I understand this class has a motto: "explodes less than other classes"

"Not that one but this one" Beautiful

"at the speed of plot" I love that line

Always felt like it was a 24th century version of the Miranda class. Anyone else?

5:25 The Southerland was undergoing repair, so Data could have been commanding it from the auxiliary control.

The Kitbashed Galaxy is my favourite ship. It's like someone squashed the Enterprise and gave it a hat.

Slight correction: In the episode "The Wounded" Gul Macet was surprised the Federation could read the transponder codes. These codes are usually encrypted so the fact that the Federation had already broken that encryption was what caught him off guard. This is more of an indication of the proficienty of Federation Intelligence, not a comparison of technological advancement. To me anyway.

One thing I always found amusing about the Nebula class was the idea that it was weaker than the Galaxy class when from a tactical standpoint it has a far better design with a narrower profile making it harder to hit and generally meaning it takes less hits, less structural weak-points like the Galaxy classes neck meaning the ship is most likely more maneuverable than the Galaxy because it is less likely to tear itself in half during high speed maneuvers, and its vulnerable points such as the engineering section are better protected because of its compact design (the engineering section can only be targeted from below the shit at an angle great enough to avoid the nacelle pylons due to the positioning of the saucer section and nacelle pylons, additionally the Bridge is also somewhat more protected by the dorsal superstructure than the Galaxy classes but since according to alpha canon the Nebula is also capable of saucer separation it stands to reason that there would also be a battle bridge in a safer area of the secondary hull so that is not as important) All this while being built with the same components as a Galaxy including (most importantly) the same power plant (a 1500+ Cochrane warp core) meaning they both had the same amount of power available to power things like shields and phasors.

This looks like what a galaxy class would be if they designed it for war. I mostly like it

How dare you call the Nebula-class "A Poor man's Galaxy-class" ! You sir have crossed the line.

What's funny about the era of pacifism with the federation in TNG is that the Federation was only a few years removed from a war with the smaller, technologically outmatched Cardassia that resulted in a seeming stalemate and Cardassia appearing to get the better of the cease fire terms, with the "oh so big and powerful" Federation choosing to give up a bunch of colonized planets to Cardassia to pacify them. In a handful of episodes they seem to indicate that despite their ships being fewer in number and far less formidable, they regularly won or fought to draws in engagements with Federation fleets through use of superior tactics, ambushes, traps, deception, and trickery, with the end result being what several high ranking Federation officers equated as a victory over the Federation, given that the cease fire terms were so much in Cardassia's favor. Personally, I always wondered if Roddenberry always meant for the Federation-Cardassian war of 10-15 years past to be an allagory to Vietnam.

I have to say, I've always had a real soft spot for the Nebula Class.

I like the Nebula- But I don't like how it was treated throughout the shows, the Galaxy class is seen as a tough as nails battleship in the Dominion war, the Nebula is a barely downgraded version, hell it is superior in some ways, it has a far smaller target profile for instance, but it is treated as canon-fodder, or just completely forgotten about, those things are huge they could be a flagship of a fleet for christ's sake! But no, it's treated as a glorified Miranda-Class... Wait- It kinda is a Miranda class...

The galaxy class didn't get sinks...that was so yesterday. They through those on the first nebula class ships. But yeah, it was obviously just a cheaper Galaxy class ship, easier to build and used for lesser missions...until they realized it was a floating coffin during the the build up to the Dominion War. But actually when we see the Phoenix, we get an idea why Starfleet was the way they were. Outside of the Klingon and the Romulans, (one of which they had made peace with and the other who was MIA for years) the Federation really didn't have to try very hard to defend itself against enemies. The Enterprise D took down a Cardassian ship's shields in one hit and the Phoenix was whipping the floor with Cardassian cruisers. It shows you why they were pacifistic during the TNG era. They had no matches.

I love the nebula class vessels. I don't know why but I do. But dang Starfleet, quit giving multiple active ships the same name

"The Lore Reloaded Cinematic Universe." Pure genius.

