The Enetrprise D's Record of Battles

[ancient]

My biggest gripe when I saw Generations the first time was the reuse of the STVI BOP explosion. It really took me out of the moment, seeing as that explosion had been so iconic, to reuse it was really WEAK.

They probably spent most of the budget on Shatner and had nothing left for stuff like blowing up the BOP.

When you've got a star like Shat who needs credible effects?

The biggest problem with the Ent-D, in Generations and pretty much every episode where the ship was in danger: The warp core ejector just doesn't f*ing work. Half the time they don't even mention it (as in Generations) probably because they know the thing is broken. As a matter of fact, I think it broke some time during TNG season 1 and they just never bothered to replace it. That's my theory:

 

[CaptainStoner]

I would like to have seen the Ent-D kick a lot more butt. She was kind of like earlier Worf in that respect. Just...WTF?

But despite whatever canon might indicate, I really can't see how in the universe the Galaxy class could be considered a battleship. It is clearly, obviously, not a battleship. It's an exploration ship. That's why they're called Galaxy class! They're designed for deep space, extended explorations of the galaxy!
Which does clear up some of the apparent contradiction: why would a battleship have all those families on it? It wouldn't!

 

[Praetor]

The biggest problem with the Ent-D, in Generations and pretty much every episode where the ship was in danger: The warp core ejector just doesn't f*ing work. Half the time they don't even mention it (as in Generations) probably because they know the thing is broken. As a matter of fact, I think it broke some time during TNG season 1 and they just never bothered to replace it. That's my theory:

I'm sorry to say, you're probably right.

But despite whatever canon might indicate, I really can't see how in the universe the Galaxy class could be considered a battleship. It is clearly, obviously, not a battleship. It's an exploration ship. That's why they're called Galaxy class! They're designed for deep space, extended explorations of the galaxy!

Which does clear up some of the apparent contradiction: why would a battleship have all those families on it? It wouldn't!

Here is my take on that, and YMMV naturally.

I think that, in the 23rd century at least, with the escalating cold war with the Klingons and the Romulans, and whoever else, Starfleet convinced the Federation leaders to spend a whole lot of money on the fanon dreadnoughts and battleships (that are generally thought by most to have never existed, because "Starfleet doesn't build warships") in anticipation of wars that never came. Those ships ended up, basically, doing nothing but taking up space. Then, the Khitomer Accords and Treaty of Algeron roll around and impose limits that force Starfleet to scrap all those uber-expensive battleships that never saw the light of day.

So, as the golden age of the 24th century rolls on, Starfleet planners who'd grown used to the idea of a big, aggressive Starfleet, start getting a little antsy that Starfleet doesn't have any warships anymore. One of them stumbles upon a proposal for the Ambassador class, and says to his fellows: "Say, with a few more phasers and torpedo launchers, this wouldn't make a bad battleship." So, the project gets approval as a huge experimental explorer, but if a war breaks out, they recall them rip out the science labs, send the civilians home, and they have an instant battleship. If a war never does break out, they still have a super-explorer, and they aren't wasting money on battleships that have nothing to do but sit in port.

I'd say the same is true of the Galaxy. Just my $0.02, of course.

 

[Gary Sebben]

The centralized warp core is the dumbest invention in Trek. Jefferies stated in TOS that all the dangerous stuff was in the actual engines so they could be jettisoned. If you take a look at the damage done to the Constellation or the ships in Ultimate Computer you see that no well placed shot could blow up a Constitution Class vessel. After all, the real world designers were military men. WWII warships never "blew up" they sank from taking water. There is no reason why a ship should be engineered to explode if the engines are damaged, a la Cause and Effect, or even from heavy weapon's fire like that in Generations.

And speaking of Generations, regarding that battle. The Enterprise has several phaser arrays and two torpedo bays that can fire multiple torpedoes at a time that can then split into more torpedoes. We seen them fire massive multi-weapon volley's at the Borg. I don't care if the ship was completely unshielded. After the first Duras shot the E should have opened fire with everything in one go and swatted a 12 man scout ship like a mosquito. The Duras's shouldn't have had time to fire a second shot. End of story.

 

[Dream]

I think Starfleet got it's money's worth with the E-D if only for the Best of Both World episodes. A ship is worth it if it manages to save Earth at least once.

But seriously the E-D never got into many fights because the special effects were still very expensive when the show started out. I'd imagine TNG had been started 10 years later we would have gotten more of the E-D kicking butt like how we got way more ship battles in DS9 and VOY. That doesn't mean the ship was horrible at combat. It was damn powerful so most of the battles were probably the ship fires once and the enemy is disabled kind of thing. The whole Generations things was just everything going wrong.