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I like this NX-01 "refit" that adds a secondary hull and, presumably, a bit more go to our beloved Enterprise.

If you were to rationalize all this, though, what are the advantages to adding on a secondary hull versus just adding a tail behind the saucer or even just making the saucer bigger? Any thoughts on why StarFleet likes saucers?

Saucers offer a whole lot more room that a slim Spaceship.

In TNG the saucer had quarters, school rooms, about everything including storage, etc.

The saucer in TNG could be released from the rest of the ship and the Battle Bridge wold be on the rest of the ship . However, I remember that also the Saucer had weapons arrays on n its underside, Phase cannos, Torpedoes. I am not sure how that worked out.

If I remember that division of the saucer and the rest of the ship only happened in one episode. all of the rest of the time the ship remained intact and battles were fought that way. guess the PTB decided to dump the concept.

SB

Maybe they think that having a separate section away from the nacelles are safer somehow, away from radiation or whatever? Or that creating a warp bubble around the vessel is easier when the nacelles are exposed and located a bit away from the primary hull?

As to why a saucer, we can only speculate, but maybe it's an easy design to do. You can have a saucer and then, depending on craft, add various things to it, like a secondary hull if you want to have a larger vessel.

Then there's obviously the idea, seldom shown, of separating the saucer section from the rest of the ship, like they did in the TNG pilot.

That seperation of the Saucer from the rest of the ship must not have been such a great idea for TPTB since is seemed to be used only the one time.

Im still feel a Saucer would offer much more room than a slimmer ship.

course in space one could have just about any shape since there is not much drag out there.

I believe the levels count more than the Saucer shape. Enterprise had only seven levesl but should have had more. 12 or 15 would have been better. One could have a larger crew that way and space for special decks. Like a Magazine or Hydroponics decks.

Never did know how many decks the ship in TNG had.

SB

Silverbullet wrote:That seperation of the Saucer from the rest of the ship must not have been such a great idea for TPTB since is seemed to be used only the one time.

I think it had more to do with the limits of a TV budget.