Excelsior Replacement

[SIR SIG]

JT: How do you draw the Intrepid-Constellation comparison?

To my knowledge, Intrepid isn't a deep space explorer. Where as Constellation was.

[Dan Gurden]

Well, for my mind the Intrepid was a good replacement for the constellation. The deep space exploration aspects of its mission profile would explain its high warp speeds, spare warp core and TARDIS-like shuttlebays...

For the Excelsior replacement, I would go with the Nebula's,. based on the on-screen evidence.

In early TNG we saw tonnes of Excelsiors, Mirandas and Oberths. But as time went on, we saw more Nebula class vessels. This continued into DS9, where until the Dominion War we rarely saw an Excelsior but very often saw Nebula class vessels out there on the Federation Frontier...

I believe that this qualifies the Nebula as the Excelsiors direct replacement. YMMV.

[NobAkimoto]

While I do find that the Nebula class probably is is a workhorse replacement design, I find that it's size(again, I don't care WHAT spacedock or any other source tell you, these ships are HUGE.) makes a little too excessive for doing roles relegated to lighter cruiser designs.

In terms of sheer size, the Intrepid class would do fine replacing both the Excelsior and Constellation classes.(Available internal volume SUPPOSED to be 625,000 m^3 on the Intrepid, 775,000 m^3 on the Excelsior, and 636,000 m^3 on the Constellation)

For general patrol and escort duties the Cheyenne class fits well. It's generally fast, smaller size, and has a decent amount of carrying room.

In terms of capability, a ship roughly the size of the Sequoia would really make a decent ship to be used for just about everything in the Federation.

If you want an older ship I'd say you'd want to go with an Ambassador era vessel. However I consider this option rather unlikely considering that Starfleet lost so many ships during the war.

Ships that could possibly fit this description are:
Springfield class
Istanbul class
Mediterranian class
Ambassador class
Freedom class
Challenger class
Apollo class

[ghosty]

I already said it in the other thread where this discussion started, ie. the Excelsior's replacement has to be the Nebula. There just seem to be so many of them on TV and in the movies that its safe to assume that they replaced not only the Excelsiors but the Mirandas as well (remembering that Mirandas are an even older design that the Excelsiors). The Oberths I presume are being replaced by Novas in most cases and the Intrepids would replace the Constellations as the deep space explorers.

[Dan Gurden]

I agree that the Nebula is a large ship as far as its internal volume goes, but I dont think that this discounts the arguement. My question is; Why does the direct replacement have to be of a similar size and structure?

After all, the Excelsior replaced (or Supported, depending on the trekkies concerned) the Connie, and was a magnitude of size greater than the old bird. After all, I am often surprised at the actual length of the Excelsior class, right up there among the larger ships.

Thing is, if the Ambassador class is a contender for the role, then why not the Nebula? We see far more Nebulas that the single occasion that I remember seeing an Ambassador class from the past, and both ships are of roughly a comparable size and internal volume?

[NobAkimoto]

I'm not really questioning the fact that they have to be a similar size(obviously, there's a serious size inflation between ships in each succeeding generation. It goes from Connie 235,000 to Excelsior 770,000, to Ambassador 2,500,000 to Galaxy, 5,820,000, interesting how the figures work out huh? Roughly 3x for the first 3 generation leaps.), and I do think the configuration of the Nebula makes it ideal for a workhorse.(Connie/Miranda relationship like.) The design of the vessel even suggests it's of the "mainstay" lineage of the Miranda class.

It's almost obvious that Starfleet likes the Nebula class. Almost every guest ship since TNG that had a prominant role was a Nebula.(Sutherland, Phoenix, Proxima, Bonchune, Lexington, ad nauseum) They're very common, at the very least there's probably 3-4 per every Galaxy.

If anything I wholeheaertedly agree that if Starfleet were going to rebuild and resecure it's fleet after the war they'd be Nebulas mostly, with perimeter defense ships and Nova's sporadically.

However, the immense size of the Nebula class would most likely make her harder to mass produce(especially if you factor in a war exhausted economy.)

I'm just stating, that if they were going to create a more "within Federation space" type generalised vessel, they might go with something LESS useful than the Nebula which might be better off doing more Explorer like work.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Just one question for everyone; Why does the replacement have to be ONE class?

Several ships are well suited to "do the rounds". The Niagara, the Nebula, the Ambassador, etc... Starfleet can just pick a series of classes and assign them specific roles on the rounds to which they are suitable. These ships could be stripped of some of their firepower and this extra spaced used for cargo.

Any older model could be pheasibly used if its stripped correctly to accomodate needs based on the peculiar scenarios envisaged by Starfleet.

Since our campaign is set in 2386, the 10 yr grace period established has passed and ALL Oberths have been assigned to Starfleet Academy as training ships (Few are still in one piece ). The Rigel and Apollo have been decomissioned entirely. The Excelsior is still being used though the Nebula and Springfield are starting to replace them. The Ambassador has also been placed on permanent diplomatic detail missions in the corward region. This is how I see the future...

