"Best use of highlighters in Starfleet" Award of Excellence.

Till this day it holds in my top 3 Kit bash ship designs. The design team basically took 3 Highlighters and a smaller Enterprise D model and put a larger Enterprise D bridge and recut the windows to make it look like a smaller ship. The results are hard to argue with.

This is one of my favourite Starfleet classes. I wish we had seen more of them in TNG and DS9.

Best use of giant hi-liter pens ever!; )

I always liked this class.. its like how US heavy and light cruisers had very similar hull and profile forms as the battleships of comparative ages.. it just looks good. Then again so does the nebula and galaxy themselves.

"Mission-profile-specific pods" Yes, when you need to _highlight_ your foes' weaknesses for the rest of the fleet. In various colors.

As far as I am concerned, these stories are canon. Until the powers that be actually give official backstories which left face it, is never going to happen as these ships were nothing but footnotes. But the back stories you provide are detailed enough to warrant proper inclusion.

I admire you giving this kit bash a background and history despite the fact it was just a Wolf 359 filler. 😀

I loved this design when I first saw it, it’s prettier than the Galaxy Class IMHO. Yes, even with the “highlights”.

Its an interesting kit-bash. I recall seeing this in the wreckage scene in Best of Both Worlds.

Now THAT'S a spectacular design. I absolutely love all the ships depicted in this video, they all have their place in Trek history. Great stuff.👍

I've always liked the New Orleans class it's a really amazing looking Starship everyone have a really amazing Christmas

I love these speculative videos mixing alpha and beta+ head cannon. You do a good job thinking things through and about

The only thing more whack than a highlighter kit-bash is Obi-wan talking into a Schtick Lady-shave! 🤣 Cool looking ship though. 😎

Love this class and all the galaxy variations.. would love to see newer ones based on sovereign class and Odyssey class as well... they'd be seriously bad ass ships

I've got an idea for your Beta canon series, how about major events (not just battles) in Federation history? Just a thought as i really enjoy these videos... taken with a pinch of stardust of course lol 😁

You should really write a huge book about ship beta canon!

I'd love for the 'Truth or myth' videos to include a "noteable ships" rundown for each class. Would really flesh out the lore. Great videos!

Another Gem! What a great episode man!

Great video. Keep up the good work. As far as the ship design, personally I think they should have stopped at 2 pods (dropping the one off the bottom).

Happy Holidays, man. You rock. You've given me hours of entertainment and information. I love the "Beta Canon" material; I'm hard-pressed to figure out where the "canon" stops and your creativity begin! I'm one of those old, original FASA guys, and you do those designs justice. I wish I could offer more than my thanks. I'll just let you know that you make many people's day's better for having your channel.

the New Orleans class and the Ambassador class are among my favorite ship classes of the TNG era

Those sensor pods can really highlight anomalies.

I have always really liked this ship design I could do without the sensor pod on the bottom of the secondary hull aside from that I think they could have done a lot with this class of ship. Thank you for the video of a class that I've been looking forward to seeing! Keep up the great work and looking forward to the next one . Still can't wait to see the Norway class. I hope everyone else enjoys this channel as much as I do!

Now that I know those top saucer pods are just decorated markers, I can't unsee that.

The New Orleans Class has ALWAYS been one of my top 5 24th Century Trek designs. I actually have Starcraft's model of the ship and it's simply awesome. I have mine as the U.S.S. Kyushu. Of course with mine I left off the bottom highlighter pod because I always thought it would be ridiculous with it on there.

_TriAngulum_ : In your Beta classes, if you have an obvious 'more ships were built later after redesigns', maybe call them different Flights or Groups of ships, like we do with submarines. Victor I, II, & III, Los Angeles Flight 1, Flight 2, etc. Constitution, Constitution II (refits), etc. Enterprise B was a Flight 2 Excelsior...

Thankyou so much for creating this video !!

