Out of all the TNG kitbashes I feel the Freedom and Niagara classes needed to get smushed together at some point. Whereas the Cheyenne and New Orleans actually worked pretty well. And of course the crown jewel is the Nebula.

@GlacierMF5

3 ай бұрын

Well said. The Nebula is gorgeous.

There's a really famous copypasta fanon where a Vulcan is explaining to a Klingon why they let the humans run the show. The gist is that humans are _insane_ and insist on trying to do things that every bit of known science says is a _terrible_ idea, but *it works out* a _distressing_ amount of the time. I see three-nacelle vessels as abiding by this ethos. Some warp theory class taught, "You can't form a stable warp field with an odd number of nacelles not having direct line of sight," and some cocky engineering cadet in the back of the classrom went, *"Bet."*

@Tomyironmane

3 ай бұрын

Reminds me of the story I heard about Scotty's Kobiyashi Maru. He pulled some looney stuff off, and lost in the end, but then the test proctor accused him of cheating, to which he pointed out that there was no way the klingon fleet could have half the number of ships in the area... and the test proctor said he had fired on the ships wrong and thery shouldn't have exploded like that and he replied "aye, but I figured your simulation wouldn't know the difference, and the math looks really tempting..." and the instructor protests that it had been proven that such a reaction didn't happen the way he had caused it, it had been proven in a paper... and he said "Aye, I know... did ye happen to look and see whose name was on the paper you're quoting?" and sure enough, there it was. "Montgomery Scott."

@xheralt

3 ай бұрын

You don't have to be crazy, look at three-phase (delta or "Y") electrical theory, apply it to the warp cycle, and it makes perfect sense.

Can you imagine being an alien race that uses largely uniform types and the Federation keeps rocking up in increasingly bizarre designs? Sometimes I’m sure they’d be stifling the giggles.

For a second, I thought you were going to talk about the 3 nacelled Enterprise that Admiral Richer commanded in "All good things"

@robloggia

3 ай бұрын

Now that's a 3 nacelle design that looks good.

I love how odd this ship is, there's something really cool about it

I'd love more Lost Era stuff. A show would be awesome.

This was one of the more unique Wolf 359 kit bashes. Even though I find it weird to see Galaxy class nacelles for a mostly Ambassador class hull...very weird choice, especially having three nacelles. This class is a weird one for sure but cool in its own regards.

@thegreenmanofnorwich

3 ай бұрын

I would have opted for a different type of nacelle, but for background kitbashes, I don't think it would have been very practical.

I really appreciated the design of this when I got the Eaglemoss Model, it looks pretty good in 3D, it looks like a long range explorer that could operate "out there" without any sort of support for lengthy periods.

@Stay_at_home_Astronaut81

Ай бұрын

I took the third nacelle off, and it looks way better, IMHO.

this vid hit my home page 18 secs after being uploaded... nice.

@ladyDelilah84

3 ай бұрын

Same

I think it'd look better if the top two naecelles were angled so all three were equidistant. More like a Wasp Class. I like the Ambassador Class and its variants.

I actually kinda like this thing. It's a little weird and clunky but it's got character and is pretty unique.

It would be kinda cool if CBS Paramount would do some updates to TNG and DS9 to slip in a few of the kit bash ships into episodes in place of some of those Excelsior and Miranda class ships. I know it won't happen but it would be nice.

@thegreenmanofnorwich

3 ай бұрын

The channel JTVFX has done thay for a few scenes. The ladt scene of A Call To Arms wjth the combined fleet, hes added ships and diversified the ship types. It may or may not be your cup of tea, but I quite like it.

The motto of the lost era seems to be “lasted longer than it should have”

Mentioning that lost era of trek, I really really hope we get an enterprise c series some day. I know we all know what the last episode in that tv series would be and annoyingly I think that's put them off ever diving into it

Those crew people on set who kitbashed all these ships for the battle of wolf 359 did an amazing job with the time they had to expand starfleets line of ships. It's something that should be appreciated after what we got with Picard s1's inquiry fleet.

Always kinda liked this one, pulled off the triple nacelles well.

Thank you Ric. Honestly, this is my favorite background ship. Its so awkward, its so off, and I love it. You even call it correctly fast cruiser! Thank you, Ric. I thought itd be years till I see this video from you. THAT Id captain. Gimme a Niagara any day. ☺️🥰

I just painted a micro machine scale one for my fleet and I actually don't hate it as much now

Odd, I love it! A video on the Archer class would be awesome!

