2:21 Every 20 years, Starfleet points Utopia Planita at the tech tree and says "I want all that, in here" and Fleet Yard says "bet"

The Galaxy class always gave me that "What if a starbase could fly around?" feeling

Bitterly disappointed that the oberth wasn't at no#1

The Galaxy Class was the pure embodiment of the federation as envisioned by its creator. Its place at the top of any list is not a repudiation of what came later, but an acknowledgment that what came later wouldn’t have been possible without it, both in canon and in reality.

A very fair list honestly. The Sovereign makes sense where it's at. "speak softly and carry a big stick" is the kind of diplomacy that starfleet was using when building that ship.

One of the best things about the Picard series was the amazing STO artists getting their ships canonised.

I agree and disagree with your Sovereign take. On one hand, it IS just kind of a generational upgrade. It's like the Galaxy and Intrepid had a baby. It was fast and powerful and capable, but not a generational leap like the Excelsior was vs the Constitution. But let's not forget, it folded up that Borg Cube in First Contact like it was a lawn chair. The Akira, Defiant, and Steamrunner you saw on screen collectively orgasimed when the Enterprise showed up to save their asses, and they all fell in line. Sovereign is the peak TNG/DS9/VOY era ship.

Fantastic list & I generally agree. You certainly made good arguments for their placement. I would love to see this style of list for other factions, Klingon, Romulans etc.

I'm just happy that my bae got included, even at Number nine. I have the Eaglemoss XL on my dresser, and I even built one in Minecraft with a full functional interior and a Tellarite captain-I fully intend to make it "operational" once the _Valkyrien Skies_ mod updates. Thanks for the awesome video, Ric! So good, I'm happy to watch it twice!

The close-ups of the Intrepid class made it look like it had USB and Aux ports.

Personally, I'm thrilled the Galaxy class took the top spot; for me it's the best preeminent symbol of what the Federation hopes to be (had circumstances not overtaken it, as you said). Lots of big, friendly-looking curves on a battleship frame that held the line in some of the Federation's darkest hours, and all with comfortable chairs, warm lighting, and the thing that everyone would miss most of all in future designs - the carpet. The ship was too mean, so Starfleet started putting families onboard. When the shit started hitting the fan, the Galaxy class went "Hold my tea, Earl Grey, hot - it's time to go cut a bitch."

I loved the fact that you have the Connie and Excelsior class ships, they carried the Federation and Starfleet to the frontier

Kinda surprised the Prometheus didn't get an honorable mention.

My one annoying issue with the Sagan is still that it canonically has no torpedo/probe launchers. I want to love this ship so much but it's a crazy oversight.

The Connie wasn't just built for defence because the Federation was at war with the Klingons when she was built, so she is legitimately a battlecruiser. But like all vessels at the time, retasked at cessation of open hostilities and the beginning of the cold war era that TOS is set in. The Khitomer Accords being the complete and open end of things until DS9 beyond The Enterprise getting dragged into shit, generally involving House Duras. lol

I like to think that the Enterprise's amazing success led to Utopia Planitia to routinely come back to the Constitution profile for every new ship intended to have an "Enterprise" Flagship, as they just felt that any ship meant to bear the name should look the part.

I still think that 3 nacelled, laser cannoned Enterprise D was something that Riker specifically would come up with if the ship were given to him.

12:16 I believe the Andromeda didn't yet exist for it to be canon, I feel like the Enterprise-D saving the day on Frontier Day 2401 inspired its creation and upon its launch would be the most advanced class of ship commissioned to date.

cant argue with #1. my favourite ship of all time. the classiest of all the ships. such a beautifully designed ship in all honesty

Thanks for giving the Ambassador Class a shoutout ❤❤❤

While not groundbreaking and clearly an offshoot of the refitted Constitution class, the Miranda class deserves an honorable mention for its workhorse design that saw it serve as a backbone vessel for the Federation for over eight decades. The class also demonstrated huge adaptability and was a clear design concept influence for later vessels like the Nebula class.

Great video yet again 😁

The Sovereign was overdone when it was already done over (pun) The Galaxy class was a baritone, Shakespearean actor with a glass jaw. Just like it's captain 😉 The Odyssey class was designed and built by the people for the people. That's why it's the best. Thank you for including it.

Sovereign was the most iconic, beautiful, peak of Starship design - by far. Everything we've seen since looks like lego.

I'm surprised the Prometheus did not get a mention.

