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.
that all sounds about right. theres no reason for an ambassador class to perform menial tasks like bringing something or someone to the enterprise.
i think the miranda won out because its aft hull section that was 4 or 5 decks thick could be so modular. its usable space over a connie was simply much greater. also, in every cutaway of a connie i see there is a huge cargo bay taking up half the interior of the secondary hull, presumably for carrying enough supplies for a 5+ year deep space assignment. seeing as the ship was eventually undersized for its purpose built assignment, it would make sense to discontinue the class and take it out of service. even with a refit it wouldn't be able to do the closer to home assignments the miranda does, better then the miranda already does them.
the connie was a nice large ship in the 2240s, even up to the 2270s. but by 2300 the ship was simply undersized for its usual assignments, the correct, safe size for going out to parts unknown by then was the dramatically larger excelsior class. and the constellation class that i think was created from the mass decommissioning of connies. stacking 2 saucers on top of each other, using 4 nacelles, 2 connie style impulse engines, and all the other unique components could be fabricated from the scraped secondary hullls. the miranda was never equipped with such extensive long range supply storage, it was always intended to be a within the borders ship, and it must of done its job incredibly well to last 100 years.
any connie parts you see at wolf 359, which is very close to earth, were likly acadamy training ships. the class seemed suited for that role and some were proboly kept around for that purpose. being a ship most likly to be close to earth, its no wonder they sent them and any other functioning ship they could against the incoming borg.
when the ambassador replaced the excelsior as the primary explorer, the excelsior was still considered a large capable ship, suited for basically any mission you could ask of it, it wasn't as hamstrung as a long range ship as the connie eventually was. the excelsior and miranda were so good at handling everything but the longest range and most dangerous missions that new intermediate classes weren't needed for 40 years.
that complacency turned out to be a problem when some of the federation's neighbors went to war with them, like the cardassian War from the 2340s ? 2367, somehow that war lasted that long, and its likely because the federation had so many outdated ships that were fine for everything but combat with more modern ships. around the time the galaxy and nebula class launched though, that war came to an end, i see a connection lol. there was a tholian war that was going on in the 2350s and resulted in the destruction of at least 1 starbase, possibly a huge spacedock sized base. there was also several Tzenkethi Wars, the latest taking place in the early 2360s, Sisko fought in that conflict and mentioned it was only the latest.
this is why there are so many supper modern classes of ships introduced in the 2360s and 2370s, and the borg and dominian threats only amplified a build up. those cheyenne, new orleans, freedom, etc.. were all proboly built in the late 2340s to early 2360s in an effort to modernize the fleet, likely built off the research going into the galaxy class that took about 20 years to go from drawing board to active service. for its size, by then the ambassador would have been very under gunned, its phaser arrays very short. the new cheyenne and new orleans wile smaller then the ambassador had much larger phaser arrays and could use the power of many more emitters in each shot. they were likely what held the line during this time, wile the ambassador with its tactical shortcomings remained in deep space.
its also proboly why the ambassador is a no show so often, even a ship as small as the intrepid has bigger phaser arrays, without a significant rebuild of the primary hull its firepower couldn't be increased to the level a ship its size should have. so its used where a large long range ship is needed but not were combat is expected. the sovereign is about the same volume as an ambassador, wile having significantly more firepower. it likely was intended to take over as the light battleship/heavy battle cruiser of the fleet, or explorer/explorer in starfleet speak :rolleyes:
by 2409, its likely the ambassador is getting its last major refit before the class is decommissioned, im sure starfleet wanted to get at least 80 years out of the class. in game things like shrimpy phaser arrays don't really mater, only those of us that have read the tng tech manual and debated about how phsers work for years on the internet know that array length is an additive power increasing facter with phaser arrays. in game we also fire 8 beams at a time, were in canon they would just fire 1 super powerful shot at a time if they wanted to deal maximum damage.
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.
corvette is a sized based classification, escort is a roll. starfleet likes leaving out those old miliray classifications and just calls a ship by its roll more often then not. they seems to call everything a cruiser or an explorer.
the ambassador should basically have the setup the galaxy has, only with a beter turn rate, and a more useful 9th console, basically what the negvar has. the galaxy not having a 3rd tactical console, and turning so poorly really takes away from its ability to deal even basic damage over time like the negvar can. the neg can even use lower arc weapons pretty well. its movement and console put it head and shoulders above the galaxy, at least making it a viable and useful ship. the gal R just has to many things going against it, every disadvantage a ship in this game could have. the galaxy's station setup and consoles should change, its absurd how poorly its stated compared to everything else, when its literally starfleet's battleship in canon
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?
starfleet isn't composed of about 100 ships, there are 10s of thousands in service. those first 6 ships were just the first 6 frames that were made, all basically at once. soon after the class launched there were hundreds of them, they hd been cranking them out ever since and had 1 for every other 10 ships in all the fleet battles we saw. there were proboly hundreds of ambassadors built during its prime too.
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.
We are talking about Star Trek battlecruisers, not WW1 and 2 sea battlecruisers. The reasons for ships advancements in space are totally different than past ship advancements in water. During the Motion Picture series of movies the Constitution Class Enterprise-A was referred as "Federation Battlecruiser,"(The Search For Spock) by the the Klingons. As ships advanced, others will take that role as the older ones downgrade. The Excelsiors took that role and as the Constitution class were less armed and armored. If you would of played any other Star Trek games besides STO, you would of known that battlecruiser is one of the Federation's classifications. As the Excelsior class was then bested by the Ambassidor Class so it would have to been downgraded to heavy cruiser. The Ambassidor Class came out during a time of war with the Romulans. The Exploration Class came out later during a time of peace when it was deamed safe for civilians and families to be stationed on the starship. Now we are back in a time of war and the Abassidor would fit right into that battlecruiser role.
that all sounds about right. theres no reason for an ambassador class to perform menial tasks like bringing something or someone to the enterprise.
i think the miranda won out because its aft hull section that was 4 or 5 decks thick could be so modular. its usable space over a connie was simply much greater. also, in every cutaway of a connie i see there is a huge cargo bay taking up half the interior of the secondary hull, presumably for carrying enough supplies for a 5+ year deep space assignment. seeing as the ship was eventually undersized for its purpose built assignment, it would make sense to discontinue the class and take it out of service. even with a refit it wouldn't be able to do the closer to home assignments the miranda does, better then the miranda already does them.
the connie was a nice large ship in the 2240s, even up to the 2270s. but by 2300 the ship was simply undersized for its usual assignments, the correct, safe size for going out to parts unknown by then was the dramatically larger excelsior class. and the constellation class that i think was created from the mass decommissioning of connies. stacking 2 saucers on top of each other, using 4 nacelles, 2 connie style impulse engines, and all the other unique components could be fabricated from the scraped secondary hullls. the miranda was never equipped with such extensive long range supply storage, it was always intended to be a within the borders ship, and it must of done its job incredibly well to last 100 years.
any connie parts you see at wolf 359, which is very close to earth, were likly acadamy training ships. the class seemed suited for that role and some were proboly kept around for that purpose. being a ship most likly to be close to earth, its no wonder they sent them and any other functioning ship they could against the incoming borg.
when the ambassador replaced the excelsior as the primary explorer, the excelsior was still considered a large capable ship, suited for basically any mission you could ask of it, it wasn't as hamstrung as a long range ship as the connie eventually was. the excelsior and miranda were so good at handling everything but the longest range and most dangerous missions that new intermediate classes weren't needed for 40 years.
that complacency turned out to be a problem when some of the federation's neighbors went to war with them, like the cardassian War from the 2340s ? 2367, somehow that war lasted that long, and its likely because the federation had so many outdated ships that were fine for everything but combat with more modern ships. around the time the galaxy and nebula class launched though, that war came to an end, i see a connection lol. there was a tholian war that was going on in the 2350s and resulted in the destruction of at least 1 starbase, possibly a huge spacedock sized base. there was also several Tzenkethi Wars, the latest taking place in the early 2360s, Sisko fought in that conflict and mentioned it was only the latest.
this is why there are so many supper modern classes of ships introduced in the 2360s and 2370s, and the borg and dominian threats only amplified a build up. those cheyenne, new orleans, freedom, etc.. were all proboly built in the late 2340s to early 2360s in an effort to modernize the fleet, likely built off the research going into the galaxy class that took about 20 years to go from drawing board to active service. for its size, by then the ambassador would have been very under gunned, its phaser arrays very short. the new cheyenne and new orleans wile smaller then the ambassador had much larger phaser arrays and could use the power of many more emitters in each shot. they were likely what held the line during this time, wile the ambassador with its tactical shortcomings remained in deep space.
its also proboly why the ambassador is a no show so often, even a ship as small as the intrepid has bigger phaser arrays, without a significant rebuild of the primary hull its firepower couldn't be increased to the level a ship its size should have. so its used where a large long range ship is needed but not were combat is expected. the sovereign is about the same volume as an ambassador, wile having significantly more firepower. it likely was intended to take over as the light battleship/heavy battle cruiser of the fleet, or explorer/explorer in starfleet speak :rolleyes:
by 2409, its likely the ambassador is getting its last major refit before the class is decommissioned, im sure starfleet wanted to get at least 80 years out of the class. in game things like shrimpy phaser arrays don't really mater, only those of us that have read the tng tech manual and debated about how phsers work for years on the internet know that array length is an additive power increasing facter with phaser arrays. in game we also fire 8 beams at a time, were in canon they would just fire 1 super powerful shot at a time if they wanted to deal maximum damage.
