Your favorite ST Starship design

[Batman]

Hmm...interesting discussion on the DF. That being said, I did mean anything in the OP. If you consider it a starship then by all means pick it.

See?

[FaxModem1]

Man, I do love the Delta Flyer. But I already picked the Nebula and I'm sticking with it.

One thing that always bugged me, that backroom of the DF, where was it? I think they were meant to only have the cockpit and they added the backroom later, but it just looks like it wouldn't fit.

[CaptHawkeye]

To throw it in there, I think the ugliest Federation ship design would have to be Steamrunner and Prometheus. I'm not even going to bring up the kitbash ships, particularly inexcusably bad Excelsior ones.

Those designs are fucked because the two major hallmarks of a Federation ship, the saucer and nacelles, don't jive right or just look weird. The secondary hull isn't as important and is in some cases, disposable.

[El Moose Monstero]

For me, I think it's the Excelsior, but of the non-mainstream ships, I always had a liking for the Centaur and the New Orleans class - the Centaur had nice lines, but the New Orleans had a sort of boxy, going to kick your ass, sort of look to it.

[spaceviking]

I always thought of the new Orleans as the bastard child of the Galaxy and the Intrepid. It is a nice looking ship, but seems something a villain should be flying.

[Stofsk]

To throw it in there, I think the ugliest Federation ship design would have to be Steamrunner and Prometheus. I'm not even going to bring up the kitbash ships, particularly inexcusably bad Excelsior ones.

Those designs are fucked because the two major hallmarks of a Federation ship, the saucer and nacelles, don't jive right or just look weird. The secondary hull isn't as important and is in some cases, disposable.

Yeah. I think the saucer section needs to be... well, a fucking saucer. Not a goddamn garden trowel, which is what the Prometheus looks like. (and Voyager, Equinox and Norway).

[Enigma]

To throw it in there, I think the ugliest Federation ship design would have to be Steamrunner and Prometheus. I'm not even going to bring up the kitbash ships, particularly inexcusably bad Excelsior ones.

Those designs are fucked because the two major hallmarks of a Federation ship, the saucer and nacelles, don't jive right or just look weird. The secondary hull isn't as important and is in some cases, disposable.

Not the Daedalus? I found it particularly ugly.

[Stofsk]

Yeah it's a piece of shit.

One atypical Federation design I quite like is the Runabout. It's large enough to be not-quite a shuttlecraft, but small enough to not-quite be a hero starship. I really like how they were used in DS9's early seasons, and I wish we'd seen more of them.

[Skylon]

Yeah it's a piece of shit.

Without a doubt, and quite frankly that is part of the reason I like the Daedalus (although I would NEVER rank it as a favorite design). I buy it as a pre-Constitution ship design. Considering how often it seems ships of the pre-TOS era ended up lost/destroyed, and not found for 100 years, I almost expect that it look like a clunky SOB.

I like how TOS painted space exploration prior to its era as really damn dangerous. Ships had no contact with Earth, and if they ended up in trouble (as it seems they often did) there was nobody to help them. If TOS had the "westward expansion" allegory, pre-TOS probably was closer to 15th and 16th century exploration in terms of the risks. Another missed opportunity from "Enterprise"....

On a side note about Voyager, I kinda like its early design, before it got the pointless pivoting nacelles: http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm10 ... rnbach.jpg

It somehow looks a little tougher.

[Havok]

Defiant.

With all the Federation threatening XYZs, this is what Starfleet ships would look like.

[Darth Tedious]

I gotta say the original Borg cube. For reasons discussed in the TNG BD thread:

Can't wait to see the Borg cube. That thing was an ugly piece of shit, but the detail...

Oh yeah, the thing is practically greebles in cube form

And because it's a NON-STREAMLINED, DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT AERODYNAMICS BECAUSE WE'RE SPACEFARING CONFIGURATION.

[the atom]

I gotta say either the Sovereign or Prometheus for me. The Sovereign incorporates all the classic elements of Federation ships while taking it in a new direction at the same time. The Prometheus on the other hand does away with all the the soft and docile features you see in early TNG era ships and goes for a nice sharp angular look that recalls a Star Destroyer.

[Flameblade]

The Defiant, both for the blocky-yet-graceful aesthetics of a warship designed by a mostly-surveying oriented fleet, and for the fact of being a warship, and thus representing the first concessions to the reality of the galaxy since Roddenberry's fever-dream utopia broke.

[Lord Pounder]

Ferengi D'Kora Class marauder. Armed with everything the Ferengi can get their hands on. A tough class of ship capable of fighting a Galaxy Class to a halt.

[Enigma]

Ferengi D'Kora Class marauder. Armed with everything the Ferengi can get their hands on. A tough class of ship capable of fighting a Galaxy Class to a halt.

In TNG, the Galaxy could also be knocked about by a single Galor class Cardassian warship. Galaxy was pretty weak in the series.

[Uraniun235]

Ferengi D'Kora Class marauder. Armed with everything the Ferengi can get their hands on. A tough class of ship capable of fighting a Galaxy Class to a halt.

In TNG, the Galaxy could also be knocked about by a single Galor class Cardassian warship. Galaxy was pretty weak in the series.

Er, really? In The Wounded, they take several hits from a Galor, sustain negligible damage, and quickly disable the Galor's weapons shields in a single salvo two salvos. When did we see a single Galor pose a serious threat to the Enterprise?

I'd also point out that in the one instance a D'Kora really went all-out against the Enterprise, the Enterprise was herself sluggish to respond (because they initially mistook it as a false sensor reading) and then unable to return fire because of the (incredibly dumb) wargames modifications. We don't know how that fight would have played out if the Enterprise had responded normally.