Wasn't the warp field geometry the reason provided in the show for nacelles in pairs? (In fact the whole reason why the Intrepid-Class's nacelles are moveable, to adjust the field geometry above warp 5, the first implementation of a safe design in response to the events of the TNG episode, Force of Nature.)

@keit99

3 ай бұрын

No it's supposed to be symmetrical something that's easier to achieve with pairs (or multiples of 2).

@keit99

3 ай бұрын

The warp bubble geometry change was after this was designed. They noticed that not only does the bubble need to be symmetrical it also needs to be able to make a different shape that doesn't tear substance as much as the traditional perfectly symmetrical warp bubble.

@kaitlyn__L

3 ай бұрын

@@keit99which always struck me as paralleling how planes had “perfect” smoothed geometry for a long time, but in the last few decades have become increasingly asymmetrical and biological in appearance (taking on inspiration from whales, birds, etc).

@keit99

3 ай бұрын

@@kaitlyn__L oh that makes a lot of sense

@kaitlyn__L

3 ай бұрын

@@keit99 cute fursona btw :)

It amuses me greatly that Yoyodyne persists as an Easter egg. Buckaroo Banzai being part of the Star Trek universe is hilarious.

Rick you have a beautiful voice buddy. They could spit out the specs on a Borg turd, and you'd still make it sound amazing, Thx for all your hard work xx

Thank you, I found this one weird but it quickly grew on me during the Wolf 359 event on STO. It's nice to know more about it.

My head canon for the nacelle placement is the "two nacelles in los" is the "best" design for reliable, dependable warp. But it's obviously not the only way to do it.

They really went over the edge with this one.

While they say the 'rules' are that they have 2 warp nacelles with line of sight to each other, I like to think that's simply the optimal way to design ships; but that there are possible options with odd numbers, like shown here. The other one I don't think they've talked much about us dual nacelles.. where a single nacelle is structured in such a way to act as a pair siting side by side.. I'm sure there's some performance or efficiency boost by spacing them out (or it wouldn't be so prevalent), but that doesn't mean it can't be done. In the real world, if the requirements demand it, engineers always find a way to break the 'rules' of ship design. From hull shapes, to power plants, propeller positions, the sound barrier, and many other engineering rules. I don't see why Star Trek would be any different.

@SuperGamefreak18

3 ай бұрын

Agreed I’ve always seen odd number nacelle classes as deadend designs when they were trying to pump more out of their current warp tech

@enisra_bowman

3 ай бұрын

it was more like "somewhat a style guide" as a "hard rule because of in universe science" and we also got other noncompliant designs later

@kaitlyn__L

3 ай бұрын

That reminds me of how the Vulcan “one big ring” warp nacelles probably function as many smaller ones side by side (four if going by how the glowing windows are separated, or a few dozen if going by the size of the light-up segments when at warp)

@stormycatmink

3 ай бұрын

@@enisra_bowman, of course, but this is more about what are the in-universe lore/engineering reasons that we see ships matching the style guide. IE, if the style guides mean you see a majority of ships with two nacelles spaced apart, then it follows that a believable lore would have some technical engineering reason that's so common. It's more efficient, cheaper, faster, whatever. I think that's what most of these videos are getting in to. I'm sure you could find all kinds of similar justifications on why Starfleet seems to prefer saucers on the ship. Maybe it fits better into the shape of the warp bubble and funnel gas into the Bussard collectors? Perhaps it helps with computational latency if your sensors and main systems are in a hub radiating out from the computer core (and thus the computer cores commonly in the center of the saucer). Perhaps future advancements in bio-neural circuitry makes that less of a concern? That's the fun part, not just 'well it's an artistic style guide'. These kinds of things make the story immersive.. if it were all just random style guides, it'd not be very mentally engaging for most people.

@enisra_bowman

3 ай бұрын

@@stormycatmink well, i think it came up during the design process of the romulan Warbird and why there is a gap there, that up until that, it was just the case that almost every "hero" ship had line of sight between the nacelles. But then again, ships like the Tholian ones, the Fesarious, several reused Alien-Of-the-week ships already hadn't line of sight. Compared to things like that fed. Ships had to be off-white-ish to light bluish Gray

I quite liked this ship and included one in a story of mine as the potential initial vessel my protagonist would've served on, except because it was the same ship that was destroyed at Wolf 359, they ended up on the Enterprise instead.

