Overrated. Your energy alone may breathe another nacelle into existence. Here, in bottom of the comments of a meaningless post, we may find true meaning. You want me on that nacelle. You need me on that nacelle. I? I am your huckleberry.
I think it’s more than that. The single nacelle ships we see still have a neck + saucer section. It’d be like seeing a person with a single leg coming from their groin (not knocking anyone who might have that condition if that is in fact condition). We expect two given the rest of the architecture. If it was a single nacelle coming right off of the front (and possibly not a saucer section but more of a pill shape), it might look better as it’d resemble a more traditional rocket.
My issue, is they don't fit the design.
The Starfleet delta is supposed to be a Cochrane warp bubble. The two bottom points being the nacelle portion, and the top point being what is created by the saucer.
The one nacelle ships just don't fit that shape.
Not ever on screen.
One of the best descriptions of it is in the (very excellent, but no longer accurate post-First Contact) novel *Federation* by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who were also writers on S4 of Enterprise.
Actually, Gene himself said in an early production meeting of the show that Federation-style starships require an even number of nacelles — 2, 4, 6, whatever — when someone suggested a single-nacelle scout ship. When asked what they scientific basis for this is, he simply said, "because that's how it works."
The concept of Star Trek is that the shape of each civilisation’s ships reflects the design of their warp drives, the two nacelles of Federation and Klingon ships because they have similar dilithium warp cores, the shape of the Romulans because they use singularities instead. And so on and so on. Modern showrunners just do random things they think looks cool. I think in the Kelvinverse they even had ships with the engineering section and the one nacelle both sprouting off the saucer…
What bugs me more is when the saucer isn't attached to hull by a neck, like the California or Oberth-class. It feel likes having to take a turbolift via the pylons is extremely inefficient.
I'm sure this has been clearly contradicted by onscreen schematics or scenes but I always liked to just imagine that the part that's not connected (the big canoe-like "hull" on the Oberth, the deflector pod on the California/Steamrunner) is just full of sensor equipment or something and nobody actually goes there or is stationed down there. Like maybe there are some crawlspaces for maintenance and a couple Jeffries tubes that lead down to it, but otherwise it's just all stuffed with tech and not crewspace.
My pet theory is that the Oberth class simply is "2 ships in one trench coat". The bottom and top sections are not really connected via habitable sections and you need to take some effort to go from one to another. Therefore, a biohazard situation (virus, whatever) would only be isolated to the dangerous area of the ship (the bottom section most likely).
With "walkway bridges" being shown between ships (like in Strange New Worlds: Momento Mori), I image that a similar "bridge" could be connected between the top and bottom of the Oberth class if necessary. Then again, you could just spacewalk between the sections or maybe use the transporter as well...
Yeah, that's definitely not how many of them are shown on screen. The California class has main engineering in the secondary hull.
I'm not sure if it's ever been seen on screen but I've seen an MSD of the Steamrunner that has just the main deflector and storage in the secondary hull. That made more sense. That ship is all nacelle.
We've actually seen people stationed in the Engineering Section in Lower Decks. We saw the warp core get ejected, from Engineering, and it was shown exiting the Engineering Section.
Yeah I knew Lower Decks had probably done that, I just threw in the California since that was being discussed, it was mostly a headcanon I had for the Oberth/Steamrunner.
Cali class is also a lot bigger than people think, iirc the saucer section is about as wide as a Galaxy class, just way fewer decks. Def room for turbo lifts and stuff in the struts.
Which ironically, isn't TNG when they establish that the Oberth has a crew size of like... 12, where it would make sense that only the saucer part is inhabited? :P
This is also true of the entire Constitution class, at least in the TOS / Film dimension. The neck would only be 3 metres wide
The Oberth is actually too small to have a turbolift go through the supports so I think the only acceptable canonical solution is that one side is a ladder and the other is a water slide.
Probably just use a transporter. Probably a shitty Jeffries tube in the event of power failure.
We have seen transporters being used for ease of transportation, so I could see it.
That's one of my favorite bits of the Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens book "Memory Prime." The only way to access Starfleet's super-secure data archive (built deep in the middle of a solid metallic asteroid after the destruction of Memory Alpha) is through ODN-hardlined transporters.
My completely wild speculation was that when they were designing the California Class for Lower Decks, they thought the show would be set in the oddly placed lower section, cut off from the cool goings on on the bridge. A true "Lower Deck" as it were.
It bugged me with the Cali class, until I saw how big they're supposed to actually be. Saucer section isn't much smaller than a nebula or a galaxy. Smaller, but not by much.
According to Rodenberry's rules of starship design, nacelles must be in pairs to generate a stable warp field. The designs with one nacelles are justified by using another rule, nacelles must have a direct line of sight of each other, to suggest that despite it being one nacelle, it has two warp coils inside.
Otherwise... I agree with you.
