The phrase "built for combat performance" does not necessarily indicate that the design intent focused on that as its' primary mission.
It could be an educated opinion, like "Mustangs are built for speed".
It could be that combat performance was indeed one (not necessarily the only) of the design goals.
We can word chop on this or any other ST topic all day.
Voyager was clearly built with exploration as at least part of its' design intent (planetary landings).
It was captained by a Starfleet officer whose primary non-command interest was science and who often described herself as a scientist. Not necessarily an iron-clad mandate, but certainly a strong factor in considering what Voyager's mission was.
Voyager spent a considerable amount of time exploring the Delta Quadrant even to the point of the occasional detour to examine anomalies.
Cryptic chose to classify it as a science vessel. The ship classification model has come under fire repeatedly in the past, so I won't deny that people might legitimately disagree with the classification. But they did it and they're not going to change it. So in the end we are having a debate that has zero bearing on what goes on in the game. Enjoy the debate if you choose, even criticize Cryptic for their choices, but in the end this is moot.
The only reason against calling it a science ship that I can think of, would be the lack of a true Science bridge officer (at least before Seven joined the crew). Kim was something of a mix between science and engineering, but he wasn't a Spock or T'Pol.
But then again the Defiant had a science officer (Jedzia Dax). I think this just gets into the blended roles of both ships and crews in Starfleet. It doesn't naturally lend itself to a mutually exclusive set of ship designations. So, for those in STO you really just need to make a judgement call on what function was most apparent.
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You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
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
You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
Which gleefully ignores the canon statements preceding and following. It's beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation to say that the Intrepid class was built first and foremost for combat. If nothing else that was said in that episode is clue to that, then perhaps the name of the franchise might suffice.
It's Star Trek. Furthermore, the series in question was Star Trek: Voyager. In what nether region of the Q continuum can that be contorted to "combat, first and foremost?" Everything else that follows is an extension of the themes intended to be headlined by the title. We can, and have, been trying to sort out the specific details for you, but if all you want to pay attention to is one line then perhaps just going back and watching the series would be a better use of your time.
You may easily have missed something in being so unquestioningly focused.
It was clearly an off the cuff remark, but equally it can't be just ignored and dismissed solely as such, because there was likely truth in the statement...
The only reason against calling it a science ship that I can think of, would be the lack of a true Science bridge officer (at least before Seven joined the crew). Kim was something of a mix between science and engineering, but he wasn't a Spock or T'Pol.
The science officers were to join the crew... but not until Tuesday.
The phrase "built for combat performance" does not necessarily indicate that the design intent focused on that as its' primary mission.
It could be an educated opinion, like "Mustangs are built for speed".
It could be that combat performance was indeed one (not necessarily the only) of the design goals.
We can word chop on this or any other ST topic all day.
Voyager was clearly built with exploration as at least part of its' design intent (planetary landings).
It was captained by a Starfleet officer whose primary non-command interest was science and who often described herself as a scientist. Not necessarily an iron-clad mandate, but certainly a strong factor in considering what Voyager's mission was.
Voyager spent a considerable amount of time exploring the Delta Quadrant even to the point of the occasional detour to examine anomalies.
The USS Bellerophon, in its journey to Romulus, is another example of Starfleet's then-view of the Intrepid Class, and similarly comparable to the mission to the Badlands: A relatively routine situation which could get messy, and thus require a ship suited to that situation and mission profile...
And of course Voyager did exploration, that's what Starfleet does... It seeks out new lifeforms and new civilizations, by boldly going where no one has gone before...
You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
Absolutely, it's very far from saying it's a warship, such as the Defiant, but it is acknowledging the Intrepid Class' capabilities, and potential design philosophy... As I noted with the Bellerophon, it's clearly a ship Starfleet sent when they wanted to 'send a message, without sending a message', so to speak, ie walk softly, and carry a big stick...
You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
Absolutely, it's very far from saying it's a warship, such as the Defiant, but it is acknowledging the Intrepid Class' capabilities, and potential design philosophy... As I noted with the Bellerophon, it's clearly a ship Starfleet sent when they wanted to 'send a message, without sending a message', so to speak, ie walk softly, and carry a big stick...
It's still only the DS9 era equivalent of the Galaxy. It's their best ship, their flag.
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
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
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
My assumption would be that the Sovereign class didn't have many active vessels at that point in time and being a large, new design, when the war began they focused on getting the tried and tested ships built as quickly as possible instead. That, or given the strength of the class, the ones that were in service were kept back from the front lines at key locations to act as a last line of defence.
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
My assumption would be that the Sovereign class didn't have many active vessels at that point in time and being a large, new design, when the war began they focused on getting the tried and tested ships built as quickly as possible instead. That, or given the strength of the class, the ones that were in service were kept back from the front lines at key locations to act as a last line of defence.
Or maybe it's because the Intrepid class was still actively used in the studio. Voyager and DS9 were running at the same time for several years. So it may just be for real life reasons.
Maybe they also wanted to keep the Sovereign special because it was featured only in movies.
You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
Absolutely, it's very far from saying it's a warship, such as the Defiant, but it is acknowledging the Intrepid Class' capabilities, and potential design philosophy... As I noted with the Bellerophon, it's clearly a ship Starfleet sent when they wanted to 'send a message, without sending a message', so to speak, ie walk softly, and carry a big stick...
It's still only the DS9 era equivalent of the Galaxy. It's their best ship, their flag.
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
Brand management reasons.
Err, I mean, the Sovereign might not have been that widely available yet that every Admiral could just get one. Even if it was the Admiral in charge of the Dominion War.
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Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
My assumption would be that the Sovereign class didn't have many active vessels at that point in time and being a large, new design, when the war began they focused on getting the tried and tested ships built as quickly as possible instead. That, or given the strength of the class, the ones that were in service were kept back from the front lines at key locations to act as a last line of defence.
