replace Voyager with enterprise

[Prometheus Unbound]

Yeah, a mission kill, not the ship blowing itself up due to engine damage. And he armed Genesis, not a self-destruct.

oh fuck off, he armed genesis *to* self destruct.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The fact that he had to do that rather than the ship blowing itself up suggests either a) ships in Kirk's era were a lot tougher or b) the Galaxy class is badly designed.

Oh, and the part from Generations about megaton-range weapons impacting the unshielded hull being a serious problem? Again, Wrath of Khan, the E-Nil takes phasers volleys at close range to the engineering hull, and a torpedo hit, and the warp core shuts down, rather than overloading and going boom. In Undiscovered Country, the E-A has her shields collapse and takes torpedoes tot he unshielded hull, they blow clean through but no overloads (no dangerous pronouncements from Engineering at all in fact, except "shields weakening/collapsing."

If you want a contemporary ship taking torpedo damage to the unshielded hull and surviving, Voyager in Year of Hell, when the Krenim's torpedoes go right through the shields. Again, they're hit at least once in the Engineering hull, no mention of warp core overloads or coolant leaks. Hell, look at the punishment the E-E took in Nemesis, including ramming the Scimitar head-on, no overloads or warp core breaches (yes, I know the warp drive was offline, but the core can't have been or their shields and weapons would have been seriously weakened) are mentioned.

Everything points to the E-D and her sister ships having very badly designed engines and warp cores, and they demonstrate this repeatedly (the four plus one partial example I gave earlier at a minimum).

EDIT: Even if you want to say that the Galaxies don't have a "bad" record for their warp cores/engines, it's certainly much worse than other Starfleet ships, both from TOs era and from TNG's own era.

[NeoGoomba]

Even if you want to say that the Galaxies don't have a "bad" record for their warp cores/engines, it's certainly much worse than other Starfleet ships, both from TOs era and from TNG's own era.

Hah the Galaxy doesn't seem to have fared as badly as the Constitution. Twelve out of the thirteen didn't last five years!

[SCRawl]

Even if you want to say that the Galaxies don't have a "bad" record for their warp cores/engines, it's certainly much worse than other Starfleet ships, both from TOs era and from TNG's own era.

Hah the Galaxy doesn't seem to have fared as badly as the Constitution. Twelve out of the thirteen didn't last five years!

I can think of five that really didn't deserve their ends right off the top: the four blind-sided by the Enterprise when it was being run by the super-computer; and the one (ultimately intentionally) destroyed in the process of killing the planet-killer. Come to think of it I'm not 100% certain of those first four, about whether or not any of them were made spaceworthy again.

[NeoGoomba]

I can think of five that really didn't deserve their ends right off the top: the four blind-sided by the Enterprise when it was being run by the super-computer; and the one (ultimately intentionally) destroyed in the process of killing the planet-killer. Come to think of it I'm not 100% certain of those first four, about whether or not any of them were made spaceworthy again.

I was just being an ass, but I distinctly remembering Enterprise being referred to as the lone surviving Constitution-class.

Also it sounded like M-5 was able to kill the crew of (at least some of) those other four Connie's via phaser radiation somehow. Weren't they just dead in space?

[Borgholio]

Also it sounded like M-5 was able to kill the crew of (at least some of) those other four Connie's via phaser radiation somehow. Weren't they just dead in space?

M-5 caused a catastrophic hull breach on one of the four Connies, but the other three survived with some battle damage. They were closing in to attack Enterprise until Kirk and Daystrom were able to talk some sense into the M-5 and have it shut down.

As far as the list of all Connies and their fates, I only remember two that actually were destroyed off the top of my head. Constellation and Intrepid. Defiant was sucked into an alternate universe but survived quite nicely, Excalibur was heavily damaged by Enterprise but it was never stated to be actually destroyed, and Exeter was fully intact...just lost the crew due to a nasty virus or something.

