What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War?

[Arpy]

Unfortunately those scenarios were never going to happen. By the 6th season, DS9 had neither the time nor the money to make new ship designs, either physical models or CGI. They were literally reduced to using things like model kits, Playmates ship toys and Hallmark ornaments as filming models.

Then they shouldn’t have done a story they couldn’t properly dramatize. The fact that they were taking it on naturally created an expectation. Or they could have, and I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread, found a better way of dramatizing the fleets as they would more realistically been further apart. Show fewer ships in the foreground and a lot of fuzzy ones further out. Either allowing for new models, or new fuzzy silhouettes of new models, or both. Instead they Captain Proton’d it.

Always keep in mind that none of those kitbashes were ever meant to be taken seriously. They were just meant to be little damaged blobs in the far background, and not meant to be analyzed up close. I'm still of the opinion that the Yeager was just meant to be an inside joke; the prevailing attitude being that nobody would ever recognize it on a 13-inch SD TV screen. I mean, c'mon. If someone made a kitbash by building a Monogram Volkswagen camper van model kit, glued nacelles to it and went at it with a Dremel, nobody in their right mind would ever take it seriously as a bona fide Starfleet vessel.

Agreed.

 

[Dukhat]

Then they shouldn’t have done a story they couldn’t properly dramatize. The fact that they were taking it on naturally created an expectation. Or they could have, and I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread, found a better way of dramatizing the fleets as they would more realistically been further apart. Show fewer ships in the foreground and a lot of fuzzy ones further out. Either allowing for new models, or new fuzzy silhouettes of new models, or both. Instead they Captain Proton’d it.

Well, I think they did the best they could, given the time and budget limitations. Was it an accurate representation of Starfleet as a whole? Absolutely not. But this wasn't reality. This was '90's television production.

 

[evilchumlee]

or option 3. Starfleet figuring out a way to get TMP nacelles to work on an Excelsior-variant ship in 2295 is a big difference from Starfleet doing the same thing in 2371.

I would think the "real" answer is actually a bit of all three, MOSTLY Option 1, but with some 2 and 3 in there.

It doesn’t make sense for the Frankenstein fleet to be that way by design. If Starfleet meant to create a Lego fleet, the esthetics of the ships would reflect that. They don’t.

This for sure, at least partly.

The kitbash ships are clearly something born more out of necessity. It's not the say that they are just old bits of ships slapped together, but they are also not ideal.

The kitbash fleet was certainly built out of necessity, or perhaps just a bit of efficiency, more likely a little bit of both.

The previous 3 option deal...

1: Yes, there's no problem with a bunch of Starfleet ships being modular in nature. We "know" that Starfleet does this, from more background information (things like bridge modules and what not). I don't see any issue with that applying to more parts. Sometimes, they just end up assembled in unconvential ways that might be "ugly", but they work.

2: I don't think it's an "unexplained" reason... things happen to ships. If you end up with an otherwise perfectly good ship that got cut in half by a space amoeba, some of the parts are still perfectly usable. Why waste them, especially if many of them were built to be modular? If a ship is destroyed, but the warp nacelles are still fully intact, why not use them?

3: I think just saying "they somehow figured out how to use them" is the wrong way to look at them. Modular is modular, even if it's not ideal. There's not particular reason why a newer hull would be incompatible with an older warp drive. Sure it would be better if they popped a newer warp drive into it, but if they're in a situation where they have a few scuttled ships and they have a saucer, stardrive, and nacelles from three different ships... but those sections were all designed to be at least semi-modular... whelp, looks like you got 1 functioning "new" ship that required fairly minor alterations to work.

 

[Macintosh]

Always keep in mind that none of those kitbashes were ever meant to be taken seriously. They were just meant to be little damaged blobs in the far background, and not meant to be analyzed up close.

It's like they'd never met a science fiction fan before...

 

[Dukhat]

It's like they'd never met a science fiction fan before...

Or me.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Or me.

Or me too!

 

[publiusr]

I probably missed the explanation…but why weren’t First Contacts “Class of 96” ships seen more often?

 

[Ithekro]

The files from Industrial Light and Magic seemingly got corrupted when they moved them to whatever program they were using for DS9. They got the Akira working pretty good for Voyager and used it more on DS9 with the Saber and Steamrunner as more background ships. The Norway design seems to have been too far corrupted for use without heavy rework, so it wasn't done. Doug Drexler used to have a website that had most of the CG models they used on it, and they had the Norway, but the bow was messed up in the files.

 

[Dukhat]

The files from Industrial Light and Magic seemingly got corrupted when they moved them to whatever program they were using for DS9. They got the Akira working pretty good for Voyager and used it more on DS9 with the Saber and Steamrunner as more background ships. The Norway design seems to have been too far corrupted for use without heavy rework, so it wasn't done. Doug Drexler used to have a website that had most of the CG models they used on it, and they had the Norway, but the bow was messed up in the files.

