Unfortunately this is true. K'vort and B'rel were interchangable even through DS9. The only difference seems to be maneuverability and size. Other than that it was literally the same design, and trying to look up the K'vort class just brings up the overall BoP page on Memory Alpha which coveres not only the K'vort, but the B'rel as well, not really making much of a distinction between them.
They were not meant to be interchangeable though, the visuals and dialog clearly indicated several sizes and roles and it is obvious that "bird of prey" is the name of the configuration, not a single class of ship.
Memory Alpha even points out that there were at least two or three classes of different sizes and capabilities, from Krug's little scout that was ""out-gunned, ten to one" by a Constitution-class battle cruiser" as they put it, one big enough to have an engineering section in its neck, and one that was said in dialog to be about half the power of a Vor'cha class ship (which was probably the K'vort since the only time its size-class was mentioned it was called a "battlecruiser").
Reuse of stock footage, "impression shots", and the fact that the full-size mockup was severely undersized (which is something almost all shows do, the Jupiter 2 and the Millennium Falcon are prime examples of that undersizing to cut down expense, both were around two thirds of the size the ships were supposed to be) did not help the issue any, neither did the fact that the Trek writers sometimes seemed confused as to which class name went with which size.
the K'Vort still has not made an appearance in game, and no it ISN'T just an upscale B'rel any more than a K'tinga is just an upscaled D-7. it's a Canon ship and appeared in at least 4 episodes of TNG
The K'vort was used to represent B'rels, and vice versa. They are used interchangeably in the shows. There really isn't anything to official call it a separate ship.
Really? size differences? Wesley actually CALLING THEM BY NAME?? nope no stawman excuses fly today
the fact is it is in the show. it is CANON and it does not exist in game.
the K'Vort still has not made an appearance in game, and no it ISN'T just an upscale B'rel any more than a K'tinga is just an upscaled D-7. it's a Canon ship and appeared in at least 4 episodes of TNG
The K'vort was used to represent B'rels, and vice versa. They are used interchangeably in the shows. There really isn't anything to official call it a separate ship.
Really? size differences? Wesley actually CALLING THEM BY NAME?? nope no stawman excuses fly today
the fact is it is in the show. it is CANON and it does not exist in game.
Let's be honest though, if they had an infinite budget for TNG the K'vort would've probably had a completely different design instead of using the same model as the B'rel.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,584Community Moderator
And I hate to say it, but just upscaling a B'rel in game would be the height of lazyness. And then we come to the issue of customization. Do you lock it to the B'rel parts or allow access to the other BoP parts, which means having to upscale THOSE as well, which in turn could start conflicting with the B'rel code wise and end up with upscaled BoPs or mismatched sizes on both...
If they were to bring in the K'vort, I'd hope they'd actually make it visually distinct from the B'rel in some way other than just upsizing a B'rel and locking the wings.
There were actually around four sizes of BoP according to the visuals (and sometimes the official specs and/or dialog). Ex-Astris Scientia has a good article on the ships here: https://ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/bop-size.htm
When you ignore the stock footage reused from other episodes and measure the ones made for the episode you get a minimum of three or four sizes for Prime universe BoPs:
~50 meters (only seen in The Way of the Warrior) with an unknown crew size. They could easily be considered the version used as frigates in the game. This episode also shows a BoP of around 200m which could be a fifth class (there was at least one other Bop shown that measured out to approximately that size), or all the BoPs in that episode could be a little small in which case they would probably be B'rels and a D-12.
110 meters (the official length of Krug's BoP) with a crew of 12 (and possibly as high as 36) STO (and a number of other groups) calls it the B'rel
~260 meters (ironically, the only time they use the name B'rel it was for this size, though it would fit better as the D-12 (and it makes sense that Lursa and B'Etor would take the biggest, most powerful ship they had against the Enterprise rather than the 110m one they used in Past Prologue even if it was older.
~320 meters (possibly as large as 350), dialog called it K'vort class and identified it as a battlecruiser.
The IKS Pagh was loosely called a "Klingon cruiser" in dialog and was at least a credible threat to the Enterprise (which seems very unlikely for the 110m scout), so it could have been another old D-12 cruiser or it could have been a lazy reference to it being a K'vort class battlecruiser. The Pagh's wings actually moved though which was the only large BoP ever shown to do that which might fit better with the D-12 as an obsolete function on larger ships.
Game wise, I don't think players would object to small changes and possible different materials sets between the sizes (the bigger BoPs like the K'vort could use materials usually found on the larger ships for instance), especially considering how many of the smaller custom BoPs there are already in the game.
Most likely what the 12th Anniversary will have is one ship from each faction to sub faction. So a Legendary Miranda, Negh'var, Jem bug ship, and Galor. As well on the topic of BoP's they are still playing that card from the subscription days where they purposely make only cosmetic changes so the Legendary B'rel is just a M'chla with a B'rel costume and EBC.
Any time you move away from the hero ships on screen, canon becomes imprecise. "Canon" is a bunch of props reused/recycled to meet the production schedule, then get marched out to job for the Enterprise. Canon is likely most accurate if only a single appearance occurred.
The Botany Bay from "Space Seed" is good example of a ship of the latter distinction. Not only that the shots in profile alongside Enterprise illustrate it's size relative to the standard.
