Much larger image
I originally created the Asgard class back in 2002/2003, using Paint, which can still be found here, at the JoAT. My inexperience at both drawing starships and working in Paint is pretty obvious, which is why at the beginning of this year, I decided to go back and update the design. This is my progress so far. With nacelles, she'll be around 420m long.
Some history on the ship:
The Asgard was developed as a competing design to the Prometheus. While the latter design was focused on the multi-vector assault mode and it's extremely high warp speed capabilities, the Asgard focused on a more traditional approach, taking the fire-power of ships such as the Galaxy or Sovereign and placing it in a ship much closer in size to the Intrepid class. While ultimately the Prometheus class would win the competition, 3 Asgards would be constructed. (I personally like to think that only Prometheus herself retained the MVAM and all future ships in that class had a unified hull).
Like Prometheus, the Asgard features regenerative shielding and ablative armour. Her phasers are Type XII (based on how easily the Prometheus blew through the Nebula's shields) and she has 4 pulse fire torpedo tubes. Unique to the Asgard are a pair of phaser cannons flanking the deflector dish. These are capable of firing a sustained phaser beam for several seconds. The power output of each cannon would be similar to one of the pulse phaser cannons on the Defiant, although the Asgard cannons must wait significantly longer between firing. (My thinking for the cannons is to provide the ship a strong opening attack, used to try and quickly batter down an opponents shields for an early torpedo strike to the hull. Once fully engaged in combat, the limited firing arc of the cannons mean that the ship would then use her conventional phaser arrays. The sustained fire is intended to make them more useful against stationary targets such as starbases or against larger targets that cannot easily manoeuvre out of the way, such as Borg vessels.)
The Asgard is equipped with two full size pairs of impulse engines, a primary pair in the stern and the secondary pair at the aft of the saucer. The two pairs are intended to provide redundancy in combat and larger power reserves.
Warp performance would be largely the same as the Sovereign, say 9.9 maximum cruise and a maximum burst of maybe 9.95 for 24 hours. Of course, this is easily beaten by the Intrepid's maximum cruise of 9.975, which I assume the Prometheus beats slightly.
Asgard's big advantage over the Prometheus is her internal space. The Prometheus is a long, slim ship to start with, and a great of internal space must be taken up by the multi-vector assault mode and all the related equipment. Asgard doesn't have that problem, which is why she can have a shuttlebay that dwarfs the one on the Prometheus (which due to the seperation line, can't have a maintenance level below the main bay, further reducing it's capability).
Woah, that was a lot longer than I intended. What I'm trying to do is keep my original 15yr old fanboys assault cruiser intact while providing a valid reason for why Starfleet would build two starships that fill the same role in the same period of time.
For the artwork, while there's still a great deal of detail to be added, the main problem I have is coming up with a nacelle design that I like.
This is my first post here, although I've been lurking for a few months, so hey all.