Let's not speculate. If you don't have an actual script or story passage saying that all Constitution Class ships were decomissioned before the Battle of Wolf 359, then you can't say they were, by just guessing.
Let's not speculate. If you don't have an actual script or story passage saying that all Constitution Class ships were decomissioned before the Battle of Wolf 359, then you can't say they were, by just guessing.
its a very educated guess. there simply isnt an example in canon that could prove 90% of what there is to talk about true or false. very few things really have any hard canon backing them up. throughout what i wrote i did reference things stated in canon over and over again, and filled in blanks as logically as possible between them.
Well when picard is talking to scotty it certainly seemed like the last constitution class starship was in a museum back on earth. While that is after wolf 359, its honestly not in the least unreasonable to speculate that they have been decommissioned a long time before that.
I just don't know where the ambassador would fit maybe a science heavy cruiser ? But we would need the vesta in as a science ship for that to happen.... I wonder what the next tactical ship will be though. Even a new klingon ship would be cool and nice to see.
I'm pretty sure the Vesta's going to be an escort.
Edit: Scratch that, just checked the wiki and proved myself wrong, nothing to see here.
I can totally see the Ambassador as a science-oriented "Research Cruiser" at some tier or another, the only question really is which one? To me the ship feels like it should fit in at tier 3, but there's also not much reason to put it there. On the other hand if you put it at tier 5 to compliment the Galaxy X and Galaxy Retrofit it just seem right either, like the ship should be too old or too weak for that slot. I suppose it could work at tier 4 alongside the Galaxy and Venture, but that doesn't seem right either.
Personally I think it should've been Excelsior at tier 2 followed by Ambassador>Galaxy>Sovereign with the Constitution either replacing the Miranda or being sold at tier 2 through the C-store. That's just my 2ec though.
Admiral Katrina Tokareva - U.S.S. Cosmos, Yorktown-class Star Cruiser Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
its a very educated guess. there simply isnt an example in canon that could prove 90% of what there is to talk about true or false. very few things really have any hard canon backing them up. throughout what i wrote i did reference things stated in canon over and over again, and filled in blanks as logically as possible between them.
Thats fine but my eyes don't lie. If I see Constitution hulks, I going to say they were in service and not training ships because there were quite alot of them. That Admiral didn't mention mustering training ships and crews to defend Earth. A lot of experienced captains and crews lost their lives during the Battle of Wolf 359.
The USS Excalibur (NCC-26517) was a Federation Ambassador-class heavy cruiser that was in service with Starfleet in the mid-24th century.
The Excalibur survived an attack by the Borg during a night shift sometime prior to 2368. Several members of the crew, including Marika Wilkarah, were assimilated in the encounter. (VOY: "Survival Instinct")
In 2368, the Excalibur was undergoing a major refit and repair at Starbase 234. It was selected by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to serve in a Starfleet blockade of the Klingon-Romulan border during the Klingon Civil War. During that mission, it was commanded by Commander William T. Riker, with Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge as first officer since the Excalibur's crew had been reassigned due to the extent of the refit. (TNG: "Redemption II")
The is no mention in Memory Alpha of it being listed as a science ship. It would be in its own heavy cruiser catagory like the Excelsior regular and retrofit. The same reason they brought the Excelsior Retrofit to tier 5 is the same reason the STO will have a tier 5 Ambassador Class.
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.
The reason for this is because they built an Ambassador, practically from scratch where they already had Oberths, Mirandas, and Excelsiors already made from the Trek movies, along with the Galaxy from TNG.
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".
Actually, that aproach worked to get the Cat Carrier and Akira into the game...if history repeats.
its a very educated guess. there simply isnt an example in canon that could prove 90% of what there is to talk about true or false. very few things really have any hard canon backing them up. throughout what i wrote i did reference things stated in canon over and over again, and filled in blanks as logically as possible between them.
The very same logic you used in assuming the Ambassador class was mass produced could be applied to the Connie refit. There were probably hundreds of them in service and it would be an absolute waste to just dump so many fine ships. Furthermore, there are gigantic amounts of evidence that many ships from that era still served in the TNG time zone. So why would such a comparatively great vessel get shut down when it has not happened to any other ship in ST history?
The very same logic you used in assuming the Ambassador class was mass produced could be applied to the Connie refit. There were probably hundreds of them in service and it would be an absolute waste to just dump so many fine ships. Furthermore, there are gigantic amounts of evidence that many ships from that era still served in the TNG time zone. So why would such a comparatively great vessel get shut down when it has not happened to any other ship in ST history?
i claimed the ambassador was mass produced, but at a low volume compared to a MUCH smaller ship like the excelsior.
by ST6 and the turn of the 24th century, the connie refit was not a fresh new design. it was 30 years old, and built upon a ship that had become antiquated 30 years before, causing starfleet to completely replace it in a manor never before seen and never seen since. the refit was little more then a recycling program, the original and refit dont have a single bulk head in common.
they didn't build a larger ship like they proboly should have then, its volume is only 10% higher. the original connie was the right size in 2245, by 2270 they should have built something bigger. they sure did build the excelsior to be a big ship, this time its likely the right size for the right time, wile the connie was an undersized underpowered mistake starfleet has been regretting for decades. i say this and i love the connie refit, but the excelsior is hardly an incremental upping in size. the excelsior is 3.7 times the volume of the connie refit, and its direct replacement.
by the time tng happened, the ambassador class is in a similar place as the connie at the turn of the 24th century. in both cases a new ship design is launched that makes the old design look as antiquated and outdated as it actually is. only in the ambassador's case its still the 3rd largest ship in the fleet, and it was the main battleship, not a mass produced heavy cruiser throughout its production cycle.
the connie was past its prime by 2300, it couldn't fill its role anymore, and there was no roles to downgrade it too, the miranda clearly was already a better fit for them. you see miranda class through the dominion war, and you only see a single hunk of twisted connie metal in the remains of the borg battle field were the stakes couldn't be higher. it was the kitchen sink, the lack of any other appearances in the entire 24th century speaks volumes. you see constellation class several times though, i already theorized they built the constellation class out of decommissioned connies, its ether that or they just recycled them, and at least 1 is in a museum.
Your assertion that the Miranda class was superior in its later roles to the Connie refit is pure speculation. The refit had a much larger deflector that was forward facing, and much of the of the reliants aft section was taken up by shuttle bays.
We can see the power difference in the battle they fought. For the first shot, Khans man used the phaser pod on the roll bar, implying it was more powerful than the saucer versions it shared with the refit. The phasers do great damage to the Enterprise when they hit the right spot, but when the enterprise uses its normal phasers it does just as much if not more damage, even after being practically crippled.
But the real deal breaker separating the two classes is the warp core. The main source of power for a star ship is at least three times bigger in favor of the Constitution refit class. Here are a couple of links just for show, with an excelsior refit thrown in to show that with proper upgrades a Connie refit could rival even that beast in power. http://lcars24.com/schem6.html http://lcars24.com/schem22.html http://lcars24.com/schem7.html
Your argument that size and role replacement justify fleet wide decommissions is flawed for a couple more reasons. Why should star fleet leave such a big size gap between their smallest combat ship and the excelsior, as the Connie refit is bigger than the reliant, wouldn't a fleet of connie refits be more long lasting, subject to less wear and tear, and capable of longer journeys compared to it's underpowered little brother you call its replacement? Its larger crew would be more well distributed, and more capable of adapting to varied emergencies. The ship has a higher safety rating in the warp department thanks to its distanced warp nacelles. Finally, if size is such a big deterrent for small star fleet vessels, what is the Oberth class doing still in the fleet? Anything they put in that ship could easily fit even inside a reliant class.
So I ask again, why would the Federation break a tradition kept with every single other ship of the TMP era or higher, that included serious mass production and upkeep?
