Ken asked me to run outpost and station options past everyone. The question is really for the Federation, given the canon stations we have seen over the series and films. I think this was done before, but it apparently has been a while. I wasn't around for it, if it was.

We have a Fed Outpost I, Fed Outpost II, Fed Starbase I, Fed Starbase II and a Fed Science Station

Right now:
Station K7 is Outpost I
Regula I is Outpost II
Vanguard 47 is Starbase I
ST-III is Starbase II
And a station seen in some of the Utopia Planetia pictures is the science station. In the same order, they are below.

Here are other images of the stations and some other stations seen in the series or at least concepts for the series. Any favorites you would like to see used instead of some other?

At first glance I would say your selection, changed a little from the old order, is sound. I like it and the look of your images.

Rememberer that until we decide otherwise the yards will be seen in combat so need models as stations too.

Is this what you will use for fed outpost_ii?

I apologize Ken. Not catching what you mean in the post before the one above.

This is Outpost II. Sorry, I accidentally left it out.

They look nice and look to be in a logical progression by appearance. I like it.

A fan might point out, corrected me if I am wrong, that what we are using above as starbase_ii was seen in a TOS movie and is from the era of Kirk. What we are using as starbase_i is from TNG and that much later in Federation history. If you believe "canon" over appearance they should be the other way around. I would go with appearance in this case. If we get a lot of heat over it we can just come up with one alternate non-canon starbase to break up the sequence. That is when we have the time to spend developing a new model that looks as good as all this.

I think you have 3 images with the yellow/red tanks already (shipyard_ii, outpost_ii, genesis_research_lab). Maybe not using so many?

Kenneth are you saying Vanguard is from Next Generation? To be honest I don't recall seeing Vanguard anywhere in the series (I may have just forgotten), but all the images I see with Vanguard in them, have Kirk era starships docked or approaching them. So there is K7 as a Outpost I, and Vanguard as a Starbase I (Kirk era?). Maybe what you meant was that Regula I is a (late) Kirk era Outpost (as outpost II) and then the large starbase II was also seen in a Kirk era movie (as well as seen in Next Gen). Essentially our Outpost II and Starbase II are Enterprise Refit era. It is however also true that a tankless Regula I was seen in a Next Gen era episode.

In reality, the Federation outposts and starbases have not shown much progression and we have not seen many stations from the other major races at all. I sort of assumed that these structures are such huge undertakings that they stay in service (with internal updates) a long time. This would especially be true of Starbase II. It is huge, if starships can dock within it and would be as difficult to dismantle as it was to build.

Oh, and shipyard_ii is on my to do list for replacement some day. I was brainstorming ideas when I made it. This does bring up a point about Regula I as an outpost. In a sense, if we had a science station I and science station II, Regula I would be more accurately used for science station I than just outpost I.

I was wondering if the following would be considered as a science station as well? I believe it was grouped with our current one?

Yes, it looks like a science station to me so I would run with it.

I guess you are right about the eras of those stations. We should be good to go. We will see if anyone else has any issues with it.

Yes in some of the pictures I have seen, Immense station, the above proposed science station, and the current science station with the stacked saucers were together at Utopia Planetia. I wish I remembered the episodes better as to any indication as to how they were used. Remember the Voyager episodes with the Doctor downloaded to a station to help treat his designer or the one with Reg working on communication with Voyager? Did they show an external station shot with those? Those were scientific activities.

This is good. It gives people a chance to see the selection process and give input before we make it so.

Question about fed outpost II. I have seen two versions of it floating around the internets. One looks like what you show us. The other has those red and gold "rods" (hull extension) removed. Which one is real? If they are both, wouldn't it be interesting to make the one without the hull as outpost II and the one with it as outpost III?





Also I would like to see outposts get put in chronological order, but to me, your outpost I looks more like a civilian base than a military outpost.

Thanks for the input. The outpost with the red and green tanks was seen upside down in the very first movie. Kirk traveled from this "office complex" in a pod to view the Enterprise refit the first time. You can see it in my big Dec 25 post of all the stations. It is the last one on the bottom left.

The extra office modules were removed from this model and it was turned upside down and dubbed "Regula I" for The Wrath of Kahn. This is our current "Outpost I." Much later in DS-9, the tanks were removed and it was used a station, as seen in your image above. I don't remember what they called it.

So it is true that this tankless version could be seen as a later outpost.

I just remembered an outpost that was destroyed by VGER in the first movie.

We also don't plan to have an Outpost III, Zweinstein, although no doubt some people may decide to mod it in the future. As you can see above though, there are a large number of potential designs that we can use. You could even decide to use different station models one day.