Saucer Sep. Gasp!

posted on June 7th, 2012, 3:42 am

Uh oh, Wheres ray? If you have seen the awesome slideshow on the home page you have probably seen this pic. Is it a hint at future features, or simply a crack at the fact that the only way it will be in FO is as a mod? >:D



//edit: btw, love the way images work now. This new site is soo cool.

posted on June 7th, 2012, 5:27 am

Haha, you can't imagine how happy I was when I saw that, I thought it was pretty cool. I just figured it probably would be for the best if I personally didn't make a thread about it. Now that you've brought it up, personally i think its a friendly little poke about saucer separation. The fact that they have a model of it separating is interesting, however I know the galaxy model that was designed for flops is designed to separate if that feature is implemented in the future. It's possible that this is in the new patch, however Its equally possible that it wont be, I wont get my hopes up too high.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 11:19 am

Well... as far as I can see these pictures are rendered ingame shots.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 4:07 pm

I'm not so sure. That galaxy has no FO engine glows, and the bumpmapping seems wrong. I may be mistaken, but it doesn't look like an ingame model to me.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 7:43 pm

True... lets try it with logic and experience. 1. Have the devs ever shown a representation of their work and it was a fake? 2. If not, then why should they show such an obvious picture and fool the observer? 3. If yes, why create a model and do extreme photoshopping to have such a render? Just because it looks cool? Well, they are not in need of such pitiful means. Its's rather the opposite. When it looks cool to them, then the ship saucer is in the game already (at least).

posted on June 24th, 2012, 8:15 pm

I think it is technically "in the game", however, whether or not it is usable is another question. I think we've known for some time that the model for saucer sep has been there, that was stated in zeich's development blog.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 8:57 pm

I'm not so sure. That galaxy has no FO engine glows, and the bumpmapping seems wrong. I may be mistaken, but it doesn't look like an ingame model to me.

All the front page images kinda look to me like they were made with the models, just not made ingame.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 9:28 pm

I like the Galaxy class but never saw the advantage of the sauce separation special it's kind of weird to separate a ship without gaining any significant attack or defense advantage IMO.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 9:55 pm

It has advantages, but only for the Stardrive (which makes sense for the part intended to fight while the other is just a big escape pod). Why they made it a big escape pod is anyone's guess, considering it already has about 50 regular ones...

Not having to power the shields and structural integrity of the saucer should increase the power the Warp Core can give, plus reducing the shields to half size would mean less power is needed to keep them running. Any ECM abilities it has should also benefit from the reduced size.

Reducing the crew probably wouldn't help in repair times and boarding party defense, though.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 10:34 pm

I think in reality saucer sep would be very useful, but as a means of transportation. Turn the saucer into a big cargo hold, warp it where you need to, and just drop it off, pick up another one and get on your way. Want to set up a colony? Go warp your colonists in on a saucer, and let it orbit the planet and help set up the colony. The saucer can basically be its own mobile space station, and the stardrive is just there to push it along.

posted on June 24th, 2012, 11:56 pm

The original intent for saucer separation in TNG is so the civilian population of the ship can be left in a safe area while the stardrive entered a hazardous battle (spatial anomaly, battle, etc). This wasn't shown very often as the process required additional FX budget and time to show -- things that prompted the creation of transporters instead of shuttles when TOS was being developed.

It would have advantages in a tactical situation by complicating the enemy's manoeuvring and potentially increasing the number of weapons brought to bear on the target, but there are enough negatives to it that its use would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

As an aside, I expect that maintaining families and large civilian populations on Starfleet vessels is an experiment that is at the very least suspended during the Dominion War and for a considerable while after -- you don't see them on the Enterprise-E for example.

posted on June 25th, 2012, 12:01 am

oh dear sweet merciful vengeful god, not another saucer sep thread.

posted on June 25th, 2012, 12:56 am

oh dear sweet merciful vengeful god, not another saucer sep thread.

Well lets just be all clear, I did not start it!

The original intent for saucer separation in TNG is so the civilian population of the ship can be left in a safe area while the stardrive entered a hazardous battle (spatial anomaly, battle, etc). This wasn't shown very often as the process required additional FX budget and time to show -- things that prompted the creation of transporters instead of shuttles when TOS was being developed.

It would have advantages in a tactical situation by complicating the enemy's manoeuvring and potentially increasing the number of weapons brought to bear on the target, but there are enough negatives to it that its use would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

As an aside, I expect that maintaining families and large civilian populations on Starfleet vessels is an experiment that is at the very least suspended during the Dominion War and for a considerable while after -- you don't see them on the Enterprise-E for example.

Well the way I see it, is the civilian population and all that can fit in a ship that large, is for a few purposes. With all that space it turns the galaxy basically into one giant "one-fits-all" type of ship. You have a powerful ship that can pack a punch, and then you have ample space to do lots of research, and carry passengers to different locations.

Now as far as tactically, I don't think it helps alot a huge difference. Certainly if you had great need you could do a number of things with the saucer, but they all require great sacrifice. You could separate and ram the enemy ship with the saucer, remotely blow up the saucer, and then finish them off with the stardrive . You also could use the saucer as a sort of meat-sheild to absorb incoming fire and shield the stardrive. Both of these options are not very repeatable options.

As far as reusable strategies you could separate and fire from two different positions, however unlike the Prometheus the galaxy doesn't have a warp core for each section, so the saucer wouldn't be able to contribute two much, and would again, be a giant sacrifice .

posted on June 25th, 2012, 4:23 am

As far as reusable strategies you could separate and fire from two different positions, however unlike the Prometheus the galaxy doesn't have a warp core for each section, so the saucer wouldn't be able to contribute two much, and would again, be a giant sacrifice .

Well, the Galaxy's saucer section has anti-matter stores (you just don't jury rig those, and the material for the anti-matter spread had to come from somewhere) and the impulse reactors had enough power to drive the shields and the saucer section phasers in Best of Both Worlds pt 2. But I'll pre-emptively agree that its use in that battle was primarily to fake out Locutus; certainly we don't see the saucer used separately in battle again throughout TNG.

However, I think it's that battle which led to the idea of the Prometheus' MVAM. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect some bright spark at Starfleet Tactical to review and say "Hey, we can build a ship around that idea, except all elements would be warp capable and much more dangerous".

posted on June 25th, 2012, 2:03 pm

oh dear sweet merciful vengeful god, not another saucer sep thread.

Muwahahahaha! >:D It has begun.....


Seriously though, Ejecting the core, escape pods, transporters, shuttles, all of these are much better solutions than simply cutting your ship in half. MVAM was pretty awesome though, it actually seemed practical.