The Federations Need For Multiple Ship Classes

[Lorna]

I never really understood the need for so many classes of ship.

The Galaxy Class pretty much had every single requirement possible. Why was any other ship class necessary?

The Galaxy class could go into deep space for extended periods of time, it was capable of diplomatic missions, rescue missions and was one of the most powerful if not the most powerful ships of the fleet during the time of the Ent-D.
Even in the Dominion War during the battle to retake DS9 the Galaxy Class wings were sent by Sisko against the Galor Class ships meaning he was using his most powerful ships against the Cardassians most powerful.

As technology progresses all the Galaxy class ships need are upgrades/refits. How hard for example can it be to fit the Galaxy class with Quantum torpedoes? with the latest phaser arrays?

What does the Intrepid Class, Nova Class, Sabre Class or Steamrunner class offer that a Galaxy class doesn't? If anything they offer less.

 

[Marten]

I never really understood the need for so many classes of ship.

The Galaxy Class pretty much had every single requirement possible. Why was any other ship class necessary?

The Galaxy class could go into deep space for extended periods of time, it was capable of diplomatic missions, rescue missions and was one of the most powerful if not the most powerful ships of the fleet during the time of the Ent-D.
Even in the Dominion War during the battle to retake DS9 the Galaxy Class wings were sent by Sisko against the Galor Class ships meaning he was using his most powerful ships against the Cardassians most powerful.

As technology progresses all the Galaxy class ships need are upgrades/refits. How hard for example can it be to fit the Galaxy class with Quantum torpedoes? with the latest phaser arrays?

What does the Intrepid Class, Nova Class, Sabre Class or Steamrunner class offer that a Galaxy class doesn't? If anything they offer less.

I think it's much faster and easier to build the other classes.

It's like asking why the US Navy don't have 300 air craft carriers.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Larger ships require larger crews. Plus they consume resources and energy. Sometimes Starfleet just doesn't need all that power.

To put it another way, would it be necessary to drive a monster truck to go grocery shopping? A jumbo jet to run a small commuter airline? A Cray supercomputer to do your taxes? Nope. Specialization is always logical.

 

[Lorna]

I think it's much faster and easier to build the other classes.

It's like asking why the US Navy don't have 300 air craft carriers.

The comparison is ridiculous, no offence. Starfleet is multi-purpose. Their ships are for exploration, scientific research, diplomatic missions, rescue missions as well as military/defence/offence.

Starfleet needs ships that are fully multi-purpose.

 

[Lorna]

Larger ships require larger crews. Plus they consume resources and energy. Sometimes Starfleet just doesn't need all that power.

To put it another way, would it be necessary to drive a monster truck to go grocery shopping? A jumbo jet to run a small commuter airline? A Cray supercomputer to do your taxes? Nope. Specialization is always logical.

So what does a Nova offer that an Intrepid or an Akira doesn't?

What does an Akira offer that an Intrepid doesn't?

I mean fine, I can accept there being a few classes but I don't see any reason why there should be more than 3 classes tops.

 

[JarodRussell]

I think it's much faster and easier to build the other classes.

It's like asking why the US Navy don't have 300 air craft carriers.

The comparison is ridiculous, no offence. Starfleet is multi-purpose. Their ships are for exploration, scientific research, diplomatic missions, rescue missions as well as military/defence/offence.

Starfleet needs ships that are fully multi-purpose.

Unlike the Navy which isn't multi-purpose. LOL.

 

[Deks]

Larger ships require larger crews. Plus they consume resources and energy. Sometimes Starfleet just doesn't need all that power.

To put it another way, would it be necessary to drive a monster truck to go grocery shopping? A jumbo jet to run a small commuter airline? A Cray supercomputer to do your taxes? Nope. Specialization is always logical.

So what does a Nova offer that an Intrepid or an Akira doesn't?

What does an Akira offer that an Intrepid doesn't?

I mean fine, I can accept there being a few classes but I don't see any reason why there should be more than 3 classes tops.

You are forgetting that Nova and the Intrepid are one of the relatively new next generation classes of ships that were probably put to replace the previous classes.

The Nova class for example is far superior in contrast to the Oberth class, carries impressive weaponry for a vessel of it's size (type 10 phasers and relatively powerful shields) and is much faster (Warp 6, though that can probably be pushed to higher by Nova class ships that received regular updates... the Equinox did not).