I still do not understand why, with all the tech floating in the Federation and StarFleet, the Ent-F was not just stripped to the keel and rebuilt, instead of scrapping the ship because "it suffered too much damage". They do basically that during some refits. In fact it should be really hard to Scrap or decommission a ship for damages that do not outright destroy the ship. On the production side, why even give a nod to the Ship, if Paramount/CBS was afraid of having to pay royalties to the creator of the Odyssey Class who was also awarded the Ent-F christening/commission.

Everybody loves the big one. :)

The sovereign and defiant (though not in this list) are most beautiful of that era, but the galaxy was the beast to their beauty, well deserved number one. Huge fan of the sagan too, she is absolutely beautiful for a new-era ship.

While it might not be the best, the ambassador class is my favorite Federation starship class.

Honestly surprised the Crossfield class didn't even get an honorable mention.

Sovereign, the Excelsior and the defiant are my favorite classes of ships. To be honest, I didn’t like the galaxy class when I first saw it, but it definitely grew on me. I also like the Odyssey class but in particular the USS Yorktown. Thanks for the video. Live long and prosper.🖖🏾

Excellent video, well thought out. I would have liked to have seen some of the futuristic ships from the last episode of Voyager. Good list, have a great day

I always love a top 10 and I love a starship, so I love this video! Slightly surprised that you didn’t put the Excelsior class at number 1 though 😂😂

The Miranda was such a cool design back in the 80's. I'm so glad they went with a design different from the Constitution layout. I had the Miranda Micro Machines mini and it was one of my favorites to play with as a kid.

Fair enough as a personal list. And made clear why some ships weren't included.

I agree we’d expect the original Connie to be high on the list. Not only a premiere explorer, but militarily outclassing most foes it would encounter, with few exceptions. Which is why it seems odd that Strange New Worlds retcons it into a ship that is outclassed by every enemy and has to run from every hostile encounter without even bothering to fight back. It might as well be the Oberth. But at least it has a really cool bar.

Really glad the Odyssey made the list, even though most of its lore is from beta canon. Also surprised but glad the Sagan class made it, it’s a great looking ship and I hope we see more of it. I think the Sovereign is in a good spot. It’s an amazing ship, but a bit niche and pretty outclassed by the 25th century. Not sure how I feel about the Sutherland being above the Excelsior though, I feel the Excelsior was so much more influential… Totally agree with #2 and #1 though! I would have bet money those two ships would win before even watching the video haha.

I really like the Ambassador class. A beautiful ship has the best of the Constitution Refit, Excelsior Class, and eventual Galaxy Class.

I imagine if the Crossfield line had panned out in the 23rd century, it could have absolutely placed rather high on this list, if it didn't bear a successor that did so. As a black-ops testbed, they had both the scientific and tactical capability to contend with situations and threats many similar craft had no business dealing with

Now, technically a shuttle is a ship. That means there are quite a few candidates that could bump off some of the mentioned ships quite easily by show of service and time spend on service and for that matter options. They were used for a lot of different jobs and they should at minimum be named at least once for this alone. A worker bee for example was present for nearly a century, even if it doesn't have warp capabilities or anything fancy, it did it's work even while being assigned to the big boys of the fleet. From orbital usage, to starbase and star ship. It was a very capable tiny ship that should be mentioned for it's role. Problem is that it's a auxiliary craft created for repairing, building and not much else. Now even a bigger contender would be the Runabout for example, it had a warp 5 speed (in some versions even upgraded to warp 6 or 7). With a crew of 2-4 and 4 phaser arrays and 1 torpedo launcher it was actually quite a decent little ship. Capable of doing all kinds of missions with the added capability of actually landing the ship on a planet or any space rock. Also it was actually a command pod, warp sled and cargo module into 1 and yes this could be easily changed into the configuration that would be needed for a specific mission or task. It was even used as carrier shuttle on the Akira-class for example. It could be very easily used for other tasks like cargo runs within a solar system between planets if you would add a bigger cargo pod for example or change the warp sled for something bigger and you might have more range and warp speed. This ship might be the most versatile ship of all, including the big ones.

Definitely with you for the number 1 pick 👍

I really felt the Runabout should have made the top ten. Its versatility and overall over performance in the Dominion War really makes it stand out. IMO.

Personally intrepid is my favorite. I feel that the class had a excellent balance between speed, crew complement, defense, and mission statement

I may have scowled at more than a few of your really weird choices, but any list that has the Galaxy class as its #1 is alright by me. You get a Like.

