Filed under: NX-01 Deck Plans
Let me tell you, I am on a roll right now. I haven’t been this into my deck plans in two years! I am not complaining though. I am just enjoying myself immensely. And after so many starts, stops, mistakes, near misses, boredom, burn-outs, disasters, calculation errors and skittish computers, things are finally falling together nicely. And to that end, today I bring you the new plan for C Deck.
Let’s be honest here. C Deck is not all that interesting. You could even say C Deck is just plain boring, or at least it is to me. Since we never really got to see C Deck on the show and what she contains is something of a mystery, cannon wise she is just a void. So I decided to fill her with science labs, engineering facilities and equipment, which is all rather mundane and yawn inducing. Actually, the schematic for C Deck is/was the least visited deck plan on the website. So this deck plan was not really at the top of my list. I had even decided to just transpose her almost directly from the original drawing I did four years ago. But as I got into this revised version, things started to change and get interesting. Because this deck was a blank slate, I realized I could do almost anything I wanted. To say that I am pleased with this schematic would be an understatement. To be honest, she is even better than I thought she would end up being. C Deck is full of nooks and crannies, places to hide and hallways to get lost in. Actually, since most of the life support equipment resides here (including water treatment, atmospheric processors) and the fabrication facilities this deck is probably the most heavily used deck besides E. And without further delay, here she is:
And here are some close-up snap shots for you kids to check out. Click to inbiggin!
This is the aft section of the port warp faring. You can see the port plasma conduit (which you can see dives down into D Deck), the open drop off to the next deck and the support structures.
This is the port cargo bay doors on the dorsal side of the saucer. Just to the bottom of that is the upper area of the large cargo bay on D Deck.
And next we have the gym area. You can see the smaller starboard gym area with its equipment (which includes the human gyroscope that Trip liked to use). To the right we have the forward water tanks and to the left we have the game room with the ship’s pool tables. And the long tube things just below the gym are the starboard long range sensors. If you look at the front of the ship, you can see them peeking out under the ventral cowl.
This lovely little thing is the first stage warp plasma accelerator. You can see the upper portions poking out the top of the warp farings. The accelerator is housed in its own docking bay. The glowing bit is the plasma being “spun-up” before it is sent aft toward the nacelles. Just to the right is the main deuterium pump and the cargo lift.
Last but not least is the port water treatment center. To the right is the processing tanks. To the left are the waste holding tanks. These tanks can be lifted out and replaced through the detachable plates found on the aft ventral surface of the saucer.
Be sure to sound off with your thoughts, opinions and suggestions.
Again it is probably going to be a little while before I start generating detail plans from this. Since I am still working on the other decks, posting something new to the would most likely be futile since there is a good chance I might need to make changes. To that end, I have already moved on the D Deck, making sure everything is lining up correctly. And I don’t think I am going to have anything new to show for a couple of weeks because of D Deck’s complexity. But I will give a little hint on it… I have completely overhauled the warp core. She is now more precise and I have added tons of details to it. I can’t wait for everyone to see it!
Did anyone notice the new banner? It is something new I threw together. More coming soon!
15 Comments so far
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Inside The Enterprise Project 
What can I say?
Better?
Yes it is.
I still want to know your ideas on what is called the Intrepid class…
Yes, I know, you have better things to do.
And while I am on the topic of other ships, the eariler Warp Delta…
Comment by Nick R. March 19, 2010 @ 11:37 amWhat do you want to know exactly? To be honest, the Intrepid Class (or the half saucer) is not one of my favorites. But I LOVE the Delta. I think, besides the NX-01, it is my favorite from that era. (I also love the SS Conestoga from the late 21st Century. I would love to know more about it.)
Comment by Bryant March 19, 2010 @ 5:27 pmThe hlaf saucer is almost like, but not quite like the Enterprise NX-01. To do the blue prints you would have to take that into consideration. Further more (for example) I think the computer core would be smaller, but still Transtator based. In other words i would like to see you do a simular work up of it.
The same for the Delta, but with the Delta I exect that it doesn’t make use of Transtators(not invented yet).
Okay to back up a littl. I see the Delta, as warp three ship(warp 2.7 cruise). Why? Becuase I don’t see Earth as being only able to make warp two ships. As for weapons, I see three directed energy(two firing foreward(top and bottom) a stern, and one tube firing forward.
The Half saucer with double that. And it is a warp four capable ship. A science survey/cruiser versus an exploration and research cruiser that is the Enterprise. The difference is in the mission profile.
As for the Delta, I see it as a police cruiser. It is more heavily armed than the typical ECS.
