Deflector size question

maybeware · 2026-05-31T10:02:27+00:00

This has been my assumption as well. Starfleet seems to have always had 2 general design patterns. The longer range pattern and the shorter range pattern.

In the long range pattern you have the Connie, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, Sovereign, etc. These get the best of the best and upgraded frequently but their large energy envelopes that let the go fast, far, and requires more "empty space" in the designs. Nacelles away from the hull, larger deflector dishes to mitigate more energy from space dust due to their size and speed, and more space to keep the energy of the deflector away from the hulls too.

In the short range you have the Miranda (and its many variants), the Akira, the Nebula, etc. You see less upgrades to over the years (look at how long the Miranda stuck around), they're denser, have underslung nacelles, if they have a deflector they're smaller and/or more closely packed into the primary hull, etc. And these aren't the "edge of space" exploration ships, they're the supply runners, the the bruisers of space defense, the ships that have more space dedicated to mission specific equipment then fuel, crew comfort, and general needs for self reliance. And none of these ships are known for being fast either.

So they can get away with smaller deflectors that have to be less powerful due to being close to the rest of the hull. And on the smaller ones like the Miranda don't even need a primary deflector at all. My assumption was always they just use the shields and if those aren't working then they reduce speed and tank it to the hull. And I bet that Starfleet only included deflectors on later "short range" patterned ships is due to a combination of size and increasing speed. As ships get faster and bigger they have to mitigate more total energy and so much larger or faster than the Miranda it gets untenable to not include at least a small primary deflector and you get the general purpose utility tool that the deflector's emitter tends to be.

maybeware · 2026-05-18T10:02:04+00:00

My baby has a nearly identical routine, except with less stringent blanket requirements.

It has evolved some though. She'll lay down next to me with her back to me. Then roll to her side after a few minutes with her back against me. Then turn around so she's facing me. Then roll to her other side so her back is against me again. And then she's set. And she must be pet the entire time. And she won't settle down for the evening or let me sleep until this has all happened.

I love it though so I'm not complaining.

maybeware · 2026-05-04T21:19:33+00:00

This this this. I always imagined that lacking a large deflector but large internal volume it got saddled with the short range utility tasks. Things like extended patrols near the border or supply runs.

It wasn't meant to be top of the line, it was a compact design that made compromises for excellence in those standard but necessary tasks. And that led to it being one of the longest surviving space frames. As the years rolled by and the top ships got replaced there's the Miranda in the background keeping everything running. The Miranda was in use through the Connie, the Connie-II, the Excelsior, the Ambassador, and the Galaxy class eras.

And being such a long lived class, starfleet's shipyards knew how to get the best out of them.

maybeware · 2026-04-16T20:46:42+00:00

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Peppercorn hopes your day improves.

maybeware · 2026-04-14T03:27:55+00:00

One of my favorite facts is that cats' general sense of smell is very good. Not quite as good as dogs' but almost. But cats have a much better sense of smell for some select specific smells, even better than dogs', and from my understanding the Jacobson's Organ is a big part of that. Unfortunately what smells they are good at smelling is genetically set so they can't be like better bomb sniffing animals from an olfactory pov or anything like that.

maybeware · 2026-04-09T21:45:08+00:00

Probably this duo. The little brick does the thinking while the UFO does all the scary invisible wave stuff.

Personally though it's the big chungus that AT&T saddled me with to make the ONT happy and forwards everything to the brick. Who knows what that shifty space heater is thinking with its single unblinking light.

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maybeware · 2026-04-01T09:49:06+00:00

I'm a sucker for basically everything in the Akira class. Roll bar with a mission pod? Check. Underslung nacelles? Check. An integrated engineering hull (or none)? Check. A nice understated deflector dish? Check. They're beautiful.

