Well, I sort of agree. What I think is that they either have to go, or they have to make sense. Currently, it's a terrible hodgepodge of crazy.
But if we think about it, there is already a structure for ship tiers that should make some modicum of sense, right? Think about it, excluding the TOS connie, the enterprise has had 6 iterations (including the newest one!)
So instead of starting out in a miranda, start out with T1 cruiser is Connie Refit - Lt. T2 Cruiser is Excelsior - Lt. Cmdr. T3 Cruiser is Ambassador - Cmdr. T4 Cruiser is Galaxy - Captain. T5 Cruiser is Sovereign - Rear Admiral. T6 Cruiser is Odyssey - Vice Admiral.
Throw in the variants at each level to flesh out the cruisers, and then toss in the sci ships and escorts that are on par era-wise or power-wise with each level of enterprise class, and BAM. The tier system just fixed ITSELF, based off of the structure we ALREADY had from the ship the ENTIRE IP IS ABOUT! WOOOO!
Ship Tiers should be flexible. I would say there should be possible Parity between classes T-3 and up. But there should be NO way that a Connie/Miranda should be able to take on a Sovereign.
I mean, I am ok with the lwoer tiers haveing better manuverability, etc...but it should be more likley to lose than win.
I would suggest the ability to upgrade a ship +/- 2 tiers.
Tiers mean nothing to me. All ships are completely adequate for regular PvE. On any day you'll see me in an Oberth, a Star Cruiser, a Connie, an Akira, or a Defiant. :cool:
Ship Tiers should be flexible. I would say there should be possible Parity between classes T-3 and up. But there should be NO way that a Connie/Miranda should be able to take on a Sovereign.
I mean, I am ok with the lwoer tiers haveing better manuverability, etc...but it should be more likley to lose than win.
I would suggest the ability to upgrade a ship +/- 2 tiers.
I think I agree with what you said.....but it seems a lot like you read the thread title and then posted without reading the post.... Maybe I'm wrong....
I remember awhile back hearing that they changed the console setup and that ships were no longer as restricted to being designed for specific classes. That's a good start, but it really didn't solve the problem overall. Ship tiers should be removed. When you level up you should be allowed to either get a new ship that is level/rank appropriate for hull strength and console slots, or use your ship token to do a refit of your current ship to upgrade the hull strength/console slots to better fit your level/rank. There's really no solid reason or excuse that a Miranda-class, for instance, would only be commanded by lowliest of ranks. At no point in the shows or movies did we ever see someone forced into getting a completely new ship just because they were raised in rank. We do, however, have at least one example of someone going from Captain to Admiral and getting a refit of their current ship.
I remember awhile back hearing that they changed the console setup and that ships were no longer as restricted to being designed for specific classes. That's a good start, but it really didn't solve the problem overall. Ship tiers should be removed. When you level up you should be allowed to either get a new ship that is level/rank appropriate for hull strength and console slots, or use your ship token to do a refit of your current ship to upgrade the hull strength/console slots to better fit your level/rank. There's really no solid reason or excuse that a Miranda-class, for instance, would only be commanded by lowliest of ranks. At no point in the shows or movies did we ever see someone forced into getting a completely new ship just because they were raised in rank. We do, however, have at least one example of someone going from Captain to Admiral and getting a refit of their current ship.
Because in the shows the lowest rank to ever be ASSIGNED to command of a ship was commander....and most of the commanding officers of ships in the shows NEVER CHANGED RANK. Soooo yeah. I think Kirk might have been the only one that we SEE move on up to admiral...then back down...then ba- bloody Kirk yo-yo!
Anyway, my point as, at some point, you have to acknowledge that it's a game and if we were really going off of the IP, you wouldn't get a ship till Commander at all, and before then you would be assigned to various shipboard duties (blech). It makes perfect sense to me that lower ranked officers (in command of ships, yes, lets pretend its the napoleonic era British Royal Navy...) would only get to handle the older cheaper stuff, and the higher you get in rank, the more you are trusted with the bigger(or just badder) faster, more expensive stuff.