Comment by Nick R. March 19, 2010 @ 5:56 pmI like your designs for B and C deck. On B Deck, I especially like your idea of the interior airlocks to the deuterium tanks and the hazard suits. On C deck, it’s great that you incorporated a lot of really unexpected ideas like the two control rooms with windows toward the plasma tubes and plasma accelerators. It’s a good idea that the more-hazardous parts of ship are separated from the rest of the ship and that there are hazard suits at all entries. And I really liked the recreational game room with the pool tables, as well as the sauna – if that’s what it’s is – on the port side. If it’s a sauna, indeed, perhaps you could put in one shower right next to it so that people wouldn’t have to wander half-dressed through the corridors for a chilling cold dip.
Anyway, perhaps you could elaborate on four things, please. Firstly, on B deck in the sample storage department, there are two doors with a different color, as if they’re part of some kind of containment system. Forcefields aren’t really invented yet. So what were your thoughts on that. Secondly, what’s with the crawl space all around C deck. What’s its purpose and if it’s important for anything, why are there only two points to access them and a hundred meters of pure crawling. Plus, there are two five-meter-long Jeffrey’s tubes close to the aft lift shaft. They run parallel to the normal corridor on either side. What’s their story.
And lastly this. It’s always great that all the windows that you can see on the detailed CGI-outside of the ship lead to some kind of room in your deck plans. Especially, on B deck, you did a very nice job of fitting every window to one separate laboratory. The big labs on C Deck have two windows, which makes sense. The question is, what’s with the wide windows in the back between B and C deck. In your earlier plans, there were recreational rooms, which was perfect and a good reason for bigger windows. Well, which room exactly has a window now; is it the control platform of the water treatment center on C deck? If so, why? It would be the only engineering section with a window, right? And by the way, is this platform connected to the room on B deck. If yes, the direction of the vertical ladders are wrong, I guess. On B deck, they’re to port or starboard, on C deck, they’re to the bow, at least I think, it’s hard to say on the small plans.
Anyway, all the best and keep up the amazing work.
Comment by Jadin March 20, 2010 @ 9:00 amFirst, let me just say, wow. Someone has really been paying attention. LOL Hopefully I answer all your questions. If I miss something, tell me!
That is a sauna. And I never thought to add a shower next to it but I will. (I don’t sauna much.) That “different colored door” in the sample storage room has glass in it, which is the different color you see. It would look like the doors seen in the brig and are part of the clean room airlock for the sample storage room. The crawl space around C Deck gives the crew access to all the conduit piping (water, consumables) that runs around the outside of that deck. Most of the conduits are above that crawl space. (I have a side view that I will try and post later.) As for access points, that tube can be accessed through the ceiling from below. Or in other words, it has a hundred access points! LOL The two short Jefferies tubes next to the water treatment access the consumable conduits in the spin, which are above that section. (It is really difficult to make certain things clear on a 2D plan.) As for the long windows on B Deck, I had to make some changes to the original plans because of the window’s location. At first I thought they were higher. With a little further research, I figured out that they are almost flush with the deck floor. I also found that the hull in that area slopes back sharply and leaves very little overhead clearance for people to walk. So rather than waste the space, I opened that section to the treatment area on the deck below and added a short catwalk above. And just to clarify, the control platform in water treatment is open to the treatment room and to the space above. It is just a raised area. And the vertical ladder on the platform doesn’t extend up, just down into the floor. To access B Deck, there is a vertical access ladder just forward of the treatment tanks. It goes up to the catwalk area. And that pesky window is just above the raised control platform. You can see out of it from C Deck and B Deck. As for its use… the window would allow a way to visually monitor the waste tank swap out and any umbilical connect or disconnect. Sometimes windows are not just for giving the crew a pretty view. Sometimes they are to keep the crew from knocking big holes in the hull during routine maintenance.
Whew. I hope I got everything.
Comment by Bryant March 20, 2010 @ 11:14 amLOL, too.
And actually, that’s perfect. You turned a measly-old recreational window into the only sensible one on the ship. Hooray.
Comment by Jadin March 20, 2010 @ 3:50 pmAnd a comment about the Half Saucer and the repeated calls for other ship’s deck plans.
At first sight, the Intrepid is a really stylish design. In contrast to the NX class, however, its CGI design was simply-put messed-up. Every time the ship is seen in space, she’s obviously supposed to look as if she’s about half the size of the NX; something, which would make sense, considering she’s a short range cruiser and there are more of them. She definitely looks smaller, because the ratio between the deflector dish and the warp nacelles remains the same, whereas the rest of the ship around them is scaled down. Nevertheless, in the Intrepid’s CGI design, the front part of the ship is just the copied front half saucer of the NX class; the windows have the same position and size and everything. The rest is either bigger or scaled down. To make it short, while the NX designs were carefully thought-through, the Intrepid was lumped together in a rush. The Intrepid’s airlocks are literally five meters in front of the impulse engines. Whatever. This is like when back in the 90s, in the TNG era, designers said that there were three diffently-sized Klingon Bird Of Preys (ditl.org) – but from the outside, they all looked just the same. Well, there’s a word for that… DUHH.