Yep. The Akira was the most detailed background ship from FC, which is why we see it more up-close than the other two ships in the DS9 fleet scenes. David Stipes confirmed in an interview that the Norway was too corrupted to use, and not ‘lost’ like what was originally thought. The Saber and Steamrunner meshes were also corrupted, just not as bad. They could be used as far background ships, but not seen up close.

 

[Macintosh]

The Saber and Steamrunner meshes were also corrupted...

Here's what the original Steamrunner model ended up looking like by the time the DS9/VOY production teams received it. Obvious corruption to the nose aside, some of the textures and hull detailing are misaligned. Definitely not suitable for "hero" use, sadly.

 

[Deks]

Here's what the original Steamrunner model ended up looking like by the time the DS9/VOY production teams received it. Obvious corruption to the nose aside, some of the textures and hull detailing are misaligned. Definitely not suitable for "hero" use, sadly.

I can definitely see the issues with the model, but for the most part, its not a complex design by a long shot.
It could be fairly easily and quickly remodelled and retextured.

 

[Arpy]

I’m glad it was corrupted. Those Bussard collectors don’t make a lick of sense. They’re cartoonishly big and they’re pulling in stellar matter directly onto the saucer.

All the FC ships were not meant to be looked at too closely. The Akira too looks like it has unfinished nacelles.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I’m glad it was corrupted. Those Bussard collectors don’t make a lick of sense. They’re cartoonishly big and they’re pulling in stellar matter directly onto the saucer.

There's no logical reason why you can't move the Bussard Collectors to other places.

Just look at Klingon & Romulan designs, they generally don't mount Bussard collectors on the Warp Nacelles, despite using Parallel Warp Nacelles on many designs.

 

[Arpy]

There's no logical reason why you can't move the Bussard Collectors to other places.

Just look at Klingon & Romulan designs, they generally don't mount Bussard collectors on the Warp Nacelles, despite using Parallel Warp Nacelles on many designs.

You don’t need Bussard collectors to make warp work. But if you’re using them, they should not be placed where they might shred the hull of the ship in front of them.

This is a recurring problem in Trek with multiple designs. Similar to when impulse engines are placed in locations where they’d completely char the nacelles off the ship.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

You don’t need Bussard collectors to make warp work. But if you’re using them, they should not be placed where they might shred the hull of the ship in front of them.

How would it do that on the SteamRunner class?
The EM fields should guide the particles into the inlets w/o hitting the hull.

This is a recurring problem in Trek with multiple designs. Similar to when impulse engines are placed in locations where they’d completely char the nacelles off the ship.

Which classes have those issues?

 

[Arpy]

How would it do that on the SteamRunner class?
The EM fields should guide the particles into the inlets w/o hitting the hull.

That’s super convenient that the EM fields for those massive collectors are that precise. These ships are traveling at 1/4 the speed of light at impulse and a lot faster at warp. I don’t care what your hull is made of or what EM fields you’re using, that shit will destroy your hull.

Which classes have those issues?

The Sovereign and the Excelsior Refit to name a couple.

 

[Ithekro]

Isn't it part of the Navigation Deflector tasks to put the particles to be collected on course for the Bussard Collectors?

 

[Arpy]

Isn't it part of the Navigation Deflector tasks to put the particles to be collected on course for the Bussard Collectors?

No? The navigational deflector dish pushes everything out of the path of the ship precisely because of how dangerous even individual particles are at these speeds.

As I understand them, the Bussard collectors take in particles of interstellar hydrogen to use as fuel.

Both can be retasked for other purposes (ie the deflector as a weapon in BoBW; the collectors as a ruse in “Samaritan Snare”).

But at no time when we’ve seen them work (INS, Night Terrors, Samaritan Snare, etc) do they seem that precise.

 

[dswynne1]

The problem I have with these fan designs is that they seem to fall into two camps: derivatives of existing designs or not appropriate for the war effort. The Defiant-class is the perfect design: sleek, compact while being armed and agile. No exposed nacelles. Other classes, like the Luna-class for instance, are similar in design intentions. Jem'Hadar ships comes into two types: attack ships and command cruisers. The last thing you would want is to have a, let's say, an Galaxy-class vessel in the thick of battle, with more surface area to devote resources to protect.

 

[Arpy]

I don’t think the way we talk about ship design makes sense from a realistic perspective. Starships are traveling at thousands of miles a second, with firing ranges thousands of miles away, and weapons traveling at the speed of light or faster. I don’t think factors like ship size play a large role in targetability. More important is shield power and weapons, and the Galaxy has plenty there. But I mean, it was a huge ship and still one of or the fastest in the fleet at the time it launched. Not because it was small or pointy, but because it had sophisticated engines.