Constitution, Miranda, and Constelation Class

[Brainsucker]

EmperorTiberius wrote:

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I don't see why Starfleet wouldn't build new excelsiors though. The technology didn't change in the last 80 years. Sure the existing tech has improved, but there was no revolutionary new technology in play. Galaxy class is projected for 100 years...
If Lakota can be upgraded to be able to match a defiant class in firepower, why not keep building them from ground up?
Until Sovereign class was built, which ship would fill the roll of excelsior better than excelsior?

Well, this is the problem (the bold one). Say Defiant is indeed a newer star ship compared to an excelsior class. Buuut..., it is smaller. And, logically, a smaller starship should be easier and cheaper to build. So why would they make a newer excelsior (that can't outmatch the Defiant) if they could make cheaper but powerful Defiant Class?

[Timo]

Power isn't necessarily all that important. A tiny wooden torpedo boat would in theory have the same firepower as a much larger steel destroyer, a few guns aside - but a torpedo boat would be useless in waging naval war, as it would have no fuel, supplies or accommodation for practical operational range, it would sink in the first squall or after taking the first glancing hit from the secondary or tertiary weaponry of an actual warship, and it could not accommodate useful new sensors or weapons or even the means to repair or maintain the existing systems.

Timo Saloniemi

[Tomalak]

Dukhat wrote:

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They needed to build another Excelsior model because they couldn't use the original one, as it had the Ent-B parts permanently stuck to it.

Interestingly, during pre-production for Generations, the producers were going to have an all-new model built for the Ent-B, of a different class. If that would have happened, then the original model could have been used for "Flashback," and we might have seen more ships of the Ent-B's new class later in DS9. But that's not what happened.

Though ironically the reason for the extra bits on the Enterprise-B was to avoid cutting into the original model, so it could be damaged and subsequently restored to its original condition.

Obviously that didn't quite go to plan!

[EmperorTiberius]

Brainsucker wrote:

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Well, this is the problem (the bold one). Say Defiant is indeed a newer star ship compared to an excelsior class. Buuut..., it is smaller. And, logically, a smaller starship should be easier and cheaper to build. So why would they make a newer excelsior (that can't outmatch the Defiant) if they could make cheaper but powerful Defiant Class?

What Timo said.

One is a cruiser, another a frigate. Defiant is absolutelly useless for anything except war. This makes it severelly limited and dependent on other vessels. Its usefuleness is even hampered in a war because of it's warp 9.5 limit. It can't intercept effectivelly, it can't escape more powerful warships. Without a cloaking device, this becomes a serious handicap. It can't go too far from the station. Defiant is in my top 5 ships, but I would only use it during massed fleet engagements.

Cruisers are best ships in Starfleet because of their multi-role capabilities. How would a warship fare in "Best of the Both Worlds" where the crew needed a cybernetics lab?

[Timo]

Though ironically the reason for the extra bits on the Enterprise-B was to avoid cutting into the original model, so it could be damaged and subsequently restored to its original condition.

Was it this - or was it just that the side sponsons provided an easy way to build the necessary interior bits of the damaged section, much easier than first cutting a hole in the existing hull and then inserting miniature decks and whatnot?

And were such interiors incorporated in the sponsons? Or was the damage all CGI in the end? The Lakota version wantonly flaunts undamaged sponsons...

John Eaves describes the design process from the aesthetic viewpoint, attributing the sponsons to his desire to imitate the Catalina flying boat, but he does say in the passing that the basic idea of the extra bits was to spare the original model, or "...so that the Nexus ribbon could whip off a chunk of the ship without destroying the whole ship". But the irreversibility of the modifications might still have been clear from the start.

Timo Saloniemi

[TommyR01D]

Starfleet platform-sharing with its ships doesn't strike me as THAT odd. Look at what cars are like today: The Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 are all exactly the same car underneath. Then look at Volkswagen; If you compare say, the Golf to an Audi A3, or any other small hatchback in one of the VW empire's subsidiaries, you would find that they had much the same design. It therefore makes sense that Starfleet would use similar shapes in multiple classes of Starship, since it means they only have to design one saucer section instead of three.

[Unicron]

I also think they'd want to get as much use out of a specific design as they can. The Oberth is a good example of this - it's easy to swap out the lower pod and stick something in its place, as Jackill did with his light tug variant.