16 seconds into the vid and my first thought is "The bussard collectors cover the rear ends of the aft phaser strips on the dorsal side of the main hull." Ôo Yeah, thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to the Cheyenne. ^^

@HylianFox3

3 ай бұрын

The New Orleans-class has a similar issue, where the lower pod covers the two phaser strips on the engineering hull.

I like to think that there's a testbed for testing and improving reusable saucer separation (as seen on the Galaxy) that's the cause of the NX-59650 registry on the Prometheus. The higher registry for it came from being redeveloped practically from scratch into the MVAM concept post-Wolf 359. As a note - there's a marking on the top of the saucer behind the bridge. It's a circle with three lines extending. This same symbol happens to be present on the belly of the Nebula, Galaxy, and Steamrunner's pod at a minimum (though the Galaxy might have a dot in the circle). I believe that's the marking for where the warp core ejection point is, which would mean that the Niagara ejects its warp core up rather than down like usual - likely due to the third nacelle. Creates an interesting question on how tall the core is, given the marking's position. Another interesting warp core size question is on the Olympic, which appears to have that marking at the rear of the ship facing up.

I usually don’t like 3 nacelle designs but the Niagara Class is one of the few I really like.

@xheralt

3 ай бұрын

I'm precisely the opposite, I like all trireme (3 nacelle) designs EXCEPT this one.

And here I thought that the shipyard found an extra nacelle and didn't know what to do with it, so they stuck it on an Ambassador class ship and called it the Niagara Class. While on the other side of the shipyard, they were constructing a Challenger class ship, but couldn't find the second nacelle so they decided to only put one and call it the Freedom class. I guess I was wrong.

Just wanted to say thank you, sir, for ur time and dedication to these videos. U have a fun, entertaining, and calm cadence thru ur explanations. I look forward to ur informative videos whenever they come about. Thank you again.

I quite liked the custom saucer, and thay the phaser arrays are each bigger than the ones on the ambassador class, but not all connected in a single array like the Galaxy or Nebula.

what I would want to see is a starship design that fills the gap between sovereign class and the odyssey class starship

Yoyodyne...a Growing, excited company who employs only perfectly normal humanbeings!

Okay, I know this wasn’t the subject of this video, but the designs on the nacelles reminded me. Is there an in-universe explanation for the TNG com badges having the oval design behind the arrow/chevron/delta after the original series, or for the evolution to that trapezoid shape post Generations, or for the lack of any shape behind it in lower decks?

Great vid! Would love to see a vid on the challenger class next!

Hell yeah a ship video

The origins and explanation of this ship is similar to a ship that was created for one of the vessels featured in an expansion for Last Unicorn games. I believe the book was called the price of freedom or something to that effect. I really love the ships in that book and highly recommended to anyone. I'm not sure if digital copies are still available of these books but they are well worth the time. That said it would be interesting to hear some of your reviews for those ships from those books. Even if they aren't Canon.

Were there any class starships of this era that, on the surface, no one thought much of, but, once fielded, exceeded anyone's expectations?

I honestly really like the niagara class, the unique nacelle placements are real attractive to me

This is a cute, adorable ship

Good video 👍

One of the things I’d like this ship to do is use rotating pairs of nacelles to maintain a warp field. Instead of a full duplicate pair steamrunner style, it could cruise, “resting” one of the nacelles on a rotation (1-2 pair, 2-3 pair, 1-3 pair).

Would have been better if it had a mission pod instead, assuming it had to have an underside attachment at all.

'I wouldn't want to be the third nacelle...': Reginald Barclay.

Following pre-established laws of physics often gives more interesting results compared to when designers just go with "whatever"

Clunky is an apt description. Almost every ship with three nacelles is clunky. The third nacelle always looks like a tacted on afterthought.

@random27

3 ай бұрын

I liked that about the Ent D with the 3rd nacelle. Almost like it had the same design philosophy as the Promethius. Let's give it some bigger weapons.... And a canon. Why not, hear me out....... a cloak. OMG guys, I have it. 3rd nacelle, just to flesh it out more.

