Connie/Miranda/Excelsior...better warships than TNG ships?

[RayCav of ASVS]

Not in terms of firepower, but just design...i.e., are they simply designed as better warships?

I honestly believe yes, since I believe strongly in TOS and not in the TNG era.

[Stormbringer]

Not in terms of firepower, but just design...i.e., are they simply designed as better warships?

I honestly believe yes, since I believe strongly in TOS and not in the TNG era.

Undoubtly, they were built to stand up in a fight and have the kind of compartmentalization, redundancy, and armor that one would expect of a proper warship. Shield and firepower however probably don't measure up to well compared to the newer ships.

[Darth Wong]

The old ships were designed by engineers, while the new ones were designed by chimpanzees. Evidence:

1. E-nil is blasted so badly in ST2 that they lose main power and warp drive. They can still fight. The E-D is hit once by a weapon ... ANY weapon, and it is rendered combat-ineffective.
2. Decker's ship is blasted so badly in "Doomsday Machine" that one nacelle is askew. With minor repairs which don't even require a spacewalk, it can still fight. The E-D is tapped on one nacelle by the Bozeman and it explodes.
3. Numerous ships in "The Ultimate Computer" are massively damaged by M-5. Those whose crew survive are still combat-capable. The ship whose crew is killed is heavily damaged, but does NOT explode.
4. In the E-Nil, the Jeffries tube is only used to access transporter controls. Main Engineering is wide-open, with control panels easily accessible. On the E-D, EVERYTHING is accessed through Jeffries tubes.
5. The E-Nil had manual overrides for just about everything. The E-D has manual overrides for pretty much nothing.
6. The E-Nil did not look like a hotel in space. 'Nuff said.

[Patrick Degan]

In the E-Nil, the Jeffries tube is only used to access transporter controls. Main Engineering is wide-open, with control panels easily accessible. On the E-D, EVERYTHING is accessed through Jeffries tubes.

They did have Jeffries tubes in several locations aboard the E-nil and ones which provided access to power circuits and computer linkages, but for the most part, the ship's various componnents and circuitry were indeed easily accessible within large utility rooms, maintenance alcoves, main engineering, and in the corridors, where we often saw technicians performing routine maintenance in various episodes of TOS.

The tubes were by no means as ubiquitous a feature aboard Kirk's ship as they are aboard Picard's.

[Alyeska]

Well, when it comes to outward appearance and practicality, nothing beats the Miranda. Evenly ballanced firepower in just about every direction in a package smaller then a Constitution. Its possible the Constellation class was better, but we never got to see really good close ups of that class.

As to the E-D examples. Those are widely believed to be problems with the first flight of the GCS (which the E-D is part of). Most of those issues have not been imediately apparent in other classes. There is also strong evidence some of them were fixed considering the damage the USS-Galaxy took yet it still shot back. One can also look at the Intrepid class (specifically the damage Voyager took in Year of Hell while still retaining partial combat capabilities).

[Stormbringer]

As to the E-D examples. Those are widely believed to be problems with the first flight of the GCS (which the E-D is part of). Most of those issues have not been imediately apparent in other classes. There is also strong evidence some of them were fixed considering the damage the USS-Galaxy took yet it still shot back. One can also look at the Intrepid class (specifically the damage Voyager took in Year of Hell while still retaining partial combat capabilities).

It doesn appear that they've improved the surviveability of their ships, but still not so much as the old TOS-era ships. But that doesn't change the fact that they never should had built such flawed ships in the first place.

[Vympel]

Remember in BOBW when Riker was offered the Melbourne, which is an Excelsior-class?

"She's a fine ship Will"

Riker rejects it.

Now is it because

- Riker's a pussy (lots of evidence for that)
- The ship's crap (where's the evidence for the Excelsior being crap? As a TOS-movie era ship, it's actually well designed)

So Picard may think that the old ships are better too

Kidding. Pretty flimsy reasoning but the Miranda is just damn cool.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Not in terms of firepower, but just design...i.e., are they simply designed as better warships?

I honestly believe yes, since I believe strongly in TOS and not in the TNG era.

Mirandas are good ships. Probably the best of the lot. Compact, highly durable, good firing arcs, and apparently they're cheap as dirt. There's a reason that class persisted for over eighty years.

