Ambassador Class

[Adonis]

If someone would buy the kit and scan the orthos, I could make it. Use the painting as a coloring guide.

[ChronowerX_GT]

I may just have a go at this when my Max skills become better and when i've finished the Avenger, Zandura and YOH Bridge. Although i'd make it a bit more streamlined.

[baz1701]

Quoted from memory alpha

"The original Excelsior-class was a physical filming model designed by Nilo Rodis and Bill George. It was built at Industrial Light & Magic for Star Trek III under the supervision of Steve Gawley. The model also appeared in Star Trek IV and was relabeled for use in the first two seasons of The Next Generation. The model was refurbished for its appearance in Star Trek VI.

The model was again refurbished, with entirely new arrangements and details to represent a refit modification, the NCC-1701-B in Generations. The refit modifications were designed by John Eaves under the supervision of production designer Herman Zimmerman. Since the original model could not be returned to its original configuration, a new one was built by Greg Jein when the Excelsior appeared in "Flashback," at a smaller scale. This model continued to be reused until a CGI Excelsior was built for later seasons of DS9 and Voyager. Despite its age, the Excelsior has become one of Starfleet's most frequently seen "guest-star" vessels."


Also to note the Constituition class is also absent from all 24th Cenutry trek (with the exception of a wrecked saucer and secondary hull in the best of both worlds version of wolf 359).

I did see the Ambassador model in a London expo about 8 years ago, the model was about 4ft long.

I guess the Excelsior was more shooting friendly and when they went over to CGI they took it there to remain consistant in the look of the star fleet

[captain_obvious]

one word. 

urgh..

the canonical ambassador does for me

[Ambassador]

coming back to probert's ambassador, has anyone modelled it for bc?

I believe the Dawnstar is the closest thing to that.

[Billz]

Wiley is building Probert's Ambassador design. Or at least something very close to it. Check out his thread in the BC Modding section.

[FourChan]

Well my opinion is like this.

Why do you see a lot of other classes? Like say Miranda class ships, Excelsior Class Ships etc? Would you send your top of the line ships into battle? Yeah, Ambassador, Galaxy Class Ships, etc are all 'battle' ships to a extent. The rest of the fleet is just back up pretty much.

[candle_86]

Well the Consitition went from 2240-2293 from cannon sources, thats a short amount of time considering the Excelscior went from 2285-2280, Other ships in the fleet also have experinced a short life, Souyz class comes to mind, yes Bozeman was refitted but that was most likly because of the build up to fight the borg, not class usefullness. Ambassador may have experinced a short life. From what we can infer from Yesterdays Enterprise, the class was using what appears to be very late TMP tech, likly very late duotronic systems, and early phaser arrays. Given the scope and size of this ship it would likly be cheaper to refit 2 excelscior class ships than to replace the entire computer system of an ambassador. Also cannon sources point to a few other things, 12 consitition class vessels where commissioned despite any other sources this is the canon number. Now Ambassador's may have only been produced in small numbers. Also Starfleet experinced the Cardassian war in the 2350's this may have damaged or destroyed these vessels. Also the 2nd Kitomer Accords happened right after EntC was blown to hell, part of it may have been a scale back on heavy cruisers as part of the treaty. There are any number of reasons for this lack of the vessles. Also the Galaxy began in the 2250's Ambassador was introduced sometime in the 2330-2344 giving it a short life before facitites where used for the Galaxy.

[King Class Scout]

well, I think I know what New Hampton Yards might be working on in the future, as soon as worfie gets back to the houseboat. Ambassador and (as far as I'm concerned) Excelsior both need a power-tune.

Personally, i think Amby's got the same delay problem the Excel's did...probably a 10 year stall due to a design goof.  ambassador probably config dates back to the 2310's.

and, yes, i see someone's noticed the flip-flop between series and concepts.

Gene made OS a space western, and had to take the brainy elements out that he wanted to stick in in the first place (which is why he had to make a second pilot).  the OM era built on the original cast's rep.  next G, however, went to the brainy stuff gene wanted in the first place, and was practically booed off the Paramount lot, till Riker grew the beard (Gene rehashing the OS episodes didn't help the first two seasons).  that's why all the ships were toned down.  the Post-Khitomer era was a detente era.  after gene died, the guys who took over tried to put the action back in.  the succeeded well enough with DS9, but Voyager was so inconsistent (and full of cheezecake) that even the actors got annoyed!  then there was the prequal, Enterprise, which EVERYBODY said sucked.  I'm still trying to figure out why, but I think it's because they crossed OS and Voyager concepts.

one of the classic novels points out one of the reasons for a tone-down, as does the "alien worm" conspiracy ep in NG, ST:Insurrection, etc.  Starfleet has been tring to find a balance between exploration and millitary mode.  it doesn't help that in every generation, a millitary nut pops up who wants to put butt-kicking back into Starfleet.  Ambassadors come from a time when there was less to worry about (the Klingons burned out and were recovering, the romulans were off sulking, and, most likely Section 31 was behaving itself), and switched to the explorers angle, which is why they were so whimpy.  the pendulum started swinging the other way again when Q dropped the D in the middle of Borg sensor range.

