WIP: Pegasus Class

[Black Patriot]

Hi all,

I've been working on this ship for the past week or so, it's gotten to the point where I feel comfortable enough to show a rough draft of the mesh. I'll make an effort to texture it, but so far my experimentation has been slow to say the least, so I don't know when it'll get beyond a basic mesh, let alone a hardpointed ship in the viewer (that's my ultimate goal). For the moment I'll make do with posting what I've done and ask for any suggestions and comments, though please keep in mind that this is the first model I've done in quite some time, and all my skills are self taught. Now onto the ship itself:

I'll begin with some basic background information, the hull is inspired by the Normandy from Mass Effect, though with a trek spin. The 4 engines on the wings have been replaced with 2 nacelles (more on that in a bit) and the sublight engines have been moved to the back of the hull, as well as 2 smaller engines between the hull and the nacelles. The general thinking behind the ship is similar to the Normandy, a low profile moderately armed ship with limited sensor visibility. This actually matches fairly well with the Federation, as cloaking devices are banned by the Treaty of Algeron, but stealth systems are (as far as we know) not, so designing a ship around the concept of low sensor visibility would allow the Federation to try to keep up with the Romulans without violating the treaty. This is also the reason for the name of the class, as it was inspired by the USS Pegasus, though with the goal of abiding by the treaty. I currently envision the stealth systems to operate via a series of armor plated panels on the exterior hull, which absorb subspace emissions (which are used for FTL sensors), allowing the ship to be relatively undetectable at FTL ranges. This is dependent on both the strength of the scans as well as the subspace emissions of the ship itself, so low warp is invisible, but high warp would allow emissions to leak out, aiding in detection. The nacelles are housed within a pair of covers, which are composed of the stealth armor, which have been carefully designed to allow for the formation of a warp field whilst still maintaining a low sensor cross section, however the top speed and fuel efficiency of the engines are limited in this mode (I haven't narrowed down what speed the ship would be limited to, but warp 4-5 sounds about right). The covers can be opened, allowing the engines to form a high powered warp field and the ship to travel at conventional speeds (probably maxing out at around warp 9.8, then nacelles are pretty big compared to the hull, so higher speeds might be reasonable, again I haven't fully decided yet).

Here's the spec sheet I'm working from, again it's all subject to change:

Length: ~250m
Width: ~200m (wingtip to wingtip)
Height: ~35m
Top Speed: Warp 9.8 (nacelles open), Warp 5 (nacelles closed)
Armorments:
6 Phaser Arrays (2 on each canard, 2 behind main Impulse engines; 1 above hull line, 1 below) Not modeled yet, probably type X
4 Phaser Cannons (2 on each wing between hull and nacelle, behind armor panels) Not modeled yet, slightly less powerful than those in the Defiant
2 Torpedo launchers (1 in each canard, forward facing) Not modeled yet, Quantum Torpedoes though limited in number
Defenses:
Stealth armor coating, similar in strength to ablative armor (damage to the armor reduces stealth effectiveness)
Shields, weaker in strength compared to a ship of comparable size (Intrepid/Defiant), stealth and speed designed as primary defense

Here are some pics from various angles. Please keep in mind that this is still a rough mesh and I'm not entirely happy with the shape of the wings, so they are subject to change.

[Atlantisbase]

Not bad. The wings are a little different. It kind of reminds me of the Intrepid's Aeroshuttle. First impressions are that the dorsal side of the center hull needs something more. It's just a little too plain right now. It would be a little more "Starfleet" if maybe you moved the nacelles out and thinned the body of the wing from front to back.

Overall the vessel feels too small. It looks more like a fighter than a full starship, maybe because there isn't really anything to give a sense of scale, but I think design of the hull suggests a smaller scale than you intend it to be.

[Vadek]

It looks like the Normandy SR-1, and the SR-71, had Sex and gave birth to this.

(not sure who's the Mother, they both they both claim to be the Father)

ha ha, Good job on your  mesh so far.

[Black Patriot]

Not bad. The wings are a little different. It kind of reminds me of the Intrepid's Aeroshuttle. First impressions are that the dorsal side of the center hull needs something more. It's just a little too plain right now. It would be a little more "Starfleet" if maybe you moved the nacelles out and thinned the body of the wing from front to back.

Overall the vessel feels too small. It looks more like a fighter than a full starship, maybe because there isn't really anything to give a sense of scale, but I think design of the hull suggests a smaller scale than you intend it to be.

I'm not entirely happy with the wings, I was thinking of making a more streamlined design, but I'm wary of making it too much of a copy of the Normandy.

I had loaded it into the model viewer however the scale was way off, otherwise I'd have put up a shot of the ship next to a more familiar design like the Galaxy. I might make a quick mesh of a Type 6 shuttle, the design is simple enough, to show the scale. I also haven't added in the shuttle bay, which would also show the scale.

It looks like the Normandy SR-1, and the SR-71, had Sex and gave birth to this.

