How many new type ships are going to come out before you bring and old ventage ship into playable service? I and others have been waiting for 2 years for the Ambassidor class ship to come out. I have an alt character and crew set up to be on the old ship. He is also my test dumby for the new cruisers and carriers that come out. I don't know wether to hold on to my money or not. I am certaly not going to buy every new ship that comes out.
How many new type ships are going to come out before you bring and old ventage ship into playable service? I and others have been waiting for 2 years for the Ambassidor class ship to come out. I have an alt character and crew set up to be on the old ship. He is also my test dumby for the new cruisers and carriers that come out. I don't know wether to hold on to my money or not. I am certaly not going to buy every new ship that comes out.
Never. Don't want it, don't care about it. Though it would fix my OCD about owning all the 'enterprise' ships...so far they haven't made the shuttlecraft and the aircraft carrier though.... not to mention the square-rigged tall ship...so I might be out of luck!
....really? You don't know the history of the ship named Enterprise? There was a shuttle named Enterprise, there was an Aircraft Carrier named Enterprise...there was a British Royal Navy square rigged sailing ship named Enterprise.....
From what the Developers are saying the ship is coming. No time frame, no dates and no plans. Since the next ship to come out is the Regent upgrade to the Assault Cruiser I would say not until a month or two after that at the earliest but I could be completely wrong.
I'm not sure but going by the show, it can't have been that practical as a ship. With Oberths, Excelsiors and even Mirandas around next to the Galaxy no Ambassador classes where ever seen except for Yesterdays Enterprise. And the Galaxy was a pretty new design at the time of TNG.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
there are 6 appearances of it actually. the galaxy was the direct replacement for the ambassador, neither were a high production ship because they are so overwhelmingly massive compared to those mass produced oberths, excelsiors and mirandas.
From what the Developers are saying the ship is coming. No time frame, no dates and no plans. Since the next ship to come out is the Regent upgrade to the Assault Cruiser I would say not until a month or two after that at the earliest but I could be completely wrong.
I'm not sure but going by the show, it can't have been that practical as a ship. With Oberths, Excelsiors and even Mirandas around next to the Galaxy no Ambassador classes where ever seen except for Yesterdays Enterprise. And the Galaxy was a pretty new design at the time of TNG.
I agree with dontdrunkimshoot, it was the same ship class Commander Riker took charge of in "Redemption Part II." The Ambassidor class ship was sited at least 6 time in TNG. Yesterdays Enterprise was the only episode where it was shown up close and very detailed. The other episodes, had it flying along side the Enterprise-D.
there are 6 appearances of it actually. the galaxy was the direct replacement for the ambassador, neither were a high production ship because they are so overwhelmingly massive compared to those mass produced oberths, excelsiors and mirandas.
I don't have a Eidetic memory so I only remember seeing it once. But every time a Fed ship is seen it's an Excelsior practically. Thanks for the info on production but.
But again that's saying that these things where super rare ships and still somewhat impractical.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
I don't have a Eidetic memory so I only remember seeing it once. But every time a Fed ship is seen it's an Excelsior practically. Thanks for the info on production but.
But again that's saying that these things where super rare ships and still somewhat impractical.
I don't have to use my memory, because I have TNG seasons 1-5 and 7. All i have to do is look at it again, which I did a few weeks ago.
Thats a silly question. We will continue to get threads like this as long as they keep coming out with new cruisers and not one Ambassidor Class.
My question is no sillier than the one in the topic title. And I really don't understand the need to open x amount of threads concerning the same thing. Do you think it'll speed things up? Do you think the Devs will read it? They surely get sick of just seeing the name "Ambassador".
I don't have a Eidetic memory so I only remember seeing it once. But every time a Fed ship is seen it's an Excelsior practically. Thanks for the info on production but.
But again that's saying that these things where super rare ships and still somewhat impractical.
it took about 5 seconds to check memory alpha. it lists every appearance nice and neatly.
they arent supper rare just because the hero ship didn't cross paths with them that often. there would have been hundreds of ambassador class built, just not thousands like there were excelsiors and mirandas. the ambassador was the federations top battleship from the 2330s to the 2360s, until the galaxy was introduced and replaced it in that role. they just don't build as many battleships as they do light cruisers.
Guys two things:
When is people going to stop to complain about the ambassador?, when they release it.
When are they going to release the ambassador?, on tuesday XD
it took about 5 seconds to check memory alpha. it lists every appearance nice and neatly.
they arent supper rare just because the hero ship didn't cross paths with them that often. there would have been hundreds of ambassador class built, just not thousands like there were excelsiors and mirandas. the ambassador was the federations top battleship from the 2330s to the 2360s, until the galaxy was introduced and replaced it in that role. they just don't build as many battleships as they do light cruisers.
Valid points, I rarely use Memory Alpha, and that's a mistake I made.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
it took about 5 seconds to check memory alpha. it lists every appearance nice and neatly.
they arent supper rare just because the hero ship didn't cross paths with them that often. there would have been hundreds of ambassador class built, just not thousands like there were excelsiors and mirandas. the ambassador was the federations top battleship from the 2330s to the 2360s, until the galaxy was introduced and replaced it in that role. they just don't build as many battleships as they do light cruisers.