I doubt the Sovereign or Intrepids were used as combat vessels in the war. The front lines were all surrounding DS9 and neither class was anywhere to be seen for any battle including the final battle. Even the new Akiras, Steamrunners, and Sabres were massively outnumbered by Mirandas and Excelsiors.
The Romulans were in most of the latter engagements, they'd be well aware the Excelsior was the Federation's most numerous and operated ship.
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
The phrase "built for combat performance" does not necessarily indicate that the design intent focused on that as its' primary mission.
It could be an educated opinion, like "Mustangs are built for speed".
It could be that combat performance was indeed one (not necessarily the only) of the design goals.
We can word chop on this or any other ST topic all day.
Voyager was clearly built with exploration as at least part of its' design intent (planetary landings).
It was captained by a Starfleet officer whose primary non-command interest was science and who often described herself as a scientist. Not necessarily an iron-clad mandate, but certainly a strong factor in considering what Voyager's mission was.
Voyager spent a considerable amount of time exploring the Delta Quadrant even to the point of the occasional detour to examine anomalies.
Cryptic chose to classify it as a science vessel. The ship classification model has come under fire repeatedly in the past, so I won't deny that people might legitimately disagree with the classification. But they did it and they're not going to change it. So in the end we are having a debate that has zero bearing on what goes on in the game. Enjoy the debate if you choose, even criticize Cryptic for their choices, but in the end this is moot.
This statement at the end is where proof of the pudding lies. Cryptic has to run STO content by CBS and CBS's canon. If CBS had objected to the Intrepid being a Science Vessel, then the Intrepid would be classified as something else. It's classification therefore is correct, despite what Paris (who was in prison when the Intrepid were made. He also had no idea about that Class of ship) said, which was his own opinion, not Starfleet's. The thing is, it's because of it's high-warp and Bio-Neural circuits that enables Tom to say the ship is build for 'combat-performance', however, as I previously stated, the ship is designated as a Long Range Explorer, which by proxy means that it would have naturally an extensive Scientific Suite, just as was true on the Galaxy Class. When Astrometrics was improved on by Seven and Kim, that furthered it's capability.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
actually now that think about it is the Defiant actually as good of a warship as it is made out to be. I can't remember a time it destroyed a larger ship when it wasn't part of a large fleet battle were the ship was likely heavily damaged for fighting other ships. in fact most of the time it seemed to be running or ambushing someone. not saying it's a bad ship but is it seems older ship designed for very different roles do almost as well with fewer problems. granted it could be a writing problem.
We actually see the Defiant disable at least one Cardassian Galor, which is a larger ship. And the Mirror One was able to force a (oversized?) Neg'Var to retreat.
And we often see it disable multiple Jem'Hadar ships in short succession. The Oddy couldn't achieve that. (At the same time, I hav to defend the Oddy here. It's shield were useless, and still the enemy had to resort to a suicide attack to stop it from retreating. The Galaxy Class clearly could hull tank for a while...)
And in the fight against the upgraded Excelsior she was in a better shape then the Excelsior. (but it was "just" an Excelsior)
I think the main benefit of the Defiant was however that it was a "cheap" design. It would probably be easier to mass-produce a bunch of larger multi-mission capable ships. My head-canonand DS9 hard-on makes me think it might have firepower similar to a Galaxy Class ship - but not even close the capability to perform its roles, and probably not even that tough. (If you consider what kind of sh*t the Enterprise survived.. Collisions with Cosmic Strings, A Borg ship ripping components out). But it needed to be stationed at a Starbase and longer, independent exploration (or combat) missions would be out of the question.
how strong is a galor though, I don't think we ever saw one of those do well against another larger warship. and the mirror neg'var is mirror with their made for fighting yet something worse in a fight tech kinda makes it hard to read.
and not sure defiant being cheaper is correct, grant can't really tell cause of of the reason we only see the one is so we know is sisko's defiant, not mook ship 35.
The prototype probably wasn't that cheap, but I think the long run, they would be cheaper. So much stuff you can just not install, like all those life support systems for a huge internal volume, large shuttle bays with dozens of shuttles, endless sensor arrays, holodecks, multiple computer cores, mutliple sickbays, labs, industrial replicators.
But what might really be "expensive" for Starfleet is the crew needed to operate a ship. And the Defiant needed very little.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
actually now that think about it is the Defiant actually as good of a warship as it is made out to be. I can't remember a time it destroyed a larger ship when it wasn't part of a large fleet battle were the ship was likely heavily damaged for fighting other ships. in fact most of the time it seemed to be running or ambushing someone. not saying it's a bad ship but is it seems older ship designed for very different roles do almost as well with fewer problems. granted it could be a writing problem.
We actually see the Defiant disable at least one Cardassian Galor, which is a larger ship. And the Mirror One was able to force a (oversized?) Neg'Var to retreat.
And we often see it disable multiple Jem'Hadar ships in short succession. The Oddy couldn't achieve that. (At the same time, I hav to defend the Oddy here. It's shield were useless, and still the enemy had to resort to a suicide attack to stop it from retreating. The Galaxy Class clearly could hull tank for a while...)
And in the fight against the upgraded Excelsior she was in a better shape then the Excelsior. (but it was "just" an Excelsior)
I think the main benefit of the Defiant was however that it was a "cheap" design. It would probably be easier to mass-produce a bunch of larger multi-mission capable ships. My head-canonand DS9 hard-on makes me think it might have firepower similar to a Galaxy Class ship - but not even close the capability to perform its roles, and probably not even that tough. (If you consider what kind of sh*t the Enterprise survived.. Collisions with Cosmic Strings, A Borg ship ripping components out). But it needed to be stationed at a Starbase and longer, independent exploration (or combat) missions would be out of the question.
how strong is a galor though, I don't think we ever saw one of those do well against another larger warship. and the mirror neg'var is mirror with their made for fighting yet something worse in a fight tech kinda makes it hard to read.
and not sure defiant being cheaper is correct, grant can't really tell cause of of the reason we only see the one is so we know is sisko's defiant, not mook ship 35.
