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Alyeska, have we ever seen an Ambassador in any Trek episode other than Yesterday's Enterprise? I can't recall.

I know we have, but only because we've seen the Yamaguchi subtype.

Stravo wrote:Alyeska, have we ever seen an Ambassador in any Trek episode other than Yesterday's Enterprise? I can't recall.

Redemption PT2 (The ship Riker commanded) and Emissary DS9.

Also Preemptive Strike, I think.

The Connie! from back in the day when an uncontrolled fart wouldnt set off the warp core.

Stravo wrote:My problem with Ambassador as a stop gag is that one of them was an Enterprise, the flagship of the fleet which we have seen always happens to be the mainstay and most advanced ship in the fleet, so the Ambassador at one point had the place of the Exclesior and Galaxy. A fleet does not invest in frontline duty capital ships with stopgags nor make them the flagships.

Enterprise isn't always the flagship though, USS Excelsior was the Flagship IIRC when the E-A was rolled out.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Stravo wrote:My problem with Ambassador as a stop gag is that one of them was an Enterprise, the flagship of the fleet which we have seen always happens to be the mainstay and most advanced ship in the fleet, so the Ambassador at one point had the place of the Exclesior and Galaxy. A fleet does not invest in frontline duty capital ships with stopgags nor make them the flagships.

Enterprise isn't always the flagship though, USS Excelsior was the Flagship IIRC when the E-A was rolled out.

Is that TRUE? I always thought the Enterprise was always the flagship. When the Ent-D went down the Sovereign next in line for production was immediately renamed Enterprise because Starfleet (supposedly) always has an Enterprise in service.

I'd have to say Nebula class - they've got Galaxy tech but are more versatile because of the removable section. And they seem to have been the backbone of the fleet for decades. They're also more compact - presumably a little harder to hit.

Stravo wrote:Is that TRUE? I always thought the Enterprise was always the flagship. When the Ent-D went down the Sovereign next in line for production was immediately renamed Enterprise because Starfleet (supposedly) always has an Enterprise in service.

Well From what I remember in Star Trek VI, Captain Sulu was captain of the Flagship Excelsior when the Enterprise A was first deployed.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Stravo wrote:Is that TRUE? I always thought the Enterprise was always the flagship. When the Ent-D went down the Sovereign next in line for production was immediately renamed Enterprise because Starfleet (supposedly) always has an Enterprise in service.

Well From what I remember in Star Trek VI, Captain Sulu was captain of the Flagship Excelsior when the Enterprise A was first deployed.

The Enterprise-A was unveiled in Star Trek IV. Its first onscreen mission (and the first ever, IIRC) was the trip to Nimbus III in Star Trek V. Sulu was still a pilot on the E-A in Star Trek V.

Metrion Cascade wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Stravo wrote:Is that TRUE? I always thought the Enterprise was always the flagship. When the Ent-D went down the Sovereign next in line for production was immediately renamed Enterprise because Starfleet (supposedly) always has an Enterprise in service.

Well From what I remember in Star Trek VI, Captain Sulu was captain of the Flagship Excelsior when the Enterprise A was first deployed.

The Enterprise-A was unveiled in Star Trek IV. Its first onscreen mission (and the first ever, IIRC) was the trip to Nimbus III in Star Trek V. Sulu was still a pilot on the E-A in Star Trek V.

Pardon my gaffe, I meant to say after it was REdeployed in st6, not first deployed. I still dont think the E-A was ever the Federation flag though.

[quote='Macross']But what about time considerations? I would probably be alot quicker to upgrade a fleet of Excelsiors then it would be to build entire new ships.[/quote]

Considering that the Lakota spec Excelsior refit replaced nearly all major systems, and that the Excels IIRC are slightly bigger/more volumous than the Defiants, I can easily see refitting the Excels to Lakota spec or near Lakota spec as more time consuming than building a fresh Defiant.

Just look at what needed to be swapped out:

-New Impulse drives
-New shield grid
-New phaser systems
-New quantum torped tubes
-New sensor systems
-Likely new internal power and data transfer subsystems to allow other new systems to operate at max efficiency
-Possibly new warp core for extra power and or easier training of cadets (IIRC Lakota was originally dreamt up to provide cadets first hand/on the job training with new Starfleet systems)

So basically all you have left of the standard Excelsior after the refit is the same basic exterior shape. The same basic exterior shape that you have to spend time, quite a bit likley, figureing out how to shoe horn in all the new systems into.