If you wanna get pedantic the Feds didn't build battleships at all until the Defiant, because of Starfleet's silly "we're not a military" stance.
Personally I think they haven't gotten to the Amba because it's simply not as visually distinctive as most of the other ships that have gotten to the C-store, barring the hero designs (sorry, if it didn't get its own series or truly substantial screen time, it isn't a "hero").
Think about the new ships (meaning not reissues of existing designs) that have made it. We got the Gal-X distinctive for the 3rd nacelle, we got the Nebula, distinctive because it's half a Galaxy, we got the Oberth because it's crazy-lookin', and the NX because lol Enterprise. The Deffy Refit and the Bellerophon were both hero ships, and the Armitage is because the Akira's a fan favorite (though I guess the Ambassador's a fan fave as well). Now they're selling folks a new Sovereign (hero ship).
The real challenge at this point is releasing an Amba, with new skin options (I doubt people will cough up 2500z for a single skin unless it's OP like the Excelsior retro), that doesn't look a halfway point between an Exeter (the Connie refit) and a Galaxy. Because by default that's how the Ambassador looks to me.
Furthermore, unlike most of the other ships, it doesn't slot easily into the existing classes, either. It's smaller than a Galaxy and not a sausage, so it can't be an Exploration or Star Cruiser, and it's too peaceful-looking to be an Assault Cruiser. It's too cruiser-looking to be a science ship, and too fat to be an escort. At best it could slot in as a refit or 2nd-option to the Advanced Heavy Cruiser, but it would be confusing to have three "Advanced Heavy Cruiser" variants on the store. And it's not exotic enough to be a one-off like the Catboat or the Vulcan Dicker (misspelling intentional )
I'm not saying it won't happen, because they said it will, eventually. I am saying that it will be a challenge to fit it into what passes for a design philosophy among them right now, while making it a truly desirable option for people that want more than another in the Enterprise line.
If you wanna get pedantic the Feds didn't build battleships at all until the Defiant, because of Starfleet's silly "we're not a military" stance.
the defiant is not a battleship, its a corvette. a battleship is a size based designation, it basically means the biggest, and most likely, the most powerful class of ship. the defiant is a tiny escort, smaller then frigates like the miranda or saber, the size based classification below that is corvette.
the ambassador should get the exact stats the negvar has, 3 tac consoles, the engineering ensign, 9 turn rate, all but mounting duel cannons. and the galaxy R should get a different station setup, its long overdue to not be a complete pos.
I don't have a Eidetic memory so I only remember seeing it once. But every time a Fed ship is seen it's an Excelsior practically. Thanks for the info on production but.
But again that's saying that these things where super rare ships and still somewhat impractical.
that is mainly do to loosing the ambassador model after filming the DS9 pilot and they already had the ent-b/excel model handy the lakota for instance was originality scripted as an ambassador but with out the model they used the ent-b model from generations instead as it was cheaper then remaking the ambassador model.
now after switching to CGI no idea why they did not add the ambassador in maybe they thought it would get lost with all the galaxies
the defiant is not a battleship, its a corvette. a battleship is a size based designation, it basically means the biggest, and most likely, the most powerful class of ship. the defiant is a tiny escort, smaller then frigates like the miranda or saber, the size based classification below that is corvette.
Neither "corvette" nor "battleship" existed as designations for Starfleet ships post-TOS (except in script discrepancies), because -like I said- Starfleet didn't consider itself a military organization. Some quotes from Memory Alpha:
"The Defiant-class, originally developed to counter the Borg, is officially classified as an escort vessel, but was unofficially a warship. (DS9: "The Search, Part I")."
but
"The Defiant-class was sometimes referred to as a battleship. (VOY: "Drone")"
and also:
"Starfleet typically avoids using the warship classification, instead applying euphemisms such as "escort" and "tactical cruiser" for the Defiant-class and Prometheus-class, respectively. Despite this custom, chief petty officer Dorian Collins referred to the USS Valiant as a "state of the art warship."
Ultimately this serves to show that Star Trek is inconsistent. The Klinks, other aliens most certainly thought of Starfleet as a military organization, as apparently did many non-Starfleet Federation citizens, and probably many Starfleet officers themselves. If Starfleet wanted to truly be a non-military org, it would have patterned itself after NASA, not the US Navy.
But I digress. Ultimately it's this quote that matters most:
"The term "heavy cruiser" has been used only twice throughout all of Star Trek, where it was spoken in reference to the Ambassador-class ship, and on an on-screen display of the Constitution-class. All other references to large ships have used the term "battle cruiser"."
And there we go. Though in STO the Constitution is just "Cruiser", the Amba is definitely a "Heavy Cruiser". The only problem left for Cryptic is finding a new variation on "Heavy Cruiser" to put it in, since we have the Cheyenne/Stargazer set and the Excelsior taking up the Advanced and Standard slots. In terms of size it's longer than an Excelsior and shorter than a Galaxy (about the size of a DSSV).