Nebula Class, Steamrunner Class, Odyssey Class, Miranda Class, Akira Class. I like starship designs that not anyone would think of and are clearly functional and fun and useful. Your choice of Sutherland Class covers the Nebula, and the Akira sort of.

Well at least Sisko's pimp hand got an honorable mention. I'll give you that.

The Akira was such an underused ship. A carrier with massive torpedo firepower, and they used it as cannon fodder.

I have a weird deja vu. I did ask, whether there is more story in STO and someone replied that it is available on PC already - so looking forward to adventures of [insert rank] Hale. I see that you corrected (I think) the weird black screens in Constitution part. IDK if it required nuking the video, but I'm glad that you did fix it.

Awesome list and overall good picks. Here's my list...and honestly this was seriously hard to chose. With this Trekkie I have come to love a lot of the ships that have appeared on our screens. To having to nail down a top 10 definitely was hard for me. 1: Constitution Class Refit

the galaxy class is the perfect starship. it combines everything about starfleet and the federation into a single class. it's great for exploration. it has an impressive weapons system. it carries families. it has plenty of science capability. and it's just so damn gorgeous...

There is no competition - For battle, Enterprise J - For Star trekking - NX-01

The Defiant is now and will likely always be my favorite Star Trek ship. I can understand why you wouldn't include it on a list like this as it was very specialist but I personally just love the idea of such a small ship being so powerful. Because of its size, one would presume they are also not terribly difficult to produce as the mirror universe made their own at a space station instead of a huge space dock.

Awesome list! I fully agree that I wish we had more canon on the Odyssey, it's such a beautiful design. Hopefully we'll get a show or some novels or something that gives us something with the Enterprise F to really see what the class is capable of. And on that note, and I know I'm opening myself up to some hate here, but I wish we knew more about the Kelvin Constitution. I genuinely really like the Kelvin design aesthetics, and think that version of the Enterprise is really cool, but those movies told us so little about what the Konnie can do and what Starfleet's design philosophies behind it were, so it will never really stand a chance in this kind of list. But then I'm the kind of person who wants full design info for every ship, because I thrive on the crunchy details when it comes to ships.

There's another error in this version of the video that might require another reupload: You throw shade at the Ambassador Class. Third time lucky, eh?

The Galaxy class is my favorite but I would love to see a series with the Enterprise J.

Love that the Odyssey class is at number 10. I liked the Walker class right away on Discovery. I am surprised that my favorite is at number 8 lol And my second favorite at number 7 I strongly dislike the Ambassador class. It's so generic and uninteresting. I prefer the Probert concept I just can't get by the fact that the Galaxy class was a glass cannon. It's power systems were unstable and compromised the core A LOT lol

I always wanted to squeeze several enterprise D systems into existing Ambassador class hulls. Modify the drives for minimal subspace impact. Now, I'd likely pull a few and stick in a system similar to the intrepid class.

california class shoud have been an honorable mention cause is like the old Volkswagen Beetle, despite being falling apart it doesn't let you down

I feel that longevity has to also be taken into account, while less important than how much of a top of the line ship it was when it came out, it is also important that it stayed relevant, this would probably push the excelsior up a ship or two and same with the sovereign.

Overall I agree with your list. I would quibble that the Defiant was very impressive after O’Brien worked out most of its kinks but again, the environment passed it by. This factor is way more important than most commenters seem to think. Just as species evolve to fit their environment (not quite correct but so what) so do they go extinct when environmental changes make them unfit to survive. Same for starships so there can’t really be an *all time* number one. Your number one choice Galaxy class, one of my personal all time favorites, comes pretty close except that as you said it became too costly to produce and keep up. Same applies to the Odyssey class though. It’s big, it’s broadly and hugely capable, but also costly. Personally I would like to see a Star Trek future in which the concept of Bigger Is Better is abandoned in favor of lots of smaller, faster, nimbler ships with the best weapons and shields available that can be mass-produced to use swarm tactics against larger opponents from D’Deridex class warbirds to Borg cubes. I’m thinking a love child of the Intrepid and Defiant classes, sort of super Destroyer class vessels (in current naval terminology) that aren’t intended to be part of a fleet that includes larger vessels. There would still be a need for larger ships in long-range exploration, bulk cargo, fleet tender and evacuation roles but their numbers would be limited. Yes, that would mean a more combat-oriented mindset in Starfleet but its history of avoiding that is one of my pet peeves about all of Star Trek. When the cosmic shtf the Federation is never prepared. A fleet of super Destroyers could still handle diplomatic missions, routine patrols, answer distress calls, explore Federation boundary space etc. in ones and twos, with at least the same if not better pop-up threat handling capability of much larger vessels. A man can dream. Speaking of that, what would *your* one -size-fits-all ship design look like?