Its interesting how the "Galaxy project" seemed to be a fleet wide effort but only ended up with the Nebula and Galaxy really taking off. (Of course the real world reason is they just plain didn't show any other ships)

Awesome video. I love this class. So strange that the Oberth and Miranda kept going after Wolf 359 but this beautiful design was scrapped because, like those 2 ships, it couldn't stand up to a Borg cube. If I was an Admiral I'd have at least had it equipped as a pure science vessel and sold the Oberths to accident prone civilian scientists lol.

Love your episodes love your work you give good stories to ships I don’t know about what I can use in my mind to make my own little stories and Merry Christmas I hope you get a good year for 2022 and I’ll see you in the New Year have fun son

Quite possibly my favorite kitbash ship. A lot of work went in towards making it look like a smaller ship than the Galaxy models being used. Nice explanation of how Starfleet really wanted to travel in comfort. They had the technology to do it all. Or did they? Clearly your take on it suggests that the era of the 2330s had issues of growing pains. I've come to like the Ambassador Class, but it isn't surprising that there were issues with it; it was a BIG and bold step into future designs, a design that technology just hadn't quite advanced enough to reach. As a comparison, it's not so different from the hope of putting railguns and lasers in current naval ship designs. Plus, the Ambassador class does have a bulky form that suggests that it's just not quite right. It explains why Starfleet's Galaxy Project would start small but get (very) big. The New Orleans being the early test bed makes sense. Interestingly, it is a 'small' ship that actually isn't all that small what with 500 crew and comparatively plenty of space of amenities. Indeed, as some have noted, the populations on Next Gen ships are quite low for their enormous volumes. But anyway, Starfleet was clearly committed towards making large ships. The New Orleans having its own issues making the presence of Galaxy designs in Starfleet far longer than expected, if rarely seen for a long time. We've HEARD about the New Orleans class enough that it did deserve its own model to show up, and to have an established presence on the fleet. In many ways, the sophistication of the Galaxy class helped fight the Borg in a way that sheer force would not, so it's hard to say that the Galaxy design is WRONG. But, the design does seem to overly favor windows and luxury which ultimately made them fragile designs compared to what Starfleet technology COULD make. Clearly, Starfleet came to believe that there were few threats they could not overcome, the Borg and Dominion being big surprises. It does not surprise me at all that the New Orleans pods were meant to be sensors originally. But I have always thought that the highlighters were extra torpedo mounts, a legacy of the Cardassian War, the New Orleans class needing some beefing up. In any case, I'm surprised that the sensor pod New Orleans wouldn't have ongoing roles as a scout and science ship? Then again, it might be just too big and expensive for those roles? Starfleet might have been wanting to use the various ship classes for multi-role assignments via swapping out pods, the New Orleans and Nebula classes would seem to bear that out. But it does suggest that issues with ships oversized but often under-reinforced for their roles.

This is the Class I would love to Capt'n.

Replacing the sensor pods with photon torpedo pods. Would make this one nasty little border patrol ship. In fleet actions having it be the 2nd line of skirmish ships. Then be followed by heavier elements of the fleet.

I love this one, it's neat.

One of my favorites.

I love all the classes with the huge saucer sections like the Galaxy and Nebula classes

Great video and a great ship design! I would love to see a post Wolf 359 refit with fully developed weapon pods. Top pods carying photons and quantums, bottom pod configured as a heavy phaser cannon, with it's own power supply in case of main power failure. The firepower would be devastating.

This ship could have been a beast if done right. Imagine each pod had 4 torpedo launchers. That means 6 forward 3 backwards.then the ship itself could have been loaded with phaser strips and 2 more integrated torp launchers. One fore one aft for a total of 12. Or the could have made the bottom pod a heavy phaser cannon. Put in 2 warp cores one a bit smaller and dedicated to weapons and shields. beef up the systems to handle the load. It would have been a hell of a ship.

I like the New Orleans class because it looks comfortable to me I don't know why

Have you noticed how Starfleet only agrees to limited production of its most powerful classes ? This is a interstellar federation of over one hundred member world's and thousands of colonies and over a billion planet's within its borders yet they can only construct 12 ship's

This design definitely bears the burden of being hastily made for background shots. If the nacelle pylons were integrated into the hull as cleanly as they are on the Galaxy model, this would be a lovely little ship. As it is, the way they're just sorta tacked on to the neck sticks out like a sore thumb, because it's clearly not something that was supposed to be examined this closely. This is a problem with all of the Wolf 359 designs, but it's particularly unfortunate here.