Any suggestions as to what type of "Heavy Cruiser" niche the Ambassador can fill? C'mon, the more you think about it, the better the chances of maybe (just maybe) Cryptic possibly kinda cribbing some good ideas and putting them on the store.
now after switching to CGI no idea why they did not add the ambassador in maybe they thought it would get lost with all the galaxies
The most compelling reason. Much as a lot of people like it, the Ambassador looks like a rough draft of the Galaxy. That's what some producers thought when they first designed the ship for the show.
i know all about starfleet not calling things what they are. me calling something a battleship or corvette is just a simple off hand way to clearly identify what im talking about. starfleet basically calls ever thing an explorer of a cruiser, because those are nice tame sounding names or something. they whisper that the defiant is a warship. several times from say the klingon's perspective they refer to the ent D as a battleship, because thats what it is too them.
in my first post were i used battleship, if i had used explorer instead it wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense.
when they were deciding on what to build in cgi, they decided the ambassador was an old directly replaced class and lower production. there are plenty of older ships still in service, but there were a lot more of them too, thats why there are cgi excelsiors and mirandas. its not that there weren't ambassador class active during the war, its that they were just off screen every time.
it took about 5 seconds to check memory alpha. it lists every appearance nice and neatly.
they arent supper rare just because the hero ship didn't cross paths with them that often. there would have been hundreds of ambassador class built, just not thousands like there were excelsiors and mirandas. the ambassador was the federations top battleship from the 2330s to the 2360s, until the galaxy was introduced and replaced it in that role. they just don't build as many battleships as they do light cruisers.
I have a theory on the visible rarity of the Ambassador class and the overt prevalence of the Miranda and Excelsior. Forgetting the obvious issues with television production costs, re-using already built models for the movies, using existing footage, etc.. my fictional theory goes as follows.
The largest ships in production up to the Ambassador era were ships like Excelsior. Massive boats compared to the aging Constitution class, the Excelsior class proved a decent exploration vessel for several decades. Since the Excelsior was the next step in the evolution of the Cruiser line, the Constitutions were no longer needed. An attempt was made to replace the Miranda class around that same time, but the Miranda's bulky frame and dual shuttlebays made it an ideal platform for general patrol and colony support duty within the Federation's borders. The Centaurs weren't made in any large numbers for this reason, because their smaller form also limited their application to varied duties.
The Federation tried again to replace the Miranda, this time with the Constellation class. Unfortunately the Constellation class was considered underpowered, and was "always on the verge of flying apart at the seams". It's forward facing shuttlebay, mounted dead center of the saucer section, and it's distinctive 4 warp nacelles were innovative features, but still the tried and true Miranda seemed to do the same jobs just as well, with fewer warp coils.
Being relegated to mostly safe duty within the Federation's borders, the Mirandas weren't subject to the same "loss" rates as ships like the Constitution. The Miranda's spaceframe allowed for easy addition of semi-modular mission packages, allowing the same basic ship to be fitted with more weapons, or more science equipment, depending on it's assignment.
Decades passed with the Excelsiors in deep space and more were built, and in time a great deal more of known space was explored.. pushing the boundaries of the unexplored frontier further out. With the peace treaty with the Klingon Empire, the Excelsiors saw an improved survivability rate as they went about their exploration missions. However, as the distances and durations of exploration missions got longer, the Excelsior began to prove that it simply didn't have sufficient crew, recreation, and cargo space for the longer missions it was starting to require. Starfleet naturally began trying to respond to the modern needs of deep space exploration. They needed a heavier ship, loaded with more room for crew, cargo, and so on, with more social space for long-term deep space deployment. The answer was of course, the Ambassador Class.. bigger, heavier, and more robust in every way to the Excelsior.
In a short span of years, following the success of the Ambassador's trials, the Excelsiors in deep space duty were recalled. These ships were generally replaced with the larger Ambassadors, which were sent out on deep space exploration missions, with enough crew and supplies to take on the longer missions. The Ambassadors were sent out, and performed their duties admirably.
Excelsior begins to carve itself a new niche as the Support ship of choice within Federation space, and the Miranda becomes relegated to more menial tasks, replacing the vastly underpowered Oberth class science vessels.
Decades pass, and some ships are naturally lost. It is the way of space exploration.
Over time, as the boundaries of known space are pushed back again by the Ambassador, it becomes clear to Starfleet again that as these missions grow ever longer, the ship's capacity needs to get larger. Additionally, crews start complaining heavily of missing their non-starfleet families, and Starfleet begins suffering a brain-drain as otherwise qualified and interested officers and crew begin resigning their commissions to remain with their families.
The result is the Galaxy Class Starship Development Project. Over a span of approximately 10years, this massive new starship was devised that would actually allow for the ship to carry not only the needed crew cargo and supplies that it would need for deep space exploration, but allow crew members to actually bring their own families and children with them on the journey. Equipped with a school, holodecks, athletics facilities and more, the ship itself was designed to separate in half, leaving the bulkier "crew section" behind with families and such left in a safe location, while the secondary section could venture alone into more hostile situations.
The first run of Galaxy Class starships were rolled out fairly slowly with the first ones arriving presumably in the early 2360's, and only a few were produced in the initial run. The class was almost recalled when the U.S.S. Yamato exploded due to a computer virus it accidentally downloaded from a Romulan vessel.