The likeliest answer is that they did continue to use them, but were not shown because altering the Refit model would have been sacrilege, along with blowing it up, if even just for show or consistency. The idea is that Federation space is pretty big, and they need ships of all shapes and sizes, just because the refit class does not fulfill its original role as well as it used to does not mean it would stop being a great work horse for star fleet. Besides, its not like parts for that class were limited or anything, what with all the miranda's we see.
Your assertion that the Miranda class was superior in its later roles to the Connie refit is pure speculation. The refit had a much larger deflector that was forward facing, and much of the of the reliants aft section was taken up by shuttle bays.
that high end deflector would be useful in deep space, apparently the tasks the miranda performs don't require one like it. so its likely a big, unnecessary piece of equipment that at the very least is redundant and at most a costly thing to maintain. ether makes the connie less ideal then the already present miranda at doing inner territory assignments
We can see the power difference in the battle they fought. For the first shot, Khans man used the phaser pod on the roll bar, implying it was more powerful than the saucer versions it shared with the refit. The phasers do great damage to the Enterprise when they hit the right spot, but when the enterprise uses its normal phasers it does just as much if not more damage, even after being practically crippled.
its likely the role bar phasers were more powerful then the standard ball turrets, but with a lower fireing arc. the enterprise was directing 2 beams to the same spot, wile you only really see 1 roll bar beam hit the enterprise at a time. khan's ship was still in much better shape, but he was vulnerable so he disengaged, he didn't know the enterprise couldn't fire any more shots at that point. in the tng era the role bar beams arent even utilized anymore so it doesn't really mater. it just has a couple array type emitters stuffed in the old ball turret ports.
But the real deal breaker separating the two classes is the warp core. The main source of power for a star ship is at least three times bigger in favor of the Constitution refit class. Here are a couple of links just for show, with an excelsior refit thrown in to show that with proper upgrades a Connie refit could rival even that beast in power. http://lcars24.com/schem6.html http://lcars24.com/schem22.html http://lcars24.com/schem7.html
its unknown what the purpose of height is in a warp core, as long as the main chambers are of similar size they probably produce similar power. the height of the accelerators might make long distance and long term warp travel easier on the core or something. another feature built into the long range explorer connie that is unnecessary for roles the miranda already performs. if this is not the case, and the height directly effects power output, the order of magnitude difference in their power generation wouldn't make sense. they are basically the same volume as each other, how could one function on a fraction of the power? or that schematic is wrong, and theirs a horizontal core in it somewhere.
Why should star fleet leave such a big size gap between their smallest combat ship and the excelsior, as the Connie refit is bigger than the reliant, wouldn't a fleet of connie refits be more long lasting, subject to less wear and tear, and capable of longer journeys compared to it's underpowered little brother you call its replacement?
the miranda is only 7% smaller then a connie by volume, and lacks all the unnecessary components that would be built into a long range explorer. in a fight its likely the superior ship, fore and aft torps, heavier role bar phasers, a more compact frame, etc.
Its larger crew would be more well distributed, and more capable of adapting to varied emergencies. The ship has a higher safety rating in the warp department thanks to its distanced warp nacelles.
less of an issue when your designed to operate in home territories? warp necells have never really shown to be toxic places that you should avoid for your health.
Finally, if size is such a big deterrent for small star fleet vessels, what is the Oberth class doing still in the fleet? Anything they put in that ship could easily fit even inside a reliant class.
operating cost, its purely scientific role not needing a ship any larger, clearly it performed its function well to have been kept around so long.
So I ask again, why would the Federation break a tradition kept with every single other ship of the TMP era or higher, that included serious mass production and upkeep?
what tradition? the tradition of replacing ships that were outdated when they became to old, to small, and to underpowered to handle the ever growing dangers they encountered wile exploring?
The likeliest answer is that they did continue to use them, but were not shown because altering the Refit model would have been sacrilege, along with blowing it up, if even just for show or consistency. The idea is that Federation space is pretty big, and they need ships of all shapes and sizes, just because the refit class does not fulfill its original role as well as it used to does not mean it would stop being a great work horse for star fleet. Besides, its not like parts for that class were limited or anything, what with all the miranda's we see.
ive already gone over how it is overbuilt for less glamorous roles then what it was built to do. the fact that the miranda exists, and lacks many of the connies features tell me those features are not needed in those less glamorous roles, take up valuable space, and add unnecessarily to the operating cost of the ship. clearly, they kept refiting mirandas and even building them well into the 24th century, you see them everywhere.
with the connie they likely stopped trying to keep it current and gradually removed it from service. how do we explain the decision in ST 3 to instead of refit the enterprise into a full active duty ship again, instead of continuing as a giant school bus, they were just going to retire her? and this was in 2285, 15 years after it became basically a new ship. tells me starfleet was considering the class antiquated then. seeing the miranda in the dominion war tells me starfleet feels very differently about the miranda. these are not conclusions you have to bend over backward to come too.
Season 7, I'd guess. The new sector they're adding, in between Klingon and Romulan space, would include the system where the Enterprise-C was destroyed. There's story potential there.
starfleet isn't composed of about 100 ships, there are 10s of thousands in service. those first 6 ships were just the first 6 frames that were made, all basically at once. soon after the class launched there were hundreds of them, they hd been cranking them out ever since and had 1 for every other 10 ships in all the fleet battles we saw. there were proboly hundreds of ambassadors built during its prime too.
Well Starfleet may not be composed of a 100 ships but it most likely has large numbers of smaller unglamorous non-combat ships that take up registry numbers.
Lets look back at ship building on the show. The Constitution class was meant to be only 12 ships according to Roddenberry. Before that there were only four NX class ships (the finished number might be higher).
Across TNG and DS9 we saw dozens of Miranda. Well generally assumed is that the Miranda is the simpler workhorse design with more ships and more variants built. This is in keeping with when we see these ships come in to being. That militant period of the 2280s when Starfleet was expecting war with the Klingons. So we can expect there to have been lots of easy to build ships to be assembled at this time, Starfleet expected to take losses in any conflict with the Klingons. The KDF at this time appeared to be buildings lots of Birds of Prey and Battlecruisers (based on DS9's battle sequences). Also at this time we get a class of ship that appears almost as much if not more often as the Miranda, the Excelsior. The Excelsior is without a doubt the high end ship design. Construction like this is called High-Low, where a fleet builds both large numbers of expensive and expendable ships. Times of war or threat of war bring this mentality on.
After the Khitomer Accords (and after the Tomed Incident) the threat of war in the Federation is less, although we have small conflicts with the Cardassians, Talarians, Tholians, and Tzenkethi. None of those races proved much of a threat (The Talarians were kind of a joke). So we see smaller numbers of high end ships. We saw 5 Ambassadors across TNG and DS9, other classes we saw even less with the exception of the Nebula (which was most likely built along side the Galaxy class). Having only a half dozen Ambassadors might be been sufficient for the time. I can see this time as an era when the Engineers have more sway then the Generals. The need for fewer ships means all the toys have to be placed on only a few hulls which leads us to the Galaxy class.
At most we saw 10 Galaxy class ships on screen at once in Sacrifice of Angels. Which is still in keeping with the idea from the TNG tech manual that there were six built plus six spaceframes built for future activation. Considering that the 1st Galaxies were put in to service just a few years before the 1st encounter with the Borg its very likely that additional ships were built simply because it was the latest and best design available. And with the Borg threat large numbers of different classes were built all of them smaller, and leaner even the Sovereign.
My Romulan Liberated Borg character made it to Level 30 and beat the (old) Defense of New Romulus with the skill point bug.
Dan pretty much said this weekend that the Vesta will be the next ship coming out - just working out some details on licencing fees with the designer - yadda yadda
Looks like the Vesta may hit as early as late Nov early Dec
that high end deflector would be useful in deep space, apparently the tasks the miranda performs don't require one like it. so its likely a big, unnecessary piece of equipment that at the very least is redundant and at most a costly thing to maintain. ether makes the connie less ideal then the already present miranda at doing inner territory assignments
Do you seriously not see the need for deflector dishes? Almost every vessel has one, even the ships that are spiritual successors to the miranda class like the akira, steamrunner. nebula, and saber class. They slap one on almost every ship because they are a necessity, even inter-territorial jobs are going to need them. If I am not mistaken they have combat roles as well, giving another combat advantage to the refit class. The wide usage of deflectors also imply that they aren't much of a problem for upkeep, never in any series or movie have I seen an engineering officer complaining about the thing.
its likely the role bar phasers were more powerful then the standard ball turrets, but with a lower fireing arc. the enterprise was directing 2 beams to the same spot, wile you only really see 1 roll bar beam hit the enterprise at a time. khan's ship was still in much better shape, but he was vulnerable so he disengaged, he didn't know the enterprise couldn't fire any more shots at that point. in the tng era the role bar beams arent even utilized anymore so it doesn't really mater. it just has a couple array type emitters stuffed in the old ball turret ports.
