Most likely I would see a Constellation class ship coming out between this ship and the Nebula, with the Centaur type being built as an early attempt to replace the Miranda, but the Constellation being the ship that ultimately won the contract, only for both to be outclassed by the original Miranda.

I tend to think of the Centaur the way I think of the Nebula class. They had spare parts, but didn't have enough time or resources to build a full Excelsior/Galaxy ship, so they build a heavy frigate/light cruiser meant for patrol duties. As it turned out, this ship ends up in a frustrating middle position. It's more powerful than the Miranda class, but lacks the modular section the Nebula does. The result is an adequate pre-Wolf 359 patrol ship, but not much more to talk about.

I prefer 2320 for the Ambassador. And 2356/7 for the Nebula.

@Mike DeMarco that’s interesting, I always thought of the Luna class as being an offshoot of the Akira. Probably because of the shape of the secondary hull, larger deflector, and rectangular nacelles. But there’s definitely Sovereign-class styling elements to it, while Akira looks more apiece with a Galaxy.

@Mike DeMarco More or less, yes. Cannot be fully sure of the Ambassador, except it had a long development time. Some trials may have begun by 2318. And trying to sort registries to year of launch can also be a bit variable. I see it as averaging anywhere from 300 to 1100 ships commissioned per year, depending on era. Average maybe around 718.

And given that the DS9 Manual is lazy with reprinted and cut and pasted info...

Actually Trekyards I think it was who had their own little theory that the NX-01-style deflector at the front of the saucer kept being used on later ships as well, especially ones that had no dedicated engineering hull with a deflector, except that it was covered up by a fairing and was only useful for maintaining warp flight. Whether ships with engineering hulls (like the Constitution or Excelsior) still have this auxiliary deflector in the saucer though I dont know, but the fact that on the Intrepid class such a auxiliary deflector can be clearly seen on the upper tip of the primary hull is definitely a big argument in favor of that (on VOY its called a navigational deflector usually iirc)

Really okay please explain to me where the deflector dish is located on non federation vessels? To paraphrase Teal'c when traveling at ftl why have windows as such speeds when you have shields. The deflector is more used as a science instrument then anything else and was likely no longer needed after shields were developed. After all none of the Federations enemies use them.

A B'Rel class Bird of Prey for one has it on the underbelly facing downwards... Just as an example.

builder396. The three "windows " on the front of the tos enterprise are supposed to be auxiliary deflectors, meaning that deflectors with glowing elements are not out of place in the pre movie era lol. The D has a similar feature on its lower saucer surface.

New Orleans galaxy and markers

Freedom class. It's just a galaxy primary hull with one warp nascelle

The Challenger class, it’s made from parts of a Galaxy and a submarine

Julopabene so you like the Discovery?

Yeah, sure, I think it looks neat

love it aswell.

I always liked the centaur too. It looks sleek yet simple, and logical and functional, unlike many modern designs (especially in games) with all the useless curves and detailing. And the elongated nacelles work fine in this design, just like in the excelsior which is also one of my all time favorites. Hate discovery though, that ship has no elegance to it with the hard triangle shape in the rear, the weird and never seen before holes in the dish that make no sense at all, and so on. Just because you like elongated nacelles doesn't mean they alyways work. As always with design it is how everything fits together and works together to form a good looking whole. For me it fits and works in the centaur and the excelsior, but it doesn't in the discovery.

@@johanwittens7712 actually the vengence dreadnought from the kelvin timeline had holes also in the saucer section.. similar to how the discovery ship has on the saucer of the ship. id recommend you watch startrek into darkness and look closely at the vengence ship in that movie. also the discovery was loosely based on the klingons Kt'inga class battlecruiser if you look at the D7 battlecrusiers you will notice a similar design at the back.

Or maybe the 2330s. Registries are tricky.

Boisegang Haha, you know, there might be a theory behind this... Okay, try this headcanon on for size: Starfleet shipbuilding is 24th-century pork-barrel spending shacking up with crooked contractors. "Oh, man, well, I know you just wanted us to upgrade the warp nacelles and refit the forward phaser banks, but just _look_ at the state of this warp core! We're gonna have to rip out the whole thing, and all the new ones coming out of Utopia Planitia use completely different fittings. That means we need to remodel half the Engineering section. Getting the main computer to deal with the new warp core's quantum stabilizer field, well, it's just simpler to replace that than try to upgrade the old one. And don't get me started on these old phasers...! No, this is gonna be a much bigger job than we originally quoted you for..." And the politicians who approve these "refits"? Well, any politicians with lots of Starfleet Academy graduates in their constituency would absolutely _throw_ _themselves_ at that kind of project. Landing a bunch of endless "refitting" contracts will mean jobs and resources flowing into their constituency, and influence and prestige flowing the politician's way. Even in a money-less society, there's no politician who will resist that for long. So, politicians get reelected, a bunch of Starfleet Academy STEM grads are kept off the street (because let's face it, if they weren't busy working for Starfleet, they'd be merrily building doomsday weapons instead), and hey, they occasionally even fix a given ship's problems.

