Excelsior - Lakota Model for Warp-in.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 7:08 pm

i remember the episode clearly boggz, i'm afraid i dont get ur point, from the tone of your message u appear to be disagreeing/refuting something i said, please elaborate what 

i think that other excels could be upgraded to lakota specs.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 7:10 pm

Probably - I haven't corroborated this - but the Ambassador has been seen only firing at close range, or not even engaging when ships like the Galaxy were on screen... and of course, game reasons

posted on January 30th, 2010, 7:20 pm

theres so little knowledge about the ambassador, and even if we saw if fighting a lot, star trek ranges are confusing at best. theres no way to tell from canon sources about range. the only exception really is the defiant, we saw sisko hold fire til up close and saw om nom several bugs at once. hinting that the defiant is better at closer range. then another time we saw the defiant at the same distance as the rest of the allied fleet engage some breen battleships with torps and pulses and score serious hits (thats what they get for copying starfleets idea of not using shields), which would hint at the same range as the rest of the ships.

i think the range of the ships is best left to the devs, who have the best ideas on balancing.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 7:55 pm

i remember the episode clearly boggz, i'm afraid i dont get ur point, from the tone of your message u appear to be disagreeing/refuting something i said, please elaborate what 

i think that other excels could be upgraded to lakota specs.

  Oh what I meant was that when they engage the Lakota, the first few hits came as a surprise to the Defiant's crew.  They even have dialogue stating that someone had been upgrading the Lakota's weapons and then they speculate that they can't run because the Lakota's Warp might have been upgraded as well.


  So what I meant was that the Lakota in that episode was "special" in that it specifically had been given upgrades outside of what normal Excelsior Lakota refits would have.

  Kind of like how .... um ... how the Defiant has a cloaking device, but how normal Defiant CLASS vessels don't.  That one got special treatment just like the Lakota from "Paradise Lost". 

posted on January 30th, 2010, 7:57 pm

I doubt it was easy to upgrade the Lakota or they would be upgrading other Excelsiors like that instead of building Akiras and Defiants.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:34 pm

firstly, i believe that the lakota ugrade wasnt so much special, as it was new, like the developement of quantums was new. i would speculate that eventually all excels still in service would be made lakota refit.

secondly, @tyler even if it was easy to upgrade to excel, its probably better to spend resources on making newer ships that would have refit potential in the future, than to refit excels exclusively.

[quaddmgtech]

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:37 pm

Last edited by quaddmgtech on January 30th, 2010, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People lets keep something straight...

There is no such thing as a 'Lakota' Refit program. There is one single ship... the U.S.S. Lakota which has enhanced weapons, shields armor and engines by a Rogue Admiral as a secret project.

There are two actual starfleet Refit programs involving the original Excelsior Space-Frame.

The first Excelsior Refit program resulted in the U.S.S. Enterprise B and her sister ships (Easily identifiable due to the forward protrusions from the engineering section on both sides of the Deflector Array.)

The second major overhaul of the line was conducted very quickly leading up to and during the Dominion war. Bolstering their aging weapons and shields. This refit program yielded most if not all of the Excelsiors that are seen on Screen during Sacrifice of Angels and the other Engagements during the Dominion War.

I'm sure many 'micro' refits occurred over the long and proud history of service of the Excelsior line. As old systems fail it only makes sense to replace them with updated ones.

As for the U.S.S. Lakota: It just so Happens that the U.S.S. Lakota is probably an amalgam of both refit programs since it was actually built from the same exact studio model as the Enterprise-B from Generations. Not to say you couldn't make more like her but there is no official 'U.S.S. Lakota' refit program.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:39 pm

secondly, @tyler even if it was easy to upgrade to excel, its probably better to spend resources on making newer ships that would have refit potential in the future, than to refit excels exclusively.

I know, resource efficiency is one of the things that make it unlikely to be that simple.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:42 pm

thats pure conjecture, so getting things straight is impossible. i personally like to believe that starfleet is moving all excels towards lakota specs. thats why it should be only for veterans.

for admiral leyton (changeling) to get the lakota refitted he would need to use starfleet resources. he couldnt hide it, he would need a yard to refit a ship so much. i mean he replaces photon launchers with quantum launchers.

EDIT: @tyler who so expertly ninja-ed me, i think they would go for a mix, get some excels up to lakota specs while keep a good flow of new ships.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:48 pm

thats pure conjecture, so getting things straight is impossible. i personally like to believe that starfleet is moving all excels towards lakota specs. thats why it should be only for veterans.

for admiral leyton (changeling) to get the lakota refitted he would need to use starfleet resources. he couldnt hide it, he would need a yard to refit a ship so much. i mean he replaces photon launchers with quantum launchers.

Perhaps what I said about Admiral Leyton is Speculation, but I assure you the rest is not. If Starfleet had been moving towards 'Lakota' refitting the entire line don't you think that we would have seen at least one Excelsior firing Quantum Torpedoes during the dominion war? it was one of the most widely used ships...

Again I am talking about 'official' Refit programs that were implemented by Starfleet. What is speculation is that the Lakota is a prototype for the next generation of Excelsior refits. That is Conjecture.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:51 pm

we didnt see a single excel use shields during the dominion war, does that mean starfleet removed all their shield generators, you cant speculate what the official refit programs were.

if you can make conjecture so can i i prefer to think that eventually all excels will be lakota refits, but for now they are limited.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:54 pm

Depends on whether or not Starfleet considers it worth the resources. They are likely to be retired like the Constitution and Soyuz soon, being around 100-150 years old by FO time.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 8:55 pm

true, i dont think that there will be any refits after the lakota style refit.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 9:00 pm

Slippery Slope anyone?

It is more reasonable to assume that starfleet did not remove the shield generators than it is to assume that because there is one ship with enhanced weapons and shileds that this is what will be implemented for all of them.

posted on January 30th, 2010, 9:04 pm

why so, it has clearly been demonstrated (by the lakota) that excel class ships can be made that powerful, why would starfleet not continue doing so to other excels.

my fallacious argument was a sarcastic attack on your similar argument that just because we didnt see excels firing quantums in the war means there werent any. we didnt see sovereign classes or shields being used, but we can presume that was just sloppy work by ds9s makers. the defiant was shown to be super powerful, handling 6 jem hadar attack ships in the die is cast, yet we only saw the defiant sao paulo valiant and those two from message in a bottle, surely they made more than five, especially since the defiant is small so less to build.

we cant presume what starfleets official refit plans for the excel class were, i just doubt that they would allow leyton to make one lakota refit but not make more.