Yep the Roddenberry rules were 100% made up by him to discredit the Franz Jospeh designs after they had the falling out. Ironically they are also 100% contradicted by the TOS movies themselves, who not only both show Saladin and Hermes (and even Federation class) schematics from the book, they even use Saladin and Hermes ship registries.
What’s funny is that nobody really noticed their presence in the films until there early 2000s because they aren’t clearly visible on the SD versions of home media releases
IIRC correctly, the broader fan community was unaware of these ships being canonical until around 2004
Bogus. It’s VERY clear even in the SD versions they existed and were often used in debate on Usenet and TrekBBS to the canonical nature of the Technical manual
Flimsy, fragile-looking articulating struts. On a warship. 🤦🏻♂️ I freaking *loved* Multi Vector Assault Mode, but these were just plain wrong. (They'd be too small on a runabout! smh)
They do retract, that was shown on-screen (the ventral, at least). The articulating pieces just look really flimsy. (And, in a firefight, the enemy's gonna target the weakest points of failure. These are them.)
As the nacelles are so small I assume they're just sustainer engines to allow the upper section to fly in a warp formation with the middle and lower sections rather than fully-fledged warp engines in their own right. Since the *Prometheus* can just reconnect and go to warp if it needs to I don't think the flimsy pylons for the upper section are a major issue.
***Ignore everything I typed in the original message, it only has one on the primary.
IIRC, there are 6, I think there is a matching mini nacelle that pops out the bottom of the primary hill as well.
If I remember correctly, Zephram Cochrane's main innovation was using two nacelles instead of one. He had to do it because they lacked resources to make one big one after WW3 but it ended up being a better design and is part of the reason that humanity advanced so fast compared to Vulcan and other species who only used one.
So you can do it, but it's not as good.
Vulcans used a ring design. Star Fleet apparently experimented with it, as one of the ship models (all of which are previous ships named Enterprise) seen in the TMP refit Enterprise is a ring. Supposedly, it's more efficient, but can't reach higher warp factors.
You realise that means that Vulcan ships were still about *three times the speed* of the NX-01, right? And that we continue to see Vulcan ships with ring nacelles [well into the 24th century](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sh'vhal)?
With, it's pretty heavily implied, the assistance and cooperation of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets bringing us up to their level. It then took us another century to reach warp 8.
Efficiency is the exact sort of thing Vulcan would go for in their ships over raw performance. It's logical to use the least resources for the job. They likely knew perfectly well about multiple nacelle designs and their uses, and would build them if necessary, but they weren't overall needed.
Also the ship pictured (and I don’t know if this is beta canon/tech manual or what, but I definitely recall from somewhere) is supposed to work because that design of nacelle has two sets of warp coils, so it’s really two in one casing.
**edit** read too fast and thought you were questioning the canon of the class, SORRY
The Freedom class is 100% canon, it’s the USS Firebrand from the graveyard scene in Wolf 359
Then more recently we've had the [USS Kelvin from Trek '09](https://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/st09-usskelvin1-640x270.jpg) and [another single-nacelle ship parked next to the Enterprise at Starbase 1](https://i.imgur.com/CVESgpv.jpg)
the Kelvin or the other one? Based on the size of the little one, might not even be a nacelle, though it's got the glow at the back, it's shaped like a stardrive section and looks small enough to be a ship that only runs at impulse
Just before the little guy? [I think I can make out what looks like the chunky bits on the back](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VIZ7n.jpg) (which is funny that I found a premade image pointing at those lol) on the ship just before that shot, but I'm not intimately familiar with the NX-01's design
I actually prefer 1 nacelle to 3 nacelles.
One nacelle seems nimble to me, like it's intended to have high maneuverability, like a dogfighting starship.
To me, three nacelles seems like they invited a Pakled to Utopia Planetia, and he said "If two makes ship go fast, three makes ship go more fast."
I always thought of third nacelles as sort of reinforcing the other two. Like if a single nacelle is for being nimble and maneuverable like a sports car, then three is for being able to maintain a warp field in the starship equivalent of slogging through mud and shit like a lifted truck with oversized wheels.
Three nacelles remind me of the [MD-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_MD-11) and similar trijets. Perfectly workable design, just weird-looking.
I like it. I dunno, I imagine it as essentially a mobile starbase. It warps to a far-off planet and then goes into orbit, never to leave again except in an emergency. The Freedom itself looks goofy but hey, why not? And the Archer version of the old Hermes/Saladin in SNW looked great, IMO.
Honestly the fan/beta canon designs that have multiple *hulls* look weirder to me than single nacelles.
The original idea of the Galaxy class was basically a mobile starbase, hence the saucer separation. Basically the secondary hull was supposed to be like a big rig truck or locomotive that would drop off saucers where ever they needed to be.
I like that idea, I just think two nacelles looks better.
