Starship Design Notes, Part 1

Introduction

I stumbled on the Starfleet Museum site by accident and found it very interesting. This site rekindled the urge from when I was a kid to draw and design make believe starships, although none I did were as good as these. Since Masao already had very interesting outsides done, I contacted him and asked if he would mind it I would try to design the insides. I agreed with him that while the Enterprise NX-01 looks good, it has the wrong look for a ship that is supposed to predate NCC-1701 by 100 years.  However, the ships at Starfleet Museum have just the right look, and the history to go along with them is great. Masao has been a huge help in this effort. I consult him often about the layouts and he critiques all of them.

These notes detail and contrast how the internal design of the ships changes with time, technology, and species and my personal progression and philosophy how I designed them. This document is a work in progress. Ships at the end of the list haven't been designed yet!

Allen Rolfes

General Design Principles

I approached these designs from an engineering point of view (since I am an engineer!) to try and make something that could be, at least in the Star Trek universe, a functioning interior. I started with the human ships of the Romulan War era. I then did the Romulan ships themselves, then branched out to Klingon ships and eventually filled in earlier then later human ships. I came up with design principles that have carried throughout all of them:

• I was not interested in designing every square inch of the inside, down to every toilet. I designed the location and look of key systems such as the bridge, main computer, navigational deflector, main sensors, warp and impulse engines, nacelles, deuterium tanks, anti-matter bottles, weapons, escape pods, turbolifts, hallways, shuttle bays, cargo bays, transporters, structural support and utility transfer spaces. After that, I broke up the ship into the following general areas with no real details filled in:
  • Officer & crew areas: quarters, sickbays, rec rooms, lounges, brig, meeting rooms, offices, mess rooms, kitchens, science & research labs, armory, arboretums. In short, anything that supports the crew or non-ship related missions like research.
  • Maint areas: work shops, any kind of fabrication or maintenance function.
  • Misc. support systems: environmental support, fresh and waste water systems and storage, shields, structural integrity field generators, emergency batteries. In short, all the equipment and systems that keep the ship functioning behind the scenes.

These categories would not be absolute. If all the details were filled in there may be some support systems in a crew area deck or some crew areas in a maintenance/support systems deck. These labels are just to indicate what the majority of the area is.

• I show the size and door location into a hallway for each compartment, but these are only approximate and may be somewhat different if the design were completely detailed. Where possible, the hallway and main bulkhead configuration is identical between decks. This makes it possible for the floor of one compartment to be removed and make a two deck high space for large equipment if necessary. This may be the case fairly often, especially in 'misc. support system' compartments. The door location may be different also, and many compartments probably have more internal bulkheads than shown and multiple doors to the hallway. In multi-level compartments, scaffolding and catwalk type structures to access high areas are not shown but are likely present.
• Most all other internal designs I have seen by others ignore or greatly minimize structural and utility transfer spaces in ships. These must be a continuous network throughout the ships just like turbolifts. Any large modern structure (buildings, naval ships, etc.) cannot exist without them. In futuristic space ships, they may not take up as much room (or they may take up more), but they must also exist. All my designs have these areas in the form of central cores, 'keels', headspaces on each deck, or various other configurations. They start out very large and gradually decrease in size as technology improves. These areas are where the famous Jefferies tubes are located.
• Many other internal designs I have seen by others also have little or no space for the machinery needed to make a ship function. Most or all of the space is personnel living space. My designs have large pieces of machinery associated with the engines, weapons, etc. The 'misc. support systems' areas are also for this type of machinery.
• The outside shape of the ship is dictated by the internal components and function. As the shape of the ship changes along any axis, it means the internal components/purpose changes. For example when the primary hull cylinder changes to the secondary hull sphere in Romulan war era ships, the purpose also changes from crew and weapons areas to maintenance/deuterium/warp engine. Also specialized bulges, fins, and other shapes (in addition to looking good) must have a specific purpose that necessitates the special shape on the hull.
• The exact look of the shuttles shown in the diagrams is open to interpretation. I did not focus on making shuttle designs so many of them look clunky and awkward. They are mostly to show the dimensions of certain types of shuttles. The types of Earth shuttles in decreasing size is:
  • Medium: Either a cargo shuttles which holds 16 standard cargo containers (a 6'x6'x10' box), or an assault landing craft for troops and medium size vehicles.
  • Small: Either a cargo shuttles which holds 8 standard cargo containers, personnel shuttles, or an assault landing craft for troops and small vehicles.
  • Mini: Either a cargo shuttle which holds 2 standard cargo containers, personnel shuttles, or an assault landing craft for troops.
  • Fighter/bomber: A sublight, atmospheric or space fighter which is the same approximate size as the mini shuttle.
  • Micro: Personnel shuttles that are the approximate size of the canon shuttles shown in TOS. It can barely fit in one standard deck height.
• The amount of supplies and some other design specs are determined by calculations that are consistent for all ships and with Masao's history. This produces ships with amounts of supplies and specs that change and make sense between ships based on the technology improvements and purpose of the ship. For example:
  • The amount of deuterium is based on what range the ship needs and the 'gas mileage' (deuterium per LY). The gas mileage was determined by the ship size and efficiency ratings on the warp engine, nacelles, Bussard collectors, and overall shape of the ship (subspace drag). The warp engine efficiency made huge increases from fusion to M/AM. The other efficiency ratings would also change over time as technology improved.
  • The amount of cargo is based on the crew size, the typical mission length, and an onboard recycling efficiency rating. Most of the cargo is assumed to be consumables (food, spare parts, other raw materials, etc) needed to support the crew and ship in between resupplying. The amount of cargo shrank as the mission length shrank due to faster ships and on-board recycling improved. There is a lot of extra cargo beyond what is needed for the mission on ships that are cargo carriers.
  • Warp reactor size. This generally shrinks over time except for a large increase when fusion is replaced with M/AM and is consistent with Masao's history.
  • I calculated habitable volume on each ship and ratioed it to crew size to make sure the crew size made sense. Habitable volume was the total ship volume minus nacelles, deuterium, and any specialized large non-habitable spaces like extra cargo bays on cargo carriers and fighter bays on fighter carriers.
  • The factors are also all inter related. The typical mission length used for cargo calcs is itself based on the ship range and cruising speed. Ship range goes into the deuterium calculation. The crew size is used for the cargo calculation and also the number of escape pods.
• I tried to stay true to Masao's online pictures and specs for ships. But at times when the design would have been too impractical to make sense, I deviated from these (with his approval). The most common deviations were changing small external details like window and airlock placement, sometimes laser/phaser placement, and specs like warp engine size (if given), crew size, number of missiles, and number of shuttles. On rare occasions there was a complete redesign of part of the ship.

Notes on Each Ship, until 2200

The number after each ship is the launch date of the lead ship followed by the ship type/function. They are in Masao's Star Trek universe chronological order, but not necessarily the order I designed them. In general the notes for each ship apply to future ships of the same type until the technology changes. The first ship has more notes than most since it describes the systems and technology for the first time. Each set of ship notes then describes how technology and design differs from the ships before, and also design differences between species. I also describe any significant deviations I made from Masao's online pictures or specs, then list ships stats and specs which are different from or in addition to those in the main online writeup:

• Ship size: Metric ton size of the ship normally loaded. Used to calculate LY range and many other specs.
• Subspace efficiency: A measure of how 'streamlined' the ship is at warp. Higher numbers mean lower deuterium usage. 100% is defined as Amarillo. Used to calculate LY range.
• Propulsion efficiency: A measure of how efficient in deuterium usage the warp engine, nacelles, Bussard collector and plasma accelerator are. Higher numbers mean lower deuterium usage. 100% is defined as Amarillo. Used to calculate LY range.
• Amount of deuterium: Given in cubic meters and metric tons. Used to calculate LY range.
• Cruising/max speed: Cruising and maximum warp factor. Cruising speed used to calculate many fuel related specs.
• LY range: Range at cruising speed from one tank of deuterium.
• Months of deuterium: Months to consume deuterium if operated continuously at cruising speed.
• Warp engine size/type: Fusion or M/AM engine, size in cubic meters.
• AM bottles: Number of AM bottles if ship has any. This does not impact range.
• Escape pods: Number of escape pods if ship has any.
• Container cargo: Number of standard cargo containers. Used to calculate cargo duration.
• Bulk/bin cargo: Cubic meters of bulk or bin cargo spaces if ship has any. Bin cargo used to calculate cargo duration.
• Months of container/bin cargo: Months the consumable cargo will last the crew.
• Crew compliment: If different from main writeup. Used to calculate cargo duration.
• Number/type of missiles: If different from main writeup.
• Number/type energy weapons: If different from main writeup.
• Number/type shuttles: If different from main writeup.

I designed the Bison ships after I had done most of Earth's Romulan War era ships and after designing several other Romulan and Klingon ships. I was trying to go back and 'fill in' those ships before the war I had missed. This cargo ship is based on the one side profile picture of the 'Nakajima Maru' cargo ship. Masao states the Bison was the most popular ship and formed the core design for most large ships throughout the Romulan War era in both military and civilian applications:

• The deck configuration is vertical stacked decks along the long axis of the ship. The cross section of each deck was therefore mostly identical sized circles. This deck configuration was used for large Bison and all smaller ships as well.
• Just like modern day, the most efficient way to move large amounts of small miscellaneous cargo is in standard size boxes which can be stacked and packed most tightly with no wasted space between them. This cargo ship is designed to hold a lot of these standard cargo containers the same way cargo is moved on ocean going ships.
• The six cargo shuttle doors around the primary hull are for cargo shuttles to dock and access the container cargo bays. That the cargo shuttle doors are larger than the standard shuttle door and hinted that there is a larger shuttle that uses them for cargo. So I designed the medium cargo shuttle which can hold a much larger number of standard cargo containers. The shuttles dock belly first in these doors and the cargo containers are transferred to and from the ship via belly doors.
• It carries six medium cargo shuttles. During interstellar flight, they are kept in their own shuttle bay accessible through the normal shuttle doors (they barely fit!). The space inside the six cargo shuttle doors is not deep enough to store a shuttle and there is no airlock. The cargo shuttles stick out of them when docked there. It takes up less space to keep the cargo shuttles in their own shuttle bay rather than six individual small shuttle bays. It would take up a lot of space running hallways for personnel access and airlocks for six cargo shuttle bays which are generally not near habitable areas of the ship.
• There were no personnel or cargo transporters at this time. As a result, all habitable decks have personnel and cargo turbolift access. The halls and doors are wide to accommodate moving large loads. The cargo bays are one continuous room or connected rooms filled with a large grid. Cargo is stored in various standard size containers that fit in the grid. The grid has small motors built in to move the cargo containers anywhere within it by computer control. The smallest size containers (a little bigger than a modern day pallet) can fit on the cargo turbolift and through the wide hallways and doors.
• Since the hallways and turbolifts were wide, these networks throughout the ship were not that extensive or else they would have taken up too much internal room. Rather, the average compartment size was larger with more multi-purpose rooms or internal walkway spaces in the rooms to get to the areas far away from hallways and turbolifts.
• While at starbase or ports, most personnel transfers on and off the ship are via the personnel airlocks which can dock with special arms at the starbase. The smallest standard cargo container (a 6'x6'x10' box) can fit through the personnel airlocks and hallways. Larger containers (a 12'x12'x20') or the largest standard cargo box (a 12'x12'x30' box) must enter via shuttles. All cargo and ship to ship transfers in open space must use the shuttle bay.
• There are no force fields to hold back air across the shuttle bay doors so there is a large shuttle airlock just inside the doors. This is due to the low technology state of shields. They are very diffuse and cannot create a sharp defined boundary strong enough to hold back air across an open shuttle bay door.
• The shuttle bay is a donut shape that extends the entire diameter of the ship with the central core passing through the middle. This carries six small personnel/cargo shuttles and some standard container cargo boxes. These shuttles that have two configurations: a passenger compartment or configured to carry several cargo containers.
• There are no tractor beams to guide shuttles into and around the bay. They move very slowly in the bay under their own power, but possibly by remote control from the shuttle bay control room. Gravity would be turned down or off to make shuttle maneuvering in the bay easier.
• Turbolifts are mostly in groups of 6 (2x3).  Personnel lifts take up one of the six 'spaces'. Cargo lifts takes up 4 spaces (2x2) with the personnel lifts able to get by in the other two spaces. Where space is limited, turbolifts are only in 2x2 groups. Since the turbolift cars can move around each other in the large shafts, travel by them is quick and efficient. Since there are many decks stacked vertically in these type of ships, most personnel travel more than a few decks is done by turbolift.
• The personnel stairs are circular stairs since this takes up the least amount of room and are not designed to move cargo. The stairs can be arranged so they open at slightly different radial angles on each deck. This is useful in design flexibility. Regular switchback stairs must open in the same direction on every deck.
• Because of the spacing of the impulse engines very far apart, each engine has its own fusion reactor as the base of the engine. These small fusion impulse engines are not enough even working together to achieve warp speed. So there is no backup warp reactor.
• There is a large open area for odd sized bulk items, or even other smaller ships accessible through the big door in the belly. The staggered placement of the cargo shuttle doors around the primary hull meant the main bulk cargo hold would only extend half way through the diameter of the primary hull. The central core is at the top (back) of the bulk cargo hold and is protruding into it. The central core has a thick structural covering around it inside the main hold and can have moveable grappling arms attached to it to hold cargo like the Yorktown holds the Minotaurs.
• It has a fusion engine so carries a lot of deuterium.
• The rear midline nacelle is smaller than similar size military ships. Economical slow transport is the biggest factor, not speed.
• It has a skeleton crew and minimal maint areas as compared to military ships. It has no weapons. It has much fewer misc. support systems areas because civilian ships don't need as robust and redundant systems as military ships.
• The hull is thinner than the military ships because it does not need the thick hull plating.
• While the central core is the same size as military ships (this uses standard building components), it does not have as heavy a structural supports in it and the crawl space above each deck is narrower or omitted.
• The doors to the bulk cargo hold were widened from the original size shown online.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 495,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 108%
  • Amount of deuterium: 60,300 M3, 9,793 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 1.7/2.0 WF
  • LY range: 5.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 12.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 6,200 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Escape pods: 41
  • Container cargo: 18,872
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 101,000 M3 bulk
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 596 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 225
  • Number/type shuttles: 12, 6 small cargo/personnel, 6 medium cargo

