Tbh, none of the Enterprise classes were that good-looking:
- Constitution v1: Always looked "wrong" to me. The thick and too small saucer with its top and bottom warts, the too cylindrical nacelles and hull, the height/angle of the pylons, the fact that the saucer is only linked to the hull by a thin pylon and that awful, awful deflector.
It might be iconic, but it's quite ugly.
- Constitution v2: nacelles are much better, saucer a bit better, deflector a lot better, but the hull is still too cylindrical/fat and pylons unchanged.
Overall, an improvement, but still quite ugly.
- Excelsior: saucer too small, hull just weird (why does it just taper off so abruptly at the tail end?), the pylon/hull contraption looks like pointless complication (they can attach pylons to the hull directly, why add that tumor and center them?), still insisting on having the nacelles at the same height as the saucer.
- Ambassador: Galaxy, McDonalds version! Damn, that thing looks fat!
On one hand, it is indeed a perfect middle-point between the Excelsior and the Galaxy: the pylons have the Excelsior's right angles, but are placed like the Galaxy's, the saucer is starting to be more streamlined but still retains some thickness, the fat hull is reminiscent of the Constitution (but very much overdone) but has a Galaxy deflector and the nacelles are the Galaxy's, but in true ToS fashion are at the same height as the saucer.
On the other hand, it's very ugly.
- Galaxy: a vast improvement, the Galaxy looks good under some angles, but flawed under others.
The major culprits (and very unusual for an 80s design!) are curves. Curves start to replace straight lines, and that always looks better... and ages better!
It's the reason why cars of the 70s and 90s both look better now than those of the aforementioned 80s (Lamborghini V12 examples: the Miura and the Diablo both aged better than the Countach).
The non-cylindrical hull is an improvement, the lower-placed nacelles (though they look pudgy) too, the thin saucer as well... though it is indeed too big.
The neck, highly depends on the viewing angle.
- Sovereign: well, the Sovereign looks like a Constitution done right:
Flimsy saucer-pylon replaced by a neck-like extension of the hull? Check.
Non-cylindrical, more streamlined, non-parallel nacelles ? Check.
Better pylon angles and height? Check.
Saucer finally reaching a good size, remaining thin and becoming oval? Check.
But there's something wrong with that deflector section and the hull still looks quite fat.
- NX: the NX isn't ugly, but still looks like a worse Akira.
- J: looks too flimsy. If the Ambassador was morbidly obese, this is anorexic!
And yes, I realise no one cares about all I wrote above. I still wanted to.
Anyway, form a pure gameplay point of view, I don't see the need for an Ambassador-class.
Afterall, what makes a new Ship unique in STO is its BOFF layout, in the end. And the Odyssey/Bortasqu' made many variations irrelevant for Cruisers.
They painted themselves in a corner by making a LC Uni and E Uni on the same non-lockbox Ships.
I hear there's both a T3 ship (where the Ambassador would logically belong) and a T5 ship. Maybe different?
), or maybe one of the T4 skins - the Celestial is pretty much Not-Ambassador anyways.
and the Galaxy is not my favorite Starfleet ship, not by a long shot (though the beauty shots of the Ent-D were the only good parts of TATV).
- and didn't care for the swept Pylons either.
