No Sovereign Class Available In Any Tiers With Saucer Separation

praetorniral

I have never parted with Zen buy to buy a starship but I've always been potentially interested in, when playing as Federation, a Sovereign Class with saucer separation. It's supposed to have that capability in canon literature although it's never been actually seen in the canon based movies.And yes I KNOW this game isn't religiously canon but it's been followed here with saucer separable Galaxy class starships and other ship variants; and of course Prometheus class Starships here separate into their autonomous components. Why, and I've looked extensively for evidence to the contrary, in all this time this has never been made available is something I've never really understood.

ussvaliant

Because if they make it available it will just be another useless click console that takes the slot of a dozen better ones that help your build, and the saucer pet will be just as useless as the Galaxy Saucer and Prometheus pets in game. And despite the designer saying it can do it because we never saw it on screen it won't be included in game.

mustrumridcully0

It is not an ability that was ever shown in canon. We don't know for sure it can perform a saucer seperation, and we don't know how the saucer seperation would look like. Other abilities are far more easily extrapolated from existing canon.

So obviously it was never made.

There isn'T really any hint that saucer seperation was ever intended as an important tactical feature. For the Galaxy, it was stated on screen it's supposed to do it to protect its families. The Prometheus is designed around its multi-vector attack mode. But the Sovereign? In no battle did she ever use it, nor does she seem to have famlies about. So if she has the capability ,it might just be so it can detach the saucer in emergencies, like an impending warp core breach or losing control of the ship and having to crashland the saucer somewhere. So no surprise there is no console for it, you'd only lose it to abandon the fight.

rattler2

In canon the Sovereign Class has never shown an ability to saucer seperate. I can only recall one instance of it in a book, and the design of the ship itself makes saucer seperation look unviable. The Odyssey can get away with it as it kinda looks like there are secondary impulse engines on the nacelle pylons, but the Sovereign doesn't have that.

schloopdoo

Speaking only for myself, but I think more ships should have their death animations spruced up to make them as cool as the Romulan singularity shrink. Saucers separating would be an obvious choice for Federation ships, but lots of ship types have visible escape pods that could be shooting out. For maximum comedy, the escapees should then fail to get away from the breaching warp core in time.

rattler2

I believe the lockbox/Lobi Son'a ships have a reskin of the Romulan animations.

ltminns

While not canon (praise be the canon), an Episode of Star Trek Continues had the Enterprise (Constitution Class) seperate the Saucer.

praetorniral

rattler2 wrote: »

In canon the Sovereign Class has never shown an ability to saucer seperate. I can only recall one instance of it in a book, and the design of the ship itself makes saucer seperation look unviable. The Odyssey can get away with it as it kinda looks like there are secondary impulse engines on the nacelle pylons, but the Sovereign doesn't have that.

I own a copy of the Haynes book "U.S.S. Enterprise Owners Workshop Manual" which Michael Okuda who worked on TNG contributes to as a technical consultant and it says in the Enterprise E section that it IS capable of saucer separation and Okuda has contributed in the tech side to canon.

They just didn't get round to doing it in the movies which fan films might rectify but as a Sovereign is supposed to be more of a Borg/Dominion influenced battleship without families on board any tactical utility besides dealing with a warp core breach would mainly have to be making the star drive section even more manoeuvrable than it's otherwise supposed to be. And you might have noticed that the triangular shaped underside between the saucer and forward star drive where the main quantum torpedo launcher is does seem to point to a point of separation and that the quantum launcher seems part of the star drive on separation.

And here's a wee demonstration.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1amHcMs5-k

phoenixc

According to the series bible and things Roddenberry, Jefferies, or both have said, a lot of the Federation ships have saucer separation but most of them can only do it once and they cannot be put back together outside of a shipyard. It was meant as an emergency measure only for those ships. Full launch-and-recover sections seem to actually be rather rare.

