USS Decker

[Lizzy777]

Having a number of friends in the BattleTech community, it seems all I build are BattleMechs. Something anyone can see at my dA account: lady-die on deviantART

So, currently being bored of building mechs, I started talking about doing a starship of some sort. Mostly for a change of pace. I mentioned to a few friends that I was, "thinking of building a Star Trek-ish type ship."

Enter my friend Tom. He apparently likes drawing starship designs considering he's sent me a few! ::grins:: And asked what kind I wanted. I knew for certain that I didn't want to build your typical Fed styled vessel: That whole Saucer/Secondary Hull/Engines type that are so common.

After a bit of brain storming, I told him that I wanted something like a PT Boat. A small vessel used for patrols, and the like. Long range vessel with warp capabilities and a small crew. A manifest of around 20 crew members. I also wanted to try to do a fusion of Era technologies. My idea was broad indeed. Something between ENT/TOS, or TOS/TMP, or TMP/TNG.

Yes, I was partly inspired by Hybrid Enterprise.

A few days later, Tom sent me an e-mail:

The Circles with Xs are the points for Point Defence turrets, the large pod to the stern on the upper side is the modular pod location/a suggested pod, the torpedo tubes are at the point horns between the centerline and nacelles facing forward. at the center of the vessel is the M/AM reactor core point. On the underside flanking the turret mount are the impulse engines (Biguns with the fusion reactors integrated), ahead of those are the eight three ecape pods (24 crew minimum for three person pods 40 with 5 person pods), at the bow of the primary hull underside is the main deflector. I would suggest phaser armament consist of strip type phasers, possibly a heavy cannon type phaser or disruptor along the upper spine. I envision it as a contemporary of or slightly later / before the Ambassabor Class for design idea references. The ship probably has three or four decks at most and probably no turbolift. Instead, the transfer poits between decks would not have arrtificial gravity, thus allowing quick and easy transfer between decks. As the ship is not designed for endurance its crew recreation facilities would be very limited. Internal cargo space is also at a premium, but see pod suggestions.

The intended purpose is a short to medium range high speed multipurpose vessel with primary role of Defense. The pod mounted topside in the drawing is probably a weapons pod of some sort given how agressive it looks. Other pods might include a sensor pod, cargo pod, tractor beam pod for towing ships at warp velocities, fuel pod, possibly a modular hanger to carry shuttlecraft(?), and a further external impulse drive unit for added speed/maneuverability, and of course any others you might think of. The pods give it the multipurpose function.

...and an attachment with 3 orthographic views. Taking those line drawings, I cleaned them up in photoshop and asked a few questions. Namely what the different parts were, how big it was, etc. After a little scaling, we came up with these dimensions: L 120m; W 72m; H 24m, 5-6 decks. And an average crew of 40.

Turns out this ship is much larger than my original idea of a PT Boat. It grew up into something similar in size to a Destroyer! Which brought up the idea of a name. The Class Type and the Ship name actually. Plus a short discussion on naming conventions in various Navies around the world.

When all was said and done, I thought it was pretty spiff. So to mark my introductory post, I present my attempt at building an original design: the Pike Class Destroyer, USS Decker.

[Starship]

Not a bad start, but the ship appears to be more from cardassia than starfleet.

[Aresius]

Quite right, Starship, but let's see. Think of the Iwo-Jima class.
I like the ship.

[Lizzy777]

Cardassian, eh? That's an interesting idea. I guess it'd all be in the final details as to which "look" it has in the end.

The line art doesn't seem to really match up. So figuring out the proper shapes has been difficult. No matter, I'll just keep plugging away. Doesn't matter to me if everything lines up properly. As long as it looks good, right?

Small update: Just blocking out the shape of the hull and have something of a bridge set out.

[Aresius]

That's sweet.

[Lizzy777]

My interpretation of this design isn't working out quite right. Which means I'll need to start over from scratch.

Blech...

So to get the idea across to me, Tom gave a description of how he came up with the idea.

If you want good references, the basics of what I did was take the defiant, and stick a big runabout on the front...And then trimmed it up so it fit my idea in my head

So with that in mind, I did an ugly kitbash to get a better idea of how the thing looks. I took the Defiant's main body, stripped it like a Corvette in in a bad neighborhood, stuck a runabout's cockpit on the rear end, and put a pair of the ENT-A engines on the sides.

I forget where I got the original models. I've had them for a number of years now. Just know this ISN'T the model! I'ma scratch build one, thankyouverymuch!

Anyway, now I know where I'm going with a visual reference PLUS how to get that Federation look this ship was originally meant to have.

[Aresius]

Hm. Interesting. That's a very interesting design.

[Render]

I am liking it, thou it boggles the mind a bit

[Lizzy777]

Once again I've started from the forward part of the ship. It's a different shape and I added some plating to the hull. Still needs a LOT more detail and definition.

-edit- Rebuilt the side panels...

[Aresius]

Either the runabout is very strange, or the windows are extremely narrow.

Nice.