Trek Ships Are Too Small Compared to Star Wars

[sciquest2525]

It has been awhile, years since I last posted here and I'm glad to be back.

Star Trek capital ships are too small compared to those lumbering star destroyers of Star Wars.

The Kelvin timeline created ships up to 2380 feet with it's much enlarged compared to the Prime timeline Enterprise but a star destroyer is 5200 feet long, very wide at the base and has more levels.
Godstaff at deviantart.com designed a ship that manages to be about 2600 feet long with a suitably very wide saucer and his renderings and the MSD for his USS Arrogant, while impressive, is still too small.

Now I'm not advocating that ST build Deathstars, the SW universe can keep the ultimate sizes of ships, no, I just want the ST capital ships like Enterprise NCC-1701 X keep up with the SW capital ships.
In any event, ST has at least one Dyson sphere that impresses the SW universe. So, I'm interested in a 1600 meter class of heavy cruiser.

ST won't have the same mass as a star destroyer but it least it will be in the ballpark
I'm not trying to be partisan and say ST is better than SW, no, they are apples and oranges.
I can enjoy them both, I just though NCC1701 Constitution class Enterprise was puny compared to what LucasFilm was doing at only 947 feet. I just want to have a level playing field.

Anyway, could we do some imagining at what a TNG era or near future TNG as 29 years has gone by since the TNG premiere and 14 years since Nemisis became probably the last TNG movie we'll ever see and give Star Fleet something grand for the a small class of very large peacekeepers, explorers and humanitarians that make up Star Fleet.

After all, Klingons and Romulans and Cardasians will always have very military type ships that don't have much mass for peaceful means while Star Fleet will always have their ships doing good in the galaxy as well as deterring the bad guys out there and, if a war is forced on the Federation, their ships should be second to none.

And yes, I haven't forgotten that monster from the First Federation, the Fesarius which at one mile in diameter, wins the heaviest and biggest internal volume award now and for some time to come.

So folks, what are designs for a mile long Enterprise F or G?

We know from Enterprise series that in centuries to come, the Enterprise J will be two miles or 10,400 feet in length.

 

[Tosk]

Star Trek capital ships are too small compared to those lumbering star destroyers of Star Wars.

So?

 

[φ of π]

They don't need to have ships as large because they have better technology, such as transporters.

 

[sciquest2525]

I just want an even playing field for ST. And comparable sizes of capital ships are where we can match their gross dimensions. Lighten up. This is just an opinion and I hope it stimulates discussion on this thread.

 

[sciquest2525]

I forgot to mention Battlestar Galactica in both it's classic and rebooted versions. It's pretty darn big too!

 

[kazemiya]

Of course, Starwars and Startrek were two different scifi, thus they had different measurement in term of size and technology. Starwars's largest and notorious ship , star destroyer ,even no match for constution class in combat capabilities, which is far smaller in size. It becoz Starwars's tech are more focussed on conventional tech, i think, while startrek a lot more on a glamorous tech. Both propulsion and weapon tech on Starwars are more closer to babylon v's i think. Their focus and approach on technology development is what make their size and design's philosophy is different. Also some of startrek ship's size might be inaccurate, for example: constution class is supposed to be 600 (i forgot about this exact number) meters in lenght instead of 280 meters. That makes galaxy should has 1200 meters in lenght ,comparable to starwar's MC80. But i don't heard about this size matter further anymore from my source.

 

[sciquest2525]

Last thing I want is an ST verses SW thread
I just want to point out that when ST was created, the Enterprise was almost the size of an aircraft carrier lengthwise and much heavier with Franz Joseph using 190,000 tons vs. the 102,000 tons max of the Nimitz class CVN. I believe Nimitz class was 1080 feet long with a hull beam of 133 feet, and maybe 10 levels deep from flight deck to the double bottom.

I had speculated for decades on the effects of just doubling the Enterprise dimensions with a 1904 foot length and an 834 foot diameter saucer and a 224 foot diameter engineering hull. Shuttlecraft doors go from 30 feet high by 60 feet wide to 60 feet high and 120 feet wide, which would allow an eight fold increase of volume, a fourfold increase in deck area and a doubling in length, height and width of the hangar deck. Could store more and larger shuttles, perhaps using the 'shelves' seen in the Kelvin timeline Enterprise.

Geometric progression governs what happens when you 'just' double the dimensions of a structure or a starship.

I think the best blueprints were Franz Joseph's, though now you could render them in color using digital techniques. I'd like to see someone do that.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It's not about the size but how you use it.

Star Trek has high-energy shields, warp drive, matter/antimatter torpedoes, transporters, bioneural circuitry, replicators, etc.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

This thread reminds me of the guys in my suburban town who buy these enormous super-extended-cab, multi-super-quad-axle, diesel-smoke-spewing pickup trucks. To go to work as an accountant.