Constitution and Excelsior are decent vessels. However, both were sluggish and had limited weaponry and limited firing arcs. Yet they were very durable. Sure they were ungainly and sluggish, but at least they could still shoot until their opponent blows out their power systems and life support.

[Moonshadow]

the TNG ships were screwed up for sure(except the Nebula class. the damn things look tough) but with the newer ships(Akiras, Steamrunners,even the Defiants) i think they learned their lesson from the mistakes they made with the GCS. The TOS ships were tough ass SOBs for sure. Hell if it weren't for the Genesis device detonating, the Reliant could have been salvaged and after a few months in Spacedock, would have been good as new. Also take a look at the Ent-A in ST:VI. It was getting the crap beat out of it , even have a torpedo blow through the saucer, yet it still held together. What pisses me off is how they made the Mirandas look like One-Shot-Wonders in DS9. You would have though the ship would have been upgraded better than that!

[Cpt_Frank]

Mirandas are the best out of them all. Lots of firepower and no wasted room.

[NecronLord]

Well, when it comes to outward appearance and practicality, nothing beats the Miranda. Evenly ballanced firepower in just about every direction in a package smaller then a Constitution. Its possible the Constellation class was better, but we never got to see really good close ups of that class.

As to the E-D examples. Those are widely believed to be problems with the first flight of the GCS (which the E-D is part of). Most of those issues have not been imediately apparent in other classes. There is also strong evidence some of them were fixed considering the damage the USS-Galaxy took yet it still shot back. One can also look at the Intrepid class (specifically the damage Voyager took in Year of Hell while still retaining partial combat capabilities).

character sheilds.

[Parallax]

I keep half expecting to see a sign in the E-D's engineering section saying something like;
"Thankyou for not sneezing near the Warp Core."

Seriously, though - post TOS ships seem to fall apart at the drop of a pin and largely seem to rely on structural forcefields to keep the whole thing together.
As opposed to TOS/Movie era ships which took a beating and just kept on going. Just imagine a Galaxy class taking the effects of the probe from 'Voyage Home'.

"Captain! That signal is screwing with our systems! We're losing ALL power!"
"Huh?"
"Oh, sorry ... needs technobabble explanation.. *insert three or four paragraphs here*"
"Dear god! We're going to lose the integrity fields?! The ship won't even stay together!"

As opposed to the one ship we saw the effects on - ALL power was gone but the ship was still together and they still had time to try putting up a 'solar sail' to keep life support going.

Even the Reliant (as someone else mentioned); it had the tar beaten out of it, with a warp nacelle being blown clear off and massive damage across the whole ship - and it still kept together.
The Enterprise in the same movie - engineering suffed tremendous damage as well as other parts of the ship (computer, bridge, etc) and it was still relatively combat ready. If the E-D had taken the relative amount of damage then it would have blown itself up in that initial strike to engineering.

Dear god, Star Fleet are morons...

[Cpt_Frank]

As opposed to the one ship we saw the effects on - ALL power was gone but the ship was still together and they still had time to try putting up a 'solar sail' to keep life support going

The USS Yorktown from STIV you're talking about?
Indeed that implies that TOS ships didn't need a 'structural integrity field'.

[Vympel]

Not to mention the warp containment field or whatever it's called.

[Guest]

also add the the equation something TNG and later refers to as the Weapons aray, What kinda moron builds a ship that has the mode controling the weapons on the outside or near the outside of the hull. MORONS, thats who.

[Alyeska]

Constellation, Miranda, Constitution, Excelsior. Three are known TOS designs, one is a likely TOS design. They are all military looking ships, the Miranda and Constellation look like they were designed to be compact and lethal while the Consitution and Excelsior had to look of a heavy cruiser, big and intimidating.

Of the newer ships, the Nebula looks fairly well. It is to the GCS what the Miranda is to the Connie. The Nebula is more combat and has that nice weapons pod. Wasn't untill the Defiant and the FC ship before the Feds really had any more warships.

Then in DS9 was saw some of the Kitbashed designs, and two of them really caught me eye.

First is the Centaur. Takes a downsized Excelsior dish and melds it with a Miranda torpedo pod with custom warp engines on the sides. Has almost equal phaser capability to the Miranda thanks to all the Excelsior phaser emiters. Relatively well designed (if not well seen) ship.