Nothing says "The Federation is here!" like the Big D pulling into orbit. Opulent and imperial, regal and powerful. A statement of its own. Peak Golden Age Of Exploration Federation that was not afraid to show and flaunt its superiority to friend of a foe. If I had to select a new Hero Ship from the STO roster I would go with the Guardian class. Everything the Galaxy class is, but built for hostile environments and encounters. A ship I would choose to explore the Delta Quadrant with.

Ambassador is my favorite. It just looks so well proportioned.

What if the Excelsior _"Transwarp"_ was simply *the new warp scale* speeds, which were a big jump from the TOS era, and not TNG warp 10+ cross the galaxy warp drive? Basically what Khan developed in the Kelvin timeline - the Dreadnought being a combat optimised Excelsior concept with the drive tech that the Prime timeline would develop in a few more decades. And the chase scene from _Into Darkness_ does seem like what the Excelsior captain expected to do in _The Search for Spock._ Easily catch up to a Constitution Class in warp, and be able to attack it in warp. So that once Starfleet undid Scotty's sabotage and refined the engines, it did indeed work. After all, a Excelsior could still keep up with the fleet a century later.

The Miranda class the truly forgotten red shirt ship. So sad.

I like the Ambassador Class. It looks good to me, I don't like non circular saucers and and flattened out star drive sections. I might be bias because of the impact of the Enterprise C. Sort lived but (I think) made the biggest impacted of any Enterprise for the length of time it was in service. I also heard that the Ambassador in the Dominion War was out doing the newest of the Cardassian fleet despite being around 50 years older. This could be more of a crew thing then a ship thing, though. If a crew has worked with a ship for long enough it can make the ship do just about anything... in theory. In Star Trek online though I don't like it's turn rate so I use the light curser (Reliant Class) instead. (fast maneuverable and can pack a big punch with the right equipment and bridge crew)

Id like a video for each faction if possible. Ships that need to be added: (Honorable mention F Class shuttle), Texas Class, and Saladin (I was so bummed when Gene said no way to the design).

I really wish we'd gotten more time with the Sagan class or any time at all with the Luna Class. Maybe in some future Legacy.

man i cant wait to see the lamarr class in action it look awesome i am guessing it from star trek online or something the picture i havent found anything on it outside the clip that was shown a few month ago

Dude put a Luxury Yawt at Number 1 but put The Sovereign in The Back that is a dedicated Fed Battle Ship and does everything The Galaxy Class dose but better lol. It's fine im not Salty hehe it's your list and a fantastic one too and i love The Galaxy Class as well i grew up with that and Voyager for me i would of put Voyager at Number 1. Respect and keep up the epic work.

The Defiant will always be the best ship Starfleet ever produced. It proved they only make huge 600,000 meter long ships because they get paid by the meter.

9:00 I think any ship designed to just be “an Enterprise” with no other ideas behind its creation than just designing an Enterprise (i.e a refit, a massive explorer carrying families, a sleeker design, etc) is inevitably gonna end up a little generic. That being said, I’m a sucker for the traditional Starfleet silhouette so i do like the Ambassador

This video is amazing good 👍😎😊😁

I could argue a few others but overall I agree.

Not sure I would have put the Galaxy Class at #1. It seemed to do poorly in battles.

I agree with the picks just not the order of ranks but I'll acknowledge it's all about how they look to me hehe I'm a sucker for the ships that just look tough like the walker and sovereign lol

#1: “Let’s see what this Galaxy-class starship can do…”

Vengeance class would be on my top 10

I personally dislike the Discovery/Picard ships, since I do not care for how Bad Reboot has handled their shows. That is of course personal preference. I believe that the Ares class from 'Prelude to Axanar' deserves an honorable mention at the very least. The studio came up with a very believable precursor design to the TOS Constitution class, one with a serious 'come-at-me-bro' vibe that any Klingon would have recognized immediately. It has been suppressed by CBS, which is further proof of how good it actually is. D-6's beware!

i agree with the list, i am a bit biased towards the Galaxy class as that is still my favorite ship, despite the plethora of starships in STO, plus they have multiple variants in the mmo so im a happy man.