The prototype probably wasn't that cheap, but I think the long run, they would be cheaper. So much stuff you can just not install, like all those life support systems for a huge internal volume, large shuttle bays with dozens of shuttles, endless sensor arrays, holodecks, multiple computer cores, mutliple sickbays, labs, industrial replicators.
But what might really be "expensive" for Starfleet is the crew needed to operate a ship. And the Defiant needed very little.
The Defiant was initially declared a failure, ironically. The only reason it went to DS9 is because Sisko help designed it. O'Brien was the one who eventually made it a 'viable' warship.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
God this is STILL being debatied. The Original post was CLICK BAIT.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
actually now that think about it is the Defiant actually as good of a warship as it is made out to be. I can't remember a time it destroyed a larger ship when it wasn't part of a large fleet battle were the ship was likely heavily damaged for fighting other ships. in fact most of the time it seemed to be running or ambushing someone. not saying it's a bad ship but is it seems older ship designed for very different roles do almost as well with fewer problems. granted it could be a writing problem.
We actually see the Defiant disable at least one Cardassian Galor, which is a larger ship. And the Mirror One was able to force a (oversized?) Neg'Var to retreat.
And we often see it disable multiple Jem'Hadar ships in short succession. The Oddy couldn't achieve that. (At the same time, I hav to defend the Oddy here. It's shield were useless, and still the enemy had to resort to a suicide attack to stop it from retreating. The Galaxy Class clearly could hull tank for a while...)
And in the fight against the upgraded Excelsior she was in a better shape then the Excelsior. (but it was "just" an Excelsior)
I think the main benefit of the Defiant was however that it was a "cheap" design. It would probably be easier to mass-produce a bunch of larger multi-mission capable ships. My head-canonand DS9 hard-on makes me think it might have firepower similar to a Galaxy Class ship - but not even close the capability to perform its roles, and probably not even that tough. (If you consider what kind of sh*t the Enterprise survived.. Collisions with Cosmic Strings, A Borg ship ripping components out). But it needed to be stationed at a Starbase and longer, independent exploration (or combat) missions would be out of the question.
how strong is a galor though, I don't think we ever saw one of those do well against another larger warship. and the mirror neg'var is mirror with their made for fighting yet something worse in a fight tech kinda makes it hard to read.
and not sure defiant being cheaper is correct, grant can't really tell cause of of the reason we only see the one is so we know is sisko's defiant, not mook ship 35.
The prototype probably wasn't that cheap, but I think the long run, they would be cheaper. So much stuff you can just not install, like all those life support systems for a huge internal volume, large shuttle bays with dozens of shuttles, endless sensor arrays, holodecks, multiple computer cores, mutliple sickbays, labs, industrial replicators.
But what might really be "expensive" for Starfleet is the crew needed to operate a ship. And the Defiant needed very little.
on the other hand oversized warp core, highly advanced armaments and armors. and as for crew may need few but the ship little to no creature comforts somethings starfleet crew are rather used and unlike older science/exploration ships lacks the romance of being frontline explorers. so people wanting to be on it would be relatively rare. digging up an older ship reenforcing the hull and upgrading the weapons is probably cheaper in most area. and just look how we react to older designs, I would imagine in universe that would be even stronger more so a ship with a well known name.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
on the other hand oversized warp core, highly advanced armaments and armors. and as for crew may need few but the ship little to no creature comforts somethings starfleet crew are rather used and unlike older science/exploration ships lacks the romance of being frontline explorers. so people wanting to be on it would be relatively rare. digging up an older ship reenforcing the hull and upgrading the weapons is probably cheaper in most area. and just look how we react to older designs, I would imagine in universe that would be even stronger more so a ship with a well known name.
Actually it isn't. Re-enforcing a ship and upgrading the weapons systems costs almost as much as building a new ship from scratch, infact sometimes it's better to just do a new ship from scratch.
Because over time a ship's hull suffers from the rigors of being a ship, stress fractures(not big ones, but micro ones), and these go down to the bones of the ship. When you add re-enforcement and extra armor, and slapping on weapons where older ones were you put a lot of stress on a ship that maybe can't take that amount of pounding.
Hell the redesigned Enterprise from the First movie, was almost a totally new ship. And they didn't pound out and fix the core of the ship. Why when Commander of Starfleet Morrow says they won't refit the Enterprise after she comes home from Genesis. She's too old, can't take the pounding anymore and about to fall apart at the seams.
After a point, just need to build a new ship.
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well.... at least the stupidity is mostly not about sto this time.....
But seriously?? Using episode dialogue to back up your arguments????!!! From a series that rewrites its own canon weekly and contradicts itself usually twice an episode or more??? REALLY??!?!
on the other hand oversized warp core, highly advanced armaments and armors. and as for crew may need few but the ship little to no creature comforts somethings starfleet crew are rather used and unlike older science/exploration ships lacks the romance of being frontline explorers. so people wanting to be on it would be relatively rare. digging up an older ship reenforcing the hull and upgrading the weapons is probably cheaper in most area. and just look how we react to older designs, I would imagine in universe that would be even stronger more so a ship with a well known name.
Actually it isn't. Re-enforcing a ship and upgrading the weapons systems costs almost as much as building a new ship from scratch, infact sometimes it's better to just do a new ship from scratch.
