During the run of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television show, none of the Enterprise D model’s lifeboats (escape pods) on the outer hull were detailed. They were just painted squares as production did not expect them to be seen well on the small screen. However, when the ship appeared in the feature film Star Trek: Generations, the repainted six-foot shooting model was adorned with decals on each lifeboat as per the various blueprints created along the way:

While I am building my model to represent the television show version, I do love the additional, accurate lifeboat details provided by this new Lifeboat Hatch Transfers mod I received from the infamous Mike Lane.
If this spacecraft were real, each lifeboat would surely be numbered individually to be readily identifiable. But, on the 6-foot model, they just used the same few numbers over and over again. Again, it was not expected that this detail would be noticed in the movie. This mod provides 500 incrementally numbered dry transfer decals that we can apply to each lifeboat on our model. He also offers a less expensive, sticker version of the same decals.
I will be adding these to my build once the top surface of the saucer is completed.