The Intrepid class offers same offensive and defensive capabilities, with most labs and everything else the Galaxy class has, just on a smaller scale.
It's faster for SF to build smaller but equally powerful ships that require a fraction of the crew in contrast.

I would imagine it's easier for SF to construct a bunch of smaller but equally powerful ships to bolster it's defences while being able to send them on exploratory missions at the same time.

A galaxy class would take more time to construct, but that's probably not an issue in the first place.
Crew requirements on the other hand would be... then again I hardly see the Galaxies as coming to a production cycle end any-time soon.

I think the 'onslaught' of new classes is more due to replacing the ageing designs from Kirk's era for the most part.

The Akira isn't that new anyway... at least it's nacelles and registries could place it in the timeframe of the Ambassador class ships.

 

[Jefferies]

Lorna, as others have already pointed out, Starfleet has to manage its recources. It might have industrial replicators but that doesn't mean building a Galaxy class ship is as easy and quick as building a Nova class vessel. Furthermore, Starfleet has a finite number of personnel. The Galaxy requires hundreds of people to run effectively, the Nova just needs a dozen or two.

In addition to all this, Starfleet fulfills many different tasks within and beyond Federation borders. Simple tasks like shipping supplies from A to B, patroling sectors or carrying out simple scientific surveys can be met by using small ships with minimal crews. There simply is no need to send huge multi purpose ships for small routine missions like that.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's really about toys and model kits. Starfleet is the hero organization, therefore there's more of a market for toys or model kits based on those ships.

 

[Anwar]

And also, lots of those classes are meant to be replacements for ones previously seen in the shows. Problem is that they never get around to totally decommissioning entire classes and we keep seeing ones from 100 years ago still being used.

 

[Robert DeSoto]

I think it's much faster and easier to build the other classes.

It's like asking why the US Navy don't have 300 air craft carriers.

The comparison is ridiculous, no offence. Starfleet is multi-purpose. Their ships are for exploration, scientific research, diplomatic missions, rescue missions as well as military/defence/offence.

Starfleet needs ships that are fully multi-purpose.

Starfleet as a whole is multi-purpose, between space exploration, defense, diplomatic functions, scientific research etc. But the individual ships themselves are sometimes more specialized.

Oberth Class ships are armed, but not as well armed as the Defiant class. But I'm sure the Obert class has better sensors and scientific equipment than a Defiant class.

With 120 Starfleet crewmen, you enough manpower to deploy the USS Defiant the guard the Bajoran wormhole and the USS Grissom (Oberth class) to study Ceti Alpha V at the same time. (The Defiant requires a crew of 50, the Grissom, 80)

Now if you just have the Galaxy class USS Enterprise, first of all, you need almost 10 times the manpower and you can only assign those 1000 ppl to one mission at a time. If you want to study Ceti Alpha V, nobody is going to be guarding the wormhole.

And that's just counting the manpower. There's still the duranium, tritanium, dilithium and all the other constructions resources that you need for a Galaxy class starship that would be much less if you only were building an Oberth class starship

 

[Paradon]

They obviously didn't expect to go war.... And I don't even know why they bother to attack the Dominions. [laugh] They could just build more ships and bred more Jem'Hadars much faster than the Federation could recruit more officers and build ships. It looked like they had far more resources than the Federation...because they kept building them trying to provoke the Fed into engaging them in battles so they can destroyed more ships. The Fed officers and crews aren't expendable like the way the Dominion view their war ships and Jem'Hardars. They should have first destroyed their ship yards and breeding facilities in order to hinder their ability to wage war. [chuckle]

 

[RyuRoots]

I think it's much faster and easier to build the other classes.

It's like asking why the US Navy don't have 300 air craft carriers.

The comparison is ridiculous, no offence. Starfleet is multi-purpose. Their ships are for exploration, scientific research, diplomatic missions, rescue missions as well as military/defence/offence.

Starfleet needs ships that are fully multi-purpose.

Unlike the Navy which isn't multi-purpose. LOL.

Yeah, do explain to me how the Navy ISN'T multi-purpose, and how having at least 6 or 7 categories of ships doesn't feed well into that multipurpose structure.

 

[Timo]

If Starfleet were able to build unlimited numbers of Galaxies, one would think Starfleet would instead use those resources for building vast numbers of slightly smaller ships to meet all the operational demands. Yet Star Trek as a show is based on the idea that Starfleet's operational demands are not met: there are always too few ships around, Starfleet always arrives in the nick of time if then, and only with one vessel in the general case, and our hero ship seldom if ever has any backup from sister vessels for the adventure of the week.