Historically it has been claimed that when a Navy could not approval for the funds for a new ship, they would do a 'grand refit' which would actually be cover for scrapping the old ship and building a new vessel ( slowly to hide the expense ). But this does not conflict with your theory.

david james look at the U.S.S. Texas BB-35, from her original fit in the late 19teens, into 1922 she basically remained unchanged, but with the "refit" in 22 when she emerged 2 years later Texas was essentially a different vessel from the boiler plates up.

tba113 crooked contractors and conniving politicians exist in the 24th century and in the Terran sector no less what's the point of living in paradise if it's the same old same old?

They would be great car salesman.

which has to do with the AMT ERTL kits they actually used to make this - they are not to scale so all the Miranda parts are far too large

And it's been claimed by the model designer that he scaled it to the bridge and the pod, not the saucer and nacelles.

They recently did a T6 version of the miranda, i use the centaur build its awesome, especially with the new dominion expansion it fits in well

@@Searly255 if cryptic could update the detail for the centaur XD

I made a light cruiser with the Centaur saucer, nacelles, and struts, with the Miranda rollbar. I really liked how it turned out, though I eentually switched to a Nova-Class.

I believe the nacelles are just Excelsior spare parts, just like the rest of the ship.

I suppose that it was done to emulate the stretching graphic that ships do when shifting into warp.

My favorite is still the Nebula. LOL Best kitbash ever

azraelswrd mines the Miranda nebula and tbh I have a soft spot for the Yeager

Mystique the cute blue alien Oh no the Yeager was a hideous monstrosity. Maquis raider butt glued onto a voyager saucer? Not exactly the most uh “creative” design.

On my Mud Duck ugly ships of the Federation list too... Yeager, Franklin, the nacelles on JJ Enterprise (Don't like engineering either) and still think Discovery is ugly, though I like the designs of the other ships. When I first saw the Shenzhou it kinda reminded me of a Centaur, or an NX version of it.

I like to think of the Yeager like the falcon. A over pimped fighter/cargo ship (the falcon did become very much combat oriented in it's life from a cargo ship to a smugglers one) and that's why I like it

I thought ben sisko and dax were talking and called charlie reynolds ship a centaur class. Ill have to hit that episode again on netflix. Went back and watched sisko and company in the episode "a Time to stand" but they only referred to the ships name centaur but not its class.

Breck ships whose classes aren't mentioned but which *are cannon are called by the first ship's mentioned and then the word 'type'.*

Canon. Not cannon.

Uuuuuugggglyyyyy...!

I'm experimenting but will probably drop the scifi intro

Makes sense. Stick a secondary hull onto any old saucer and send em back out fighting. You can stick another saucer on that engineering section once you fix it. They’re all modular, detachable, and interchangeable anyway. Saucer, bridge, nacelles, secondary hull. So they should use standard fittings across the board already. So might as well piece together the working parts that came back from the front as quick as you can before working on the more seriously damaged stuff.

The registry appears older, but that's not total proof, as spare registry numbers might have been left unfilled.

I could see that..

they do in one of the trek mods for sins of a solar empire

Tezunegari I’m not 100% Sure but the USS Titan might be the Sovreign’s “Nebula”.

I always thought the Akira class was the budget Sovereign, for when the Federation wants to punch with it's left hand.

@Andrew Thomson The Akira lacks the similarities with the Sovereign. If you look up the other pairs you'll see the similarities between the "twins". Constitution and Miranda have the same saucer, nacelles and torpedo launcher. Galaxy and Nebula are essentially the same but assembled differently. Personally I think the "cheap Sovereign-twin" would look alot like the Centaur, just with Sovereign parts.

Adam Buckner, the ship's designer, says the Excelsior saucer is a co-incidence, and the scale should be to the bridge and torpedo pod. So it would be almost 211 metres long instead.

I was as surpried as you!

@@LoreReloaded Can't just have officers on a ship, no real work would get done. ;)

I stated it fought the Borg:)

I don't recall seeing it. Not made by Adam Buckner until later, I believe.