Constitution/ Excelsior stablemates

[tanksoldier]

There seem to be several groups of "stablemate" starship types, representing (roughly) the Heavy Cruiser, Light Cruiser, and Fast Cruiser classifications:

Constitution/ Miranda/ Constellation

Excelsior/ Centaur/ ????

Ambassador/ ????/ ????

Galaxy/ Nebula/ ????

Sovreign/ ????/ Intrepid


Time-wise, does this seem correct? Does anyone have suggestions for the classes represented by the ????'s. Can anyone think of "reasons" I can use in my game why the Constellation and Miranda classes are still so common while equivelent vessels from the Excelsior and Ambasador eras seem so rare and the Ambassador apparently isn't in commission at all?

Unless someone posts something really obvious I haven't thought of, these classes are what I plan to go with in my campaign... Starfleet will be reactivating many mothballed Constitution, Constellation, and Ambassador class vessels, and calling up many retired officers, to fill the gaps in the line. I've always thought that Starfleet, even just considering the "canon classes" seen on screen, has too many ship types for reasonable logistics and crew familiarity. I plan to narrow it down for my campaign with Starfleet built around the above classes and a few other specialty classes (such as the Oberth and Nova).

I've always thought it interesting that the Constitution Class was considered so successful, yet there are dozens of Mirandas and a few Constellations still in service in the TNG era and no Constitutions to be seen.

[Antonsb214]

The New Orleans class goes well with the Ambassador class.
Akira with the Sov and Intrepid.

[tanksoldier]

I've been thinking about all the "new" designs we saw in First Contact. Everybody assumed they were new... but were they really new ships, or simply ships we hadn't seen yet?

At the risk of rufffling some feathers, I've decided that not all the ships in the fight were Starfleet. From some of the LUG material we "know" that Andorian and Vulcan ships were both present at the battle.

I'm making the Steamrunner and Saber classes Andorian ships. All the way back to the FASA game the Andorians had a penchant for shrouded nacell designs. They also make little sense in a fleet which already possesses the Defiant and Intrepid classes.

Norway class ships will be Vulcan, since they tend towards angular designs.

The Akira looks to me like it could be an older design... I'm going to make it a contemporary of the Ambassador Class.

I'll use the Prometheus as a "fast" cruiser, but MVAM doesn't exist in my universe.

So, that gives me this for a fleet so far:

Heavy/ Light/ Fast

Constitution/ Miranda/ Constellation Oberth

Excelsior/ Centaur/ ????

Ambassador/ Akira/ ????

Galaxy/ Nebula/ ????

Sovreign/ Intrepid/ Prometheus Defiant Nova


I suppose that all 3 major types don't have to exist in every era. I'm going to assume Ambassadors are still in service to some extent... we just haven't seen them.

[tonyg]

A couple of thoughts.

Isn't the Centaur one of the Dominion War "kit-bashes"? If so, it could hardly be a contemporary of the Excelsior.

Also the Constellation came after the Constitution (it replaced it), and is a contemporary of the Excelsior. Perhaps the Constellation was a CL ?

As for the other new designed being non-starfleet, I doubt it. I thionk they all had NCC registries. You can make them non-starfleet, but most evidence indicates otherwise.

[Phoenix]

tanksoldier,
I didn't want to take up Don's bandwidth so I sent you an E-Mail regarding this subject. Let me know what you think.

It contains 10 JPGS, and a word '98 file for a total of 330 kb.

[tonyg]

Originally posted by Phoenix
tanksoldier,
I didn't want to take up Don's bandwidth so I sent you an E-Mail regarding this subject. Let me know what you think.

It contains 10 JPGS, and a word '98 file for a total of 330 kb.

Down you got me curious. Either you did up a bunch of ships, or it is one heck of a flame!

[tanksoldier]

Originally posted by tonyg
A couple of thoughts.

Isn't the Centaur one of the Dominion War "kit-bashes"? If so, it could hardly be a contemporary of the Excelsior.

Also the Constellation came after the Constitution (it replaced it), and is a contemporary of the Excelsior. Perhaps the Constellation was a CL ?

As for the other new designed being non-starfleet, I doubt it. I thionk they all had NCC registries. You can make them non-starfleet, but most evidence indicates otherwise.

The DS9 tech manual is completely out in my world. There are too many glaring errors in the first place, and in the second I can't belive that you can stick a bunch of starship components together and fly it away. Of all the DS9 kitbashes, the Centaur is the only one that I like, so I'm keeping it. The others that might have been seen on screen belong to the Betazoids or Pakled or somebody. The "Yeager Type" is definitely the Pakled contribution to the war effort.

Also, the assumption has always been that the Constellations replaced the Constitutions... but they are clearly a pre-Excelsior design to me, else they would have looked more like Excelsior. So, in my world they came along at about the same time as the Enterprise refit.

As for the other ships, I never was able to read any names or registries on-screen... and even if I was, check out Aslan's "Ultimate Star Trek"... if he can "re-image" Trek, so can I.