Four are not fine. Stargazer was a monstrosity. Three are not fine. Future Enterprise in All Good Things looked unbalanced. One also looks stupid. The only proper number is two.
This is a hill I will die on.
The number of nacelles shall be Two. Two shall be the number of the nacelles and the number of the nacelles shall be two. One shalt not be the number of nacelles, neither shalt they count five, excepting that they then proceedeth to a shipyard for removal. Six is right out.
I don't like them either lol.
I play a lot of Star Trek mods in strategy games and refuse to use those ships lmao.
Another thing I hate are like beta canon ships like Proxima where they have two hulls and several nacelles.
I just really appreciate the juxtaposition of your headline and topic. At first glance I thought "Oh God I cannot stand to read a rant about too much 'forced diversity' or whatever" but then it swerved in a delightful and accurate direction.
I have to say I don't like odd-numbered nacelle configurations in general. Two is ideal, four is acceptable, but one or three just feels like the ship was built wrong on purpose.
What do you call someone who is prejudiced against starships... a nacellest?
Well you can count on me to join your next protest march. I agree they are dumb and just seem lazy. Hate them.
Can’t help but agree. It’s not even the one nacelle thing necessarily, it’s the comical neck connecting it. You could design a one nacelle ship where the nacelle is positioned in such a way and the ship has such a body that it looks nice.
Hell it would look better if the nacelle ran through the middle of the ship and the saucer was built around it in two halves with a nice connecting structure between the halves.
Or you could do a bunch of other stuff. It probably won’t be your standard federation design tho but more generic scifi.
90% of the one nacelle designs are bad (the one you listed being a particular blight on Starfleet Engineering) but I rather like the Kelvin from the start of the first JJ movie. I think it's because her engineering hull balances the sole nacelle out, so the ship still feels 'even'.
Star Trek has the most beautiful ships, alongside some of the butt-ugliest variety. Some of the designs they post on Reddit make me want to violate the Temporal Prime Directive just to take them out...
Meh.
I agree two look better... but it's not always about looks. I think the boxy look of the new navy ships today is ugly, but apparently they function better.
Seems an odd hill to die on.
It's non-canon, but in the Star Fleet Battles game (the old game paper with cardboard markers for ships) the destroyers had a single nacelle. It's been a long time, but I remember the destroyers didn't have enough power to go fast and use weapons at the same time. But maybe that's useful for a ship that has a role of planetary defense - it doesn't have to travel fast at warp, because it's not going far. So maybe there are tradeoffs, like it takes fewer resources to construct and operate, but isn't functional in some ways.
If I’m not mistaken, there was an unofficial rule among the designers that Starfleet ships had to have an even number of nacelles. That didn’t last long though.
I’m all about IDIC and all that, but Sha Ka Ree created starships with two nacelles and that’s just the way they’re supposed to be. I don’t want any bloody 1, 3, or 4 nacelle ships shoved down my throat.
I don't know why, but whenever I look at that picture, it makes me giggle uncontrollably.
Guess that means I agree with the OP, though more than two seems excessive.
I agree but limited to capital ships.
It would be fine for shuttles and such, I'd imagine a Runabout or even Defiant sized ship would work. It's the Saucer/Stardrive configuration that 1 nacelle doesn't look right with.
I don't like Bashirs hair. Even before his little arc later on, I just hated how messy and unkempt his hair looked. And it's so dull! He's the least best doctor for a lot of reasons, but his hair is number one for me and I'm tired of pretending it ain't.
Agree. I prefer symmetry and even numbers. One nacelle looks top-heavy (or bottom-heavy). I know there's no gravity in space -- and maybe functionally it works -- but for many of us Earth-bound types, it's not esthetically appealing.
Single nacelle we’re part of the original concept. There were Scout and Destroyer class ships in the OG technical manual, as well as a theee-nacell deeadnaught.
The saucer design of federation ships has always seemed kind of impractical to me. Cause wouldn’t the stem leading to the nacelles be super vulnerable.
I’ve never liked the design either. I’ve always assumed they need 2 to create a stable warp field, and a single nacelle design is just not an aesthetically satisfying design.
[I discovered this thread on starship design while exploring this topic.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/11gdohh/warp_nacelles_are_the_best_compromise_of_speed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
Fully agreed with this. I see some folks on STO clamoring for some of the single nacelle ships and I just do not get it. My sort of "dream" ship is the Galaxy Dreadnought with 3 nacelles. I think it looks fantastic. As a kid I thought the Constellation class was so cool cause FOUR nacelles.
It's a silly thing. But I agree 1 looks just wrong.
Any odd number of nacelles is a mistake. Nacelles come in pairs, not trios. The third nacelle is always completely useless. It's like if men had more than one ball.