Because over time a ship's hull suffers from the rigors of being a ship, stress fractures(not big ones, but micro ones), and these go down to the bones of the ship. When you add re-enforcement and extra armor, and slapping on weapons where older ones were you put a lot of stress on a ship that maybe can't take that amount of pounding.
Hell the redesigned Enterprise from the First movie, was almost a totally new ship. And they didn't pound out and fix the core of the ship. Why when Commander of Starfleet Morrow says they won't refit the Enterprise after she comes home from Genesis. She's too old, can't take the pounding anymore and about to fall apart at the seams.
After a point, just need to build a new ship.
I stand corrected then.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
PARIS: This ship was built for combat performance, Harry, not musical performance. Nobody figured we'd be taking any long trips.
According to this line of dialogue, not only is the Intrepid-class a warship, but it also was not built for long-range missions. It's ironic that the ship was called Voyager.
By contrast, STO describes it as a long-range science vessel, while Memory Alpha: Intrepid-class describes it as a long-range explorer. The main reason for this conclusion seems to be a line of dialogue from VOY: "Someone to Watch Over Me":
NEELIX: Voyager's an Intrepid class starship with a crew of one hundred and forty six, designed for long-term exploration. I thought we'd start with a tour of our primary systems. First stop, Engineering.
In the first draft script of VOY: "Caretaker" (dated 8 June 1994), the Intrepid-class was referred to as "a sleek bullet of a ship, built for action, capable of holding a crew compliment of one hundred and twenty-five."
In fact, the very first mission that the USS Voyager is engaged in is a military-type operation, as seen in VOY: "Caretaker":
JANEWAY: I'm leaving on a mission to find a Maquis ship that disappeared in the Badlands a week ago. PARIS: I wouldn't if I were you. JANEWAY: Really? PARIS: I've never seen a Federation starship that could manoeuvre through the plasma storms. JANEWAY: You've never seen Voyager. We'd like you to come along. PARIS: You'd like me to lead you to my former colleagues. I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured, Captain. I don't know where most of their hiding places are. JANEWAY: You know the territory better than anyone we've got. PARIS: What's so important about this particular Maquis ship? JANEWAY: My Chief of Security was on board, undercover. He was supposed to report in twice during the last six days. He didn't.
That's definitely not a "long-term exploration" or a "long-range science" type of mission.
In starship classification, a warship, war vessel, or combat vessel was a generic term for any armed starship designed for combat. These vessels included battleships, battle cruisers, various sized cruisers, escorts, and destroyers.
This is a close match to being built for combat performance.
In starship classification, a science vessel (or research vessel) was a limited-role starship. It was not well armed, but instead carried several laboratories, advanced sensors, and in some cases, advanced deflector shields. Ships of this class were used for scientific research missions, such as observing the collapse of a star, mapping newly discovered planets and nebulae, or simply being an isolated location for hazardous experiments. Most science vessels were not designed for long term missions.
The Intrepid-class is not listed as one of them.
If Star Trek insists that the Intrepid-class is a long-range explorer, then it could only mean one thing: Starfleet exploration vessels are warships.
But....but....how can the Intrepid be a warship, it only has two tac console slots!
Seriously though, what does it mater what is said in the shows or on screen. The STO ships often bare little resemblance to what happened on screen, they are put in categories because the game needs the that way to function.
I mean you mentioned the Defiant, yeah its a pure warship. So why does it need any science bridge officers? Why does it need sci consoles?
The new Nebula is another example, it has temporal spec seating, why? The only thing we every really saw it do was be part of a detection grid for cloaked ships, so it's essentially an AWAC, why does it not have intel spec seating?
BOP's in STO can be run as anything (sci, tac, eng) thanks to the mass uni seating, but that makes no sense as surely they are only ever shown to be warships onscreen?
There's many other examples but trawling through pages of show scripts and websites to find evidence they made the ship wrong doesn't really help the situation.
Got to agree with Olivia on this, Voyager was clearly designed and refered to early on, as a short-range, short-term ship, with the capability of whooping some a**... It's only later that the writers (and now devs) tried to relabel it as a science vessel...
[Edit to add] But as is the way with canon, new, surplants and supercedes old...
The fact that she was a short range ship was specifically added in since it added to the drama and tension of her being on the longest range mission in history. There wouldn't have been the great threat if she was a Galaxy class.
Got to agree with Olivia on this, Voyager was clearly designed and refered to early on, as a short-range, short-term ship, with the capability of whooping some a**... It's only later that the writers (and now devs) tried to relabel it as a science vessel...
[Edit to add] But as is the way with canon, new, surplants and supercedes old...
No. The Intrepid was always designed as a Long Range Exploration vessel, just as was the Galaxy Class! In every game I have ever played that featured the Intrepid it has always been classed as a Long Range (Exploration) vessel. Also, Starfleet wouldn't equip a short range vessel with it's most advanced Warp Engine (9.975) and Bio-Neural Circuits. However, Starfleet's ethos on conflict is 'Our starships are not designed to start wars, but to finish them'. Starfleet ships are all designed to have defensive capability in mind, so as to allow time for other ships to arrive and assist in conflicts. In canon there are actually very few 'offensive minded' ships (Defiant, Sovereign, Norway, Akira etc.). Also, Starfleet's primary role IS exploration. Seeing the amount of unknown, on top of all the conflicts that have happened, it makes logical sense to equip ANY exploration vessel, travelling into the unknown, with the highest quality of equipment possible, with it being able to defend itself for an extended period, where it maybe out of contact with Starfleet, as highlighted so with Voyager!
Yep. Though in line with what I said above, the truth is in between.
She was a high speed vessel always, a test bed for next gen technologies, but she was in no way designed for a seven year mission away from any support. The Galaxy was, the Intrepid was not. The Nova was even worse, she was designed to come in after all the explorers had come through park at a planet and do long term studies.