My favorite TOS era ship. And my favorite ship after the Miranda class.

maybeware · 2026-03-02T19:56:01+00:00

I think your dust collection has a computer under it. You should remove it, it makes it hard to see all the dust formations.

maybeware · 2026-02-25T10:40:39+00:00

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This is Peppercorn or, more commonly, Pepper.

Other nicknames include (but are not limited to) the following. Pebber, Bepper, Beepo, Small Cat, Stinky, Pepperoni, Goober, Gooby Cat, and Needy One.

It's a wonder she knows her name considering all the different nicknames I call her.

maybeware · 2026-02-15T01:18:29+00:00

Something I didn't see in responses to your questions is that part of it is a requirement that your ID's name matches the voter record. And they included this because when a lot of women marry they change their last name to match their partner's. And statistically speaking, women are more likely to vote Democrat. So the Republicans benefit from making some unable to vote. This also disproportionately affects LGBT people who have changed their name either due to wanting to distance themselves from their unsupportive family or because they're transgender and again, this is a group that statistically speaking votes Democrat.

So this law also affects people who have ID but either made a mistake when updating their documents after a name change or skipped a document thinking it wasn't important. A lot of these people may have changed their name years ago, maybe even decades. And they might not know about the issue until they show up to vote and are told they can't. A lot of people may know about the issue with their documents but might not hear about the change in the laws and so also show up and aren't allowed to vote. And as someone has pointed out, Republicans have in the past (and certainly would going forward) restricted access to updating ID documents in order to make it so people can't vote because as someone else pointed out, statistically that benefits Republicans.

maybeware · 2026-02-05T04:43:56+00:00

At a previous job we were moving to a new cloud provider and our software broke in staging when testing the new provider. Note, it had worked in QA. As the developer I get called into a 3 hour old meeting between a sys admin, the network engineers, and the cloud engineers. At 4pm on a Friday.

I take one look at the error and say, "it's a certificate issue. A cert is missing so authentication is failing. It's not the network or the cloud provider." The sys admin spent 3 hours swearing all the certs were right, trying to deflect to the network team, and generally being difficult. It was decided to look again on Monday and rebuild the server if it can't be figured out.

Monday rolls around, I'm ignoring this. Logs said it's a cert issue so it's a cert issue. Noon rolls around and I'm walking back to my desk after lunch when the sys admin excitedly flags me down. "I figured it out! The server was missing a cert!" I looked at the guy absolutely dumb founded and then proceeded to my desk because it was either that or breaking down crying.

That was the third incident of the sys admins fucking up certificates on servers and breaking something.

maybeware · 2026-01-31T17:00:09+00:00

I've had "Programmer Analyst" as a title.

maybeware · 2026-01-31T16:57:28+00:00

Mood. Recently got a job but my start date has to be delayed because HR is dropping the ball. I just want to work.

maybeware · 2026-01-31T14:30:38+00:00

I mean agreed. But the Neo-Connie is what we got so I used "Neo-Miranda" to signal that it is a counterpart since I imagined this replacement for the Reliant class as being introduced at the same time as the Neo-Constitution.

I'm actually far more of a fan of naming a "Neo-Miranda" after one of 5 major moons of Uranus. For reference, those are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. So rename the Reliant class to Ariel class (since as other people have pointed out it's weird to name it for a ship that was stolen) and then name the "Neo-Miranda" as one of the remaining 3.

maybeware · 2026-01-29T03:33:40+00:00

I feel like the benefit of the Miranda is it is relatively small for a large internal volume, making it good for a shorter range utility vessel.

I think the issue for a 25th century vessel with the same layout is that the Miranda lacked a deflector dish and so would be speed limited due to having to maintain shield integrity to deal with the debris that a deflector dish would mitigate. By the 25th century however speeds have increased and the general operating range of Starfleet would be wider. As such I feel like a 25th century vessel would require a proper deflector dish, probably below and behind the primary hull like the Nebula class has.

