StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Here you can take note, vent about and generally discuss each of the starship classes we have seen from TOS to present.

Generally here are the criteria which class was the most/least successful we have seen based on criteria liek combat effectivness, service life, overall effectiveness in terms of its mission parameters.

As an example,

I would argue that the most successful class of Federation starships is the Excelsior class. It has been serving front line duty for nearly a century, and even now, well past her expected service life she can still be upgraded to give a bloody nose to a Federation dedicated warship (The Defiant in Paradaise lost)

The least succesful could arguably be the Galaxy class. With its obvious warp core issues, early questionble combat effectiveness (losing to outdated Klingon BoP's in Rascals, being fought to a standstill by several alien of the week starships, losing to a 50 yo BoP causing it to crash to the planet and losing the vessel (Generations), exploding after exposure to alien viruses (Iconian Virus Ep.) Defeated by three Jem Hadar fighers in a handful of minutes. You get the picture.)
In the Galaxy's defense, with the appearance of the so called "War Galaxies" the ships became far more formidable fighters. However other starships have moved to the fore in terms of military power (Defiants, Sovereigns) putting the Galaxies in the position of a flawed but workable design. The service life of the Galaxy was supposed to be 100 years, yet 20 years into their service life they seem to be falling behind as a front line ship.


Anyone have thoughts or suggestions, disagree, etc?

Most Successful in my humble opinion is the miranda class,been around longer then excelsior class,Is still a decent enough light cruiser to be used in fleet engagements and it is TOS era movie coolness.

Least Successful would have to be the Oberth,I mean look at it.....nuff said.

The Soverigen-class is the best, hands down. The worst is probably the Saber-class.

Theoretically, if the Galaxies were upgraded with the latest technology, by virtue of their greater volume they should be able to bloody even a Soveriegn's nose.

Personally, I think the Ambassador class is probably the least successful of them all. We see them a handful of times in TNG and then they're more or less never heard from again. OTOH, whenever we see a "future Federation", there's been some Galaxy or Galaxy variant around... see "All Good Things", as well as that episode where Voyager crashed into the ice planet. Plus, they were used extensively during the Dominion War. It's likely that the Galaxy class will go on to a long lifespan of service while the Ambassador class seems to almost already have been canned.

Definately with you on the Excelsior class, any ship that is still in service for 100 years and can contribute to a major war whilst still being able to maintain exploration and science functions has got to be a success.

The least successful? Probably the New Orleans class, I mean, for what was supposed to be an early Akira, we saw one ship at Wolf 359. That was it. I mean, yes it was a kitbash, but it wasnt a bad looking one. Out of the major classes, I'm not sure, I'd hate to point fingers at the Galaxy, especially considering it's plentiful supply in the war, but in it's early form, then the ship blew up more times than I can remember.

Something tells me Akiraprise will be more powerful than it's later incarnations.

Gandalf wrote:Something tells me Akiraprise will be more powerful than it's later incarnations.

More powerful than the later Enterprises... or the Akira-class??

Miranda beats the Excelsior in terms of longevity- I'd be wary of that as an indicator of 'success' though- the USSR kept it's ships in service long after any reasonable power would've had them scrapped- there's no indication that the Miranda made a militarily significant contribution- it may well have been fodder, just like a Soviet 1st generation SSN would've been if war had come in 1989.

The most succesful was the Excelsior. The Miranda might have been around longer, but we see Excelsiors in the DS9 era that can take on the Defiant. All the Miranda's at that time were no better than cannon fodder.

Least succesful, I have to go with the Oberth

Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Was the Excelsior class in general successful in combat against a similar tonnage of Dominion vessels, or were they really functioning as an extra set of shields and hulls to keep the Dominion busy while the newer warships did the dirty work? Starfleet, for an organization that professes such a deep concern for people, certainly seems to have no qualms about throwing away lives onboard obsolete vessels in combat with modern warships.

Kerneth wrote:Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Yes, but its logical to assume that other Excelsiors recieved similar upgrades when the war broke out. Any ship thats been in service as long as the Excelsior or Miranda is going to be upgraded as necessary, it just seems that Excelsiors are far easier to upgrade.