There are only two canon ship classes that are known for sure to have that capability (and only the Galaxy was shown actually doing it), the Galaxy and the one originally designed for Planet of Titans (ship class name unknown) that the Crossfield is very loosely based on (and yes, it is actually a canon ship class though it is only seen in the background in ESD and and later in Surplus Depot Z15 in TNG). It had an unusual reversal of the typical Starfleet ship design, its main hull was the wedge and the saucer was a planetary exploration "base" lander that could be launched and recovered as easily as the Galaxy saucer.

thevampinator

Actually The sovereign can in the beta canon. So yeah the Sovereign can Saucer Separate. Even the Constitution class it seems can saucer separate. As seen in the Kelvin movies. Most likely the non Kelvin version could do the same.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Saucer_separation
The novel Preserver by William Shatner, Judith Reeves-Stevens and Garfield Reeves-Stevens suggested that the USS Enterprise-E was capable of separating. The TNG relaunch novel Resistance explicitly mentions the separation of the Enterprise-E as part of measures to rescue Captain Picard from the Borg during the events of the novel.
It isn't the only ship class mentioned to be able to do it either.
The novelization of Star Trek Generations showed Captain Hikaru Sulu conducting an emergency drill aboard the USS Excelsior when he received news of Kirk's death from Pavel Chekov. The ship had just completed an emergency saucer separation when the communication was received.
So I think they design the ships to saucer seperate because of the antimatter, matter cores which could completly annihilate a ship. So I imagine around 23rd century, 24th century it became a common theme in all the starships they designed. Possibly for this very reason. But the coding for it is kinda hard to do from what I understand possibly why they don't do it that often unless its seen on Screen itself. But assume almost all starships with a saucer section in the 23rd and especially 24th century have the ability.
If you look at the very bottom of the sovereign class. You can see that it looks like it was designed to be able to separate just like the galaxy. I think this was intentional. So yeah I doubt its impossible when it clearly has been designed for such a purpose. Will we ever see it in game most likely not. But one can always hope they will add at least one type of sovereign with such an ability.

praetorniral

rattler2 wrote: »

In canon the Sovereign Class has never shown an ability to saucer seperate. I can only recall one instance of it in a book, and the design of the ship itself makes saucer seperation look unviable. The Odyssey can get away with it as it kinda looks like there are secondary impulse engines on the nacelle pylons, but the Sovereign doesn't have that.

The Haynes book "The U.S.S. Enterprise Owners Workshop" which has contributions from Michael Okuda acting as a technical consultant who worked on TNG states in the Enterprise E section that it IS capable of separation and reintegration of the saucer/star drive sections. Okuda and wife have contributed to tech canon.

They just didn't get round to it in the movies although that might be rectified in fan films and while the Sovereign unlike the Galaxy class is more of a Borg/Dominion influenced no families battleship any tactical utility would surely have to be in making mainly the star drive section even more manoeuvrable other than dealing with a warp core breach. You might also have noticed that there's a triangular area between the saucer/star drive where the forward quantum torpedo launcher is which implies separability and that the forward quantum torpedo launcher seems designed to be used by the star drive/battle section.

And here's a wee demonstration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1amHcMs5-k

phoenixc

azrael605 wrote: »

> @phoenixc#0738 said:
> According to the series bible and things Roddenberry, Jefferies, or both have said, a lot of the Federation ships have saucer separation but most of them can only do it once and they cannot be put back together outside of a shipyard. It was meant as an emergency measure only for those ships. Full launch-and-recover sections seem to actually be rather rare.
>
> There are only two canon ship classes that are known for sure to have that capability (and only the Galaxy was shown actually doing it), the Galaxy and the one originally designed for Planet of Titans (ship class name unknown) that the Crossfield is very loosely based on (and yes, it is actually a canon ship class though it is only seen in the background in ESD and and later in Surplus Depot Z15 in TNG). It had an unusual reversal of the typical Starfleet ship design, its main hull was the wedge and the saucer was a planetary exploration "base" lander that could be launched and recovered as easily as the Galaxy saucer.

Ah but with the advent of Discovery those ships become spore drive less Crossfields, and thua no saucer sep.

