Brainstorming Starship Registries

[J.T.B.]

Somewhat in the spirit of the way the Air Force did this with aircraft designations when they started getting into high numbers.

...It has to be remembered that the low numbers had never been used in the scheme in the first place. When the Air Force was founded, the old USAAF numbers still in use were "adopted" into the new scheme, with Pursuit planes like P-40 Warhawk becoming Fighters with F designations. And AFAIK, the lowest-numbered such designation theoretically adopted was P->F-38 Lightning, while "the highest of the low" the modern USAF has used so far is F-35 for the JSF (coincidentally named Lightning II). Even F-38 was never used in practice, though, the "lowest high" F-fighter in USAF service being F-80 Shooting Star. There's a long way to go till they hit that number!

The old USN designations are a different matter entirely...

The old USN designations are key to the story. When SecDef McNamara decreed in 1962 that aircraft designations be uniform across the services, the navy system had to be fit into the USAF/army system. To make it as painless as possible, the navy planes were given numbers similar to their old numbers. So the F3H Demon became the F-3, F4H Phantom II became the F-4, the F8U Crusader became the F-8, and so on. But, this didn't always work out, so the F3D Skyknight became the F-10, and the F4D Skyray became the F-6.

At the time, the USAF was designating the Phantom the F-110 (and calling it Spectre), but it in the new system it became the F-4. So the USAF fighter numbers got re-routed back to the low end. Except for the F-117, which is a story all its own.

--Justin

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Assuming that the Constellation is a ship like the Enterprise. The fan material I referred to assumes she is not.

Isn't it obvious? You've only got to *look* at them. They're obviously of the same class. Even before remastering.

 

[Timo]

Not really. Ships with similar level of dissimilarities tend to belong to different classes or at least subclasses in the real world - that's the whole point of having class designations, to tell apart ships with performance differences outwardly indicated by subtle visual differences only.

The question is, are two closely related classes with these key differences manufactured back to back, or is some other design in the same category manufactured in between? Say, Starfleet could have built twenty ships in the Constellation configuration, with NCC-1000-1019, then twenty ships each in Miranda-like or other such configurations, with NCC-1100-1119, 1200-1219 and so forth, and then returned to a refined version of the Constellation style, with NCC-1700-1765 or something. Happens all the time with mass-produced ship designs (in practice destroyers or smaller types).

It is IMHO needless oversimplification to try and claim that two roughly similar objects on screen must be perfectly identical. The makers of the show would have loved some variety if they could just have afforded it. Why defeat their efforts by insisting that our eyes must be fooling us in this occasion when they see subtle differences?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It is IMHO needless oversimplification to try and claim that two roughly similar objects on screen must be perfectly identical. The makers of the show would have loved some variety if they could just have afforded it. Why defeat their efforts by insisting that our eyes must be fooling us in this occasion when they see subtle differences?

Ever hear of Occam's Razor? It's needless to assume difference where none has been proven to exist. If it looks like a Connie, it *is* a Connie, until we are told otherwise.

 

[Timo]

As I've often said, Occam's razor has no use in showbiz, which is all about false moustaches.

We're not gaining anything by claiming that the two ships are the same. There's no inherent victory there, no dramatic reason to assume that Kirk and Decker flew the exact same type of starship. Indeed, the TOS universe is the poorer for that conclusion, when it could be richer for the opposite one.

Why, if simplicity were a goal an sich, we should overlook the fact that the detailing on Kirk's ship is asymmetric and assume a symmetric vessel, because that's what TPTB must have intended, right?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[HRHTheKING]

Thought it'd be best to make a seprate post for this but following on from the Brainstroming Ship names post, how do you come up with unique registries for Starships that you make up? I realise that there is a sort of pattern that most people will follow, like 1700's and 1800's for Constitution and later Mirandas, 2000's for Excelsior and 74600's for Intrepids but how will you know that the registry you choose will be unique and will fit into the appropriate class?

Something that sometimes got me wondering when trying to come up with a unique reg for a random ship.

Personally I just ditched the entire concept of registries altogether.

I replaced it with the idea that ships have a sort of "barcode" maybe on the hull or perhaps just a unique technobabble signature that can be read by other Starfleet vessels.

 

[Clan Akledor]

For ships commissioned prior to 2315, I follow the "starship block" schema where each starship class is pre-assigned a "block" of registries so each successive ship has a registry incremented by one number (so the first ship of the class would be assigned NCC-2520, the second NCC-2521, the third NCC-2522, etc.)

After 2315, I follow the "shipyard block" schema where each shipyard is assigned a "block" of registries. So the San Francisco Yards would get NCC-20000 through NCC-20099 and Utopia Planitia would get NCC-20100 to NCC-20199. The next ship to enter the yards, regardless of class, gets the next NCC number.

So the Kricfalusi class starship USS Stimpson J. Cat laid down at SFY would get NCC-20012 while the USS Ren Höek, also a Kricfalusi class and laid down the same day at UP, would get NCC-20112.

I will agree with Tigger on this one, as it makes the most sense. Plus, good to see you again, Adm. Wallace. I've been a huge fan of your ASDB.net for awhile. Now, if we could just get a new Dockyard Review out...

But I digress.