You know, the Dodge Compensator and the Ford Extenze Prescription?

No, thank you. I am perfectly secure with my Impreza and my rationally-proportioned starships.

 

[retroenzo]

The thing for me about the huge Star Wars ships is that they're big because they're all about intimidation. Star Destroyers, the Death Star, etc, all all meant to scare their enemies. The actual tech on board could probably be fitted onto a ship much smaller.

Starfleet doesn't need to intimidate so the ships it makes are designed more for other purposes - exploration, diplomacy, science, etc. The ships designed for war (eg the Defiant) are much smaller agile craft. I don't think that Starfleet needs to go huge. They just need to be efficient at what they do.

 

[psCargile]

Practical vs fantasy.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Isn't the Vengeance roughly the length of a Star Destroyer?

 

[Galileo7]

Bigger does not necessarily make a science-fiction spaceship better:

 

[BJ Wagner]

I was always under the impression that Trek tech was more advanced than what we see in the world of Star Wars. Turbo Lasers don't sound as powerful as Phasers, etc. However, I think Star Wars, being sci-if fantasy, has never really taken the time, or even needed, to try and explain it's technology like Trek has--with the exception of horrible, horrible midichlorians.

 

[mos6507]

Trek reserves its big spaceships for aliens (like V'Ger and the whale probe). So they are there, just not in the Federation.

 

[C.E. Evans]

You really only need a truly big-ass ship if you intend to carry thousands of troops and/or several squadrons of starfighters. One could argue that the Galaxy-class is really bigger than it ought to be, but the extra size could be justified for future onboard expansion or for transporting/evacuating thousands of temporary passengers, IMO.

 

[Galileo7]

You really only need a truly big-ass ship if you intend to carry thousands of troops and/or several squadrons of starfighters. One could argue that the Galaxy-class is really bigger than it ought to be, but the extra size could be justified for future onboard expansion or for transporting/evacuating thousands of temporary passengers, IMO.

True. The equivalent of today's Nimitiz class or Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers biggest ships in the fleet.

 

[Nebusj]

Besides, Trek ships way outsize the starships in Lego Buck Rogers.

 

[sciquest2525]

The Vengeance at almost 1500 meters is just my size goal of 1600 meters lengthwise.
Star Trek ships are not strictly military in purpose, they devote large amounts of space, machinery and power to operated an extensive exploratory and science sensor suite and have long duration large crew quarters including provision in large ships of crew families and the ability to operate unsupported for months and even years with their extensive self repair and maintainence
facilities. As such a 1600 meter ship that is a capital ship and built in modest number compared to thousands of star destroyers built purely for military and showing how bad of an idea it is to mess with the Empire. The same can be said for Klingon, Cardasssian and Romulan capital ships and yes, it annoyed me some that the Romulan capital ship dwarfed the Big E but again, it was a military design and it's main purpose wasn't peaceful science and exploration with peacekeeping and combat as the main consideration.

When ST came out, the naval helicopter able to engage submarines and later surface craft beyond reach of shipboard weapons was still a young idea and the Harrier was not yet in USMC service and practical STOVL was new as the AV-8B didn't have enough thrust to do a useful VTO fuel and weapon load off the a USN ship's aft helo deck.

That is still true today and so ST did not incorporate fighters like SW. Instead, ST developed long range weapons used by large ships such as destroyers, cruisers and maybe a few dreadnoughts per Franz Joseph's Technical Manual.

Today, the Harrier and the F-35 still don't have enough thrust to do a useful fuel/weapon load but the tilt rotor V-22 can be operated off the shipboard helo pads and lift a 52,000lb load and subtract 33,000lbs of empty aircraft weight and you have 19,000 lbs of fuel/payload. ST is about ships and not craft but in the SW universe fighters are survivable against big ship defense and when in sufficient numbers, can damage or even destroy an SW star destroyer or even a Death Star.

The V-22 can be developed not into VTO fighter but VTO gunships and antisub/antiship patrol planes and with future engine power increases from 6000 to over 9000 hp are in the offing that would increase that useful load above 19,000lbs.

So, I am cautious about ST having fighters roaring out the Enterprise F or G or whatever's shuttle bays. More likely would be large parasitical gunships attached to docking ports along the hulls like remora to a shark. The Aventine used in the Typhoon pack novels could accommodate a large gunship or scout on the upper secondary hull.

Gunships and separating starship hulls able to engage in multi vector assault mode or multi vector defense mode are more suited to the ST universe for future development as shown in the popular Prometheus from Voyager episode 'Message in a Bottle".

 

[φ of π]

Borg Cubes win. At around 3'000x3'000x3'000 meters, they're almost twice as long as a Star Destroyer.