@kaitlyn__L

3 ай бұрын

“A third nacelle” is even the new social metaphor to replace “a fifth wheel”! Barclay says he doesn’t want to be “the third nacelle” at least once.

I think it would work better if it had two actual Ambassador nacelles and only had one from the Galaxy class. They could say it would switch between pairs, normally on Ambassador nacelles, then one Ambassador and one Galaxy for testing out new nacelles designs, proof of concepts, how they function at different speeds, power consumption, etc and directly compare the old and the new, then they could have another ship of the line with two Galaxy nacelles and one from a Sovereign.

Right off the bat, a Federation vessel is off to presumably take on a Borg Cube.

The Niagara class could be a razeed Ambassador, with some of her superstructure cut down. Then had the third nacelle was added. She would only succeed as a proper starship if she filled some hole in Starfleets order of battle. Starfleet could have built a dozen of these ships to see how the experimental stuff worked out. One of them was availible when the call came in to face the Borg. So the Princeton was sent.

It would be fun if the Galaxy was designed to have a midlife or application specific third nacelle upgrade (as per "All Good Things") because of this design, which occurred in one timeline (AGT alternate timeline) but not ultimately in the prime timeline (probably because Dominion War)

it was somewhat weird, i never noticed that class until the TFO and i thought that i knew every kitbashed ship from Star Trek, like from ... looking up what kitbashed ships they used in Star Trek

You should do the Ambassador off shoot Renaissance class, Apollo and Merced classes.

I like the concept of slapping new generation nacelles on older hulls, or generally rigging new tech to old ships, but it would have looked better with 4 nacelles imo.

3:33 I wonder if the Niagra Class starship also saw use as a "first responder" vessel in times of planetary or space vessel emergencies, due to it's unique ability to cover greater distances in short bursts vs the standard contemporaries of it's time (not including the Galaxy Class, of course)

So it couldn't travel at one third its cruising warp while the other two nacelles cool? Makes the four nacelle system seem more sensible.

Definitely an odd looking ship, but not bad.

I don't know as I see the "even-numbered nacelles" qualification as limiting, but that could be because I've yet to see an odd-numbered nacelle design that I thought looked very good.

Actually a great idea to have a spare nacel! How many times has a ship been disabled by a hit to a nacel? Looks like the Enterprise C? Also a nice symmetrical warp field.....

Tbh I was expecting the new Orleans before the Niagara in your video coverage

I've never understood the need for three nacelles, the only reason I can think of is in case one nacelle needs to be shut down due to damage or a fault. But that's an awful lot of extra expense for redundancy.

Being able to cycle 2 of three active nacelles makes this a ship that can stay in warp for long periods of time. It'd be perfect if it could just infinitely cycle them.

@smileymalaise

3 ай бұрын

Wait, but apparently the third nacelle isn't considered equal. So yeah, this isn't as good as say, the Stargazer.

@kaitlyn__L

3 ай бұрын

@@smileymalaiseseems to be more like the “warp field governor” on the NX in functionality.

Niagara class has won a place in my heart. It shouldn't, but it does.

The security officer needs to be careful with the rearwards phaser strips on the saucer under the nacelles. One stray shot and you are sabering off your Bussard collectors.

honestly if they had just spread out the nacelle more symmetrical, and maybe give it a rudimentary warp cruse of rotating 2 on 1 off, it would have worked and looked better as a ship.

With physical models no longer being used, there will never be kitbashes again. Instead they'll just copy and paste dozens of the same ship, with just different looking nacelles attached in order to save having to render new hulls.....

Probably the best thing about the "starship design rules" is that they never existed in canon and were never taken seriously by the show staff. Though since the info in this video does not come from any established canon, I'm curious where it all came from.

@CertifiablyIngame

Ай бұрын

Mostly the apocrypha used in the world building for the tabletop RPG "Star Trek Adventures" and schematics from the Star Trek Fact Files

tbh I never really noticed the Niagara class until the Wolf 359 TFO in Star Trek Online put me in one. I though they'd made it up.

From behind, it looks like a Flux compactor from back to the future.

I have a question about the warp core and the warp plasma. The Galaxy class had a huge warp core to generate enough plasma for the rather large warp nacelles. Adding a third would seem to me to necessitate either a second, smaller core or a larger core for the added plasma.