No. The Intrepid was always designed as a Long Range Exploration vessel, just as was the Galaxy Class! In every game I have ever played that featured the Intrepid it has always been classed as a Long Range (Exploration) vessel. Also, Starfleet wouldn't equip a short range vessel with it's most advanced Warp Engine (9.975) and Bio-Neural Circuits. However, Starfleet's ethos on conflict is 'Our starships are not designed to start wars, but to finish them'. Starfleet ships are all designed to have defensive capability in mind, so as to allow time for other ships to arrive and assist in conflicts. In canon there are actually very few 'offensive minded' ships (Defiant, Sovereign, Norway, Akira etc.). Also, Starfleet's primary role IS exploration. Seeing the amount of unknown, on top of all the conflicts that have happened, it makes logical sense to equip ANY exploration vessel, travelling into the unknown, with the highest quality of equipment possible, with it being able to defend itself for an extended period, where it maybe out of contact with Starfleet, as highlighted so with Voyager!
I generally agree, but I like to point out that the Sovereign, Norway and Akira ships were not "designed for combat" any more than every other ship class. Just because they are featured in action scenes does not mean that is all they do - it wouldn't make sense to assume otherwise.
I disagree with that assertion, though there is little canon evidence for or against, the behind the scenes of the design of these ships is telling. The Sovereign was designed by John Eaves as a reactionary evolution in design. Just as the Defiant designed to stand up to the Borg. The neck being removed was to remove a structural weakness, the huge turret mounted Quantum Torpedo launcher, Mk XII phasers, advanced shields. She has twice as many torpedo placements as the Galaxy on a smaller hull. Her refit added three more torpedo launchers to cover her aft dorsal arc. Though she was technically an Explorer Type 2/Enhanced Deterrence Explorer. So she was still a ship capable of long term scientific research, but she was also a beast, and meant to be.
She was the culmination of almost a decade of Starfleet gearing up for this huge threat.
The Akira is a torpedo boat and a carrier. Starfleet had become used to peace in the 24th century, then the Cardassians got aggressive, the Romulans reemerged, then BAM Borg Cubes. Then came the tensions with the Dominion.
AND THEN came the Prometheus. A buzzsaw that is the natural evolution of taking the technology of a Sovereign to build three Defiants and pack them into one bleeding edge ship the size of an Intrepid. What could logically be boasted as what the Federation does when it gets serious about building a straight up combat vessel.
actually now that think about it is the Defiant actually as good of a warship as it is made out to be. I can't remember a time it destroyed a larger ship when it wasn't part of a large fleet battle were the ship was likely heavily damaged for fighting other ships. in fact most of the time it seemed to be running or ambushing someone. not saying it's a bad ship but is it seems older ship designed for very different roles do almost as well with fewer problems. granted it could be a writing problem.
Well consider her primary opponents. The Jem'Hadar Attack Ships. She destroyed scores of those little monsters, who I consider to be the ship form of the Blue Scarabs in the Mummy.
And those ships, were slaughtering larger cruisers.
Also the Defiant has a submission win over the Lakota Upgrade of the Excelsior class.
The Defiant is glass cannon. Being as big as it is with it's particular armament it doesn't have the power output to take much of a beating. A trope continued in the mission "Facility 4028" where Captain Shon's is blasted to hell. Shame he didn't go down with it...
The Defiant is many things, but made of glass she isn't. This ship was tanking shots from Jem'Hadar ships while laying mines in "Call to Arms". Part of the reason Starfleet sent her is that she could take punishment in the time before Starfleet knew how to modify their shields against Phased Polaron weaponry. And that was before Ben Sisko gave her a nice Ablative Hull Armor jacket for Christmas.
As for her power output recall, that part of the reason that she was mothballed was that her warp core put out TOO MUCH juice or the ship to handle so once you went over warp 6 she started to fly herself apart.
And for as bad a fantail kicking as she took in the Battle of Sector 001, she was still in one piece, which is something a Nebula, and a whole bunch of other ships that were there couldn't say. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
The Defiant didn't get destroyed until the Breen managed to drain ALL of her power. As for the Valiant...well, Tim Waters and his cronies were idiots.
As for the Belfast, well take into account that she was an old ship that Shon could barely keep working right and they hadn't really had time to upgrade lately, as he said when we first met him. Though I'm still infuriated by the logic break that thirty year old Jem'Hadar can actually go head to head with modern Starfleet tech. Or modern Dominion tech for that matter.
Absolutely, he wasn't saying that it's a warship, but he did say 'designed for combat performance'... A ship which is designed for combat performance, is clearly intended to be used in combat roles, rather than pure research and diplomacy...
They aren't mutually exclusive and, having seen Star Trek before , I can report that research/diplomacy vessels are often involved in combat. The name "Science Vessel" simply describes a ship that is capable of conducting research. That's it. Anything else may be involved as well, depending on the whim of whoever's building it, provided its capacity to do science is maintained. Not all science vessels need combat capability, but having combat capability doesn't change the core nature of a science vessel.
/Thread
Indeed, and the fact that it's long range directly implies that it can defends itself, but Starfleet's standards of classification.
actually now that think about it is the Defiant actually as good of a warship as it is made out to be. I can't remember a time it destroyed a larger ship when it wasn't part of a large fleet battle were the ship was likely heavily damaged for fighting other ships. in fact most of the time it seemed to be running or ambushing someone. not saying it's a bad ship but is it seems older ship designed for very different roles do almost as well with fewer problems. granted it could be a writing problem.
People have a highly skewed vision of ship classes in Star Trek. Whenever something is designated as a "warship" many people suddenly jump to the conlcusion it could end empires on it's own. A simple interceptor is also a "warship" of sorts, it doesn't say anything about it's performance, since "warship" isn't a classification.