It makes perfect sense to me that lower ranked officers (in command of ships, yes, lets pretend its the napoleonic era British Royal Navy...) would only get to handle the older cheaper stuff, and the higher you get in rank, the more you are trusted with the bigger(or just badder) faster, more expensive stuff.
just my 2c.
That's how I see it too. If you were a Lt. in the Royal Navy, your first command was likely to be something like a sloop. Eventually you'd move up to a brigantine or brig, a frigate, and eventually a lineship.
Assuming you lived that long.
It's still a level-based game. There needs to be some progression. I don't think ship tiers should disappear entirely, but there needs to be a massive overhaul in the way they currently are.
Create 3 "scalable" ship exo-skeletons (could be sold in the C-Store) that work like shuttles do currently.
These ships would scale up with your rank, increasing weapon hardpoints, consoles and BO slots, as well as debuff factors such as manueverability.
These ships come in 3 flavors. Escort, Cruiser, and Science. You can use any Tier 1-3 ship skin on these scalable ships, so long as it's in the same classification. (So Cruiser exo-skeletons only use Cruiser skins, etc.)
The final scaled stats would be approx 75% of the strength of normal Tier ships. So for example, an Exo-Skeleton Cruiser would have 29,250 Hull Points at Vice Admiral, compared to the regular 39,000. It would have 3 Weapons Fore, 3 Aft instead of the regular 4/4 and would have 6 consoles instead of the regular 9.
Make it so the TOS Connie, NX, Oberth, Miranda and T5 BoP classes can ONLY be used as an Exo-Skeleton ship. Then, restrict PvP queues so exo-skeleton ships can not be used in PvP, or have their own sub-category.
Ta-da! Problem solved.
You allow people to fly the ship they want to fly in PvE, without any impact on PvP, and you avoid the whole "TOS Connie shouldn't be beating Sovereign" argument all-together.
It's a very viable compromise that pretty much ends the debate across the board, and would be financially suitable to Cryptic as well.
That's how I see it too. If you were a Lt. in the Royal Navy, your first command was likely to be something like a sloop. Eventually you'd move up to a brigantine or brig, a frigate, and eventually a lineship.
Assuming you lived that long.
It's still a level-based game. There needs to be some progression. I don't think ship tiers should disappear entirely, but there needs to be a massive overhaul in the way they currently are.
It's still the case with modern navies today; the Scimitar-class HMS Sabre's captain is a lieutenant; and the Echo-class HMS Enterprise is currently a commander.
But it wasn't a Federation ship. It was just an Earth ship. There have been a ton of Earth ships with that name.
Uh, it was part of the beginning of the federation wasn't it? According to all that time travel nonsense that happened during the series anyways. Which means the Tier system set up in this thread's original post is off because of the NX, which is a ship in this game that does exist and does need to be accounted for.
NX
TOS Constitution
Constitution Refit
Excelsior Refit
Ambassador
Galaxy
Sovereign
Odyssey
Universe
I think the ship tiers provide structure to progress through the ranks. It also offers the reward of reaching the next rank and showing off your new ship. level restricted ships are just like level restricted equipment or mounts in any MMO.
What is needed is more much more variety in configuring your ship with unique visuals. At the moment it feels like a Cookie scenario. Items like the Aegis/Borg set, Romulan shields went a little bit in the right direction. But Cryptic should follow through and give us unique visuals for Hull Armor etc.
The only way this could work is introducing a rank Handicap. (example - a Lieutenant flying a Tier 5 ship would get a turn rate of x4, accuracy x-4, etc etc)
Well, I sort of agree. What I think is that they either have to go, or they have to make sense. Currently, it's a terrible hodgepodge of crazy.
But if we think about it, there is already a structure for ship tiers that should make some modicum of sense, right? Think about it, excluding the TOS connie, the enterprise has had 6 iterations (including the newest one!)