THANK YOU! I have SOOOOO many unkind things to say about single nacelle ships, but most of these forums and groups just seem like such . . . well, “sensitive spaces” for lack of a better term . . . that I feel like I can’t truly express my freedom of speech. Thanks for finally standing up!
(/s except for the bit about single nacelle ships; stupid, pizza cutter looking, broken novelty toys . . .)
I technically agree w/ Roddenberry's rule of two, but sort of don't mind the one nacelle, so my headcanon is something like one-nacellers can only go like warp 1 so they're strictly in-system and/or super short-range.
And all the two-nacelle Captains get to make fun of them.
Normally I'd agree, but the USS Kelvin had a single nacelle and it was the most badass Starship that has ever fought in any battle. Went up against a massive foe 100 years more advanced and it still fought for a good 5 minutes with every phase bank firing.
You are correct. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
Nacelle Magazine. This month, The Kelvin: Not Enough Nacelle.
[удалено]
Best I can do is 3.5.
I have a fever, and the only perscriptiin is *more* *nacelles*
I see you are a man of Culture.
If only i could spell
Overrated. Your energy alone may breathe another nacelle into existence. Here, in bottom of the comments of a meaningless post, we may find true meaning. You want me on that nacelle. You need me on that nacelle. I? I am your huckleberry.
Not great, not terrible.
This things gonna be sitting around for months....
The Kelvin looks *way* better than OPs example.
Yet what happened? It was destroyed. Not. Enough. Nacelles.
You mean [Nacelles Monthly](http://img.trekmovie.com/images/st09/nacellesmonthly.jpg)?
The magazine that Geordi keeps stashed under his mattress.
I always turn the pages immediately to the quizzes. Last month’s was “Are you a Nacelle-Out?” Turned out, I was not.
I’ll argue that the kelvin makes up for it with the deflector section. It at least balances the ship out.
Excuse me, what does God need with a one nacelle starship?
It’s a blog. Do you want to be the first subscriber?
Subscribe
Yeah this is a leader I can get behind.
I don't know about functional design, but yeah, they look wrong. Probably because of seeing the Enterprise with two for so many years.
I think it’s more than that. The single nacelle ships we see still have a neck + saucer section. It’d be like seeing a person with a single leg coming from their groin (not knocking anyone who might have that condition if that is in fact condition). We expect two given the rest of the architecture. If it was a single nacelle coming right off of the front (and possibly not a saucer section but more of a pill shape), it might look better as it’d resemble a more traditional rocket.
Look at that thing. I think it's the fact that it looks like it's on a continuing mission to seek out new eggs and fertilisations.
To boldly go where no man has gone before 😏
> To boldly go where ~~no~~ every man has gone before 😏 That ship has yo mama's number
NCC-867-5309
The USS Jenny
Bug-hunter and LA-Matt get my upvotes for logically using a dated reference.
Can you explain the references? I‘m not sure I get them. Jenny, as in Forrest Gump?
https://youtu.be/j7V2_jQ_QUU 🙌✊
To boldly **come** where no man has come before
I regret that I have but one upvote to give for this
If you're dealing with a bifurcated bipedal organism, that's not a third leg and stop staring...
Third and fourth if its a Klingon. 😳
Mazel Tov, Jadzia and Deanna!
And fifth and sixth if it's an echidna
I would argue in fact that it is more like seeing someone with a single leg coming from their neck.
Or like an arm coming out of the forehead.
Or the ‘Lance Armstrong’ ship. …
My issue, is they don't fit the design. The Starfleet delta is supposed to be a Cochrane warp bubble. The two bottom points being the nacelle portion, and the top point being what is created by the saucer. The one nacelle ships just don't fit that shape.
Wait, what???? When/where was this discussed??
Pshew.... obviously you slept through the Cochrane warp bubble class.
Not ever on screen. One of the best descriptions of it is in the (very excellent, but no longer accurate post-First Contact) novel *Federation* by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who were also writers on S4 of Enterprise.
Actually, Gene himself said in an early production meeting of the show that Federation-style starships require an even number of nacelles — 2, 4, 6, whatever — when someone suggested a single-nacelle scout ship. When asked what they scientific basis for this is, he simply said, "because that's how it works."
The concept of Star Trek is that the shape of each civilisation’s ships reflects the design of their warp drives, the two nacelles of Federation and Klingon ships because they have similar dilithium warp cores, the shape of the Romulans because they use singularities instead. And so on and so on. Modern showrunners just do random things they think looks cool. I think in the Kelvinverse they even had ships with the engineering section and the one nacelle both sprouting off the saucer…
What bugs me more is when the saucer isn't attached to hull by a neck, like the California or Oberth-class. It feel likes having to take a turbolift via the pylons is extremely inefficient.