[Kirk]

then there was the prequal, Enterprise, which EVERYBODY said sucked.

Speak for yourself man. Season 4 was able to get tears out of me.

[candle_86]

I liked Enterprise, but as for the ambassador there is no reason to assume it had a string of failures either. Also the Excelscior was in wide spread production we saw that in TNG, and the first clue we have that the Excelscior is an operation ship is in STVI and on West's charts I only saw one Excelscior class ship, its name wasnt the Excelscrior either so that gives 2 ships of the class by 2293. Now if the class is just starting wide spread production by this time starting a brand new heavy cruiser 20 years later doesnt make a bit of sense, not from the data we have at least. The Connie was introduced sometime in the 2240's, the Excelscior didnt take over till the 2290's and wasnt finished till 2285 thats 45years and 50 till it entered service. Now we can infer the Excelscior class was a good ship, and we also know it was about twice the size of the connie in mass. Now also the Tomed Incident was 2311, if starfleet started building Ambassador Class's right after the tomed incident it would likly start a war with the Romulans, no reason to provoke them. It makes more sense to infer a build date of about 2330 for these vessles given what we know of the Federation and of Starfleet. There would have to be a reason to build these vessels first. Rising Tensions with the Klingons would be a valid reason. The Galaxy Class started design during the Cardassian wars, giving that ship a reason, though the war was over before it left Space Dock, but we didnt see many other Galaxy Class's either, untill the Domion War broke out. The Intrepid, Defiant, Akaria, Saber, Steamrunner, Sovergin where all built to combat the borg after Wolf359. So I would infer the Ambassador is from a time when war with the Klingons was feared inevitiable again.

[Psyco Diver]

Personally think the Ambassador is the replacement for the Excelssor and miranda class ships, their just getting to old. I mean look at the dominion war, every battle those ships were falling left and right. I think in the post nemsis era the ambassador should be refitted/built to TNG Galaxy specs. It can easily take over the role, its cheap to build and the space frame should be able to handle most of whats thrown at if for the next 50 years just like the excelssior and mirandas have. I think the Ambassadors are just getting to a running pace just like the older classes were during the post TOS/Movie era

[candle_86]

Well the ambassador got very little screen time. Excelscior and Mirindia class's are fan favorites, so instead of going smart they went what the fans prefer design wise. The Excelscior was introduced in 2285, the second confimed ship was the EnterpriseB in 2293. We know the EnterpriseC was destroyed in 2344. Given the C had to be at least the second vessel of the class, and that the Galaxy design phase started in 2350 the Ambassador would have to predate it to at least 2330 given refrance we have, and the complete nonsense to bring a new Heavy Cruiser online 10 years after the launch of another. So the Ambassador has to be old enough a new cruiser was deemed needed as the Ambassador could no longer meet the demands. So giving that, the Excelscior product run would be from sometime after 2293 till 2330 logicly. But there are odd balls with newer 2360 registries that elude to them still being produced which also makes no sense.

The whole reason we dont see them often is quite simple, they never made a CGI model for DS9, which is quite a pity honestly, as the class has about 2/3 the enternal space of a Galaxy and can by far be more useful than the Excelscior. Also the steamrunner or intrepid class's should have phased the Excelscior out, but again for some reason, the Intrepid isnt shown during the Domionon war on screen, the USS Intrepid is mentioned, but for such a small ship, about the size of an Excelscior and computer and weapons systems it is a light cruiser, and would make a better addition than 50+ year old hulls.

But the Ambassador should have been in the major battles, it wasnt because the DS9 art team never built one in CGI aka they where to damn lazy

[ACES_HIGH]

The way I see it, the Ambassador's roll went the way of the Battleship.  The US Navy's Iowa class for example, was the last class of US battleships commissioned, just before the end of WWII.  Unfortunately for the Iowas the war taught Navy planners that BBs are inharently vulnerable to aircraft, so all of the US BBs were either mothballed or decommissioned, including the Iowa class, after only a few short years of service.  Of course some of the Iowas were later brought out of mothballs and used off and on into the 90s, but other classes were completely scrapped, some like the South Dakota's after serving less then 10 years.
While other classes outlasted the BBs by a wide margin.  Essex class carriers built in the mid 40s remained in active service all the way to the 90s, the class even remained in production for a few years after the war with improved models, such as the Ticonderoga class.