(not sure who's the Mother, they both claim to be the Father)

ha ha, Good job on your  mesh so far.

Thanks, I'll keep plugging away in the hope of getting it more polished.

[MajorD]

I think the general layout is right for a ship trying to be fast, although, I think it could stand to be even longer if you really want to draw out every last fraction of speed. You may also want to look at hypersonic vehicle shapes since you're making the ship aerodynamic.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/waverider/main.shtml
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/4449/aspj.jpg

Conceptually, I like it, but I don't see any reason to make the ship slow and weak. Without true cloaking the ship is highly vulnerable, it's primary defensive measure should be the ability to run away, and to stay away from enemies in the first place. To that end, you could give it an improved Defiant core, and much more significant impulse engines so its fast in all forms of flight.

To keep performance high you could drop the idea of combination ablative armor stealth armor. Use an unarmored hull, with stealth coating like the Pirate ship in "Gambit" 1 and 2, and just use warp signature scrambling, whatever they call it, to prevent that form of tracking. The stealth coating blocks all long range emissions internally and externally, the Galaxy found it impossible to track once it left short range.

Defensively its shields can be as strong as the Defiant. Offensively, space that would be dedicated to weapons almost all goes to sensors, mostly for passive detection. It could have a single fore and aft torpedo tube of light slow design, and instead of arrays it can have six, light point emitters arranged like the F-35's DAS sensors. The idea is, you can't cover the arrays in stealth material without blasting the material off when firing, but point emitters can have simple hatches covered in stealth material, as can torpedo tubes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvnhFgzIKI#t=0m32s

Naming it Pegasus would be an obvious tipoff to the Romulans and provocative. Starfleet would be embarrassed to name a ship that, especially with it being a stealth ship since it's a bad reminder.

[11001001]

Overall I really like the design, it's something new and quirky, something we havent seen before. They way you described the ship, I was thinking it to be a socut ship, something along the lines of the Klingons bird of prey, limited weapons and shields, but highly focused and accurate sensors and a high top speed, imagine it warps into the far edge of a solar system, hides behind a moon with it's extra stealth technology, does a full sensor sweep and gets out before anyone detects it or before anyone can catch it anyway. The casings on the nacelles could be of one time only usage, such as you warp in, drop the casings, warp out at maximum speed and have some new ones ready and waiting back at starbase, . I really like it.

[Atlantisbase]

Disposable casings for the nacelles don't really make sense as leaving them would potentially expose your presence and let your enemy have a good look at your stealth tech.

[MajorD]

And, the nacelles aren't a power source, they're just the part that does the work. A super charged disposable battery makes more sense. Unless, we're talking about warp nacelles precharged with warp energy, and the ship carrying four of them in two sets. But, in that case, I think it would need a launcher to exploit that charge.

[Black Patriot]

I wouldn't say it's weak, just less powerful than a dedicated combat ship would be, eg the Defiant. Given the current wing width I imagine the phaser cannons being about 70-80% the strength of those in the Defiant, and the design also allows the cannons to take advantage of the warp plasma conduits, since they're between the core and the nacelles. My current thinking of the warp core is a linear design, like in the NX-01, since the ship it much longer than it is tall, that would maximize potential output without significantly increasing the power signature (I see the Defiant's core as being powerful but inefficient, that's why it had problems hiding from the Jem'Hadar even when cloaked, it's core is so small for that amount of power that the cloak couldn't cover it all properly). I would say that the ship isn't slow as such, it's not as fast as an Intrepid or Prometheus, but they're on the upper reaches of fleet speeds anyway, and Voyager never got up to it's rated 9.975 anyway, so I don't see this ship being much slower. I've redesigned the impulse engines, removing the ones on the back of the hull (they didn't look that good or fit well into the design) and have enlarged the ones on the nacelles, which gives the ship much larger impulse engines than any other Starfleet ship, relative to hull size, so it's sublight performance should be better than most of the fleet.

For the moment I'm planing on balancing it as a moderately armed ship in a straight fight, it's quick and has some teeth but wouldn't be able to beat an Akira or any larger ship, but if it gets a tactical advantage then it really shines, having fast firing phaser cannons and quantum torpedoes ready for a surprise attack, in those situations I can see it quickly overwhelming even much larger classes, though I'm still not sure if it could outright destroy them. Overall the ship has a similar design philosophy as a bird of prey, hit and run is the preferred attack method, but it can still stand up in a straight fight.

MajorD I've got a full backstory, including a justification for the name, but I still need to finish a good writeup for it. For the moment here's a shot of the ship with a Type 6 shuttle that I quickly whipped up for size.

[Roar54]

It reminds me a little of the Dauntless (second to last screenshot). A great model, I personally would go for a slightly shorter forward section. But it looks like a manouverable ship, which me likey!
By the way, what did you make it in?

[MajorD]

It's a lot bigger than I thought. I like that.

[RayneVampix]

Very very nice!! Will the engines/nacelles move on the wings like the normandy's when powering up? I must admit, I was rather sad when I first started playing ME2 and the SR-1 went ka-blammo...
Fantastic work all the same.

