Persei-Aries War Resumes
Galaxy Class (TNG) and Miranda-Soyuz Class (Star Trek II, IV)
Been building a few more ships for Star Trek’s conversion into Darkstar – expanding a little into the films and the TNG-era ships.
First up with have the Miranda-Soyuz class. This is the ship made most famous in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as the unfortunate USS Reliant, which Khan took over and used to fight Enterprise.
Now this class is all over the place in both Alpha and Beta canon, and is seen as late as the TNG episodes which take place 80 years after the Star Trek films I-VI (these poor things were still fighting the Borg Cube at the Battle of Wolf 359 in 2366, 95 years after the first ships of the class were commissioned).
So I picked a few sites that had stats for them in FASA’s Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator game, looked at some of the earlier marks in the mid 2270s (roughly, the time of Wrath of Khan) and sort of “aimed for the middle” of what several sources were quoting.
I also rolled out the famous Galaxy class, of course the class we see in The Next Generation, embodied with Jon-Luc Picard’s USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D.
Of course, new weapons and systems tables have to be worked out for these Next Generation era ships. Calculations of power requirements, weight, and crew complement – which are usually based on damage, game effect, and other capabilities – go way off the scale if I used the same formulas and gradients as with TOS-era ships. Basically, if a 10-point TOS phaser in 2270 costs “X” in power, mass, and crew, then a 100-point TNG phaser was costing “X times 10” – meaning that TNG ships were actually coming out critically UNDERPOWERED.
Obviously, technology advances in 100 years, and systems become much more efficient. What a TOS-era ship can do with 10 points a power, a TNG ship can do with 5 or even less. Also, TNG ships generate 5-10 times more power to start with. End result, these ships are freakin’ powerful … and thus in Darkstar … they’re freakin’ expensive.
First up, we have the USS Saratoga, Miranda-Soyuz Class (Mark II), commanded by Captain Margaret Sinclair-Alexander, as seen at the beginning of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Yes, this is the ship thatis first disabled by the "Whale Probe" and yes, in beta canon and the novelization she IS rescued and recovered. She's roughly the same as the infamous USS Reliant we see Khan command in Star Trek II. Same Class XI designation as the Enterprise refit, but with a little less power (again, drawing from several sources here).
The design tables for my Miranda-Soyuz (Mark II) class cruiser. The Miranda-Soyuz would be continually upgraded through the next 80 years or so, this thing is the "Bird of Prey" of the Federation, for all the right and wrong reasons, upgraded and re-used in movies and TV shows until they literally couldn't agree on the name of the class. Slightly less powerful than her famous Enterprise 1701 (refit) opponent, with the tables producing a mass of 130,000+ tons and a crew of 390 or so ... pretty close to what we see claimed in FASA.
The Warship Record Sheet (WRS) for the Galaxy Class starship, as seen in Star Trek The Next Generation. Yes, she's considered a "battleship" in Darkstar - sources list her as weight well over 400,000 tons and she's a Class XVII ship). She moves like a frigate, though, with an incredible thrust of 7 (for a battleship!!!) She's also got a very high warp engine, and of course very powerful weapons. However, she's vulnerable. Like all Star Trek ships, she has very thin armor, usually a single torpedo against an unshielded target goes right through the hull (many examples of this on screen). Like all Star Trek ships, she's vulnerable because of how her warp nacelles are laid out. However, she is much more flexible, more accurate (better sensors) and FAR faster than anything in her class in Darkstar. And of course she has the price tag to match. This is the USS Venture, as seen in Star Trek: DS9, commanded by Captain Roger Corbett, friend of Benjamin Sisko.
Page 2 of the Galaxy Class' WRS. Note the low shielding (well, low for a Star Trek ship). Again, the Galaxy class were pretty, comfortable, and packed with science labs ... but solid warships they were not. USS Yamato blew up in TNG. USS Odyssey was destroyed by the Jem'Hadar in minutes in DS9. USS Enterprise was eventually taken out by a 100-year old ship 1/20 her size once her shields were compromised. Subsequent Starfleet designs like the Defiant, Akira, and Sovereign classes were much leaner, tougher, and meaner as Star Trek history moved into a much more combative period against the Klingons, the Dominion, the Borg, the Udeen (species 8472), and others. 
Khaaaaaaaan!
😀
This looks like it could be fun. We need to get into this in the near future
I have NO IDEA how well balanced they will be against each other, @damon , let alone Darkstar ships. They are VERY different, incredibly frail and weak on some ways … incredibly fast, accurate, and flexible in others. I feel the average Darkstar ship can match any TOS era ship of its approximate class. Older eras like the Four Years War, the TOS-era … no worries. Even match-ups would be against the Star Trek I-VI series ships, like the upgraded Constitutions, the Mirandas, the larger Roluman Birds of Prey … Where Darkstar Ships start to come up short is the… Read more »