Not really, the ship classes look totally different, the only thing they really share is the fact that the one of the hulls on both are more or less wedge shaped. They are not any closer in look than a Galaxy is to an Excelsior beyond that general wedginess of the PoT's primary hull and the "A" shape of Crossfield's secondary hull.

praetorniral

rattler2 wrote: »

In canon the Sovereign Class has never shown an ability to saucer seperate. I can only recall one instance of it in a book, and the design of the ship itself makes saucer seperation look unviable. The Odyssey can get away with it as it kinda looks like there are secondary impulse engines on the nacelle pylons, but the Sovereign doesn't have that.

I own a copy of the U.S.S “Enterprise Owners Workshop Manual” by Haynes books in which Michael Okuda who worked on TNG is the technical consultant towards and it states on the section on the Enterprise E that it DOES have a separable and reintegrative capability for it’s saucer/star drive section. Okuda and wife have made contributions to the tech side of prime universe Trek from TNG

They just didn’t get round to it in the movies although that might be rectified in any fan films although it could be argued that any tactical utility from this outwith of dealing with a warp core breach would have to be ramping up the manoeuvrability of the battle (star drive ) section as the Sovereign Class is supposed to be more of a Borg/Dominion influenced (no civilians aboard) battleship as it is.

You might also have noticed the triangular ventral area between the star drive and saucer section with the forward quantum torpedo launcher being clearly part of the star drive upon separation.

And here’s a little demonstration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1amHcMs5-k

praetorniral

[quote=: None of that is relevant to anything. It is not canon.[/quote]

It's from a licenced publication contributed to by someone whose worked on TNG Series/Movies. Who otherwise arbitrates as to what's definitively canon?

foxman00

praetorniral wrote: »

[quote=: None of that is relevant to anything. It is not canon.

It's from a licenced publication contributed to by someone whose worked on TNG Series/Movies. Who otherwise arbitrates as to what's definitively canon?
[/quote]

CBS themselves. They have frequently tossed away stuff said or made up in books by episodes they show on screen. The general principal of Star trek canon is. Episode or movie = Canon. Books, comics, games etc =- Not canon unless otherwise specifically stated by CBS themselves.

phoenixc

azrael605 wrote: »

> @phoenixc#0738 said:
> azrael605 wrote: »
>
> > @phoenixc#0738 said:
> > According to the series bible and things Roddenberry, Jefferies, or both have said, a lot of the Federation ships have saucer separation but most of them can only do it once and they cannot be put back together outside of a shipyard. It was meant as an emergency measure only for those ships. Full launch-and-recover sections seem to actually be rather rare.
> >
> > There are only two canon ship classes that are known for sure to have that capability (and only the Galaxy was shown actually doing it), the Galaxy and the one originally designed for Planet of Titans (ship class name unknown) that the Crossfield is very loosely based on (and yes, it is actually a canon ship class though it is only seen in the background in ESD and and later in Surplus Depot Z15 in TNG). It had an unusual reversal of the typical Starfleet ship design, its main hull was the wedge and the saucer was a planetary exploration "base" lander that could be launched and recovered as easily as the Galaxy saucer.
>
> Ah but with the advent of Discovery those ships become spore drive less Crossfields, and thua no saucer sep.
>
>
>
>
> Not really, the ship classes look totally different, the only thing they really share is the fact that the one of the hulls on both are more or less wedge shaped. They are not any closer in look than a Galaxy is to an Excelsior beyond that general wedginess of the PoT's primary hull and the "A" shape of Crossfield's secondary hull.

No other known ship class has that hull shape. Planet of the Titans does not exist, only the Crossfield class has that shape and a name in canon. The only reason for differences in look is post-TOS refits.

Nothing was ever said about there only being one ship class in the whole of Starfleet with a wedge shaped hull and the visual evidence strongly indicates the Crossfield was not alone in using a wedge as a major hull unit.

In fact, it was probably an esthetic descendent of the Warp Delta type seen in ENT in much the same way the Akira is supposed to be of the NX (though of course in the real world the Akira came first in the First Contact movie). It would be the first Federation ship shown outside of the Kelvin universe with its secondary hull on top, but that is not a huge problem.

baddmoonrizin

Because those ship animations and mechanics take A LOT of time to do, and since the Sovereign (or any other FED ship outside of the Galaxy and Prometheus) never showed on screen the ability to do so, the devs aren't going to spend their limited time with it. /Thread