Added together, I would think that Starfleet likley upgraded the Excels to the Lakota spec if:
a) they were already refitting/repairing a stock Excelsior
b) they had the time to spend doing so rather than rushing the badly needed ship out of refit/repair and back on the frontlines

Otherwise, they would concentrate on building up Defiants as:
a) you don't deliberately weaken your frontlines by pulling the Excels off of it for refit
b) you get a brand new ship that is infinately better suited for frontline combat
c) you wind up spending near the same ammount of resources and time anyway

As for the most successful class, I would have to nominate the Excelsior. She was the main ship of the fleet from the end of the TMP era up to early DS9, and was still a respectable threat during the Dominion war, wich says something about a 100 year old design. Also have to say the Oberth, as it was more than adaquate in its neiche in Starfleet to last over 100 years before anyone decided it was time to get a new design.

As for least successful, I would have to nominate the Ambassador. For whatever reason, such a large and advanced design was only used in a handful of numbers and was barely seen in TNG and beyond eras. For a ship that is only one step down from the Galaxy class and with upgrades would be nearly the same tech wise, it would seem to show that it failed for some reason in my mind at least.

Why would the Excelsiors require a new impulse drive? Geordi said as much in Relics that impulse power hasn't changed much in the past two centuries.

Plus, I imagine not all the Excelsiors would be able to recieve the Lakota-refit... wasn't the Lakota one of the newer-type Excelsiors like the Ent-B with the stardrive hull fins and the extra impulse engines strapped on the saucer?

Stravo wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Stravo wrote:My problem with Ambassador as a stop gag is that one of them was an Enterprise, the flagship of the fleet which we have seen always happens to be the mainstay and most advanced ship in the fleet, so the Ambassador at one point had the place of the Exclesior and Galaxy. A fleet does not invest in frontline duty capital ships with stopgags nor make them the flagships.

Enterprise isn't always the flagship though, USS Excelsior was the Flagship IIRC when the E-A was rolled out.

Is that TRUE? I always thought the Enterprise was always the flagship. When the Ent-D went down the Sovereign next in line for production was immediately renamed Enterprise because Starfleet (supposedly) always has an Enterprise in service.

The E-C was destroyed ~20 years (I can't remember exactly) before "Yesterday's Enterprise", when the E-D was only 3 years old. So there was a considerable gap between the C and the D--though I suppose it's possible that by the time the C went down, the Galaxy class was already on the drawing board and they decided to assign the 1701-D number to one of the planned spacecraft. IIRC, the Galaxy spent an exceptionally long time in planning before the first prototype was built.

Uraniun235 wrote:Why would the Excelsiors require a new impulse drive? Geordi said as much in Relics that impulse power hasn't changed much in the past two centuries.

Because I am assuming that the lion's share of Excels (going from all on screen evidence), are of the USS Excelsior overall hull form, not the USS Enterprise B hull form. The only time we see the different hull form is in the USS Lakota and the USS Enterprise B. Hence, I think that this hull type was either very rare or there are a hell of a lot more of the USS Excelsior hull types still in service as opposed to the Ent-B one.

Hence, MOST Excels undergoing the refit to Lakota spec will need NEW IMPULSE DRIVES and fairly extensive restructureing of their aft saucer section to handle them.

Uraniun235 wrote:Plus, I imagine not all the Excelsiors would be able to recieve the Lakota-refit... wasn't the Lakota one of the newer-type Excelsiors like the Ent-B with the stardrive hull fins and the extra impulse engines strapped on the saucer?

Then this either limits the refit to a very limited number of hulls still on active duty (as the Lakota was the only quad impulse driven Excel varient shown in DS9 era, and the only canon one aside from the Ent-B) hence limiting their true utility as only a handful of refitted Excels to Lakota spec is almost a waste of resources, or it makes impulse refit a definate consideration to think about when upgrading Excels to the Lakota spec as it requires virtually rebuilding most of the aft primary hull of an Excel.

I'll go with the Excellsior, mind you I am still trying to figure out what had to happen to that one Excellsior for it to be stripped of arms, decommissioned and then refitted as a gambling ship USS Hefner.....

Ok, and the Orion bridge bunnys all dressed up like bunny's.....

wait that never happened in real trek, just in PBMs, TGODs and a series of fanfictions....

Note also that the Lakota specs would require modification to the regular Excelsior-type nacelles, plus extensive modification to the stardrive section. It seems highly unlikely that they would so vastly rework the Excelsiors for this.

Hence, MOST Excels undergoing the refit to Lakota spec will need NEW IMPULSE DRIVES and fairly extensive restructureing of their aft saucer section to handle them.