It's a bit unfair to call it "a poor man's Galaxy Class", after all if you design and build something like the Galaxy Class line with all the newest bells and whistles to take all of the most prestigious roles in the fleet and push the current technology as far as you can with a single ship design, then it makes sense to take a step back after that is finished evaluate what was learned designing that ship, observe what is and isn't useful in practice, and design a more mass producible variation having refined the design down to its most essential elements. One is the thoroughbred of the fleet that can be a symbol and the other is the work horse that gets things done (or at least that's the mind set in such a design process). A similar example of this type of design framework (from an entirely different franchise) would be the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam (a prototype with all the bells and whistles) and the GAT-01A1 Dagger (a mass produced refinement of the prototype). Overall I like the mind set that went into coming up with the Nebula, you can't have the best and most powerful ships doing everything, there aren't enough of them, and you can't rely on the old and outdated hardware Starfleet seems to have doing most jobs (Miranda class, Oberth class, Excelsior class, or Constilation class etc.) for a lot of more dangerous roles. So you design an efficient modern platform that can be rolled out in greater numbers suitable for a wide range of roles and is simply good enough to do the job without being overly excess to requirements.

Nebula is a brilliant look and design. We can head cannon the variable strengths based on what upgrade section is equipped. Love the ship.

I really like the look of the ship, more than Galaxy class

Huh I saw this and also thought "Didn't he do this one already?"

I always thought Nebulas made perfect sense if they're designed to be modular. The pod and warp core and maybe impulse stuff seems to be on the same column through the ship. Starfleet, if you don't assume they're stupid, might well have been, "Well, we don't need to field a lot of warships right now, let's build something we can drop battley stuff into when this situation inevitably doesn't last ...and not have to build a whole other fleet in the meantime." If they designed it modular, and able to handle the extra power in its systems, that way it really is kind of a minor refit, let the engineers build kickarse pods out of something that was all sorted out and waiting, with the engineers putting together and testing *modules* so they can be there when a ship pulls in for new mission profile: you don't even have to transfer crews, just connect, doubtless do a bit of fettling, baddabing.

"A Poor Man's Galaxy Class" made me chuckle mate

How to build a nebula class! Take a galaxy class and remove the neck. Take the secondary hull and push it under the saucer section. Then remove the flat back end of the secondary hull and remove the the warp nacelles. Move the Warp nacelles so that they are parallel to the secondary hull under the saucer section. Finally put a pizza slice on top and have a little piece that holds the three sections in the back. If you don't want a pizza slice version there is an optional version with an oval plate that can be found. The Oval plate version does have the stupid long struts meaning that you will need to beam into the oval part or walk 500 miles.

The Nebula has a special place in that its the first proper 24th century starship design we see beyond the Galaxy-class. Up until that point, Starfleet seemed to be mostly comprised of ships seen in the TOS movies (for obvious budgetary reasons). It was nice to see a ship with Galaxy-class design style to it, instead of just another Excelsior-class. The Ambassador-class served as the first instance of a new Starfleet design and I don't think was ever seen again after Yesterday's Enterprise. I always found it strange that Miranda and Oberth-class ships were still flying around, but the Ambassador-class seemed to be completely retired despite being a far newer design.

Nebula class beats the Galaxy class for one simple reason. They have *TWO* bathrooms!

Honestly? Nebula is my favorite class second only to the Sovereign - The compact, modular design makes a ton of sense; especially if the cost of mass producing major fleet ships is prohibitive. Being able to go from a sensor pallet to a hospital pallet then to a combat pallet and still have the full functionality of the rest of the ship makes total sense; and I would wager that the ship's saucer is still able to separate. Its also one of my pet peeves from a technical nitpicky standpoint - they seem to have a ton of trouble figuring out what 'impulse engines' are and where the hell they belong.

I maintain that the Nebula and Centaur classes were in competition for the same general role, and it was the Nebula that won out.

At least it wasn't the Scimitar.

Generally in naval design a prototype vessel is launched and that countries navy tries to work out the bugs in it before mass producing it. The Galaxy prototype was probably seen as too time consuming to build at least to keep up with Starfleet's plan to gradually phase out the Excelsior and Ambassador classes , the Nebula class was probably done to keep Starfleet from experiencing a drastic force reduction while still maintaining the basic design principles of the Galaxy class. I would not go so far to say Starfleet was being overly pacifistic in "The Wounded" as strategically practical- Starfleet had just had their butts kicked by the Borg at Wolf 359 and didn't want Maxwell starting a war with the Cardassians while Starfleet was recovering from their losses and trying to develop the Defiant class, which ultimately lead to the setup of the DMZ and the rise of the Maquis.