What is the point of saying all this? The enterprise still did great damage while it was on the brink of destruction. Its later phaser shot blew half of the reliants warp nacelle off while reliant phaser damage only scarred the enterprise nacelles. In fact, the crippled enterprise blew chunks out of the main hull as well. The difference in power at the time was clearly apparent.
its unknown what the purpose of height is in a warp core, as long as the main chambers are of similar size they probably produce similar power. the height of the accelerators might make long distance and long term warp travel easier on the core or something. another feature built into the long range explorer connie that is unnecessary for roles the miranda already performs. if this is not the case, and the height directly effects power output, the order of magnitude difference in their power generation wouldn't make sense. they are basically the same volume as each other, how could one function on a fraction of the power? or that schematic is wrong, and theirs a horizontal core in it somewhere.st ship being in service till the 2320s.
Every starship in star fleet that has shown its guts featured a vertical warp core. I am basing my arguments upon known star fleet traditions, while you have to make do with guess work. You are also assuming the miranda class only fulfills the role of inter-territory functions.
But this brings up another great point, the basic enterprise form has been maintained throughout star fleet history for several reasons. The ships had to be long distance capable, and this is the shape they had. One can only assume the adage about its form benefitting a warp field is true in one way or another. Even in star fleet space, the connie refit could get more done in a shorter amount of time. Since it could go farther, that means less breaks and down time.
less of an issue when your designed to operate in home territories? warp necells have never really shown to be toxic places that you should avoid for your health.
This is not a canon fact to my distinct knowledge, but the original designer of the Enterprise stated that objects capable of such wildly fantastic acts would be highly toxic. Correct me if im wrong but I think they might mention this in the enterprise episode where they have to hide in the specially sealed portions of the warp nacelles. At the very least we know that warp nacelles are highly explosive, and capable of destroying an entire vessel if they are pressured in the wrong way, proving that connie refit is safer in that regard.
operating cost, its purely scientific role not needing a ship any larger, clearly it performed its function well to have been kept around so long.
Even if you continue with the illogical assumption that the miranda class was only used for deep federation space its roles could not be possibly limited to science ones. There are many episodes of trek where the lead ship needs to carry supplies or people to various locations. The connie refit is bigger and therefore better at those roles. If science were the only duty of an old ship, the connie refit would still be better at it due to, once again, its deflector. I agree that the miranda class did well to stay around for so long, but everything it did could be done better by the connie refit. And if size is such an important factor in star fleet, what with all the size increases we see, it would make no sense to produce more miranda class ships than connies.
what tradition? the tradition of replacing ships that were outdated when they became to old, to small, and to underpowered to handle the ever growing dangers they encountered wile exploring?
Every thing in this statement applies more to the oberth and miranda class than the connie refit, and we still see tons of those two ships.
ive already gone over how it is overbuilt for less glamorous roles then what it was built to do. the fact that the miranda exists, and lacks many of the connies features tell me those features are not needed in those less glamorous roles, take up valuable space, and add unnecessarily to the operating cost of the ship. clearly, they kept refiting mirandas and even building them well into the 24th century, you see them everywhere.
with the connie they likely stopped trying to keep it current and gradually removed it from service. how do we explain the decision in ST 3 to instead of refit the enterprise into a full active duty ship again, instead of continuing as a giant school bus, they were just going to retire her? and this was in 2285, 15 years after it became basically a new ship. tells me starfleet was considering the class antiquated then. seeing the miranda in the dominion war tells me starfleet feels very differently about the miranda. these are not conclusions you have to bend over backward to come too.
They are actually a pretty wild group of conclusions. Iv just gone through how the connie is shown as better in almost every regard to the miranda class. Every book and game on the subject puts the connie refit above the miranda class in performance. In the legendary battle between the two ships, the connie refit showed itself as vastly superior. Your baseless statements run deep, deepest in the assumption that these ships are only used in federation space later on. But the thing about space is that the more you get, the more you are exposed to. Not using these ships in comparitively safer exploratory rolls would be a waste of resources.
You can bring up the decommissioning of the enterprise, on both accounts, but there could be any number of reasons behind those events. The first one could have been done with lots of politics involved, making sure the powder keg of explosive relations Kirk spurred on from the klingons stayed dry. The klingons jumped at every opportunity to take him out. In addition, Kirk had acquired a true bounty of experience in his travels, and it was time to put him behind a desk with a gleaming name plate that give him the authority and presence within star fleet he deserved, avoiding a public incident upon his death could also be a factor. The first decommission takes place during a time where we knew there were other connies in service too, since they took another one to make the alpha which stayed in service even further.
The second decommission was probably for a museum, a likely destination for the original historic vessel. The reasons for these shelvings can be seen in the events those ships catered to. You don't simply let a ship with a history and proven track record like that go and leave lessor vessels to fill its void.
i really see no point in trying to argue with you any further. the only conclusion your capable of coming to is the connie is simply too good to ever do away with. no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to change your mind. here are canon facts
1. the miranda lacks a large navigation deflector. why?
2. the miranda, and excelsior, are seen in nearly every guest ship appearance in 24th century trek. and what isn't?
3. the connie refit is NOWHERE to be seen during this period. well gee i wonder why that is?
a main character didn't comment off hand the reason for any of this, its up to us to fill in the blanks and make this add up in a way that fits within those canon facts. to draw conclusions that bring these facts and others together objectivly. thats what i did.
why doesn't the miranda have a deflector? well it must not have needed one, or it wouldn't have made it out of the solar system. it must get by with gravametric generators that perform a similar function as a full sized deflector, or something. trek ships cannot function without a deflector/s protection, something has to be doing the job in its absence.
with the excelsior taking over the connies roll, what do you do with the existing connies? well theres already the miranda which seems purpose built for the less glamorous jobs, has only 7% less volume, and is at the same basic tech and defensive level as a connie. the miranda lacks the huge long term supply storage and a large deflector that takes up at least half the volume of the secondary hull, if not more. its almost like the miranda actually has more usable interior volume then the connie. it does.
well if the miranda doesn't need that stuff to do its job, and starfleet wouldn't have launched the ship if it couldn't do its job as is, then why use connie that are much less optimized to do those same jobs? whats the point of supporting a dead end like the connie after its too small and too antiquated to do long term exploring? the miranda is literally what the connie would look like if it was meant to be a close to home ship. its not as suited to be a close to home ship, it would be inferior to the miranda in that purpose.
when was the connie plug more or less pulled? gradually retired? i figure the 2320s at the latest. it could have been the 2350s, but it was certainly before tng took place. there is only a single ship that could have been a connie that at least had enough antimatter to show up at wolf 359 to be slaughtered. a fully commissioned ship with 100 years of service ahead of it? orbital museum? training ship? an inactive hull sitting in a bone yard that only needed a bit of deuterium and antimatter to get running on short notice? a ship debris asset they had on hand from ST3? the last one is for sure correct, the 3 before that are likly, and the first is something a fan boy would cling too.
that line of reasoning fits nicely within those 3 canon facts. everything you wrote was a connie TRIBBLE, and is in conflict with those canon facts. canon and starfleet disagree with you. it doesn't mater if its your favorite, don't bother arguing this stuff if your not going to be objective, im not going to waste anymore of my time.
Is it just me or does the Oberth and NX both lack a Deflector dish too?
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 the main reason the Constitution didn't last as long as the Miranda is simple. The Constitution was a lot more expensive to build, was harder to upgrade and refit, and needed double the crew to operate as a Miranda.
No doubt it was a better ship, but for second line work you don't want quality, you want ecconomy. I have no doubt they kept using the Constitutions while they lasted, but once they wore out it was probably not felt worth refitting them again.
While a connie was a better ship than a Miranda, it could only be in one place at any given time. For the same outlay of resources and personnel you could run two Mirandas, and they could cover twice as much space in the same time. If you're just patrolling collonies and ferrying research teams around, not on the frontier fighting unknown aliens and charting strange anomalies, 2 Mirandas would be a much more efficient use of men and resources than a single aging Constitution class.
"We are constantly trying to address fan feedback and edit costumes and ships in our game constantly. The original Galaxy Class ship alone has been edited for feedback over 25 times, each time adding more detail. So while we appreciate purists, we have to balance what is entirely accurate with what is good enough for the game".
This must have been the commentary behind such statements.........
Stahl: Let's get the Ambassador Class made but, keep it in our back pockets, for....forever "if" I feel like it.
Gecko: What are you suggesting??? There's lots of players who want this ship in-game. I've stated on the forums that I'm trying to get the Ambassador into the game for them.