So the stories require that it be impossible to build "ace of all trades" starships for every need - indeed, that it even be impossible to build more limited and more affordable ships in sufficient numbers.

Crew shortages may be one explanation. But there could well be industrial limitations, too. Or a fuel shortage, or a dilithium shortage, or simply too little of that futuristic non-money to go around. In such an environment of scarcity, it sounds pretty natural to always build a mix of ship types in any given era. And when you simultaneously operate ships from at least three mixes, from three distinct eras (say, TOS movies, TOS/TNG interregnum, TNG era), you already have enough variety in your fleet to saturate the paraphernalia market and net fandom with material...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The_Baroness]

Why do we need multiple types of, say, car?

All they need to do is get you from A to B, so why do we have so many manufacturers, with so many different models?

Because to build a car that can go from a-to-b at a good speed, carry everything you might ever need, and the entire family, as well as do the daily commute would be overkill if you don't need it to do all of that.

nah, if all you need is a runabout, buy a small car, if you want a fast car, buy one.

I may have forgotten where I was going with this....

Oh! wait! it's the same principle, you're not always going to need a ship that can do everything. If you need a ship like the defiant that is only going to fight the borg, why give it all the luxuries and vast numbers of crew and family that will likely be killed anyway?

You need specialisation. A small, heavily armed ship with as small a crew and minimal luxuries as possible.

Need to go on long, distant peaceful exploration, sure, use a Galaxy class, but then, you wouldn't to waste all those resources just to go and investigate a new butterfly found on a planet near Alpha Centauri...send a nova class, it's got what it needs and nothing more goes to waste.

 

[Timo]

All they need to do is get you from A to B, so why do we have so many manufacturers, with so many different models?

Because that's how they can get our money. We don't need those manufacturers and models. Or more exactly, we don't need those manufacturers and models. The manufacturers need them; we're just taught to enjoy the variety (especially when there's no need for it), and then to pay for it.

In the ideal world, that is... Certainly the good old Soviet Union could have made do with just a single manufacturer that built three makes of passenger car (economy, utility, luxury) and then a range of working vehicles - but even they had a number of competing providers, because in the real world, any single manufacturer often fails to deliver, so it's nice to have some competition around, even if every company offers the same product, with or without cosmetic differences.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Paradon]

It seemed like they were caught off guards.... The Dominions just sorta like moved in...uninvited...and made themselves at home. When the war started, they were using a lot of Defiant-Class ships.

 

[Chaos Descending]

All they need to do is get you from A to B, so why do we have so many manufacturers, with so many different models?

Because that's how they can get our money. We don't need those manufacturers and models. Or more exactly, we don't need those manufacturers and models. The manufacturers need them; we're just taught to enjoy the variety (especially when there's no need for it), and then to pay for it.

So a family sedan, a mini-van, a pick-up truck, and a sports car can all do the same jobs equally well?

 

[Timo]

One wonders... If Starfleet were capable of increasing its starship production in times of war, why don't they increase it in times of peace? The 2360s would have been much more comfortable if Starfleet had operated a hundred times as many ships as they actually did; no marauding Klingons, no intruding Romulans, no mining accidents left unattended, no diplomatic sorties interrupted by rescue missions... It just doesn't seem as if Starfleet could afford to build less ships during peace than during war.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

So a family sedan, a mini-van, a pick-up truck, and a sports car can all do the same jobs equally well?

The point is, nobody needs a sports car. A "general car" can easily be built, and can do all the possible jobs one could expect of a passenger vehicle, but we're being told that it's a good idea to optimize rather than to generalize. That intuitively makes sense - but our intuition fails us more often than not. Optimal cars are simply wasted resources in the bigger picture - and don't even make our life better in the smaller picture, as we find when our sports car fails to ford that river or take aboard the family with the kids. Even the life of Joe Average is general and varied enough that Joe really needs five different types of car to be happy. The answer that is not to buy five different cars, but to buy five cars in one. Or then revise one's car-manufacturer-made standards on "happy".

Starfleet wouldn't think the way car consumers do. A starship captain doesn't buy a ship for himself; the organization buys it for him, and knows better than he does what he really needs.

Timo Saloniemi