Is Regula Really that small?

[AlexMcpherson79]

Using the size chart... compare the TMP Enterprise to... Starbase 173/375.
Note that the Constitution seems the right size to fit into either of the 'hangers' on those stations. Well, their height certain suggests this. What's the inner width of the hanger, and is that greater than the width of the Connie?

Imagine if the Regula station was intended to be *much* larger than the Enterprise...
Of course this DOES have problems like "Why such a large station for..." and "... hoow?" But it saves us the problems of say... having multiple stations of visually identical but different physical dimensions... and also say that Regula One was a Fleet Supply Base. (... Speaking of size, K-7 seems awefully ... small to be a 'deep space station'). It was disused and slated for the SCE to dismantle it so the physical resources could be used to construct new stations nearer to the then-borders of Federation space, but the Project Genesis team convinced Starfleet to "lend" the station to them for the project. Security wise, 'No there's no one there, it's a disused station that has been almost entirely mothballed, and we just dont have the ships to dismantle it at this time' is a good cover, instead of having to explain why a station suddenly popped up out of nowhere to people in starfleet/etc who don't know about P.G. Because it DOES look like what a supply base would look like - it even has those huge tanks!

And then the 'Arms' that connect the many modules of the original Orbital Office model gain a sense of purpose - they're like a spider web of docking ports for starships, swappable with modules to expand the habitat of the stations. The section with the two hanger doors is like a mini-spacedock-esque drydocking facility, one way in, one way out.. allowing the station to perform repair and refit operations.

And then the Ptolemy's ability to daisy-chain tanks gain purpose - because really, there wasn't a single station that had the storage capacity of even one - the Regula would only need One of the tank containers of the Ptolemy...

In the current Regula-One size, those little round modules are what, one-deck tall and basically only usable as office spaces With A View? The hanger structures are basically in the shuttlecraft hanger size range. Also, the smallest sizes of module on the office complex... those are... like... really small... a few rooms max.

[Nutso]

Are you saying it should be bigger, or you wish it were bigger?

[AlexMcpherson79]

well, Both, really.

Imagine if you will, many small supply outposts. Barely able to give supply to the dozens of ships that patrol the area, and not big enough to serve civilian ships either. And okay, one Ptolemy Class Cargo Tug with a single container unit filled can resupply it fully from empty, but all those supply outposts would need at least one tug constantly going back and forth, or if those tugs have two or three container units because they're supplying several, then there's a big wait, because I doubt they'd be all that fast. And there's NO docking facilities visible for large-scale transfer of those supplies, so it'd be like if the US Navy decided to resupply say, an Aircraft Carrier, of all food and perishables, and fuel, and everything else to support its missing AND provide all those planes and everything else that it would usually set sail already onboard, but while the ship is in the middle of the pacific Ocean so it doesn't need to return to port, just turn around and go back into a deployment. meanwhile removing all the leftovers and rubbish and so on and so on and oh yeah swapping out the crews because the ones already aboard (all five thousand-ish) have been on a three-month deployment in the middle of bum fuck nowhere.... back to the trek supply depot. having to shuttle over all those supplies... and the many ships needed to resupply them often blabla. and given their limited capacities for the station's individual resupplying capacity and therefore 'smaller coverage area' and having like, no room onboard for any attendant fleets...


OR.

They always were like Starbase 173 and 375 (and 375 didn't have the tanks for some reason...?)

They are full-on starbase facilities, to provide onboard space for entire crews for shoreleave, with storage facilities to provide resupply of any passing starfleet or Merchant ships, and sufficient said stores and cargo space to last months/years between resupply depending on activity in the local region.

For Regula, it is still such a facility, as in, "Starbase Regula One", but the mutara sector (where it is) at the time was basically BumF*ckNowhere, so activity was low enough that officially Regula One was placed on inactive status, a cover for Doctor Marcus to conduct the Project Genesis in secret, and officially, the USS Reliant was on task in the Mutara Sector to provide border patrol duties, when in actuality it was attached to said project surveying systems for a truly 'lifeless' planet to be used as a test subject... in a HIGHLY CLASSIFIED program which I doubt would be undertaken in a well-trafficked area of federation space.

So... In this view, I both wish and think it should be that, where-as if REgula One was solely there because of Project Genesis, why does it have those supply tanks?

So There's not THREE space station structures of different sizes (four with 375's missing tanks)... just two:

The Oribtal Office Complex is basically a small personnel transfer station and administrative facility attached to say, the shipyards, and most of the federation's shipyards have such facilities serving multiple drydocks. It's use in TMP was that the shuttlebay of the Enterprise was not yet configured to accept shuttles, and still in use for the transfer of cargo via Work Bee's with cargo pod attachment struts. (what we saw), so Kirk basically flew up to the orbital facility with its lower-deck shuttlebay (the bulbous thing) and then went up to the admin level, met whoever, and then transferred via the travel pod with rear docking collar that docked to the lower port (?) side docking port on the secondary hull of the Enterprise. That one only looks similar to the Starbases.

Then there's the "Regula Type" Starbase, a precursor to the Spacedock Type Starbase.

Direct comparison of the sizes....

[AlexMcpherson79]

Also, the current size for Orbital Office, gives a really screwed up scale so... the travel pods CANT connect

In fact, I'd say that comparing the Travel Pod and Regula One size, the REgula One's height of 242 is supposed to be the size of the Orbital Office Complex. because at that size, the travel pod DOES fit to the office module docking ports.

[IanKennedy]

I started looking at this recently as we have it a bit muckstip on the site. I think I came down on the idea that there were three different sets. The "Regula class", "SB 173 class" and "Orbital office class".

Orbital office has differences, for a start it is upside down from the others, with clear differences in the hoop structures around its top. People can be sees clearly standing in the windows (see the pictures on the site #4 in the green ring) and a work bee leaving the facility #3, so the orientation is canon.

Regula one is clearly shown the other way up in comparison to the E-nil and its scale comes from that.

Later stations such as sb173 and 375 are well scaled to the newer ships such as the galaxy and thus have a larger scale, much as the Space Dock vs Starbase 74 (and Lya Station Alpha and Starbase 133).

Unless you are going to ignore on screen scaling it's hard to justify not doing it this way.

[AlexMcpherson79]

Yeh but your current size for the orbital office , compare the travel pod to the docking ports for said travel pods on the model.

[IanKennedy]

What docking ports. The rectangles on the side of the diagram are the docking bays. They're shown in picture #3 with a work bee exiting. They're not the docks for travel pods.

On picture #2 there is a round port that could be for a travel pod, but it's not on the size comp to allow direct comparison.

[AlexMcpherson79]

Look at the fi at image on the travel pod page, then do a size comp of just travel pod and orbital office

U on what's app got some screenshots to send and can't upload them anywhere (at work)

[AlexMcpherson79]

Warning, LARGE images.

Screenshot that is 960 x 1080
Desc: Travel Pod, Work Bee and Orbital Office selected on DITL Size Comparison

Screenshot that is 1080 x 1920 (Rotated the screen round otherwise LOTS of black space or you can't see the travel pod and work bee.)
Desc: Travel Pod, Work Bee and Regula One selected on DITL Size Comparison

Screenshot of the Travel Pod DOCKED to one of the circular pods. Departure scene in this does not then show

As a result, it cannot be 71m in height, and you've likely sized Regula to roughly around what the Oribtal would be - suggesting then that perhaps Regula One is actually of the same model. (And... is there any reason why we can't say that it was SHOWN upside down and not that the design was flipped around?... Or perhaps Regula One is indeed bigger than the Orbital, but again, either we can go with 'Size of sb 173' with sb 375 also same model, just sans the tanks.)

[IanKennedy]

As I said earlier that rectangle on the left / right of the orbital office is not the docking port for the travel pod. It's the docking bay for the work bee.

Here is our picture of the work bee leaving the docking bay:



That same picture shows the docking port on the bottom left. Much smaller than that rectangle.

[AlexMcpherson79]

Yes... and look at the size comparison on your own website... and ...


here. The points I'm comparing.

[AlexMcpherson79]

On the image for the Orbital Office, there are MULTIPLE visible docking ports for the travel pods. 4 on the circular pods, two on the hanger module. the hanger module ports are visible not just in the film, but in the picture you gave! and... in the site comparison sizes THEYRE WRONG.

[IanKennedy]

Ok, I think that means we sized the office to fit the hanger bay, rather than the docking port. That would make the orbital office 210m high. I'll discuss further with Graham and adjust. Not sure what it's got to do with Regula One though? If Orbital becomes 210m then it's in a similar range to Regula One. Perhaps making Regula One smaller, not larger. If you assume that they are made of the same components.

[IanKennedy]

OK, we have altered the Orbital Office to be the correct size for the Travel Pod to dock at the rings. That makes it 210m high. We've also re-scaled Regula One so that the main module is the same size as the orbital office (assuming modular construction using kit standard parts). This made Regula One actually slightly smaller than before (242m down to 212m). This scale makes the docking ports seen on Regula One and the Orbital Office compatible with the Travel Pod.

We are still making SB 173 / 375 much larger than these. Regula One is clearly not a base for Star Ships, otherwise why didn't the Enterprise dock in side her in the first place. She consistently orbited around her. You can also see that SB 173 / 375 size comparison images do not have the round Travel Pod docking rings that the others do have.

[AlexMcpherson79]

Thanks.

Keep in mind I've not had my daily dose of Tea and Crumpets for a while So sorry for not making clear about that. Head needs screwing on straight.



And yeah, I noticed you did 173/375 as not having those docking ports (though on the 'hub' there are still the pairs of physical block extension with docking ports at like... 80 degrees rotation from each hanger? Though at that scale, I'd say they were large cargo transfer ports. Or possibly shuttlebays that open like how Spacedock apparently has such a bay going from the edited reuse of the dyson sphere in Voy Non Sequiter... but that's another issue.