So instead of starting out in a miranda, start out with T1 cruiser is Connie Refit - Lt. T2 Cruiser is Excelsior - Lt. Cmdr. T3 Cruiser is Ambassador - Cmdr. T4 Cruiser is Galaxy - Captain. T5 Cruiser is Sovereign - Rear Admiral. T6 Cruiser is Odyssey - Vice Admiral.
Throw in the variants at each level to flesh out the cruisers, and then toss in the sci ships and escorts that are on par era-wise or power-wise with each level of enterprise class, and BAM. The tier system just fixed ITSELF, based off of the structure we ALREADY had from the ship the ENTIRE IP IS ABOUT! WOOOO!
What I'm kind of hoping for is an upgrade system. It doesn't make sense now that the TOS connie upgraded can be on par with say a sovvy. Ever. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense how a TOS connie can't have the same amount of BO slots. Or to put it another way, BO powers are about experience through the game. As you grow so does your crew. So, why does the ship determine that necessarily?
Don't ask me about hull upgrades or even weapon upgrades. I think that then you are getting into a bit of rubbish, or the curve should dwindle the higher you upgrade. I mean, just think about the neck on a connie. Duh.
On the other hand, take a nova class starship out when you hit VA and it's not that bad really. I used to run one through a good amount of missions. I would run a back and forward tetryon beam array. and either back and forward quantum torps or a forward quantum torp and a tricobalt torp in the back. It's actually a bit of fun because the battle tend to be more intense and last the length that you would think they should for space battles. It requires you to definitely think your way around situations.
Unlike now when I am in my defiant style ship and I just decloak, unload all my energy weapons, and blast about four quantums down the opposing ship's throat. I can then either turn around and blast them with a tricobalt or just keep on trucking forward and they will be dead by the time I'm a kilo away typically. Wait for red alert to end, recloak, there are three ships this time, fire beam at will, the canon cone.. thingie power, and essentially the same result moments later.
easy stuff. Fun sometimes, but the battles aren't that epic.
The only downside of course with a Nova is that you can't run the VA missions that involve other players because you will in fact bring them down.
The ship tiers should vanish completely as well as the Tac/Sci/Eng focus of the ships. It's a high tech future. If Star Trek shows have shown us anything it's that the shape and often size of a ship doesn't mean quite as much as it does in the real world. Also there's not likely a reason to keep very old ships in service. With powerful computer aided design and sophisticated tools like replicators and transporters old ships are likely gutted or ripped apart, their material used to recreate themselves.
I'd bet the Centaur shown in DS9 was relatively recently built with new internal structure and all the latest technologies. The ship was clearly not afraid to chase one of the bug ships by itself into Dominion space and only backed off when two more showed up. Watching it retreat with two undamaged bugs in pursuit Sisko and company weren't remotely concerned that they wouldn't survive or even possibly win. This can't be explained if that Centaur was really the equivalent of an STO Centaur.
All ships should be "repurpose ready" or "built to function". I see no real valid argument was to why in the Trek universe an Akira can't have its guts and structure configured for science work or the Olympic redone for escort duty.
Uh, it was part of the beginning of the federation wasn't it? According to all that time travel nonsense that happened during the series anyways. Which means the Tier system set up in this thread's original post is off because of the NX, which is a ship in this game that does exist and does need to be accounted for.
NX
TOS Constitution
Constitution Refit
Excelsior Refit
Ambassador
Galaxy
Sovereign
Odyssey
Universe
Tier that up!
Keep in mind though, as far as this game is concerned, the NX is an escort. So it'd still probably fit the OP's tier system, just not among the cruisers.
The promise before launch was that you could take the lowest tier ship in the game and use it at max level with little to no disadvantage.
That promise was one of the first to be broken.
What we need is a mission to collect items and such to convert ANY ship to a T5 equivalent. I'm sure people are going to be angry that a Miranda/Centaur frankenstein will be the equivalent of their Sovereign or Odyssey, but the suspension of disbelief has already been broken by the Excelsior class being more effective of an assault cruiser than the Sovereign.
I have stated this long ago in older threads, the tier system should be dropped all together. Players should have access to every ship in the game and play them to the end.
