USS Ranier (Federation Ranier class Battlecruiser) Registry number NX-?????

[USS Athena]

Originally Posted by Captain J. Wesley

I need help with this ship. I have ideas, but they never seem to be able to come out right when I attempt a 3d model of them, or a paper drawing... although I know my problem with the paper is that I'm using a tiny sketchbook, with crappy pencils... but thats beside the point. As my intro thread says, Star Trek is a recent hobby of mine, so if I could get one of you uber-STgeeks to help, that would be great

So here is a few images... like I said, I cant seem to convey my ideas all that great in normal mediums, so these are made of images I found on the internet, edited together, so design isn't final, this is just a rough draft The one with color is a beta test I did in MS Paint to see what some colored panels might do for the design.

I have some suggestions... Now you should know that I am not one of the uber-geeks here on the board, mostly I just lurk.
But, if youre interested, here are my suggestions:
1) Decide on an era, and look at ship designs from that era. If your era is beyond the current time, go for the most current designs you can find and take off from there.
2)Once you've found your timeframe, try to make all of your parts come from that time frame (dont use Excelsior warp nacelles on a Constitution or a Galaxy).
3)Specifically for your ship, I would say lose the third nacelle. Most references explicitly exclude third nacelles, unless they are symmetrical or have a reason for being there.
4)When you are kitbashing pictures from the internet(and even when you are designing from scratch) try to make the separate views match.

I would take the saucer from the front view and try to re-draw the other two views to match it, make the secondary hull smaller around and probably narrower in kind of a "u" or tapered "v" shape while at the same time keeping the deflector dish round and in the middle. For the side view, you might even take a look at the Belknap deflector, even might go better with the style you seem to be going after. Your warp pylons should be closer in, and angled up and out from the secondary hull. The top and sides views dont match the fron view. And lose the front view nacelles; find nacelles that look like the Excelsior ones. Better yet, use Sovereign nacelles, they would matche the time frame better.

I hope this helps and that I haven come off like some egotistical jerk. I'm not, really. :-)

[Captain J. Wesley]

thank for the help! however, my ship is WAY beyond any canon references... 50 years post voyager .

I don't have a third Nacelle, btw.

And I have started a total redesign. TOTAL. I will post updates as they come.

[Captain J. Wesley]

Yay! New Saucer image!

[DamienNZ]

Moving in a good direction. I like the basic design.

[Captain J. Wesley]

Thanks the top view secondary hull and side view secondary hull should be done very soon. (just a note, those things sticking out the back of the saucer are emergency warp nacelles.)

[Lonewriter]

loose the Excelsior nacelles. If this is after Voyager it wouldn't have those or a Connie secondary hull.

[Captain J. Wesley]

note that I said it was under total refit. I'm ditching the old design.

[Captain J. Wesley]

Secondary hull under construction!

Hull graphics and a WIP uniform patch.

[captainkirk]

Nice saucer. I'm assuming the mountain in the picture is Mount Ranier.When will the engineering hull be done?

[Captain J. Wesley]

when it gets done. Hopefully today, if not, it'll be sometime next week, at best.

EDIT: depends on whether you want to see it finished, or just black and white.