So if you go by the idea there were only 12 Connies, having three damaged or destroyed in combat isn't bad given the kinds of situations they encounter. That speaks volumes for how durable the class is. The other lost ships could have been any class had they been in the same circumstances.

[Eternal_Freedom]

More to the point, none of the Constitutions get wrecked due to a bad design, which is my main point viz a viz the Galaxy class. The Connies all get taken out by hostile action, self-destruct or losing their crews, not exploding due to a really bad (and apparently rushed) design.

[Elheru Aran]

Note that (if you disregard STO, anyway) by the time of Undiscovered Country at the latest the Enterprise has been a full generation or two behind the current Federation ships. It's no surprise they would only have held on to it thanks to having to keep Kirk out of trouble.

[Themightytom]

Didn't Voyager have more advanced shields than the Enterprise D? Multi phasic, or whatever that means? As it is a more advanced ship, how does it compare against the Enterprise D defensively? I think we should probably grant that it's warp core ejection worked considerably better since they lost the core on a semi seasonal basis and just went back and got it again, so it's really more a question of whether or not the warp core would be damaged in the first place. If the Enterprise D is markedly more powerful than Voyager, maybe not, it could take on bigger and badder foes...
but if it's not and the Voyager was actually on par with a Galaxy, the Enterprise only has an advantage in design for long duration, and resources, which really just makes a bigger target.

[Borgholio]

Didn't Voyager have more advanced shields than the Enterprise D? Multi phasic, or whatever that means?

No, the Enterprise D had multiphasic shields in several episodes. They are supposed to provide better protection against being too close to a star or something like that. But they're a special-use gimmick and not used for combat.

As it is a more advanced ship, how does it compare against the Enterprise D defensively?

Not as strong. It may be more advanced, but it is much smaller and less powerful. That's why it kept getting it's ass kicked.

but if it's not and the Voyager was actually on par with a Galaxy, the Enterprise only has an advantage in design for long duration, and resources, which really just makes a bigger target.

It's not even close to being on par. Voyager was designed as a long-range / high speed explorer ship. It's small and quick but doesn't have the sheer power output that the Enterprise has. At least by the time of DS9 they had upgraded the Galaxies to be more reliable, so I don't think having a warp core that explodes when you look at it funny would be an issue any longer.

[Eternal_Freedom]

While I can't quantify relative phaser power, Voyager is stated in "The Cloud" IIRC to have a complement of 32 photon torpedoes, compared to the E-D's 250. There is also the fact that we regularly saw Galaxies in frontline combat int he Dominion War (the fleet in Call to Arms, Sacrifice of Angels, Tears of the Prophets, etc). The only Intrepid we saw (IIRC) was being used as an oversized courier in Inquisition. That alone should tell you what Starfleet thinks of the ship's relative combat power.

[Borgholio]

I think there's something to be said for size. Larger ship = more room for power generation, more shield generators, bigger phaser banks, etc... The Galaxies are practically the battleships of the fleet compared to the little Intrepids.

[Baffalo]

From a mathematics perspective, in this case mass does require more power generation. Even if you shove 95% of your mass into subspace or however the warp drive works, that's still a LOT of mass still in 'real' space to contend with.

If the guys over at the ACTD are right, then the Galaxy weighs in at 4,500,000 metric tonnes, while the Intrepid weighs in at 700,000 metric tonnes. Just to get that much mass moving at sublight is going to require a lot of power, along with the added requirements of shields, weaponry, etc. So I think it's entirely plausible to say that the bigger the ship, the more powerful and advanced the propulsion system is.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, given that the Intrepid wasn't built as a warship, but the Borg encounter was in 2365, while the first Intrepid was laid around 2367. Whether the design was intended to study the Borg or just go deep along the frontier to scout for them is unknown.

[Simon_Jester]

The Intrepids are designed to sustain their top speed for longer, which may require unusually powerful power plants- but it's just as likely to involve modifications to the drive. Honestly, the sheer bulk of the Galaxy-class would almost have to make the difference in terms of raw power output, unless the Galaxies were deliberately designed to have only a small fraction of the potential power output they could have.

