"The Pegasus" was the worst for me. They made such a big deal of it being a super advanced prototype with experimental technologies, then they recycle the Oberth. Being buried in the rock when we do see it, it would have been so easy just to dig out some ship pieces, an old saucer and modify a warp nacelle and stick them into rock instead. We never needed to see an entire ship, only some Starfleet parts and let our imagination complete the design.
Oberth's are honestly better as Logistics Support vessels than anything else. They're not supposed to be front line anything. Spoiler: Oberth Variants
Maybe the Oberth class was originally conceived as a ship that wouldn't be usable on the front lines... however, that was in the 23rd century. As technology advances, and ships are upgraded, their capabilities improve over time - that means less need for support craft as all ships in Starfleet tend to come with high levels of automation and self-repair systems anyway. If it wasn't discontinued after 'Generations' movie, the Oberth class may have received a large 24th century refit to fit in with the times... their primary function would probably still be support, but they would have vastly improved range and could probably stay closer to frontline ships to provide support if its needed and even do stand-alone exploration themselves too. Look at the Nova class for example. It was originally described by Janewasy in the following manner: " It was designed for planetary research, not long range tactical missions." In VOY episode 'Endgame' we saw the USS Rhode Island (another Nova class starship) which packed quite a punch, seemed to have been very fast, and was able to quickly disable two Klingon Negh'Var class ships - so it seems that because of the said upgrades, the Nova Class was able to do deep space exploration (as Harry Kim was away doing just that on the Rhode Island for 4 years) and long range tactical missions now. It suggests that SF vastly improved on the Nova class capabilities which were still in active use 26 years later... at least in that timeline. It seems that initially conceived starships that had 'limited use' received upgrades which radically expanded on their overall capabilities. In the 23rd century, the upgrades would have added some functions to the said ship and improved overall capabilities, but probably nothing along the lines of what 24th century tech could do. So, if the Oberth is still in use, my guess would be that much like the Nova class, it received internal and external upgrades which made it more suitable for use in the 24th century.
This example and all the other uses of the Grissom model could have been avoided had they simply built a small TNG-era science vessel right at the start of season 1. But unfortunately they didn't. First of all, I'm not sure why you needed to put that diagram as a spoiler, because it's just a fan-made chart that isn't spoiling anything. Second, none of those variants were ever shown on screen. In every case where the Grissom model was used, it was the exact same configuration as seen in TSFS. So there is no indication at all the the ship is modular. And finally, the appearances of the ship on screen varied wildly as to their missions: Grissom: Science vessel Tsiolkovsky: Science vessel Cochrane: transport Biko: supply ship Bonestell: front-line ship Yosemite: science vessel Biko: Civilian vessel Pegasus: front-line ship
Some people don't like having big images appear in their posts. So I hide them behind the Spoiler buttons so you can choose to open and view the images at your leisure. That gives you, the end user, a choice.
That looks like a Nebula class style modification on the Ambassador class starship. If it exists in-universe, it could be a direct predecessor to the Nebula class... or an actual Nebula class starship (but before TNG upgrade).
The Warp Nacelles are WAY too far forward. They should've been placed much further back if it was to emulate the Nebula class.
As much admiration as I have for Sternbach's work, I actually don't like this design all that much, and am glad it wasn't used. Rick did tell me once that he envisioned the ship as being scaled down from the normal Ambassador size (like the BoBW kitbashes were) to make a smaller ship, but the Ambassador class base still seems too old of a design. Granted it's still newer than the Oberth, but I would think a Galaxy precursor ship would look more like the aforementioned BoBW kitbashes, rather than a badly-designed kitbash of the Ambassador.
I would like it better if there was some reason behind the design you could see. I dislike most Starfleet kit bashes because they mostly just rearrange modular parts but for no real benefit aside from just yo look different. Don't care much for the Belknap Strike Cruiser either as it looks like a Connie with the nacelles attached at the bottom instead of at the top of the secondary hull. I am well aware of the in Universe reasons why, but I personally just do not see it.
That's just keeping up with the current state of tech. But the modular docking pylon is why I say it should be used for Logistics. It's literally a perfect way to attach random sized cargo of any sort. You have two pylons that can connect to a standardized flat plate that can attach to nearly any shape cargo with fitments. Or adjust the pylons to connect to whatever. Have a standardized Pylon base that you design modular Pylons to attach to your specialized cargo. It's easy enough for StarFleet to design a StarFleet standardized attachment point for nearly any cargo type out there.