Who says they're all going to be bumped up to "Lakota spec"? Maybe all Starfleet wanted to do was to replace Excelsior systems with modern versions, i.e. torp tubes/phasers/shields, rather than rework existing Excelsiors into the Ent-B/Lakota hull type.

I kinda disagree with the Galaxy Class being so slated. The Galaxy class was build to be an explorer and science vessel and it does excel in those areas. I don't think it was ever supposed to be involved in war, the occasional fight maybe but not full scale war. At the time the Galaxy was designed the Federation was between wars and nievely thought they'd got that area covered. The War Galaxy makes up for the deficiencies of the normal Galaxy, much in the same way that Lakota type refits to the Excelsior Class makes up for it's defiencies.

For crappiest ship i'd vote for the Prometheus(sp). It's a fucking stiupid idea and i think the designers must have been fans of the 80's movie The Ice Pirates.

Lord Pounder wrote:I kinda disagree with the Galaxy Class being so slated. The Galaxy class was build to be an explorer and science vessel and it does excel in those areas. I don't think it was ever supposed to be involved in war, the occasional fight maybe but not full scale war. At the time the Galaxy was designed the Federation was between wars and nievely thought they'd got that area covered. The War Galaxy makes up for the deficiencies of the normal Galaxy, much in the same way that Lakota type refits to the Excelsior Class makes up for it's defiencies.

in ST:Generations the Duras sisters refer to the Galaxy Class as a very powerful ship, making one or two comments regarding that their Bird of Prey, a dedicated warship, would be no match.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Lord Pounder wrote:I kinda disagree with the Galaxy Class being so slated. The Galaxy class was build to be an explorer and science vessel and it does excel in those areas. I don't think it was ever supposed to be involved in war, the occasional fight maybe but not full scale war. At the time the Galaxy was designed the Federation was between wars and nievely thought they'd got that area covered. The War Galaxy makes up for the deficiencies of the normal Galaxy, much in the same way that Lakota type refits to the Excelsior Class makes up for it's defiencies.

in ST:Generations the Duras sisters refer to the Galaxy Class as a very powerful ship, making one or two comments regarding that their Bird of Prey, a dedicated warship, would be no match.

Thats merely a matter of size. The First Flight Galaxy was impressive, but mostly on paper. 1-1 against smaller ships it could do quite well. It was the War Galaxy upgrade that really fixed the Galaxy design. Even better is the fact that the design continued in production after the upgrade. Unfortanetly it seems the Ambassador design was abandoned shortly after its upgrade.

Alyeska wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Lord Pounder wrote:I kinda disagree with the Galaxy Class being so slated. The Galaxy class was build to be an explorer and science vessel and it does excel in those areas. I don't think it was ever supposed to be involved in war, the occasional fight maybe but not full scale war. At the time the Galaxy was designed the Federation was between wars and nievely thought they'd got that area covered. The War Galaxy makes up for the deficiencies of the normal Galaxy, much in the same way that Lakota type refits to the Excelsior Class makes up for it's defiencies.

in ST:Generations the Duras sisters refer to the Galaxy Class as a very powerful ship, making one or two comments regarding that their Bird of Prey, a dedicated warship, would be no match.

Thats merely a matter of size. The First Flight Galaxy was impressive, but mostly on paper. 1-1 against smaller ships it could do quite well. It was the War Galaxy upgrade that really fixed the Galaxy design. Even better is the fact that the design continued in production after the upgrade. Unfortanetly it seems the Ambassador design was abandoned shortly after its upgrade.

It was a Bird of Prey. A single ship of the B'Rel class can't stand up to any modern Starfleet ship, dedicated warship or not.

Still, I think the point the Duras sisters were triyng to make is that the GCS was one of the more powerful ships they could potentially face and that they stood no chance.

Even though the BoP had a massive advantage handed to it? Actually 2 advantages, finding out how to negate the Enterprises Shields and fighting a ship commanded by Riker.

Lord Pounder wrote:Even though the BoP had a massive advantage handed to it? Actually 2 advantages, finding out how to negate the Enterprises Shields and fighting a ship commanded by Riker.

Had I been commanding the E-D rather then Riker I could have defeated the Duras Sisters in less then ten seconds. First Contact would have involved the E-D, not the Sovereign class.

Lord Pounder wrote:Even though the BoP had a massive advantage handed to it? Actually 2 advantages, finding out how to negate the Enterprises Shields and fighting a ship commanded by Riker.

They didnt know they had those advantages prior to stating their inhibitions about taking on the E-D.