The intrepid, for all intends and purposes, is a interceptor/excort/destroyer - it is in function pretty much the equivalent of a Klingon Bird of Prey. On the battlefield it'd match those or the Jem'Hadar attack ships. She was designed to fight Borg - but that doesn't mean a Defiant tears through cubes. When fighting Borg, Starfleet lost cruisers with large crew compartiments while causing relatively little damage. Defiants came with less crew and packed more weapons for their size so a pack of them could evade and stay int he fight against a cube longer while minimizing losses. The Defiant, as @nightken pointed out, never took on anything in the cruiser weightclass on her own, safe the Mirror Negh'Var flagships and that was a kind of goofy moment. The Dfiant/Sao Paolo didn't fare to well in heavy combat against cruisers, one was destroyed and the Sao Paolo was heavily crippled when facing a cube as the only Defiant class on site.
If we take the Technical Manual as a supplemental source, Defiants were cosnidered mobile weapon platforms (after the initial Borg design was canned) and were supposed to up a station's defensive arsenal over Runabouts. A Runabout also has quite the combat capability for it's size and could even hope to take at least a few hits before desintegrating, but tht doesn't make them ideal fighter swarms or something.
Bottom line is, one can't throw "warship" on the table and expect to win. That doesn't say anything. A Galaxy class is a Explorer for Starfleet but also a prime "warship" if need be since she will bolster Starfleet's line-up in a state of war.
Indeed, Starfleet called the Constitution a Starship and a heavy cruiser, the Klingons called it a Federation Battle Cruiser. Starfleet calls the Galaxy an Explorer, the Klingons call it a battleship. Starfleet calls the Defiant an escort, most sane people call it a pocket battleship.
All Starfleet starships are ships of the line.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
It was clearly an off the cuff remark, but equally it can't be just ignored and dismissed solely as such, because there was likely truth in the statement...
I'm not engaging strawmen...
Then why are you choosing to subscribe to the OP?
The line pulled is clearly out of context. Move onto the very next scene and you find dialog that directly contradicts your highly selective point. Do you want to try reconciling that? Of course not, because what you've based everything on is a strawman argument. Pull this one fiber away and what do you have? Nothing. It's no less than a central theme throughout the run of the Star Trek series that Starfleet is both a military and an exploration organization. Finding a way to carry out the organization's primary mission while still being combat capable is something that every single series faced. Enterprise even based multiple episodes on this subject (ex. Silent Enemy).
So the fact that "being built for combat" (even if taken at face value, which a number of people have tried to explain for your benefit that you can't do in this situation) means nothing to the designation of the Intrepid class (in STO) as a science vessel (given the overall thesis of Starfleet). As I first posted, the only criterion for that (in the franchise) is "having the capability to do science." That's literally what "Science Vessel" means. Everything else is presumptive. Starfleet vessels were almost all science vessels of one kind or another. And more to the point, throughout the 7 seasons of Voyager we saw that ship was exceptional in that role and its fighting prowess was most frequently attributed to the higher level of Starfleet technology compared to local species, not the specific design of the Intrepid class (they weren't even carrying that many torpedoes originally.)
Still, it was an effective ship all around. However, in STO we can't acknowledge that multi-faceted fact in single ship descriptors. Categories have to be assigned so players can easily sort through their available choices. On balance what we saw the Intrepid class do was primarily exploration. So of the choices we have, it gets pigeon holed as a "science vessel." Voyager was a combat capable ship, and that fact was discussed at times, but it would be dismissive to the run of VOY, DS9, and First Contact to say its intended role was analogous to other vessels which have been designated as "Escorts" in STO.
Here are the facts. They support a (mostly) comprehensive counter-argument to the few statements you've made. You are free to walk away from them, but considering them may be substantially more helpful to you.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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It was clearly an off the cuff remark, but equally it can't be just ignored and dismissed solely as such, because there was likely truth in the statement...
I'm not engaging strawmen...
Then why are you choosing to subscribe to the OP?
The line pulled is clearly out of context. Move onto the next scene and you find dialog that directly contradicts your chosen opinion. Do you want to try reconciling that? Of course not, because what you've based everything on is a strawman argument. Pull this one fiber away and what do you have? Nothing, because it's a primary theme throughout the run of the Star Trek series that Starfleet is both a military and an exploration organization. Finding a way to carry out the primary mission while still being combat capable is something that every single series faced. Enterprise even based multiple episodes on this subject (ex. Silent Enemy).
So the fact that "being built for combat" (even if taken at face value, which a number of people have tried to explain to you that you can't do in this situation) means nothing to the designation of the Intrepid class as a science vessel. As I first posted, the only criterion for that is "having the capability to do science." That's literally what "Science Vessel" means. Everything else is presumptive. Starfleet vessels, in being science-capable, were almost all science vessels of one kind or another. However, in STO we can't acknowledge that fact in single ship descriptors. Still, on balance what we saw the Intrepid class do was primarily exploration. Voyager was a capable ship, but it would be hugely dismissive to the run of VOY, DS9, and First Contact to say its role was analogous to other vessels which have been designated as "Escorts" in STO.
Here are the facts. You are free to walk away from them, but don't think that changes the situation.
Yeah all Paris was saying is that the Voyager wasn't designed to be used for music. He wasn't actually talking about it's actual combat capabilities at all.
You mean; It's a canon statement, so beyond the realm of mere opinion or speculation...
I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
Absolutely, it's very far from saying it's a warship, such as the Defiant, but it is acknowledging the Intrepid Class' capabilities, and potential design philosophy... As I noted with the Bellerophon, it's clearly a ship Starfleet sent when they wanted to 'send a message, without sending a message', so to speak, ie walk softly, and carry a big stick...