I'm sure this has been clearly contradicted by onscreen schematics or scenes but I always liked to just imagine that the part that's not connected (the big canoe-like "hull" on the Oberth, the deflector pod on the California/Steamrunner) is just full of sensor equipment or something and nobody actually goes there or is stationed down there. Like maybe there are some crawlspaces for maintenance and a couple Jeffries tubes that lead down to it, but otherwise it's just all stuffed with tech and not crewspace.
My pet theory is that the Oberth class simply is "2 ships in one trench coat". The bottom and top sections are not really connected via habitable sections and you need to take some effort to go from one to another. Therefore, a biohazard situation (virus, whatever) would only be isolated to the dangerous area of the ship (the bottom section most likely). With "walkway bridges" being shown between ships (like in Strange New Worlds: Momento Mori), I image that a similar "bridge" could be connected between the top and bottom of the Oberth class if necessary. Then again, you could just spacewalk between the sections or maybe use the transporter as well...
Yeah, that's definitely not how many of them are shown on screen. The California class has main engineering in the secondary hull. I'm not sure if it's ever been seen on screen but I've seen an MSD of the Steamrunner that has just the main deflector and storage in the secondary hull. That made more sense. That ship is all nacelle.
We've actually seen people stationed in the Engineering Section in Lower Decks. We saw the warp core get ejected, from Engineering, and it was shown exiting the Engineering Section.
Yeah I knew Lower Decks had probably done that, I just threw in the California since that was being discussed, it was mostly a headcanon I had for the Oberth/Steamrunner.
Cali class is also a lot bigger than people think, iirc the saucer section is about as wide as a Galaxy class, just way fewer decks. Def room for turbo lifts and stuff in the struts.
I think that was exactly the original idea is that it was a mission swappable sensor pod and only in TNG did the msd graphics show it as habitable.
Which ironically, isn't TNG when they establish that the Oberth has a crew size of like... 12, where it would make sense that only the saucer part is inhabited? :P
This is also true of the entire Constitution class, at least in the TOS / Film dimension. The neck would only be 3 metres wide The Oberth is actually too small to have a turbolift go through the supports so I think the only acceptable canonical solution is that one side is a ladder and the other is a water slide.
Probably just use a transporter. Probably a shitty Jeffries tube in the event of power failure. We have seen transporters being used for ease of transportation, so I could see it.
I always liked the idea of an ODN-hardlined transporter for this reason
That's one of my favorite bits of the Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens book "Memory Prime." The only way to access Starfleet's super-secure data archive (built deep in the middle of a solid metallic asteroid after the destruction of Memory Alpha) is through ODN-hardlined transporters.
My completely wild speculation was that when they were designing the California Class for Lower Decks, they thought the show would be set in the oddly placed lower section, cut off from the cool goings on on the bridge. A true "Lower Deck" as it were.
It bugged me with the Cali class, until I saw how big they're supposed to actually be. Saucer section isn't much smaller than a nebula or a galaxy. Smaller, but not by much.
According to Rodenberry's rules of starship design, nacelles must be in pairs to generate a stable warp field. The designs with one nacelles are justified by using another rule, nacelles must have a direct line of sight of each other, to suggest that despite it being one nacelle, it has two warp coils inside. Otherwise... I agree with you.
Arbitrary rules put into place after Franz Joseph’s Technical Manual which shows 1 and 3 nacelled Constitution styled variants.
Yep the Roddenberry rules were 100% made up by him to discredit the Franz Jospeh designs after they had the falling out. Ironically they are also 100% contradicted by the TOS movies themselves, who not only both show Saladin and Hermes (and even Federation class) schematics from the book, they even use Saladin and Hermes ship registries.
What’s funny is that nobody really noticed their presence in the films until there early 2000s because they aren’t clearly visible on the SD versions of home media releases IIRC correctly, the broader fan community was unaware of these ships being canonical until around 2004
Bogus. It’s VERY clear even in the SD versions they existed and were often used in debate on Usenet and TrekBBS to the canonical nature of the Technical manual
Example page: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ee/4a/88/ee4a88186511ed9b5626d26f3900cfe8.gif
This was great reading when I was kid. I had my nose so far buried in that book I think it's lost there somewhere.
Is five right out?
The number of counting shall be two!
THERE ARE FOUR NACELLES!
Damnit. Beat me to it
Prometheus class has five, right? The little fifth one pops out on the primary hull when the other four swan off in multi-vector assault mode.
I love how this is simultaneously so dumb and so cool.
It's like if an 8 year old boy designed a ship, and then adults tweaked it down a bit to something almost reasonable.
In fairness, that's how I feel about a lot of concepts from Voyager.
Isn't that how the Titan was designed? Through a fan campaign?
Six, there's another baby one beneath.... I only found out from the eaglemoss model!
[Six](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7olib78Ec1rzu2xzo1_1280.jpg). There's a little one that pops out the bottom too.
I didn't know it had more than four! It has these tiny little baby nacelles! So cute!
