Why so many classes of ship?

[DBS]

This kind of applies to every later series, but we start to see it happen in TNG. Basically the number of different starship classes jumps way up. My first thoughts on seeing the Wolf 359 aftermath were that it was an ad-hoc, nearly obsolete fleet except for a few modern ships, and as such the variety was a sort of one-time thing.

But then by First Contact (and DS9, of course), we see a similarly staggering array of ship classes.

This leaves me with two questions: Is it efficient to maintain such a variety of ships (or alternately is the hardware similar enough that it is still practical, only we can't see how with our primitive 21st century vision)? Or is there a good reason for the differences?

Any thoughts on this or attempted explanations?

[Space Ghost]

Trek Answer:

Most navies are a cobble work of older and newer ships. As DITL has demonstrated, "today's super ships become tomorrow's workhorses". It makes sense from a economic standpoint (if there is such a thing in Trek) to keep older ships running so you don't have to constantly rebuild the entire fleet every decade or so. Older ships pass on from a "front line" explorer (or warship) to a more local patrol ship or destroyer as they age. Look at the Excelsior, for example. From "The Great Experiment" and later the pride of the fleet, to what might be called a light cruiser. Remember we saw two in a support roll to a Galaxy in Way of the Warrior.

Real World Answer:

Well, several classes came from the Wolf 359 graveyard. And in the days before total CGI in Trek (post season 5 of DS9, I believe) in order to have a ship, you had to build a model. Well, why take the time and expense to create a new model that is just going to get blown up when you can use scraps from old ones. Therefore we get several canon ships that were just ugly, ugly kitbashes.

Moreover, as time goes on, people want to see new and exciting ships and First Contact delivered just that (4 new classes!).

But, you are right. I think there are too many Federation classes. If they ever make a new Trek set in the post-Nemesis era, they might want to consider making a statement about Starfleet "trimming the fat". They could say that since so many of the older ships didn't perform so well in the Dominion War (*cough*Miranda*cough*), that they are retiring them in favor of newer designs. Unfortunately, I don't think we will ever see a post-Nemesis Trek. But then again, who knows?

[DBS]

I'm not sure it is too many, but they tend not to be replaced fast enough to keep the "fat" trimmed . Look at current military equipment from our own planet. The variety is bewildering, especially given the fact that different models were made at different times, and as you said, even materiel that passes from frontline use can have a hearty second life as support, backup, or in sales to another power.

Look at Western navies, for example. The U.S. Navy has trimmed it's force by retiring older support craft, and many other navies have done the same after the end of the Cold War. But if you look at NATO as a whole (consider it our rough analogue of the Federation for the moment), any combined fleet massed would have a very large variety of ships with different specialties, different abilities, design philosophies, and ages.

One has to wonder if different design teams have differing philosophies in Trek just like they do now. (That is why I agree that a future show might focus on ship design, etc.) In addition to keeping old ships, I could see the Federation as falling into the old story of being unable to decide whether or not one proposal is significantly better than another, and therefore buying both. (Believe it or not, that's what happened with the US F-16 and F-18; the Air Force wanted the former, but the Navy preferred the latter, so rather than choose one, the DoD ordered both!)

[Sionnach Glic]

They pretty muched summed it up. I also found it rather annoying that the federation is the only group with suc ha variety, the Klingons, Romulans, Dominion etc, all of them had only a few ships.

[Graham Kennedy]

In-Trek answer /b] in an ideal world, every job to be done by a military force would have its own specialised piece of equipment. The ideal Navy would have an air warfare ship that did that and nothing else; a mine hunter that did that and nothing else; an anti-submarine ship that did that and nothing else.

However, this is impractical. Partly, the cost of designing dozens of different platforms is huge. Partly, the cost of logistics support goes through the roof when you are having to supply all kinds of different platforms with spares and supplies. So we get multi-role ships and aircraft.

In Starfleet, however, spares and such are largely produced by replicators. And a replicator can spit out anything that it has the pattern for. So it's trivially simple for a Starbase to spit out a line of spares for a Galaxy, then for a Sovereign, then for a Nebula, then for a Centaur, and so on. For that matter, the ships can produce a lot of this stuff themselves.

And the Federation, being vastly, mind-numbingly rich in material terms, can afford to have all sorts of specialist platforms for specialist jobs.

Real explanation /b] fans like cool new ship designs, so the people who make the movies and series turf them out all the time so that we can all go "ooo, cool!"

[Sionnach Glic]

Was there not one episode that hinged around the fact that they couldn't replicate a hatch, or something? It would seem replicators have limits. (Which naturally makes sense)

[DBS]

Real explanation /b] fans like cool new ship designs, so the people who make the movies and series turf them out all the time so that we can all go "ooo, cool!"

Yep. I see that I'd forgotten about how easy it is for big facilities to replicate parts. Just because a small starship might not have an industrial replicator doesn't mean a starbase can't (indeed, that's probably part of why they need to be so big...). Note how in TNG the Enterprise sometimes had to go to the nearest starbase, and NEVER worried about having the right parts "in stock" 8)

[Sionnach Glic]

Good point, I'd forgotten about industrial replicators.

BTW, DBS.
100 posts, congratulations.

[Bryan Moore]

Has there been any speculation in fan fiction or any of the books about the power of industrial replicators? It was a topic that was never really mentioned. What are the limits?

[DBS]

That could be a good area to explore next.

My surmise is that they can create objects more or less up to the size of the replicator opening itself, and as long as the raw materials are there! (so you probably couldn't replicate a working Galaxy class ship, but you could replicate all the components, given enough time and a big enough facility.

Probably the time required to do that (and then assemble the pieces) is immense, which is why the largest facilities are probably at shipyards. One could only imagine how many replicators are required to keep Utopia Planetia building ships at full capacity !

[Graham Kennedy]

Best indicator I know of is that on DS9, the Federation delivered two industrial replicators to Bajor after the occupation, and twelve to Cardassia to rebuild that planet.

If those made any kind of real contribution to the planet's industrial base, then a single such replicator must be impressive indeed; certainly hundreds if not thousands of times greater than a modern day factory.

[Sionnach Glic]

Just out of curiosity, did we actually see the industrial replicators? It would be usefull to know their size as that would probably be the limit as to what they could build.

[DBS]

Just out of curiosity, did we actually see the industrial replicators? It would be usefull to know their size as that would probably be the limit as to what they could build.

Yeah, that might be important. But I don't see why they couldn't produce reasonably sized parts very quickly which could be assembled quickly by trained Cardassian Voles (or maybe even someone like me ). So maybe if you put an industrial replicator at the heart of a production facility, it could spit out complex parts really fast which the rest of the facility could complete.

You might not be churning out shuttlecraft all in one piece, but it would still be vastly faster and cheaper than anything we can hope to create today, especially when you consider how ridiculously expensive and time consuming it is for us to produce advanced and spaceworthy materials today. Imagine producing, say carbon nanotubes in massive quantities! Space elevator (among other things) in a few months!

[Graham Kennedy]

No, we've never seen one. All twelve were on one ship, though.

[Sionnach Glic]

And now the inevitable question, how big was the ship?
If we know that we could probably guesstimate a rough size for them.