Klingon ship scale concepts...

[Raven Night]

Ok, I wanted to kick this off by showing the relative scale of each concept ship I'm working on.

The scale bar on the bottom is 200 meters per tick. The scale base I used was a D-7 at 215 to 230 meters or so. The E-6 is slightly larger than the D-7, and all ships scale up or down from there.

As you can see, the Conqueror is massive at almost 1800 meters in length.

Right now textures are finished on the E-6 and I am working on Dominion War refit and TOS variants. The TOS ship will be a bit smaller than the original D-7 and be named a D-6.

All ships in the darker green are wing moving vessels with planet landing capability.

Let me know what you think of the scale.

[Nighthawk]

as much as I like your designs, I'll have to disagree on that one.... it's just too big XD

look at those cannons.... those are some MASSIVE guns.
think about the amount of resources it would take to build and repair one of those guns.

the same principle applies to space as it applies to modern military: don't put a bigger gun, put more regular guns.
if one fails, the rest take over, and you keep fighting.
if your big gun fails for whatever reason, you're toast.

no big cannon means no big housing, no big housing means no big wing, and no big wing means no big hull.
....sometimes the simplest solution is both the most elegant and the most efficient.

[FarShot]

I concur, though I'm loving the Bortasqu' vibe I'm getting off of it.  I'm not sure why you had to make such a large jump between the C-9 and that, couldn't it have just been double?

[Locke]

Nighthawk makes some sense, but consider: the Dominion Battlecruiser (or whatever it's actually called) is huge, and has some very large guns.  Trek doesn't pay attention to things like common sense when talking about weaponry or ship size.  So it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine that the Klingon Empire would try their hardest to outperform the Dominion.  So I don't find the size or configuration out of character for the universe.

[Nighthawk]

So it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine that the Klingon Empire would try their hardest to outperform the Dominion.

what for? they kicked dominion ass with 40-year-old B'rel designs XD

I wouldn't trade my fleet of agile, versatile and experienced light cruisers for two or three heavy capital ships that can be outgunned by a similar small and agile cruiser.
the negh'var was outmanouvered by the Defiant and the dominion battleship by the Valiant.
also, the Romulans use heavy battleship designs too.... sure the klingons would like to keep the upper hand against those enemies.

[FarShot]

The Dominion dreadnought doesn't have big guns last I checked.  The only time I remember it firing was at the Valiant, and those were more or less point defense weapons.

[Raven Night]

Well, I'm open to changes.

I would say that the size of the ship is not uncommon in the Star Trek universe, just uncommon for Klingons. We have seen plenty of ships around that size in the genre.

As to the guns, they are starbase killers....incredibly large guns that fire extremely powerful bolts but have ridiculously long recharge times. They were designed specifically to take down the shields of larger capital ships or starbases in one shot. They are, in essence, planetary disruptor batteries installed directly into the ship. In fact the warp nacelles were designed around the weapon.

As to the ships size with respect to maneuverability and cost to manufacture...consider this the Klingon version of the Aircraft Carrier. It is not meant to be fast, maneuverable or agile. In fact it needs a entire fleet of ships to support it. What it does do, however, is provide the Klingons with a stable forward base of operations in a particular region, something that smaller vessels just could not provide as proven by the war with the Dominion.

This ship can carry a massive amount of smaller Klingon attack craft, troops, supplies...etc. It projects Klingon power wherever it is deployed.

[Darkthunder]

Looking at that side-by-side size comparison, it appears at the current scale, the Conqueror would be firing E-2 sized "projectiles" from it's wing mounted cannons.

I don't think it's fair to say "Bigger gun, means more damage". A smaller gun can be equally effective (if not moreso). Instead, i'd look into increasing it's power supply, and possibly increasing the "number of" guns. If an enemy ship manages to knock out one of your "starbase busters", what then? The Conqueror's virtually a sitting duck. The Federation learnt long ago to equip weapons in as many areas as possible, to give a fuller 360-degree coverage.

[Raven Night]

Well, this ship is bristling with weapons, but most you dont see at this scale. If you notice, there are two smaller more reasonable cannons in the nose, about the same size as the ones on the C9. Also note that the ship has 8 forward torpedo tubes, 4 on the wings, 4 in the nose. But it does have disruptor batteries all over the ship.

