U.S.S. Quixote / Columbia-class (NX-Refit)

Last crawled date: 1 year, 9 months ago

U.S.S. Quixote, NCC-160 Columbia-class Type: explorer Operator: UFP Starfleet Active: 2168-2241 Decks: 15 Length: approximately 240 meters Capacity: 125 humanoids Max. Speed: warp 6.6 Max. Cruising speed: warp 6.2 Armament: phase cannons (x12); photonic torpedoes (x5 tubes) Defenses: polarized hull plating; deflector shields ======================================== Service History The U.S.S. Quixote was twelfth Columbia-class starship commissioned by the United Federation of Planets. She had a long and distinguished service history, including six three-year exploratory missions deep in uncharted space, as well as heavy action in the Klingon Wars. By the early 23rd century, the Quixote served mostly as a patrol-craft alongside the Federation-Klingon border, but at the request of her captain was assigned to what would be her last deep-space assignment in 2238—deep beyond the Taurus Reach. In 2241, while returning to Federation space at the end her last three year exploratory voyage, the Quixote disappeared without a trace. Starship Background The Columbia-class was the first starship class commissioned for the new United Federation of Planets' Starfleet, following its founding in 2261. The new Columbia-class starships quickly became a symbol for the newborn United Federation of Planets--incorporating technology of Human, Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite origin, it was could simulate multiple environments allowing for multi-species crews to serve with minimal difficulty. Though it uses the older NX-class hull as a base, the synthesis of so many different kinds of technologies made the Columbia-class one of the most advanced starships of its time--though (at least for the first several years) Starfleet engineers found the different technologies sometimes interacted in unpredictable ways. The Columbia-class was the backbone of the fleet for much of the UFP's early history. It's distinctive configuration--a saucer-shaped primary hull, cylindrical secondary hull and two warp nacelles--eventually became the standard model from which most future UFP starship designs would be derived. The Columbia-class was named in honor of the NX-02 Columbia, the First NX-class vessel to be lost in action, which disappeared in 2156. Model Background I tried to match this model up to Doug Drexler's CGI design as best I could, but ran into an enormous amount of difficulty getting the secondary hull right. Basically, the upper half of the secondary hull is not supposed to be circular--instead, it's pressed down a bit, which puts more room between the top of the secondary hull and the waterline at the bottom of the primary hull. A huge chunk of the rear of the secondary hull is also cut away a bit so that the little warp-field stabilizer component (identical to the one on the NX-class) can sit, and easily 'slide' out the back. And, finally, there's an additional hull cowling draped over the upper front half of the secondary hull that protrudes slightly over the deflector dish. After three separate attempts at modeling this accurately, I gave up. The secondary hull here is perfectly circular--just like the TOS and TMP versions of the Constitution-class. I also had trouble incorporating the vertical bay doors for the shuttlepodds on the rear ventral hull. The NX-class has four, and they are the only means of shuttlepod egress, but the Columbia-class only has two (in case the shuttlebay doors cannot be used, for whatever reason). The problem is that there's a big airlock sandwiched between the two shuttlebays, directly over the shuttlepod doors, and that the three elements cannot co-exist. The shuttlepod doors were the least problematic component to ax, so I got rid of them. I've updated the model with some new nacelles (which are slightly better-proportioned, even if their aft ends look a bit wonky) and scenes. So, remember, if you want to see cool little details like the shuttlebay interior, phase cannons, or cross-section/deck plan you'll need to download the model. (Starship information is derived partially from Memory Alpha and/or Memory Beta, and from my own imagination.) #Columbiaclass #Enterprise #NX01 #NX01_refit #NXclass #NXrefit #NXtype #Rise_of_the_Federation #Star_Trek #Star_Trek_Enterprise #Starship