Sharp-kun wrote:

Kerneth wrote:Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Yes, but its logical to assume that other Excelsiors recieved similar upgrades when the war broke out. Any ship thats been in service as long as the Excelsior or Miranda is going to be upgraded as necessary, it just seems that Excelsiors are far easier to upgrade.

I doubt they upgraded many Excelsiors to Lakota standart it was stated they could build a defiant with the same resources.

Crazedwraith wrote:

Sharp-kun wrote:

Kerneth wrote:Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Yes, but its logical to assume that other Excelsiors recieved similar upgrades when the war broke out. Any ship thats been in service as long as the Excelsior or Miranda is going to be upgraded as necessary, it just seems that Excelsiors are far easier to upgrade.

I doubt they upgraded many Excelsiors to Lakota standart it was stated they could build a defiant with the same resources.

Not necessarily as far as the Lakota, but it showed how far that class could be pushed. Even considering that the Miranda is older, we never see a Miranda thats been pushed close to that level.

Sharp-kun wrote:

Kerneth wrote:Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Yes, but its logical to assume that other Excelsiors recieved similar upgrades when the war broke out. Any ship thats been in service as long as the Excelsior or Miranda is going to be upgraded as necessary, it just seems that Excelsiors are far easier to upgrade.

It was stated that they could build a Defiant class ship for less money/resources and in less time than it took to upgrade an Excelsior to the Lakota subclass. It is logical to assume they would leave their Excelsiors as is and build more Defiants.

I would like to comment on how many people here are bagging on the Oberth class starship. I would not consider it unsuccessful, think about it it has been around since the TOS movie era and is around in the TNG and DS9 era. It is not a warship but purely a research vessel, some speculate the Nova class is its replacement which would speak great volumes of its success. For the Starfleet to keep any design in service for so long when they have a huge selection of (newer) ship classes compared to what we are given from other Trek races.
My picks are
Most Successful:Excelsior-it has been around along time and never fully replaced, still seeing frontline duty. (2nd Runner Up- Intrepid~Hey they can take on Borg cubes alone and hold their own )
Least Successful:Ambassador-I believe it should have replaced the Excelsior class but failed, was quickly replaced by the Galaxy class design.

I agree with Death from the Sea, the Oberth is obviously a very succesful design. Where the Exclesior was eventually replaced by the Ambassador and Galaxy class the Oberth was still the mainstay of the science vessel fleet until the coming of the Nova class in Voyager era.

I'm surprised that I haven't received any criticsim for nominating the Galaxy as a least successful design. But the thread is still young.

Death from the Sea wrote:

Sharp-kun wrote:

Kerneth wrote:Admittedly, I missed most of DS9's run because of various factors, but wasn't there only ONE Excelsior, the Lakota, that could take on the Defiant?

Yes, but its logical to assume that other Excelsiors recieved similar upgrades when the war broke out. Any ship thats been in service as long as the Excelsior or Miranda is going to be upgraded as necessary, it just seems that Excelsiors are far easier to upgrade.

It was stated that they could build a Defiant class ship for less money/resources and in less time than it took to upgrade an Excelsior to the Lakota subclass. It is logical to assume they would leave their Excelsiors as is and build more Defiants.

Perhaps, but I think still think some upgrades would be done, not to every ship obviously thouhj. Where was the cost stated again?

Cost isn't really the issue here though. Its about which class of ship was better. We see that an Excelsior can be upgraded to take on Defiant class vessels, no small feat. Its a design thats shown that it can still take on the newest ships with a few upgrades. The Miranda has no such record.

Sharp-kun wrote:Perhaps, but I think still think some upgrades would be done, not to every ship obviously thouhj. Where was the cost stated again?

In the 4th season episode "Paradise Lost".

Cost isn't really the issue here though. Its about which class of ship was better. We see that an Excelsior can be upgraded to take on Defiant class vessels, no small feat. Its a design thats shown that it can still take on the newest ships with a few upgrades. The Miranda has no such record.

While I agree the Excelsior class is superior to the Miranda class, the issue I am trying to prove is that more Excelsiors were not upgraded. On top of the cost you also have the time issue, which would be even more important during a time of conflict. If it takes X amount of time to build a Defiant that adds to the total ship count and Y amount of time to upgrade an Excelsior but leaves the ship count the same. If { X < Y } then it makes much more sense to just build new ships, while leaving all the other ships on the frontline, instead of taking ships out of action for a period of time weakening your forces.
(edit)By the way you are contradicting your self calling the upgrades no small feat and then turning around and trivializing them calling them a "few upgrades". The Lakota upgrade was a major overhaul.

