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Mad Starship Designs

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Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
I mean, just look at them!

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They're both conversion kits by Starship Modeler for the 1/1000 scale Polar Lights TOS Enterprise. Both mad as a box of frogs, but I think they're great.

The first, the Edmund Fitzgerald-class Freighter, is a design by one "Mighty" Joe Homaki, who has a phtobucket page of even more bizarre designs (think he did some work in fan-made FASA ship books from what I can find). the second is a kitbash by John Lester, the guy who owns Starship Modeler, using Bionicle parts (actually a "Konaki" disk launcher and disk) and a few other odds and ends.

I've got the first on order (a present from The Wife and her family despite the exorbitant postage costs- it's solid resin and heavy), got a Polar Lights Enterprise here to complete it with. Alas that the second is long out of stock (John doesn't even know where the master version is), but I have acquired one of those disk launchers, might try to knock one together myself, fortunately John did have some high-res images which he sent me.

Anyone else ever come across these? Feel free to share your own contenders.
 
There really isn't much to the second ship (just looks like someone glued a Connie nacelle and pylon onto some random piece of plastic), but the first ship looks pretty cool. It looks more like a TOS ship than the DSC ships do ;)
 
Crazyewok said:
The second ship looks like a toilet with a nacelle stuck too it :nyah:
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That was my first thought -- a toilet with warp drive!

With those terraced decks, the "Federation Freighter" looks more like a small cruise vessel or a private luxury yacht.
 
Here's another one, the Ginny's Delight, a small freighter for the FASA Star Trek RPG presented in Dragon Magazine #96.

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No, the front is to the left. It's a strange angular design, but a great little ship, sort of the Trek equivalent to the Millennium Falcon, useable in both the Original Series or Movie eras. Ideally you'd use it in the Triangle setting FASA produced, the lawless frontier zone that sits between Klingon, Romulan and Federation space.

You can read the Dragon magazine here- https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg096.pdf and someone did a slightly expanded write up here- http://fasaststcs.com/index.php/the...ants/ginnys-delight-class-ii-tramp-freighter/

I picked up the magazine, scanned the deck plans and cleaned them up a bit.

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I even went so far as to get two little 3D printed versions I found a company producing. They're 1/1000 scale, same as that huge Fizgerald-class freighter I mentioned above, it'll be fun putting the two together when I've finished that and got them both all painted up.

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scotpens said:
That was my first thought -- a toilet with warp drive!

With those terraced decks, the "Federation Freighter" looks more like a small cruise vessel or a private luxury yacht.
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Or maybe, a ship designed to carry atmospheric fighters or search and rescue craft to a planet, and then act as an aircraft carrier (or more like SHIELD helicarrier) sort of platform while hanging around in atmo? The top of it screams "flight deck" to me.
 
I like the design of the ship itself. The deck plans, not so much. There are only beds for five and yet the bridge alone has seven duty stations. There are sixteen chairs in the dinning area, so they must be throwing parties all the time, no? In short, it's not well thought out from a realism point of view. Too much wasted space. Why have separate dinning area, lounge, and recreation room when all of these could be combined into one? That would give it the space for more crew quarters.

EDIT: On second thought, now that I see the warp drive is on the front, I'm not as fond of the ship as I was at first. Put the deflector dish on the other end, and then we'll talk.
 
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I agree with the wasted space and too few bunks comment. I have already started modifying the deck plans using good ol' Microsoft Paint. The two bathrooms now open out onto the corridor rather than the quarters, one of the quarters is quadrupal occupancy and the rec room has been cleared out to house four sets of double (or triple) bunks. That "loft" area at the front of the cargo bay now holds water tanks and life support machinery. The port "sensor room" is now sensors and Fire Control while the starboard one is a multipurpose room that could provisionally be a lab/workshop, a secure hold, passenger quarters, or will possibly house a highly illegal cloaking device (or the not so sophisticated or effective Orion equivalent I've come up with, known as a Shroud). Those long wasted spaces at the upper sides of the cargo bay will hold shield generators and a few escape pods and each will have a ladder at the engineering end down to the engineering stations below.
 
