New use for a old ship

posted on January 26th, 2009, 9:55 pm

The Excelsior class is on the verge of being in mass decommission.

There was a,... I thing it was on voyager a short chip of fed minding witch had a Excelsior class in it.

I was thinking if the Excelsior was used as a advanced long range mining ship that only became available latter the game it would fit well in to the time line.

maybe in a fetcher patch.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 11:43 pm

I don't think the Excelsior would be used as a mining ship as that is not it's mission role (It also lacks the necessary storage to hold enough material for a long range mission to be viable). If Starfleet wanted a long range mining ship then it'd be much more efficient to build a dedicated ship with extremely large storage tanks to make up for the long journey times. If defense was needed then you'd simply assign an escort. Ironically, the escort could quite easily be an Excelsior!

It would be likely that during the decommission phase the Excelsior would be given lower priority roles in the fleet and retrofitted for each role until finally they replace them with newer more role specific ships. The old Excelsiors ones would then be more than likely held back in mothballs as a reserve fleet and used for spare parts or sold off to minor races for planet defense roles.

In terms of Fleet Ops, I think it will be added as a "warp in" ship which fits with the timeline since they are still common but no longer in production.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 12:33 am

Take out crow corders and gut the ship share it can. The ship is at lest 5x maybe more the size of a mining ship.... It has way more then enough room...

Most of the time when they decommission a ship its sent to the dump. It would be a sham to see that seeing the work the fo team did on that relay well done modal.

We all ready have a represent for the Excelsior having the old modal still around and in regular duty is illogical.

Also seeing that Fleetops is a future mod the Excelsior should be at the dump in the time line.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 12:55 am

Take out crow corders and gut the ship share it can. The ship is at lest 5x maybe more the size of a mining ship.... It has way more then enough room...

That's not how refitting works...

posted on January 27th, 2009, 1:31 am

actually i think some ships that would happen to, some miranda class were configure for freight

posted on January 27th, 2009, 1:35 am

One thing I have learned about life. Its not about how things work its about how they can work.

If you need to lets say move some large book case in your home do you get a fork lift to move it that would work best no that would be over kill no you drag or lift it to its location you do what works. Same go's for every thing. The Excelsior is billet as a stare heavily armed ship there no resin why it can be gutted and use for holing ore.

ray320

actually i think some ships that would happen to, some miranda class were configure for freight

Good point.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 1:45 am

if you read the content post it does say its added as a warp in ship?

posted on January 27th, 2009, 5:13 am

Yes thats right,

And that in this patch maybe they will like my idea and make a edit to that status "warp in ship".

After the dom war and age Excelsior ships have bean disappearing so to me its a bit strange that there are some so close they can offer help seeing how they at the end of there life line in the Voyager time line let-alone the fleetops time line.

Maybe the fo team can right them back in to the seen with a tweak to the story behind fleetops, But as I know it as of know they don't fit.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 7:21 am

Easiest way to do the write-in in my opinion would be to say that the Excelsior-class being built with a much less temperamental basic design than newer, higher technology base ships, became the ship that it was the easiest for the Federation to test-platform the borg technology that Voyager brought back.  Then make Excelsior-class ships an experimental support model using a blend of federation and borg combat technology.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 9:16 am

I guess we shouldn't forget that the Excelsior is an explorer/science-vessel type of ship.
For this purpose an old design is probably good enough, as long as it can be refitted with new technologies, which seems to be the case with the excelsior. (USS Lakota etc.)

Such Explorers and science vessels are the main types of ships used by the federation, so that its very likely that at least some would be in warp-in range to major battles and could come to reinforce the main fleet of modern war ships.

Of course its true that there are not that many excelsiors left, but i don't see why they should be decomissioned, as long as they are still able to do what they were designed to do.

Using an ageing cruiser as a mining freighter seems rather klingon and is in fact something that the klingons in FO are already doing.

The borg technology thing sounds interesting (if it's just one special weapon or so), but I'm not sure whether that fits into the FO storyline.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 10:08 am

I think even if you gutted the entire ship it still wouldn't be a practical solution as a miner compared to a dedicated ship. The Klingons managed it but they did so by attaching cargo modules to the exterior of the hull. From a functional design perspective some kind of exterior module would be required because that way those modules could simply be detached at the mining station and given a new set of empty ones. They could probably use transporters to get the ore out of the ship but if the transporters failed then you'd be left with an Excelsior rammed full of ore and no way of getting it out which is bad for business.