This vessel is not intended to be used to fight individual ships one on one...again, think of it like an Aircraft Carrier. It's power is projected by the ships and troops it carries. The guns are there to provide a "one shot" destruction of powerful shields, a powerful attack on other dreadnoughts, or defense against the Borg. The guns exist on the surface of Klingon planets, this just made them reasonably mobile.

Besides, disruptor cannons do not fire projectiles. The cannon barrel is a waveguide and a buildup chamber. Unlike the crystals used in phasers, disruptors require chambers to build pulse power before release. This creates energy bolts of immense power, but requires bigger and bigger assemblies for more powerful weapons, and those bolts cannot be directed after release.

Phasers, on the other hand, can be increased in power simply by increasing available power and crystal size or adding elements to the array. They also can be directed after release by manipulating the crystal faces. However, phaser energy overall is lower, and must be applied to the target over time to reach the same destructive power, something that can be countered by stronger shields or energy damping systems.

This is why disruptors are more effective for providing catastrophic levels of immediate destructive power when they strike the target.

I would add that I am open to changing the design to make it less "cannon" like, but still intend to have the destructive weapons incorporated in the design. Visually it can be a bit silly.

[Nighthawk]

I would say that the size of the ship is not uncommon in the Star Trek universe, just uncommon for Klingons. We have seen plenty of ships around that size in the genre.

precisely

but if you want it to be a sort of heavy carrier, then by all means... the bigger the better.


I believe the biggest difference between the several kinds of weapons is that torpedoes are rather ballistic (meant to hit targets far away and deliver a big punch with low power drain on the ship), disruptors are rather splashy and faster to operate (meant to counter ships without shields, or to deal a good damage to an area of a ship where you figure your actual target would be), and phasers are more accurate and longer in range (meant to hit moving targets and drain shields without pushing the engines to aim)

[Raven Night]

Yes, phasers are more accurate, can be steered toward a target, have other uses besides simply destructive means, far wider power adjustment abilities, and are far more efficient and have longer range. They also have smaller weapon assemblies so smaller vessels or vessels with confined spaces can equip weapons where disruptors would not fit.

The drawbacks are that phasers do not apply the beam power all at once, so it can be countered more easily than other weapons, almost always require a target lock in order to strike their target, are very complex weapons that require constant maintenance and they are unusable at warp speed.

Disruptors, on the other hand, are more powerful, can be overloaded on a regular basis without measurable damage to the emitters, and are much more effective against targets when a target lock is not possible, can be fired at warp, are cheaper to manufacture and take far less maintenance to maintain.

Disruptors do not have the power variations that phasers have, they cannot be directed after fire (require the ship to aim itself or moving cannons), are far less accurate and have much lower range. They are purely offensive weapons, disrupting the bonds in matter, as opposed to phasers, which are rapid nadions designed to heat matter at varying degrees to intended effect, essentially vibrating the molecules. Disruptors also tend to be heavier weapons and require long buildup chambers (barrels) to build a bolt of energy for discharge.

[FarShot]

You keep saying "think of it as an aircraft carrier".

Okay.  Last I checked, aircraft carriers aren't 20 times the size of the next smallest ship.

EDIT:  I'm not just doing this to you, I've been a consistent naysayer when it comes to making big ships.  They have to be done just right for me to like them.  This one simply looks way oversized, like it was intended to be much smaller but then upscaled so maybe a certain ship could fit inside.  This is the reason my mobile drydock design has gone through three iterations.  I keep trying to make it more realistic.

[Nighthawk]

*aircraft* is the word you're looking for....

*aircraft* carriers are not 20 times the size of the next smaller *ship* because *ships* are not carried by the *aircraft* carrier

[FarShot]

But this isn't a carrier, it's a starbase-grade assault platform.  Unless it's becoming a Mary Sue, in which case I can't stand those ships.

[Nighthawk]

I just got hit by some eureka moment, and thought: why not make the designs obey the actual purpose of the ship, instead of the other way around?

look at this ship:
picture here

sure it's ugly,... but it wasn't built like a traditional ship, it was built to sail in shallow waters.
to do that, you need a smaller hull... with a smaller hull, you cant fit your regular amount of weapons... and if you don't carry your regular amount of weapons, you don't need your regular crew compliment...
so, scrap the surplus quarters and accomodations, and fit a bigger cargo hold and advanced computers,... and you got yourself a light attack cruiser.

now, they might not be firing rockets into land any time soon, but they surely pack a punch against anything smaller than a warship and against any coastal defences.
which is what they might be facing, since they're a coastal patrol

you want a carrier? fine...
which ship you want to carry and why?
what maintenance equipment you need to service that class of ship?
how much space does all that take?
how much does it weight?
what kind of power you can get out of your biggest engine?
how much space does that engine take?
....

well,... you get the idea 

[FarShot]

That's how I try to design my ships these days.  I got over my "My Enterprise F haz cool curvy lines that add +5 attack!" "But it just looks like you made a Sovereign class a bit bigger..." design phase a year or two back.  That's why you're seeing less original stuff of mine being output.  I've been doing a lot of refining.