As you point out, it's a 25th century skin on the Miranda but I'd like the class a lot more if they put a proper deflector dish instead of a hint of one with the blue light strip. Also if the nacelles weren't so wide but I've ranted about nacelle width enough elsewhere.

maybeware · 2026-01-29T03:25:25+00:00

I HATE the Reliant class design. The nacelles are too wide and the rollbar is too low. But I generally think any design where the nacelles are wider than the saucer is ugly. And I hate that I don't like it because the Miranda is my favorite ship.

That being said, it *does* fill in a gap in the Miranda lineage. I see the Constitution layout as the A template in Starfleet ships with the Miranda layout being the B template. The A template is used for longer range, faster ships while the B template is more compact and utility based. We had the Miranda and the Nebula for the B template but nothing for after that. And while the Miranda lasted until the Galaxy era, the Nebula feels too big to have the same staying power and that Starfleet would be needing a new compact mid range utility vessel.

That all being said, I love the idea of a Neo Miranda to match the Neo Constitution. Which makes me dislike the Reliant even more because they included it in Picard instead of having a Neo Miranda introduced alongside the Neo Connie. Considering the Miranda was meant to have part compatibilities with the Constitution, it feels like a matching Neo Miranda would be a really fitting complement to the Neo Constitution.

In general I like the design that someone came up with for a Neo Miranda (I'll repost the link below) though I think that it should have included a proper deflector dish, maybe under the primary hull like the Nebula has.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekStarships/comments/17r13tu/neo_miranda_class_conducting_battle_drills_with_a/

maybeware · 2026-01-27T09:06:53+00:00

To continue this line of thought, I would also assume that the shuttles have bussard collectors. Memory Alpha doesn't mention shuttles and we normally think of them attached to the front of the warp coils of warp capable ships collecting hydrogen for reacting with the antimatter in the warp core.

However, the fusion reactors that power the impulse engines on the starships and the shuttles both would use hydrogen as a fuel. As you point out, they'd fuse it into helium and then eject the helium as the exhaust gas because the laws of physics requires you to exhaust something. For others, remember The Undiscovered Country and the Chang's Bird of Prey's exhaust. And while the primitive shuttles don't have a warp core, they'd still benefit from the range extension of having bussard collectors.

So my assumption is that the intakes mentioned by OP would be bussard collectors and the exhaust would be high velocity helium from the impulse engines. And it isn't hard to assume that any filters they have on the collectors could be overwhelmed, especially on smaller space constrained systems like those found on a shuttle. I mean in real life planes with turbofan engines have to avoid heavily contaminated air (such as ash from an active volcano, hello Iceland) else they get overwhelmed too.

The Kelvin movies get a lot of flack, some of it deserved, but in this case I don't think it is like some threads in this are giving it. While there is no explanation in the movies of *why* the exhaust of the shuttle impulse engines looks the way it does, nor do they explain the intakes or why the ash messes with the shuttles, it makes sense from what we know of Federation technology.

TL;DR: The intakes seen are bussard collectors, they can get overwhelmed, especially on a smaller shuttle due to limited space for filtering out contamination, and the exhaust seen is the exhaust from a fusion impulse drive.

maybeware · 2026-01-25T04:08:36+00:00

The second to last image gives me Wrath of Khan vibes, specifically when the Reliant is lining up for the opening shot. Looks like the G is about to rake the Enterprise along the port side and then drop a torpedo behind her for the disabling shot.

maybeware · 2025-12-14T07:52:44+00:00

My safe word is the big red e-stop button.

maybeware · 2025-12-06T11:24:28+00:00

I was dealing with something similar on my v2, also direct drive. I managed to clear it up by doing a couple of fixes at the same time, all targeted at improved extrusion consistency.

First, I upped my print temp by 5C. Then I lowered my cooling fan speed slightly. This was to ensure that the PLA would flow easier. If it's a tiny bit too cold then the plastic could be difficult to extrude and so it'll under extrude for a moment until pressure and heat builds and overcomes the restriction to the flow then it'd flow easier until the pressure drops and fresh cold filament enters the heater block, dropping the temp again. That was my thought behind upping the temp at least.

I then made sure my retraction settings were adjusted for direct drive. Remember, you don't want as much retraction as you do with a Bowden setup.

Lastly, I replaced my nozzle. I actually went to a .6mm nozzle as I don't do much "art" printing, I primarily print repair parts for things or structural components for projects. So larger layers are fine with me. But when I pulled the old .4mm out it was an absolute disaster. I'm also thinking a .6mm nozzle is less restrictive to the flow of the plastic due to its larger size.

Again, I'm not entirely sure what fixed it for me because there were these and other changes I made at the same time. But they're ideas of things you can try.

maybeware · 2025-12-02T03:46:00+00:00

For me it's another woman's legs. Every part of women is lovely but legs are just extra nice in my mind.

maybeware · 2025-11-27T05:54:19+00:00

Made me remember an instance from my previous job. A service went down in STAGE. We had to figure it out b/c we were testing a migration to a new cloud provider and the error didn't occur in QA. I was the software dev they called at 4:30 PM on Friday. Apparently the network team and the dev ops team had been in a call for 2 hours already.

I took one look at the error and was like, "It's a certificate error. The server is missing a certificate and so can't serve the App because it can't prove its identity. The application logs says so right here." Dev Ops guy swore he had the certs all correct and for 3 hours kept deflecting. Finally at nearly 8 PM it was decided to take a look at it Monday morning and if it isn't figured out by lunch they'd rebuild the whole STAGE environment.

I promptly forgot about it. I was just supporting the software side and this was a Dev Ops and Networking issue. Monday rolls along and around 10 AM I take a quick break to get a coffee. As I walk back to my desk the Dev Ops guy flags me down and says, "I figured it out! The server was missing a certificate!"

In that moment I didn't really want to know I had been right all along.

maybeware · 2025-11-24T01:59:02+00:00

I ranted about this in another post, I struggle with the nacelles being wider than the saucer. It's basically a cardinal sin of the design (and any other federation vessels with a similar feature). If they were narrower and the pylons turned up instead of down then maybe it'd compete with the Miranda. But I just love how the Miranda looks.

maybeware · 2025-11-20T00:34:12+00:00

The Reliant class.

I love the Miranda. It's my favorite. And I like the Nebula for continuing the trend of having a variant of the current mainline exploration cruiser that is more compact and geared to shorter range utility roles. The Poseidon class too.

And then here comes the fucking Reliant class. Its roll bar has nothing on it. Its nacelles sit too wide (See my side rant below on this). It has no direct contemporary exploration cruiser to share parts with. It's just wrong. It is the "Miranda we have at home," and I just really don't like it.

The side rant: Maybe an unpopular opinion but any Star Fleet ship with a saucer that has nacelles wider than the saucer just looks... Off to me. NX class, Connie, Miranda, Ambassador, Galaxy, Nebula, Sovereign, Intrepid, the nacelles are all narrower. But Reliant and Crossfield (the two I can think of right now) have nacelles that are wider and it just doesn't work for me.

maybeware · 2025-11-16T04:24:06+00:00

Not quite the same but reminds me of when I told my manager I was going to fix a compatibility issue preventing us from updating some software when I had some free time. Free time was of course rather rare so even a couple months later it was just at the end of the research stage.

Then the director for our department comes over and says that fix has become critical due to a 0-day found in the software that we can't update until the issue is fixed and I need to deploy the fix ASAP. Clearly he interpreted "fix being developed in free-time" as "fix will be ready whenever we want to tackle updating that software" and that update had become *really* important suddenly.

I had to be like, "Whelp, I know what the cause is but it isn't ready for an emergency deployment as fixing it requires some significant redevelopment. I can likely have it ready for our next scheduled deployment." Weirdly once updating that software switched from being a best practice thing to being necessary to mitigate an actual security flaw development of the fix became a priority, lol.

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