I figure that this design would have been sidelined compared to the Nebula class being that much more capable… and I then wolf 359 happened.

As a Louisiana native, seeing a New Orleans class starship rocks my socks. I wonder if any ships in the class were named after landmarks in the city like the USS Canal or the USS Fleur de Lis?

I just discovered your videos and love them. Looking forward to viewing them all.

Peace and Long Life.

Love this class. Great work. 👏 IMHO STNG messed up by not using it much more and fixated on the overused Excelsior class.

You might say it was the highlight-er of the line :D lol

I heard they only made 5 new orleans class ships as they ran out of highlighter pens. 😉

It has the Stabilo pen class sensor pods :P

19 decks tall ???. Everything I've ever seen on the New Orleans class has always pointed to only 14 decks tall. But I digress. As far as the class itself goes I think it's one of the best classes aside frome the Galaxy class itself I especially love how onscreen those pods are actually used as torpedo launchers it really goes a long way on the tactical aesthetic of the ships of the class as a whole as well as the overall appearance of a much stronger appearance of the particular ship in question at any given time combined with the luxury you could now begin to see on all federation starship classes of the time. In short tactical ability without sacrificed luxury is what truly made project Galaxy a successful (enterprise) "pun intended".

I really liked the New Orleans class. Wish we could have seen them as a working ship along side the Galaxy, Ambassador and Nebula classes rather than using 23rd century ships so much.

Thank you very much for this nice Information Video

Ah yes the ship with giant highlighters added on

I enjoyed this video, thank you 😊

I like your backstory for the New Orleans Class. I like this Design. Interesting are the sensorpods on top and botton. Is there are e weponpod alternative?

I would like to ask a question, given what I know, whose bright idea was it for civilian families of Starfleet officers to live on a starship in the first place? Even the Galaxy Class was not invulnerable even though it was strong, powerful, and durable. Look at the battles of wolf 359 and the destruction of the USS Odyssey at the hands of the Jem'Hadar. How many Civilians died of starships?

I do not know if I have ever mentioned this before but the opening muysing withthe drums really reminds me of entering battle - and also the scene where we see torpedoes firing at a Borg tactical cube then Voyager flying into shot from Unimatrix One. If I couldnt get to command a Galaxy class I would definitely opt to command a New Orleans class, I love the design of it. I daren't sho wmy sister this, she is rather fond of the Ambassador class, I can only imagine her curses right now even as I type in defense of the ship class, every ship I think has failures as well as benefits as well, you dont learn from just progress alone, you have to have some failures to find out where things went wrong so they can be avoided or improved upon. however their lack of presence throughout TNG though and even in the Dominioon war says they cant be really combat effective, though I am sure with the boffins at the fleetyards they could be made more suitable for combat with modern technologies implemented in them, we see a a couple in a task force in TNG and of course one in thhe opener of DS9, thats the only times we see them other than of course Yesterdays Enterprise These pods (high liter pens in real life attached to the ship) I always had these down as additional torpedo launchers especially when it came to battling the Borg, but I suppose sensor pods would make sense for the golden era of Starfleet and the Federation for exploration purposes, you would think that Starfleet would have more tactical approach after the Enterprise's encounter with the Bprg at J25 and Commander Shelby would have pushed for pods to hev been made for more torpedo launchers or weapons systems, especially given the Borg threat to the Federation. I would like to believe that after the battle of Wolf 359 and Shelby in charge of bringing the fleet numbers back up with more ffective ways to fend agaibnst the Borg the New Orleans would be outfitted with better tactical systems, weapons pods as well as keeping a sensor pod, and the nacelles being outfitted with phaser arrays just like the Galaxy class refit we see on the venture at the end of Way Of The Warrior, keeping the base mission profile of exploration but also being more capable and tactically efficient, and then of course there's the Dominion we never see any of them so I would assume again in a rush to bring the fleet numbers up this class of ship would be patrolling the core systems in task forces of their own with the sensors and torpedoi launchers being an advantage, but thats just a little theory of my own. A wonderful video as always good sir you have done the ship class justice, as you do all your beta canon content, and thats what we need to remember it is beta canon and of course to take it with a pinch of stardust, but to have fun along the way

I love watching these videos, but I'm curious. Do you have a playlist for just federation starfleet ships As well as klingon and romulan ships only.