Stahl: Why did you do that??? Argh! Ok, well, what's done is done. Perhaps the players will just forget about the Ambassador Class?
Gecko: Doubtful. There's a rather large amount who have been waiting for over two years to get it.
Stahl: Hmmm...I see. So, what do you propose, Gecko?
Gecko: We could introduce Ambassador Class in Season 7, along with some cool plot with the Romulans. Players would really appreciate that. Stahl: I will tell the players in Season 7 to expect the Ambassador Class. [In a low whisper, while leaning closer to Gecko]...Actually I'll tell the players Season 7 but mumble 77 under my breath. We will then make them wait till Season 77 for Ambassador Class MUHAHAHAHA!!!
Gecko: With all due respect, I don't think that's fair to the players.
Stahl: Ahh yes, make them WAIT til' Season 77 for the release of the Ambassador Class. We'll continue dangle the carrot in front of the players. I have declared this conversation is over!
i really see no point in trying to argue with you any further. the only conclusion your capable of coming to is the connie is simply too good to ever do away with. no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to change your mind.
First off, you have provided zero evidence that the miranda class is superior in any way other than cost.
The truth of the situation is that we only see a small portion of star fleet, even in the dominion war and borg attacks. If you want to make gigantic leaps of faith in the choices a fictional operation makes be my guest. Just please don't try to push it on others in an attempt to squash their hopes and desires.
You constantly bring up how the connie refit was legitimately replaced by the excelsior class, and had all other potential roles more efficiently usurped by the miranda class. But there is nothing in the canon supporting this other than the small glimpse we get of the fleets (and limited budgets). More importantly, the class equations don't stack up for the whole fleet. Connie refits were practically new ships, based heavily on the shape of an older one. Its safe to say many of these parts were used in the reliant class, size and shape limitations excluded. When the excelsior class wiped out the connies, shouldn't the centaur class or soyuz wipe out the miranda's?
If the volume difference between miranda and connie is so small, then it really could not have been that much harder to make the better ship, or loose it with a smaller compliment of staff when shortages in recruitment struck.
There are easily conceivable alternatives to the situation you are trying to convey, but the most important flaw in your argument is the stagnation of the miranda class. Do you really think Starfleet could get away with putting a couple hundred people on a ship and telling them all that their dreams of galactic exploration have now been put on an indiscriminate hold? Maybe if they orate their console read outs loud and fast they might get a transfer.
When your silly notion of a skewed system gets exposed, the entire reason for permanently scrapping connie production falls apart. You brought up the connie at wolf 359 and im glad, because at the very least it means connies can be brought back into service during times of war. So during the dominion war, where starfleet lost countless ships, they will be brought back into service with all due fervor. If any survived through the war, they would probably have to stay in service too considering all the losses.
You said that everything I wrote was connie TRIBBLE, but let me restate some things with episode and movie titles that prove the point.
1. Deflectors add unique tactical options. (TNG: The Best of both worlds part ll)
3. Warp nacelles are highly explosive, making the connie refit design safer.
(TNG: Cause and Effect)
3. The connie was a superior combat ship, whose phasers did far more damage than the reliants could. (STWOK) The best example is seen when the enterprise destroys an entire portion of a warp nacelle with one phaser shot, when the reliant scores three collective hits on the kirks nacelles and destroys neither.
4. If the miranda class was a better configuration for exploration or distance work, later enterprise flagships would feature a similar configuration.
So for just a little more 'money' the federation could make a clearly superior ship in almost as many numbers, while still rolling out a few mirandas to boot. This goes in line with traditions established throughout all the shows, that every ship can do a little bit here and there as long as its from the tmp era or later.
But you can have fun with your authorial militarized version of star fleet if you want. I definitely have fun with my open version.
*Edit, so I just read that the soyuz class was discontinued, making it the only tmp era ship that was officially discontinued. Its important to note that the producers did not want it to be from that era though, and its gigantic sensor module suggests the reliant class was seriously lacking in that department.
First off, you have provided zero evidence that the miranda class is superior in any way other than cost.
implying there is actual evidence to provide. there isn't. no one in canon mentioned anything about this. an explanation around points of canon is the best we can do.
3. Warp nacelles are highly explosive, making the connie refit design safer.
(TNG: Cause and Effect)
even when the reliant's nacelle exploded, the underside of the ship didn't have any viable hull breach from it, just looked kinda scorched. nacelle detonation on a connie would more likely damage its impulse engine if it damages anything.
3. The connie was a superior combat ship, whose phasers did far more damage than the reliants could. (STWOK) The best example is seen when the enterprise destroys an entire portion of a warp nacelle with one phaser shot, when the reliant scores three collective hits on the kirks nacelles and destroys neither.
3 twice huh? that had more to do with shot placement, and every time the connie fired 2 beams were basically hitting the same place. the miranda has fore AND aft torp launchers, the same number of saucer banks, and larger emitters in the corner of its role bars. the connie is out gunned, it was kahn's inexperience let kirk get the better of him.
*Edit, so I just read that the soyuz class was discontinued, making it the only tmp era ship that was officially discontinued. Its important to note that the producers did not want it to be from that era though, and its gigantic sensor module suggests the reliant class was seriously lacking in that department.
it has the same sensor package as the connie, they are a visible exterior feature :rolleyes: they likely canned the soyuz because those enhanced sensor's became obsolete equipment because of some packaging or tech break through, those arrays were its key design feature. or its was done away with because the cold war with the klingons was coming to an end, so a dedicated sensor/espionage boat wasn't needed.
Comments
that all sounds about right. theres no reason for an ambassador class to perform menial tasks like bringing something or someone to the enterprise.
i think the miranda won out because its aft hull section that was 4 or 5 decks thick could be so modular. its usable space over a connie was simply much greater. also, in every cutaway of a connie i see there is a huge cargo bay taking up half the interior of the secondary hull, presumably for carrying enough supplies for a 5+ year deep space assignment. seeing as the ship was eventually undersized for its purpose built assignment, it would make sense to discontinue the class and take it out of service. even with a refit it wouldn't be able to do the closer to home assignments the miranda does, better then the miranda already does them.
the connie was a nice large ship in the 2240s, even up to the 2270s. but by 2300 the ship was simply undersized for its usual assignments, the correct, safe size for going out to parts unknown by then was the dramatically larger excelsior class. and the constellation class that i think was created from the mass decommissioning of connies. stacking 2 saucers on top of each other, using 4 nacelles, 2 connie style impulse engines, and all the other unique components could be fabricated from the scraped secondary hullls. the miranda was never equipped with such extensive long range supply storage, it was always intended to be a within the borders ship, and it must of done its job incredibly well to last 100 years.
any connie parts you see at wolf 359, which is very close to earth, were likly acadamy training ships. the class seemed suited for that role and some were proboly kept around for that purpose. being a ship most likly to be close to earth, its no wonder they sent them and any other functioning ship they could against the incoming borg.
when the ambassador replaced the excelsior as the primary explorer, the excelsior was still considered a large capable ship, suited for basically any mission you could ask of it, it wasn't as hamstrung as a long range ship as the connie eventually was. the excelsior and miranda were so good at handling everything but the longest range and most dangerous missions that new intermediate classes weren't needed for 40 years.
that complacency turned out to be a problem when some of the federation's neighbors went to war with them, like the cardassian War from the 2340s ? 2367, somehow that war lasted that long, and its likely because the federation had so many outdated ships that were fine for everything but combat with more modern ships. around the time the galaxy and nebula class launched though, that war came to an end, i see a connection lol. there was a tholian war that was going on in the 2350s and resulted in the destruction of at least 1 starbase, possibly a huge spacedock sized base. there was also several Tzenkethi Wars, the latest taking place in the early 2360s, Sisko fought in that conflict and mentioned it was only the latest.
this is why there are so many supper modern classes of ships introduced in the 2360s and 2370s, and the borg and dominian threats only amplified a build up. those cheyenne, new orleans, freedom, etc.. were all proboly built in the late 2340s to early 2360s in an effort to modernize the fleet, likely built off the research going into the galaxy class that took about 20 years to go from drawing board to active service. for its size, by then the ambassador would have been very under gunned, its phaser arrays very short. the new cheyenne and new orleans wile smaller then the ambassador had much larger phaser arrays and could use the power of many more emitters in each shot. they were likely what held the line during this time, wile the ambassador with its tactical shortcomings remained in deep space.