One Galaxy Class starship was the Federation flagship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, but unlike the other ships of her class, Enterprise served a flagship duty mostly within the bounds of known space, hosting dignitaries and tending to peacemaking duties.
With the Galaxy Class proving itself a solid replacement for the Ambassador Class, Starfleet began recalling those ships in deep space. The Horatio, having been one of the early ships to return for reassignment. The ship was destroyed in 2364, not long after the Enterprise's launch in the events leading up to the "Alien Infiltration" event of 2364.
It's also clear that at some point since the Initial launch of the Ambassador Class ships, these ships had received some pretty massive refits, particularly in the Engine department. Nacelles have been lowered, Bussards have been redesigned, and Impulse Engines have been moved. Changes are made to the bridge moduls and sensor dome, Deflector dish, and number of lifeboats, and the entire secondary hull is widened, making room for a much larger primary shuttlebay, as well as the addition of a large structure below the primary shuttlebay, which houses a THIRD shuttlebay. A fairly extensive refit indeed. Perhaps this is the refit that adapts these Exploration ships for known-space duty, with added cargo and shuttle capacity and new engine internals. It's also possible that these ships represent a "later generation" version of the Ambassador class.
It seems that Starfleet's number of surviving Ambassador class starships was limited, or the refit process was fairly lengthy. Only a small number of known Ambassadors began seeing service within federation space for limited duty. (at least the ones that crossed paths with Enterprise). One such was the USS Zhukov, which is notable for ferrying Ambassador T'Pel to the Enterprise, where she was later to be conducted to a peace negotiation with the Romulan Empire.
By 2367, the Yamaguchi had returned, and found itself engaged with the fleet against the Borg incursion at Wolf 359.
By 2368, the Excalibur, having encountered the Borg "on the night shift" (clearly outside of Wolf 359) and survived, was undergoing a "major refit and repair" (possibly it's conversion from 1701C-type to Zhukov-type?).
Over the next decade, more Ambassador class vessels would return. Some would be decommissioned, while others found themselves involved with the Dominion war.
--
TNG only lasted 7 years, and presumably only covered 7 years of Starfleet history. Given that the Galaxy class was brand spanking (golly gee, wow) new when the show began, it's pretty clear that some Ambassador Class starships would not yet have returned from their 5-10 year exploration missions by the end of the series!
Deep Space 9, unlike TNG, took place for the most part in one little corner of space near the Bajoran wormhole. Even if the Ambassadors continued to return and be pressed into service slowly replacing the Excelsiors, it's clear that there were just so darn many Excelsiors within Federation space already, and surely those Ambassadors would need refits. (With the "Complete Refit" of the much smaller Constitution Class taking a whopping 18 months.. you can imagine that this project on the Ambassador's scale would be quite time consuming.)
Voyager of course, took place in the Delta Quadrant, and never returned to "officially explored space" before using the Borg's transwarp technology to return home.
The question comes, why so many NEW ship designs within a span of years after TNG. The answer is the Dominion, and the Borg.
It seems clear to me that ships like Voyager were being built to fill a new need as a light, deep space science vessel (perhaps owing to a "too big for just science" problem with the Nebula class?) and Defiant slated to handle the new realities of war close to home. Sovereign was clearly the "far,known-space" choice for patrol and support, with enough power to handle the new (borg) threats that could come from nowhere. This duty is PROBABLY where the returning Ambassadors carved out their new niche, with their added survivability against the Borg compared to the Excelsior.. But the advent of the Borg clearly diminished the standing fleet, and made Starfleet rethink it's needs. The Sovreign's "Extended duty/known space" assignment is why it too became the Federation Flagship, since that really is the same duty that the EnterpriseD had performed. The absence of a clear "Exploration Cruiser" is notable here, but the fact is that between the Dominion and the Borg, I'm sure Starfleet decided they needed more focus on defense, with the Galaxy Class still mostly deployed in deep space.
Something for you to notice, look at some of the hulks in "Best of Both Worlds." You see some floating parst of Constitution Class ships. You will see some broken sausers and some drive sections of the Constitution Class drifting past the Enterprise-D. That would suggest the Constition Class was still in service up to the point of fighting the Borg, not just the Excelsior's and Marranda's.
Battlecruiser!!!
Battlecruiser is the class of ship that is one step above heavy cruiser. That is what is missing right now in our Fed classes. The Ambassidor Class would fit right into that.
Something for you to notice, look at some of the hulks in "Best of Both Worlds." You see some floating parst of Constitution Class ships. You will see some broken sausers and some drive sections of the Constitution Class drifting past the Enterprise-D. That would suggest the Constition Class was still in service up to the point of fighting the Borg, not just the Excelsior's and Marranda's.
I think it means there was somehting in service that used the Constitution secondary hull as a part, just like the Miranda uses slightly shortened Constitution nacelles as parts of its own design.
Battlecruiser is the class of ship that is one step above heavy cruiser. That is what is missing right now in our Fed classes. The Ambassidor Class would fit right into that.
Battlecruiser is not "above" the heavy cruiser design.
In fact the designation battlecruiser predates the heavy cruiser designation by over a decade.