Ship Modification should include:
A) BO slot modifications as one rank up
Console slot rank up for appropriate starship with some slight modification depending on the age of the ship. A Centaur should still have various weapon slots - its a starship after all.
So yes it should be classified as a Light Cruiser, but that should not mean that it should only have one main weapon slot. Let the slot rank up along with your appropriate rank.
(To be honest, I love the Centaur - its a cute little vessel - and I would love to use her at higher level missions, even if it means I have to sacrifice a little on the armor rating.)
As of now the difference between tier 1 and tier 5 are worlds apart - heck the old excelsior tier 3 (though they have a retrofit) was used throughout the Star Trek series - heck the U.S.S. Lakota was kicking the TRIBBLE out of the Defiant in one episode (It was not a retrofit but a modified Excelsior in regards to weps and systems - yet she was still tier 3 style vessel)
A ship should rank up along with the player - making starbases useful in the process of remodifying one's vessel - hell CRYPTIC is sitting on a GOLD MINE with this idea, since it will promote Dilithium purchases and possibly a Refit Package that can be sold on the exchange.
(OMG :eek: did I just give CRYPTIC another awesome idea - I should start a thread on this concept)
What should really be done is a smoothing over of the tiers, getting rid of most of them.
For example, make T0 and T1 ships, from the Miranda on down to the Connie/Nova/Sabre, the early game ships.
Then differentiate the rest of the ships enough that they're all viable and useful no matter what the level, and beyond that, have the ships hull strengh, shields, etc. scale to level.
That way, people can basically use whatever ship they want at end game and the would be a much more diverse range of ships used at end game.
The differentiation between the ships could range from innate boosts to hull strength (say, the Galaxy class would have the most HP at end game, at least next to the new freebie ship), to perhaps giving some science vessels different innate abilities -- say giving one class a Subsystem 2 power, but making them lack a Subsystem 1 power, like the Hope could have a better Target Aux power, but no Target Weapon, while the Intrepid could have a better Target Weapon, but not Target Aux.
Other differentiators could range from device slots to bridge officer slots to small innate speed boosts to innate detect stealth boosts, each depending on the ship.
The game would be so much better if it went in that direction. It would be a bit of a switch, but I don't think players would care and you could always create the change in such a way that they could decide to keep their ships the same as they are now, or allow them to be changed in the future.
Some people may worry about game balance, but the solution to that is really simple. Don't make any of the differences between ships be so important as to be an 'I win' button. Keep the differences no greater than the differences that currently exist between ships that can be paid for with dilithium versus c-store ships.
Does anyone remember Earth and Beyond? Nice game. Fun too, One ship, 3 major levels to it. Going back to get my ship upgraded was a lot of cool fun. Of course that game no longer exists, but ya know I could get behind that kind leveling/upgrading in STO.
If there would be anything that fit the IP more, it would be that. None of the other series ships got replaced. (Sure a movie got the Refit, another got the Sovereign) And Voyager got more upgrades that they lost than one could shake a stick at. XD Never saw Enterprise, but I'm sure it was the upgrade queen of the series.
I really kinda wish STO could do that. Pick your ship and move up with it, upgrading and powering up on the way.
Uh, it was part of the beginning of the federation wasn't it? According to all that time travel nonsense that happened during the series anyways. Which means the Tier system set up in this thread's original post is off because of the NX, which is a ship in this game that does exist and does need to be accounted for.
NX
TOS Constitution
Constitution Refit
Excelsior Refit
Ambassador
Galaxy
Sovereign
Odyssey
Universe
Tier that up!
Except I excluded the NX for the same reason I excluded the TOS connie, it doesn't really fit in terms of modular parts looks, and there are only six tiers, so lets take the six most recent enterprise classes. Duh. Also he was right, the NX was an Earth ship, not a starfleet ship. So there.
Keep in mind though, as far as this game is concerned, the NX is an escort. So it'd still probably fit the OP's tier system, just not among the cruisers.
I can tell a lot of people that hate the Tier system were attracted by my thread title. I am basically operating on the assumption that they will NEVER EVER scrap the ship tier system as it meshes perfectly with the profit model of the game. So I guess what I am trying to do is have it make sense, using the six most recent enterprises as a backbone, and making a little room for the Ambassador class at the same time! (wink, wink!).
Except I excluded the NX for the same reason I excluded the TOS connie, it doesn't really fit in terms of modular parts looks, and there are only six tiers, so lets take the six most recent enterprise classes. Duh. Also he was right, the NX was an Earth ship, not a starfleet ship. So there.
I don't think that reason outweighs the basic premise you set forth: The Enterprise.
And as I pointed out, the NX was certainly part of Starfleet when it formed if you believe the show itself that kept feeding Archer all of that jibba jabba everytime they had a time travel episode. The same time travel episodes the Enterprise-J came from.
And I think you absolutely need to include the TOS Constitution. For the simple reason that it was the flagship onscreen for three seasons of Star Trek television. It's definitely an Enterprise.
The promise before launch was that you could take the lowest tier ship in the game and use it at max level with little to no disadvantage.
That promise was one of the first to be broken.
What we need is a mission to collect items and such to convert ANY ship to a T5 equivalent. I'm sure people are going to be angry that a Miranda/Centaur frankenstein will be the equivalent of their Sovereign or Odyssey, but the suspension of disbelief has already been broken by the Excelsior class being more effective of an assault cruiser than the Sovereign.
*shrug* apart from STFs you can, mission take slightly longer but that's about it.
Pretty sure CBS put a stopper on that idea a long time ago.
Comments
/signed
I mean, I am ok with the lwoer tiers haveing better manuverability, etc...but it should be more likley to lose than win.
I would suggest the ability to upgrade a ship +/- 2 tiers.
Lt: Oberth
Lt. Cmdr: Nova
Cmdr: Intrepid
Captain: Nebula
RA: Luna
The Olympic could go on the C-store in-place of the Oberth, as it's a medical ship with little to no real armament..
Escorts:
Lt: Sabre
Lt. Cmdr: Steamrunner
Cmdr: Defiant
Captain: Prometheus
RA: Akira
I think I agree with what you said.....but it seems a lot like you read the thread title and then posted without reading the post.... Maybe I'm wrong....
Because in the shows the lowest rank to ever be ASSIGNED to command of a ship was commander....and most of the commanding officers of ships in the shows NEVER CHANGED RANK. Soooo yeah. I think Kirk might have been the only one that we SEE move on up to admiral...then back down...then ba- bloody Kirk yo-yo!
Anyway, my point as, at some point, you have to acknowledge that it's a game and if we were really going off of the IP, you wouldn't get a ship till Commander at all, and before then you would be assigned to various shipboard duties (blech). It makes perfect sense to me that lower ranked officers (in command of ships, yes, lets pretend its the napoleonic era British Royal Navy...) would only get to handle the older cheaper stuff, and the higher you get in rank, the more you are trusted with the bigger(or just badder) faster, more expensive stuff.
just my 2c.
That's how I see it too. If you were a Lt. in the Royal Navy, your first command was likely to be something like a sloop. Eventually you'd move up to a brigantine or brig, a frigate, and eventually a lineship.
Assuming you lived that long.
It's still a level-based game. There needs to be some progression. I don't think ship tiers should disappear entirely, but there needs to be a massive overhaul in the way they currently are.
Create 3 "scalable" ship exo-skeletons (could be sold in the C-Store) that work like shuttles do currently.
These ships would scale up with your rank, increasing weapon hardpoints, consoles and BO slots, as well as debuff factors such as manueverability.
These ships come in 3 flavors. Escort, Cruiser, and Science. You can use any Tier 1-3 ship skin on these scalable ships, so long as it's in the same classification. (So Cruiser exo-skeletons only use Cruiser skins, etc.)
