Miranda vs. Constitution

posted on October 10th, 2010, 8:58 am

  WELL!

  After watching Wrath of Khan again, I was curious to know people's thoughts on how a battle between a standard Miranda Class and an Constitution Refit (a la Ent-A) would go.

 
  I feel it's pretty safe to assume that the Constitution is a heavier class of vessel and is thus more heavily suited for combat.  The Reliant of course got the drop on the Enterprise and subsequent battles in the Nebula seemed to even the playing field considerably.


  Still ... If we had to give Fleetops stats to them, what do you think they'd be?

This is all just silly conjecture of course


Constitution Refit:

15 - Offense
17 - Defense

  I picked these numbers because I assumed that the version of the Excelsior we play with must have been continuously upgraded with standard technology as time went on.  17-23 for an Excel makes sense, but I'm sure it's much higher now when compared to the original versions.  The Constitution seemed to be a bit more sturdy than the Excel Original based on what we saw in ST VI.



  Miranda (TMP era):

14 - Offense
15 - Defense

  I might even go so far as to say 13 offense, but the fact that the Reliant has the ability to fire torpedoes both aft and fore .... gives them a very useful edge.  The Connie can't fire torps backwards  .  I recall that it was mainly a patrol vessel and used for science missions. 


  Miranda (DS9 era):

  17 - Offense
  20 - Defense

  Still getting slaughtered by the larger Dominion vessels but seemingly able to handle themselves vs. Bugs and the sort.

  Let's play!  all conjecture, just for fun... we're in a General topic!

 

posted on October 10th, 2010, 9:11 am

i think a connie refit would have same stats, or slightly higher, than a ktinga.

a miranda from the same time would have around 2 less o/d stats

a ds9 miranda would have the stats of a bug probably. just a rough guess.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 12:33 pm

If they were from the same Era, the Constitution would be the heavier of the two, while the Miranda would be more maneuverable and with better ECM.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 12:53 pm

If they were from the same Era, the Constitution would be the heavier of the two, while the Miranda would be more maneuverable and with better ECM.

yes miranda dodge at medium sized and connie doesnt dodge at all.

in their time miranda would dodge as a small sized and connie as medium. but that was long ago.

[Anonymous]

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:01 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on October 10th, 2010, 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Constitution seemed to be a bit more sturdy than the Excel Original based on what we saw in ST VI.

In ST VI we saw the Enterprise get owned by the Klingon torpedoes but the Excelsior's shields could eat the shots a bit easier (torpedoes didn't go straight through the saucer etc..

I think the Miranda's offense should be similar to the Constitution refit with the Constitution being roughly 2/3 to 4/5 the stats of an Excelsior.

edit for roman numeral issue...

[navyguy]

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:12 pm

Last edited by navyguy on October 10th, 2010, 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Now i could be wrong, but just by the shape and the way there constructed i always thought the Miranda Class was a more sturdy ship. It would seem that they were used much more than the Constitution Class.One would have to think that the Miranda was used much more than the connie, and during the Dominion War the Constitution Class was never used, assumeing if you look at military history, machines with some value will still be used, others with none are usally used as target practice, or for towing. I would have to give the notch to the Miranda Class due mainly to her service history.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:13 pm

I believe in the movie it was stated that the Connie had a tremendous amount of firepower compared to the Miranda.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:20 pm

Now i could be wrong, but just by the shape and the way there constructed i always thought the Miranda Class was a more sturdy ship. It would seem that they were used much more than the Constitution Class.

That can be deceptive, considering how the Structural Integrity Field tends to make even the flimsiest-looking ship capable of taking impressive punishment.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 2:38 pm

I'm not sure it's a big advantage.  In WW2 there was a german semi-guided bomb that was meant to kill heavy naval vessels.  It turned out almost completely worthless because it had too much penetrating power.

So instead of exploding inside the ship, doing horrific damage, it would just pass clean through.

A similar principle seems to apply to photon torpedoes.  If it doesn't explode inside, regardless of how much damage the warp-field encased shell does to your hull, you're probably better off.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 4:41 pm

I believe in the movie it was stated that the Connie had a tremendous amount of firepower compared to the Miranda.

  Yeah I seem to recall that somewhere as well.


