Starship questions

[Dukhat]

One which despite the lack of space encounters would be famous enough to justify inclusion in that wall display, but not actually an Enterprise?

Space is big. Just because we didn’t see the actual ship on screen doesn’t mean there weren’t tons of them out there doing cool things. We only saw the actual Ambassador class four times on screen, but that doesn’t mean there were only four Ambassador class ships in existence.

As noted, I can see this as an artwork honoring breakthroughs that led to ships named Enterprise (which would also explain why the TOS original was included and not its final state in 2285), but the concept-art idea happens to match the real-world making-of, which as we all know involved interpolating the Ambassador’s lines between the known Excelsior- and Galaxy-class designs. It need not mean that the Enterprise-D was practically finished as a ship design, only that a warp-appropriate shape had been calculated in the 2280s, and the sculptures’ inclusion in the conference room would’ve been a testament to Starfleet’s vision and the ability to execute it despite a misstep.

Sorry, I’m still not buying that the Galaxy class was a design Starfleet came up with in the 2280’s. It’s much easier to stomach that those sculptures were created specifically as 2360’s wall art depicting other Starfleet vessel classes, with the aircraft carrier thrown in as a tribute to the Enterprise-D specifically.

 

[Timo]

...And we can even say that "records from the 1990s were fragmentary" so that they'd get the CVN-65 wrong even though they had good data on the much older sailing ship, say.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Sloan]

Starship classes combat strenght (TNG-NEMESIS)
What do you think, how would you rate their combat ability?

1. Sovereign
2. Prometheus
3: Defiant
4. Akira
5. Galaxy
6. Intrepid
7. Nebula
8. Ambassador
9. Steamrunner
10. Excelsior
11. Saber
12. Norway
13. New Orleans
14. Challenger
15. Freedom
16. Constitution Refit
17. Centaur
18. Miranda
19. Venture
20. Soyuz
21. Oberth
22. Danube
23. Peregrine
24. Sidney
25. Shuttlecraft

Agree/disagree? What would be your ranking?
Did i miss any ship class of the 24th century?

 

[kyle223cat]

Starship classes combat strenght (TNG-NEMESIS)
What do you think, how would you rate their combat ability?

1. Sovereign
2. Prometheus
3: Defiant
4. Akira
5. Galaxy
6. Intrepid
7. Nebula
8. Ambassador
9. Steamrunner
10. Excelsior
11. Saber
12. Norway
13. New Orleans
14. Challenger
15. Freedom
16. Constitution Refit
17. Centaur
18. Miranda
19. Venture
20. Soyuz
21. Oberth
22. Danube
23. Peregrine
24. Sidney
25. Shuttlecraft

Agree/disagree? What would be your ranking?
Did i miss any ship class of the 24th century?

I agree for the most part, but this is what my top 10 would look like:
1. Sovereign
2. Prometheus
3: Galaxy
4. Akira
5. Nebula
6. Intrepid
7. Ambassador
8. Steamrunner
9. Excelsior
10. Defiant (without ablative armor)

The Defiant is a very small ship. It's powerful for its size but it can't hold up to larger Starfleet ships. Also I'm not exactly sure how powerful the Steamrunner is, but I would assume it's more powerful than the Defiant and the Excelsior. It might be more powerful than an Ambassador, but the Ambassador is larger and I would assume it's been upgraded like the Excelsior has been.

 

[BK613]

Been a while since I watched DS9 but didn't the Defiant overpower the Lakota (Excelsior-class) on the way to Earth?

 

[Timo]

...Or vice versa. At the conclusion, the heroes rattle off a list of their own casualties and damage, and then of damage to the opponent, and sort of agree that one good shot from either side would finish the battle and kill everybody in the opposing ship. But both sides were pulling their punches, and neither wanted to win by blowing up the other ship.

On a list like above, I'd put Steamrunner at the very bottom. She's the one type that is never shown firing torpedoes, or possessing anything that looks like a torpedo launcher. She also is the type that suffers the most losses in the Borg fight of ST:FC, blowing up left and right while only one Akira is lost on screen, say. Presumably, guns and shields don't feature much in the intended role of the ship, which has really big engines and a giant shuttlebay door instead.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Sloan]

Been a while since I watched DS9 but didn't the Defiant overpower the Lakota (Excelsior-class) on the way to Earth?

and the Lakota was pretty upgrated.

yeah the defiant is small. On the other hand in DS9 episode "Defiant" Dukat refered to here as one of the most powerfull warships in the quadrant...

but anyway thanks for your point of view, i do not claim to have authority about whats right or wrong

 

[Mr_Sloan]

different poll, what are the fastest ships in that era?

1. Prometheus?
2. Intrepid?
3. Sovereing
4. Akira,
5. Galaxy, Steamrunner, Defiant etc.?

 

[Timo]

3, 4 and 5 were never credited with high speed in dialogue. The Defiant was said to be very slow by the standards of the day in "The Sound of Her Voice": her guns needed to be taken offline to allow her to move past warp nine, which is a speed at least the E-D and the Voyager routinely exceeded.

FWIW, the E-D in the pilot episode achieved warp 9.5 without divine intervention or phaser-disarming trickery, and might have attempted warp 9.8 "at extreme risk" but did not. The Defiant in "The Sound of Her Voice" ultimately achieved warp 9.5 with said trickery, so it wasn't all that bad going...

2 was given a "stable cruising speed" of warp 9.975, although when the push came to the shove, she could not maintain even warp 9.7 for more than a few dozen seconds.