It's still only the DS9 era equivalent of the Galaxy. It's their best ship, their flag.
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
Or an Akira, or a Prometheus, or even the Defiant... All could have been construed as 'saber-rattling'... Sending an Intrepid was still a bit of 'rattling', but not as much as any of the other heavy-hitters would be
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It could be an educated opinion, like "Mustangs are built for speed".
It could be that combat performance was indeed one (not necessarily the only) of the design goals.
We can word chop on this or any other ST topic all day.
Voyager was clearly built with exploration as at least part of its' design intent (planetary landings).
It was captained by a Starfleet officer whose primary non-command interest was science and who often described herself as a scientist. Not necessarily an iron-clad mandate, but certainly a strong factor in considering what Voyager's mission was.
Voyager spent a considerable amount of time exploring the Delta Quadrant even to the point of the occasional detour to examine anomalies.
Cryptic chose to classify it as a science vessel. The ship classification model has come under fire repeatedly in the past, so I won't deny that people might legitimately disagree with the classification. But they did it and they're not going to change it. So in the end we are having a debate that has zero bearing on what goes on in the game. Enjoy the debate if you choose, even criticize Cryptic for their choices, but in the end this is moot.
But then again the Defiant had a science officer (Jedzia Dax). I think this just gets into the blended roles of both ships and crews in Starfleet. It doesn't naturally lend itself to a mutually exclusive set of ship designations. So, for those in STO you really just need to make a judgement call on what function was most apparent.
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I don't think anybody is disputing that. It's lack of context, or the context it's provided in that's their issue.
It's also too vague a comment to say anything other than the ship was built with a tactical focus. It's still a science ship like every single other Starfleet ship ever seen, it's just better armed than most (other than the Sovereign and Defiant I'd assume).
It's far different from saying it's a Warship which was explicitly said about the Defiant.
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'm not engaging strawmen...
And of course Voyager did exploration, that's what Starfleet does... It seeks out new lifeforms and new civilizations, by boldly going where no one has gone before...
It's still only the DS9 era equivalent of the Galaxy. It's their best ship, their flag.
Though it does beg the question as to why Ross didn't take a Sovereign.
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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My assumption would be that the Sovereign class didn't have many active vessels at that point in time and being a large, new design, when the war began they focused on getting the tried and tested ships built as quickly as possible instead. That, or given the strength of the class, the ones that were in service were kept back from the front lines at key locations to act as a last line of defence.
Or maybe it's because the Intrepid class was still actively used in the studio. Voyager and DS9 were running at the same time for several years. So it may just be for real life reasons.
Maybe they also wanted to keep the Sovereign special because it was featured only in movies.
Brand management reasons.
Err, I mean, the Sovereign might not have been that widely available yet that every Admiral could just get one. Even if it was the Admiral in charge of the Dominion War.
I doubt the Sovereign or Intrepids were used as combat vessels in the war. The front lines were all surrounding DS9 and neither class was anywhere to be seen for any battle including the final battle. Even the new Akiras, Steamrunners, and Sabres were massively outnumbered by Mirandas and Excelsiors.
The Romulans were in most of the latter engagements, they'd be well aware the Excelsior was the Federation's most numerous and operated ship.
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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This statement at the end is where proof of the pudding lies. Cryptic has to run STO content by CBS and CBS's canon. If CBS had objected to the Intrepid being a Science Vessel, then the Intrepid would be classified as something else. It's classification therefore is correct, despite what Paris (who was in prison when the Intrepid were made. He also had no idea about that Class of ship) said, which was his own opinion, not Starfleet's. The thing is, it's because of it's high-warp and Bio-Neural circuits that enables Tom to say the ship is build for 'combat-performance', however, as I previously stated, the ship is designated as a Long Range Explorer, which by proxy means that it would have naturally an extensive Scientific Suite, just as was true on the Galaxy Class. When Astrometrics was improved on by Seven and Kim, that furthered it's capability.
The prototype probably wasn't that cheap, but I think the long run, they would be cheaper. So much stuff you can just not install, like all those life support systems for a huge internal volume, large shuttle bays with dozens of shuttles, endless sensor arrays, holodecks, multiple computer cores, mutliple sickbays, labs, industrial replicators.
But what might really be "expensive" for Starfleet is the crew needed to operate a ship. And the Defiant needed very little.
The Defiant was initially declared a failure, ironically. The only reason it went to DS9 is because Sisko help designed it. O'Brien was the one who eventually made it a 'viable' warship.
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on the other hand oversized warp core, highly advanced armaments and armors. and as for crew may need few but the ship little to no creature comforts somethings starfleet crew are rather used and unlike older science/exploration ships lacks the romance of being frontline explorers. so people wanting to be on it would be relatively rare. digging up an older ship reenforcing the hull and upgrading the weapons is probably cheaper in most area. and just look how we react to older designs, I would imagine in universe that would be even stronger more so a ship with a well known name.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Actually it isn't. Re-enforcing a ship and upgrading the weapons systems costs almost as much as building a new ship from scratch, infact sometimes it's better to just do a new ship from scratch.
Because over time a ship's hull suffers from the rigors of being a ship, stress fractures(not big ones, but micro ones), and these go down to the bones of the ship. When you add re-enforcement and extra armor, and slapping on weapons where older ones were you put a lot of stress on a ship that maybe can't take that amount of pounding.
Hell the redesigned Enterprise from the First movie, was almost a totally new ship. And they didn't pound out and fix the core of the ship. Why when Commander of Starfleet Morrow says they won't refit the Enterprise after she comes home from Genesis. She's too old, can't take the pounding anymore and about to fall apart at the seams.
After a point, just need to build a new ship.