[Dukhat]

Unicron wrote:

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The Oberth is a good example of this - it's easy to swap out the lower pod and stick something in its place, as Jackill did with his light tug variant.

Unfortunately, there's never been any instance in canon Trek where that was even remotely the case with an Oberth.

(Sorry, you'll have to forgive my whine...I just hate that ship so much )

[Brainsucker]

TommyR01D wrote:

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Starfleet platform-sharing with its ships doesn't strike me as THAT odd. Look at what cars are like today: The Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 are all exactly the same car underneath. Then look at Volkswagen; If you compare say, the Golf to an Audi A3, or any other small hatchback in one of the VW empire's subsidiaries, you would find that they had much the same design. It therefore makes sense that Starfleet would use similar shapes in multiple classes of Starship, since it means they only have to design one saucer section instead of three.

well yes, but the motivation behind Toyota's design decision is business oriented. They sell the design for profit. While Star Fleet is the user. They don't sell Starship for profit. Thus, using the same design for newer technology is cheaper than making a whole new design for the same ships underneath.

Unless, they use the different design to distinguish the Earth ship to Vulcan ship and Andorian ship.

Or... they use the newest design for the core members (Earthling, Vulcan, and Andorian) fleets while the older design to the other member's fleet.

Hey that's making sense. If my memory serve right, doesn't the Federation gave Bajor the Ambassador Class Design after they join Starfleet?

Maybe it work this way :

top tier : Earth, Vulcan, Andorian
-> is given Sovereign, Defiant, Intrepid class
2nd tier : Bajor, etc
-> is given Excelsior, Ambassador, etc

[Timo]

If my memory serve right, doesn't the Federation gave Bajor the Ambassador Class Design after they join Starfleet?

That was in the early DS9 novel Antimatter. The Ambassador class ship was being built on the surface of Bajor, on old Bajoran shipyards (an aspect of the old Bajoran culture never explicated in the TV show - did they build modern starships before the Occupation or did they not?), but for the needs of Starfleet. While Bajorans supposedly learned at least part of the art of building an Ambassador, they would probably have been bombed back to stone age had they tried to build one on their own without Starfleet permission.

The TV shows had nothing of the sort: only actual UFP members were shown or told to be producing ships for Starfleet, and the only dockyards we really saw were at Earth or Mars. And funnily enough, until the latest movie, those yards were only ever shown repairing preexisting ships (and launching a few already completed ones). That is, unless one assumes that ships with low registries can be taken for recent builds.

Timo Saloniemi

[Unicron]

It's somewhat interesting that the last (and Nintendo Hard) mission of 25th Anniversary had an old nemesis of Kirk's gaining control of his planetary government and getting it to join the Federation, just so they could have the resources to build Fed starships and duplicate the USS Enterprise to ruin Kirk's name.

[Timo]

...And boy wasn't it fun to try and fight a Constitution armed with a Romulan plasma weapon and backed up by two local gunboats! I usually hit hard reverse, put all energy and repair effort on shields, and kept reversing and turning until I could pump enough photon torpedoes into the capital enemy to slow him down. Then I picked a fight with one gunboat at a time, fired volleys of everything and ran, licked my wounds, did another hit-and-run raid, and veeeeeery slowly wore off the enemy defenses until I could eliminate the gunboats. The Constitution rejoined the battle by then, so again I'd have to run and heal until I could deprive him of freedom of movement again, then hit him from the rear where he had no weaponry.

I wonder... many of Picard's enemies seemed to know the hero captain's starship in and out, including two-bit villains such as the Rutian terrorists. How difficult would it really be to duplicate a working starship? Rather than a semi-inert mockup like in "Mark of Gideon"?

Timo Saloniemi

[Unicron]

I don't recall the duplicate Enterprise having the Romulan weapon, since Starfleet didn't have access to it. But I haven't played the game in ages and I never survived very long, so maybe I just never saw it in use.

[blssdwlf]

Timo wrote:

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I wonder... many of Picard's enemies seemed to know the hero captain's starship in and out, including two-bit villains such as the Rutian terrorists. How difficult would it really be to duplicate a working starship? Rather than a semi-inert mockup like in "Mark of Gideon"?

Why duplicate one when you could just pick up one abandoned in space?

I'd guess that if Starfleet had any proprietary technology it was all copied by the Ferengi after they got a hold of USS Stargazer and it sparked a proliferation of black market Federation military-grade equipment and arms...