Yep and yes, though windows in this must of been very long.

I would like to highlight an issue with this class

Lets gooo

0:45 just curious, you mention “first seen in next generation”…I’m having trouble recalling ever seeing this class in an episode of TNG, DS9 or VOY. I’m going to be giving the entire franchise a rewatch through soon, so figured I’d ask if that was just the same type of line you often use to refer to the era a ship came from, or wether it was indeed seen and I just never noticed. After all, it may well have only been a “blink and you miss it” type of appearance, but then at least id know to keep my eyes peeled…

I always thought she was a cool little ship. A little sister to the GALAXY class. I like to know if you have any videos on the NOVA class and its refit design like the RHODE ISLAND.

Do they have Mardi Gras on board ??

can we get on on vulcan ships?

Anyone else think having families on starships was just a bad idea across the board?

I still don't like the 3 painted marker pen~

If I recall according to info I had about the class from a long time ago there are supposed to be basically torpedo bays and I think magazines.

The New Orleans class holds a place in my heart! She had a multipurpose "Modular" idea in mind in her design. Regardless of Wolf 359 and the era in which the design originates; the Galaxy, Nebula, and New Orleans classes were the footing for advancing starship designs and technology. Alot like the cars of the 1980s, then deemed somewhat radical and prone to issues with the technology of the time; they seemed to become loved as the decades progressed. With new technologies, comes improvements supplemented by the older ones, making them more efficient, thus, increasing potential. Sorry for this long comment lol. I am an Auto-mechanic whom embraces old technology whos potential is brought up by modern technology. From the Constitution to the Galaxy, each family of starship and their derivatives fit the Automotive and engineering ideas of what I do and love today!

I’m actually surprised, I thought these ships were developed after Wolf 359 as a warship variant of the Galaxy and Nebula class. Instead they preceded the Galaxy, learned something new.

Great Video! The New Orleans Class is really one of my favorites Star Trek Ships of all time (even so "just" being a kit bash). For me, the design just makes so much sense: its basically a "Mini-Galaxy-Class", just cheaper and easier to build and crew. Luxurious enough to be appropriate as a diplomatic vessel, while the mission pods make it able to preform scientific and patrol/combat missions just as well. The current Star Trek Adventures RPG also mentioned an extended sensor array along the pylons. Together with a dorsal sensor pod (with an additional computer core, scientific probe launcher and isolated bio-laboratories for sample analysis) the New Orleans has the same sensory capabilities as a Galaxy Class. The two ventral pods were classified as "Torpedo Pods", each with their own magazines. Also the RPG mentioned the ability, due to the sensor array, to detect even the finest fluctuations/turbulences within subspace, thus the warp coils can tweak their power output, similar to the Intrepid Class movable pylons.

I was always under the impression that the ‘highlighter’ pod on the hull were supposed to be heavy torpedo launchers, like the Nebula classes triangle pod and packed with photon torpedos. Probably picked that up from beta or fanon lore

Could you perhaps do a line of videos on the various Alien ships from TNG

Once you've seen the highlighters you can never unsee them.

So not to dispute anything, my head cannon says that they DID develop all sorts of alternative pods, everything from shuttle bays to massive planetary colonization shuttles to “fire and forget” weapons pods to secondary nacelles for the saucer section to even being hard points for towing large sections of prefab space stations

Nice one Thank you. I wonder what became of Dr Richard Daystrom ? Last we see of him he is in Enterprises sick bay about to go off to the Federation funny farm.

I felt the "Highlighters" urrm..were misson pods sensor, big freaking phaser, torpedo,cargo pods

I love all the Galaxy class variants especially the Nebula class.