Can't enough of this starship!

If the federation was owned by Nissan. The Nebula class would be the Sentra and Galaxy class would be a maxima

I loved the Nebula class for its amazing versatility. The swappable mission pod makes it ideal for everything from long range surveillance, border patrol, and combat, to medical and civilian evacuation.

One of the nebula classes strengths is it's ability to be refit and take on different roles within a few hours although its Primary role is a science vessel. Even a carrier as you pointed out.

My personal head-canon is that the Nebula was a cheaper, more easily built Galaxy variant that had a role that was never discussed directly in canon - it was a saucer recovery vessel for when a Galaxy had separated and lost it's primary hull (hence its appearance in Generations).

When I first saw this ship, I thought “Now that’s practical”. After I saw the specs in Bridge Commander, I thought this was definitely THE ship of the federation. Especially since it has a dorsal hard point that could mount weapon systems or science modules. It even looks cooler, especially with a massive cannon on top. And it’s half the price of a galaxy.

Like the video states, we don't see it very much on screen, or at least not as much as some other classes. Had we, i would have guessed this to be SF's new workhorse. Flexible, modifiable, modern, yet more compact and cheaper then the Galaxy class. She could be all you needed her to be, based on the mission profile. You want a border patrol or intelligence cruiser, shove that AWACS like dish on top (assuming it's an "electronic" warfare package). Want a transport and/or evacuation ship, take that off, shove in some extra warp nacelles for added speed. Want a torpedo/bomber platform, yet again, take off the extra nacelles and strap on that weapons module. What's not to like? Of course, we don't see it enough (especially in action) to know if all these seemingly logical "assumptions" are factual.

"Lets f*** up a Jem'Hadar's day."

I always thought the Galaxy was meant to go out for 5-10years into deep space, hence needing to be comfortable as all heck and have tons of Storage space and a large deuterium tank and more than.a few extra antimatter storage pods. Nebula on.the other hand seemed to be more of a border patrol, in.federation space oriented ship. Ie nebula is your daily runner, galaxy is your long distance explorer.

Looks like the secondary hull is between the nacelles, does that men everyone there gets microwaved when it goes to warp?

I always loved the design for the Nebula much more than the Galaxy sorry.. not sorry 😎

Great video thanks for that awesome breakdown, I always loved learning this technical stuff of ships but they really go into this kind of stuff I think the ship they probably talked about the most was the defiant which is my personal favorite......

This is a random thought, but when you said the weapons range was 300,000 kilometers, it hit me that, in a fleet that operates on an interstellar scale, they should probably start measuring things in megameters and gigameters if they want to stick with SI.

I have to say that is one hell of a ship

gotta have them gelato machines

galaxy for the Prestige, nebula for effectiveness

I've been wanting to hear about this one for years. Wish their was more uses of the oberth in Canon other then the occasional backstory.

thanks for such great content

I love the narration on this 😂 Nebula is my favorite class.

at 4:15 I can't help but laugh at your description. Every ship should have that in Trek war time!

"Captain we have received a distress call." " Understood. Helm engage Plot drive full power."

This was my first Cruiser in STO. I'll never forget it. USS A.L.Tennyson. This ship will always have a special place in my heart.

‘“Let’s fuck up a Jem’Hadar’s day” module’ Comedy gold

Your videos are awesome.

It would've been interesting if the saucer separation idea had been more flushed out on the show. It would've made a lot of sense to see to Galaxy's and Neb's being rushed out of the ship yards and into the Dominion war without any expensive / bulky saucers for example. Actually It would've been pretty neat if "starfleet" had designed a range of different saucer sizes, shapes, designs that could easily be swapped out at star bases for different roles and easy refits. It would've looked more practical than slapping a 3rd nacelle on the back of the enterprise.... or at least made shuttle pilots less aggravated. They could've swapped out the saucer section every season to explain different sets and give her a different look.. like she was evolving or growing. whatever..

Starfleet always makes me mad at some point. Their pacifism and no war ships are two of them. Just because you are a peaceful organization, you should always have a fleet of warships stored away somewhere and trained soldiers like the MACO's ready whenever.

Really Great video i enjoyed it very much. The Nebula class is one of my favourite Starships great design

HAHAHHA! i can't get over the fact that you said "including the kitchen sink" XD

Best commentary ever! Big problem was size. It's supposed to be a frigate, Okyda commissioned it but the builder used molds for the 4' Enterprise. So it's size varies if it's next to the 4' or Big E.

