Curry/Raging Queen types as carriers...seems to be the most common view. I can imagine them being used as carriers during the war, and then as gophers in the immediate post war years.
What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?
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Thanks for the video—I actually subscribed to the channel to check out more of his stuff later.
The Curry is an interesting one. I’d prefer it with Excelsior era nacelles but I did find it liked it enough to start a thread about it a while back, which I’ll link to here as I forgot if I did upthread and there are some nice rendering of it there.
I did just have to replace a couple of broken links in it. Too bad Jackill took his page down (if he did); his stuff is just great.
The Curry is an interesting one. I’d prefer it with Excelsior era nacelles but I did find it liked it enough to start a thread about it a while back, which I’ll link to here as I forgot if I did upthread and there are some nice rendering of it there.
I did just have to replace a couple of broken links in it. Too bad Jackill took his page down (if he did); his stuff is just great.
Somebody suggested that the Curry and Raging Queen....were the California class before there was a California class.
A couple prototypes built to test a concept; that of a large, multi-role utility ship.
A couple prototypes built to test a concept; that of a large, multi-role utility ship.
The thing is, if you give the Curry-type Excelsior-class nacelles then it just becomes an Excelsior someone's put together really badly. Why wouldn't you build an Excelsior at that point?
Now there's a thought. If you take the secondary hull off a Curry-type it even looks a bit like a precursor to a California-class ship, with just an Excelsior saucer with two directly attached Constitution II nacelles. Maybe that's how the Curry-type got started... it's an old service ship that's had a spare Excelsior secondary hull bolted on temporarily as a huge cargo/equipment transport or carrier module. That might explain why the secondary hull is so oddly located, to keep it within the warp field envelope of the original ship it's been added to.
That's what I always thought with that asinine idea from the DS9 Tech Manual that these were actual in-universe kitbashes. When you already have 80% of an Excelsior spaceframe, why would you assemble it in a configuration like the Curry or the Raging Queen? Wouldn't you want to assemble it the way an Excelsior is normally assembled?
Rick Sternbach once stated that he was no fan of kitbashes, and that he didn't like having those ships shown at the end of the manual. Well that's all fine and good, but I find it ironic that his ultimately-unused concept art for the USS Pegasus was a ship with Ambassador class components arranged almost exactly like the Curry!
“Warp field dynamics.” Or because you want the shuttlebays elsewhere. Or any number of reasons. I mean, why not just build an Excelsior in its normal configuration just with Constitution nacelles when putting together the Curry?
It, and half the ships we’ve seen, are kitbashes. Goes back to Franz Joseph at least. I mean, honestly, the Hermes/Paladin classes make as much sense as Dr. Frankenstein attaching a leg to a guy’s head and neck and expecting it to survive.
Hell, why does the Relaint have Constitution saucer and nacelles and no deflector dish? Its overall displacement is basically the same; why not build a Constitution at that point? You can widen the secondary hull a bit if you’re just interested in a second shuttlebay. And add another torpedo launcher anywhere.
You could argue that most Starfleet ships should more or less look like bigger or smaller versions of the Enterprise.
Sternbach complaining about kitbashes is rich. Fans do it because they’re not professionals and he did it with the original Pegasus and the Ambassador instead of using Probert’s brilliant version because it was cheap and easy…also why fans do it.
A Curry-type vessel with no "extra" hull also closely resembles the Centaur-class (if it were Excelsior scale, which is a whole other argument.)
It also would resemble the layout of a Miranda, which is a class we saw used as a cargo carrier in TNG. The Ptolemy class resembles the Miranda, and uses a cargo pod that can be changed out, so it make me wonder if the idea with the Curry-type ships was to reference this.
I do not think it makes sense for the ships themselves to be kitbashes of parts that survived battle, but in-universe the designs could be kitbash style, using designs for important modules that already exist in a new way to serve some role, and cargo-carrier makes sense for the Curry-type in the DS9 wartime's particular case.
There must be something about the configuration of the ship's layout that matters in-universe, although it would be hard to tell that that is. In other words, even a ship made out of the exact same parts but laid out differently would worked differently in some way. It's hard to figure out what that would be without gravity as a factor.