In any case, I don't think it's the Federation style to turn past flagship models into lowly freighters (as Meng said, that is more of a Klingon thing). Humans are far more likely to become attached to their ships so the most likely scenario would probably be that the entire ship class would be put in mothballs and simply left there. Due to the status of this particular class, it is likely that the ship would be held in a very high regard as a historical masterpiece and a few of them would likely be preserved in working order for posterity. Due to this status, it is even less likely that they would turn them into freighters. it would be like spitting in an old veterans face.

In any case it would take years to decommission the Excelsior Class since so many were made and the Federation are THAT quick at knocking out new ships. Every so often you'll still get a stubborn Captain who refuses to let his beloved ship go and s/he'll put in a formal request for a one off refit to keep one in service. I read somewhere that the Excelsior is actually a favourite ship of many high ranking Officers for it's reliable track record and tolerance to new refits (just take a look at Admiral Leyton's ship as an example). So while they may be getting rarer it would still be quite a few years after the Dominion War before the last Excelsior gets decomissioned. I think the chances of an Excelsior warp in should reflect how far into the future FO is. Needless to say, I think it's status as an uncommon to rare warp in ship would be the best place for this ship.


On the subject of old ship conversions, I think it's far more likely that the Miranda Class would be used in bulk as retrofitted freight. They have unusually large shuttlebay that could be converted into an ore exchange bay for quick loading and/or unloading of ore. This ship is also somewhat overshadowed by the Excelsior and so people would be less bothered if they saw one hauling freight. In fact, due to the ships small size (cost effective), availability of parts and functionality it could quite easily be used as a privateer ship or as a personal starship for a VIP retrotech enthusiast. In terms of which would be remembered in a centuries time, people would likely say: "Miranda? Was that some kind of orange?". As oppose to the Excelsior which would more likely get a response like: "HEY, that was the first transwarp testbed! The ship that was the mainstay of the fleet for 80 odd years. The ship that almost took out the first Defiant Class ship!"

I suppose when I think about it, the Miranda would be a far more likely candidate as a freight ship than the Excelsior but still not really a practical solution

posted on January 27th, 2009, 2:34 pm

Every so often you'll still get a stubborn Captain who refuses to let his beloved ship go and s/he'll put in a formal request for a one off refit to keep one in service.

Oh yes, that would happen. I know I'd be one of them.

On the subject of old ship conversions, I think it's far more likely that the Miranda Class would be used in bulk as retrofitted freight. They have unusually large shuttlebay that could be converted into an ore exchange bay for quick loading and/or unloading of ore. This ship is also somewhat overshadowed by the Excelsior and so people would be less bothered if they saw one hauling freight. In fact, due to the ships small size (cost effective), availability of parts and functionality it could quite easily be used as a privateer ship or as a personal starship for a VIP retrotech enthusiast. In terms of which would be remembered in a centuries time, people would likely say: "Miranda? Was that some kind of orange?". As oppose to the Excelsior which would more likely get a response like: "HEY, that was the first transwarp testbed! The ship that was the mainstay of the fleet for 80 odd years. The ship that almost took out the first Defiant Class ship!"

I suppose when I think about it, the Miranda would be a far more likely candidate as a freight ship than the Excelsior but still not really a practical solution

The Miranda would be quite well known, too. Problem is, it would be known because of the USS Reliant.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 4:54 pm

Problem is, it would be known because of the USS Reliant.

...assuming that the events depicted in the Star Trek series/films are the only events of note. The series and films revolved around the USS Enterprise only, so given how much happened to just the Enterprise, there would be a hell of a lot of other interesting stuff happening to other ships. So I'm sure there are plenty of other Miranda-classes of equal/higher note.

posted on January 27th, 2009, 6:24 pm

One thing I have learned about life. Its not about how things work its about how they can work.

If you need to lets say move some large book case in your home do you get a fork lift to move it that would work best no that would be over kill no you drag or lift it to its location you do what works. Same go's for every thing. The Excelsior is billet as a stare heavily armed ship there no resin why it can be gutted and use for holing ore.

Yes it's about how things can work - ripping the entire interior of a ship out doesn't. You can add superficial elements, you can do minor changes beneath hull level. Change the superstructure or a large volume of interior and it's cheaper to just build a new ship.
PS.: If your bookcase is so heavy you need a forklift - you should disassemble it and reassemble it inside. Which is to say, apply ingenuity to a problem, not brute force (eg. storing materiel in transporter buffers vs ripping out the interior of a ship)

posted on January 27th, 2009, 6:27 pm

At worst, the Excelsior is most likely to be reduced to policing low-priority systems and ferrying ambassadors/scientists.