A (serious) canonical solution, in fact. That’s exactly what they did with the Stargazer. Picard’s was NCC-2893 and Rios’ was NCC-82893. Similar, yet uniquely different.
I'm another that would have preferred that adding letters to hull registries would have been something that was exclusive to the Enterprise. Mainly because I thought it indeed made the Enterprise unique, and a real-world way of linking back to TOS. But I also think the practice gets kind of old (if not stupid) after awhile, and I like to think that the NCC-1701 registry would be retired when it reached NCC-1701-L or whatever. Then Starfleet could give the next Enterprise an all-new registry number, IMO, or maybe even retire the name for awhile. I much more prefer reusing old ship names, but giving them new registries. Such ships may still have their own lineage wall display with every previous ship that had carried the name.
I would hate to be in the conference room lineage wall of Enterprise-Z, with 27 starships (including NX01), at least 3 aircraft carriers, 1 space shuttle, 1 ring spaceship and a sailing ship. There wouldn’t be much space for anything else! LOL. They might as well have the lineage wall in a cargo bay or shuttle bay instead. LOL
It’s on the CGI, which Eaglemoss used in their mag, so we can see it. I’d love to see a ready room like that. Imagine there’s a little (or XL) Eaglemoss model for each Enterprise.
Excelsior concept art. It’s a Drexler design. https://twitter.com/daveblass/status/1533786382140940288?s=21&t=7MNKoLy3o3ZuS79TPKL43Q
Bottom image, looks like it has a bridge window. I wonder if the bridge window is just a requirement for all trek shows now. Like I wouldn't expect Doug to put one on one of his designs, but there it is. Plus there's Lower Decks which is basically a comedic love letter to TNG, also has bridge windows. None of the STO designs or returning designs in PIC have them, but all the new designs do. Speaking of Drexler, he's off to the hospital for surgery, I wish him luck.
Nice to see the impulse deflection crystals are back in vogue again. Nu-Stargazer had a pair of them as well. Always liked that little design feature.
They seem be calling it the Warp Field Governor. The Stargazer has 2 cores and they line up with them. Need to find Dave Blass's labelled diagram. Found it https://twitter.com/DaveBlass/status/1501583737250725890/photo/1 They're also both the top and bottom of the ship.
The picture of the Excelsior II herself is somewhat inconclusive here. There is a patch on the front of the bridge but it seems to be off-centre. There doesn't seem to be a window on the front of the Eureka's bridge. And in PIC: "The Star Gazer", while there seems to be a large light at the base of the saucer superstructure there doesn't seem to be a bridge window – at least not a clearly illuminated one. This is a very long-winded way of saying... it's not clear if the Excelsior II has a bridge window Maybe bridge windows are one of those things that are left up to the discretion of the captain, like their overall bridge layout... when the bridge module gets an upgrade or needs to be replaced they can request one if they wish. This would mean that they aren't necessarily standard across all ships of the same class. And obviously some ships, like the Defiant-class, have sunken bridges that couldn't have a window even if the captain wanted one. I'm sure there's some argument about "it giving the ship a sense of scale" (which was Roddenberry's excuse for always putting the bridge on top instead of burying it somewhere more secure inside), combined with special effects now being up to the job.
In the top down image at the bottom left it's centred. I think the bottom left model is the one in Dave's tweet, just missing the side impulse engines.
Re-examining the Excelsior II image, if you zoom in it looks as though the rectangle is indeed centred, it's just that half of it is obscured by sheen – which would lend credence to the "bridge window" argument.
Ah... that was something that they did for the NX in Enterprise. That little module in the rear with the blue light on top was called the (Symmetrical) Warp Field Governor and it stuck in the 24th/25th century (skipping the 23rd, of course! ). It was a design totally ripped from the refit's IDC.
The Engineering EV Staging Area looked like it could be a turbolift bump much like the one behind the bridge module so I wasn't sure what that was meant to be.
IIRC, the call-out of that object first appeared in the TMP blueprints by David Kimble & Andrew Probert (1980), based on the studio filming model, and approved by Roddenberry (had his signature on all the pages, at least). It may possibly be heard in the background chatter as they were prepping the pre-flight checklist scene, but I can't be sure.
I always figured it was similar to the lit beacon at the rear and above the shuttlebay of the TOS E. Could also very easily be an observation tower. If it were a 23rd century vessel, I'd throw tractor beam emitter out there as well, but I don't think that tech was contemporary of the NX's 22nd century lineage, considering I remember them using grappling hooks at one point. Damn, my memory is fuzzy on that show. It's been probably 15 years since I've watched an episode.