The final scaled stats would be approx 75% of the strength of normal Tier ships. So for example, an Exo-Skeleton Cruiser would have 29,250 Hull Points at Vice Admiral, compared to the regular 39,000. It would have 3 Weapons Fore, 3 Aft instead of the regular 4/4 and would have 6 consoles instead of the regular 9.
Make it so the TOS Connie, NX, Oberth, Miranda and T5 BoP classes can ONLY be used as an Exo-Skeleton ship. Then, restrict PvP queues so exo-skeleton ships can not be used in PvP, or have their own sub-category.
Ta-da! Problem solved.
You allow people to fly the ship they want to fly in PvE, without any impact on PvP, and you avoid the whole "TOS Connie shouldn't be beating Sovereign" argument all-together.
It's a very viable compromise that pretty much ends the debate across the board, and would be financially suitable to Cryptic as well.
It's still the case with modern navies today; the Scimitar-class HMS Sabre's captain is a lieutenant; and the Echo-class HMS Enterprise is currently a commander.
Data was assigned command of the Sutherland at Lieutenant Commander.
But it wasn't a Federation ship. It was just an Earth ship. There have been a ton of Earth ships with that name.
Uh, it was part of the beginning of the federation wasn't it? According to all that time travel nonsense that happened during the series anyways. Which means the Tier system set up in this thread's original post is off because of the NX, which is a ship in this game that does exist and does need to be accounted for.
NX
TOS Constitution
Constitution Refit
Excelsior Refit
Ambassador
Galaxy
Sovereign
Odyssey
Universe
Tier that up!
What is needed is more much more variety in configuring your ship with unique visuals. At the moment it feels like a Cookie scenario. Items like the Aegis/Borg set, Romulan shields went a little bit in the right direction. But Cryptic should follow through and give us unique visuals for Hull Armor etc.
The only way this could work is introducing a rank Handicap. (example - a Lieutenant flying a Tier 5 ship would get a turn rate of x4, accuracy x-4, etc etc)
What I'm kind of hoping for is an upgrade system. It doesn't make sense now that the TOS connie upgraded can be on par with say a sovvy. Ever. On the other hand, it doesn't make sense how a TOS connie can't have the same amount of BO slots. Or to put it another way, BO powers are about experience through the game. As you grow so does your crew. So, why does the ship determine that necessarily?
Don't ask me about hull upgrades or even weapon upgrades. I think that then you are getting into a bit of rubbish, or the curve should dwindle the higher you upgrade. I mean, just think about the neck on a connie. Duh.
On the other hand, take a nova class starship out when you hit VA and it's not that bad really. I used to run one through a good amount of missions. I would run a back and forward tetryon beam array. and either back and forward quantum torps or a forward quantum torp and a tricobalt torp in the back. It's actually a bit of fun because the battle tend to be more intense and last the length that you would think they should for space battles. It requires you to definitely think your way around situations.
Unlike now when I am in my defiant style ship and I just decloak, unload all my energy weapons, and blast about four quantums down the opposing ship's throat. I can then either turn around and blast them with a tricobalt or just keep on trucking forward and they will be dead by the time I'm a kilo away typically. Wait for red alert to end, recloak, there are three ships this time, fire beam at will, the canon cone.. thingie power, and essentially the same result moments later.
easy stuff. Fun sometimes, but the battles aren't that epic.
The only downside of course with a Nova is that you can't run the VA missions that involve other players because you will in fact bring them down.
i really want a like button right now.
I'd bet the Centaur shown in DS9 was relatively recently built with new internal structure and all the latest technologies. The ship was clearly not afraid to chase one of the bug ships by itself into Dominion space and only backed off when two more showed up. Watching it retreat with two undamaged bugs in pursuit Sisko and company weren't remotely concerned that they wouldn't survive or even possibly win. This can't be explained if that Centaur was really the equivalent of an STO Centaur.
All ships should be "repurpose ready" or "built to function". I see no real valid argument was to why in the Trek universe an Akira can't have its guts and structure configured for science work or the Olympic redone for escort duty.