its also proboly why the ambassador is a no show so often, even a ship as small as the intrepid has bigger phaser arrays, without a significant rebuild of the primary hull its firepower couldn't be increased to the level a ship its size should have. so its used where a large long range ship is needed but not were combat is expected. the sovereign is about the same volume as an ambassador, wile having significantly more firepower. it likely was intended to take over as the light battleship/heavy battle cruiser of the fleet, or explorer/explorer in starfleet speak :rolleyes:
by 2409, its likely the ambassador is getting its last major refit before the class is decommissioned, im sure starfleet wanted to get at least 80 years out of the class. in game things like shrimpy phaser arrays don't really mater, only those of us that have read the tng tech manual and debated about how phsers work for years on the internet know that array length is an additive power increasing facter with phaser arrays. in game we also fire 8 beams at a time, were in canon they would just fire 1 super powerful shot at a time if they wanted to deal maximum damage.
corvette is a sized based classification, escort is a roll. starfleet likes leaving out those old miliray classifications and just calls a ship by its roll more often then not. they seems to call everything a cruiser or an explorer.
the ambassador should basically have the setup the galaxy has, only with a beter turn rate, and a more useful 9th console, basically what the negvar has. the galaxy not having a 3rd tactical console, and turning so poorly really takes away from its ability to deal even basic damage over time like the negvar can. the neg can even use lower arc weapons pretty well. its movement and console put it head and shoulders above the galaxy, at least making it a viable and useful ship. the gal R just has to many things going against it, every disadvantage a ship in this game could have. the galaxy's station setup and consoles should change, its absurd how poorly its stated compared to everything else, when its literally starfleet's battleship in canon
starfleet isn't composed of about 100 ships, there are 10s of thousands in service. those first 6 ships were just the first 6 frames that were made, all basically at once. soon after the class launched there were hundreds of them, they hd been cranking them out ever since and had 1 for every other 10 ships in all the fleet battles we saw. there were proboly hundreds of ambassadors built during its prime too.
We are talking about Star Trek battlecruisers, not WW1 and 2 sea battlecruisers. The reasons for ships advancements in space are totally different than past ship advancements in water. During the Motion Picture series of movies the Constitution Class Enterprise-A was referred as "Federation Battlecruiser,"(The Search For Spock) by the the Klingons. As ships advanced, others will take that role as the older ones downgrade. The Excelsiors took that role and as the Constitution class were less armed and armored. If you would of played any other Star Trek games besides STO, you would of known that battlecruiser is one of the Federation's classifications. As the Excelsior class was then bested by the Ambassidor Class so it would have to been downgraded to heavy cruiser. The Ambassidor Class came out during a time of war with the Romulans. The Exploration Class came out later during a time of peace when it was deamed safe for civilians and families to be stationed on the starship. Now we are back in a time of war and the Abassidor would fit right into that battlecruiser role.
Let's not speculate. If you don't have an actual script or story passage saying that all Constitution Class ships were decomissioned before the Battle of Wolf 359, then you can't say they were, by just guessing.
its a very educated guess. there simply isnt an example in canon that could prove 90% of what there is to talk about true or false. very few things really have any hard canon backing them up. throughout what i wrote i did reference things stated in canon over and over again, and filled in blanks as logically as possible between them.
I just don't know where the ambassador would fit maybe a science heavy cruiser ? But we would need the vesta in as a science ship for that to happen.... I wonder what the next tactical ship will be though. Even a new klingon ship would be cool and nice to see.
Edit: Scratch that, just checked the wiki and proved myself wrong, nothing to see here.
I can totally see the Ambassador as a science-oriented "Research Cruiser" at some tier or another, the only question really is which one? To me the ship feels like it should fit in at tier 3, but there's also not much reason to put it there. On the other hand if you put it at tier 5 to compliment the Galaxy X and Galaxy Retrofit it just seem right either, like the ship should be too old or too weak for that slot. I suppose it could work at tier 4 alongside the Galaxy and Venture, but that doesn't seem right either.
Personally I think it should've been Excelsior at tier 2 followed by Ambassador>Galaxy>Sovereign with the Constitution either replacing the Miranda or being sold at tier 2 through the C-store. That's just my 2ec though.
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Thats fine but my eyes don't lie. If I see Constitution hulks, I going to say they were in service and not training ships because there were quite alot of them. That Admiral didn't mention mustering training ships and crews to defend Earth. A lot of experienced captains and crews lost their lives during the Battle of Wolf 359.
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USS Excalibur
The USS Excalibur (NCC-26517) was a Federation Ambassador-class heavy cruiser that was in service with Starfleet in the mid-24th century.
The Excalibur survived an attack by the Borg during a night shift sometime prior to 2368. Several members of the crew, including Marika Wilkarah, were assimilated in the encounter. (VOY: "Survival Instinct")
In 2368, the Excalibur was undergoing a major refit and repair at Starbase 234. It was selected by Captain Jean-Luc Picard to serve in a Starfleet blockade of the Klingon-Romulan border during the Klingon Civil War. During that mission, it was commanded by Commander William T. Riker, with Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge as first officer since the Excalibur's crew had been reassigned due to the extent of the refit. (TNG: "Redemption II")
The is no mention in Memory Alpha of it being listed as a science ship. It would be in its own heavy cruiser catagory like the Excelsior regular and retrofit. The same reason they brought the Excelsior Retrofit to tier 5 is the same reason the STO will have a tier 5 Ambassador Class.
The reason for this is because they built an Ambassador, practically from scratch where they already had Oberths, Mirandas, and Excelsiors already made from the Trek movies, along with the Galaxy from TNG.
Actually, that aproach worked to get the Cat Carrier and Akira into the game...if history repeats.
The very same logic you used in assuming the Ambassador class was mass produced could be applied to the Connie refit. There were probably hundreds of them in service and it would be an absolute waste to just dump so many fine ships. Furthermore, there are gigantic amounts of evidence that many ships from that era still served in the TNG time zone. So why would such a comparatively great vessel get shut down when it has not happened to any other ship in ST history?
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i claimed the ambassador was mass produced, but at a low volume compared to a MUCH smaller ship like the excelsior.
by ST6 and the turn of the 24th century, the connie refit was not a fresh new design. it was 30 years old, and built upon a ship that had become antiquated 30 years before, causing starfleet to completely replace it in a manor never before seen and never seen since. the refit was little more then a recycling program, the original and refit dont have a single bulk head in common.
they didn't build a larger ship like they proboly should have then, its volume is only 10% higher. the original connie was the right size in 2245, by 2270 they should have built something bigger. they sure did build the excelsior to be a big ship, this time its likely the right size for the right time, wile the connie was an undersized underpowered mistake starfleet has been regretting for decades. i say this and i love the connie refit, but the excelsior is hardly an incremental upping in size. the excelsior is 3.7 times the volume of the connie refit, and its direct replacement.
by the time tng happened, the ambassador class is in a similar place as the connie at the turn of the 24th century. in both cases a new ship design is launched that makes the old design look as antiquated and outdated as it actually is. only in the ambassador's case its still the 3rd largest ship in the fleet, and it was the main battleship, not a mass produced heavy cruiser throughout its production cycle.
the connie was past its prime by 2300, it couldn't fill its role anymore, and there was no roles to downgrade it too, the miranda clearly was already a better fit for them. you see miranda class through the dominion war, and you only see a single hunk of twisted connie metal in the remains of the borg battle field were the stakes couldn't be higher. it was the kitchen sink, the lack of any other appearances in the entire 24th century speaks volumes. you see constellation class several times though, i already theorized they built the constellation class out of decommissioned connies, its ether that or they just recycled them, and at least 1 is in a museum.
We can see the power difference in the battle they fought. For the first shot, Khans man used the phaser pod on the roll bar, implying it was more powerful than the saucer versions it shared with the refit. The phasers do great damage to the Enterprise when they hit the right spot, but when the enterprise uses its normal phasers it does just as much if not more damage, even after being practically crippled.
But the real deal breaker separating the two classes is the warp core. The main source of power for a star ship is at least three times bigger in favor of the Constitution refit class. Here are a couple of links just for show, with an excelsior refit thrown in to show that with proper upgrades a Connie refit could rival even that beast in power.
http://lcars24.com/schem6.html
http://lcars24.com/schem22.html
http://lcars24.com/schem7.html
Your argument that size and role replacement justify fleet wide decommissions is flawed for a couple more reasons. Why should star fleet leave such a big size gap between their smallest combat ship and the excelsior, as the Connie refit is bigger than the reliant, wouldn't a fleet of connie refits be more long lasting, subject to less wear and tear, and capable of longer journeys compared to it's underpowered little brother you call its replacement? Its larger crew would be more well distributed, and more capable of adapting to varied emergencies. The ship has a higher safety rating in the warp department thanks to its distanced warp nacelles. Finally, if size is such a big deterrent for small star fleet vessels, what is the Oberth class doing still in the fleet? Anything they put in that ship could easily fit even inside a reliant class.
So I ask again, why would the Federation break a tradition kept with every single other ship of the TMP era or higher, that included serious mass production and upkeep?