I've long absolutely loved the Nebula ships. Aesthetically, they just look great and the design works very well as either a long-distance exploration vessel or a straight-up warship.

I do love the variety of ships in Star Trek. Hilariously I frequently got confused and thought the Oberth class was this ship as a picture you used a lot was a teeny tiny Oberth against a massive Nebula class. Star Fleet loves its saucers.

Hahaha the speed of plot, I love it!

I love the look of the Nebula class; it's the ship I would want.

Yay I totally missed this, and I am so happy I found it lol!

Thank you, sir. Well done!

the Nebula class starship was by far my favorite, i liked how it was modular to suit a specific task instead of like the Enterprise D which was just an awesomely over sized swiss army knife. The concept of purpose built mission modules that could be switched out seems plausible and underrated.

In beta canon, Gul Macet was Gul Dukat's cousin. #pattydukeanyone

“Not this one but that one.” LOVE IT FTW Lore Master!!!!!!

The Nebula Class is the Galaxy with the primary components (saucer, engineering, and nacelles) tetrised into a more compact overall profile. There is absolutely no reason to believe it is even the smallest amount of "less capable" than the Galaxy. The Cardassians clearly found it to be formidable, and Picard's actions made it appear the class had capabilities that were not well known. It is one of the classes of ship that would have survived the Delta trip where many would not have. In my estimation, it is the best class in all of Trek.

I was looking for a picture of this ship a while ago to use for my background . When I finally found a site that had a good one I saw it also had a write-up on the history of it . What follows is paraphrased . Since the saucer section of a Galaxy class is not warp capable they needed a tug to retrieve the saucer section in the event a Galaxy was separated and the drive section was destroyed so they made the lower section . I don't remember which war they said came about but they needed an influx of ships fast so someone came upon the idea that they had all these tugs around , all they needed was saucer sections and they could bypass the entire planning and development stages and go straight to building . Hence the Nebula was born .

I always felt that the Nebula and Miranda class ships were designed more for combat that the Galaxy/Constitution classes. It's more compact, less exposed weak points, appear to be fitted with more armaments (or easily upgradable), etc.

I see lots of videos on Star Trek ships, and always hear mention of primary and secondary hulls. While I know that when talking about the primary hull is referring to the operations and living section of the ship and secondary hull being used to refer to the engineering section of the ship. But I feel that I need to mention that the hull of a ship is the ships skin. The primary hull being the portion of the ship that is directly exposed to space and the secondary hull being a layer set inside the primary hull as an added layer of protection in case the primary hull is penetrated.

I dispute describing the Federation as "pacifistic" not least because it continued to build huge vessels armed to the teeth! But I agree it became increasingly "complacent" and it took years to knock that complacency away. However, the change began really with contact with the Borg. That heralded a great shift towards finding a way to upgrade weapons, design more battle-specific warships, and (evidently) ways to upgrade old ships in mothballs to make them battle-worthy. Until that was ready, they (wisely) stalled for time. One consequence of this was how much more powerful both Galaxy and Nebula classes became in the first few months (maybe weeks) of the Dominion War. It even showed up in the Battle for Sector 001 in FIRST CONTACT in which a smaller fleet than the one at Wolfe 359 seriously damaged then destroyed a Borg Cube.

this is one of my favorite TNG era ships. If I had to pick on to captain it would likely be this one.

Always loved the use of bellerophon for ship names in trek. So few people know the history behind the name on a ship, and far fewer did pre world of warships.

I remember someone doing a nebula class breakdown. Oh well, worth talking about the ship every time. It's my favorite ship of the TNG era. I personally love the nebula because of the Star Trek Armada games. It was a great support ship, there. Its special ability allowed it to shoot a type of torpedo or something that would disable the shields on multiple enemies then your heavy hitters blasted through them. I think otherwise the ship looks like a more compact but no less capable version of the Galaxy.

I don't know if I'd call the Nebula a "poor man's Galaxy class" given it had other fleet roles than the Galaxy, and given the size of the fleet they couldn't make the Galaxy the "standard" starship the way the Constitution was portrayed in TOS

you keep saying the Enterprise has no armor. During the battle in Generations where it's shields were rendered useless it took repeated hits from a Klingon bird of prey without being destroyed where as the Klingon bird of prey with shields down took a single photon torpedo, and exploded. I'd say the Enterprise is a pretty tough ship.