[Commander Ramey]

My fifteen cents again he he he...

I would think that the Nebula is the newest vessel to replace the Excelcior. Alot of times vessels are commisioned for one reason and just never either live up to it or excelled so much that they never decided to retire the original, you can see this even in the US Navy. The nebula was desighned to compliment the Galaxy and to provide assistance and support to it. I can see it replaceing the Excelcior though, since it is very modular and still new enough to be able to stay in service for years to come. Wouldn't it stand to reason however that after DW that the Excelcior will stay in service for awhile since SF lost so many vessels? I mean right now they are useing anything with a nacelle and some life support.

[toadkiller]

I think in the long term it will be the Sovereign which, to me, seems like basically a "modern" Excelsior - the Lakota was the first with torp turrents right?

Seems like they both are built to provide the "jack of all trades" role, but granted we have very little info on the Sov's.

[ghosty]

The Sovereigns were designed as a replacement or adjunct to the Galaxy-class. Far too valuable to be cast as a "workhorse" unit. Soveriegns are pretige units like battleships prior to WWI...cruisers did most of the work (ie. Excelsiors) but got very little of the glory.

[tonyg]

Starfleet probably won't select an new workhorse, but will decide to go in a different direction.

While there is supposedly a on screen reason why Starfleet used the Excelsior-class for over 90 years (the class must of had certain features that made it very appealing to upgrade and keep) the real reason was because it was cheaper to reuse an existing model than design and build new ones.

When computer technolgoy advanced, CG models started to replace the "hard copy" versions. During DS9, Voyager and the last few films, pretty much everything wound up as CGI. The trend seems to be that we will start to see more ships and varied designs.

Therefore we a propably better off to desgin accordingly, and work out several different classes than select a "workhorse" ship that probably won't exist.

[toadkiller]

I'm not sure I can buy the Sov as a having a Galaxy type mission - it is so much smaller (volume-wise) and comes along fairly soon after the Galaxy. There's really no reason to assume that they wouldn't/couldn't be being built along side one another during and after the war. The Galaxy seems to fit the bill for "really big multi-purpose ship" - which would force us to find a different role for the Sov's.

We've seen, sticking with the"modern TNG -on era":

Explorer - Really big multi purpose ship, big punch, big volume, big everything. Lots of resources (Galaxy, Ambassador, ???)

Explorer-lite - smaller, multi purpose ship. (Nebula) Still really big - but maybe "cheaper"???

"working" ships, less flash more of a "get the job done" ship - Intrepid, Excelsior, Sov's

I agree that the E-E is clearly meant to be seen as the "best big tactical ship" but what I'm purposing is that for decades that role has been played by the Excelsior's and that it was really only once the Galaxy came along that they were seen as clearly second-rate. Perhaps they could hold their own during the Ambassador era (from a tactical standpoint). If this is true than the Lakota modifications were intended to allow them to hold the line until the Sov's were able to be fielded in numbers. The prototype would have been coming on-line about that time, right?

So my idea is that the Sov would field all the tacitical advances of the Galaxy (and beyond) without the load of some of the multi-purpose systems. It would be able to do most of the same peace-time jobs, but not quite as well. After all a Galaxy class is really over kill most of the time and the extra systems are of no real use during war time.

It won't fill all the Excelsior's roles in full for perhaps a decade or more, as there won't be enough of them. However if we ever saw the next-next generation than perhaps the Sov would be the most plentiful of the "big ships" and therefore fill the Excelsior's role from TNG.

Today's Navy's don't build ships that are "to expensive to use" at least they try not to. Even new ships have to be placed in harms way from time to time - and also may have to do the milk runs.

Just my thoughts,

[Lockhart]

I think toadkiller might be right, but the way the Sovereign is laid out it could easily be the Galaxy's replacement. We really haven't seen enough of the Sovereign to know if they allow children and families on board. I'd tend to think not, but if the crew is still 1000 or so, maybe it truly is the Galaxy's replacement. Even though the Sovereign is a warship disguised as a standard starfleet vessel, it has to have a diplomatic area designated onboard, even if that only some posh quarters that go unused and the captain's discussion chamber. It's not like the Galaxy had the diplomacy space of the Ambassador or Nebula class. So what else could it be missing? Laboratory space?

I think it's got what it takes, even if it lost some space. And given that the Excelsior was designed to replace the Constitution class, the Sovereign will indeed take the Excelsior's place, when it too is old and worn out. Still the purpose of this thread is to find classes to do the day to day work of Starfleet. Right now, the Sovereign class isn't that ship.

Lockhart

[Phantom]

I would hope that they wouldn't allow dependents onboard the Sovereign-class. I could see it on the Galaxy-class, since it was an exploerer, the Sovereign-class is more warship and would be thrown into more tactical situations.

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster