From left to right are a scratchbuilt light cruiser (CL), the Gamescience CC, and a modified Gamescience battle tug (BT). All were completed decades ago yet have miraculously survived to be photographed here under full sunlight with an antique digital camera.

The battle tug is modified to follow a "philosophy" of ST technology I find persuasive that I got from Keith Doms of Newark, DE. He suggested that the warp technology mostly used by Feds, Klingons, and Romulans requires a pair of warp nacelles that generate the poles of the warp field, and that there is a zone of really high flux between the nacelles in which you don't place any of the ship's structure, because its atoms would be ripped apart. Of course, you see lots of ST ships that prove that not everyone shares this philosophy, including Gamescience's BT. The alterations to the BT required heavily modifying the lower hull & warp nacelle struts and included a teardrop shaped shuttle bay. (The lower hull still snap-fits onto the cargo modules--a cool feature of the Gamescience BT that comes in handy when you are overwhelmed by Orion pirates and have to run away without your tail between your legs.

The scratchbuilt CL has a slightly smaller saucer diameter and smaller warp nacelles. The idea was a TOS Reliant, so why I didn't mark it NCC-1864 USS Reliant makes me question my sanity. It's marked NCL-6604 USS Aurora (and the BT NBT-1207 USS Hephaestos, with cargo modules NCM-784 and NCM-641). Okay, probably I was off my nut coming up with other designations than NCC, but there was NX-2000 USS Excelsior--and since then NX-01 USS Enterprise--and hey, Starfleet is not going to waste NCC designations on non-warp capable cargo modules.

Anyway, the CL has one item from my spares box, a deflector dish that started life as a Pit Road 1/700 Soviet radar. The saucer was built up of styrene sheet turned on a homemade lathe, the warp nacelles from sprue turned to have a taper, with the deflector hull and port & starboard strut-mounted phaser banks made of Sculpey. The finish is a hand-brushed blend of a couple shades of Humbrol with hand lettered markings. Similarly the BT, but with randomly shaded panels and weathering, lending a garbage scow appearance. Clear domes and navigation lights are paint under a bead of Micro Krystal Kleer, as on my Klingon ships.

Front

Front left

Aft

More aft