This does make the most sense, however--think about it. Let's say that after the early to mid-2300s there are at least 14-15 operating shipyards. For instance, we know of SFY and UP. I'm sure there'd be at least some around Vulcan, Andor(ia), Tellar, even Cait, if you want. Each core "sector" controlled by SF would (logically) have it's own yard. They don't have to be mega-yards like SFY or UP, but at least something to maintain the far-flung fleets of space vehicles.

Thus, to assign build blocks makes perfect sense. Personally, I've always hated the notion (and notoriously carried-forth into TNG/DS9/VOY) that class builds had to be sequential--it's "illogical."

 

[Unicron]

I kind of like the idea of sequential blocks myself, as I've seen in some sources like the FASA RPG. The notion that each ship in a given class gets effectively a randomly number within the block doesn't make as much sense to me, and it seems like that would create more confusion than it solves.

 

[Forbin]

Actually, I don't see why nonsequential registries would cause any more confusuon than nonsequential license plates on, say, a delivery company's fleet of trucks. That's basically all a, NCC number is, just a way to identify the vehicle.

 

[Captain Robert April]

...It has to be remembered that the low numbers had never been used in the scheme in the first place. When the Air Force was founded, the old USAAF numbers still in use were "adopted" into the new scheme, with Pursuit planes like P-40 Warhawk becoming Fighters with F designations. And AFAIK, the lowest-numbered such designation theoretically adopted was P->F-38 Lightning, while "the highest of the low" the modern USAF has used so far is F-35 for the JSF (coincidentally named Lightning II). Even F-38 was never used in practice, though, the "lowest high" F-fighter in USAF service being F-80 Shooting Star. There's a long way to go till they hit that number!

The old USN designations are a different matter entirely...

The old USN designations are key to the story. When SecDef McNamara decreed in 1962 that aircraft designations be uniform across the services, the navy system had to be fit into the USAF/army system. To make it as painless as possible, the navy planes were given numbers similar to their old numbers. So the F3H Demon became the F-3, F4H Phantom II became the F-4, the F8U Crusader became the F-8, and so on. But, this didn't always work out, so the F3D Skyknight became the F-10, and the F4D Skyray became the F-6.

At the time, the USAF was designating the Phantom the F-110 (and calling it Spectre), but it in the new system it became the F-4. So the USAF fighter numbers got re-routed back to the low end. Except for the F-117, which is a story all its own.

--Justin

Um, if you want to look to aircraft as an analogy, you'd want to look at the tail numbers, not the model designations.

 

[NCC-2725]

Our ship was going to be a Loknar Class. FASA set out a chart of registries and ship names from NCC-2700 to NCC-2799 (that's a LOT of ships!). For some reason, they left out NCC-2707 and NCC-2725. We saw that T. Weimann of LCARS-INTERFACE.DE picked ARKANGEL for NCC-2707, so we brainstormed PROVIDENCE for NCC-2725. See my member profile for a brief history.

 

[SicOne]

I like to think of Starfleet as setting aside blocks of registries beginning with the first two digits (three in TNG time), such as calling the Constitution-class the "17-class", the Miranda-class (USS Reliant/NCC-1864) the "18-class", and the Excelsior (NX-2000) the "20-class", thereby reserving all 100 numbers in each block (1700-1799) for the entire class. In that regard, it is like the contemporary U.S. Navy calling the 62 subs of the Los Angeles-class the "688-class"; another subgroup of the L.A. is referred to as the "688-I", denoting an improved version of the sub.

Excelsior-class ships run the gamut of numbers from 2000 to 2500 (USS Repulse/NCC-2544), then again in the 140s (USS Cairo/NCC-14232 to USS Tecumseh/NCC-14934), and up to the 500s (USS Crazy Horse/NCC-50446). A perusal of the TrekPedia will show at least 13 separate possible 100-ship blockings of registry numbers; in that way, the origial Excelsior-class could be referred to as the "20-class", the improved (Repulse) called the "25-class", and later models (Cairo) the "142-class".

The same numbering scheme holds true for the Danube-class (724 and 729), and Galaxy-class (4 of the Galaxy's shown onscreen start with 718).

Any thoughts?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Probably off topic, but in one fanfic I've been working on I try to use different prefix numbers. "NCC" for example is a designation for high-warp (N) combat cruiser (CC). Another ship would be a high warp explorer (NEC) another would be a high warp colony vessel (NEG). The Earth Cargo Service ships would have designations without the N because they are slow; many are modified for multiple tasks, but a standard cargo ship would be "AC" while a small cargo vessel would be "AR" or "NAR" depending on the engine type.

Some examples: the first of Starfleet's hunter-killer starships is "NCC-167." NX-01, on the other hand, having been pressed into regular service now becomes "NEC-01" while a ship like the ECS Fortunate, being equipped with a warp five engine, now becomes "NAC-509" This way the hull numbers can overlap, but the prefix for each ship identifies the overall class and capability.

To get more ON topic, I usually try to add -A and -B prefixes for various ships. For example, I prefer USS Yamato's NCC-1305E registry number (although in the above scheme the Galaxy class would be ("NGC" identifying it as a long-range exploration ship).

 

[Masao]

For my Starfleet Museum website, I used an idea suggested by the registries of USS Huron (NCC-F1913) and the robot cargo ships (eg, NCC-G1465) from TAS: prefix letters before the number. This increases the available numbers by a factor of 26. Problem solved. This came in handy when I invented a 200-ship class of destroyers and scouts and several large classes of transport ships.

 

[Forbin]

Same reason I stuck an "S" for survey in the reg of my USS Venture.