I am learning that the freighters on the Great Lakes are sometimes around 100 years old and still in service because they still accomplish the same task. It seems less odd to me now that Mirandas are shown in DS9, but Starfleet still would have had to take ships that were serving as cargo carriers and refit them to fight again.
If one assumes that each generation of cruise had a cargo carrier or support vessel based on similar designs, then:
The TOS-era had the Constitution and the Ptolemy
The TMP-era had the refit and the Miranda
The late Movie era had the Excelsior and something like either a large-version Centaur and/or the Curry-Type
TNG had the Galaxy and the Nebula
...and so on with ships like the Norway and Akira.
(I don't consider the Ambassador-based "Pegasus" to be something that existed in-universe, because to my mind the Ambassador is an uprated ship of the Excelsior design group, and the Centaur or something of that sort would be filling that role.)
EDIT: Imagine seeing the Curry-type as the model for Pegasus--now that would have been funny!
For my part, I can see where different classes using the same components in different configurations might have different modularity and internal designs, even if one is mainly a refit or successor design. Maybe the Curry/Raging Queen types have a useful role we didn't really get to see onscreen. Jackill and some of the offscreen sources have done some respectable combinations, IMO.
Later tug designs like the Anaxagoras class (part of the Excelsior family) not only had newer technology, but had far more cargo space than older models like the Ptolemy.I don't tend to assume the majority of Mirandas were necessarily lowered to cargo haulers and other roles, just because we've seen a few specific examples like the USS Lantree. Given that the Miranda family (at least in off screen sources) was mainly designed for line roles like frigate/cruiser and the specific design seems to be reasonably modular and versatile, I instead prefer to see it as a good example of an older design that would last longer in typical line service. Whether or not that means that designs like the Excelsior and Miranda are still being actively produced in the TNG+ era is up for speculation, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if a large number of them remained active with regular refits and upgrades. I do recall that FASA suggested that different shipyards would have varying capabilities, particularly those in areas that were either not Federation members or were allied outside its borders, like some of the planets in the Triangle. Not every shipyard would have the same production capacity, and not every government or power would necessarily want it for various reasons, or could afford it.
I've also aware of one source that suggests that designs like the New Orleans and some of the First Contact era ships (such as the Steamrunner and Saber) were actually launched going into the TNG era, along with new designs like the Galaxy. Essentially two different design trees emerging. I find it an interesting idea, personally. YMMV, of course.
For my part, I can see where different classes using the same components in different configurations might have different modularity and internal designs, even if one is mainly a refit or successor design. Maybe the Curry/Raging Queen types have a useful role we didn't really get to see onscreen. Jackill and some of the offscreen sources have done some respectable combinations, IMO.
I don't tend to assume the majority of Mirandas were necessarily lowered to cargo haulers and other roles, just because we've seen a few specific examples like the USS Lantree. Given that the Miranda family (at least in off screen sources) was mainly designed for line roles like frigate/cruiser and the specific design seems to be reasonably modular and versatile, I instead prefer to see it as a good example of an older design that would last longer in typical line service. Whether or not that means that designs like the Excelsior and Miranda are still being actively produced in the TNG+ era is up for speculation, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if a large number of them remained active with regular refits and upgrades.
Before their proliferation in the DS9 Dominion war fleets, we only ever saw the Miranda class a total of four times: The Lantree relegated to supply ship duty with 30-odd crew, the science vessel Brattain with 30-odd crew commissioned only 20-odd years before the Enterprise-D (according to its dedication plaque), the Saratoga which seemed to be an active duty ship-of-the-line with an unknown number of crew (but if the escape pods were any indication, probably no more than 100), and the 'Saratoga' again (a reuse of the labeled Saratoga model from 'Emissary' with its rollbar reattached, and the last use of the original Reliant studio model) as one of the rescue ships at the end of Star Trek: Generations. As was stated, the Lantree seems to be the oldest and probably on its last legs service-wise, but the Brattain and Saratoga seem to have been just fine.
(There's also the oddity of the USS Tian An Men, where it was listed in the Star Trek Encyclopedia as Miranda class but was not shown in the TNG episode, only for it to be given a CGI model later during the Dominion War, a rare instance of the Encyclopedia information turning out to be correct as far as unseen ship classes went.)