1 was explicitly called "designed to be faster than anything in the fleet" and is seen sustaining warp 9.9. So she's the clear winner here in practice. But as said, 2 looks even better on paper, with those extra 0.075 warp factors that she never could achieve for real.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Sloan]

yeah i agree. @Timo Saloniemi

I realized i forgot 2 fed ships of the 24th century:
The Nova
the Constellation class

Would put the Novo to 13 and the constellation to 14 in combat power.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

On a list like above, I'd put Steamrunner at the very bottom. She's the one type that is never shown firing torpedoes, or possessing anything that looks like a torpedo launcher. She also is the type that suffers the most losses in the Borg fight of ST:FC, blowing up left and right while only one Akira is lost on screen, say. Presumably, guns and shields don't feature much in the intended role of the ship, which has really big engines and a giant shuttlebay door instead.

Ironically in the video games the Steamrunner is a powerful artillery ship that has torpedoes to take out turrets from a distance. So if one's view of the ships comes from the games, the Steamrunner seems different from what often described from the show.

 

[Viper78]

Starship classes combat strenght (TNG-NEMESIS)
What do you think, how would you rate their combat ability?

1. Sovereign
2. Prometheus
3: Defiant
4. Akira
5. Galaxy
6. Intrepid
7. Nebula
8. Ambassador
9. Steamrunner
10. Excelsior
11. Saber
12. Norway
13. New Orleans
14. Challenger
15. Freedom
16. Constitution Refit
17. Centaur
18. Miranda
19. Venture
20. Soyuz
21. Oberth
22. Danube
23. Peregrine
24. Sidney
25. Shuttlecraft

Agree/disagree? What would be your ranking?
Did i miss any ship class of the 24th century?

My top 10 would be,

1. Prometheus
2. Sovereign
3. Galaxy (DS9 War Refit)
4. Akira
5. Intrepid
6. Nebula
7. Defiant
8. Steamrunner
9. Ambassador
10. Excelsior

Although I have the Galaxy Refit at number 3, I consider it level with the Sovereign.

 

[kyle223cat]

Been a while since I watched DS9 but didn't the Defiant overpower the Lakota (Excelsior-class) on the way to Earth?

I think the goal of the episode was to show they were evenly matched for the most part. Had either ship used their quantum torpedoes on the other in the end, the ship being hit by said torpedoes would likely have been destroyed. Captain Benteen, who was in command of the Lakota at the time, mentioned that someone neglected to inform Starfleet that the Defiant had ablative armor. This could be interpreted that they sent the Lakota believing that it could disable the Defiant had it not been equipped with ablative armor.

 

[kyle223cat]

My top 10 would be,

1. Prometheus
2. Sovereign
3. Galaxy (DS9 War Refit)
4. Akira
5. Intrepid
6. Nebula
7. Defiant
8. Steamrunner
9. Ambassador
10. Excelsior

Although I have the Galaxy Refit at number 3, I consider it level with the Sovereign.

Surprisingly, I forgot about the refit the Galaxy went through. I would put that on the same level as the Sovereign we see in First Contact and Insurrection but somewhat weaker than the Sovereign we see in Nemesis.

 

[Timo]

Ironically in the video games the Steamrunner is a powerful artillery ship that has torpedoes to take out turrets from a distance. So if one's view of the ships comes from the games, the Steamrunner seems different from what often described from the show.

[mounts hobby-horse]

My personal take on the Steamrunner is that she's a planetary assault ship very much akin to today's Landing Ship Docks: a giant mobile harbor for assault craft, its prominent bay flanked by the big engines on both sides (although in a LSD those flanking booms also contain the tanks and pumps that sink the ship just enough to let the landing craft out).

Amphibious assault ships ITRW are typically modified for support roles, being of military standard build but having lots and lots of generic volume for all sorts of impromptu systems. A classic WWII modification was the installation of massive firepower aboard, only suited for coastal bombardment because the unshielded and unmaneuverable vessel, lacking in fire control systems and other sensors, could never have hoped to fight another ship with those weapons. So I could easily see Starfleet likewise carting torpedo bombardment containers into a Steamrunner, connecting some cables, and unleashing that ship against a hapless planet or fortress... As long as she was properly escorted by truly combatworthy starships!

[dismounts hobby-horse]

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Sloan]

@Viper, yeah also an understandable ranking.
especially the Galaxy Refit.

@Kyle
Yeah i agree with your statement.
While still consider Lakota with Quantums and hullupgrade much > then standard Excelsior.

So there are 2 defiant versions as well. Ablativ amored for Cardassia-Invador Captain Sisko. And non-ablativ for cadets Valiant ^^

So Sisko Defiant behind Sovereing and Prometheus, but better then galaxy refit.
while regular first versions of defiant worse then galaxy refit and akira. with quantum topredos i would argue > then intrepid and nebula.

@Timo.
Yeah the Steamrunner was not defined much in canon, considering stuff like armada 1, the ship might well be a planetary assault vessel, it used tricobald torpedos in A1 doesn´t it?

thanks for all your feedback, its fun to talk about ships in the 24th century

 

[Viper78]

Interesting video here on the Odyssey class which shows the size difference between the Galaxy, Sovereign and Odyssey classes, 8.32 onward on the video and it shows the ships without their nacelle's, just shows how small the Sovereign class is.

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I always thought that the Odyssey looked like a cross between the Galaxy and the Sovereign.