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Sgt_G said:
I like the design of the ship itself. The deck plans, not so much.
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Yeah, as much as I love FASA Trek, the deckplans were not so good. Only the FASA Constitution class, D-7 and the R-1 Orbital Station deckplans look professional, even if the Connie and D-7 plans differ from the original Franz Joseph and Mike McMasters(?) plans. :)
 
I rather like the "arse-end" forwards design. One- it gives you a split second uncertainty on any attacker's part as to which way your ship goes. Two- the forward warp nacelle leaves the cargo bay free for shuttles to approach from the back and drop in through the roof shutters (the bay can hold a shuttle or two). Three- the warp nacelle overhangs the weapon mount and engine emissions mask it's presence from casual scans (that's not something I made up, it's in the description).

I'm working hard on the "Brandy's Lament", the upgraded sister ship (named after a freighter drawn up by the very talented Ron Shirtz, and another favorite design of mine). Amazing what you can do with MS Paint, got it looking pretty much like I want, added passenger quarters, a galley (that sensor room by the kitchen), a torpedo magazine, couple of escape pods and holo-booths, rejigged the sickbay, stuck in a few little wall panels and consoles here and there and generally got rid of wasted space. Currently looking at a life support area, might scour the deckplans that have been pointed out to me (thank you for that) for machinery to drop in (or I might just leave it blank). Once I've redone the deckplan key I'll post it up for scorn/acclaim/indifference.
 
Well, here they are, the plans for the "Brandy's Lament", the Ginny's Delight's upgraded sister ship.

On the lower deck I gave the two bathrooms corridor access and made one Crew Quarters quadrupal occupancy. The Rec Room is now the Passenger Quarters with four sets of double bunks. Tweaked the Sickbay to turn a bed around, add a wall panel and give the good doctor a chair. Designated the big console on the starboard side an Aux. Bridge Control console, added a few extra engineering assets, two more ladders at the back and scattered a few extra consoles here and there. Oh yes, and the transporter is now a 3-person model.

On the upper deck I got rid of the two unnecessary sensor rooms, made one the Galley (no food synthesizers on this ship) and the other Fire Control. I gave the Bridge two entrances and stuck a small room at the back for a torpedo magazine and a phaser capacitor bank. Since the Rec Room was removed I gave the crew a couple of Visicom booths for private study, communications or whatever sordid entertainments they can devise, some more engineering assets and a pair of one-man escape pods. That "loft" area in front of the Cargo Bay is now the Life Support Bay (air conditioning, fresh water tank and recycling systems), with maintainence access each side.

The big task was rejigging the numbers on the map and the key. I even added a Bridge position key. Apart from the new name, the only assets I used were elements already present on the plans, including the letters. I had to fake up an "x" and an "F", which I was rather proud of as it's difficult to tell. Yes I know I could have made a totally new list and cut and pasted but I wanted the look to match the original. I tried detailing the machinery in the Life Support Bay but nothing looked right so I've left it for now. Some on the originals were clearly taken from FASA plans so I might scour them for more assets and add them in later.

So there we are. I see her as a peculiar hybrid of Orion (warp engine), Klingon (hull and impulse engines) and Federation (virtually everything else) technologies which shouldn't work at all but somehow manages to be far more than the sum of her parts. Crew is now 4-7 (but she can still be flown by one person in a pinch). Passenger capacity is normaly 8 but the bunks can be made triple occupancy if required to hold 12.

I know I haven't made her fly the other way, there's only so much MS paint can do, but I think I've addressed at least some of the issues of wasted space.


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trynda1701 said:
Yeah, as much as I love FASA Trek, the deckplans were not so good. Only the FASA Constitution class, D-7 and the R-1 Orbital Station deckplans look professional, even if the Connie and D-7 plans differ from the original Franz Joseph and Mike McMasters(?) plans. :)
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Their Loknar-class deck plans were... well, there are no words. Panic-made in half an hour at a deadline, possibly.
 
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