That's assuming of course the design of the Oberth class remains unaltered (which I don't think is what would necessarily happen). For all we know, the Oberth retained majority of her external design, but was otherwise altered to fit more with the 24th century. Perhaps it could have received a Galaxy class style neck to the secondary hull (to bridge that rather uncomfortable gap and allow greater ease of access to it), along with TNG style pylons, nacelles and deflector dish. It wouldn't be impossible for SF to alter the design of a ship but keep it as the same class. Or, it could have been Kelvin-ized like here: https://imgur.com/a/94NIxKl I actually like the Kelvin style Oberth... but I'm more of an opinion that SF would have altered the design a bit by the late 24th century from what it was in the 23rd century so it keeps with the times. There are several 23rd century ship designs that were 'remade' in TNG style for example... so I'm thinking something like
Every single time we saw an Oberth in TNG, it was completely unchanged from its appearance 80 years previously as the Grissom. Even when such a change should theoretically have been made, such as the Biko (a transport/cargo ship) not having any actual cargo containers. Although I'm sure the writers for "A Fistful of Datas" weren't envisioning that stock footage of that model ended up being used for the Biko, just like the writers of "Unnatural Selection" didn't envision the Reliant model being used for their Class 3 supply ship Lantree.
That "Lantree" Supply Ship seems "Awfully Tough" & "Well Armed". I wonder if any Space Pirates would come "Mess with it". =D
From what we saw in TNG, even though the ENT-D encountered 80 year old ship designs out there, internally, they all sported modern LCARS user interfaces. To me, this suggests, the designs were upgraded over time and kept them usable to Starfleet... its just that in that particular point in history, they didn't receive significant external upgrades that would change their appearance just yet (that may have been reserved for after the Dominion War - but I'm sure that ST: Picard creators would describe any such changes as being new classes of ships. As for space pirates attempting to mess with it... doubtful. Pirates may have been more common in the 23rd century when UFP was at a sufficiently expanded level of fleet operations where more patrolling would have been instigated... but I doubt the route the Lantree was taking at the time would have been considered a danger. Plus, I doubt space pirates would dare attack a Federation ship in the 24th century. Late 22nd century and possibly on some occasions in the 23rd? Yes. In the 24th? The incidents of such nature would have probably diminished significantly to the point where most of UFP space (excepting perhaps areas of it near its borders) would be quite safe for travel - the most dangerous hazzards would likely be potential anomalies, but otherwise, no space pirates.
I do recall from ST: Disco 32nd century (and I don't like using it as a reference too much because its way too primitive technologically if you ask me) that United Earth captain N'doye mentioned Disco's construction and metalurgy date to sometime between 23rd and 25th centuries. This suggests that SF was using same alloys etc. in ship construction for 200 years (which is incidentally same amount of time ships were initially designed to last for in that time period)... and vessels built in the 23rd century might not have received full blown external design changes in some cases until the late 25th century (when changes in construction and metalurgy would presumably occur) and would have (mostly) received internal upgrades up to that point. Also, some variations on 80-year old designs with modern updates didn't come immediately in the 24th century... they were seen in the later half of the 24th century (aka, post VOY return to AQ). A few ships as seen in the 23rd century DID appear to get what seemed to be TNG-era style modifications/upgrades - aka, designs were identical in layout and size, but were TNG-enified. My guess is that the 24th century upgrades would be mostly internalized leading up to the Dominion War (similar to what the Lakota got and what we saw in TNG - so its possible not all ships of older classess got external changes). After that point in time, 80 year old designs may have started receiving more modern external parts and would end up looking more like other 24th century ships in terms of appearance (something akin to Obena class - which to me still looks to be just a late 24th century style upgrade for the existing Excelsior - aka, 'it came out all Sovereign class'). Full blown changes to external 80 years old designs wouldn't be made until sometime in the 25th century in all likelihood (which would fit nicely with what N'doye mentioned of Disco's metalurgy and construction).
While the above would be logical, canon doesn't necessarily agree as we have the example of the Acamarian Gatherers (the Vengence Factor was specifically kicked off by them attacking a Federation outpost) and the Orion Syndicate (historically pirates and slavers, but perhaps more smugglers in the 24th?). The Miradorn ship from DS9's Vortex was also referred to as a "Theta-class raider" which sorta implies piracy.