The likeliest answer is that they did continue to use them, but were not shown because altering the Refit model would have been sacrilege, along with blowing it up, if even just for show or consistency. The idea is that Federation space is pretty big, and they need ships of all shapes and sizes, just because the refit class does not fulfill its original role as well as it used to does not mean it would stop being a great work horse for star fleet. Besides, its not like parts for that class were limited or anything, what with all the miranda's we see.
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that high end deflector would be useful in deep space, apparently the tasks the miranda performs don't require one like it. so its likely a big, unnecessary piece of equipment that at the very least is redundant and at most a costly thing to maintain. ether makes the connie less ideal then the already present miranda at doing inner territory assignments
its likely the role bar phasers were more powerful then the standard ball turrets, but with a lower fireing arc. the enterprise was directing 2 beams to the same spot, wile you only really see 1 roll bar beam hit the enterprise at a time. khan's ship was still in much better shape, but he was vulnerable so he disengaged, he didn't know the enterprise couldn't fire any more shots at that point. in the tng era the role bar beams arent even utilized anymore so it doesn't really mater. it just has a couple array type emitters stuffed in the old ball turret ports.
its unknown what the purpose of height is in a warp core, as long as the main chambers are of similar size they probably produce similar power. the height of the accelerators might make long distance and long term warp travel easier on the core or something. another feature built into the long range explorer connie that is unnecessary for roles the miranda already performs. if this is not the case, and the height directly effects power output, the order of magnitude difference in their power generation wouldn't make sense. they are basically the same volume as each other, how could one function on a fraction of the power? or that schematic is wrong, and theirs a horizontal core in it somewhere.
i doubt they did a factory recall, it likely happened over 20 or 30 years with the last ship being in service till the 2320s.
the miranda is only 7% smaller then a connie by volume, and lacks all the unnecessary components that would be built into a long range explorer. in a fight its likely the superior ship, fore and aft torps, heavier role bar phasers, a more compact frame, etc.
less of an issue when your designed to operate in home territories? warp necells have never really shown to be toxic places that you should avoid for your health.
operating cost, its purely scientific role not needing a ship any larger, clearly it performed its function well to have been kept around so long.
what tradition? the tradition of replacing ships that were outdated when they became to old, to small, and to underpowered to handle the ever growing dangers they encountered wile exploring?
ive already gone over how it is overbuilt for less glamorous roles then what it was built to do. the fact that the miranda exists, and lacks many of the connies features tell me those features are not needed in those less glamorous roles, take up valuable space, and add unnecessarily to the operating cost of the ship. clearly, they kept refiting mirandas and even building them well into the 24th century, you see them everywhere.
with the connie they likely stopped trying to keep it current and gradually removed it from service. how do we explain the decision in ST 3 to instead of refit the enterprise into a full active duty ship again, instead of continuing as a giant school bus, they were just going to retire her? and this was in 2285, 15 years after it became basically a new ship. tells me starfleet was considering the class antiquated then. seeing the miranda in the dominion war tells me starfleet feels very differently about the miranda. these are not conclusions you have to bend over backward to come too.
Well Starfleet may not be composed of a 100 ships but it most likely has large numbers of smaller unglamorous non-combat ships that take up registry numbers.
Lets look back at ship building on the show. The Constitution class was meant to be only 12 ships according to Roddenberry. Before that there were only four NX class ships (the finished number might be higher).
Across TNG and DS9 we saw dozens of Miranda. Well generally assumed is that the Miranda is the simpler workhorse design with more ships and more variants built. This is in keeping with when we see these ships come in to being. That militant period of the 2280s when Starfleet was expecting war with the Klingons. So we can expect there to have been lots of easy to build ships to be assembled at this time, Starfleet expected to take losses in any conflict with the Klingons. The KDF at this time appeared to be buildings lots of Birds of Prey and Battlecruisers (based on DS9's battle sequences). Also at this time we get a class of ship that appears almost as much if not more often as the Miranda, the Excelsior. The Excelsior is without a doubt the high end ship design. Construction like this is called High-Low, where a fleet builds both large numbers of expensive and expendable ships. Times of war or threat of war bring this mentality on.
After the Khitomer Accords (and after the Tomed Incident) the threat of war in the Federation is less, although we have small conflicts with the Cardassians, Talarians, Tholians, and Tzenkethi. None of those races proved much of a threat (The Talarians were kind of a joke). So we see smaller numbers of high end ships. We saw 5 Ambassadors across TNG and DS9, other classes we saw even less with the exception of the Nebula (which was most likely built along side the Galaxy class). Having only a half dozen Ambassadors might be been sufficient for the time. I can see this time as an era when the Engineers have more sway then the Generals. The need for fewer ships means all the toys have to be placed on only a few hulls which leads us to the Galaxy class.
At most we saw 10 Galaxy class ships on screen at once in Sacrifice of Angels. Which is still in keeping with the idea from the TNG tech manual that there were six built plus six spaceframes built for future activation. Considering that the 1st Galaxies were put in to service just a few years before the 1st encounter with the Borg its very likely that additional ships were built simply because it was the latest and best design available. And with the Borg threat large numbers of different classes were built all of them smaller, and leaner even the Sovereign.
Looks like the Vesta may hit as early as late Nov early Dec
Do you seriously not see the need for deflector dishes? Almost every vessel has one, even the ships that are spiritual successors to the miranda class like the akira, steamrunner. nebula, and saber class. They slap one on almost every ship because they are a necessity, even inter-territorial jobs are going to need them. If I am not mistaken they have combat roles as well, giving another combat advantage to the refit class. The wide usage of deflectors also imply that they aren't much of a problem for upkeep, never in any series or movie have I seen an engineering officer complaining about the thing.
What is the point of saying all this? The enterprise still did great damage while it was on the brink of destruction. Its later phaser shot blew half of the reliants warp nacelle off while reliant phaser damage only scarred the enterprise nacelles. In fact, the crippled enterprise blew chunks out of the main hull as well. The difference in power at the time was clearly apparent.
Every starship in star fleet that has shown its guts featured a vertical warp core. I am basing my arguments upon known star fleet traditions, while you have to make do with guess work. You are also assuming the miranda class only fulfills the role of inter-territory functions.
But this brings up another great point, the basic enterprise form has been maintained throughout star fleet history for several reasons. The ships had to be long distance capable, and this is the shape they had. One can only assume the adage about its form benefitting a warp field is true in one way or another. Even in star fleet space, the connie refit could get more done in a shorter amount of time. Since it could go farther, that means less breaks and down time.
This is not a canon fact to my distinct knowledge, but the original designer of the Enterprise stated that objects capable of such wildly fantastic acts would be highly toxic. Correct me if im wrong but I think they might mention this in the enterprise episode where they have to hide in the specially sealed portions of the warp nacelles. At the very least we know that warp nacelles are highly explosive, and capable of destroying an entire vessel if they are pressured in the wrong way, proving that connie refit is safer in that regard.
Even if you continue with the illogical assumption that the miranda class was only used for deep federation space its roles could not be possibly limited to science ones. There are many episodes of trek where the lead ship needs to carry supplies or people to various locations. The connie refit is bigger and therefore better at those roles. If science were the only duty of an old ship, the connie refit would still be better at it due to, once again, its deflector. I agree that the miranda class did well to stay around for so long, but everything it did could be done better by the connie refit. And if size is such an important factor in star fleet, what with all the size increases we see, it would make no sense to produce more miranda class ships than connies.
Every thing in this statement applies more to the oberth and miranda class than the connie refit, and we still see tons of those two ships.
They are actually a pretty wild group of conclusions. Iv just gone through how the connie is shown as better in almost every regard to the miranda class. Every book and game on the subject puts the connie refit above the miranda class in performance. In the legendary battle between the two ships, the connie refit showed itself as vastly superior. Your baseless statements run deep, deepest in the assumption that these ships are only used in federation space later on. But the thing about space is that the more you get, the more you are exposed to. Not using these ships in comparitively safer exploratory rolls would be a waste of resources.
You can bring up the decommissioning of the enterprise, on both accounts, but there could be any number of reasons behind those events. The first one could have been done with lots of politics involved, making sure the powder keg of explosive relations Kirk spurred on from the klingons stayed dry. The klingons jumped at every opportunity to take him out. In addition, Kirk had acquired a true bounty of experience in his travels, and it was time to put him behind a desk with a gleaming name plate that give him the authority and presence within star fleet he deserved, avoiding a public incident upon his death could also be a factor. The first decommission takes place during a time where we knew there were other connies in service too, since they took another one to make the alpha which stayed in service even further.