The existence of "war Galaxies" specially outfitted for combat, and the large amounts of space devoted aboard Enterprise to recreational spaces and dependent quarters, suggest that one could reasonably create a ship with higher energy density (in watts of reactor output per ton of ship) than the Enterprise-D. But I doubt that the available improvements are going to be enough to compensate for the size difference.

If it were that easy to make a 700000 ton ship generate as much power as a 4500000 ton ship, you'd just take the smaller ship's technology and retrofit it into the larger one.

[Borgholio]

I think it's best to compare Intrepid vs Galaxy as destroyer vs battleship or sport bike vs Harley. In each case, the former would be smaller, lighter and more nimble, plus they have a greater engine power to weight ratio. However, the latter is going to be bigger, heavier, with overall greater power generation. And in the case of warships, larger means you can fit heavier weapons too. So an Intrepid can still run circles around a Galaxy without having a big, beefy powerplant.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Oil tanker vs jet ski

[Elheru Aran]

Put it this way: The Galaxy is a Hummer-1. You can either have the military version or the civilian version, but they're both large, oversized fuel-sucking vehicles with thin skins. The Intrepid is... I don't know, a little Chevy Cobalt or something like that. Little car that can pull a lot of miles but can't carry a whole lot of anything.

As for warp drive: frankly, there's so much bullshit out there about it that there's never going to be a straight answer about why one ship performs differently than another on the screen. For all we know, Starfleet comes up with a different warp theory every generation and brute-forces the ships' engineering into accommodating that theory because they've mastered the art of unintentional reality engineering...

[Captain Seafort]

Put it this way: The Galaxy is a Hummer-1. You can either have the military version or the civilian version, but they're both large, oversized fuel-sucking vehicles with thin skins.

I dispute the "thin-skinned" comment as far as the war-GCS goes - they fought through all the major battles of the war, we saw the Galaxy herself take heavy damage at 1st Chin'toka, and we never saw one blow up. Even the Odyssey seemed to be holding up reasonably well until she was rammed.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem with the Galaxy-class doesn't seem to be 'durability' so much as systems reliability. The ship can survive very severe beatings as long as no critical systems malfunction. However, certain critical systems failing can cause a catastrophic loss of the ship when a main reactor blows up. There is a lack of failsafes and graceful-failure modes designed to keep a problem in engineering from destroying the ship.

So the ship can absorb lots of phaser hits on its shields and so on and be fine... but as soon as something hits the ship and knocks an antimatter fuel tank loose from its moorings, it's all over.

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not talking about shield hits, I'm talking about serious damage, including a massive hole in the ventral engineering hull (in the case of the Galaxy) and direct fire to the nacelles (in the case of the Odyssey). The former probably missed the AM pods by metres, and the latter was the sort of damage that destroyed the E-D in Cause and Effect.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'm not talking about shield hits, I'm talking about serious damage, including a massive hole in the ventral engineering hull (in the case of the Galaxy) and direct fire to the nacelles (in the case of the Odyssey). The former probably missed the AM pods by metres, and the latter was the sort of damage that destroyed the E-D in Cause and Effect.

Well the Odyssey is totalled anyway, so whatever damage the nacele hits caused is irrelevant (hell, maybe whatever damage effects they caused just didn't have time to endanger the ship before a fighter slammed intot he warp core).

As for the Galaxy in Tears of the Prophets, one can only assume (or hope) that Starfleet might have learned its lessons. We know they apparently built the "War Galaxies" so maybe they refitted Galaxy and Venture to that standard. Hell, they had, what, three years between the Odyssey going down and DS9 falling? And in that time you have continuing Borg threats and a war with the Klingons. The apparent lack of Galaxy-class casualties later would seem to bear out that the class got a decent boost.

Although by the time Nemesis rolls around the GCS is most definitely not the premier starship, since the Galaxy herself is assigned to Starfleet Battle Group Omega along with the E-E, the Intrepid, the Hood and a few others. Incidentally, why the fuck is "The Federation Flagship" assigned to Battle Group Omega and not, say, Alpha?

