Star Trek Online has given us access to some awesome starships, and yes, they have even given us some classic ones, such as the
Excelsior-refit,
Ambassador, and
Constellation-classes. But I find myself wondering, with all these ship classes that they created from scratch just for this game, what happened to all the classes from the TNG era? I mean, we get several from TOS/Movie era's, and DS9/First Contact era's, plus newer. But what about TNG? Yes, we have the
Galaxy, and even the
Cheyenne! But instead of all these made-up ships that (honestly) look horrible, what about the simple, clean ships that we barely got to see on screen? There are several great-looking ships that would be perfect flying along with the
Galaxy-class. I'm talking about the
Challenger,
Freedom,
Springfield,
Niagara, and (my favorite)
New Orleans classes.
And yes, these are all CANON ships. They can been seen in the wreckage of the Battle of Wolf 359, after the Borg attack.
Click Here for pages on each one, complete with screenshots and analysis.
I always wondered why they didn't use CGI models of these in the huge DS9 fleet battles. They have 80-100 year old
Miranda's and
Excelsior's fighting the Dominion, instead of these much newer ships. Always thought that was a huge waste of the talent and effort that went into creating these models for that wreckage scene.
Now, maybe it's some kind of issue getting permission from Paramount/CBS. If that's the case, so be it.
(p.s. The
Ranger-class 'battlecruiser' totally should have been the
Federation-class dreadnought. Just saying.)
Comments
Since you believe the others are canon, I will just laugh and leave you to your delusions, but I wouldn't honestly WANT any of those other 4
These are ships that were made for Wolf 359, and while we never saw them in action, they are technically canon. Or was the Galaxy class one of the ONLY modern designs at the time and the rest of the fleet consisted of Excelsior and Miranda class ships?
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Edit: from my post in the other thread, all the TNG era ships not currently in-game...
TNG:
Challenger Class
Freedom Class (Oh nos! It flies in circles!!1!!)
New Orleans Class
Springfield Class
Niagara Class
Hope Class (Class name comes from the canon dedication plaque and the ship does not apear ingame)
Nebula Class (Bonchune Subtype) (did not apear with the revamp)
Melbourne Type (Subclass 1)
Melbourne Type (Subclass 2)
Melbourne Type (Subclass 3)
Ambassador Class (Unknown Subtype) (The Enterprise C existed in this configuration at one time as seen by Picard's ship wall, it presumably had a refit later on in a similar manner to the TOS version)
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
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'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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No.. the New Orleans is not in the game.. you confuse it with the Nebula.
kodachikuno is quite oftern confused.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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well theres your problem theres a giant hand stuck on the bow
Too bad it isn't... a GREEN HAND.
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yeah edited that bit of derp out thx :P
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It was cheaper and faster to kit bash them using everything under the sun from marker pens to AMT Ertl kits to make them then to spend the time and money to CGI them. A kit bash could be don in a matter of hours when a CGI could take days or weeks to render into a scene. By the way there are quite a few gag jokes in the names of those wrecked ships at Wolf 359. As far as how they looked pre High Def a lot of the thrown together details were lost due to the low resoulution of the day. It's only now you can see the quick and dirty nature of them. And truth be told budget drives the show's effects and if it's good enough for the shot and it's a one time use why spend the money on CGI or hero studio model when a quick and dirty 100 buck kit bash will do? Talking with Doug Drexler there were many times they had only a few hours from getting a script to start filming a scene.
Damn you, 'twas to be my joke
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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I agree, although your schematic is off. At least I don't see the Norway as a "destroyer", it's the Intrepid's big brother second grade cousin. I personally would theorize it trades the planetary landing capability with more deep-space accomodations making long term missions more feasible, although it's odd it loses so much internal space by having so much empty room back there. Maybe it's more of a utility ship, able to transport modules in that empty space?.
The TNG ships should also be included in the game, although at this point I really would prefer them being NPCs only or just model choices for existing metaclasses. I could imagine a temporal mission taking us to Wolf 359 which features all of those ships and upon cmpletion could unlock some of them for existing ship families.
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Back when they first filmed BoBW, they weren't using CGI. It was all physical models. Star Trek didn't start using CG until they started getting into the Dominion War in DS9.
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actually iirc the norway and steam runner were both purpose built borg fighters based upon the success of the defiant as a purpose built combat vessel.
as for the Norway herself the Oslo is in game and the original models for the Norway were lost (again iirc)
You have a source on that? Bcause the "Borg fighter" line is thrown so much around, but actually the only ship this applies to is the Defiant - and the Borg project was scrapped, the ship we see in DS9 doesn't come in it's "Borg" version.
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I think all new First Contact ships, - Sabre, Steamrunner, Norway and Sovereign class - were originally designed to counter the Borg threat but were then used in the Dominion war. I once read that Sabre, Norway and Steamrunner class were designed to work together in battle and compensate for each other's weaknesses.
Production Base: ASDB Integration Section, Spacedock 1, Earth
Accommodation: 190 officers and crew; 500 personnel evacuation limit
Power Plant: One 1,500 plus Cochrane warp core feeding two nacelles; one impulse system
Dimensions: Length, 364.77 meters; beam, 225.61 meters; height, 52.48 meters
Mass: 622,000 metric tonnes
Performance: Warp 9.7 for 12 hours
Armament: Six type-10 phaser emitters; two photon torpedo launchers
The others just look like precursor versions of the u.s.s. Kelvin before it became relevant.
I think this is just speculation due to the fact that almost anything these ships ever do on screen was to be in a fight against a cube in First Contact and then have some more background action during the Dominion War. This fuels speculation/conclusion that these are combat ships that must have been designed as anti-Borg ships because they fight a cube.
Canonical truth however is that the Borg project was canned. The Defiant was pulled out of dry dock and fixed more or less on site by O'Brien to even function. I'm not arguing that the Borg encounter contributes to the overall design philosophy of the newer ships. But the "new" classes (which, behind the scenes and thus out of universe were made for FC to "look old" in contrast to the new Sovereign) do not perform any different than the "old" ones. Even in their action scenes we see nothing in terms of armament, tactics or anything else that identifies them as somehow being superior to the usual Miranda/Excelsior onslaught. In light of this I personally don't believe the whole "fight against Borg" thing holds any water. I would however like to read any material available, after all if reasonable behind-the-scenes info can be included in discussion about the nature of ships. In case of the Akira though, the whole combat-assault-carrier thing the designer wanted obviously didn't make it into canon. If the others have the whole combat theme going on I'm afraid it's the same with those.
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Date? If you're going to hold that there's some sort of logical basis to this fictional universe, Miranda/Excelsior onslaughts would have to rated pretty poorly against a ship that was designed within the last 80 years.
Does that mean the Akira is a warship only? Well, no even though we've pretty much only seen it in that context (except for fleet establishing shots, IIRC). But from the facts one still has to assume that the Akira and the like were more capable starships, otherwise a central tenet of Star Trek, progress, goes out the window.
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First, what's the reason for no Federation-class? Forgive me, I'm brand new to this forum (as of yesterday), and haven't read all the previous posts yet. I mean, they gave us the Galaxy dreadnought, plus variations of it. Why not include the Federation as part of 'Agents of Yesteryear' to link the two ships/eras together?
Second, go ahead and laugh. Evidently you don't believe in screen evidence as canon. I mean, what about the Cheyenne? It's from the same scene, and the game made it canon? In fact, you can see it in the same shot as the New Orleans!
Yes, sometimes we have to take what's on screen with a grain of salt. But as someone else stated above, why would Starfleet only have one new ship (Galaxy) while still operating a fleet of old Miranda, Excelsior, and Ambassador classes? It would make perfect sense if there were other newer classes that we just haven't seen yet, until that battle scene. So the ships' existence is fully logical.
And are you trying to tell me that the Gladius-class looks better than the Challenger? Or the Destiny has a cleaner appearance to the Springfield? That the cluttered Stargazer is better than the Niagara? Or the Imperial's ugly angles over the New Orleans' smooth lines?
Perhaps it is simply a matter of taste. Forgive my simple mind, but I prefer nice, clean ships, with smooth lines (STO's Intrepid variants ruined her appearance). And it boils down to a simple fact: I want to fly the ships I saw on TV, not some crazy fan-boy thing. When I first got the game, I couldn't wait to get my own Intrepid, and fly around like the U.S.S. Voyager (matching the model of her I built when I was 14). So I apologize for asking for actual ships from the show.
Didn't mean to get onto a rant. Just wanted to know what others thought of the missing TNG ships. Like someone mentioned above, they would make for nice NPC ships. Or even as a homage to their only appearance, use them as the models for starship wreckage, lol. Either way, it would be a nice callback to a group of forgotten ships, and the effort that went into building their models.
And I understand the behind-the-scenes reasons why DS9 Fleets were filled with Mirandas and Excelsiors. Just saying it would have been better if they were able to make and use CGI's of the TNG ships instead. But as my former boss was fond of saying, it is what it is....
(and I would settle having the Federation as a NPC you encounter in a episode or two)
Bored, so I fixed it.
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