If the Conqueror needs to be a carrier/command/control ship, it need not be exponentially larger than its smaller brethren for the sake of cool factor or Klingon bravado.  The reason ships like the Negh'var have volume ratios between components like they do is because generally they make sense.  Weapons need to be so-so big to generate enough firepower to damage a Galaxy class, roughly a hundred Klingon warriors are needed for sure to maintain the weapons, they'd need an area the size of a football field for living, weapons need to be powered by fusion reactors, throw in another hundred Klingons, including the warp core engineers...  The ships roughly makes sense for crew to weapon areas to engineering facilites to hull size ratios.

The Conqueror has in its current form the capacity for hundreds of thousands of individuals if you did the volume calculations (there is a way to do that in 3ds Max).  Start budgeting that out... ten thousand engineers?  Are they living in quarters in the nacelles, just above the massive weapons so if a single circuit starts getting damaged they can spacewalk into the massive barrel to fix it?  Is the structural integrity compromised by having the impulse engines centrally mounted causing the wings to shear off due to massive inertia, or will hundreds of single fusion reactors be spread along the aft edges of the wings to distribute the force...

Yeah.

[Nighthawk]

on second thought..... these are questions you probably can answer by designing ships to be balanced to a mod such as galaxy charts

too bad new frontier was terminated.... that would have made ships, designs, and playability much richer.

[Raven Night]

Hmm.

Well, you guys are assuming quite a bit, and making a few obvious mistakes to boot.

First, the ratio is not that far from a modern ration comparing a battleship to a modern carrier. The "20 times the size" is a rather blatant exaggeration probably influenced by a desire to keep ships small. Understandable but certainly not objective.

Second, the idea that a ship this size has to be filled with 10s of thousands of personnel based on it's size is another example of non-objective observation. Plenty of MASSIVE ships have very small crews in naval groups around the world.

Now, I'm finding myself defending it's size to what seems like two people. And that's fine...you make some good points, bigger is not necessarily better and I can respect that. One could make the same argument that the Galaxy class was a ridiculous over sized exaggeration compared to the original Enterprise...and in fact that argument has been made.

In this case, however, the size will remain as it is. There are reasons for it's size and I simply disagree with both of you.

I do appreciate your input however.

I am, however, willing to adjust the barrels, perhaps make them less blatant.


PS: If you really hate the size of this ship, your going to absolutely loath the Infinity class. You must also really dislike the DVoridex. Not to mention the Hutet or the Dominion Dreadnoughts.

[Raven Night]

But this isn't a carrier, it's a starbase-grade assault platform.  Unless it's becoming a Mary Sue, in which case I can't stand those ships.

It is an FOB, carrier, heavy transport and troop transport. It was designed to force project for an entire area of interest to the Empire.

It would take 20 Capital ships to fill the roles that this ship provides. Although it does have a support fleet, the overall fleet is much smaller than what would normally be required for a proper force projection FOB.

[Nighthawk]

ok, maybe we're overreacting....
but I do mean the thing about the redesign.... now that you have the technology to make carriers and advanced ships, you have the ability to make this ship actually launch BOP's or other ships, or to change between weapon configurations through MVAM.
with that in mind, if you decide to model a launching bay or different gun mountings, you'll have to test how they perform with the tech script you decide to use.... and that's hitting the limitations of that script.
and from there on, you'll have to adjust the model to satisfy both look and playability....
.... that is rather like designing an actual warship....... very vaguely.... but still, similar....

PS: If you really hate the size of this ship, your going to absolutely loath the Infinity class. You must also really dislike the DVoridex. Not to mention the Hutet or the Dominion Dreadnoughts.

maybe it is because it's not textured or armed... but I can't say I hate it.
but yes, I do hate the hutet... the dominions, I understand they're ports from lousy formats, so I get their being buggy.
but, in all, they're not bad designs.