I just noticed a irksom issue to me about the main shuttlebay. The doors are exactly the same as with the galaxy class, but on the nebula that means dodging that back pylon as you exit the bay and flying under that superstructure, assuming there is enough space to fly under the superstructure and above the saucer to get past the neck. Personally, I would have made a slight modification there adding side doors back there so that shuttles exit the main shuttlebay to port an starboard, and then could turn aftward or forward and upward as needed without the need to carefully dodge the structure of the ship.

I always loved the Miranda and Nebula designs. In my opinion they were more compact but not weaker versions of the originals. They didn't have as many Phaser arrays for example, but thats because they didn't need them. Their smaler profile and more compact designs allowed them to cover the whole 360° Arc with less Arrays and eliminated some weaknesses. And they all had slightly less space on board but that can be compensated. And because of their rollbars/modules they could offer more offensive potential in my opinion

The prometheus.. not that 1 but this 1 :'D got me in the feels every time hahah :'D

"Because I have to make sure to get my captain obvious award" is possibly the best thing I've ever heard in a youtube video.

So parts of its phaser banks can only shoot it's own warp nacelles and the main shuttle bay is blocked by that extra thingy. Ingenious design.

In my own head canon, all Starfleet ships have hulls made out of Tritanum layered with duranium. Also, we must assume that they also incorporate the hull hardening technology from Enterprise from before Star Fleet had shield technology. 12,000 °Celsius was about the maximum tolerance of the Enterprise-D's hull temperature within a star's corona. Even in TOS, when the Enterprise was falling through the Earth's atmosphere when it went back in time, the hull heated up to some crazy high hull temp. Ship hulls are tough cookies. They have to be to take the stress and tolerance of warp space travel.

I've looked at it differently recently as well. I have come to the conclusion that the saucer and nacelles on the Nebulas might actually smaller than their Galaxy class counterparts. The shapes are the same, but when the Nebula is side-by-side with an Ambassador class in the DS9 pilot, they are roughly the same size... leading me to believe that the Nebula's saucer isn't just some stock Galaxy class saucer that got the bad luck of being turned into a Nebula instead of a Galaxy.

Would love the Nebula class of the 24th.century remove the below hull & hopefully the new Nebula class could go to warp-10 with the removal of the under-hull.

Nebula and Miranda always reminded me of a space going sports car. Low slung, fast, and had a wing any Honda boi would nut over.

"The U.S.S. Prometheus, not this one but that one."

Lore Reloaded I'm pretty sure you did make another video on the Nebula class; I remember watching it.

I seem to remember reading or hearing that Starfleet balked at just how material intensive the Galaxy proved to be and ordered several ships slated to become Galaxies to be scaled down. And thus the Nebula was born. But it's entirely possible that that information came from a video game, often the gamma canon.

Not sure if anyone else mentioned this but I do recall that I read somewhere that when the Nebula class was originally designed it was meant to be an emergency "star drive" section for saucer sections of the Galaxy class that had lost their "star drive" section.

The Miranda Class was built as a less complex Constitution, When the Constitution Class was phased out however, the Miranda Class just kept on trucking, for more than a century. The Nebula Class was designed the same way, as a less complex version of the Galaxy Class. While we don't have fleet numbers for a century after Next Generation, I could easily believe that while the Galaxy Class have been phased out, as the over sized explodium crates they are, the Nebula Class are still in the fleet used as science and/or training ships.