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But seriously?? Using episode dialogue to back up your arguments????!!! From a series that rewrites its own canon weekly and contradicts itself usually twice an episode or more??? REALLY??!?!
I stand corrected then.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Seriously OP? You do realize exploration and science go hand in hand right?
I wish I'd noticed before reading any of it.
This^
The fact that she was a short range ship was specifically added in since it added to the drama and tension of her being on the longest range mission in history. There wouldn't have been the great threat if she was a Galaxy class.
Yep. Though in line with what I said above, the truth is in between.
She was a high speed vessel always, a test bed for next gen technologies, but she was in no way designed for a seven year mission away from any support. The Galaxy was, the Intrepid was not. The Nova was even worse, she was designed to come in after all the explorers had come through park at a planet and do long term studies.
I disagree with that assertion, though there is little canon evidence for or against, the behind the scenes of the design of these ships is telling. The Sovereign was designed by John Eaves as a reactionary evolution in design. Just as the Defiant designed to stand up to the Borg. The neck being removed was to remove a structural weakness, the huge turret mounted Quantum Torpedo launcher, Mk XII phasers, advanced shields. She has twice as many torpedo placements as the Galaxy on a smaller hull. Her refit added three more torpedo launchers to cover her aft dorsal arc. Though she was technically an Explorer Type 2/Enhanced Deterrence Explorer. So she was still a ship capable of long term scientific research, but she was also a beast, and meant to be.
She was the culmination of almost a decade of Starfleet gearing up for this huge threat.
The Akira is a torpedo boat and a carrier. Starfleet had become used to peace in the 24th century, then the Cardassians got aggressive, the Romulans reemerged, then BAM Borg Cubes. Then came the tensions with the Dominion.
AND THEN came the Prometheus. A buzzsaw that is the natural evolution of taking the technology of a Sovereign to build three Defiants and pack them into one bleeding edge ship the size of an Intrepid. What could logically be boasted as what the Federation does when it gets serious about building a straight up combat vessel.
Thanksgiving weekend starts early.
Well consider her primary opponents. The Jem'Hadar Attack Ships. She destroyed scores of those little monsters, who I consider to be the ship form of the Blue Scarabs in the Mummy.
And those ships, were slaughtering larger cruisers.
Also the Defiant has a submission win over the Lakota Upgrade of the Excelsior class.
The Defiant is many things, but made of glass she isn't. This ship was tanking shots from Jem'Hadar ships while laying mines in "Call to Arms". Part of the reason Starfleet sent her is that she could take punishment in the time before Starfleet knew how to modify their shields against Phased Polaron weaponry. And that was before Ben Sisko gave her a nice Ablative Hull Armor jacket for Christmas.
As for her power output recall, that part of the reason that she was mothballed was that her warp core put out TOO MUCH juice or the ship to handle so once you went over warp 6 she started to fly herself apart.
And for as bad a fantail kicking as she took in the Battle of Sector 001, she was still in one piece, which is something a Nebula, and a whole bunch of other ships that were there couldn't say. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
The Defiant didn't get destroyed until the Breen managed to drain ALL of her power. As for the Valiant...well, Tim Waters and his cronies were idiots.
As for the Belfast, well take into account that she was an old ship that Shon could barely keep working right and they hadn't really had time to upgrade lately, as he said when we first met him. Though I'm still infuriated by the logic break that thirty year old Jem'Hadar can actually go head to head with modern Starfleet tech. Or modern Dominion tech for that matter.
Indeed, and the fact that it's long range directly implies that it can defends itself, but Starfleet's standards of classification.
Indeed, Starfleet called the Constitution a Starship and a heavy cruiser, the Klingons called it a Federation Battle Cruiser. Starfleet calls the Galaxy an Explorer, the Klingons call it a battleship. Starfleet calls the Defiant an escort, most sane people call it a pocket battleship.
All Starfleet starships are ships of the line.
Or did you mean Voyager? Living Witness is a good place to start your research.
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The line pulled is clearly out of context. Move onto the very next scene and you find dialog that directly contradicts your highly selective point. Do you want to try reconciling that? Of course not, because what you've based everything on is a strawman argument. Pull this one fiber away and what do you have? Nothing. It's no less than a central theme throughout the run of the Star Trek series that Starfleet is both a military and an exploration organization. Finding a way to carry out the organization's primary mission while still being combat capable is something that every single series faced. Enterprise even based multiple episodes on this subject (ex. Silent Enemy).
So the fact that "being built for combat" (even if taken at face value, which a number of people have tried to explain for your benefit that you can't do in this situation) means nothing to the designation of the Intrepid class (in STO) as a science vessel (given the overall thesis of Starfleet). As I first posted, the only criterion for that (in the franchise) is "having the capability to do science." That's literally what "Science Vessel" means. Everything else is presumptive. Starfleet vessels were almost all science vessels of one kind or another. And more to the point, throughout the 7 seasons of Voyager we saw that ship was exceptional in that role and its fighting prowess was most frequently attributed to the higher level of Starfleet technology compared to local species, not the specific design of the Intrepid class (they weren't even carrying that many torpedoes originally.)
Still, it was an effective ship all around. However, in STO we can't acknowledge that multi-faceted fact in single ship descriptors. Categories have to be assigned so players can easily sort through their available choices. On balance what we saw the Intrepid class do was primarily exploration. So of the choices we have, it gets pigeon holed as a "science vessel." Voyager was a combat capable ship, and that fact was discussed at times, but it would be dismissive to the run of VOY, DS9, and First Contact to say its intended role was analogous to other vessels which have been designated as "Escorts" in STO.
Here are the facts. They support a (mostly) comprehensive counter-argument to the few statements you've made. You are free to walk away from them, but considering them may be substantially more helpful to you.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My character Tsin'xing