Placing the Star Trek 'verse (not neutrek) in the 'modern' traditional time line... I am referring to the end of the TNG movies, Voyager and DS9 histories... what classes of ships are still in service with StarFleet? (the talk of the Galaxy class failure thread got me thinking about what classes of ships does StarFleet 'currently have in service)
Somehow I doubt the Deadulous(sp) class is still in service. lol But is that pre-StarFleet now that I think about it?
Based on the Mirandas and Excelsiors, I'd say there's about a 100 year shelf life for ships. It's possible that some were brought out of mothballs to fight in the Dominion War, but you see Oberths and Excelsiors in TNG, so that's not the case.
I imagine that the Excelsiors, Oberths, and Mirandas are probably being phased out, or are phased out, by the end of the Dominion War. (Probably as much from being shot down as anything else.) There never seemed to be all that many Ambassador-class ships in the first place. I would assume that most of the "kitbashes" we saw in DS9 were being retired after the end of the Dominion War, especially those with 23rd Century-era components. There are definitely still: Galaxy Defiant Intrepid Nebula Akira Danube (Runabouts) Norway Nova Olympic Prometheus Saber Sovereign Steamrunner If we include the novels, we also have: Centaur (Articles of the Federation) Luna (Star Trek: Titan) Vesta (Star Trek: Destiny)
If I remember correctly, past a certain point in DS9 we never see Oberths again. Which is a good thing, as it is the most ridiculously weak vessel that I can think of in Trek. With ONE torpedo, it can be destroyed with full shields when the enemy was specifically trying to not destroy it. Sci seems right on the mark about what we can say for sure is still in active service.
Ambassador, too. It's just that the filming model was severely damaged in a studio accident and didn't get the on-screen representation it otherwise might have had.
That seems about right. Any of the other non-canon older "background ship" designs have probably been retired too, but if it's close to TNG-level tech, it's probably still in service. (I didn't know the Centaur class was possibly still in service. I think I'd prefer it were retired, personally. ) It's been my take that the Galaxy class actually succeeded the Ambassador, which is why we don't see many of them. It's been speculated the earliest Ambassadors were launched in the 2320s-2330s, and since we more or less know there weren't very many Galaxys built, there probably weren't many Ambassadors built either, and most of those remaining were probably retired as Galaxys came online to replace them.