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That isn't the same ship at all. Out of curiosity, where did you get that picture?

It was on the cover of one of the Star trek ship books... dont remember the title offhand, but ill try to find out.

EDIT: It was Ships Of The Line in 2006 and according to it, that is the Enterprise J... must be some early design or concept.

Teaos wrote:I Hate it.

It looks less advanced than the E and it doesnt fit the time line.

This ship is several centuries more advanced than anything we have ever seen (apart from the wells) and it looks like the original enterprise. Also I know we dont have a scale but it also looks to be pretty averaged sized.

I have always preferred the bigger ships. But then again it was only a passing image so we can't get too annoyed about it.

Why do ships need to be bigger as they get more advanced?

Defiant, Intrepid, Akira, and other such ships of the 2370s weren't all that big.

If the Enterprise kept getting bigger as they progressed through the alphabet, by the time you reach Z, you'd have something like the Super Star Destroyer for the Enterprise.

Fed engineering seems to hit its limit at the Galaxy class. I don't think we've seen any ship bigger than that.

IIRC, the Sovereign is slightly bigger.

It makes you wonder what a pure-bred Federation warship would look like...

Sovereign is slightly longer, but it's less than half the volume of a Galaxy.

Rochey wrote:It makes you wonder what a pure-bred Federation warship would look like...

We've seen a pure-bred Federation warship - small, highly manoeuverable, with a fixed-axis forward armament. The Defiant

Ok, Galaxy it is.

I don't see why they couldn't build bigger, they just haven't. It doesn't mean that the engineering is incapable of building big, but it does imply that there are certain disadvantages to size (less maneuverability, slower, bigger target, etc.)

Look at sailboats/tall ships. The very fastest yachts today are much smaller than clipper ships. They are more efficient, and there are advantages to be gained there from being smaller (speed, etc.). That doesn't mean we can't or will never again build a large tall ship.

Another reason for the reversal of the "big ship" trend might be the Dominion War. In an effort to field as many ships as possible, perhaps Starfleet focused on building smaller ships which were easier/faster to build. If in the future the Federation ever produced a new class of explorer (and not counting the Luna class), it could well be bigger.

We've seen a pure-bred Federation warship - small, highly manoeuverable, with a fixed-axis forward armament. The Defiant

That was more of a small gunship, I meant something like a battleship. If it was the mirror universe they'd be all over the place.

Rochey wrote:That was more of a small gunship, I meant something like a battleship. If it was the mirror universe they'd be all over the place.

It depends on your philosophy - do you build lots of small ships that are difficult to hit, or a few big'uns that can take a lot of punishment.

It would pretty much depend on who you think you'll face, I guess.

This component of ship design is probably dependent on the situation and mission requirements. It is probably also an exercise in trying to cram the required capabilities into the most efficient package.

There are a few things that could be classed battleships in Trek, (the Dominion battleship obviously, Negh'Var, etc.) Mostly, though, we see the equivalent of destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, which balance firepower with speed, maneuverability, and other capabilities.

In Trek, in general the sweet spot regarding size seems to be a mid-sized ship. Fighters CAN be effective, but generally cannot carry weapons that would be a significant threat to a capital ship. If they were, you would actually see a lot more fighters and carriers. We don't, so I assume that fighters are used only in specialized situations. Likewise, damage resistance doesn't really improve enough with size to make a huge and ungainly battleship very effective either. The result is a whole lot of ships in the middle; big enough to carry heavy weapons, small enough to not present such a massive target. Remember in general how maneuverable even 400 meter ships are in the show!

Good points.
I still want to see a Federation battleship though!

It might look something like the Excalibur from Bridge Commander...
I also saw a pretty amazing design from "The Red Admiral" back before the Titan design winner was announced. (It was too big to enter the contest, 900 meters or more. A very cool design. Sorry I can't be more specific, I can't remember the URL off the top of my head.