You should check out the playable movie Startrek: Borg. Its hard to get the video game to play but its amazing.

Niagara class, eh? I could "fall" for this design... 😏😆

So should we expect videos on the Challenger & Springfield classes...or have you yet to acquired those ships on your STO account:P

Question to Warp-Speed: Warp 1 = Lightspeed = 299,792 And for example warp 6 = 299,792*6? Or does it depends on the coils in the nacelles?

I took the third nacelle off my Eaglemoss USS Princeton, and it looks so much better. Seriously.

For me the ship is beautiful and than we hit the 3 nacelle. Everything seems in place but this randomly bit underneath. I would have taken it more series as a sort of Galaxy Dreadnought Precursor with the third nacelle on top. Otherwise a real beauty.

100th comment here, I have always liked this ship due to its resemblance to the Ambassador Class.

This would work if the saucer and secondary hull were designed closer to the Liberator.

If you're going to add a third nacelle, why not mount it on the saucer so both units have warp capability after saucer-separation?

When I saw this design before I thought it was a joke.

This ship would have been most useful as a component ferry, especially if it could dock a galaxy saucer.

I like that style it's better than the Miranda and the one nacelles

More tech going to Yoyodyne Propulsion? When will Star Fleet learn that that is a front for the Red Lectroids?

I have always had mixed feelings about this ship, while I love ships with more than two nacelles, this one is just missing something. Maybe its the extra wide saucer that doesn't seem to work with the Ambassador's secondary hull. Would love 💙 to see this as a four nacelle variant, as long as the lower pair of pylons mirrored the upper pair. Of course, it needs a rounder saucer as well. (IMHO)

As it is a Prototype, should it be a NX instead of NCC?

@danielseelye6005

3 ай бұрын

When it was a prototype the _Niagara_ would be an NX until it was commissioned and part of the regular fleet, then it was redesigned with the NCC. Same as with the _Excelsior_ going from NX-2000 in "Search for Spock" to NCC-2000 in "Undiscovered Country"

Not exactly a kitbash I like but thanks for the lore :)

The original Trek Tech manual had a three nacelle design in it - it was a "Battleship" class, far larger than the Constitution Class, though we've never seen one.

This perhaps the strangest of the Wolf 359 kitbashes, but it pairs well with the Freedom-class which was made using the same components. It also still looks better than 80% of the god-awful DS9 kitbash ships like the Curry and the Raging Queen.

I've always liked the tri-necell starships and I even built one based on the old tech manual it was based on the original constitution class and the manual described it as a DREADNOUGHT and I liked the Galaxy class Three necelled ship from the All good things episode, I'm not fond of this class but that's just me live long and prosper 🖖

Springfield Class soon?

Ugh, you mentioned the Constellation class. Thanks to you, I get angry every time I hear about it because Starfleet needs a long-range carrier/multibay modular craft for the latter 24th century era and nothing replicates the Constellation's adaptable design. Sure, Starfleet can build temperamental and high-strung craft like the Stargazer, but having a couple of craft that can go out to the weird systems and install entire science bases, or drop an entire post-scarcity industrial base on a warp-capable world that just suffered a disaster, or just sit in orbit and pretend to be a starbase for a couple months, would all be really nice. Being engineering, ops, or logistics on a Constellation 2 (or whatever) would make for solid resume polish for anyone who wasn't thoroughbred enough to get a post on whatever the current flagship class is. Gah, I'm all nerd angry now.

they just favoured the Enterprise D for all the extras like saucer sep and docking not really fair

like it

I would have preferred that the nacelle be placed between the other two and staggered but that's just me.

It should look more like a waterfall barrel.

Take away the 3rd nacelle and it looks like a nice ship

@rubaiyat300

3 ай бұрын

Yeah would fit well as a light cruiser update for the TNG era Starfleet. Shame they had to do that, probably to change up the silhouette since on a grainy standard definition TV for a throwaway VFX shot it might look too much like the standard shape of more recognizable classes.

No typos on the infographic, but the presenter hilariously mispronounced “debuted” as “day-byoo-ted”, so the quota was still met.

nothing says Starfleet Corps of Engineers more than: throw an extra nacelle on it and see what happens.

Go Bills!

@SweetSweetCandyBoyz

3 ай бұрын

Niagara -> Niagara Falls -> Buffalo -> Buffalo Bills