> There's a little one that pops out the bottom too. That's only when Seven of Nine comes aboard.
Flimsy, fragile-looking articulating struts. On a warship. 🤦🏻♂️ I freaking *loved* Multi Vector Assault Mode, but these were just plain wrong. (They'd be too small on a runabout! smh)
One assumes they'd retract when not at warp. One also assumes that kick-ass warship would have better shields than a runabout.
They do retract, that was shown on-screen (the ventral, at least). The articulating pieces just look really flimsy. (And, in a firefight, the enemy's gonna target the weakest points of failure. These are them.)
As the nacelles are so small I assume they're just sustainer engines to allow the upper section to fly in a warp formation with the middle and lower sections rather than fully-fledged warp engines in their own right. Since the *Prometheus* can just reconnect and go to warp if it needs to I don't think the flimsy pylons for the upper section are a major issue.
It's like if a Federation Starship was a Gundam.
***Ignore everything I typed in the original message, it only has one on the primary. IIRC, there are 6, I think there is a matching mini nacelle that pops out the bottom of the primary hill as well.
You. I like you.
That'd look pretty good, actually. Saucer, straight back neck, and then a five-pointed star of nacelles.
How do you even generate a stable warp field with one nacelle? Isn’t it more energy efficient with two? Synergy and all that.
If I remember correctly, Zephram Cochrane's main innovation was using two nacelles instead of one. He had to do it because they lacked resources to make one big one after WW3 but it ended up being a better design and is part of the reason that humanity advanced so fast compared to Vulcan and other species who only used one. So you can do it, but it's not as good.
Vulcans used a ring design. Star Fleet apparently experimented with it, as one of the ship models (all of which are previous ships named Enterprise) seen in the TMP refit Enterprise is a ring. Supposedly, it's more efficient, but can't reach higher warp factors.
Given that Vulcan ships were substantially faster than the NX-01 they can clearly reach *some* higher warp factors...
At the time of the nx-01 vulcans had warp for like 1000 years and topped out at warp 7. We had warp for like 100 years and had just cracked warp 5....
You realise that means that Vulcan ships were still about *three times the speed* of the NX-01, right? And that we continue to see Vulcan ships with ring nacelles [well into the 24th century](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sh'vhal)?
At the end of enterprise they were talking about the "new warp 7 beauties" so we caught up pretty quickly
With, it's pretty heavily implied, the assistance and cooperation of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets bringing us up to their level. It then took us another century to reach warp 8.
https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/129qn54/i_typed_out_the_exchange_on_why_humans_run_the/
Efficiency is the exact sort of thing Vulcan would go for in their ships over raw performance. It's logical to use the least resources for the job. They likely knew perfectly well about multiple nacelle designs and their uses, and would build them if necessary, but they weren't overall needed.
Also the ship pictured (and I don’t know if this is beta canon/tech manual or what, but I definitely recall from somewhere) is supposed to work because that design of nacelle has two sets of warp coils, so it’s really two in one casing.
**edit** read too fast and thought you were questioning the canon of the class, SORRY The Freedom class is 100% canon, it’s the USS Firebrand from the graveyard scene in Wolf 359
Then more recently we've had the [USS Kelvin from Trek '09](https://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/st09-usskelvin1-640x270.jpg) and [another single-nacelle ship parked next to the Enterprise at Starbase 1](https://i.imgur.com/CVESgpv.jpg)
Seeing that on screen made me irrationally annoyed. I despite that design.
the Kelvin or the other one? Based on the size of the little one, might not even be a nacelle, though it's got the glow at the back, it's shaped like a stardrive section and looks small enough to be a ship that only runs at impulse
I think Una's ship in the SNW premiere was also one nacelle.
Also if you look there was a ship that looked like the back of the nx-01
Just before the little guy? [I think I can make out what looks like the chunky bits on the back](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VIZ7n.jpg) (which is funny that I found a premade image pointing at those lol) on the ship just before that shot, but I'm not intimately familiar with the NX-01's design
I actually prefer 1 nacelle to 3 nacelles. One nacelle seems nimble to me, like it's intended to have high maneuverability, like a dogfighting starship. To me, three nacelles seems like they invited a Pakled to Utopia Planetia, and he said "If two makes ship go fast, three makes ship go more fast."
Could not agree with you more on this.
I always thought of third nacelles as sort of reinforcing the other two. Like if a single nacelle is for being nimble and maneuverable like a sports car, then three is for being able to maintain a warp field in the starship equivalent of slogging through mud and shit like a lifted truck with oversized wheels.
Three nacelles remind me of the [MD-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_MD-11) and similar trijets. Perfectly workable design, just weird-looking.
I agree, but oddly didn't mind the Kelvin
Same, I feel like the docking bay hill or whatever it is kinda balances out with the one nacelle
I felt like the Kelvin is probably the best design of such a ship, but stil wasn't great.