Canon ship scales were a raw mess all through the 80s and 90s for Trek. There were more models required than there had been in TOS and the props were often of disparate scale and quality as well as seeing frequent reuse and repurposing. When Joe Trek Fan got too particular with his VCR recordings and took his calipers to the paused TV screen all of a sudden there had to be variants.
As they have moved away from physical to digital models not only can the afford to present big space battles the overall consistency of detail and scale is in a better place than it ever was.
Any time you move away from the hero ships on screen, canon becomes imprecise. "Canon" is a bunch of props reused/recycled to meet the production schedule, then get marched out to job for the Enterprise. Canon is likely most accurate if only a single appearance occurred.
The Botany Bay from "Space Seed" is good example of a ship of the latter distinction. Not only that the shots in profile alongside Enterprise illustrate it's size relative to the standard.
Canon ship scales were a raw mess all through the 80s and 90s for Trek. There were more models required than there had been in TOS and the props were often of disparate scale and quality as well as seeing frequent reuse and repurposing. When Joe Trek Fan got too particular with his VCR recordings and took his calipers to the paused TV screen all of a sudden there had to be variants.
As they have moved away from physical to digital models not only can the afford to present big space battles the overall consistency of detail and scale is in a better place than it ever was.
Part of that is backwards.
The different variants did not come about because of fans making measurements on the screen, they came about because writers needed different sized ships for the script but did not have the budget for new models so they played with the filming distances before compositing the final compositing pass to get those different sizes.
The fans just measured them to compare with published (and commented) stats and to try and figure out which class some of the were of the known types when there was no specific mention of the class in dialog, and to check and see if the published sizes and the screen sizes matched up reasonably well. Chances are that when written the B'rel, K'vort, and D12 were supposed to look quite different from each other, but they only had a limited number of shooting models to work with.
As they have moved away from physical to digital models not only can the afford to present big space battles the overall consistency of detail and scale is in a better place than it ever was.
*dies laughing*
Sorry... but they STILL have scaling issues even with digital models. Even when the Defiant went Digital she was still magically changing size. And don't get me STARTED on the Kelvin Connie's magic size changing ability!
Comments
They were not meant to be interchangeable though, the visuals and dialog clearly indicated several sizes and roles and it is obvious that "bird of prey" is the name of the configuration, not a single class of ship.
Memory Alpha even points out that there were at least two or three classes of different sizes and capabilities, from Krug's little scout that was ""out-gunned, ten to one" by a Constitution-class battle cruiser" as they put it, one big enough to have an engineering section in its neck, and one that was said in dialog to be about half the power of a Vor'cha class ship (which was probably the K'vort since the only time its size-class was mentioned it was called a "battlecruiser").
Reuse of stock footage, "impression shots", and the fact that the full-size mockup was severely undersized (which is something almost all shows do, the Jupiter 2 and the Millennium Falcon are prime examples of that undersizing to cut down expense, both were around two thirds of the size the ships were supposed to be) did not help the issue any, neither did the fact that the Trek writers sometimes seemed confused as to which class name went with which size.
Really? size differences? Wesley actually CALLING THEM BY NAME?? nope no stawman excuses fly today
the fact is it is in the show. it is CANON and it does not exist in game.
If they were to bring in the K'vort, I'd hope they'd actually make it visually distinct from the B'rel in some way other than just upsizing a B'rel and locking the wings.
https://ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/bop-size.htm
When you ignore the stock footage reused from other episodes and measure the ones made for the episode you get a minimum of three or four sizes for Prime universe BoPs:
The IKS Pagh was loosely called a "Klingon cruiser" in dialog and was at least a credible threat to the Enterprise (which seems very unlikely for the 110m scout), so it could have been another old D-12 cruiser or it could have been a lazy reference to it being a K'vort class battlecruiser. The Pagh's wings actually moved though which was the only large BoP ever shown to do that which might fit better with the D-12 as an obsolete function on larger ships.
Game wise, I don't think players would object to small changes and possible different materials sets between the sizes (the bigger BoPs like the K'vort could use materials usually found on the larger ships for instance), especially considering how many of the smaller custom BoPs there are already in the game.
The Botany Bay from "Space Seed" is good example of a ship of the latter distinction. Not only that the shots in profile alongside Enterprise illustrate it's size relative to the standard.
Canon ship scales were a raw mess all through the 80s and 90s for Trek. There were more models required than there had been in TOS and the props were often of disparate scale and quality as well as seeing frequent reuse and repurposing. When Joe Trek Fan got too particular with his VCR recordings and took his calipers to the paused TV screen all of a sudden there had to be variants.
As they have moved away from physical to digital models not only can the afford to present big space battles the overall consistency of detail and scale is in a better place than it ever was.
Part of that is backwards.
The different variants did not come about because of fans making measurements on the screen, they came about because writers needed different sized ships for the script but did not have the budget for new models so they played with the filming distances before compositing the final compositing pass to get those different sizes.
The fans just measured them to compare with published (and commented) stats and to try and figure out which class some of the were of the known types when there was no specific mention of the class in dialog, and to check and see if the published sizes and the screen sizes matched up reasonably well. Chances are that when written the B'rel, K'vort, and D12 were supposed to look quite different from each other, but they only had a limited number of shooting models to work with.
*dies laughing*
Sorry... but they STILL have scaling issues even with digital models. Even when the Defiant went Digital she was still magically changing size. And don't get me STARTED on the Kelvin Connie's magic size changing ability!