Should do one for each of the major factions in start trek .

Yeah, the more I think about it. Enterprise was just the love boat in space.

I would have to say the best ship overall would be the Intrepid class, Voyager. Granted this is a tough list and you will never get a lot of people agreeing on this type list. Good overall for sure!

I find it difficult to not be biased of just how GOOD the model of the Constitution MkII was, with both the Ent-D and Voyager having also excellent models. Is it just my "old man" coming out that I think they look so much better? They just feel like real objects to me, while say, the Ent-E feels good enough for me to get involved in a story, but whenever I take a step back it just doesn't look like a real thing that exists. I wonder how younger fans feel.

A few nitpicks: I don't think the Lakota was one of the most capable ships in the fleet... I think it was up against a tiny escort (the Defiant) and basically punched down. We would expect a ship of similar size like the Sovereign to wipe the floor with the Defiant. The Intrepid was MUCH larger in volume than the Constitution class, which routinely did 5 year missions, and looks quite cozy in SNW... heck, it doesn't really seem that different from a Sovereign class internally. Lastly, so awesome to see the Galaxy Class at the top of this list-- but one of the most underapreciated features of the ship was its massive hangar. Lastly, we see Galaxy Class ships being produced well into the late 2370s-- and we can presume that many were converted over to the Ross class or Andromeda class refit. Children may have been a bad idea on some missions, but civilian diplomats, scientists, anaylisits etc make perfect sense on a starship that is routinely operating far from Federation core worlds.

I haven't finished the video yet but I'm dying to find out what you have in first position so I'll know what people are going to be arguing about when I do read the comments. This video is good enough it will earn more than one comment from me.

I wonder if any of us alive now will be around when the events of star trek becomes a reality

I don’t agree with a lot of this, but it is a fair list.

The Akira class is my favourite!

The lifespan of the Galaxies was likely a bit longer than you've got here. We know there were a bunch of them in the Dominion War, and post-war there just wouldn't have been a lot of things to thin out their herd. While they probably weren't produced for long (as the Sovereign was in production), after the war, the ones in-service likely kept trucking well into the 2400s.

TBH I would have swapped the Excelsior and the Galaxy. Doing my research, mind, but here's my thoughts: The Galaxy is extremely resource intensive and relies a lot on brute force to heft its bulk. The civilian crews are... a moral dilemma, considering how much danger they are put into without proper training. Per Beta content (Star Trek Adventures), a lot of Galaxy class ships were commissioned during the Dominion war by stripping out a lot of the fluff systems which left some of them nearly hollow. Honestly, I'm surprised - Memory Alpha shows somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 Galaxies recorded on screen. So perhaps a little less difficult to build than I thought (or just economy of scale plus post-scarcity). Also, 2 of them show up in alternate futures (the D refit and the Challenger), so the class clearly has some legs. The Excelsior bridges from the end of TOS era to the end of DS9. Aside from the B'Rel and the Miranda, few if any ships served longer, and the Miranda couldn't serve in the front line like the Excelsior did during the Dominion war. In-universe, the Excelsior was clearly still a preferred posting just based on the number of admirals who continued to put their flag on the Excelsior even in the presence of newer ships. Arguably, the only reason the Excelsior was retired is because of moral issues (subspace damage) instead of technological progress, and the Excelsior-II tells me that starfleet engineers felt that way too.

While you did the Sutherland I think with out the modularity and multi capabilities of the Nebula a lot of design concepts would not have occurred. For my money the Nebula outshines the Galaxy in multi mission capability while offering just as much comfort and power in a less resource intensive package.

I would definitely add the Wells and Universe classes. But that's just me

Galaxy definitely number 1. Although I prefer the conni refit but the galaxy is just awesome. The first step towards a universe class.

The list is fine for the most part but, I definitely think the Sovereign class should have been higher on the list.

I wonder if the civilian population on Galaxy classes had elected reps to converse with the captain about maintenance and drill scheduling.

i think the enterprise C is the most enterprise looking enterprise since the original. it looks like a half way between the original and the next generation era

Hey the Nebula didn’t even garner an honorable mention?

There was a Galaxy class with a phaser Lance and extra nacel in *"All Good Things"* which im sure was still canonical to the Star Trek lore

I am comfortable with your number one, but I am surprised that you don't have more TNG-era ships in this list given all the videos you've made OF those ships.

How did the Walker class make this list? So many more deserving ships.