Don't forget about the Trial from "The Way of the Warrior" with the backwards roll bar. There was also a gold-chromed Miranda variant desktop model that never made it on screen (but sold at auction several years ago) with four engines.
Actually, that ship seen in WoTW probably wasn't the Trial, since the actual Trial model's roll bar was correctly positioned. http://www.neutralzone.de/database/Federation/Starfleet/Miranda_USS_Trial01.jpg
Interesting! I wonder what this ship is that Memory Alpha says is the Trial then. The one screen cap they have of it docked at DS9 doesn't show the name clearly, but the position of the "NC..." leads one to believe that it may be a "newer" 5-digit registry.
Unfortunately we'll probably never know. There were several Reliant model kits used for various scenes (and Drexler showed a few in his defunct blog), but I've never seen any with the rollbar backwards. I also wonder how it was connected to the DS9 filming model's docking port.
^ I wonder how the ship was docking at all with the station, given that there aren't any ports at the front of a Miranda-Class ship!
There weren't any docking ports on the Definat that I could tell, and the Rotarran should have docked on its side, with the hatch at the top of the "head", but that would likely have made things awkward when the Klingons came through and the gravity well orientation shifted 90 degrees.
While this is some good discussion, I was actually referring to how the model kit was physically docked to the station IRL. I'm pretty sure the model wasn't superimposed in the shot but actually connected to the DS9 model, since the model kit's size in relation to the station studio model is correct. But for all I know it was just on a mounting pole and the front of the model wasn't even touching the docking port.
Deck plans for the Defiant show docking ports right above the deflector dish in the 'warhead' module, whilst the Rotarran is one of the larger BoP's (not the 12 man crew variants) which could well have a port above the torpedo launcher.
I've just seen a Maquis ship chart made by a fan on DeviantArt that included the Yeager-Type, and it got me thinking. What if that variant was actually devised by the Maquis? They had a few of the larger Ju'day-Class variants (for all we know a civilian cargo ship or colony transport) that were well past their prime then, thanks to a little thievery from a Starfleet junkyard, they found a couple discarded Intrepid-Class saucers that didn't meet design or safety standards. Some ingenious Maquis mechanic bolted the two together hoping to give them a more capable ship, but all they were ultimately used for by the Maquis was to evacuate civilians from the DMZ when the Cardassians joined the Dominion. Starfleet seized the ships and when the war broke out, they were forced to give them a quick upgrade and get them into service. A crazy theory, I know, but just trying to look at other possibilities.
Actually, that would make a lot of sense...except for the fact that we saw them flying around the station on multiple occasions years before the Dominion war even started. I doubt that Starfleet would have been using them at that point unless they had to.
I don't think the Yeager was a "kitbash". Federation ships were probably modular in the sense that they were built in sections, not like giant multi story lego pieces that can be slapped together. I think the Yeager was a purpose built ship using existing part templates to rush the ship into production. but modifications were made in the planning stages to make sure everything went together like a normal ship would. it would save time in the design phase and get those ships into production as rapidly as possible, the idea has never made much sense to me personally that there would be piles of whole spare sections of ships just laying around waiting to slapped on. I could see starbases having things like spare warp coils or computer cores, one thing I always thought was weird was that the transporter could assemble something as complex as a living organism in seconds but they couldn't replicate an entire warp engine at a repair yard (or at least it was never seen) with the replicator technology in the Trek universe, building a ship should only take a few weeks, not month's, or years.
It's possible. Many folks complain about the absurd difference in scale of components between the Intrepid primary hull attached to a Maquis Raider body, but they forget that the Klingons built 2 scales of Birds of Prey (K'Vort & B'Rel). Hell, FASA said they had three! It would stand to reason that if a particular design warranted it due to its usefulness, that Starfleet would commission multiple-scale modules for use on different-sized ships. The one canonical example can quite efficiently explain the Yeager, along with a whole bevy of the DS9 ships (Curry, Raging Queen, Centaur/Buckner, Elkins, Bradford, proposed Treiste, etc.)
There are actually three different scales for the Maquis raider: the initial shuttle sized ship with a small cockpit that Ro used in TNG, the mid-sized ship with the larger bridge that Chakotay used in VOY, and the largest sized one that was used as the Yeager's secondary hull. And depending on your point of view, the BoP probably had around 6 different scales. I think the biggest issue with the Yeager is that components from two ships from quite different time periods were mated together, as opposed to the other kitbashes where most of their components were contemporary.
I don't have an issue with rescaling ship components. The original Galileo shuttle had miniaturized Enterprise warp nacelles. Ditto the E-D shuttles. Over in the Kelvin Universe, the rough silhouette of the classic Enterprise has been supersized, with various familiar-looking components getting new functions (sensor domes becoming observation domes, airlocks becoming escape pod launchers, sensor arrays becoming windows etc) so IMHO it's all fair game.
if we were ever to see a Yeager again, I think they would tweak the proportions and detailing so it becomes differentiated from the original shuttle shape. Much like how they tweaked the Stargazer model when they made a real ship from the gold ready room model. The new Yeager would be what we "really saw" in the older episodes.
I could see that applying to the Yeager, yes, because it was always seen far in the background, pre high-def screens. Many adjustments could be made to correct such issues. Their Stargazer model, however, should never have been adjusted as much as it was, IMO. It was a long-range exploration vessel, with everything doubled-up and redundant to be as self-sufficient as possible for being immensely far away from any Fed outpost. It made sense to have a main hull so thick to store shuttles and supplies for the long trip that other vessels wouldn't need. They should have made more of an effort on that one.
I actually like the design of the Stargazer and the idea of a long term fairly self sufficient starship, however I think the Stargazer is way too small. even with the thicker primary hull it still seems to have less internal volume than a Constitution class. the ship should have been closer to an Excelsior class in internal volume size, unless the Constellation class had a very small crew, which I doubt, crew comfort was a pretty big factor in designing ships around then....Even the Enterprise in TMP seemed pretty roomy with a good amount of amenities so there is no reason to think that same philosophy wouldn't be present when the Stargazer was built.
Stargazer's saucer is five decks thick in the same places the Constitution's is only one, so that's actually ALOT of extra habitable volume even before we consider that it's also a bit WIDER than the Constitution class. Put another way: if the widest deck of the Constitution's saucer were the "main deck" where crew quarters were located, Constellation has FIVE of those decks, plus the same additional smaller decks as on the Constitution, plus a largish dome on the underside that probably houses some kind of stellar cartography complex. The enlarged saucer section more than makes up for the lack of a secondary hull as well, especially where it extends behind the saucer and into the pylon mounts. According to the old "Starship Volumetrics" web page (whose figures are questionable in a number of ways, but still) Constellation should have about three times the overall volume of the Constitution. Make of that what you will.
There are three large shuttle/cargo bays that presumably take up a fair portion of that volume, but the same can be said for the Enterprise refit secondary hull. I suspect the Constellation had fewer crew, but probably not a huge difference.