction, with a number of locations available (and depressions sized to fit the PADDs to make it easy).
The mix seems to be the approach of the next-gen gaming plateformes. Cloud Gaming is planned to extend their life in near future as they are already underpowered compared to a PC and in more serious domains, Siri and Watson are both Cloud Computing.


For the way to make warp core, your ideas fit well with what we saw: the Defiant was clearly not a long range ship. :)
If you want to ask me, this avatar is a resized version of "The War Come Home" by Davemetlesits found on DeviantArt
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