(EDITED as I misremembered the Wounded battle.)

[CaptHawkeye]

Galaxy Class didn't make a very impressive showing in Generations either. Enterprise D really got manhandled badly by dramatic convenience between the TV show and movie.

Then again Sovereign didn't do much better between First Contact and Insurrection. They went from "shrugs off Borg weapons" to "gets fucked by backwater villain of the week". Star Trek's writers really just never placed consistency very high on their priorities.

[the atom]

To my knowledge the Ent-E only ever took a single shot from to cube, so I wouldn't exactly say it ever 'shrugged off Borg weapons'.

[CaptHawkeye]

Single hits were literally annihilating Federation ships left and right. When Enterprise flew in it definitely took a burst of fire that on the bridge registered as nothing. This is a long way from Enterprise D running for its dear life after being shot at once by a cube.

[Stofsk]

Yeah but the Enterprise-E was fresh to the battle; a lot of those remaining ships had been conducting a running defence for ages before she showed up. And once she did, the battle was over quickly thanks to Picard's superpowers.

I can see the Enterprise-E being so fresh to the battle that it could withstand more of what a lot of other ships couldn't due to battle fatigue and attrition. Also I don't remember Insurrection well, but IIRC the son'a were supposed to be this new power or empire or something, and their ships were bigger than the Enterprise-E was. Characterising them as 'backwater villains of the week' doesn't seem fair, but mainly because backwater implies something different to what we see. Incidentally, while we're on the subject of the Enterprise-D being a light weight, 'Best of Both Worlds' is my favourite counter example to that. She spends most of those two episodes getting the shit kicked out of her but she still saves the day. It's just unfortunate that there's the Generations example of her getting ganked by a shitheap 20 year old bird of prey - which only happened due to the bad guys being tricksy (edit- and yes, the characters coming down with a serious case of the stupids).

[Enigma]

Ferengi D'Kora Class marauder. Armed with everything the Ferengi can get their hands on. A tough class of ship capable of fighting a Galaxy Class to a halt.

In TNG, the Galaxy could also be knocked about by a single Galor class Cardassian warship. Galaxy was pretty weak in the series.

Er, really? In The Wounded, they take several hits from a Galor, sustain negligible damage, and quickly disable the Galor's weapons shields in a single salvo two salvos. When did we see a single Galor pose a serious threat to the Enterprise?

I'd also point out that in the one instance a D'Kora really went all-out against the Enterprise, the Enterprise was herself sluggish to respond (because they initially mistook it as a false sensor reading) and then unable to return fire because of the (incredibly dumb) wargames modifications. We don't know how that fight would have played out if the Enterprise had responded normally.


(EDITED as I misremembered the Wounded battle.)

As I recall, the Galor fired on the Enterprise and knocked its shields down by a third. Picard just sat there until forced to withdraw. Don't remember too much of it only remembering that a single shot\volley\salvo took a chunk of the E-D's shields. We don't know how the Galaxy class would have fared against a Galor or Keldon in combat AFAIK before the Dominion War. During the war it kicked ass but then again they could have been upgraded by then.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah but the Enterprise-E was fresh to the battle; a lot of those remaining ships had been conducting a running defence for ages before she showed up. And once she did, the battle was over quickly thanks to Picard's superpowers.

I can see the Enterprise-E being so fresh to the battle that it could withstand more of what a lot of other ships couldn't due to battle fatigue and attrition. Also I don't remember Insurrection well, but IIRC the son'a were supposed to be this new power or empire or something, and their ships were bigger than the Enterprise-E was. Characterising them as 'backwater villains of the week' doesn't seem fair, but mainly because backwater implies something different to what we see. Incidentally, while we're on the subject of the Enterprise-D being a light weight, 'Best of Both Worlds' is my favourite counter example to that. She spends most of those two episodes getting the shit kicked out of her but she still saves the day. It's just unfortunate that there's the Generations example of her getting ganked by a shitheap 20 year old bird of prey - which only happened due to the bad guys being tricksy (edit- and yes, the characters coming down with a serious case of the stupids).

I think the Generations actually shows the Galaxy class as really powerful. The Klingons, as I recall, pretty much find the idea of engaging it without their trick absurd, and despite taking something like a dozen hits (I'm not sure how many) through its shields, half the ship actually lands intact. And didn't it blast the Bird of Prey with one shot (granted after they got it to drop its shields)?

Not bad at all.

[Enigma]

Yeah but the E-A took a hell of a lot more beating than E-D before suffering a core breach (I think that was what Spock averted AFAIK) whereas E-D warp core wasn't salvageable and the secondary hull had to be abandoned. Then there was that cloaked BoP in TUC that managed to seriously bloody the E-A and yet the E-A survived the encounter (the scenario which Generations practically ripped off. ).

[The Romulan Republic]

Was it a core breach or just the engines not working in Wrath of Kahn?

Either way, the Enterprise A vs the Bird of Prey in The Undiscovered Country may have taken less damage, but it also had functional shields did it not?

[CaptHawkeye]

Spock was trying to get the warp core back online not prevent a breach. Honestly all of the Galaxy Class's problems basically boiled down the warp core frequently being a "ticking time bomb" plot device. It's stupid because their were better ways to handle something like that.

"We've got 5 minutes till a warp core breach there's nothing I can do."

Replace with...

"Fires in the torpedo magazine are out of control we've got 5 minutes until the containment field fails there's nothing I can do."