Death from the Sea wrote:(edit)By the way you are contradicting your self calling the upgrades no small feat and then turning around and trivializing them calling them a "few upgrades". The Lakota upgrade was a major overhaul.

They were fundamentally a few upgrades, the hull remained the same for example. It was the weapons that got all the work. A major overhaul is something like the refit of the original Enterprise.

Sharp-kun wrote: They were fundamentally a few upgrades, the hull remained the same for example. It was the weapons that got all the work. A major overhaul is something like the refit of the original Enterprise.

Just because it looks the same from the outside doesn't mean the inside is the same. Upgrades to the phasers, shields, sensors and propulsion systems would be a pretty big job.

Crazedwraith wrote:I doubt they upgraded many Excelsiors to Lakota standart it was stated they could build a defiant with the same resources.

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.

The Excelsior and Miranda obviously make the list for very sucesful designs. It is logical that these ships recieved upgrades over the years. Not all recieved upgrades such as the Lokota got, but they had to be upgraded to handle new technology and the likes. Both ships seem highly adaptable, good hull lives, and as the series was expanded the ships were relatively cheap.

The Galaxy does NOT make the bad design. Having a bad first flight of a ship does not make a bad design. DS9 clearly shows the Galaxy class has overcome many of its problems and has served as a fairly good backbone to the fleet. The Ambassador is the one that has failed. It was to much to late. A costly ship designed built to long after the Excelsior design started fading and far to soon to the Galaxy class (which was starting development halfway through the Ambassador's life). With the Excelsior still serving fairly well and the future Galaxy class comming online the Ambassador class was cut short and thats why we see so few of them.

The New Orleans is also close on this list. The advantage this ship shares is that it was a pathfinder design that was used for the Galaxy.

There is one that people didn't look on. The Constellation class. For a ship that should seemingly fill an important role between the Excelsior and Miranda and uses the same basic hull components. It was not built in large numbers and these ships did not stay in service for the same duration. Indications are this ship was even designed well AFTER the TOS era meaning it was an old design from the start and it ended up failing badly. I expect competition against the early Chenyne's effectively killed the design.

I tend to think of the Ambassador as being a stopgap measure, not a strictly unsuccessful class.

The Excelsior class was nearing the end of its useful life, and Starfleet had made numerous advances in technology. Additionally, they needed a new class of warship to supplement the Excelsior, which lacked superiority over enemy vessels of the time period.

The Ambassador, in many ways, was a testbed for the Galaxy class. It has the new strip phaser banks, more modern warp nacelles, and is a bigger, sturdier, more heavily-armored vessel than the Excelsior. Then the Galaxy and Nebula projects began bearing fruit and Ambassador construction was placed on hold. We also don't know how many Ambassadors were lost in the Cardassian war and other minor conflicts; it's been amply demonstrated that the Federation will put up with an enormous amount of provocation from various races before finally responding with aggressive actions.

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.

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.

Well, I have to concede since I just caught myself starting to argue that we don't know how long the intended lifespan of the Ambassador class was, and that it may not have been meant as a stopgap and just turned out that way.

I guess I just see it as such a better basic design than the damn Galaxy that I hate to see it considered an abject failure

The Ambassador was most definately a stopgap. This is obvious. The fact that so few were built and the design discontinued proves this. However, we must also face the fact that the Ambassador design was also used for the Federation flagship. This means the design was NOT intended as a stopgap. This speaks of a design failure. We already know at one point the design was altered. Its probable that the design was expensive for the time and relatively few were built. Furthermore a problem in the design hindered full fleet deployment. The problem is eventualy fixed and an altered (but visualy near identical design) is deployed. Problem is the New Orleans and Cheyne class ships are entering service as well as the Galaxy project starting to take shape. With the unexpected continued usefulness of the Excelsior class also occuring the Ambassador class suddenly finds itself in a bind. The already troubled ship series is quietly discontinued and only a handful see service into the TNG era.