[tonyg]

Well, if that is how you want it to be in your campaign, it is you choice.

Some of your arguments I don't buy into (nothing else looks like an Excelsior, so why should the Miranda? With TOS and Movie era so close there is bound to be "bleed over" in ships)., and others I can understand (the DS9 TM has a lot of bad bugs, and isn't as reliable at it could have been with just a little more planning).

But if you are going to "re-image" or "re-imagine" TREK then it all depends on just what your "vision" is. Considering what ENTERPRISE i s doing along those lines, why can't we?

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by tonyg
Down you got me curious. Either you did up a bunch of ships, or it is one heck of a flame!

OK, The word doc is a list, by grouping ships into what some call design families, of Federation ships (not all are canon BTW). the JPGS are the ships grouped by design elements and related technology that match each other.

For example: the 2270-2310’s design family (movie era) include

• Miranda (Anton Refit)
• Soyuz (Anton Refit)
• Enterprise (Constitution Refit)
• Merchantman
• Polaris (Saladin Refit)
• Okinawa,
• Sydney (Ptolemy Pod Refit)
• Yorkshire
• Constellation

While the 2290-2330’s design family (the great experiment era) include

• Excelsior
• Excelsior II
• Obirth
• Shelley
• Hokule’a
• Merced
• Ju'Day
• Challenger
• Centaur

I have divided the ships into 9 distinct generations of design philosophies, plus the "Frankinstine Fleet" designs *shudder* from DS9 being labled as generation 8.5 'Emergency Dominion War Reinforcement'. There is also the Pre-Generation ships from Enterprise...NX, NI, Y-type, J-type, plus what ever else they come up with before the end of the series.

[tanksoldier]

I've pretty much ditched the idea of rearranging when ships were commissioned and such, and decided to go with the scheme below instead.

I've decided that many of the old ship designs were kept on active service long after their tactical usefulness was ended by budget constraints, and the fact that nobody in the Federation legislature, and few in Starfleet, thought that the Federation could be threatened by a major war "in this day and age". This resulted in many Starfleet vessels being tactically overmatched by their supposed counterparts and extremely high losses, especially among the Miranda and Constellation classes.

Due to the Dominion war and various recent Borg incidents Starfleet has lost over 3/4 of it's capital hulls and hundreds of thousands of trained crewmembers. Many Planetary Defense Forces fared even worse, notable the PDFs of Betazed and Vulcan each suffered over 90% casualties in personnel and hulls. For the first time since the Four Years War Starfleet has been given priority allocation of economic resources, and has decided to make the most of it... and many planets that long negelcted their PDFs, or opted against having them altogether are taking a different view.

One notable exception to the dismal performance of Starfleet and it's foster children was the Andorian PDF. Well equipped and highly trained, ships of the "Blue Fleet" saw action in every theater of the war... including defending Earth against both the Borg and the Breen.

Considering that it takes 4 years to train a Starfleet officer, and 2 years to train an enlisted crewman, and 15 years beyond that to train the command officers and senior chiefs that are respectively the brain and backbone of the fleet, Starfleet has implemented a "point defense" strategy. Construction will focus on smaller hulls with smaller crew compliments, backed by centralized heavy task forces ready to reinforce the perimiter patrol vessels. Heavy vessel construction will be limited to a few highly effective classes, and obsolete designs will be decommissioned and their crew assigned to modern vessels as rapidly as possible.

The spearhead vessel in this effort will be the Rhode Island class partol corvette. Based on the Nova class surveyor, with upgraded warp and tactical systems, this vessel will partol the frontiers of the Federation handling what problems it can and alerting the centralized reaction task forces when it must.

The Nova Mk II, with the same upgraded warp systems as the Rhode Island, will perform survey and scientific missions once assigned to the larger ships which Starfleet can no longer spare from tactical assignments.

The Defiant class escorts will perform point defense and short-range patrol missions for Federation installations and outposts.

Intrepid class light cruisers will perform the interior support missions once handled by Excelsior class vessels, and will provide the patrol corvettes' immediate backup and support. They will also perform selected survey and exploration missions beyond the Federation borders, and act as escort and screening vessels in the heavy taskforces or assembled fleets.

The heavy elements of the fleet will consist of the Sovereign class heavy cruiser, the Akira class thru-deck cruiser, and the Excelsior class battle cruisers.

The Sovereign class features the latest and greatest technology the Federation has to offer, however the long construction time and high economic cost of producing these vessels will limit the numbers available.

The Akira class thru-deck cruiser combines the firepower and mobility of a heavy cruiser with the ability to support strike fighter operations or the operation of large numbers of other small craft.

During the Dominion conflict the Excelsior class once again proved it's flexibility and tactical excellence. It's performance far exceeded more modern vessels, largely due to the fact that the class was designed from the keel up with tactical operations foremost in mind. The class will receive a comprehensive refit, to include quantum torpedos, upgraded phaser batteries, and improved shield capacity. The Excelsior class will continueto conduct the cruiser missions of long-range patrol, scientific exploration, disaster response and tactical support for the indefinite future.