Well, one way to justify why a New Orleans and a Steamrunner look so different despite potentially being built at the same time based on their registry numbers, was because they were built at different shipyards. But that still doesn't explain anachronisms of the Steamrunner which make it look like a ship produced in the 2370's.
I've also aware of one source that suggests that designs like the New Orleans and some of the First Contact era ships (such as the Steamrunner and Saber) were actually launched going into the TNG era, along with new designs like the Galaxy. Essentially two different design trees emerging. I find it an interesting idea, personally. YMMV, of course.
The TNG Tech Manual suggests that the Galaxy project (created 20-some years before the launch of the Enterprise-D) based the Galaxy class components off of previous starship designs. I took that to mean that classes like the New Orleans, Cheyenne, Challenger, Springfield, and Olympic were operating 20 years before the 2360's. But it also could have just meant the Ambassador class, and those other ships were only a decade or less older than the Galaxy class.
We could just be interpreting certain design cues and aesthetic choices as being linked to specific time-periods even though they aren't, since we don't have a comprehensive view of the Star Trek universe. For instance, the triangular escape pods; not only did we continue to see definitely-new ships like the Pathfinder-class with square escape pods, the California-class has both types (though only after the season 2 model-refresh, so its debatable if the triangular pods were always there).
I understand what you're saying, but the differences go far beyond just the escape pods. I really don't see the majority of Starfleet shipyards producing ships like the New Orleans, Cheyenne, Challenger, Springfield, Niagara, Freedom and Olympic classes, and then some random shipyard producing the Steamrunner class (all with registries of 5XXXX.) There's too much that's fundamentally different about the Steamrunner to have it realistically be produced in the same era as all those other classes, which all share similar design components and don't look anywhere near as advanced as the Steamrunner, or have the Steamrunner's components or layout. I mean, if the Appalacia’s registry number was 82136 instead of 52136, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
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It's reasonable that StarFleet would start needing two types of Escape Pods for better arrangement / layout.
A larger Square Pod for higher evacuation capacity
&
A smaller Triangular one for lighter evacuation capacity.
This would allow better fitment / distribution across the hull.
Don't you mean 2360's.
Is it? Discovery is bigger than Enterprise. Vulcan cruisers can dwarf Starfleet ones—same Federation. Size doesn’t denote level of sophistication either—Kazon/Trabe Predator class dwarves the D’deridex (in profile anyway) yet wasn’t by itself a much more powerful than an Intrepid.
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That's mostly because the Warp Nacelles are ridiculously long.
Vulcan Cruisers dwarf StarFleet because they're designed in a very different layout.
But the Kazon's ships were stolen from the Trabe, and the D'Deridex has a massive empty volume in the center of it.
The Trabe ships probably have more useful internal floor space than the D'Deridex that would be easier to traverse.
Much larger secondary hull overall.
It’s not like they’re designed for 200ft tall flying jellyfish beings.
That’s why I referred to them as Kazon/Trabe ships. Point is that a technologically less sophisticated species (the Trabe) built ships much larger than the Galaxy.
It’s still bigger. Both in dimensions and I think displacement.
We don’t know what’s going on with that huge area in the middle. Could be esthetic, could have to do with the quantum singularity drive, could house troop transport pods or cargo containers or smaller craft (birds of prey?) or something at different times.
Mostly due to it's wide Delta Shape, but it's thinner than most secondary hulls as well.
Also, the Saucer has less volume than a traditional saucer.
But it's a "One-Off" design and isn't a standard CrossField setup.
No, but they have to accomodate the Warp Ring system, so they end up being pretty big naturally.
Size isn't everything, just because you can build it big, is a seperate issue from how technologically advanced you are.
Also, there are advantages to being small.
True, I just checked, but that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.
Different species build to what they think is necessary.
StarFleet obviously can build bigger, remember the USS Vengeance, that thing is HUGE.
But building bigger ships means less resources for more smaller ships.
You can only gather so many resources at one time and refine it, it's not like they have a infinite supply they can generate at once, so it takes time.
There are many advantages to making smaller ships and more of them.
Also, crewing larger ships becomes a logistical nightmare in terms of man power, even with advanced automation.
The original design reason was for the Warp Nacelles on either side to have a clear line of sight to each other.
But that split shell makes for ALOT of inefficient use of volume IMO.
