Give me a few and I'll work on the other version.

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

_____________________________________________
"Walls are meant to be broken." - makes sense both figuratively and literally.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

Sexy ship, though. She could vent my warp core any day of the week, if you know what I mean.

Mm, this could be. They look all right in profile, but from directly in front the pylons look too long. (The nacelles are on upside-down, too, which probably doesn't help. :)

One thing to keep in mind when weighing these up is that Surprise is rather smaller than Challenger (which is on the humongous side as this style of starship goes); her construction isn't simply a Sovereign dish and warp engines with the secondary hull omitted, the external arrangement is also scaled down by about 30 percent. (I say "external arrangement" because, well, obviously inside the ceilings aren't all 30 percent lower, etc. :) It's pretty much impossible to see without a scale reference, so for purposes of actually making the artwork it doesn't matter, but it should be borne in mind when looking at them.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

30% scaled down? Is that by mass or by length? I do not want to think about all the problems that caused for the designer of the thing, given what I know about warship design. Probably involved a divorce, the loss of a good two inches of hairline and the gain of about 10-15 kilos if it was a male. Being put in charge of a major project is apparently a major source of stress, if my sources can be believed.

In all seriousness, even if the nacelles are shared the hull would have to be a totally new design. If the nacelles are proportionally scaled down, then you have to shell out more money for a new design and fabrication equipment to make the smaller design, and that doesn't save you any money because the hull still needs to be redesigned to fit the reactor and to resist different stresses than the full-sized design would experience. It might not be quite as big a job as the sister design, but it wouldn't be easy either.

“Navigare Necesse Est”-'Get me out of here!'

Well... yes, but that's what it is. The "it's made of Sovereign parts" thing is just a note to the prop department, as it were - it has no bearing on the in-story realities of the ship's construction, apart from the fact that Sovereign and Surprise share an aesthetic design language, if you will.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

Like this?

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

Does it matter all that much that the nacelles are flipped, Gryph? I mean, the'd function just the same, right? I'm assuming that mounting to the fiddly glowwy bits that run along the 'top' would be kind of a pain.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

Well, I'd assume the nacelles wouldn't be identical--especially since they're a different size. Maybe something a bit different but in the same design "family":

No, I suppose it doesn't, really; doubly so since, the more I look at them, the more inclined I feel to go with the version with the engines on top.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

-Joe-

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's
barren too, // "She's not worth
feed or hay, // "But I'll give
her this," - he blew smoke at
me - // "She was something in
her day." -- Garnet Rogers,
Small Victory

The profile of the nacelle-down version however reminds me of the runabouts used in the shows, just scaled up to full starship size and aesthetics.

_____________________________________________
"Walls are meant to be broken." - makes sense both figuratively and literally.

"It says on the tag 'Dry Clean Only'!"

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

I think on the side view they are a little too far down, but compared to the proportions of the Miranda, they are pretty close to the same. A couple of quick comparisons to show you what I mean. Of course, the Surprise is much bigger than a Miranda....

I didn't want to go with the straight down struts because it didn't look as good IMHO.

Oh, and here is the first version compared with the Loknar.

Not bad considering I didn't really refer to the TMP ships until AFTER I had done the Surprise versions. I did them by eye and adjusted to what looked "right" to me first.

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

Didn't I say like a week ago? Hmm. No, I guess I didn't, I just said I was leaning that way. My mistake, I could've sworn I followed that up.

Anyway, yeah, I like the one with the engines on top better. I had a mental picture that was more Reliant-like, but the marked top-and-bottom asymmetry of the Sovereign-style main hull makes it not really work in practice.

Also, upon further review, I think I specified too drastic a scaling-down; at that size she's not that much bigger than a Defiant, and she's supposed to be a frigate to the Sovereign's line-of-battle ship, as it were. I think maybe 75% would be more like it.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Gryph, using figures I found at http://www.ditl.org and I am thinking 70% may be about right. Look at this comparison image I did up:

With the Sovereign Class at 680 meters and a Defiant Class at 170.68 meters, the Surprise Class would come out to be around 380 meters. That would make it longer than a refit Constitution Class at 305 meters. At 75% saucer scale, it would be around 407 meters.

What do you think?

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

Yeah, that works. I'm not too fussed about the numbers, but it looks right in the picture. Go with it!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Michael

Michael C. Fortner
"Rule 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".