The other one is this strange Excelsior modification.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/artic ... 3views.gif
Looks odd, but doesn't have the "cruiser liner" feel of the more modern TNG+ era ships.

[Vympel]

Bet Trekkers would cream their pants if this thing was canon:

"Designed during the relatively turbulent end to the 2360s, the Achilles class became the first battlecruiser design fielded by Starfleet in over 50 years. Its primary mission objectives typically include border patrol and threat interception along the Federation border, carrying out unsupported raids and strikes behind enemy lines, and providing support during large fleet actions.

Features
The Achilles class is equipped with a number of anti-Borg weapons and defense enhancements, most of which were also incorporated into the Prometheus class. These include pulse phaser emitters, quantum torpedoes, ablative armor, and enhanced shield generators. An array of Phalanx microtorpedo launchers are positioned along the dorsal spine of the ship, designed to defend it against smaller escort vessels while the Achilles concentrates on its main target. Impulse and warp drive systems are highly redundant, giving the ship excellent combat survivability. The upgraded impulse systems also allow a high degree of maneuverability for a ship this size, easily outperforming smaller vessels such as the Cardassian Galor and Romulan Raptor classes. The self-sufficiency of the Achilles is also unique for a battlecruiser; typically they are designed to operate out of a shipyard for less than a year. The Achilles has a range of three years, if the need for a mission of that duration should arise.


Background History
The Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on Mars designed and constructed the Achilles in less than two years, borrowing many "off the shelf" technologies from the Galaxy, Sovereign, and Prometheus classes. The U.S.S. Achilles NX-22376 served as a testbed ship and confirmed that the different systems could be successfully integrated. It was not completed in time for the Dominion War; however the second ship off the line, the U.S.S. Imperius, played a key role in a number of battles under the command of Acting Captain Thomas Riker. Several Achilles class ships, including the Achilles itself, have entered service since 2375. They have mostly been stationed along the Federation-Romulan and Federation-Cardassian borders, keeping the tenuous peace in the postwar years."

Don't know how much of this is from a game (some DS9 game, of course) and how much is just made up (the guy who runs this page, whoever he is, seems to make a lot of ships up- unless I'm wrong and I don't know that many of the non-canon sources)

[Alyeska]

Not bad. Anything attacking it head on has a terribly small profile while multi directional weapons on the Fed ship still give it reasonable firepower in the small profile arcs. Anything that attempts to "broadside" (being top or bottom profile) the ship while having a bigger target, will have to cope with much larger amounts of weaponry being fired in return.

A really smart thing would be some sort of phaser cannon in the forward arc that allows the ship to use its forward arc both as a firepower advantage and defensive profile advantage.

[Vympel]

Would be really interested to know what game it's from;

link to the page btw:

http://home.att.net/~starships/list.html

[Stormbringer]

character sheilds.

They don't exist. Don't even try pulling that shitty copout in a serious debate.

[Vympel]

Cheer up I'm sure it was a joke

[Stormbringer]

Cheer up I'm sure it was a joke

I'd bet that it was. The problem is it starts as a joke and sooner or later it becomes the standard response.

Half the debate ons SB.com turn into nothing but crap debate over "character sheilds". I don't want to see that here.

[Solid Snake]

Would be really interested to know what game it's from;

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars
The game really sucks. Its nothing compared to Starfleet Command or BC.

[Knife]

The Miranda is an exellent ship designed for combat, small, compact, with bark and bite. However I have always loved the Excelcior class, they reinforced the connecting fin between the primary hull and the engineering hull and added an extra torpedo launcher in it. It appears to have a larger and more powerful impulse engines for speed and hopefully manuverability as well as larger warp engines.

There is also a varient that is seen time to time on DS9 that is tenitively called the Shelly class that is a more compact version of the Excelcior class that is also very cool. The Centar is another good example of a compact and well designed ship based on the Excelcior.

[Stravo]

Cheer up I'm sure it was a joke

I'd bet that it was. The problem is it starts as a joke and sooner or later it becomes the standard response.

Half the debate ons SB.com turn into nothing but crap debate over "character sheilds". I don't want to see that here.

What about ripped shirts? **ducks out of room**