3E, Galileo-class Hyperlight Explorer

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

U.S.S. Galileo Galileo-class Type: deep space explorer Operator: Unified Sol Active: 3rd Era Crew Capacity: 700 Dimensions: approximately 580 meters Armament: fission torpedoes (x6 launchers); directed energy weapons (x2 turrets). ======================================== Model Background One of my early original starship designs, and one of the very few that is of sufficient quality to share with the wider world. Eventually I'm going to take all the skills I learned making Star Trek models and tackle more original designs, as when I look back at my earlier, cruder attempts almost all I can see are are shapes I should have done better, and now can do better. I've divided my original ships into categories based on 'era.' This is a third era deep space explorer, capable of traveling between stars at faster than the speed of light. My 'first era' would be a near-modern tech level (IE intra-solar starships only); the 'second era' would have interstellar starships, but nothing faster-than-light; third era is early FTL tech (thing Star Trek TOS or Enterprise); and the 4th era is the most advanced tech level. Anyway, I really like the overall shape of this model. It's... very different from anything I'd ever seen before, but has a lot of recognizable elements. Starship fans may notice that it's pretty clearly inspired by Star Trek ship designs in a number of way--my basic goal here was to take Star Trek design elements, and go in a completely different direction with them. Sort of a 'what would Star Trek technology look like outside of the Star Trek universe' premise. One small thing I'd like to point out before I go: the weapons. The torpedoes are, I think, the weaker weapons for this ship--they lack the range and firepower of the directed energy weapons. The directed energy weapons are based on TNG phaser strips, but then they're also mounted on turrets, giving them complete 360-degree firing arcs on *every* axis.