The second decommission was probably for a museum, a likely destination for the original historic vessel. The reasons for these shelvings can be seen in the events those ships catered to. You don't simply let a ship with a history and proven track record like that go and leave lessor vessels to fill its void.
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1. the miranda lacks a large navigation deflector. why?
2. the miranda, and excelsior, are seen in nearly every guest ship appearance in 24th century trek. and what isn't?
3. the connie refit is NOWHERE to be seen during this period. well gee i wonder why that is?
a main character didn't comment off hand the reason for any of this, its up to us to fill in the blanks and make this add up in a way that fits within those canon facts. to draw conclusions that bring these facts and others together objectivly. thats what i did.
why doesn't the miranda have a deflector? well it must not have needed one, or it wouldn't have made it out of the solar system. it must get by with gravametric generators that perform a similar function as a full sized deflector, or something. trek ships cannot function without a deflector/s protection, something has to be doing the job in its absence.
with the excelsior taking over the connies roll, what do you do with the existing connies? well theres already the miranda which seems purpose built for the less glamorous jobs, has only 7% less volume, and is at the same basic tech and defensive level as a connie. the miranda lacks the huge long term supply storage and a large deflector that takes up at least half the volume of the secondary hull, if not more. its almost like the miranda actually has more usable interior volume then the connie. it does.
well if the miranda doesn't need that stuff to do its job, and starfleet wouldn't have launched the ship if it couldn't do its job as is, then why use connie that are much less optimized to do those same jobs? whats the point of supporting a dead end like the connie after its too small and too antiquated to do long term exploring? the miranda is literally what the connie would look like if it was meant to be a close to home ship. its not as suited to be a close to home ship, it would be inferior to the miranda in that purpose.
when was the connie plug more or less pulled? gradually retired? i figure the 2320s at the latest. it could have been the 2350s, but it was certainly before tng took place. there is only a single ship that could have been a connie that at least had enough antimatter to show up at wolf 359 to be slaughtered. a fully commissioned ship with 100 years of service ahead of it? orbital museum? training ship? an inactive hull sitting in a bone yard that only needed a bit of deuterium and antimatter to get running on short notice? a ship debris asset they had on hand from ST3? the last one is for sure correct, the 3 before that are likly, and the first is something a fan boy would cling too.
that line of reasoning fits nicely within those 3 canon facts. everything you wrote was a connie TRIBBLE, and is in conflict with those canon facts. canon and starfleet disagree with you. it doesn't mater if its your favorite, don't bother arguing this stuff if your not going to be objective, im not going to waste anymore of my time.
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.
The Oberth's is in the front of the secondary hull, it is just behind a radome according to some schematics. The NX's is in the front of the Saucer.
No doubt it was a better ship, but for second line work you don't want quality, you want ecconomy. I have no doubt they kept using the Constitutions while they lasted, but once they wore out it was probably not felt worth refitting them again.
While a connie was a better ship than a Miranda, it could only be in one place at any given time. For the same outlay of resources and personnel you could run two Mirandas, and they could cover twice as much space in the same time. If you're just patrolling collonies and ferrying research teams around, not on the frontier fighting unknown aliens and charting strange anomalies, 2 Mirandas would be a much more efficient use of men and resources than a single aging Constitution class.
"We are constantly trying to address fan feedback and edit costumes and ships in our game constantly. The original Galaxy Class ship alone has been edited for feedback over 25 times, each time adding more detail. So while we appreciate purists, we have to balance what is entirely accurate with what is good enough for the game".
This must have been the commentary behind such statements.........
Stahl: Let's get the Ambassador Class made but, keep it in our back pockets, for....forever "if" I feel like it.
Gecko: What are you suggesting??? There's lots of players who want this ship in-game. I've stated on the forums that I'm trying to get the Ambassador into the game for them.
Stahl: Why did you do that??? Argh! Ok, well, what's done is done. Perhaps the players will just forget about the Ambassador Class?
Gecko: Doubtful. There's a rather large amount who have been waiting for over two years to get it.
Stahl: Hmmm...I see. So, what do you propose, Gecko?
Gecko: We could introduce Ambassador Class in Season 7, along with some cool plot with the Romulans. Players would really appreciate that.
Stahl: I will tell the players in Season 7 to expect the Ambassador Class. [In a low whisper, while leaning closer to Gecko]...Actually I'll tell the players Season 7 but mumble 77 under my breath. We will then make them wait till Season 77 for Ambassador Class MUHAHAHAHA!!!
Gecko: With all due respect, I don't think that's fair to the players.
Stahl: Ahh yes, make them WAIT til' Season 77 for the release of the Ambassador Class. We'll continue dangle the carrot in front of the players. I have declared this conversation is over!
Just my 2 cents how this might have played out.
First off, you have provided zero evidence that the miranda class is superior in any way other than cost.
The truth of the situation is that we only see a small portion of star fleet, even in the dominion war and borg attacks. If you want to make gigantic leaps of faith in the choices a fictional operation makes be my guest. Just please don't try to push it on others in an attempt to squash their hopes and desires.
You constantly bring up how the connie refit was legitimately replaced by the excelsior class, and had all other potential roles more efficiently usurped by the miranda class. But there is nothing in the canon supporting this other than the small glimpse we get of the fleets (and limited budgets). More importantly, the class equations don't stack up for the whole fleet. Connie refits were practically new ships, based heavily on the shape of an older one. Its safe to say many of these parts were used in the reliant class, size and shape limitations excluded. When the excelsior class wiped out the connies, shouldn't the centaur class or soyuz wipe out the miranda's?
If the volume difference between miranda and connie is so small, then it really could not have been that much harder to make the better ship, or loose it with a smaller compliment of staff when shortages in recruitment struck.
There are easily conceivable alternatives to the situation you are trying to convey, but the most important flaw in your argument is the stagnation of the miranda class. Do you really think Starfleet could get away with putting a couple hundred people on a ship and telling them all that their dreams of galactic exploration have now been put on an indiscriminate hold? Maybe if they orate their console read outs loud and fast they might get a transfer.
When your silly notion of a skewed system gets exposed, the entire reason for permanently scrapping connie production falls apart. You brought up the connie at wolf 359 and im glad, because at the very least it means connies can be brought back into service during times of war. So during the dominion war, where starfleet lost countless ships, they will be brought back into service with all due fervor. If any survived through the war, they would probably have to stay in service too considering all the losses.
You said that everything I wrote was connie TRIBBLE, but let me restate some things with episode and movie titles that prove the point.
1. Deflectors add unique tactical options. (TNG: The Best of both worlds part ll)
2. Deflectors add unique scientific options.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_beam
3. Warp nacelles are highly explosive, making the connie refit design safer.
(TNG: Cause and Effect)
3. The connie was a superior combat ship, whose phasers did far more damage than the reliants could. (STWOK) The best example is seen when the enterprise destroys an entire portion of a warp nacelle with one phaser shot, when the reliant scores three collective hits on the kirks nacelles and destroys neither.
4. If the miranda class was a better configuration for exploration or distance work, later enterprise flagships would feature a similar configuration.
So for just a little more 'money' the federation could make a clearly superior ship in almost as many numbers, while still rolling out a few mirandas to boot. This goes in line with traditions established throughout all the shows, that every ship can do a little bit here and there as long as its from the tmp era or later.
But you can have fun with your authorial militarized version of star fleet if you want. I definitely have fun with my open version.
*Edit, so I just read that the soyuz class was discontinued, making it the only tmp era ship that was officially discontinued. Its important to note that the producers did not want it to be from that era though, and its gigantic sensor module suggests the reliant class was seriously lacking in that department.
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http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/niagara.jpg
Think that ship is one of the few 3 nacelle ships that look balanced to me.
implying there is actual evidence to provide. there isn't. no one in canon mentioned anything about this. an explanation around points of canon is the best we can do.
tell it to starfleet, its not my fault they dont have one.
even when the reliant's nacelle exploded, the underside of the ship didn't have any viable hull breach from it, just looked kinda scorched. nacelle detonation on a connie would more likely damage its impulse engine if it damages anything.
3 twice huh? that had more to do with shot placement, and every time the connie fired 2 beams were basically hitting the same place. the miranda has fore AND aft torp launchers, the same number of saucer banks, and larger emitters in the corner of its role bars. the connie is out gunned, it was kahn's inexperience let kirk get the better of him.
this has never been implied by me. there is every indication that its a close to home design
it has the same sensor package as the connie, they are a visible exterior feature :rolleyes: they likely canned the soyuz because those enhanced sensor's became obsolete equipment because of some packaging or tech break through, those arrays were its key design feature. or its was done away with because the cold war with the klingons was coming to an end, so a dedicated sensor/espionage boat wasn't needed.
Sorry, your link is not working.
I will second that motion. Would be awesome!