My theory is that it was just deemed better to keep the Mirandas and Excelsiors, maybe there was some flaw in the design of the Ambassadors, or maybe it was cheaper or easier to modernize the Mirandas and Excelsiors then to put the Ambassadors through SLEP.  Maybe, with the Galaxys coming into the fleet in the 2360s, they just didn't need another Heavy Cruiser class any more, the other two aren't really heavies anyway the Miranda's been a frigate from the outset, and compared to newer ships the Excelsior would have had to have been downgraded to Light Cruiser, it's just too small to stand toe to toe against a Romulan Warbird, or any other CA for that matter.

[Psyco Diver]

Well can it be classified as a heavy cruiser? I mean the Galaxy was already being planned with the ambassador was first being built. Maybe it was like the WWII North Carolina class of battle ships, it was a test bed for the features that went into the Iowa class battle ships, the ambassador was the test bed for what the Galaxy class was going to be, I remember reading that the ambassador class was the first to use phaser strips. Plus they were the first that necelle design so different from the TOS era ships but matches the Galaxy class and later ships? I think they meant to build just one or 2 but because of the degrading relations with the klingons and the war with the cardassians they decided to build more because the excellsiors and miranda were probably in bad need of refits and they couldn't wait for the bigger Galaxy class to be built when they were just on the drawing board. I believe they were a limited class like the WWII north carolina class, they fitted the itch starfleet needed to scratch at the time. It gave the a new battleship everyone to be afraid of, klingon relations grew, starfleet won the war against the cardassians, it gave time for the older TOS era ships needed to be brought up to date, and then the Galaxy came in, and they didn't need to make them anymore. They had fresh refited ships that were cheaper and easier to, repair, refit, and deal with and they have brand new big battle ship that was the flag ship design of the fleet

The few ships that were built probably got refited with type X phasers, new warp coils, shield grid, and torpedos and fought in the war. Remember in "yesterdays enterprise" they mention the ship was very maneuverable at the time. I would venture to say the ship was probably classified as a fast cruiser or a battle cruiser for its smaller size and speed

[ACES_HIGH]

most sources I've read call it a Heavy Cruiser or Exploratory Cruiser, although it does seem like it could be more of a Battlecruiser or a Pocket Battleship, I guess.

[King Class Scout]

all next G era ships are considered "explorers".  after the Khitomer incident, and while the romulans were offscreen (probably dealing with a coup or pushing down the Remans, again), they shifted away from the millitary tint that they no longer needed.  when the Dominion threw a monkey-wrench in the works, it came back.

[Psyco Diver]

I dunno I still think it was a test bed for the new generation of ships, mainly the galaxy class, but also the nebula class. There was nothing like it before and all the newer TNG and beyond ships take alot of characteristics like warp necelle design, phaser strips, smoother lines

[candle_86]

yea but you dont build a ship that big just as a test bed, something smaller like refit an oberth or Mirinda or Constellation would make more sense than to build such a large ship, even building a new test bed would be better suited with a smaller vessel. Not even our navy builds full massive ships to test on they either refit older ones to test the stuff or build smaller escort sized ships to do it.

[Psyco Diver]

yea but you dont build a ship that big just as a test bed, something smaller like refit an oberth or Mirinda or Constellation would make more sense than to build such a large ship, even building a new test bed would be better suited with a smaller vessel. Not even our navy builds full massive ships to test on they either refit older ones to test the stuff or build smaller escort sized ships to do it.

Well like I said it was a test bed for all the new tech, nothing was seen like it before, it bridged the gap between TOS/TMP era and TNG era ships. Yea they can test all the new tech in different older ships, but that is only viable for so long, they have to put the tech together to build a ship, after that it can be updated and tweaked to fix glitches before the big bad Galaxy is made. The Navy does this too, eventually all the tech comes together, the tech is pushed and developed further, then made into a final design that lasts a long time before its refited and updated years later, then finally retired. Putting brand new tech into old ships won't ever be as good as building a all new ship, cheaper yes, but not as good, the Lakota is a prime example of this. Lets face it by this time Starfleet had to realize these ships were flat out worn out, even Picard said when he took command of the Stargazer the ship was flying apart, which goes to show the condition of these ships even after the Ambassador is realeased. The built a all new battle cruiser with all the newest modern tech, tweaked the design from what they learned, and applied the changes and updates to the Galaxy class design