Give Federation Ships Refits

posted on October 20th, 2009, 11:00 pm

Yeah, weird... Though, I suppose they were probably Battleship-type when they first came out. Maybe the weapons still count them as that, since they haven't really changed that much over the years...

I believe the exact designation was Heavy Battlecruiser... but yes that's when the Excelsior was in its prime.

posted on October 21st, 2009, 7:51 pm

Edit:  Dom and I just checked out the ODFs again for the excelsior.  Apparently the excelsior has battleship stats?  After milling through several weapon odfs, it's clear that the original excelsior takes only 60% damage to pulse weapons, and always gets hit by torpedoes.  So technically, its considered a battleship.....with the speed of a saber...

Mal, if you look at the ship builds from an end game it's classified as a destroyer. Moreover, it's odf file should say basic destroyer movement...or something along those lines. I haven't checked yet.

The Excelsior's ship type was never actually mentioned on the big screen, but for all intents and purposes I consider it a cruiser since it follows the Constitution Class lineage which is classified as
a Class I Heavy Cruiser.

Ever watch ST: III? Look at the computer readout when chekov's yapping about a lifeform being in Spock's quarters.

posted on October 21st, 2009, 8:47 pm

Mal, if you look at the ship builds from an end game it's classified as a destroyer. Moreover, it's odf file should say basic destroyer movement...or something along those lines. I haven't checked yet.

The Excelsior's ship type was never actually mentioned on the big screen, but for all intents and purposes I consider it a cruiser since it follows the Constitution Class lineage which is classified as
a Class I Heavy Cruiser.

Ever watch ST: III? Look at the computer readout when chekov's yapping about a lifeform being in Spock's quarters.

It's a battleship. The only thing that classifies it as a destroyer is the Admiral's Log, which means nothing in game terms .

posted on October 21st, 2009, 8:51 pm

Excelsior and Constitution Class are seperate ships entirely, with no similarity exept the basic 'Saucer-Engineering-Nacelle' layout...

posted on October 21st, 2009, 9:03 pm

I think you're missing the point of why we posted what we did, Constellation.

I completely agree with you from a canon perspective that the original excelsior should be considered a cruiser.  Stat wise it's similar to the intrepid, which is why I first posted initially that it is a cruiser. 

And Dom just explained that the listing of destroyer only refers to where it is located in the admiral's log (he always posts before I can finish! >:()  It could say "wadda wadda bing bang" in terms of gameplay.   For example, the canaveral's listing is "special", so that is where it is listed in the admiral's log.  That's all it does.

The reason for its "battleship" designation is already mentioned in my other post.  Those two gameplay aspects are what put ships into their categories, and 95% percent of the ships in Fleet Ops follow this, and the ones that don't have specific passive abilities that change their torpedo miss rate or damage recieved by pulse weapons.

That's why we said it was weird.  It feels much more like a cruiser, but it has the attributes given to battleships.  That's why we were surprised.

So feel free to think of it as a cruiser (I think I still will), but know that it will always get hit by torpedoes, and it will only take 60% damage from pulse weapons, just like a battleship would.

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 8:53 am

Remember, back in the old Excel's day, it was their Galaxy-class.  The biggest, most bad-ass thing that Starfleet had ever shoved out of spacedock.  Loaded with the newest and most powerful systems they had available, and assigned to long-range patrol, unsupported.  Entirely because an Excel could handle herself against nearly any threat in her day.

Cruisers haven't become the size of battleships, but yes, battleships have grown.  However, the Excelsior could be considered a 'light battleship'.  She's just old, and her guts weren't designed to handle being upgraded far enough to be a frontline warship anymore.

She's no K'tinga.

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 10:42 am

Still, there is a weapon, passive or special, Klingon or Romulan, (I honestly can't remember right now) whose target are Destroyers, and it does affect the Excelsior, but not the Exc-II. It surprised me, so I asked if said special or weapon was bugged and got the answer that it was "working as intended", that is, affecting only Destroyers.

So, to me, the Warp-in Excelsior in Fleet Ops is a Destroyer.

May be it's defined in a somewhat blurry way, and sometimes works/reacts as Destroyer, and sometimes as Battleship?

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 1:24 pm

it sounds like a bug it should be a cruiser based off of its size and weapons

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 4:18 pm

I just looked at what you're talking about, DarthThanatos.  It's the shrike's experimental pulse disruptors, and it is on the list of destroyers that are vunerable to its weapon passive.  So based on that, you could say it was a destroyer. 

There are a few exceptions to the rule for classifications.  Like the Defiant is a battleship, but has the speed of a cruiser and a cruiser's torpedo miss chance, but vessels like that are pretty rare.

So, a ship with cruiser stats, the attributes of a battleship, with the speed and vunerabilities of a destroyer. 

Optec!  Help!

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 4:34 pm

vessels are classified by their type (destroyer, cruiser and the like) and their size (small, medium, large). The defiant for example is a medium battleship

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 4:40 pm

At least the Defiant has the canon backing that. I don't think the Excelsiors 24th Century type was ever said...

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 5:01 pm

vessels are classified by their type (destroyer, cruiser and the like) and their size (small, medium, large). The defiant for example is a medium battleship

I thought it'd be a small battleship... if not than what is a small battleship?

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 5:10 pm

vessels are classified by their type (destroyer, cruiser and the like) and their size (small, medium, large). The defiant for example is a medium battleship

What would the excelsior be then?  It's listed as a destroyer and is affected by the shrike's passive like a destroyer.  But it takes less pulse weapon damage than an excelsior mark-II (I'm assuming pulse weapon damage reduction is part of the destroyer/cruiser/battleship aspect).

It also has no torpedo miss chance, but I would call it a small vessel, since we've seen shots of it next to the Enterprise-D, which was much larger of course.  I've always understood that small vessels had the miss chance because ECM+Ship size = dodge rate, in a nut shell.

I guess I'm surprised that a destroyer has what I would consider attributes usually reserved for large battleships, and I'm wondering if it's a bug or if it's intended.  I'm really curious now!

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 5:12 pm

The Excelsior is a medium destroyer

posted on October 22nd, 2009, 5:24 pm

The Excelsior is a medium destroyer

makes sense