Klingon ship scale concepts...

[Raven Night]

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....


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.

And thats fair I think. Some people hate large designs, and for good reason. I concentrate on smaller designs (note the lineage below the E-7 going all the way down to the E-2) and, if a game or mod was accurate you would never see this ship as a playable ship, since perhaps one or two would exist in the universe and would rarely be seen.

The argument that Klingons force multiply by deploying many smaller but well armed ships is completely accurate. Large ships for Klingons are supposed to be rare...the mainstay of the Klingon fleet is the Battlecruiser after all.

At any rate, every single part of the ship serves a purpose. There are spots on the ship where other smaller vessels can hard dock, 4 different hangar decks and 14 launch positions for those decks around the ship, and an expansive cargo area that can be converted to house troops.

This is the Klingon counter to the Infinity class, which covers the same role for the Federation fleet. After the Dominion war, and due to the threat of the Borg almost every major race has built some sort of FOB starship.

[FarShot]

I disagree with the bulk of the ship according to its role.  And yes, 20 times the size is probably fairly close, considering that the ship is several times larger in all three dimensions than a Negh'var.  (The larger Argonaut in this picture is twice the size of the smaller one, even though it's only 1.25x the length.)

Here's something I sketched up, basically more along the lines of what I would do.  Brimming with guns, drydock facilities for fleet support, and enough deckage to haul an army.



Don't worry, you're not the only person I do these kinds of things to.  Go ask WileyCoyote and Flarespire.

[Darkthunder]

That's a pretty cool concept you got there, Farshot. Would love to see it in 3D at some point. Lord knows, we could certainly use more non-Federation designs.

[Kophjaeger]

One thing that, if FOB ships are the new countermeasure, should be taken into account is that a mobile drydock is going to be pretty ugly. We have real mobile drydocks, and they are nothing to look at. I actually really really like the idea of this, and being able to withstand some degree of assault (not unsupported though), but the idea of an uber ship, even stylistically, may be going the wrong direction. This is one of the points that, aside from the space city starbases, the Trek universe always beat out the Star Wars world with was believable scaling. How many billions of people would crew a death star... (I'd hate to pay Imperial taxes)? The Klingons especially are honor and glory driven. A 12 man Bird of Prey was ideal because those dozen men share a bigger portion of the credit, but being one of 10,000 ants on the ant hill is not an assignment I'd feel honored to get.

This also doesn't need to massive, it just needs a design that can adapt to fit all sizes. If you need lighting and tooling, mount them on articulating arms. They could (although not practically in BC) retract when not needed, and not be exposed when threatened. Then you are talking a ship not much bigger than the Negh'var, and certainly not at the cost of hundreds the times in materials that it takes to build a bird of prey. Just a thought, and your sketches are quite inspiring.

[KrrKs]

I'd love to see the new E-Line ships! (And your C9ers are still the best fannon Klingon designs out there imho!  )
I'm not sure about the Conqueror; the Neck area seems a bit feature- less, what are your plans for that part?
About the Size:
 -Trek ships (no matter the race) have always gotten bigger over time
 -As evident by the NeghVar and it's mirror counterpart (the most un-klingon design in canon Trek), even the Klingons build giant anti- starbase ships
So a FOB- Ship is not that far of a stretch from there.

[King Class Scout]

okay, now i think I get the idea behind the big boy.  I had to look the abbreviation up. 

even I'm guilty of making one of these.  the Cetacean class is one of these, and is the only one of my ships that needs an operations officer to coordinate everything.  heck, even my starbase for mine is a mobile platform.

[zgok]

Very interesting designs. They look like they will be fun to play with, or blow up with a D'deridex. 
Great job.

[Nighthawk]

shipyard neck > solid neck.

 

I'm not even talking about the rest of the ship... it's just that tiny little detail of carving the neck out what makes the ship attractive.
without it, it's just an oversized regular klingon design.

make a good ship, you have the TOS connie
make it more detailed, you have the TMP connie
add size and improve the lighting, you got the Galaxy
add quantum torpedoes, you got the Sovereign

...if you find a signature feature, and find a way to deliver it whether by crafting or storytelling, you got a likeable design.
works not only for ships, but for nearly anything out there that is a piece of design.

[FarShot]

Hey Nighthawk, I like your concepts on ship design.  We should collaborate on some designs like I have with Saquist and WileyCoyote.