  I suppose in TMP times the Connie WOULD have been somewhere close to a K'tinga.  I kinda forgot about that.  K'tingas always seemed to give the Enterprise crew a big hesitation (music tells us lots! )

posted on October 10th, 2010, 5:00 pm

for TWOK you have to take into consideration the Enterprise was operating under a skeleton crew of mostly Starfleet Academy trainees  not the best crew to go into combat with.   as for the Connie having no aft torpedoes it does

from Memory Alpha.  

The studio model of the Defiant in the original series was a reuse of the original Enterprise. The CGI model of the Defiant used in Star Trek: Enterprise was wholly built by Koji Kuramura. Nacelles, lighting and certain textures were "tweaked" by Rob Bonchune. The work was done at Eden FX with reference help from Doug Drexler. [1]

According to Bonchune, the location of the aft torpedo launcher on the CGI model of the Defiant was "the little round port right between the impulses engines. We tried to make it logical with what existed so we didn't have to make a new hole on the ship. Everyone agreed, except that apparently if you frame by frame it, they actually come from the hangar bay phaser mounts. Someone in the chain ether decided against it or didn't know. Even one of the writers was surprised it hadn't been done as discussed." [2]

Star Trek: Enterprise teleplay writer Mike Sussman noted in his "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" podcast commentary that the aft phasers and torpedoes that the Defiant possessed indicated a variation from its Constitution-class sister ship, USS Enterprise, which apparently lacks or does not use on screen.

It should be noted, however, that in the original series episodes "Arena", "Friday's Child", and "The Doomsday Machine", verbal reference to the Enterprise's aft phasers can be heard in a stock voice loop. Additionally, reference to starboard banks is made in "Balance of Terror", as well as the port weapons mentioned in "Mirror, Mirror".

posted on October 10th, 2010, 5:07 pm

It's the TMP refit that is known to have no aft firing launchers.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on October 10th, 2010, 5:20 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on October 10th, 2010, 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Based on Ktinga being a threat to a Constitution, I'd say original connie stats to be 11/12/9.
Refit would probably be better than K'tinga, so I'd say about 14/13/9 (offense raised more due to ongoing near-war with Klingons.)
Miranda would probably be better than an original connie, so about 12/13/10.
DS9 Miranda would probably be 16/21/10.

The system values being so much higher than K'Tinga is because TNG and TOS don't seem to have a huge difference in subsystem vulnerability and K'Tingas in FO are really old refitted vessels that then unrefit, that can't be good for their system stability.
FO K'tinga also lost its torps, so back in TMP it would've probably been near 13/11/8.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 5:24 pm

Constitution Refit:

15 - Offense
17 - Defense

   I picked these numbers because I assumed that the version of the Excelsior we play with must have been continuously upgraded with standard technology as time went on.  17-23 for an Excel makes sense, but I'm sure it's much higher now when compared to the original versions.  The Constitution seemed to be a bit more sturdy than the Excel Original based on what we saw in ST VI.



   Miranda (TMP era):

14 - Offense
15 - Defense

   I might even go so far as to say 13 offense, but the fact that the Reliant has the ability to fire torpedoes both aft and fore .... gives them a very useful edge.  The Connie can't fire torps backwards  .  I recall that it was mainly a patrol vessel and used for science missions. 


   Miranda (DS9 era):

  17 - Offense
  20 - Defense

   Still getting slaughtered by the larger Dominion vessels but seemingly able to handle themselves vs. Bugs and the sort.

   Let's play!  all conjecture, just for fun... we're in a General topic!

 

i would go with lower stats, because we saw galors(!!!) doing heavy damage to those ships within 1 - 2 shots in the dominion war. So i would put them on the same strength as the bugs. At least in my sight they were about equal to a bug.

posted on October 10th, 2010, 5:39 pm

Using the footage in the shows is unreliable because you can't tell how much damage a ship may have taken earlier in the battle or if a critical shot had been dealt.  There are just too many things happening to use this as a good reference.

As for Miranda vs Constitution, in the TMP era, lets look at this from a practical naval military stand point.  A miranda is classified as either a destroyer or light cruiser maybe even a special torpedo ship.  A constitution would classify as a medium to heavy cruiser.  In WW2 if you pitted any destroyer against a cruiser it would be pretty much a one sided affair the victory would undoubtedly go to the cruiser.  I would expect that this military docterine wouldn't change that much in the future.