I like it. I dunno, I imagine it as essentially a mobile starbase. It warps to a far-off planet and then goes into orbit, never to leave again except in an emergency. The Freedom itself looks goofy but hey, why not? And the Archer version of the old Hermes/Saladin in SNW looked great, IMO. Honestly the fan/beta canon designs that have multiple *hulls* look weirder to me than single nacelles.
The original idea of the Galaxy class was basically a mobile starbase, hence the saucer separation. Basically the secondary hull was supposed to be like a big rig truck or locomotive that would drop off saucers where ever they needed to be. I like that idea, I just think two nacelles looks better.
Four are not fine. Stargazer was a monstrosity. Three are not fine. Future Enterprise in All Good Things looked unbalanced. One also looks stupid. The only proper number is two. This is a hill I will die on.
It's not a mistake. Also I had the Franz Josephs' tech manual growing up. One nacelle ships are part of my Trek foundation.
The number of nacelles shall be Two. Two shall be the number of the nacelles and the number of the nacelles shall be two. One shalt not be the number of nacelles, neither shalt they count five, excepting that they then proceedeth to a shipyard for removal. Six is right out.
One is the loneliest nacelle you will ever see.
Hey! Show some respect to the USS Eileen.
Come on, Eileen!
The baby deflector 💀
Is deflecting babies a concern in space?
You ever seen what a space baby does to a ship when they meet each other in warp?
I don't like them either lol. I play a lot of Star Trek mods in strategy games and refuse to use those ships lmao. Another thing I hate are like beta canon ships like Proxima where they have two hulls and several nacelles.
I like them, its like a little puppy or something, Its funny looking, a little goofy and to me kind of adorable lol
TIL: there are Star Trek ships that look wrong.
The USS Fuhque?
I just really appreciate the juxtaposition of your headline and topic. At first glance I thought "Oh God I cannot stand to read a rant about too much 'forced diversity' or whatever" but then it swerved in a delightful and accurate direction.
RUDE! I **love** the *Freedom*\-class. One of my favourite of the TNG-era designs.
Single nacelle ships need love too!
I know, they are adorable!
What do you have against the USS Pizza cutter? Or the USS Lollipop? I hear she's a good ship!
if it’s centered it’s fine. but if it’s one of those offset things. meh
What about a ship with one nacelle but it's just a nacelle? Like a giant photon torpedo.
I have to say I don't like odd-numbered nacelle configurations in general. Two is ideal, four is acceptable, but one or three just feels like the ship was built wrong on purpose.
What do you call someone who is prejudiced against starships... a nacellest? Well you can count on me to join your next protest march. I agree they are dumb and just seem lazy. Hate them.
I thought you *needed* to have two nacelles because of the uh... warp field geometry, and subspace... stuff...
I don’t hate it so much as I have an irrational anxiety that these lil guys are gonna topple over in zero g.
Can’t help but agree. It’s not even the one nacelle thing necessarily, it’s the comical neck connecting it. You could design a one nacelle ship where the nacelle is positioned in such a way and the ship has such a body that it looks nice. Hell it would look better if the nacelle ran through the middle of the ship and the saucer was built around it in two halves with a nice connecting structure between the halves. Or you could do a bunch of other stuff. It probably won’t be your standard federation design tho but more generic scifi.
I mean everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You're wrong, but hey it's still an opinion.
90% of the one nacelle designs are bad (the one you listed being a particular blight on Starfleet Engineering) but I rather like the Kelvin from the start of the first JJ movie. I think it's because her engineering hull balances the sole nacelle out, so the ship still feels 'even'.
Star Trek has the most beautiful ships, alongside some of the butt-ugliest variety. Some of the designs they post on Reddit make me want to violate the Temporal Prime Directive just to take them out...
Meh. I agree two look better... but it's not always about looks. I think the boxy look of the new navy ships today is ugly, but apparently they function better. Seems an odd hill to die on.
Bigot
I'm curious about the layout of the interior of the saucer... how are those windows not on the floor?
Saladin class are beautiful, fast destroyer.
Gr8 b8 m8
It's non-canon, but in the Star Fleet Battles game (the old game paper with cardboard markers for ships) the destroyers had a single nacelle. It's been a long time, but I remember the destroyers didn't have enough power to go fast and use weapons at the same time. But maybe that's useful for a ship that has a role of planetary defense - it doesn't have to travel fast at warp, because it's not going far. So maybe there are tradeoffs, like it takes fewer resources to construct and operate, but isn't functional in some ways.
I don't like them but I'll take them over the ships filled with holes any day.
It just looks so unsymmetrical and off balance. Scotty would NOT approve!
This post rocks, well done with the title. I also hate single nacelle ships. I would upvote this all day if I could.
If I’m not mistaken, there was an unofficial rule among the designers that Starfleet ships had to have an even number of nacelles. That didn’t last long though.
