www.ditl.org

This is a slightly better picture, but is still just the basic design.


This is a possible side view. Notice the oddly shaped hull.

On Stardate 45449 a new class of battleship was commisioned and design work began almost straight away. Eleven years after its beginning, the first ship was completed and began space trials. It was declared battleworthy on Stardate 58582.

I thought that I should get some input from you guys for the specs (after the disaster of my Dreadnought Class), so that I can start the final drawing. What do you think of the shape?

Just so we're definitely on the same page, Your plan/current background for this is as follows;
Commison and initial design – 2374 (mid Dominion war) - Then 6 years of design and then 1 year of spaces trails. Correct?

Specs – Its hard to say what some good specs would be without knowing what role this is supposed to fill and (roughly) how large it should be.

Drawing/Shape. - The rough shape seems fine IMO, though there could do to be some distinction between saucer section and secondary hull, though you probably plan on doing that anyway.
The only other things do with shape that I can see are minor art nits, on the right hand side on of the lines near the saucer curve is sharper than that in the other side, and the nacelles aren't quite parallel, but as I say, they're just small art nits.

(As an Aside, did you do this in either Inkscape or adobe illustrator ?)

Is it supposed to be asymmetrical, or are we looking at a side view of some sorts?
If not, you would do well to put a line down the centre of the vessel to indicate a basic axis where you can work on one side. it saves half the time in a sense. It will also give extra time to look at the ventral side of the ship, of which the outline is already handily provided.
the same principle can of course be applied to its front and rear view.

Second, I do not know whether or not you have any experience in 3d modelling, but for some it becomes easier to flesh out such ideas.

third, Given the no-nonsense approach at DITL I suppose the aft section of the ship could use some more mass, it is rather spindly at the moment. The nacelles and its struts are likely to break off, even with the use of Structural Integrity Fields. Rather you would want that the construction can handle its own forces and weight, so less power has to go to SIFs to even keep the ship from falling apart.

Although there is no gravity in play with spaceships. that does not mean they aren;t subject to all sorts of forces of movement. Keep that in mind while fleshing it out further and further. Therefore the placement of thrusters and impulse engines on the ship should already be considered: any force exerted by a thruster or impulse engine will act as a lever, tilting the ship in some way. how that plays out is important for its manoeuvrability.

On your write-up: On the main site is a stardate calculator. Use it to convert the dates into stardates and reverse, to keep things from getting too idiotic. Do some research into the shakedown times between completion and actually entering active service of various ships, ask Seafort about it. Why? Because years of designing and construction seems rather short to me, even with the expanded possibilities of Trek technology. Also consider that as tonnage increases there is more equipment in the ship and more equipment means more things that can go wrong during testing and therefore more time is needed to debug the ship. There is probably some sort of connection between the two.

The material you have provided so far is very scarce. What an amount of resources does the building team have to comply with what sort of set of demands in how short a time frame in which setting? Are you going with the standard approach star trek has had towards shipbuilding and guidelines, or will a certain amount of common sense be used to at least let it function according to some requirements? What balance are you going to establish between looks and functionality, should the two contradict or collide?

I thought roughly 850m long and its a battleship. It is supposed to be symmetrical. It will have saucer seperation. I was hoping to use common sense. I have come up with a new starting date which I will post soon. I was hoping for a ship that is functional and looks good. And lastly, neither. I did it in Paint.Net

I'd definitely agree with more definition between the primary and secondary hulls, and beefing up the secondary. Of course, this is pending seeing a side view - that could change a lot of things. I'd also be interested to see if you have the nacelles more or less in a plane with the engineering hull, or have the pylons upswept or downswept.

*EDIT* BTW, isn't an 850m prototype and design project a bit of a mouthful for a government in the midst of a losing war effort?

Mikey wrote:*EDIT* BTW, isn't an 850m prototype and design project a bit of a mouthful for a government in the midst of a losing war effort?

Stranger things have happened.

Alex, did you ever see my basic model for the DITL Paladin battleship?









IMO, a four-nacelle design makes way more sense for a long-range, independent vessel.

So this is a Dominion War era battleship, around 850m... What else are you looking for with this thing? Are we talking long range fast battleship, short range dreadnaught, fleet command ship, lone wolf bad-ass-killing machine? If you say all the above, I will piss on you for the rest of the time you're on the forum. But seriously, a lot of the spec's and outfit of a ship has to do with what its goals and mission are.

Kind of like the prometheus but withought multi vector and a lot bigger.

alexmann wrote:Kind of like the prometheus but withought multi vector and a lot bigger.

Hm... I kind of equate the Prometheus with one of those WWII German fast/pocket battleship commerce raider types. Designed to be quick, and get in and do as much damage as it can, and get out. Sound about right?

With the Prometheus being a fast attack cruiser, that would make the "Galactica" a fast attack battleship. Now you need to figure range, speed, weapons, defenses and crew.

I was hoping you guys could help with that after my mishap with the Dreadnought Class.

I'd suggest to look at previous designs with similar functions, i.e. being a fast attack cruiser and take a look at the development over time regarding range, speed, weapons, etc. I suppose there is some development, you could extrapolate from that line of development to the next stage so it will be a step up, but not neccesarily going into uber territory.

You might also want to look at real world ships, in order to get a feel for the relative speed, firepower, protection, etc of various types of ship. Given the time period I'd advise against making this a battlecruiser/fast battleship - they've already got the Sovereign. Instead, I'd suggest making it more of a line battleship equivalent, as the Orion/KGV/Iron Duke line of battleships were equivalent to the Lion/QM/Tiger line of battlecruisers.

I would agree that if the UFP needs a new ship class (as opposed to just more modern ships and less old crap) it would be a battleship type rather than a replacement for the nearly new Sovereign. At that size this ship should be slower than the Sov by a decent amount. I would guess if they did this the theory would be that the Sov/Prometheus would provide the scouting forces and this thing and the Defiant (or an improved version of that ship) would provide the major battle fleets. Something that big would need an escort and the Defiant would fit the bill well.

That being said I can't help but see a short-tailed sperm with engines bolted on when I look at that picture. Any major battleship would frankly look better with the warp components pulled as into the hull as possible. The struts should be as short as you can make them really and there should not be parts of the ship that are all that thin.

Indeed, for a ship whose role is more akin to the Defiant than the Sov, the look should be closer as well.