[Nighthawk]

well, I can hardly convince a modder of doing my designs, I can only provide a different point of view.
if I had the skills to draw a good design, or to craft a model fast enough, I'd present the material idea right away.... I just have concepts and references to facts and experiences

[BFGfreak]

Well the main problem I can see is how resource intensive an extremely large ship would be. I mean first of all it would require the materials of a starbase to simply build the craft, but then you have the issue of how do you move the bloody thing. Finally building such a large craft is extremely hard to build in secret so unless the Klingons build it in segments with nobody getting the whole blueprint, the other powers would find out about it's construction.

[Vortex]

Resources shouldn't be a problem. How many large bases do the Klingon's have? I'm sure there must be some but I don't think we've been told of any. Also, the Feds have no problem finding resources to build giant starbases and hundreds of thousands of ships.

As for how it would move... engines. It'd be rather sluggish but then as has been mentioned, this isn't an attack ship or a ship that's designed for solo missions. It's a support craft. In a way, it makes more sense for the Klingon's to have this rather than permanent starbases, given how battle orientated they are.

I think the size is fine for what is being aimed for, but there definitely needs to be something more done to it so it doesn't just look like any other Klingon ship that's been scaled up. I like the drydock/neck idea, they could operate similar to those twin drydocks we saw in Enterprise.

[Raven Night]

I will speak to some of the background on this ship, though I'm not quite finished with it yet and this is subject to change.



After the war with the Dominion it was discovered that the biggest weakness that the KDF had as a full engagement fleet was the lack of FOB's. That combined with the lack of vessels that can carry substantial amounts of troops or materials to the battlefront caused the Klingon Empire to decide that construction of FOB's along it's border was paramount.

It was discovered, however, that there were very few static locations that the Empire could deploy stationary stations that would support a large operating fleet. Over the last 150 years the Klingon Empire's borders have expanded and contracted over 300 times. It was decided another solution was needed.

After some research it was discovered that the enemy, the Dominion, had the solution...a mobile FOB, or the Jem Hadar "Dominator", their super battleship. This vessel was extremely effective for the Dominion with respect to forward operations, and the extension of it's power across Cardassian territory. The vessel was not generally used for direct combat operations...instead it existed as an anchor for an entire operating fleet, transported massive amounts of material and troops safely across territories, and supported major fleet operations and assault missions providing a command platform and heavy weapons support.

Dominion shipbuilding technology, widely utilized now by the major powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants afforded the Empire the opportunity to construct this vessel within a reasonable time period and was adopted for manufacture. Materials salvaged from the Kor Borea Dominion shipyards provided most of the materials needed.

The design is unique in the way that this ship, much like the SMS Infinity is closer to a mobile starbase than an actual starship. Many of it's internal components are taken directly from Class 4 and 5 Battlestation designs. As such it can provide similar support to a full operating fleet in deep space.

Opposition to the design and construction of the Conqueror was widespread, as most Klingons opposed this kind of design as contrary to the spirit of the KDF. The cost to manufacture just one of these vessels was difficult for many Klingons to accept. But in the end the design and it's deployment received support from the Emporer, and to this date 3 vessels have been completed and deployed in service of the fleet.


It will probably receive a few rewrites before I make it official for this vessel. I still have to add a few more details, dates, etc but you get the general idea.


BTW Farshot, fantastic work on that concept, that is very close to a combat transport concept I was messing around with. I think your concept is far superior to this one.

[FarShot]

That's frighteningly similar in both shape and render angle.

Backstory sounds good.  Still think the ship can be scaled down a bit though.  And what's this Infinity you keep referencing?

[Kophjaeger]

I like that write up, it takes into account alot of the pragmatic aspects of program. Did you mean that they incorporated existing bases into the structure?

An idea that meets in the middle on material consumption, and also fits with Klingon construction practices, is instead of super massive wings, which have the scaled up look, why not have a wing of normal depth, and add trussing and braces for structural reinforcement. Also, since this is geared as a mobile operations center as opposed to an assault ship, forward facing armaments are not very practical. Point defenses, and turrets are more critical than offensive weapons. Cloaking makes the see them first, turn into the attack tactic ineffective. Indeed, a defense oriented posting would be an unpleasant notion for a Klingon, but you state very well why this makes sense.

Your cargo pod sketch opens up another possibility. What if this platform allowed for modular outfitting? A space dock seems rational, but what if it could be fitted with several, in tow, or side by side. Or have cargo modules added to it?