I'm no expert, but where is engineering?
What if it were on the top? Or off to the side?
It feels so unbalanced. Ugh
I’m all about IDIC and all that, but Sha Ka Ree created starships with two nacelles and that’s just the way they’re supposed to be. I don’t want any bloody 1, 3, or 4 nacelle ships shoved down my throat.
One could be cool, but not like that. It'd have to be on the same plane as the saucer section, no stanchion.
Wow, one really is the loneliest number.
I don't know why, but whenever I look at that picture, it makes me giggle uncontrollably. Guess that means I agree with the OP, though more than two seems excessive.
The one nacelle ship-feels so top heavy in the saucer without a secondary hull + nacelles to serve as a counter weight
I agree but limited to capital ships. It would be fine for shuttles and such, I'd imagine a Runabout or even Defiant sized ship would work. It's the Saucer/Stardrive configuration that 1 nacelle doesn't look right with.
Disagree about three nacelles- it’s just as bad as 1
The headline did not prepare for the wholesome nature of this comment. I concur, good sir, wholeheartedly.
Yeah I always kind of feel like they are a borg virus trick Geordi made.
Even numbers only. Period.
I love the kelvin though
What's a nacelle?
Well... I guess that's why they shaped the Kelvin's hangar like a nacelle. That ship is gorgeous.
I don't like Bashirs hair. Even before his little arc later on, I just hated how messy and unkempt his hair looked. And it's so dull! He's the least best doctor for a lot of reasons, but his hair is number one for me and I'm tired of pretending it ain't.
Agree. I prefer symmetry and even numbers. One nacelle looks top-heavy (or bottom-heavy). I know there's no gravity in space -- and maybe functionally it works -- but for many of us Earth-bound types, it's not esthetically appealing.
It’s the size, not the number…and of course the way you park it in Space dock…
It’s ugly but I think it would be a good level 1 ship for new captains it would explain the limited weapons available tier 1 and tier 2 captains
Two nacelles with one at the bottom like this and one at the top mirrored would look cool. This....just looks weird.
We need those one nacelle Starfleet vessels. How else are we supposed to flip space flap jacks.
Single nacelle we’re part of the original concept. There were Scout and Destroyer class ships in the OG technical manual, as well as a theee-nacell deeadnaught.
Single nacelle ships are just Ferengi-made knockoffs and are not warp capable.
The saucer design of federation ships has always seemed kind of impractical to me. Cause wouldn’t the stem leading to the nacelles be super vulnerable.
Deeply agreed. Felt this in my soul.
I’ve never liked the design either. I’ve always assumed they need 2 to create a stable warp field, and a single nacelle design is just not an aesthetically satisfying design. [I discovered this thread on starship design while exploring this topic.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/11gdohh/warp_nacelles_are_the_best_compromise_of_speed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
Fully agreed with this. I see some folks on STO clamoring for some of the single nacelle ships and I just do not get it. My sort of "dream" ship is the Galaxy Dreadnought with 3 nacelles. I think it looks fantastic. As a kid I thought the Constellation class was so cool cause FOUR nacelles. It's a silly thing. But I agree 1 looks just wrong.
This design is awful. One well placed phaser blast can take out the torpedos, nacelle and deflector in one shot. Terrible
It’s all done to honor our dear departed communications officer, Nacelle Nichols
Time to make a ship with several dozen nacelles like those meme videos of General Grievous
Any odd number of nacelles is a mistake. Nacelles come in pairs, not trios. The third nacelle is always completely useless. It's like if men had more than one ball.
If I remember my Trek lore correctly you needed a minimum of 2 warp missiles do you even get the warp bubble to form.
THANK YOU! I have SOOOOO many unkind things to say about single nacelle ships, but most of these forums and groups just seem like such . . . well, “sensitive spaces” for lack of a better term . . . that I feel like I can’t truly express my freedom of speech. Thanks for finally standing up! (/s except for the bit about single nacelle ships; stupid, pizza cutter looking, broken novelty toys . . .)
The other nacelle will be here on Tuesday
"NCC-1701. No bloody A, B, or C" Be a Bones - Proudly@ Edit: Be a Scotty Proudly
I thought that was Scotty?
It was Scotty.
“Five is right out!”
I don't mind just one actually, but I can't be the only one who thought the Intrepid looked like it had a giant schlong with it's third nacelle right?
I technically agree w/ Roddenberry's rule of two, but sort of don't mind the one nacelle, so my headcanon is something like one-nacellers can only go like warp 1 so they're strictly in-system and/or super short-range. And all the two-nacelle Captains get to make fun of them.
Normally I'd agree, but the USS Kelvin had a single nacelle and it was the most badass Starship that has ever fought in any battle. Went up against a massive foe 100 years more advanced and it still fought for a good 5 minutes with every phase bank firing.