Keep in mind though, as far as this game is concerned, the NX is an escort. So it'd still probably fit the OP's tier system, just not among the cruisers.
That promise was one of the first to be broken.
What we need is a mission to collect items and such to convert ANY ship to a T5 equivalent. I'm sure people are going to be angry that a Miranda/Centaur frankenstein will be the equivalent of their Sovereign or Odyssey, but the suspension of disbelief has already been broken by the Excelsior class being more effective of an assault cruiser than the Sovereign.
Ship Modification should include:
A) BO slot modifications as one rank up
So yes it should be classified as a Light Cruiser, but that should not mean that it should only have one main weapon slot. Let the slot rank up along with your appropriate rank.
(To be honest, I love the Centaur - its a cute little vessel - and I would love to use her at higher level missions, even if it means I have to sacrifice a little on the armor rating.)
As of now the difference between tier 1 and tier 5 are worlds apart - heck the old excelsior tier 3 (though they have a retrofit) was used throughout the Star Trek series - heck the U.S.S. Lakota was kicking the TRIBBLE out of the Defiant in one episode (It was not a retrofit but a modified Excelsior in regards to weps and systems - yet she was still tier 3 style vessel)
A ship should rank up along with the player - making starbases useful in the process of remodifying one's vessel - hell CRYPTIC is sitting on a GOLD MINE with this idea, since it will promote Dilithium purchases and possibly a Refit Package that can be sold on the exchange.
(OMG :eek: did I just give CRYPTIC another awesome idea - I should start a thread on this concept)
For example, make T0 and T1 ships, from the Miranda on down to the Connie/Nova/Sabre, the early game ships.
Then differentiate the rest of the ships enough that they're all viable and useful no matter what the level, and beyond that, have the ships hull strengh, shields, etc. scale to level.
That way, people can basically use whatever ship they want at end game and the would be a much more diverse range of ships used at end game.
The differentiation between the ships could range from innate boosts to hull strength (say, the Galaxy class would have the most HP at end game, at least next to the new freebie ship), to perhaps giving some science vessels different innate abilities -- say giving one class a Subsystem 2 power, but making them lack a Subsystem 1 power, like the Hope could have a better Target Aux power, but no Target Weapon, while the Intrepid could have a better Target Weapon, but not Target Aux.
Other differentiators could range from device slots to bridge officer slots to small innate speed boosts to innate detect stealth boosts, each depending on the ship.
The game would be so much better if it went in that direction. It would be a bit of a switch, but I don't think players would care and you could always create the change in such a way that they could decide to keep their ships the same as they are now, or allow them to be changed in the future.
Some people may worry about game balance, but the solution to that is really simple. Don't make any of the differences between ships be so important as to be an 'I win' button. Keep the differences no greater than the differences that currently exist between ships that can be paid for with dilithium versus c-store ships.
If there would be anything that fit the IP more, it would be that. None of the other series ships got replaced. (Sure a movie got the Refit, another got the Sovereign) And Voyager got more upgrades that they lost than one could shake a stick at. XD Never saw Enterprise, but I'm sure it was the upgrade queen of the series.
I really kinda wish STO could do that. Pick your ship and move up with it, upgrading and powering up on the way.
Except I excluded the NX for the same reason I excluded the TOS connie, it doesn't really fit in terms of modular parts looks, and there are only six tiers, so lets take the six most recent enterprise classes. Duh. Also he was right, the NX was an Earth ship, not a starfleet ship. So there.
Also a good point!
I don't think that reason outweighs the basic premise you set forth: The Enterprise.
And as I pointed out, the NX was certainly part of Starfleet when it formed if you believe the show itself that kept feeding Archer all of that jibba jabba everytime they had a time travel episode. The same time travel episodes the Enterprise-J came from.
And I think you absolutely need to include the TOS Constitution. For the simple reason that it was the flagship onscreen for three seasons of Star Trek television. It's definitely an Enterprise.
*shrug* apart from STFs you can, mission take slightly longer but that's about it.
Pretty sure CBS put a stopper on that idea a long time ago.