[Black Patriot]

By the way, what did you make it in?

3DS Max 2010

Very very nice!! Will the engines/nacelles move on the wings like the normandy's when powering up? I must admit, I was rather sad when I first started playing ME2 and the SR-1 went ka-blammo...
Fantastic work all the same.

Thanks, and the nacelles move a bit, though not in the same way as those on the Normandy.
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I've uploaded a quick video of the animations I've done so far, I've yet to design the phaser strips, phaser cannons or torpedo launchers, for the moment I'm working on getting the mesh of the hull up to an acceptable standard, it's a bit lacking in places, as you'll probably see in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqFAcmAPpX4

Does anyone know the code for embedding a youtube video in a forum post?

[Roar54]

Does anyone know the code for embedding a youtube video in a forum post?

MajorD?   

3DS Max 2010

Cheers!

[MajorD]

I don't think this forum has youtube embedding. You definitely cannot use html code, it doesn't do it automatically, and [yt][/yt] tags don't work.

Brool hatches Co. The rear hatch is a little odd though, seems like it would be simply to use the forward style of top hatch, you could make the rear a single panel so it has a longer ramp. Just make sure you have several feet of thickness in the belly below the level of the lower hatches, for structural strength, especially since it looks like this if for landing.

[Black Patriot]

I don't think this forum has youtube embedding. You definitely cannot use html code, it doesn't do it automatically, and [yt][/yt] tags don't work.

Brool hatches Co. The rear hatch is a little odd though, seems like it would be simply to use the forward style of top hatch, you could make the rear a single panel so it has a longer ramp. Just make sure you have several feet of thickness in the belly below the level of the lower hatches, for structural strength, especially since it looks like this if for landing.

Hmm, could have sworn I'd seen embedding working on these forums before, might just be my imagination though, I do go to several different forums.

I'm not entirely certain about the rear hatch, though I don't think a single large hatch would be a good idea, it would be very big, and it would stick out a fair way. I'm not sure if I see this as a landing craft, more a low atmosphere operator, capable of dropping and retrieving shuttles from very low in the atmosphere. It could be adapted with landing gear, but it does seem like a capability that would be beyond it's mission specification. I'm going to design a stealth shuttle to go with the Pegasus, one with similar design philosophies, probably based on the Argo shuttle from Nemesis. The ship and the shuttle go together, the ship used to get the shuttle within operational range of it's target, and then retrieve it afterwards.

To this end I've been working on the shuttlebay, and I've had an idea about shuttle storage, though it's a bit unconventional compared to the more familiar designs we've seen on Federation ships. From what we've seen, especially in Voyager, the shuttles are stored below the flight deck, the same as an aircraft carrier. But since the ships operate in zero gravity, there's no reason that this system is any more beneficial than say storing the shuttle on the ceiling or on the walls. Because of the large size of the shuttlebay and the limited storage space that would be available on the Pegasus I've decided to have the shuttles stored in an alcove on either side of the shuttlebay, this allows for a large number of shuttles to be stored with the flight deck clear (at the moment there's enough space to comfortably fit 6 Type VI shuttles in the alcoves). The bay is long enough that the alcoves can be extended without any real issue, so it'd be possible to store even more shuttles than that.

Here's a quick shot of the shuttlebay, with the Type-VI mock up in position. I'm still working on the geometry, so some sections at the front and back of the bay are a bit rough.

[Black Patriot]

Another update:

I've finished up the shuttlebay for the moment, the only real differences between the shot I put up the other day and how it is now is some minor mesh changes, nothing worth posting again. I've also been working on the interior of the nacelle, which is coming along well. At the moment I've envisioned that there are no protective covers over the interior components when the nacelles are open, since they'd only be exposed at high warp, and collisions with anything at that speed would be pretty bad anyway, besides it looks more interesting this way.

[Black Patriot]

Triple post, win

Anyway, here's another update. I've been working on the Phaser arrays, including the retraction of the armor covers. Unfortunately Youtube has decided to start messing with the video whenever I upload it, not sure why, but I tried 3 times and it did it each time, so for the moment I'll just have to stick to still shots until I know why it's doing it. As such here's 3 shots in sequence, the first shows the armor with the cover in place, the second with it partially retracted, and the third with the array deployed. The fourth is a shot from another angle, since the others are rather narrow, making it a bit difficult to see what's going on.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Roar54]

Sorry to interrupt your posting streak! 
Phaser array covers are a really good idea. You could mount a mini cloak/dampening field on the phaser arrays only so they don't show energy signatures when they are charged. That would stop the people you are spying on from detecting you from powered weapons, perfect for ambushes! 
I presume if the covers are on and they are damaged, they are difficult to remove? That is the only flaw in the concept I can think of, but it would balance a cloak attack strategy out nicely; if the captain f-ed it up.

[Vadek]

Is that pattern on the ship, permanent?