Miranda class vs. Constitution(refit) class

[Alyeska]

The Ambassador class probably wasn't retired. It was probably either a short production run because the class itself was a failure, it was designed with a shorter hull life, or the production run was small intentionaly and there just aren't that many around.

[Stravo]

Slightly off-topic, but I've always wondered why Starfleet would retire the Ambassador class earlier than the Miranda and Excelsior classes when by all available information the Ambassador is bigger, faster, and better armed.

Logically--yes, I realize one shouldn't necessarily apply logic to Starfleeet--shouldn't it be easier and more effective to refit an Ambassador to modern standards than the old Excelsior design?

Could be that the Ambasadors were never produced in the numbers that the Excelsiors were. Much of the material I've read have pointed to the almost inexhuastable felxibility of the Excelsior hull. As we saw in Paradise Lost the Lakota was easily upgraded to be a real threat to the Defiant, the most heavily armed Satrfleet vessel at the time.

The Ambassador may have been produced in far smaller numbers due to expense and perhaps single purpose design flaws that simply made her less easy to refit and upgrade than the Excelsiors. The Ambassador was most certainly the Consitution of her time, expensive big ship of the line.

So it may boil down to simple economics with say 500 Excelsiors in service that only cost 1 million credits to upgrade per ship

Compared to say 50 Ambassadors at 10 million credits per ship to upgrade.

[Uraniun235]

Could be that the Ambassadors were mostly deployed to deep space assignments on the side of the Federation opposite where most of TNG+ seems to have taken place, hence why we see so few of them.

[Sarevok]

The Ambassador class probably wasn't retired. It was probably either a short production run because the class itself was a failure, it was designed with a shorter hull life, or the production run was small intentionaly and there just aren't that many around.

Maybe they were replaced by Galaxy class starships. The Galaxy can do everything they can and is better in combat.

[paladin]

The Ambassador class probably wasn't retired. It was probably either a short production run because the class itself was a failure, it was designed with a shorter hull life, or the production run was small intentionaly and there just aren't that many around.

Maybe they were replaced by Galaxy class starships. The Galaxy can do everything they can and is better in combat.

I think that was stated in the Tech Manual for TNG. The Galaxy class was developed as the successor to the Ambassdor class.

[Chris OFarrell]

Could be that the Ambasadors were never produced in the numbers that the Excelsiors were. Much of the material I've read have pointed to the almost inexhuastable felxibility of the Excelsior hull. As we saw in Paradise Lost the Lakota was easily upgraded to be a real threat to the Defiant, the most heavily armed Satrfleet vessel at the time.

I'd hesitate to say the Defiant was the most heavily armed ship in Starfleet service at the time. At that time, you were getting the newer ships of the line probably starting to come into service, in time for First Contact. Like the Akiras, Steamrunners, Sabers, militarised Galaxies e.t.c. It was a real threat to the Defiant, but note that the Defiant was not exactly going all out. Well neither was the Defiant. But at the end of the day, the Defiant basicly had won the match. And the Lakota is a heck of a lot bigger then the Defiant.

But your right. It shows the abilities of the ship to be upgraded far beyond its original configeration. I think its the TM which says that Starfleet looked at scrapping the Excelessor class as the failure of the Transwarp project had made it somewhat useless. But they were looking at a replacement for the Constitution and given that the rest of the ship was state of the art and a briliant design, they ran with it and havn't looked backed.

Though it appears to be gettign replaced in large part by increasing numbers of Akiras as the main 'ship of the line' in Federation invintory for some reason.

The Ambassador may have been produced in far smaller numbers due to expense and perhaps single purpose design flaws that simply made her less easy to refit and upgrade than the Excelsiors. The Ambassador was most certainly the Consitution of her time, expensive big ship of the line.

So it may boil down to simple economics with say 500 Excelsiors in service that only cost 1 million credits to upgrade per ship

Compared to say 50 Ambassadors at 10 million credits per ship to upgrade.

Quite possibly. Whatever the reson, its clear the Ambasador was built in very small numbers where as its follow on, the Galaxy was built in large numbers. For some reason (of course as always there is an out of universe answer but hey) the Sovereign isn't being built in large numbers either.

Perhaps is a pattern?

Miranda, large numbers.
Constitution, small numbers

(I know that the constitution probably came out before the Miranda but they appeared to have come out so close together its still valid)

Excelesor, large numbers.
Ambasador, small numbers.
Galaxy, Large numbers.
Sovereign, small numbers.

Who knows. Perhaps there are two competeting compinies going for contracts and the smaller of the two can only build smaller numbers of ships or such.

[Uraniun235]

There seems to be an odd pattern in Starfleet design.

First, there were the Constitutions and Mirandas. Then the Excelsiors and Mirandas. Then fast forward to the future. We have Galaxies and Nebulas (Nebulae? ), and now we have Soveriegns and Akiras. The former being a more limited-production vessel, the other being a smaller, more compact form which seems to be produced in greater numbers while having a slightly reduced edge... oh, and it has the torpedo tubes in a structure somewhat separate from the rest of the ship.