This was built at the same time as the Bison cargo ship and is a sister ship to the Nakajima Maru which is shown in side profile. The notes focus on the differences from the original Bison cargo ship:

• The main bulk cargo hold was modified to stretch the entire diameter of the primary hull so it can carry much bigger items and ships.
• The central core was broken up into three narrow strips that run along the walls of the main cargo hold. These carry all the same functions as the original central core.
• The container cargo area was reduced. Two cargo shuttles and two cargo doors were removed.
• There are some thick structural areas on the walls of the main cargo hold to attach moveable grappling arms to.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 495,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 108%
  • Amount of deuterium: 60,300 M3, 9,793 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 1.7/2.0 WF
  • LY range: 5.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 12.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 6,200 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Escape pods: 41
  • Container cargo: 10,596
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 185,000 M3 bulk
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 334 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 225
  • Number/type shuttles: 12, 6 small cargo/personnel, 6 medium cargo

This was based on the one side profile picture of the Lufthansa liner 'Mercator':

• Passenger liners of this era were designed for higher speed than the purely cargo ships. They catered mostly to passengers in the same style as today's cruise liners, but they did also carry a small amount of container cargo that could afford and benefit from the faster transit time. Even though these ships were faster than cargo, the typical journey still took six months.
• It has a fusion engine so carries a lot of deuterium like Pioneer.
• The crew that actually ran the ship was less than half of the total crew. The rest tended to the passengers, and the passengers outnumbered the crew two to one.
• Most of the ship was dedicated to passenger quarters and large common passenger areas including several multi deck open levels. Passengers enter the ship via airlock in the middle of the main atrium. This is the most impressive view the ship has to offer. Passengers can look up four decks and down four decks with an unimpeded view into open space through eight stories of huge windows. Balconies with more common areas ring the entire atrium. There is a four story arboretum with trees growing up the center, a steam on the ground floor, and balconies ringing all decks. It is kept isolated from the rest of the ship because the temperature and humidity are much higher. It even rains inside! There are two bi-level restaurants. There are multiple one story common areas.
• It is important to be able to transport passenger species that need special atmospheres, sometimes in large groups. Small groups stay in the 1st class rooms since each has its own airlock and ability to change to non standard atmospheres. Large groups travel in several special decks which are converted entirely to a different atmosphere. These decks include cabins, common areas with a four story atrium, escape pods, personnel airlocks, and stairs between the decks. Most of the crew areas on these decks are standard atmosphere and have airlocks to enter the main deck areas. Those passenger support areas without standard atmosphere are for crew of the same species as the passengers who need special atmosphere. The decks use the same turbolift shafts which are airtight, with some dedicated cars of the proper atmosphere. Cars with standard atmosphere cannot stop on these decks. If these decks or the 1st class cabins are not needed for passengers with special atmosphere, they have standard atmosphere and are used like any other passenger area.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 452,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 95%
  • Amount of deuterium: 62,000 M3, 10,069 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 1.9/2.6 WF
  • LY range: 4.9 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.9 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 6,200 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Escape pods: 191
  • Container cargo: 6,404
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 30 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 1,525, 1,000 passengers in 244 cabins, 525 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 16, 12 small cargo/personnel, 4 medium cargo

An example of sleeper ship technology:

• Sleeper ships were used while warp technology was still limited by fusion power. Sleeper technology is simple and affordable enough that is it is practical, but still difficult and expensive enough that it is not used for very short trips. If it were used for very short trips, the standard passenger liner would not exist. For trips under six months, it was cheaper to keep passengers awake and simply load extra cargo, crew, and have facilities to tend to the awake passengers. On trips over six months this added cost is prohibitive and it is cheaper to sleep the journey.
• This sleeper ship can carry over 5 times the amount of passengers as the same size 'awake' ships.
• The passenger loading process works as follows:
  • Passengers are divided into two classes, 1st class and coach. Coach makes up ~90% of the passengers. Coach passengers come on the ship first in groups. They prepare for sleep in the lounges/sleep prep areas near the nose of the ship (or maybe even at port facilities) and are then led to the sleeper pods. Many groups come on and are put in the pods over several days. A staff of medical technicians at port helps speed this process. Only a small group of med techs stays on the ship during the trip.
  • The 1st class passengers come on the ship and it leaves port. They stay awake for the first week or so of the trip in the passenger lounges/sleep prep areas which can be made into individual cabins. They are put in the pods in much smaller groups by the onboard med techs. The 1st class sleeping chambers are a little roomier that coach.
  • The reverse process happens when arriving at port. The 1st class passengers are woken up in small groups before reaching port. When the ship docks, they walk off. Coach passengers are then woken up with the help of port med techs the next few days after docking.
• The sleeper pods can be ejected if necessary. A crew member is onboard each pod if ejected.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 495,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 95%
  • Amount of deuterium: 62,000 M3, 10,069 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.3/2.6 WF
  • LY range: 4.5 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.4 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 6,200 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Escape pods: 54, plus 114 ejectable sleeper pods
  • Container cargo: 6,944
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 210 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 235, plus 3,420 sleeping passengers (not counted for cargo calcs)
  • Number/type shuttles: 10, 6 small cargo/personnel, 4 medium cargo

This was the first ship I designed. It is a medium cruiser not based on Bison but rather on a spherical primary hull attached directly to a smaller cylindrical secondary hull. But it still retains the vertical stacked decks along the long axis of the ship that Bison has:

• As a military ship, there are defensive energetic based shields around the ship, but these are not very effective. They are very diffuse fields and not sharp boundaries as seen on modern Trek. They are best against energy weapons where they can diffuse and take the punch out of them, but cannot stop a solid projectile like a missile. This is why all ships of this era carry defensive missiles to shoot down enemy missiles.
• The size of the offensive and defensive missiles was determined based on the number of external missile doors shown and so the missiles would take up a reasonable amount of space on the ship. They ended up being rather short and fat.
• Masao liked the amount of deuterium (taking up most of the secondary hull). This amount of deuterium was used as the basis for the warp engine, nacelle, Bussard collector efficiency ratings. The factors were set to '1' on this ship and then changed slightly on future ships as technology changed. The factors then calculated the deuterium on all later ships. The same applies for the recycling efficiency rating and the amount of cargo.
• The warp engine size is much smaller than Masao indicated in his history. This was needed so the engine size of many later ships lined up with his history.
• The central utility core is unbroken as it passes right through the center of the donut shaped tokamak warp engine. The core is rather big on this ship. Each deck also has an approximately 3 foot crawl space above it for structural support and utilities. All this representing primitive and bulky structural support and utility transfer.
• All Earth military ships have a separate turbolift maintenance area.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 100%
  • Amount of deuterium: 17,000 M3, 2,761 MT
  • LY range: 4.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 3.5 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,800 M3, fusion tokamak 3N-9D
  • Escape pods: 48
  • Container cargo: 440
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.2 months

This was the second ship I designed and the first large ship. It is based on the Bison layout:

• The midline nacelle is oval in shape. Only outboard nacelles are cylinders. Because the midline nacelle takes up most of the rear oval, there is little room for deuterium there. Due to the very inefficient fusion warp engine, a lot more deuterium is in the secondary hull around and in front of the warp engine.
• The six widely spaced impulse engines again made sense to have a separate fusion engine for power for each one.
• It has special lateral sensors in blisters on the side of the primary hull not present in most other ships. This is due to its escort duty where it would slowly circle the convoy I was protecting with its lateral sensors facing out. It could detect dangers farther away and approaching from the side in an ambush mode with these sensors.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 100%
  • Amount of deuterium: 47,900 M3, 7,779 MT
  • LY range: 4.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 3.9 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 6,200 M3, fusion tokamak 4N-2F
  • Escape pods: 138
  • Container cargo: 1,364
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.8 months
  • Number/type energy weapons:4 lasers, two in fixed housings, two in a turret

I designed this ship after I had done all the military Romulan War era ships and after several other Romulan and Klingon ships. At first I didn't want to design these small ships, but later changed my mind. It is a very small ship based on a roughly cylindrical hull:

• The missiles and missile launchers are a different design and much smaller than the larger Romulan War era ships. The missile launchers are not as powerful as the larger ones and each holds a missile in it to increase the overall number on the ship. The big fat missiles carried by the other ships would not fit and the external missile ports are too small. The missile doors slide open instead of retract inside the ship.
• The main forward sensor is a newer design and a large centrally located dish in the nose cone. The navigational deflector is not one large dish, but a dozen smaller dishes around the perimeter of the main sensor. Since this is a system patrol ship that doesn't spend much time at warp, it doesn't need a large efficient powerful main deflector.
• The tokamak fusion reactor feeds the rear midline nacelle for limited (but still essential) short warp jumps and the three impulse drives which are used most for inter-system patrol ships. The engine is only accessible by a crawlway.
• There is a very small cargo bay, no shuttle bay, and extremely limited crew and maint areas due to the very short mission length. misc. support systems are also sparse. The bridge and main computer are very small.
• The outer hull is thinner than large capital military ships to save weight. Archer's main defense (besides missiles used defensively) is its small size and excellent maneuverability. Thick hull plating would add too much weight and negatively affect maneuverability.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 115%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 89%
  • Amount of deuterium: 512 M3, 83 MT
  • LY range: 0.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 0.6 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 600 M3, fusion tokamak 6N-4A
  • Escape pods: 2
  • Container cargo: 6
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 0.9 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 34 offensive/defensive

These early M/AM engines were nothing more than 'supercharged' fusion engines. They started up as a normal fusion reactor (hydrogen fusing to helium in some sort of open donut or spherical cavity at the center of the engine), and then minute amounts of anti-matter was injected to 'supercharge' the engine, much like nitrous oxide supercharges an internal combustion engine. To help with efficiency, the AM was injected at two points in the reaction chamber. This necessitated two separate transfer lines and attachment points to the engine. The engine is much sturdier to handle the increase output with a lot of special equipment to handle and feed the AM into the reaction chamber - this was no easy trick and is what took so long to develop.

The ratio of AM to regular matter that reacts is always 1:1, but extra regular matter is always injected. If no extra matter was injected, the output stream would be only pure energy in the form of heat, light, and radiation. This is not suitable for use to power the warp nacelles. Plasma must power the warp nacelles. The definition of plasma is matter in such an excited state that the electrons have detached from the nuclei. So extra normal matter must be injected to form the basis for this plasma.

These early M/AM engines had a very large excess of matter to AM, like 1000:1. Therefore the energy of 1 part AM and 1 part matter annihilating each other was transferred to 999 parts matter (some of which would also fuse from hydrogen to helium). Therefore, the plasma was not very energized, but this was the limit of what the engines could produce and safely handle at the time. This low energy plasma was referred to as 'low quality' plasma. As the decades passed and engines became better, the amount of extra matter decreased substantially. The engine became much more 'fuel efficient' with regard to the matter stream and the resulting plasma became more and more energized and higher and higher quality.

The warp nacelles that most efficiently used low quality plasma were the oval type, and the weak warp fields they produced were best when centered around the centerline of the ship. This is why many early ships including the Little Nell test ships used oval midline nacelles. As the decades passed and the plasma quality rose, different and better warp nacelles and configurations were built to take advantage of the higher quality plasma to reach higher and higher warp factors. The nacelles eventually became cylindrical in shape, used in pairs, and offset from the ship's centerline.

The ship itself is based on a compact cylindrical hull. Other notes on internal details:

• The outer hull is thinner since it doesn't have the thick plating than military combat ships need.
• There is very little deuterium, anti-matter, or cargo space because, being a test ship, the mission length is so short, maybe only a few weeks at the longest.
• The bridge and main computer were large for a ship this small due to all the special monitoring that occurred during flight.
• It has specialized communications test ship lances on the nose and tail for continuous and heavy data transfer during flight (should anything catastrophic occur and all onboard records lost in an instant).
• There are two very small shuttle bays that have no airlock, but rather depressurizes when the external doors open.
• It had one large almost spherical midline nacelle. This was not the most efficient nacelle but sturdy enough to handle the increased output of the new M/AM engine.
• Anti-matter bottles of this era are filled at the AM manufacturers and installed on the ships already full. They cannot be refilled in place, but are removed when empty in spacedock. Some of the hull plating is removed to access them and replace with new full AM bottles. The amount of AM carried on board can last many voyages, many times longer than the deuterium. The AM bottles would only need replacing every couple years.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 61,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 450%
  • Amount of deuterium: 2,000 M3, 325 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.7/3.2 WF
  • LY range: 1.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 1.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 8,000 M3, M/AM SSWR-I-A
  • AM bottles: 2
  • Escape pods: 8
  • Container cargo: 48
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 2.1 months
  • Crew compliment: 66
  • Number/type shuttles: 2 small cargo/personnel

Based on a part spherical primary hull directly attached to a cylindrical secondary hull that together it has the appearance of a mushroom:

• An evolutionary advancement of the M/AM engine after the catastrophic loss of Little Nell I lead to the engine in Little Nell II.
• The midline nacelle was a little more oval in shape vs. almost spherical on Little Nell I.
• For simplicity, there was no impulse engine room. Rather the entire tokamak fusion reactor and impulse drives were simply attached onto the underside of the mushroom shaped primary hull. There was no easy way to access the entire fusion engine other than a small crawl space. But since fusion is old and reliable technology in this era and it is not a combat ship, full access to the impulse engine was not needed.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 58,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 95%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 545%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,800 M3, 292 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.9/3.4 WF
  • LY range: 1.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 0.9 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,400 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-A
  • AM bottles: 2
  • Escape pods: 10
  • Container cargo: 70
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 2.4 months
  • Crew compliment: 82
  • Number/type shuttles: 2 small cargo/personnel

This was the first Romulan ship I designed. I tried to make the designs different from Earth ships. The Romulan ships have to do the same basic function as Earth's. The Romulans are competent ship builders but fulfill the functions with different designs and approaches to systems. The technology level is very similar to Earth ships of the time. Romulans are very practical and efficient designers. They tend not to have redundant or backup systems, but one very reliable main system. The biggest difference is Romulan ships never switch from fusion to M/AM warp engines and their fusion engines are to start with much less efficient than Earth's fusion engines. The ship layout is a half sphere with the engine and nacelles attached to the back flat end.

Other notes on the internal layout:

• The deck configuration of vertical stacked decks along the long axis of the ship is the same as Earth ships.
• Cabbage is a multi purpose ship. It has troops, troop drop ships, 'planet buster' bombs, and the plasma cannon for planetary subjugation/occupation, and could engage other capital ships with missiles or the plasma cannon.
• The warp engine is a spherical fusion reactor vs. donut shaped on earth ships. It is not as efficient as Earths. This means the plasma is puts out is not as highly energized (not a high a quality) as Earth fusion engines and would perform poorly in Earth type oval or cylindrical nacelles. To make up for this, the plasma passes through a 'plasma accelerator'. This uses some of the energy in the plasma to further energize the remaining plasma going to the nacelles. The amount of plasma coming out of the accelerators is decreased, but what does come out is more energized (higher quality). This is the same principle the main plasma cannon operates on, except the cannon energizes the plasma much more and only in short bursts, not continuously.
• The warp engine is directly attached to the impulse drive. There is only one large impulse drive with a complicated exhaust mechanism for steering as compared to several smaller drives used on Earth ships. There is no separate fusion engine for the impulse drive. Not having a separate fusion engine for impulse saves weight and space which is very critical due to the low efficiency of the engine and large amount of deuterium already needed. But this has other tactical disadvantages (see the plasma cannon description for the main one).
• Because of the inefficient warp engine, the ship has much more deuterium than earth ships. The deuterium tanks are also thicker, heavier and much stronger than Earths. This allows the deuterium to be kept at a higher pressure and therefore denser. So more deuterium can be kept in the same volume, but at the expense of a heavier tank. Despite this, the range is still very short.
• The nacelles themselves are complex oval shapes with different radii along all three axes to better handle the low quality plasma.
• There are no transporters or force fields across shuttle bay doors, or tractor beams.
• Romulan ships don't have escape pods. They follow the Klingon mentality that escape pods are cowardly and you should go down fighting with the ship and then self destruct it if it's a lost cause.
• The central core for structural support and utility transfer is a large hollow cylinder wrapped around the plasma cannon and huge deuterium tank. There is not a headspace area on each deck for this, but rather every 4th or 5th deck is dedicated almost fully to this.
• Masao's estimate of 1000 crew is too few. It can hold a lot more when troops are counted. I used a larger crew for all calculations. A majority of the people on board can actually be troops.
• The plasma cannon is a large and very powerful weapon. One direct hit is enough to completely destroy most ships or severely cripple large very heavily shielded ships. Practically nothing could survive a point blank hit including the ship that fired it! But does have disadvantages:
  • The plasma bolt is sublight, so cannot be fired at warp or with accuracy against warp targets.
  • It dissipates after a relatively short range.
  • The firing arc is not that wide. The tip of the barrel is widened to hold equipment for final plasma constricting and aiming. The beam can therefore be deflected slightly for aiming purposes so does not always fire exactly parallel out the front of the ship.
  • The fusion engine is an integral part of the cannon, almost too integral. Most of the gun consists of one long plasma acceleration tube. There is no plasma accumulation chamber at the base of the gun. The fusion engine itself serves as the plasma accumulation chamber. When the gun is fired, a huge magnetic constriction field valve is opened between the engine and gun. Almost the entire plasma contents of the engine are discharged through the gun, leaving the engine almost empty. This forces other ship's systems that require direct fusion power to operate in minimal/standby mode until the engine is back to normal operating conditions. The main system affected by this is the impulse drive. Since the impulse drive is the main thrust as well as maneuvering device, the ship can only continue along the same path and speed it was on before firing. And this path is inevitably towards the target just fired at! The only major battlefield function it can perform is to fire missiles since they don't directly require fusion power. Needless to say, the ship is extremely vulnerable during this time. Fortunately fusion engines can be brought back to full power in only a minute or so, but this is a tense minute. In most instances the plasma cannon is fired with a somewhat smaller plasma bolt than the maximum charge. This leaves some plasma in the engine for limited thrust/maneuvering capability. But this is a tactical decision where strength of the bolt and the ability to thrust/maneuver are balanced against each other. If the wrong battlefield choice is made, it could prove fatal.
• Rather than have most transfers on and off the ship by shuttle as earth ships, Romulans installed a versatile docking port/clamp assembly. This is a sturdy structure that connects to any other Romulan ship with separate but adjacent airlocks for personnel and cargo. The cargo airlock attaches directly to a cargo turbolift. The personnel airlock attaches to a hallway. The entire mechanism can extend some 20 yards from the body of the ship to prevent the hulls from touching and odd shaped ships to dock together. These are used in open space with other ships and at starbases. There are three of these special docking assemblies.
• Romulans do not use a cargo grid like Earth ships. However, regardless of the race, the most efficient way to move cargo is still in standard size boxes. Each cargo bay is one deck tall and the cargo boxes are designed to just fit on one deck height and can move easily around the cargo bay on wheels or similar. The hallways and cargo elevators can just accommodate a cargo box. However the boxes do not fit on cargo turbolifts. The boxes themselves ARE the cargo turbolifts. The cargo turbolift doors open to an open shaft and the cargo boxes roll one after another into the opening and off to wherever they are going. In many ways this is a more efficient system than earths.
• Romulans use normal switchback stairs and a different turbolift system with different size cars and shafts for personnel and cargo.
• Since the plasma cannon is centrally mounted on the nose, there is no room for a centrally mounted navigational deflector dish. So four smaller dishes offset from center do the job of one large one. Smaller sensors are mounted around the navigational deflector dish.
• The missile bay is one huge impressive room 4 decks tall extending the entire diameter of the primary hull. The missile launchers extend out the bottom and top of the bay. They are very fat devices in part to handle the fat 'planet buster' bombs, but also to be powerful enough to launch the missiles with sufficient velocity.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 90%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 69%
  • Amount of deuterium: 75,100 M3, 14,772 MT
  • LY range: 3.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 2.6 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 9,200 M3, fusion spherical
  • Container cargo: 906
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 7.5 months
  • Crew compliment: 1,750, 750 crew, 1,000 soldiers
  • Number/type of missiles: 360, 168 offensive, 162 defensive, 30 planetary
  • Number/type energy weapons:1 plasma cannon
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

Deuterium tanker variant based on the standard Cabbage:

• The missile bay was drastically shrunk. All 'planet buster' missiles, all offensive missiles, all six original missile launchers, and most of the defensive missiles were removed. Only one missile launcher was reinstalled to fire the defensive missiles, the same one used on Clavicle which is smaller because it is not designed to handle the 'planet buster' missiles.
• The plasma cannon was removed.
• The space left by the missile room and plasma cannon was replaced with crew areas or deuterium storage. The bridge and main computer were also moved up into this space.
• 2/3rds of the shuttle bays and cargo bays at the base of the primary hull were removed.
• Two of the three special docking assemblies were removed and replaced with extendable refueling tube assemblies.
• All available space vacated by crew and other ships functions were filled up with expanded deuterium tanks. It carries three times the amount of deuterium as a standard Cabbage.
• The secondary hull was essentially unchanged.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 435,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 90%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 69%
  • Amount of deuterium: 211,400 M3, 43,549 MT
  • LY range: 16.2 LY, if consuming entire deuterium tank by itself
  • Months of deuterium: 11.1 months, if consuming entire deuterium tank by itself
  • Warp engine size/type: 9,200 M3, fusion spherical
  • Container cargo: 304
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.0 months
  • Crew compliment: 550
  • Number/type of missiles: 60 defensive
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

Cargo ship variant based on the standard Cabbage:

• The same changes were made as the deuterium tanker variant to free up space. Instead of extra deuterium tanks, the space was filled with extra cargo bays. It carries almost 7 times more cargo as the standard Cabbage.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 445,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 90%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 69%
  • Amount of deuterium: 77,800 M3, 15,303 MT
  • LY range: 4.7 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 3.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 9,200 M3, fusion spherical
  • Container cargo: 6,127
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 156 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 570
  • Number/type of missiles: 60 defensive
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

This is the first production M/AM ship built by Earth. It was based on the Amarillo layout:

• It contains essentially the same engine that was in Little Nell II.
• The amount of deuterium is greatly reduced vs. the Amarillo, but the extra space is taken up by the much larger M/AM warp engine, the AM bottles, containment generator, and multiple bulky transfer lines for the AM to the engine.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 548%
  • Amount of deuterium: 6,900 M3, 1,121 MT
  • LY range: 9.5 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,300 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-B
  • AM bottles: 26
  • Escape pods: 45
  • Container cargo: 452
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.7 months

This is the first large M/AM capital ship built by Earth. It was based on the Bison layout:

• It contains a scaled up version of the Krechet's engine that is wider and not as tall.
• It is a multi purpose ship with heavy laser firepower, lots of missiles, plus 'planet buster' bombs.
• Again, there is much less deuterium vs. the Pioneer, offset somewhat by the larger engine, AM bottles and transfer equipment.
• The engine is mounted upside down in the ship vs. other ships. The AM is in front of the engine and enters the top. All other ships, the AM is behind the engine and enters the bottom. In this era engine, the deuterium can enter and plasma can exit at either or both the top and bottom of the engine, but not the sides.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 587%
  • Amount of deuterium: 21,700 M3, 3,524 MT
  • LY range: 10.1 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 5.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 20,000 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-A
  • AM bottles: 96
  • Escape pods: 153
  • Container cargo: 1,560
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.8 months

Masao mentions in the Hyperion writeup that subspace communications capability was first mounted on a Bison hull before the Earth-Romulan war, and that the equipment, including a 100 meter dish took up essentially the entire ship's function. During the war, other similar ships were modified to carry subspace communications and other sensing equipment to serve as mobile communications/command platforms. This is one of those ships:

• It is based on the Tannhäuser hull with its M/AM warp engine, but has elements of Pioneer and other Bison cargo ships as well. Since all these ships are based on Bison, the core name of this ship is still Bison.
• The outboard nacelles are attached to the secondary hull sphere instead of near the nose.
• The three laser cannons present on Tannhäuser's primary hull were removed. The fourth cannon on the bottom of the secondary hull was left for defensive purposes but rotated to the top of the ship.
• All offensive missiles and most missile launchers were removed leaving only a small compliment of defensive missiles.
• Most of the escape pods were rotated to exit the top of the ship.
• Two lateral sensor blisters were mounted on the top of the primary hull similar to Pioneer.
• This left the bottom of the ship unobstructed to mount the huge 100 meter diameter subspace transmitting dish pointing down. The transmitter generator is in a large compartment in the center of the primary hull that has the central core routed along the outer shell of the ship similar to some Bison cargo ships.
• Forward of the subspace generator are the navigational dish, bridge, main computer, defensive missiles, shuttle bay, cargo bays, and crew areas in their normal location.
• Aft of the subspace generator is a fleet command overbridge and computer. The overbridge is a cross between the multi-tiered control rooms used by NASA and Star Wars type bridges. It is two decks tall with three tiers facing a huge wall of large view screens. In the center on a raised circular dais the size of a small typical bridge is where the fleet commander and very high level controllers sit. Other computer and communications equipment takes up most of the rest of the two decks.
• Aft of the overbridge in the primary hull are more officer areas for the fleet commanders and some normal crew areas. The secondary hull is very similar to Tannhäuser.
• When on patrol, the ship would orient itself with the top/front facing the likely direction the enemy would advance from and where the front line ships are. This meant the laser cannon, missiles, and lateral sensor arrays were all facing the enemy. The bottom of the ship with the subspace transmitter dish was facing away from the enemy and towards friendly space, which is the direction most long range subspace transmissions would be directed. If signals needed to be transmitted towards the front, the ship rotated on its axis.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 475,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 80%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 587%
  • Amount of deuterium: 29,700 MT, 4,823 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.4/2.8 WF
  • LY range: 11.1 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 9.7 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 20,000 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-A
  • AM bottles: 96
  • Escape pods: 135
  • Container cargo: 1,454
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.8 months
  • Crew compliment: 1,175
  • Number/type of missiles: 24 defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:2 laser cannons in a turret
  • Number/type shuttles: 16 small cargo/personnel

A small light cruiser based on a slimmed version of Amarillo/Krechet layout:

• The shuttle bay is a very tight fit for the shuttles. As tractor beam technology is still not in use, the shuttles must maneuver very carefully. Because of limited space, the shuttle airlock only opens on one side into the shuttle bay instead of on both sides as in larger ships.
• In small ships such as these, the M/AM engine is evolving into a longer narrower shape.
• Due to the smaller size ship, the three impulse drives are fed from the same tokamak fusion engine instead of separate engines at the base of each drive. The fusion engine has a limited ability to sustain low warp speed should the M/AM engine fail. This is because the Torsk may operate alone or with another Torsk on patrols near or into enemy territory.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 621%
  • Amount of deuterium: 4,600 M3, 747 MT
  • LY range: 10.2 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.1 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 3,800 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-C
  • AM bottles: 16
  • Escape pods: 27
  • Container cargo: 276
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.3 months

A 'fleet monitor' ship is designed to oversee planetary subjugations. This one is based on the Bison layout:

• The 'tail' is special planetary sensors that focus downward and can penetrate atmospheres or underground. There are also some special forward facing sensors under the central bulb on the nose and in the lower part of the nose suited for planetary sensing.
• The extended belly all along the bottom of the primary hull is to allow the large number of 'planet buster' bombs plus six launchers to fit six across. The launchers are barely able to fit the bombs and as such they are not very powerful. This means they launch the bombs at low velocity. This is acceptable because they would generally be aimed at ground based immobile targets.
• It has no offensive missiles since it traveled as part of a larger fleet and was not expected to directly engage enemy ships. The large ultra laser cannon is suited best for planetary use against stationary or slow moving targets.
• The M/AM warp engine is evolving from the Tannhäuser type to be taller and narrower. The transfer lines for the M/AM to the engine are longer than would otherwise be desired. This was so all the AM could be kept on the same deck. If it were put closer to the engine, it would be spread out over several small decks.
• The nacelles were placed on struts on a diagonal straight backwards in an early attempt to reduce subspace drag – a phenomena whose study was intensifying. However, this effort was not very successful.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 601%
  • Amount of deuterium: 25,700 M3, 4,174 MT
  • LY range: 12.5 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 6.9 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 11,500 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-C
  • AM bottles: 74
  • Escape pods: 132
  • Container cargo: 1,380
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 9.4 months

Cargo ship variant based on the Farragut:

• It keeps the extended belly of the Farragut but has the 'planet buster' bombs removed and the extra large laser cannon replaced with a standard sized one for defense only. It keeps the defensive missiles.
• The space behind the eight cargo shuttle bay doors is just big enough to store the shuttle and the space doubles as the airlock.
• Most of the planetary sensors on the original Farragut were removed, but the central bulk on the nose was kept. This sensor was found useful when traveling to a contested planet with other large fleets where a Farragut vessel was not present.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 390,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 601%
  • Amount of deuterium: 25,700 M3, 4,174 MT
  • LY range: 14.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 7.3 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 11,500 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-C
  • AM bottles: 74
  • Escape pods: 96
  • Container cargo: 8,680
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 80 months, if consumes all cargo by itself

Deuterium tanker variant based on the Farragut:

• It keeps the extended belly of the Farragut but has the 'planet buster' bombs and the ultra laser cannon removed. It keeps the defensive missiles.
• It holds 5 times the amount of deuterium as the Farragut. This has enough deuterium to refuel two Pioneer ships.
• The bulge by the refueling arm where the ultra laser cannon was on the Farragut is a part spherical deuterium surge tank. It is kept at a higher pressure than the main tanks and used to speed refueling. The circular shape of the tank is better at withstanding the higher pressure than a square or other irregular shaped tank of the same thickness.
• Most of the planetary sensors on the original Farragut were removed, but the central bulb on the nose was kept. This sensor was found useful when traveling to a contested planet with other large fleets where a Farragut vessel was not present.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 370,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 601%
  • Amount of deuterium: 121,900 M3, 19,882 MT
  • LY range: 88.4 LY, if consuming entire deuterium tank by itself
  • Months of deuterium: 43.5 months, if consuming entire deuterium tank by itself
  • Warp engine size/type: 11,500 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-C
  • AM bottles: 74
  • Escape pods: 96
  • Container cargo: 972
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 9.0 months

A warp fighter carrier based on the Bison layout:

• Masao's estimate of 1,560 crew size was too high based on habitable volume. The ship was way too cramped compared to all the others. I used a smaller crew for all calculations.
• This was one of the few ships to have a dual warp engine (main M/AM warp engine and smaller backup fusion warp engine) because it traveled almost alone behind enemy lines with Powhatan.
• Grappling arms grab, release, and hold the Minotaurs when they are stored. They can extend and retract, slide forward and aft along the central core, rotate around the central core, and of course open and close to grab and release the ship. In addition the arms have small motorized wheels on the inner grabbing surface. The wheels are what actually touches the fighters. So once a ship is secured, it can be rotated so the proper direction is facing the central core so attachment points for fuel lines, etc. are uniform.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 654%
  • Amount of deuterium: 45,700 M3, 7,422 MT
  • LY range: 16.7 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 6.7 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 15,900 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-B
  • AM bottles: 136
  • Escape pods: 124
  • Container cargo: 1,218
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 9.1 months
  • Crew compliment: 1,000
  • Number/type of missiles: 140, 24 defensive, 116 replacement missiles for Minotaur fighters

I designed this ship after I had done all the military Romulan War era ships and after several other Romulan and Klingon ships. At first I didn't want to design these small ships, but later changed my mind. It is a very small warp fighter based on a roughly cylindrical hull:

• There is a large sensor in the nose of similar design to Archer.
• The forward fins are a different type of sensor than on the other ships.
• There is no navigational dish. The rear fins are 'deflector sails' which can be used in place of a dish on small ships.
• The missiles and missile launchers are a different design and much smaller than other Romulan War era ships, including Archer. The missile launchers are not as powerful as the larger ones and each holds a missile in it to increase the overall number on the ship. The missile doors slide open instead of retract inside the ship.
• Crew can't access most areas of the ship from the inside. There are three habitable decks laid horizontally in a small part of the middle of the ship which they can access. The top and bottom decks are just misc. support systems where the crew can go if they really need to fix something. The crew really only stays in the middle deck. Behind the personnel hatch is an airlock that also serves as shallow steps down. The middle deck is below the centerline of the ship so the central utility corridor is not dead center in it. The crew has to duck under the utility corridor to go from port to starboard side of the ship.
• There is no separate escape pod, rather the entire crew cockpit is ejectable.
• There are only 6 M/AM fuel cells instead of 10 that Masao specifies.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 125%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 430%
  • Amount of deuterium: 36 M3, 6 MT
  • LY range: << 1 LY
  • Months of deuterium: NA, has M/AM fuel cells for warp
  • Warp engine size/type: 6 M/AM 44J fuel cells, 100 M3 ,fusion tokamak 6N-3A for impulse only
  • Escape pods: 1, as an ejectable cockpit module

Masao's history mentioned that 4 Archer/Curran type system patrol ships were delivered to their final destination by a modified Bison type ship. I figured it made sense that this be a Yorktown variant since that is itself based on a Bison layout:

• The Archer/Curran's were too big to enter the ship through the same door then move around the central core once inside the ship like the Minotaurs do. The central core would get in the way and I didn't want to remove it. they are too big to even fit inside the ship without moving around. So each Archer/Curran enters through its own door and the door itself is on a long bulge along the primary hull to give the room inside. The four long bulges adds an interesting distinction to the ship.
• Because this is only a military transport ship and not a carrier designed to operate behind enemy lines, the backup warp reactor, some deuterium, and two of the outboard nacelles were removed. Because its still a military ship that might encounter enemy forces, the laser turret and defensive missiles remained.
• Since the Yorktown was itself introduced in 2158, the variant could not have been introduced sooner than this. However the Archer was introduced in 2154, so for 4 years, the Archers needed another ship to transport them to their destination system. Maybe before the Yorktown variant, the Archers went by commercial transports contracted by the military.
• Grappling arms similar but bigger to standard Yorktown grab, release, and hold the Archer/Currans.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 625,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 105%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 645%
  • Amount of deuterium: 30,200 M3, 4,904 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.2/3.1 WF
  • LY range: 12.4 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 14.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 15,900 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-B
  • AM bottles: 136
  • Escape pods: 107
  • Container cargo: 1,050
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.5 months
  • Crew compliment: 920
  • Number/type of missiles: 24 defensive
  • Number/type shuttles: 10 small cargo/personnel

A light cruiser based on an even slimmer configuration of the Torsk:

• The evolution of the M/AM engine is continuing in small ships into a longer narrower shape.
• The fins are a different type of sensor than on the other ships.
• This was one of the few ships to have a dual warp engine capability. The tokamak fusion engine that powered all three impulse drives could also achieve low warp speed. This was because it traveled almost alone deep behind enemy lines with Yorktown.
• The shuttle bay is even more cramped than Torsk. The central core diameter is reduced in the shuttle bay to make barely enough room for the shuttles to move.
• The lower bulge is for extra cargo. This has the look of a design change made very late in production, maybe even a retrofit after the ship was in service. Maybe they realized after the first ships were in service that they needed somewhere to store cargo containers that were two containers deep. The original design was only one container deep all around the ship. The ship is so crowded that they couldn't expand into any other rooms, or expand the separate cargo room inward, so they decided to put this cargo blister on the bottom of the ship. Maybe the size and shape of the blister was dictated by how it affects warp field.
• It has special lateral sensors in blisters on the side of the primary hull similar to Pioneer not present in most other ships. This is due to its Yorktown escort duty deep in enemy territory where it would slowly circle the Yorktown with its lateral sensors facing out. It could detect dangers farther away and approaching from the side in an ambush mode with these sensors.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 115%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 755%
  • Amount of deuterium: 3,500 M3, 568 MT
  • LY range: 16.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 5.1 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,600 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-D
  • AM bottles: 12
  • Escape pods: 20
  • Container cargo: 184
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 8.7 months

A light cruiser based on an extremely slimmed down Cabbage configuration:

• The wings provide multiple purposes. The tips have small nacelles for increased maneuverability at warp. The wing root holds missiles in a 'banana clip' style. This is how such a small ship can hold so many missiles. The rest of the wing is extra deuterium.
• The missile launchers are very narrow and can barely hold a missile. This was done to minimize the space they take up but the negative is they are not very powerful. This means the missiles are launched at a lower velocity than the larger fatter launchers on other Romulan ships.
• The plasma accelerators still exist but are elongated.
• The fins on the ship are for sensors.
• There are no shuttles or shuttle bays. All transport on and off the ship is via the docking port which there is only one and it cannot extent. It must dock with another ship that has an extendable docking port or the sensor fin will get in the way.
• Masao's estimate of 200 crew is too high. The ship is the same size as Powhatan, but with much more deuterium, and Powhatan has a bit less crew. I used a smaller crew for all calculations.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 115%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 75%
  • Amount of deuterium: 6,500 M3, 1,279 MT
  • LY range: 3.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 2.9 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,400 M3, fusion spherical
  • Container cargo: 42
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 5.0 months
  • Crew compliment: 122
  • Number/type of missiles: 43, 27 offensive, 16 defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:1 plasma cannon

I designed this ship after I had done all the military Romulan War era ships and after several other Romulan and Klingon ships. At first I didn't want to design these small ships, but later changed my mind. It is based on Archer cylindrical configuration:

• Most of the same comments from the Archer apply about the missiles, sensors, hull thickness, and crew/maint/support systems.
• There are fewer missiles than Archer due to the slightly different arrangement of the launchers and the narrower nose.
• The fusion engine was downsized because it only has to power the impulse drives.
• 10 M/AM fuel cells power the midline nacelle.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 115%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 425%
  • Amount of deuterium: 156 M3, 25 MT
  • LY range: <<1 LY
  • Months of deuterium: n/a, has M/AM fuel cells for warp
  • Warp engine size/type: 10 M/AM 36D fuel cells, 100 M3, fusion tokamak 5N-6E for impulse only
  • Escape pods: 3
  • Container cargo: 8
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 0.8 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 40 offensive/defensive

This was the first radically different starship design since the Bisons were introduced. Many technological and design quantum leaps forward are evident throughout the ship. These improvements were being developed during the Romulan War but due to the emphasis on turning out reliable ships quickly, they were not incorporated in the mainline fighting ships. Mainline fighting ships only had evolutionary modifications, not radical ones (the warp engine changing from fusion to M/AM was the one big exception). Comet was the first ship to incorporate all these other new technologies and designs:

• The overall shape of the ship with a forward penetrating lobe (the primary hull), separate off-center secondary hull, and further rear off-center outboard nacelles greatly decreased subspace drag. This greatly reduced the amount of fuel needed.
• This is the first Earth ship to abandon the configuration of vertically stacked decks along the long axis of the ship for a flat horizontal deck configuration. This deck layout would follow in all future ships in the Comet design family.
• The M/AM warp engine, although not a radical design change, was still a large step forward in reduced size and increased power output.
• The two impulse reactors were of a new oval design.
• The structural support and utility transfer spaces were shrinking in size due to the introduction of stronger building materials and miniaturization of transfer equipment. There is no longer a crawl space above each deck for this.
• It is the first time a primary forward sensors of this design was used on a capital ship (similar but older designs were used on Minotaur, Archer, and Curran). It is mounted in a cylinder extending from the chin of the primary hull. Currently, this sensor dish cannot double as the navigational deflector, so a separate deflector dish is mounted just above the sensor dish in the main body of the primary hull.
• There are no spiral stairs, but only ladders if you don't want to use the turbolift. The turbolifts were made smaller to save space. There is only one size car for people and cargo that will barely hold the smallest cargo container. Turbolift cars can't move around each other in the shafts so travel by them can be slow and inefficient. Since there are fewer decks laid out horizontally than the bison based ships, most vertical travel is by ladders.
• The same size missiles are used as earlier ships, but the missile launchers are of new design, and the external missile doors do not retract into the ship as on earlier designs, but rather slide open.
• The main computer is a smaller but sill similar design to earlier ships, but the bridge has become smaller and circular similar to later ships.
• A newer smaller 'mini' personnel/cargo shuttle is used in the very small shuttle bay.
• There is no shuttle airlock, as force fields have advanced enough to put one in front of the shuttle doors when they are open to keep air in but still allow a shuttle to push through.
• Tractor beams have advanced enough to install inside the shuttle bay and outside for approaching shuttles.
• The same style anti-matter bottles are used but the AM transfer lines are smaller and only one line is needed to feed the M/AM engine to one location instead of two.
• The deuterium tank was stronger and lighter than previously could be built so could be kept at higher pressure and hold more deuterium than before. It is made as a perfect sphere to aid in its strength.
• Comet along with Daedalus has the shortest headroom of any Earth ship.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 250%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 878%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,300 M3, 256 MT
  • LY range: 25.2 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 6.5 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,300 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-A
  • AM bottles: 6
  • Escape pods: 10
  • Container cargo: 62
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 7.1 months

This was the last large capital ship designed for the Romulan War. It was basically a Tannhäuser with many improvements:

• The missile rifle with rotary feed system could fire missiles at extreme velocity and in very rapid succession. This could quickly overwhelm enemy defenses.
• It carried the same type of standard laser cannons and 'planet buster' bombs as Tannhäuser, but with a modified ultra laser cannon similar to Farragut. The targeting system was improved to target fast capital ships.
• The nacelles were placed above the centerline to improve the subspace drag. This was much more successful at reducing drag than placing them on diagonal struts straight backwards as Farragut did.
• The M/AM engine continued to get smaller yet more powerful.
• The anti-matter bottles were spread out over several very small decks just aft of the engine since the designers were becoming more comfortable with AM transfer technology and did not feel the need to keep all the bottles on the same deck with simple short transfer conduits.
• The amount of deuterium was slightly increased vs. other ships of similar size to increase the range somewhat.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 110%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 662%
  • Amount of deuterium: 34,000 M3, 5,522 MT
  • LY range: 16.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 6.7 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 11,700 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-D
  • AM bottles: 128
  • Escape pods: 155
  • Container cargo: 1,656
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 10.2 months

A partial design change in Romulan ships where the outside of the ship appeared to abandon the vertical stacked deck layout. But by the internal arrangement it can be seen it still retains this configuration with the large 'wings' only giving the appearance of a flat deck configuration:

• The warp reactor is still a fusion spherical reactor but is hugely oversized compared to all other Romulan and even Earth ships. It is run at super high outputs to get as fast a speed as possible out of a fusion reactor. As Masao mentions, this makes it very unstable and several ships blew up on their own accord when chasing or being chased at high warp speeds.
• The missile launchers are again large fat assemblies to launch the missiles at high velocity. They are not as fat as those on cabbage because they don't have to handle the fat 'planet buster' missiles.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 120%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 23%
  • Amount of deuterium: 20,000 M3, 3,934 MT
  • LY range: 1.3 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 0.6 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 9,400 M3, fusion spherical
  • Container cargo: 69
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 4.4 months
  • Crew compliment: 225
  • Number/type of missiles: 108, 56 offensive, 52 defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:1 plasma cannon

Comet was demilitarized to make the Daedalus:

• The spaceframe was considerably downgraded. Structural support areas were shrunk and to further save space, some of the structural elements like ribs were placed on the outside skin of the hull. The overall size of the ship was made smaller. The extremely small size combined with the shortest headroom (along with Comet) of any Earth ship also makes it one of the most cramped.
• The missile room was moved from the top of the primary hull to the middle decks, and the missiles were changed to smaller ones that doubled for offensive and defensive missiles.
• The bridge was moved to the top center of the primary hull sphere.
• The laser cannons were moved from the bottom of the secondary hull to just above the missile bay in the primary hull.
• The main forward sensor was moved from the chin of the primary hull to the front of the secondary hull. The navigational deflector was still mounted in the front of the primary hull.
• The fusion impulse reactor was shrunk to one smaller unit.
• The spherical high pressure deuterium tank at the rear of the secondary hull was changed to a standard tank at the base of the primary hull.
• The shuttle bay external door was moved from the side of the secondary hull to the back where the deuterium tank used to be.
• There are no escape pods in the secondary hull due to its small size.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 260%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 888%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,600 M3, 260 MT
  • LY range: 52.3 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 14.6 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,300 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-2
  • AM bottles: 9
  • Escape pods: 12
  • Container cargo: 64
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 6.7 months, very short on cargo space
  • Number/type energy weapons:2 lasers in individual housings

This is simply a Daedalus with more weapons:

• The number of missiles was increased for block 2.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 260%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 888%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,600 M3, 260 MT
  • LY range: 42.9 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 11.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,300 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-2
  • AM bottles: 9
  • Escape pods: 12
  • Container cargo: 64
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 6.7 months, very short on cargo space
  • Number/type energy weapons: 2 lasers in individual housings

After the Romulan War, many civilian Bison ships were upgraded with new M/AM warp engines. This passenger liner was one of them:

• 13 years after initially launching, the Mercator liner was upgraded with a M/AM engine based on the one in the Farragut.
• The deuterium tanks were shrunk and the space taken up by the larger reactor and the anti-matter bottles.
• The cargo bay was shrunk and more passenger areas added.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 463,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 620%
  • Amount of deuterium: 23,100 M3, 3,751 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.9/3.4 WF
  • LY range: 11.7 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 10.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 11,500 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-C
  • AM bottles: 104
  • Escape pods: 234
  • Container cargo: 3,280
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 13.8 months, if consumed all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 1,850, 1,300 passengers, 550 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 14, 12 small cargo/personnel, 2 medium cargo

This was the first Klingon ship I designed. Klingons followed the Soviet style of design: poor technology necessitating clunky designs with multiple large and inefficient backup systems all supported by inadequate industrial infrastructure:

• Its outer shape is different from Earth or Romulan ships with a head/long neck/body/wing/nacelles shape so typical of all Klingon ships.
• Klingons did not employ the vertical stacked decks configuration along the long axis of the ship that Earth and Romulan ships used. Klingons used a flat horizontal deck configuration even on these early ships.
• The ship is built like a tank with very thick hull plating and very over designed structural support space. The 'shoulder' area is the strong point of the ship.
• The ship is divided into four main areas, head, neck, engineering hull, and wings, by heavy double blast doors and internal hull plating. The ship is not designed to break into lifeboats along these areas, but the purpose is more for caste segregation and a crude form of damage control. The enlisted crew bunking in the neck and working in the engineering hull are kept separate from the command and weapons crew in the head. If there is severe battle damage, the engineering hull is isolated from the rest of the ship. This may save the command and weapons crew, but doom the rest (and the entire ship if there is a catastrophic explosion in the engineer area!).
• There is no navigational dish in the nose. There are two navigational dishes in the nose of the very large nacelles.
• Even though D-2 has a fusion engine, surprisingly the Klingons are fairly good at building them. For the amount of power it puts out, it is small by Earth standards. Klingon maintenance practices probably don't help, but it's a good tokamak design.
• There are only vertical cargo elevators (also used by officers). There are no dedicated personnel elevators or horizontal turbolift runs. Regular crew get around by hallways and ladders. The hallways are very wide to move cargo through them.
• The very large Bussard collector/plasma reflux tunnels on top of the engineering hull are a uniquely Klingon design. They are a combination of Bussard collectors for interstellar gas and plasma reprocessing equipment. They do not energize plasma on the way to the nacelles like the Romulan plasma accelerators. It is not know exactly what purpose the plasma reprocessing serves.
• The sensors are of a different design; cylinders with the sensing done out the side. This is more multi directional than the 'dishes' of other races, but doesn't have as long a range. There are 4 of these sensors facing forward to make up for the lack of range (more sensors=better resolution), two facing sideways (these are the little cylinders on the tips of the head wings), and two aft sensors in the engineering hull rear wing root. There are no top and bottom facing sensors as the others can cover these arcs a little with their better 'peripheral' vision.
• On top of the neck are two heavy duty shuttle docking ports. They can extend a little to connect to odd shaped shuttles and retract and clamp the shuttle in place so it can be carried while externally attached at high impulse or warp.
• The wings are full of deuterium, but even this was not enough, so more deuterium was added to the neck.
• Behind the fusion warp engine is a smaller fusion engine only for the two impulse drives on either side of this engine.
• There is only one kind of missile which doubles for offensive and defensive missiles. The warhead is oversized to make up for the poor guidance control and small missile engine. The missile launcher is very small and underpowered so the missiles are not launched at high velocity.
• The disruptor cannons on the other hand are very oversized and quite powerful.
• The computer core is surprisingly advanced for a Klingon design. It is a tall narrow cylinder of similar design to later model Earth ships. The bridge is on top of the computer core.
• The cargo bay has no automated cargo handling ability like earth ships of easily moveable cargo containers like the Romulans. Instead the cargo is kept more or less loose on the equivalent of modern day pallets.
• There is no force field across the shuttle bay doors and no airlock. So every time the door opens, the rear cargo bay depressurizes. The forward shuttle bay is kept at pressure by blast doors.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 160%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 113%
  • Amount of deuterium: 10,100 M3, 1,987 MT
  • LY range: 3.7 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 3.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,300 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Container cargo: 922
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 4.7 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 52 offensive/defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:2 disruptor cannons in fixed housings
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

Powhatan's retired from military service were sold to civilians who converted them into specialty 'courier' ships. These could carry smaller amounts of cargo or passengers at higher speeds (and at higher price) than the larger civilian carriers available at the time. This is a general purpose courier that can carry some passengers, some container cargo and some larger bulk cargo. Changes to military Powhatan are:

• Some of the forward sensor gear under the nosecone was removed.
• The missile bay, laser cannons and two ventral sensor blisters were removed.
• All the conduits and some bracing structural support for military purposes were removed from the central utility corridor which allowed it to be reduced in cross section through various areas of the ship.
• Components of the main computer were removed and the computer room made smaller.
• Decks 6-7 were converted to passenger cabins. Some small windows were added to this deck as well as a couple crew decks.
• Some escape pods were removed and the location of some changed.
• The shuttle bay was reduced to half the diameter of the ship. The single shuttle bay door was removed and replaced with two doors on the other side of the ship both equipped with force field emitters across the bay doors and internal and external tractor beam emitters. All the decks below the shuttle bay almost to the impulse engine were converted to a larger container cargo bay.
• The entire center top half of the ship was converted to a large bulk cargo bay with clamshell doors for external access. Internal access is from small personnel airlocks at the bottom level or larger shuttle bay doors from the shuttle bay.
• Some misc. ships support systems were moved to just above and below the shuttle/cargo bay complex.
• From the impulse engine aft was largely unchanged except for removing the three maneuvering warp nacelles and adding a small auxiliary deuterium storage tank which replaced the aft sensor pallet.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 160%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 775%
  • Ship size: 51,800 MT
  • Amount of deuterium 3,650 M3, 593 MT
  • LY range: 24.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 8.3 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,600 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-D
  • AM bottles: 12
  • Escape pods: 16
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 7,800 M3 bulk cargo bay
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 9.1 months
  • Crew compliment: 135, 65 passengers in 24 cabins, 70 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 2 small cargo/personnel, 2 mini cargo-personnel

Comet's retired from military service were sold to civilians who converted them into specialty 'courier' ships. These could carry smaller amounts of cargo or passengers at higher speeds (and at higher price) than the larger civilian carriers available at the time. This is a general purpose courier that can carry some passengers, some container cargo and some larger bulk cargo. Changes to military Comet are:

• The upper 5 decks were completely cleared and converted into a large bulk cargo bay. This involved removing the missile bay, forward navigational dish, rear sensor pallet, bridge, main computer, personnel airlocks and various other crew areas. The entire top of the egg shaped primary hull was converted into large clamshell doors to access the cargo.
• The bridge and a more compact main computer were moved down to deck 6 just below the bulk cargo bay. Two airlocks to access the bulk cargo bay were added.
• The large forward sensor pallet was removed from the 'nose' protrusion which was shortened and a smaller forward navigational dish and sensor pallet was installed in its place.
• The lower primary hull contains most crew and common passenger areas. The neck contains 14 passenger cabins. A few more windows were added.
• The personnel airlock on top of the neck was removed. The only airlocks are in the secondary hull.
• The secondary hull was largely unchanged except for removing the laser cannons and some escape pods, and adding a few crew/passenger areas on the upper decks.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 40,200 MT
  • LY range: 32.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 9.1 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,300 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-A
  • AM bottles: 6
  • Escape pods: 8
  • Container cargo: 62
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 6,700 M3 bulk cargo bay
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 31.8 months
  • Crew compliment: 70, 25 passengers in 14 cabins, 45 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 4 mini cargo/personnel

Ocean was the first line of military cargo ships designed from scratch after the Romulan War, not modified Bisons with Romulan War era M/AM engines. It was still a roughly cylindrical ship, but not so symmetrical as the Bisons were:

• The vertical stacked deck configuration was abandoned in favor of the flat horizontal deck configuration.
• A new style upgraded navigational deflector and sensors were used, but they were still separate units.
• The forward part of the ship holds crew and military passengers. As a cargo ship making runs between military bases, it was also economical to transfer military personnel and their families moving between bases along with the cargo.
• The upper part of the ship has two large shuttle bays for transferring shuttles, fighters, and other small craft to medium size bulk loads.
• The bridge is in a raised dome right at the top center of the ship with some crew areas and main computer just underneath it.
• The main computer is a new modular design. It looks like a German cross with a circular circumference instead of square. Each arm of the cross is a detachable component attached to a central computer core. The component arms can be stacked also with each deck being a separate component. This particular arrangement is two decks tall. There are square ancillary computer components also in the room but not directly attached to the main core.
• The center belly of the ship is a vast bulk cargo area that extends into the bulge in the belly. It can hold up to three ships the size of Archer/Curran. Ocean replaces the Yorktown specialized cargo transport for delivery of these system patrol craft.
• The rear of the ship contains most normal ship functions: deuterium and AM storage, impulse and warp engine, nacelle attachment points, and a shuttle bay for normal ships functions. Below the normal shuttle bay is where the medium cargo shuttles are kept. They are brought up into the normal shuttle bay by a lift – the first time used. In all previous ships, shuttles moved between decks under their own power though open doors, not by a lift. A lift was used in this case because the clearances were very tight and a lift moves the shuttle with more precision.
• The warp engine is a slightly different design. It has a smooth cylindrical shape instead of having 4 protruding 'wings' as other combat military engines do. This engine type is built a little more for efficiency instead of high performance in the large ships it is installed in.
• Maint areas and misc. support systems are scattered throughout the ship and are in odd shaped spaces. They are mostly in the nose, on either side of the three shuttle bays and around the warp engine. There is not as many of these spaces as on a military fighting ship.
• Interspersed throughout the ship is container cargo area which is generally loaded through the rear cargo bay, although if they are empty, the two upper shuttle bays can also handle container cargo.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 325,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 125%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1064%
  • Amount of deuterium: 14,400 M3, 2,339 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.7/3.5 WF
  • LY range: 22.3 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 8.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,800 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-E
  • AM bottles: 44
  • Escape pods: 50
  • Container cargo: 5,747
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 111,000 M3 bulk
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 175 months, if consumes all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 350, 225 military passengers in 80 cabins, 125 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 10, 5 small cargo/personnel, 5 medium cargo

Designed solely to haul civilian cargo. Changes from the military version are:

• The bridge, main computer, and other crew decking in the top center portion were removed. The bridge was buried in the nose section with the main computer just beneath it. All the space freed up plus the two large forward shuttle bays were converted to a large container cargo bay.
• 4 medium cargo shuttle airlocks were installed spaced around the top of the ship for access to the container cargo grid. Medium cargo shuttles when docked at these airlocks are not physically inside the ship, but only attach to a port just inside the shuttle doors. Container cargo is loaded via belly doors in the shuttles.
• All crew area is in the nose section. Most of the escape pods in this area were removed due to the much smaller crew and no passengers.
• It retains the large bulk cargo bay in the belly bulge . The aft and lower areas of the ship are identical to the military version.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 315,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 125%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1064%
  • Amount of deuterium: 14,400 M3, 2,339 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 2.7/3.5 WF
  • LY range: 23.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 8.4 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,800 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-E
  • AM bottles: 40
  • Escape pods: 10
  • Container cargo: 9,232
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 111,000 M3 bulk
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 1157 months, if consumes all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 85
  • Number/type shuttles: 8, 3 small cargo/personnel, 5 medium cargo

Constellation was the first line of civilian passenger ships designed from scratch after the Romulan War, not modified Bisons with Romulan War era M/AM engines. It was designed and built soon after the Ocean. The designers didn't just want to build a civilian version of Ocean. They made Constellation a little smaller, sleeker, and faster than Ocean:

• Just above the nose is the bridge that is buried in the main body silhouette. This looks more sleek for a passenger liner than the exposed bridge in military ships.
• The nose area also has the main computer, crew quarters and 1st class passenger quarters. The 1st class passenger cabins can be used for species with non standard environmental needs. Hallways and some escape pods also in the nose can be filled with non standard atmosphere as well.
• Just aft is the main seven story passenger atrium with concentric oval balconies each one a little larger than the one above it so they all have a view into space through the large overhead windows. The main passenger airlock is into the ground floor of this atrium.
• At the top center of the ship is a 'crows nest' passenger lounge with a large transparent bubble dome for an unobstructed 360 degree view of open space. Just below the crows nest lounge is a circular area in the hallway that overlooks the main passenger atrium (the top oval balcony in the atrium just below the overhead windows connects to the circular area in the hallway). The main passenger turbolifts and stairs start at this circular hallway area and continue down through the ship.
• Common passenger areas are further aft including lounges, a two story restaurant with giant overhead windows into space, and a four story arboretum also with large windows looking into space.
• In the belly of the ship are passenger cabins, escape pods, and at the very bottom is more crew quarters.
• The rear of the ship contains most normal ship functions: deuterium and AM storage, impulse and warp engine, nacelle attachment points, cargo bay and shuttle bay. It only carries enough cargo to support the passengers and crew during the trip, no extra cargo. Like Ocean, the M/AM warp engine has a smooth cylindrical shape which is a more efficient design.
•  Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 180,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 125%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1099%
  • Amount of deuterium: 5,500 M3, 893 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 3.7/4.1 & 4.0/4.4 WF, original & upgraded reactor
  • LY range: 15.9 & 17.0 LY, original & upgraded reactor
  • Months of deuterium: 3.8 & 3.2 months, original & upgraded reactor
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,800 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-E
  • AM bottles: 55
  • Escape pods: 84
  • Container cargo: 593
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 3.5 months
  • Crew compliment: 690, 490 passengers in 181 cabins, 200 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 8 small cargo/personnel

The cutaway by Masao was more of a running gag than a workable interior. However, I stayed as true to it as possible. The design is a throwback to the Amarillo configuration:

• Each deck may be a different height to accommodate what was on that deck. This is true for the primary and secondary hulls.
• 10 shuttles fit in the shuttle bay easily of the same type as all other large capital ships - not the larger flattened tear drop shape Masao shows.
• All the necessary cargo easily fits into the cargo bay on the same level as the shuttle bay. There does not need to be any other cargo bays throughout the ship as Masao shows.
• There is no dilithium crystal control room. At this point in technology they are not used yet. The M/AM warp engine is of the same type used in earlier ships.
• Safety features on wasp were exaggerated after issues with Daedalus. The small secondary hull and warp nacelles can be jettisoned. The large fusion impulse engine is in the primary hull and can move it away from the secondary hull during separation. Emergency thrusters can separate the hulls if the impulse engine is not working. The entire crew could also evacuate in redesigned longer range escape pods, or the 10 shuttle craft. If they remain in the separated primary hull, it carries enough cargo to last three years.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 100%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1454%
  • Amount of deuterium: 2,900 M3, 471 MT
  • LY range: 22.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 6.3 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,200 M3, M/AM SSWR-II-E
  • AM bottles: 12
  • Escape pods: 46
  • Container cargo: 516
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 36.6 months

15 years have passed since the Romulans lost the war. This was enough time to repair their destroyed infrastructure and make large technological advances in starship design and components which resulted in this ship. The shape of the ship became much flatter and the deck configuration now truly abandoned the vertical stacked decks and instead was a truly flat horizontal configuration:

• Even though the Romulans still use fusion engines, they went to great and creative lengths to overcome its shortcomings. The Bussard collectors are very large to collect much more interstellar gas and are directly integrated with the deuterium storage tanks. The fusion engine is a much more advanced and efficient tokamak design vs. the previously used spherical designs. The warp nacelles are no longer the complicated almost spherical and inefficient oval design needed to handle the low quality plasma from previous engines, but more elongated ovals to handle the better quality plasma more efficiently. Plasma accelerators are still needed to boost plasma strength to reach the higher warp speeds desired, but the overall power drain from them is much less.
• This is the first Romulan ship to have the decks oriented horizontally instead of vertically and use two warp nacelles instead of three.
• The bridge is at the top center of the ship in a raised dome. The main computer is immediately below it.
• The top of the primary hull has crew areas. Below that is the central plasma cannon with missile bays on either side and cargo bays aft of the missile bays. In the belly of the primary hull are support systems and shuttle bays which open through doors in the belly of the ship. Large deuterium tanks are in the primary hull 'wings' just behind the large Bussard collectors. At the back of the deuterium tanks are the plasma accelerators in the struts leading to the warp nacelles.
• The secondary hull has the advanced fusion engine which feeds the plasma cannon, warp nacelles and impulse engine. Around the fusion engine are more support systems.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 155%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 201%
  • Amount of deuterium: 20,000 M3, 3,934 MT
  • LY range: 21.0 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 7.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 3,500 M3, fusion tokamak
  • Container cargo: 198
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 12.3 months
  • Crew compliment: 326
  • Number/type of missiles: 606, 330 offensive, 276 defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:1 plasma cannon
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

CONSTELLATION PASSENGER VARIANT – 2175, civilian passenger ship

As M/AM technology made leaps and bounds forward, the designers looked to upgrade the original Constellation. M/AM and nacelle technology was moving so fast the designers realized they would want to upgrade often, but this would be cost prohibitive. So on the first upgrade, the internal M/AM engine and large outboard nacelles were removed and an underslung pod containing the engine and one midline nacelle that was very slightly oval was added. For future upgrades, this entire pod could be replaced with one containing newer technology components without having to overhaul the main body of the ship:

• The M/AM warp engine is again a smooth configuration which is a more efficient design.
• The space the old engine occupied was filled in with more deuterium, passenger, cargo, and maint areas.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 201,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 135%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1313%
  • Amount of deuterium: 7,900 M3, 1,283 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 4.1/4.4 WF
  • LY range: 26.4 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.6 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,400 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-F
  • AM bottles: 55
  • Escape pods: 84
  • Container cargo: 707
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 10.9 months
  • Crew compliment: 690, 490 passengers in 178 cabins, 200 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 8 small cargo/personnel

Designed solely to haul civilian cargo. Changes from the latest passenger version are:

• The entire upper half of the center of the ship was converted to a huge container cargo bay. 4 medium cargo shuttle airlocks were installed spaced around the top of the ship for access to the container cargo grid. Medium cargo shuttles when docked at these airlocks are not physically inside the ship, but only attach to a port just inside the shuttle doors. Container cargo is loaded via belly doors in the shuttles.
• All crew area is in the nose section. All the escape pods were removed except some in the lower nose due to smaller crew and no passengers. Some maint areas and misc support systems were also relocated to the nose area.
• The chin lounge blister was removed.
• The belly of the ship was converted to bulk liquid storage tanks. Extra deuterium could be carried here. But mostly the tanks carried highly engineered and expensive fluids for lubrication, hydraulic, cryogenic or high heat applications that could not yet be manufactured on distant colonies. Cheap commodity bulk fluids were usually not shipped unless a colony was in dire need or completely lacking some key natural resource. In other cargo ships of this type, this area could be a large open bulk cargo bay with clamshell doors in the belly, or even additional container cargo.
• The aft and lower areas of the ship are mostly identical to the passenger version except the shuttle bay was increased a deck in height to accommodate medium cargo shuttles.
• The underslung pod was swapped out with a new one which was a more advanced design.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 198,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 135%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1313%
  • Amount of deuterium: 7,900 M3, 1,283 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 4.1/4.4 WF
  • LY range: 26.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.7 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 5,400 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-F
  • AM bottles: 55
  • Escape pods: 10
  • Container cargo: 7,932
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 27,700 M3 bulk liquid
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 1126 months, if consumes all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 75
  • Number/type shuttles: 8, 4 small cargo/personnel, 4 medium cargo

MOSKVA – 2179, medium cruiser

The design is moving more towards the saucer primary hull and cylinder secondary hull common in later Earth designs:

• Safety systems are downgraded from Wasp. The hulls can no longer separate, but the warp engine is in a detachable bustle. The escape pods are the same longer range design as in Wasp.
• The bridge is again in the top center of the primary hull but not in a raised dome. The main computer is at the base of the primary hull just above the lower sensor dome – also a new feature. The primary hull also contains all the escape pods, most of the weapons including the new pulse laser cannon a forerunner of phasers, and most crew facilities.
• For the first time, a main navigational dish was developed and used that can also perform main forward sensing functions at the same time.
• The top of the secondary hull contains the impulse engine, a laser cannon, and some support systems. The bottom contains deuterium and AM storage, a laser cannon, and support systems. The center of the secondary hull contains a large shuttle bay with a wing of fighters and the cargo bay. At the very rear is the detachable warp bustle.
• The design was very popular as a test ship for new technologies. In 2206 Moskva was the site of the first successful ship-to-surface transport of a human. Even though this test was successful, transporting people was still too dangerous to be considered as a standard means of travel for almost another decade after this test.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 310%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1595%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,000 M3, 197 MT
  • LY range: 29.5 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 5.5 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,200 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-A or SSWR-V
  • AM bottles: 8
  • Escape pods: 32
  • Container cargo: 307
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 23.8 months
  • Crew compliment: 160
  • Number/type of missiles: 24 offensive/defensive
  • Number/type shuttles: 11, 4 small cargo/personnel, 2 mini cargo/personnel, 5 fighters

MOSKVA TUG– 2182, military tug

Moskva was redesigned to a tug variant to transport newly introduced large cylindrical cargo modules. The secondary hull was shrunk and attached directly to the aft of the primary hull and two more nacelles were added. The new cargo modules were highly adaptable and could be used for container cargo, bulk or liquid cargo, or even military or civilian personnel in a starliner configuration:

• The original design by Masao was unworkable. The warp bustle was shrunk so the original warp engine in Moskva would no longer fit. To move it forward into the shrunken secondary hull would leave no room for the two impulse engines, which regardless would have to be smaller than the original Moskva's. The warp engine would have to be moved forward almost to the center of the primary hull where it would interfere with just about everything there. This goes against design principles to place the warp engine in the primary hull and would have made a very awkward design. So I redesigned the secondary hull and warp bustle. The bustle was enlarged to the original Moskva size and put at the top of the primary hull instead of along the horizontal center line. This allowed room for one impulse engine in the belly of the secondary hull that was the same size as Moskva. The secondary hull diameter was increased and lengthened. The four nacelle struts were attached to the secondary hull instead of directly to the warp bustle.

• Half of the escape pods were removed due to the smaller crew size.

• The shuttle bay and cargo bay were moved to the port side of the primary hull.

• All weapons were removed.

• A small navigational deflector/forward sensor dish was put in a cylinder extending from the chin of the primary hull.

• The top of the secondary hull has AM storage.

• A large part of the middle of the secondary hull is deuterium storage. Much more deuterium is needed on the tug vs. the original Moskva to tow the very large cargo module.

• The forward belly of the secondary hull is large structural support areas for the pylon that attaches the cargo module to the ship.

• Just behind the cargo module pylon attachment point is the impulse engine. This is the best location for the engine just aft of the large structural support areas and closer to the center of gravity of the combined tug/cargo module arrangement.

• Ship stats and specs:

  • Ship size: 270,600 MT with cargo module, 75,300 MT without

  • Subspace efficiency: 120% with cargo module, 190% without

  • Propulsion efficiency: 1637%

  • Amount of deuterium: 3,000 M3, 590 MT

  • Cruising/max speed: 3.4/4.0 WF with cargo module, 3.7/4.6 WF without

  • LY range: 13.8 LY with cargo module, 56.8 LY without

  • Months of deuterium: 4.2 months with cargo module, 13.5 months without

  • Warp engine size/type: 1,200 M3, M/AM SSWR-IV-A or SSWR-V

  • AM bottles: 9

  • Escape pods: 16

  • Container cargo: 125

  • Bulk cargo: 244,000 M3 bulk in cargo hold

  • Months of container/bin cargo: 13.8 months

  • Crew compliment: 90

  • Number/type shuttles: 4, 2 small cargo/personnel, 2 mini cargo/personnel

CONSTELLATION CARGO – 2182, military cargo/passenger ship

The military was looking for a faster ship that carried more passengers and less cargo to supplement Ocean. Rather than build a new ship from scratch, they modified some refit Constellations:

• The buried bridge was moved to a more traditional exposed silhouette of military ships.
• The underslung pod was swapped out with a new one which was a more advanced design.
• Smaller outboard nacelles were added but much farther forward from where the ones on the original Constellation had been. These new nacelles gave added maneuverability at warp and a slight boost in speed.
• The large upper common passenger areas were replaced with two shuttle bays and container cargo bays of similar design to Ocean.There is no main bulk cargo bay as on Ocean.
• Since the domed passenger lounge was removed, a chin blister was added which contained a passenger lounge with a 'glass bottom boat' feel. Parts of the walls and floor were transparent panels.
• A third impulse engine was added for improved performance at impulse speed.
• The bridge and main computer were raised a deck exposing the bridge outside the silhouette of the main body like most military ships.
• The lower passenger cabins were left mostly unchanged and used for military personnel, but some of the passenger cabins were replaced with common passenger areas.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Ship size: 197,000 MT
  • Subspace efficiency: 135%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1363%
  • Amount of deuterium: 7,900 M3, 1,283 MT
  • Cruising/max speed: 4.3/4.6 WF
  • LY range: 27.9 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 4.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 4,500 M3, M/AM SSWR-III-G
  • AM bottles: 55
  • Escape pods: 64
  • Container cargo: 3,074
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 62 months, if consumes all cargo by itself
  • Crew compliment: 525, 375 military passengers in 135 cabins, 150 crew
  • Number/type shuttles: 10, 8 small cargo/personnel, 2 medium cargo

D-3 (Klingon) – 2183, heavy cruiser

I designed this at the same time as D-2 since it is only as modified D-2:

• The shoulders were lengthened and a M/AM engine was squeezed in. It is a similar design to the Yorktown engine.
• The anti-matter was put in larger bottles in between the M/AM engine and the fusion warp engine. The bottles are larger than Earth's, but not as efficient, that is they don't hold as much anti-matter. There are also not as many bottles as earth ships. Due to this, they have to be replaced much more often. There are access ports in the floor of each AM room leading down to the shuttle bay. The bottles are replaced through the shuttle bay. This aspect of replacing AM bottles is more advanced that Earth ships.
• The neck was extended for a little more crew and cargo area.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 165%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 126%, for fusion engine only since M/AM engine is not primarily used
  • Amount of deuterium: 9,800 M3, 1,928 MT
  • LY range: 3.8 LY, for fusion only since M/AM engine is not primarily used
  • Months of deuterium: 2.9 months, for fusion only since M/AM engine is not primarily used
  • Warp engine size/type: 2,300 M3, fusion tokamak, 3,700 M3, M/AM based on SSWR-III-C/D
  • AM bottles: 6
  • Container cargo: 1,394
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 6.6 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 52 offensive/defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:2 disruptor cannons in fixed housings
  • Number/type shuttles: not specified

GAGARIN – 2184, light cruiser/patrol ship

A scaled down version of the Moskva for patrol duty:

• This is the first ship to have a different standard deck height in the primary hull and secondary hull. The secondary hull decks are a little taller than primary hull. All previous ships have had slightly varying deck heights (from ship to ship type) but have had the same deck height in the primary and secondary hull.
• The bridge is at the top center of the primary hull in a raised dome.
• The main computer is at the bottom of the primary hull.
• Escape pods are the same longer range design and come out the bottom of the primary hull.
• Primary hull also contains all the weapons and crew areas.
• The secondary hull is extremely small. From top to bottom, the forward section contains the navigational deflector/sensors, maint areas, misc. support systems, and deuterium storage. The middle section contains AM storage, impulse engine, structural support and utility transfer to nacelle struts, and the warp engine. The rear section contains the very small shuttle bay and cargo bay.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 280%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1770%
  • Amount of deuterium: 550 M3, 108 MT
  • LY range: 36.6 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 5.5 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 700 M3, M/AM SSWR V-B
  • AM bottles: 5
  • Escape pods: 12
  • Container cargo: 52
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 10.8 months
  • Crew compliment: 60
  • Number/type of missiles: 24 offensive/defensive
  • Number/type shuttles: 3 mini cargo/personnel

A subspace communications transmitter is used on a small starship for the first time:

• Previous models were so large that the transmitter generator could only be mounted on large specialized ships with no other function than a subspace transmitter (all ships can receive subspace transmissions by this time). Sending a message took the full output of the warp engine and was actually transmitted using an attached 100M diameter dish. The model on Hyperion is small enough that it still retains all other normal starship functions.
• The transmitter generator is a large torus shape two decks tall mounted in the bottom dome on the primary hull.
• The signal from the generator is transmitted by an array of three dishes at the front of the secondary hull. The three dish array consists of one large dish that also doubles as the navigational deflector and long range forward sensors. This is a new exposed design with a new circular ‘grill' behind the main dish to amplify the transmissions. Two smaller dished mounted internally on either side of the main dish serve as specialized boosters for when the main dish is in subspace transmitter mode. If only a single dish were used, it would be too large for Hyperion to carry.
• Since the transmitter torus has a dedicated fusion reactor and deuterium supply just beneath it, the ship can be heavily damaged with warp and impulse off line and still transmit a message as long as the bottom mound and navigational deflector areas are undamaged.

Hyperion was also the first ship to be designed with cargo transporters (personnel transporters did not enter regular service for another ~2 decades). The cargo transporter was designed and perfected in the mid to late 2180's. Several earlier ships including Wasp, Moskva, Ocean and Constellation were refitted with cargo transporters and benefited greatly from them. But Hyperion was the first ship to be designed with them from the start. This had a profound influence on the design of the ship:

• Since cargo no longer needed to be physically moved around the ship to every place it was needed, hallways and turbolifts could be narrower since they now only had to accommodate personnel. The hallway and turbolift network could be a little more complicated to deliver people quicker and closer to their destination and still not take up undue space. Many vertical turbolift runs were two cars wide so the cars cold move around each other. This made turbolift travel much quicker and efficient, and more personnel traveled this way.
• The average compartment size was smaller since the turbolift and hallway network could deliver people to more points in the ship. Previously, compartment size was larger with more multi-purpose rooms or internal walkways in the rooms to get to the areas far away from hallways and turbolifts.
• Cargo no longer had to be stored in a centrally located cargo bay with easy access to the shuttle bay and cargo turbolifts. Cargo could be kept in remote and odd shaped ‘nooks and crannies' of the ship where the only easy access was to transport the cargo in and out. This meant cargo could be more efficiently stored and larger areas opened up on the ship for other purposes.
• Cargo no longer had to be stored in standard size containerized boxes. Although some cargo was still kept in standard containers, many bulk solids and even some liquids were transported directly from a bulk storage location at port to a bulk storage hopper or tank built directly into the ship. There was no separate container that had to move along with the cargo to hold it in place and take up space. This meant more cargo could be kept in the same size space on a ship.
• Shuttle bay size, shuttle craft size and number can all be reduced since some of the cargo load was taken over by transporters. A new micro personnel shuttle was introduced. This is the size shuttle most familiar to Trek canon and it can now fit in one typical deck height. Some mini cargo/personnel shuttles were still kept as backups or when planetary atmospheric or deep space phenomena would interfere with transporter signals.
• These changes were only the first of several radical design improvements due to the transporter that would be realized in later ships – see Asia text for the next breakthrough.
• The cargo transporter was connected to the shuttle bay and in the same room as the container cargo bay. Bulk cargo being transported to the other cargo areas was beamed from port directly to those cargo areas.
• By 2218, Hyperion had been refitted with personnel transporters as a standard means of travel (see Klingon first contact mission in Hyperion online writeup).
• Other design changes:
• Stairs are used again, and for the first time they are switchback instead of spiral stairs.
• For the first time, the bridge is rotated 45 degrees from front facing so the stairs and turbolifts line up better with the centerline of the ship.
• There are two separate computer cores, each in its' own compartment. The layout is still the ‘German Cross' design, but each one is only one deck tall.
• The three lasers in the primary hull each have two emitters, one on the top and one on the bottom of the hull. This conserves on the amount of weapons equipment on board by having emitters share the equipment.
• The ridges along the outer edge of the primary hull saucer are horizontal structural ribs. Placing them externally helped save weight.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 290%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1935%
  • Amount of deuterium: 2,100 M3, 341 MT
  • LY range: 43.1 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 7.0 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 1,200 M3, M/AM SSWR-V-C
  • AM bottles: 6
  • Escape pods: 32
  • Container cargo: 58
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 2,024 M3 bin
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 23.9 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 28 offensive/defensive
  • Number/type energy weapons:6 lasers in individual housings

A small patrol ship that eliminates the neck in between the saucer primary hull and cylindrical secondary hull. The secondary hull is instead attached directly to, and even overlaps the top of the primary hull. This configuration was the basis for many more compact saucer starships in the future:

• Masao's online notes say the cargo bay was small due to “the recent introduction of cargo-rated matter transporters”. So it seems reasonable that Hyperion, introduced only 2 years previously, was the first ship to be designed with them. Paris relies more heavily on cargo transporters so has dual cargo transporters so one can serve as a backup and only three micro personnel shuttles in a very small shuttle bay. However, the bay is just big enough to receive a mini cargo/personnel shuttle if necessary.
• The M/AM engine is a slightly different configuration than previous models. The central cylinder is very long and narrow with only two structures attached at 180 degrees instead of four. The base of these two structures each introduce anti-matter into the engine to boost efficiency and power. The anti-matter bottles and containment generator are in the warp engine room immediately behind the engine.
• Some of the plasma conduits going to the nacelles are exposed in the engine room. In all previous ships, the plasma conduits were immediately buried in structural support/utility transfer spaces.
• For just a few ships of this era, the designers were trying out a combined warp/impulse engine intercooler. The cooling fluid system used for both engines was put through a thin heat exchanger close to the surface of the ship to dissipate the heat by radiant energy to deep space. These were mounted in twin semi-circular housings on top of the impulse deck on either side of the secondary hull.
• The deuterium tanks are thicker walled to as to hold the deuterium at a higher pressure. Due to improved materials and manufacturing they are lighter than they were in the past. The tanks are dual cylinders with oval domes to handle the higher pressure better.
• Due to continued advancement in subspace transmitters, the generator has been shrunk to an oval only one deck tall. Only a single smaller dish is needed to transmit the signals, but because it is a relatively small dish which no booster dishes like Hyperion's, it is only a short range transmitter. The dish still does triple service as the navigational deflector, forward sensors, and subspace transmitter.
• All cargo storage, both containers and bulk is in the half deck in the main saucer rim. Containerized cargo can be moved there by two dedicated cargo transfer chutes, or by transporter if necessary.
• The laser cannon pods attached to the port and starboard hard points are powered by 6 M/AM fuel cells as Masao mentions online, but have a backup connection to Paris's power grid.
• The AM cannon pod is shown as an attachment to the central hard point. This is a curious weapon that was only practical for a short period in Federation history, and even then only in limited tactical situations.
• It is a curious weapon because it is powered by a small but specialized tokamak fusion engine that uses 100% deuterium AM as fuel. Aside from the intricacies of feeding AM, it works identically to a standard fusion engine. However, the plasma from such an engine is also composed of AM and is therefore completely unsuitable to power nacelles or other typical hardware. It is also extremely dangerous as it must be magnetically constrained with a zero leak rate at all times. Normal plasma conduits have a very small acceptable leak rate past the containment fields.
• The AM plasma is collected in an accumulation chamber just aft of the fusion engine. When the cannon is fired, the AM plasma is discharged through an acceleration tube out the front. A containment beam surrounding the AM plasma is fired concurrently to keep the plasma in a relatively tight beam for as long as possible. The actual energized state of the plasma is very low and does not even come close to the strength on a Romulan ship's plasma cannon. The AM cannon delivers its rather large punch not from the energized state of the plasma, but from the AM nature of the plasma. The cannon is simply a crude means of delivering AM to the target.
• There are several constraints which limit the weapons tactical use, which is why it was seldom used and never mounted as the main ships weapon, but only as this detachable pod:
  • It is a sublight weapon and can't be used at warp or with accuracy against warp targets.
  • Due to the uncontrolled way the AM is delivered to the target, relatively little actually reacts with it. Most of the AM is deflected by the energy released by the first portion of AM to react. In fact, AM ‘splash' can do damage close to the target. This could be tactically advantageous or disadvantageous.
  • A strongly shielded target can easily block the weak plasma strength. However AM ‘splash' against close unshielded target would still be a concern. A moderate shield strength will allow enough AM to leak through to do considerable damage (but if this were only normal plasma, the leak rate would do no damage). Against a lightly shielded or unshielded target, this weapon is absolutely devastating.
  • It is generally a short range weapon. Despite the containment beam, the plasma still disperses relatively quickly. However, this could be used to tactical advantage against a large unshielded target. If fired at longer range, the beam would partially disperse to do moderate damage over a much larger area. In this way a larger percentage of the AM will actually react with the target. However, a large even weakly shielded target would easily block the dispersed AM plasma.
• The cannon was only practically used for a short period in Federation history. The cannon uses a very large amount of AM which is why it carries many times more than the Paris itself. This is why it was not used previously as AM was too precious a commodity to use in such a wasteful fashion. Only recently has AM production become cheap and plentiful enough to warrant such a weapon. In a few years, the photon torpedo will be developed which is a much better way to deliver AM to the target in a controlled manner to have almost all of the delivered AM react. This ended the short lifespan of the AM cannon.
• The planetary sensor pod is another attachment for the central hard point. This is a more advanced and powerful version of the planetary sensor in Farragut's ‘tail'. While Farragut's sensor was a tactical battlefield sensor to locate surface and shallow underground installments, the Paris pod is a scientific/geological sensor that can sense all the way to a planet's core. It has four long sensor booms facing down grouped around a central manned monitoring area and a pallet of specialized sensors just below this.
• Ship stats and specs:
  • Subspace efficiency: 190%
  • Propulsion efficiency: 1965%
  • Amount of deuterium: 1,650 M3, 325 MT
  • LY range: 82.8 LY
  • Months of deuterium: 10.2 months
  • Warp engine size/type: 750 M3, M/AM SSWR-VI
  • AM bottles: 6
  • Escape pods: 18
  • Container cargo: 58
  • Bulk/bin cargo: 1,284 M3 bin
  • Months of container/bin cargo: 31.9 months
  • Number/type of missiles: 26 offensive/defensive

Continue to Part 2

Last modified: 27.11.08