[tiqhud]

I like this backstory, it makes PERFECT sense

[Raven Night]

I'm not against downsizing it a bit. I will have to adjust the size of the bridge (it is currently matched to the C9, with a fleet command bridge area below the ship control bridge).

A few things. It has to comfortably launch Maveq size ships. There is no need to contain ships like a BOP because they are already designed to be deep space vessels. The Maveq is not, however.

Second, it has to be able to carry around 20000 troops. Think of an entire invasion force. There is no need to have the dropship vessels since the ship is designed to handle massive movement of troops using transporters. It does carry a few large dropships however to carry around 1000 troops total.

This ship should carry a squadron of 15 fighters, and enough cargo capacity to replace 4 Ferengi Groumall type standard cargo carriers.

(side note: I contend the Groumall is actually a Ferengi design sold to the Klingons, Breen and Cardassians. This is my way to explain why they use the same ship with some small changes)

This vessel has 3 distinct power cores...one in each wing contained entirely in the nacelle/cannon assemblies at the end of the wings, and one in the mainframe hull of the ship, as well as 20 power and impulse cores. She carries a crew of almost 2500, including two distinct engineering crews and a hangar deck crew.

This is the anchor to an operational fleet, and requires support vessels for normal operations. An operational FOB fleet containing this vessel would normally contain 2 Battleships, 4 battlecruisers and around one dozen smaller escort and support craft, 10 of which are usually BOP. This vessel can support a full fleet as large as 300 vessels.

Now, to the weapons. This vessel will have many moving disruptor batteries across the hull. It will also have a few rotating torpedo launchers. The forward heavy weaponry is designed to engage something akin to a Capital Dreadnought, planetary target or Starbase, generally not targets that would have huge maneuverability. This weakness for the ship is important, because the devastating weapons would not be effective against smaller vessels since the entire ship has to be aimed to fire them. The ship is not really designed for that purpose.

The armor this ship has comprises about 40 percent of it's total displacement. Most Klingon vessels average around a 25 to 30 percent ratio for armor, so this ship is more akin to a Gorn ship with respect to armor, or the same as a Starbase or Battlestation. As a result, it tends to be slow and lethargic with respect to turning ability and has a maximum cruising speed of Warp 6.5. It can, however, push speed to Warp 8 for very short periods.

The other unique thing about this ship is that, much like most stations, it has the ability to manufacture materials for ship repair with the machinery needed on board. It even contains a dilitium refinement machine and can produce small quantities of core grade dilithium.

BTW, here is a few pics of the Infinity class. I'll post more pics and info on this ship later. All I will say now is this is the flagship of the Federation 3rd Fleet, the Starfleet Marine Corps. If your wondering about the scale....look at the nacelles. That should give a clue.

[King Class Scout]

these are truly capital ships in the vein of SW StarDestroyers and MonCal cruisers from the original trilogy canon (the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head)

the backstory for the Klingon one makes sense with the continuously variable border.  too bad I lost most of my background detail over the years, either to crashed computers or "they just didn't care" moments (my mother would slip over and clean when she was more mobile, and everything would go in the bin)

[FarShot]

Unlike the Conqueror, which to me just looks like an overscaled smaller ship, that Infinity hits what a large Federation ship should look like right on the head.  Redundant, smaller nacelles, a large thick body that is not compromised by forces of inertia acting on extremities...

I approve.

[Raven Night]

Well, that's a pleasant surprise

The Infinity was designed in that shape for a few reasons, one of them being that the ship was designed with the ability to ram other ships. I had to create a shape that could slice through other ships and clear the wreckage.

The ship carries a special weapon on board called a soliton shockwave disruptor. It has two uses...the first is a hull discharge, where the solitons wash over the hull. The ship goes into a corkscrew spin and a "comet" effect is created, allowing the vessel to "drill" through a large vessel like a Borg cube. It can do this up to three times before the soliton plates have to be replaced. This determined the shape of the hull, allowing it to efficiently "drill" through other large vessels.

The second mode is a forward discharge which releases a soliton shockwave forward of the ship. This wave has huge destructive power and is a one shot weapon.

Both of these uses are written into the Star Trek Infinity fiction.

The hull of this ship is comprised of a neutronium molybdnium composite. It also has pure neutronium plates retracted in the hull that can be deployed during combat situations.

There is more information about this ship, but im actually getting off topic. Ill start a different one for the Infinity. Im still refining it's shape.