Best Excalibur?

posted on November 29th, 2009, 3:24 pm

Which version of the Excalibur do people prefer: The fan-made version or the plagiarized Constitution from ST:O.

Attachments

posted on November 29th, 2009, 3:52 pm

Neither, both looked completely unrealistic. No offense to creator

posted on November 29th, 2009, 4:15 pm

Uff, that first one is incredibly un-Federation. Since when is bigger, better? The second looks a bit better to me, if just to be a "pretty ship", but it feels to "un StarTrek" to me as well. Too much chrome, nasty angles etc. 

posted on November 29th, 2009, 4:21 pm

If the first one is 'un-Federation', then the Sovereign also is very un-Federation looking. Stick that Excalibur's nacelles up at a slight angle and move the Engineering hull slightly lower and it looks like a bigger Sovereign.

Bigger can be better for some ships, like Fighter/Troop carriers or ships meant for a lot of weapons. Ever noticed how the most powerful (and better in virtually every other way aside from crew being uncreative) single ship in Star Trek's Milky Way galaxy happens to be the biggest?

posted on November 29th, 2009, 4:50 pm

If the first one is 'un-Federation', then the Sovereign also is very un-Federation looking. Stick that Excalibur's nacelles up at a slight angle and move the Engineering hull slightly lower and it looks like a bigger Sovereign.

Bigger can be better for some ships, like Fighter/Troop carriers or ships meant for a lot of weapons. Ever noticed how the most powerful (and better in virtually every other way aside from crew being uncreative) single ship in Star Trek's Milky Way galaxy happens to be the biggest?

I was talking merely about Federation and about size only. Starfleet doesn't do bigger  = better.

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:07 pm

They don't buy into that mentality, but they also don't have any complaints about having big ships, though. Most of their history has shown Starfleet ships get bigger over time (especially Explorers and Command ships), who knows where they draw the line on size...

I wonder what they'd actually consider 'too big'...

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:09 pm

If anything, I'd say we saw a trend of decreasing size recently. The Akira, Intrepid, Defiant, Steamrunner, are all much much smaller than the Sovereign, but apparently are quite powerful

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:11 pm

They always had both, though small ships are more common recently. I can't see them cutting big ships entirely.

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:13 pm

True, but even the Sovereign is less voluminous than the Galaxy. Longer yes, but less mass I believe. I think that this sort of indicates that the designers of Federation vessels didn't particularly want to go larger than what is currently being used on screen.

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:19 pm

Probably, which would mean the Galaxy is likely to be the marker of Starfleet's preferred size limit.

Looking at it that way, the Excalibur seems kinda Terran... Emperors usually want the biggest 1-off ship as their personal one...

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:46 pm

Yeah, I'd definitely agree with that - just like the Klingon/Cardassian regent's Negh'var. Or really any other "bad guy" ships across the spectrum of games/movies etc. 

Death Star anyone?

posted on November 29th, 2009, 5:50 pm

Death Star was a bit excessive... even for 'villains compensation'...

posted on November 29th, 2009, 6:10 pm

What about the Eclipse / SSD? 

I like the fanmade version better though it seems too big. Scaled down to the size of the Sovy I'd really like it. Star Trek told us that bigger doesn't mean better. 

posted on November 29th, 2009, 7:31 pm

I actually prefer the ST:O Excalibur, it just seems pretty to me. Especially because of all the ugly angles on it but thats just the concept artist in me talking.

posted on November 29th, 2009, 9:27 pm

Personally, I like them both.  The fanmade one strikes me as something that can serve as a heavy battleship/troop carrier--something that, with proper back-up, can beseige a starbase or planet and land group troops and equipment.  (I don't think this would have to exclude fighters, either.)

As for the Star Trek Online one--I think it's worth keeping in mind that the spaceships of the next generation era are also meant to be visually appealing.  In real life, the better option is to get as much as one possibly can out of existing technology/spaceframes/whatever before discarding them for something completely new.  Hence a Constitution-II makes as much sense as the Miranda-II's and Excelsior-II's I keep noticing in screenshots and game playbacks, to say nothing of Klingon birds of prey and k'tingas.  They may even make more sense than the akiras and sovereigns.