I guess the only other 22nd century Star Trek ships, that might be as realistic and as worth thinking-through as the NX Class are the Deltas, the Conestoga and perhaps this one…
[for some reason I cannot put in a web address; google “intrepid gladiator”; first entry; the ship on page 4]
Bryant, as soon as you finish E Deck in a high resolution with all its engineering equipment and post the first five decks on your site, I might want to give it a try and put together (that means copying and pasting together) an overview of either this ship or of a five-deck Intrepid in which I disregard the actual CGI model with its windows and just keep the shape of the ship. I haven’t decided, yet. Either way, Bryant, you’re right to not concentrate on other ships for now. The NX class is the one design which is most worthy, most thought-through and most realistic. Despite the shortcomings of the series itself with its lack of character-development, the one thing most outstanding about ST Enterprise was the great effort they put into the design of the ship, by far the most convincing ship of any SciFi series. And your work is the – let’s say it -crowning of this effort.
Comment by Jadin March 20, 2010 @ 9:08 amCut and paste? I don’t mind at all. As long as I don’t have to do it. (I know I shouldn’t feel that way but I really dislike that ship.)
Comment by Bryant March 20, 2010 @ 11:15 amLooks great! I am consistently impressed by the amount of thought and effort you put into these plans to make them look so nice! These are unparalleled in detail by anything else I’ve seen in either official Trek publications or by other fan/designers.
I will say I’m not crazy about the 2 turboshafts surrounded by hallways (extravagant use of space on a “primitive” and cramped starship?), but otherwise, a very nice improvement on your previous work.
I’ve been doing some vector work on 22nd century uniforms and equipment (both Earth Starfleet and MACO) for my own project. If you have any interest in including this on your larger Enterprise project, drop me a line.
Comment by Cronos6939 March 20, 2010 @ 9:12 amYeah the hallways around the forward and aft turbo shafts do look a little messy but it couldn’t be helped. Compared to the previous overly cumbersome turbolift system, the lift and surrounding corridor is downright minuscule. And it may seem like a waste of space but from engineering standpoint, not so much. First, I am using the lift shafts as part of the vertical support structure for the ship. Along with the computer core, port and starboard cargo shafts and most of the access corridors, the shaft area gives much needed rigidity to the forward and aft sections of the saucer. Second, those lift areas are also part of the emergency atmospheric containment system. Without force fields, the NX-01 has to rely on pressure doors to contain a hull breach. You would also need two ways into every section (for repair, search and rescue operations). That looping corridor also provides that. To just end the corridors at the lift would cut off secondary access to several sections of the ship.
This also gives me the opportunity to point out a few things that some of you may not have noticed. First, ALL the corridors, access ways and Jefferies tubes on the ship are modular. They can be built on the ground or at the orbital platform and then brought to the ship and attached together. For example, the corridors are made up of only four different pieces! There are a few custom sections here and there but the rest is all built from those original four. Second, starships are built like a honeycomb. You have an outer hull structure, then an open inner structure consisting of the deck floors and certain key vertical structures. After that you have the corridors and certain bulkheads. And last you have your compartments. Most people are not aware that the actual rooms themselves are the last on the structural list! The floors and corridors are the things that keep the internal structure of a ship together.
Comment by Bryant March 20, 2010 @ 11:58 amLove your work!
Can’t wait for D-deck with the slide-out warp core!
Comment by michael March 21, 2010 @ 4:11 pmActually, the warp core slides out of E Deck. Sorry to be a downer.
Comment by Bryant March 21, 2010 @ 4:16 pmSince the Intrepid is supposed to be a precursor to the NX-01 class, I see nothing wrong per se about it, just another step in the evolution of Earth ships.
I figure that they were built to test some aspects of the NX-01 design prior to the building there of.
But at the same time they had to be fully operational in all aspects. They are cruisers traveling perhaps at warp 3.6, going from star to star in a spiril pattern outward from Sol. This would take a great deal of time. meaning that they, if lets say there were twenty of them, in their first year of service, would have surveyed out to about twenty light-years. But just to double that volume would take another seven years… Meanwhile they are making up to date maps of everything. With the latest technology.
The NX-01 class would shoot out at warp 4.5 straight away from Earth bypssing everything with in thirty light-years of Sol. They go deep.
Comment by Nick R. March 21, 2010 @ 6:38 pmI understand from the Trek BBS that you are tired.
What are you going to do when you get tired of whatever?
Getting tired is part of life. For example, I have been looking for a wife since I was 18 – I turn the big 50 in April. Still no signs at all of her. I am sick to death of never hearing “batter up!”. Should I quit looking?
Comment by Nick R. March 23, 2010 @ 4:19 pmIt is not really just a matter of getting tired. I just have other things that I want to say. Besides kids, this is supposed to be fun. After four years, it isn’t all that much fun anymore.
Comment by Bryant March 23, 2010 @ 4:27 pm