From what I gather.. and, mind, I detest what the Federation had become at this point.. The Galaxy Class was intended to be the "last word" on deep space exploration, new species first contact, extremely high level scientific mission undertaking, interplanetary negotiation, and integration of career officers and their families, that said missions not interfere with the experience of raising said families. And it had "provisions for self defense." Those "provisions" being a gun and torpedo count about equal in number to a Constitution-class, but with a more flexible layout. Did we ever see a Galaxy fire its rear arc phaser strips? It HAD them, though. The Nebula-class, from everything I've read - which often contradicts itself - really should be considered the Miranda to the Galaxy. Or, better yet, the mid-grade Miranda derivative between Ambassador and Galaxy, utilizing proven components from both. The problem, and I think the in-universe reason it's seen so few times - would be cost and, while it had modular mission pods like the Mirandas, it wasn't as capable of accepting spaceframe upgrades nearly as cheaply as the Mirandas were, compared to their parent Constitutions. Again, this is probably the result of the Nebulas being a middle step between mature Ambassador technologies, and emerging Galaxy ones. Keep in mind, the 1701 was already 20+ years old when Kirk got ahold of her. By that time, the Connies were mature technology, and upgrades incremental while Starfleet studied the next big generational leap (TransWarp, and the Excelsior class). The 2270's upgrade was more or less "because they had to" - as new class designs weren't in the pipe yet, and the, by then, 35+ year old Connies were still roughly equal to Starfleet's competitors - the "refit Constitutions" being a solid step forward with well developed technology explored, apparently, first on the Mirandas. It, thus, would be more fair to compare the first-run Connies to the Ambassadors, the Nebulas to the Mirandas, the refit Connies to the Galaxies, and the Excelsiors to the Sovereigns. Generationally speaking. This being said, the Mirandas were super successful because they were small and cheap. They were, nominally, Light Cruisers, that, while armed as well as a Heavy Cruiser, didn't have the power output or speed to really last in a standing engagement like a Heavy did. Khan achieved an advantage over Kirk by hitting the Enterprise while its shields were down, and thus preventing him from using them, which would have made the fight between the two ships far different - despite both having inexperienced crews, the Connie would win that match on paper, as it had superior power output capability, to keep shields, weapons, and life support on line longer. The Nebulas represented everything wrong with Starfleet at the time. It was a bloated project rife with Mission Creep, that was a monster sized ship compared to the small, nimble Miranda it was (apparently intended) to replace. While it reused the "mission pod" rollbar concept that the Mirandas had, its mission pods seemed to be much harder to mount. Or, at least, required more precise "ship surgery" than the apparently bolt-on, bolt-off Miranda rollbar. The Mirandas themselves were adapted with easy modification to a number of different roles, such as the Bozeman being, basically, a border patrol vessel with extra phaser cannons to fight off pirates and raiders with. The Nebulas? I'm willing to wager the cost of such an adaptation or conversion would be expensive enough to forego it. In fact, I wonder if the Mission Pods ended up causing significant delays and Starfleet neglected to construct the logistical footprint necessary to replace them at just any old Starbase. SO! In short, the Nebulas are bloated, expensive, overloaded attempts to build a proper "adapted Light Cruiser" that ended up being so expensive, true Light Cruisers were probably made instead - Niagra or Challenger, would be my bet, as they share design elements.

Galaxy > Nebula Constitution > Miranda Sovereign > ??? Now that would be a cool looking ship, and considering how tough and combat orientated the Sovereign is, damn formidable. Someone with the animation skills should do a probable mockup. Blended primary and secondary hull with nacelles close underneath, the only issue is what would the module/rollbar look like ? And was there ever a saucer variant of the Excelsior ?

The bridge we saw on the Sutherland seemed a lot like Auxiliary Control to me. I haven't seen the episode for a while, but didn't they press the ships for the detection net into action at fairly short notice (hence the shortage of suitable officers to man them)? It would fit that theory, even if the reality was budget constraints.

So, since the saucer sections can detach..Are they interchangeable? Have a science saucer, transport saucer, and a battle saucer. Just send what is needed for a mission

I recall reading, probably on ex astris or somewhere like it, that a side by side comparison of the Nebula components with the Galaxy shows that, with the exception of the nacelles, the Nebula components are all differnt. That includes the saucer, which is a different diameter. And the secondary hull is completely different, even at a glance! So it's not a kitbash, it just looks like one.

Yoyodyne Division 🤣🤣🤣🤣. That kills me every time. I keep picturing John Worfin & his goons building Starfleet ships in some leaky warehouse.

I always asked myself if it had saucer separation and if it was interchangeable with the one of a galaxy

Interesting ship. Seems to be the next generation Miranda class and seems to be the next generation sister ship to the Galaxy as the Maranda was to the Enterprise Class (or is that refitted Constitution class?). As such it seems to be a much more affordable work horse vessel to supplement the more prostegeous Galaxy class. So question: why did the Federation have so many classes of starship instead of mass producing and refining a few proven designs like the Dominion?

I like how Kitbashing and time constraints transform into lore over time.