The two are totally different design approaches since a battlecruiser is a ship roughly the mass of a dreadnought-type capital ship (later redesignated "battleship" in the Washington naval treaty of 1922) but with substantially reduced armor in favour of more engine power for speed.
They have little to do with each other unless your only knowledge about naval combat comes from reading the Starfleet Command 1 manual.
the ambassador should get the exact stats the negvar has, 3 tac consoles, the engineering ensign, 9 turn rate, all but mounting duel cannons. and the galaxy R should get a different station setup, its long overdue to not be a complete pos.
I have never thought of the Defiant as a Corvette, it does sound right but. You know what the Escorts in this game do fit the Corvette definition better than Escort IMO.
Please no, not that BOFF layout. While I can't see any problems; with the amount of complaints against the Gal-R I don't want to see thousand of threads complaining about the worst BOFF layout in the game, except on the Negh'Var where it's seemingly fine.
Every time I bring up it's the Negh'Var layout I get told how awesome the Negh'Var is and how to build one, yet that advice never applies to the Gal-R.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
I think it means there was somehting in service that used the Constitution secondary hull as a part, just like the Miranda uses slightly shortened Constitution nacelles as parts of its own design.
Battlecruiser is not "above" the heavy cruiser design.
In fact the designation battlecruiser predates the heavy cruiser designation by over a decade.
The two are totally different design approaches since a battlecruiser is a ship roughly the mass of a dreadnought-type capital ship (later redesignated "battleship" in the Washington naval treaty of 1922) but with substantially reduced armor in favour of more engine power for speed.
They have little to do with each other unless your only knowledge about naval combat comes from reading the Starfleet Command 1 manual.
Can you name a ship class that shares the same drive section as the Constitution? You can't because there is none on record. The Enterprise was not the only Constitution class flying around and was decommissioned because the Federation was coming out with an Excelsior version. The Enterprise was the flagship of the Federation so it needed to be the most advanced ship in the fleet. That doesn't mean that all the other ships were being decommisioned. They just were downgraded to a lesser role.
I have never thought of the Defiant as a Corvette, it does sound right but. You know what the Escorts in this game do fit the Corvette definition better than Escort IMO.
True, though the only problem there is that the naval term "corvette" was never used in Star Trek. Plus, it's a warship term, so "Escort" is more bleeding-heart friendly
I have a theory on the visible rarity of the Ambassador class and the overt prevalence of the Miranda and Excelsior. Forgetting the obvious issues with television production costs, re-using already built models for the movies, using existing footage, etc.. my fictional theory goes as follows.
Cool story bro, but I'm thinking that Occam's Razor applies here, even fictionally.
Look at it this way: In the fiction, pre-Dominion War, there were only supposed to be SIX Galaxy-class ships in service because they were big.
The Galaxy class was supposed to replace the Ambassador class.
With that in mind, why would you ever need to make a ton of Ambassadors visible, if they could all be replaced with six Galaxies?
Comments
Never. Don't want it, don't care about it. Though it would fix my OCD about owning all the 'enterprise' ships...so far they haven't made the shuttlecraft and the aircraft carrier though.... not to mention the square-rigged tall ship...so I might be out of luck!
- Demosthenes01101, from the REAL Star Trek Online forums!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
"You have been, and always shall be, my friend."
- Pointy-eared, green blooded, hobgoblin
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes
....really? You don't know the history of the ship named Enterprise? There was a shuttle named Enterprise, there was an Aircraft Carrier named Enterprise...there was a British Royal Navy square rigged sailing ship named Enterprise.....
- Demosthenes01101, from the REAL Star Trek Online forums!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
"You have been, and always shall be, my friend."
- Pointy-eared, green blooded, hobgoblin
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes
I'm not sure but going by the show, it can't have been that practical as a ship. With Oberths, Excelsiors and even Mirandas around next to the Galaxy no Ambassador classes where ever seen except for Yesterdays Enterprise. And the Galaxy was a pretty new design at the time of TNG.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
I agree with dontdrunkimshoot, it was the same ship class Commander Riker took charge of in "Redemption Part II." The Ambassidor class ship was sited at least 6 time in TNG. Yesterdays Enterprise was the only episode where it was shown up close and very detailed. The other episodes, had it flying along side the Enterprise-D.
probably never , when its released people will most likely still ask where is it :rolleyes:
Rear Admiral , Engineering Division
U.S.S. Sheffield N.C.C. 92016
When are we going to stop getting complaints about threads requesting the Ambassador?
I don't have a Eidetic memory so I only remember seeing it once. But every time a Fed ship is seen it's an Excelsior practically. Thanks for the info on production but.
But again that's saying that these things where super rare ships and still somewhat impractical.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Well, yours... for starters.
Thats a silly question. We will continue to get threads like this as long as they keep coming out with new cruisers and not one Ambassidor Class.
I don't have to use my memory, because I have TNG seasons 1-5 and 7. All i have to do is look at it again, which I did a few weeks ago.
it took about 5 seconds to check memory alpha. it lists every appearance nice and neatly.
they arent supper rare just because the hero ship didn't cross paths with them that often. there would have been hundreds of ambassador class built, just not thousands like there were excelsiors and mirandas. the ambassador was the federations top battleship from the 2330s to the 2360s, until the galaxy was introduced and replaced it in that role. they just don't build as many battleships as they do light cruisers.