The starfleet engineers must have had a surplus of industrial sized highlighters at their disposal at the time. Jordy was jealous because they wouldn't use his hair clip ideas.

The highlighter-nacelles should have had some kind of external illumination.

You don't only realize problems when you launch a ship unless it was some unforeseen obscure technical problem. The basic systems would all be tested before installation, and proven to function together. Prototype systems IRL are often tested on land before installation in a ship to prove capabilities. It would be impossible for the Federation to build a ship without a powerful enough computer system unless the designers were Pakleds or something. How could they not do the simple planning and math for the power and computing requirements for the parts that they planned to use.

Why is the Ambassador's impulse drive blue?

I realize there were budgetary/SFX limitations, but I still want to see a canon depiction of a vessel with a weapons pod unleashing a full barrage. I mean, instead of the piddly 1-3 photon torpedoes we generally see, I want to know how an enemy vessel would fare vs a full onslaught of like 20-30 or more...

the ambassor class was just that, class with testing new systems

You spend weeks meticulously designing the Ambassador class Enterprise-C, and nobody bats an eye. You glue a couple of highlighters to a kitbash one afternoon, and all the fans loose their minds!

You've got to feel bad for the lower decks ensigns who wanted to bring their family if they were still made to sleep in a corridor.

Seems like there was a time when Starfleet forgot how to design and build starships. :-P

This series has a predictable formula of incompetence/corruption resulting in failure, followed by success. I still enjoy the series!

The name Enterprise should be on the best of the best of Federation starships. From NX to Sovereign.

Isn't this the one where the designer used a couple of highlighter pens for the other nacelles?

Class, class, class class class class 🤣

While I appreciate the narrative and visual work you put in (especially for one of my favorite classes!), sometimes it sounds like Starfleet only has amateur engineers. You don't have to even have the hull on before seeing if there's enough compute power to run ship's systems. What do you mean the Daystrom institute _felt_ their new computer design would be up to the task? Felt‽ They should be able to _predict_, with quantitative bounds on their uncertainty. Shakedown cruises for new ships constitute the first integration test of a highly complex system; while system flaws _might_ not lead to the ship being disabled, a return to spacedock would bring to bear much more ability to diagnose and repair issues that are "shaken out", and really should be expected. Admittedly, you don't have a science consultant on-hand when you're writing scripts, so this paragraph is just me accidentally knowing more than the layman about a particular thing: When you think about it, every starship system-from the phasers to the sensors, and down even into the windows and the holodecks-is a safety-critical system. Even today we have standards, regulations, and engineering techniques to make sure there's enough performance in the computer design (hardware and software) to succeed. Real-time programming is one of the most impressive forms of programming work I've seen (perhaps only bested by cryptography). Like, obviously we have to suspend disbelief when Star Trek turns out to have made conservative predictions about the future, but this was made a week ago and is asking us to believe we forgot everything we know about making bits go brrrr? /rant

Not a bad design and I think it's interesting. Too bad we never got to see it on the screen

I don’t know about the “other mission specific pods never being built”. Just about every other breakdown of this class mentions that torpedo pods was one of the most common loadouts. Especially after Wolf 359 and the Dominion being discovered, you’d think that they’d want to at least have the option of ships like the N.O., Springfield and Nebula to be able to carry heavier armament. And the idea of this class coming out earlier than the Cheyenne, Springfield or Challenger classes feels a little off, too. It just looks like a slightly more modern design, and visually has more in common with the Galaxy and Nebula. Obviously, you’re welcome to your own head canon, and I always appreciate a video on my favorite star fleet ship class, but I respectfully disagree with some of your interpretations.

Why does everyone keep bashing the Ambassador class? I love the design -part conni and part ecellisor

Nice variant.

Leave the ambassador class alone !

Why do you like the design of the New Orleans class more than the Galaxy class?

I disagree that the ambassador class was a failure.. Starfleet wouldn't have made one the flag ship of the fleet and they certainly wouldnt be still in production over 50 years after the first one was assembled...