[Borgholio]

Well in the Bible (I know I know...just hear me out), God says he is the Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last. While Battlegroup Alpha may be the top of the list, it could also be great for morale if Battlegroup Omega was made up of the most experienced captains and crews with battle-tested ships. In other words, the last Battlegroup you will see before you die.

[Themightytom]

Didn't Voyager have more advanced shields than the Enterprise D? Multi phasic, or whatever that means?

No, the Enterprise D had multiphasic shields in several episodes. They are supposed to provide better protection against being too close to a star or something like that. But they're a special-use gimmick and not used for combat.

Those were metaphasic shields, not multiphasic. I don't know what the difference is, only that the Ferengi scientist Dr. Crusher was buddies with designed them just before he was murdered, and I THINK she was the only one who used them after, when she decided to skim that son in the borg episode with Lore. It seems like multi phasic could have been the more refined version of metaphasic, they seemed to just update whatever they were already using on the Enterprise D rather than install any new or fancy hardware, but if Voyager was still under construction they could have put in more advanced equipment.

Not as strong. It may be more advanced, but it is much smaller and less powerful. That's why it kept getting it's ass kicked.

The Voyager did an incredible job of soaking up damage. The Hirogen carved up several decks, the Kaizon managed to let Pairs overload their phaser array and.. idk exactly how wide spread the damage was but there was a light show and things exploding everywhere, enough for them to abandon ship. there was the "two voyagers in the same place" episode where Harry Kim 1 and Naomi Wildman 1 died but were replaced when the less damaged voyager got mugged by the Viidians.

By comparison, the Enterprise plowed into some superstring thing, in the episode where Troi was in command, and they seemed completely paralyzed by the damage. In year of hell, as well as the episode where Kes is moving backwards in time, there are whole sections of the ship hat are totaled and it's still plugging along.

It's not even close to being on par. Voyager was designed as a long-range / high speed explorer ship. It's small and quick but doesn't have the sheer power output that the Enterprise has. At least by the time of DS9 they had upgraded the Galaxies to be more reliable, so I don't think having a warp core that explodes when you look at it funny would be an issue any longer.

Maybe the galaxy classes at the end of DS9 were upgraded because of the Dominion war. When Starfleet decided to upgrade DS9 itself they made a HUGE upgrade, but if the Enterprise is subbed for voyager at Caretaker, they haven't really run into the Dominion yet I don't think, and the Enterprise wasn't upgraded much as of Generations was it?

[Borgholio]

if Voyager was still under construction they could have put in more advanced equipment.

I recall reading somewhere a long time ago that multiphasic / metaphasic shields did not allow outgoing weapon fire and that's why they were never used across the fleet.

The Voyager did an incredible job of soaking up damage.

Not what I meant. I agree that Voyager stayed intact while the Enterprise would have exploded a dozen times over. I'm referring to the combat ability. My feeling is that many of Voyager's enemies saw a tiny little ship and thought they could overpower it. A Galaxy class ship would have seemed far more intimidating.

Maybe the galaxy classes at the end of DS9 were upgraded because of the Dominion war. When Starfleet decided to upgrade DS9 itself they made a HUGE upgrade, but if the Enterprise is subbed for voyager at Caretaker, they haven't really run into the Dominion yet I don't think, and the Enterprise wasn't upgraded much as of Generations was it?

And that's the problem. Enterprise-D was destroyed in 2371, two years before the Dominion War...so it was unlikely to be upgraded.

[Elheru Aran]

It is not without historical precedent that exploration ships for travelling to unknown regions are reinforced against excessive damage that would otherwise destroy or incapacitate a similar craft. IIRC, James Cook had this done specially to his ship when he sailed to the Pacific. It makes sense that they may have done this to the Intrepid class from the start, while Galaxies require external reinforcement or extensive overhauling to have a similar amount of damage resistance. (Or maybe the Enterprise just has shit luck...)