When is people going to stop to complain about the ambassador?, when they release it.
When are they going to release the ambassador?, on tuesday XD
Valid points, I rarely use Memory Alpha, and that's a mistake I made.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
If you wanna get pedantic the Feds didn't build battleships at all until the Defiant, because of Starfleet's silly "we're not a military" stance.
Personally I think they haven't gotten to the Amba because it's simply not as visually distinctive as most of the other ships that have gotten to the C-store, barring the hero designs (sorry, if it didn't get its own series or truly substantial screen time, it isn't a "hero").
Think about the new ships (meaning not reissues of existing designs) that have made it. We got the Gal-X distinctive for the 3rd nacelle, we got the Nebula, distinctive because it's half a Galaxy, we got the Oberth because it's crazy-lookin', and the NX because lol Enterprise. The Deffy Refit and the Bellerophon were both hero ships, and the Armitage is because the Akira's a fan favorite (though I guess the Ambassador's a fan fave as well). Now they're selling folks a new Sovereign (hero ship).
The real challenge at this point is releasing an Amba, with new skin options (I doubt people will cough up 2500z for a single skin unless it's OP like the Excelsior retro), that doesn't look a halfway point between an Exeter (the Connie refit) and a Galaxy. Because by default that's how the Ambassador looks to me.
Furthermore, unlike most of the other ships, it doesn't slot easily into the existing classes, either. It's smaller than a Galaxy and not a sausage, so it can't be an Exploration or Star Cruiser, and it's too peaceful-looking to be an Assault Cruiser. It's too cruiser-looking to be a science ship, and too fat to be an escort. At best it could slot in as a refit or 2nd-option to the Advanced Heavy Cruiser, but it would be confusing to have three "Advanced Heavy Cruiser" variants on the store. And it's not exotic enough to be a one-off like the Catboat or the Vulcan Dicker (misspelling intentional
I'm not saying it won't happen, because they said it will, eventually. I am saying that it will be a challenge to fit it into what passes for a design philosophy among them right now, while making it a truly desirable option for people that want more than another in the Enterprise line.
the defiant is not a battleship, its a corvette. a battleship is a size based designation, it basically means the biggest, and most likely, the most powerful class of ship. the defiant is a tiny escort, smaller then frigates like the miranda or saber, the size based classification below that is corvette.
the ambassador should get the exact stats the negvar has, 3 tac consoles, the engineering ensign, 9 turn rate, all but mounting duel cannons. and the galaxy R should get a different station setup, its long overdue to not be a complete pos.
that is mainly do to loosing the ambassador model after filming the DS9 pilot and they already had the ent-b/excel model handy the lakota for instance was originality scripted as an ambassador but with out the model they used the ent-b model from generations instead as it was cheaper then remaking the ambassador model.
now after switching to CGI no idea why they did not add the ambassador in maybe they thought it would get lost with all the galaxies
Neither "corvette" nor "battleship" existed as designations for Starfleet ships post-TOS (except in script discrepancies), because -like I said- Starfleet didn't consider itself a military organization. Some quotes from Memory Alpha:
"The Defiant-class, originally developed to counter the Borg, is officially classified as an escort vessel, but was unofficially a warship. (DS9: "The Search, Part I")."
but
"The Defiant-class was sometimes referred to as a battleship. (VOY: "Drone")"
and also:
"Starfleet typically avoids using the warship classification, instead applying euphemisms such as "escort" and "tactical cruiser" for the Defiant-class and Prometheus-class, respectively. Despite this custom, chief petty officer Dorian Collins referred to the USS Valiant as a "state of the art warship."
Ultimately this serves to show that Star Trek is inconsistent. The Klinks, other aliens most certainly thought of Starfleet as a military organization, as apparently did many non-Starfleet Federation citizens, and probably many Starfleet officers themselves. If Starfleet wanted to truly be a non-military org, it would have patterned itself after NASA, not the US Navy.
But I digress. Ultimately it's this quote that matters most:
"The term "heavy cruiser" has been used only twice throughout all of Star Trek, where it was spoken in reference to the Ambassador-class ship, and on an on-screen display of the Constitution-class. All other references to large ships have used the term "battle cruiser"."
And there we go. Though in STO the Constitution is just "Cruiser", the Amba is definitely a "Heavy Cruiser". The only problem left for Cryptic is finding a new variation on "Heavy Cruiser" to put it in, since we have the Cheyenne/Stargazer set and the Excelsior taking up the Advanced and Standard slots. In terms of size it's longer than an Excelsior and shorter than a Galaxy (about the size of a DSSV).
Any suggestions as to what type of "Heavy Cruiser" niche the Ambassador can fill? C'mon, the more you think about it, the better the chances of maybe (just maybe) Cryptic possibly kinda cribbing some good ideas and putting them on the store.
The most compelling reason. Much as a lot of people like it, the Ambassador looks like a rough draft of the Galaxy. That's what some producers thought when they first designed the ship for the show.
in my first post were i used battleship, if i had used explorer instead it wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense.
when they were deciding on what to build in cgi, they decided the ambassador was an old directly replaced class and lower production. there are plenty of older ships still in service, but there were a lot more of them too, thats why there are cgi excelsiors and mirandas. its not that there weren't ambassador class active during the war, its that they were just off screen every time.
something like this
lt tac
com eng
lt eng
ltc sci
ensign universal
turn of 8
41,000 hull (half way between excel and galaxy)
4 engine consols
3 sci
2 tac
and have the special consol be like "go down fighting" giving it a boost to weapon damage and defense bonus when hull is below 30%
I have a theory on the visible rarity of the Ambassador class and the overt prevalence of the Miranda and Excelsior. Forgetting the obvious issues with television production costs, re-using already built models for the movies, using existing footage, etc.. my fictional theory goes as follows.
The largest ships in production up to the Ambassador era were ships like Excelsior. Massive boats compared to the aging Constitution class, the Excelsior class proved a decent exploration vessel for several decades. Since the Excelsior was the next step in the evolution of the Cruiser line, the Constitutions were no longer needed. An attempt was made to replace the Miranda class around that same time, but the Miranda's bulky frame and dual shuttlebays made it an ideal platform for general patrol and colony support duty within the Federation's borders. The Centaurs weren't made in any large numbers for this reason, because their smaller form also limited their application to varied duties.
The Federation tried again to replace the Miranda, this time with the Constellation class. Unfortunately the Constellation class was considered underpowered, and was "always on the verge of flying apart at the seams". It's forward facing shuttlebay, mounted dead center of the saucer section, and it's distinctive 4 warp nacelles were innovative features, but still the tried and true Miranda seemed to do the same jobs just as well, with fewer warp coils.
Being relegated to mostly safe duty within the Federation's borders, the Mirandas weren't subject to the same "loss" rates as ships like the Constitution. The Miranda's spaceframe allowed for easy addition of semi-modular mission packages, allowing the same basic ship to be fitted with more weapons, or more science equipment, depending on it's assignment.
Decades passed with the Excelsiors in deep space and more were built, and in time a great deal more of known space was explored.. pushing the boundaries of the unexplored frontier further out. With the peace treaty with the Klingon Empire, the Excelsiors saw an improved survivability rate as they went about their exploration missions. However, as the distances and durations of exploration missions got longer, the Excelsior began to prove that it simply didn't have sufficient crew, recreation, and cargo space for the longer missions it was starting to require. Starfleet naturally began trying to respond to the modern needs of deep space exploration. They needed a heavier ship, loaded with more room for crew, cargo, and so on, with more social space for long-term deep space deployment. The answer was of course, the Ambassador Class.. bigger, heavier, and more robust in every way to the Excelsior.
In a short span of years, following the success of the Ambassador's trials, the Excelsiors in deep space duty were recalled. These ships were generally replaced with the larger Ambassadors, which were sent out on deep space exploration missions, with enough crew and supplies to take on the longer missions. The Ambassadors were sent out, and performed their duties admirably.
Excelsior begins to carve itself a new niche as the Support ship of choice within Federation space, and the Miranda becomes relegated to more menial tasks, replacing the vastly underpowered Oberth class science vessels.
Decades pass, and some ships are naturally lost. It is the way of space exploration.
Over time, as the boundaries of known space are pushed back again by the Ambassador, it becomes clear to Starfleet again that as these missions grow ever longer, the ship's capacity needs to get larger. Additionally, crews start complaining heavily of missing their non-starfleet families, and Starfleet begins suffering a brain-drain as otherwise qualified and interested officers and crew begin resigning their commissions to remain with their families.
The result is the Galaxy Class Starship Development Project. Over a span of approximately 10years, this massive new starship was devised that would actually allow for the ship to carry not only the needed crew cargo and supplies that it would need for deep space exploration, but allow crew members to actually bring their own families and children with them on the journey. Equipped with a school, holodecks, athletics facilities and more, the ship itself was designed to separate in half, leaving the bulkier "crew section" behind with families and such left in a safe location, while the secondary section could venture alone into more hostile situations.
The first run of Galaxy Class starships were rolled out fairly slowly with the first ones arriving presumably in the early 2360's, and only a few were produced in the initial run. The class was almost recalled when the U.S.S. Yamato exploded due to a computer virus it accidentally downloaded from a Romulan vessel.
One Galaxy Class starship was the Federation flagship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, but unlike the other ships of her class, Enterprise served a flagship duty mostly within the bounds of known space, hosting dignitaries and tending to peacemaking duties.
With the Galaxy Class proving itself a solid replacement for the Ambassador Class, Starfleet began recalling those ships in deep space. The Horatio, having been one of the early ships to return for reassignment. The ship was destroyed in 2364, not long after the Enterprise's launch in the events leading up to the "Alien Infiltration" event of 2364.
It's also clear that at some point since the Initial launch of the Ambassador Class ships, these ships had received some pretty massive refits, particularly in the Engine department. Nacelles have been lowered, Bussards have been redesigned, and Impulse Engines have been moved. Changes are made to the bridge moduls and sensor dome, Deflector dish, and number of lifeboats, and the entire secondary hull is widened, making room for a much larger primary shuttlebay, as well as the addition of a large structure below the primary shuttlebay, which houses a THIRD shuttlebay. A fairly extensive refit indeed. Perhaps this is the refit that adapts these Exploration ships for known-space duty, with added cargo and shuttle capacity and new engine internals. It's also possible that these ships represent a "later generation" version of the Ambassador class.
It seems that Starfleet's number of surviving Ambassador class starships was limited, or the refit process was fairly lengthy. Only a small number of known Ambassadors began seeing service within federation space for limited duty. (at least the ones that crossed paths with Enterprise). One such was the USS Zhukov, which is notable for ferrying Ambassador T'Pel to the Enterprise, where she was later to be conducted to a peace negotiation with the Romulan Empire.
By 2367, the Yamaguchi had returned, and found itself engaged with the fleet against the Borg incursion at Wolf 359.
By 2368, the Excalibur, having encountered the Borg "on the night shift" (clearly outside of Wolf 359) and survived, was undergoing a "major refit and repair" (possibly it's conversion from 1701C-type to Zhukov-type?).
Over the next decade, more Ambassador class vessels would return. Some would be decommissioned, while others found themselves involved with the Dominion war.
--
TNG only lasted 7 years, and presumably only covered 7 years of Starfleet history. Given that the Galaxy class was brand spanking (golly gee, wow) new when the show began, it's pretty clear that some Ambassador Class starships would not yet have returned from their 5-10 year exploration missions by the end of the series!
Deep Space 9, unlike TNG, took place for the most part in one little corner of space near the Bajoran wormhole. Even if the Ambassadors continued to return and be pressed into service slowly replacing the Excelsiors, it's clear that there were just so darn many Excelsiors within Federation space already, and surely those Ambassadors would need refits. (With the "Complete Refit" of the much smaller Constitution Class taking a whopping 18 months.. you can imagine that this project on the Ambassador's scale would be quite time consuming.)
Voyager of course, took place in the Delta Quadrant, and never returned to "officially explored space" before using the Borg's transwarp technology to return home.
The question comes, why so many NEW ship designs within a span of years after TNG. The answer is the Dominion, and the Borg.
It seems clear to me that ships like Voyager were being built to fill a new need as a light, deep space science vessel (perhaps owing to a "too big for just science" problem with the Nebula class?) and Defiant slated to handle the new realities of war close to home. Sovereign was clearly the "far,known-space" choice for patrol and support, with enough power to handle the new (borg) threats that could come from nowhere. This duty is PROBABLY where the returning Ambassadors carved out their new niche, with their added survivability against the Borg compared to the Excelsior.. But the advent of the Borg clearly diminished the standing fleet, and made Starfleet rethink it's needs. The Sovreign's "Extended duty/known space" assignment is why it too became the Federation Flagship, since that really is the same duty that the EnterpriseD had performed. The absence of a clear "Exploration Cruiser" is notable here, but the fact is that between the Dominion and the Borg, I'm sure Starfleet decided they needed more focus on defense, with the Galaxy Class still mostly deployed in deep space.
Battlecruiser!!!
Battlecruiser is the class of ship that is one step above heavy cruiser. That is what is missing right now in our Fed classes. The Ambassidor Class would fit right into that.
I think it means there was somehting in service that used the Constitution secondary hull as a part, just like the Miranda uses slightly shortened Constitution nacelles as parts of its own design.
Battlecruiser is not "above" the heavy cruiser design.
In fact the designation battlecruiser predates the heavy cruiser designation by over a decade.
The two are totally different design approaches since a battlecruiser is a ship roughly the mass of a dreadnought-type capital ship (later redesignated "battleship" in the Washington naval treaty of 1922) but with substantially reduced armor in favour of more engine power for speed.
They have little to do with each other unless your only knowledge about naval combat comes from reading the Starfleet Command 1 manual.
I have never thought of the Defiant as a Corvette, it does sound right but. You know what the Escorts in this game do fit the Corvette definition better than Escort IMO.
Please no, not that BOFF layout. While I can't see any problems; with the amount of complaints against the Gal-R I don't want to see thousand of threads complaining about the worst BOFF layout in the game, except on the Negh'Var where it's seemingly fine.
Every time I bring up it's the Negh'Var layout I get told how awesome the Negh'Var is and how to build one, yet that advice never applies to the Gal-R.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Can you name a ship class that shares the same drive section as the Constitution? You can't because there is none on record. The Enterprise was not the only Constitution class flying around and was decommissioned because the Federation was coming out with an Excelsior version. The Enterprise was the flagship of the Federation so it needed to be the most advanced ship in the fleet. That doesn't mean that all the other ships were being decommisioned. They just were downgraded to a lesser role.
True, though the only problem there is that the naval term "corvette" was never used in Star Trek. Plus, it's a warship term, so "Escort" is more bleeding-heart friendly
Cool story bro, but I'm thinking that Occam's Razor applies here, even fictionally.
Look at it this way: In the fiction, pre-Dominion War, there were only supposed to be SIX Galaxy-class ships in service because they were big.
The Galaxy class was supposed to replace the Ambassador class.
With that in mind, why would you ever need to make a ton of Ambassadors visible, if they could all be replaced with six Galaxies?