God I hate the TH-cam algorithm I must’ve typed in FASA Star Trek 200+ times and I see this 5 years in. Talk about a real treasure hidden in TH-cam fantastic video guys
Suggestion for future episodes - when you have miniatures - rather than holding them up to the webcam, perhaps take some photos of them and then show them on the main screen? Would have liked to have seen the FASA mini a bit bigger on the screen.
The Excelsior hull on the Andor Class looks like what would happen if Starfleet needed ships *NOW* and only had odds and ends. Good exercise in "kit bashing"
It was the FASA line of a multiple variety of ships and designs that definitely got me back into Trek fandom so deeply. I have always been interested in design aspects of made objects and structures, none more so fun than that of science fiction where there are so few limits. The Andor was and in that era of trek ships has always been one of my most favorite designs. The idea of a mostly crewed vessel of a federation member species torpedo ship bringing maximum offensive firepower to bear is a cool concept. This affection for FASA's role out of so many ships and in some cases books with some back stories for those ships came about for me during the the introduction of STTNG. So with that came lots of other points of information, including FASA's TNG book of design and sampling of many next gen. ships as well. The M'Benga class being the only one I really liked from the pictures provided. Somewhere in all that new information I read about specific placement of the nacelle's in relation to the ship being important. After reading that it caused some problems with the Andor's design. I'd often wanted to, yet never found the time to kit bash an Andor class ship, yet I had thought it an interesting idea for the nacelle's to remain folded in tight when engaging in battle or standard maneuvering for the added protection of the shielding, yet having a roller lock mechanism that swung them out to increase peak efficiency while in warp transit. This was a plan never realized in the model I had hoped to build, yet found it ironic when many years later Voyager did something a bit similiar. Heh, similiar, yet seemingly redundant and useless if waiting for something under 30 degrees transition to warp might mean life or death. Why not just build the ever so slight degree change into the final design? Anyway, minor complaint considering gimmicks like that are enjoyed by so many. Anyway, I just found you guys and this awesome TH-cam site and plan on checking out much more of what has been covered. Thank you for the time and effort to bring about a detailed and enjoyable source of information. -Jason Sorensen
I think from a design standpoint the warp engines should roll 180 deg. to the outside for the warp field to work properly but then it wouldn't be the Andor would it lol
The 2385 "update" for the FASA game, they updated the Andor, called the Metalstorm, if I remember correctly. LOVE the rollbar! Andor shows up, party's over.
The Andor class addressed an issue that always bugged me about Federation ships. The mosr important part of any starship is it's warp drive. So there it is, out away from the ship. Great big warp nacelles, so please! Shoot me here! Take out my primary power and mobility source. From most angles espeacilly from the forward approach angle. The warp nacelles are mostly or completely blocked from incomming fire by the ships structure. You can call them many things. To me, they are there to protect the warp drive. The variants are cool, especially the one with the Defiant style rollbar. Unfortunately FASA's combat system didn't take into account for the ship's structure protecting the warp nacelles. A battle squadron of Chandlers escorted by a wing of Andors. Is something no Federation foe ever wants to see on sensors.
Roddenberry's requirement that the warp engines have uninterrupted line of sight to each other was violated by many other starships on and off screen. Bird of Prey and Defiant are obvious examples - and quite fast, agile, powerful. So I don't have any problem accepting this unusual "Andorian influenced" arrangement for the warp engines.
Those pylons beneath the Nacelles are probably magazine's for the launchers. Salvoing eight Torpedoes at once means your going to need serious magazine capacity.
FASA's designs all predate Roddenberry's late-life laying-down of "the rules", so most of the "Andorian" designs violate the principle that "Bussard collectors must be unobstructed from the front". I think the main reason the 3D render looked so off was that the builder tried to reconcile the existing design with the Roddenberry edicts, rather than simply rendering the design as-is. Of course, it was arguable as to whether or not the flat nacelles even _had_ collectors to begin with. But I generally liked the "protect the nacelles" philosophy of the Andorian designs. Except where they got crazy with the nacelle pylons, which FASA did a lot of (I'm looking at you, _USS Northampton_)
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and very well informatively executed and explained indeed guys, And I still own a few of the Fasa ships in my collection had some more but some how they disappeared and I have no idea who probably took them?.
I love the look of this ship. The Cockings is just Sexy with the roll bar. On the Excelsior version 3D model it look like the secondary hull was not even attached and might look better with out a secondary hull.
The big "shuttle" cutouts could also be used for mine ordnance or missile bays. Extra shuttles seems a bit redundant for what seems like a pure warship. p.s. Yes I like leaveing presents out the back... destroyed many ships this way.
As someone who likes the Thufir-class, is there any reason why the Andor-class has got an edge over that Andorian FASA design? 15:38 I may be mistaken, but if I look at the sideview the impulse engines are located higher than the warp nacelles. In the 3D-model they seem to be lifted to account for the shuttle-bays which do not appear to be present in the original design. Also, if you look more closely you will see that the original concept does not show the neck in the side-profile of the ship. Combine that with the fact that the saucer is located much more closely to the deflector dish and it is not farfetched to conclude that this variant does not have the Excelsior’s thick neck.
this was a great episode ( I think I say that about every one I watch)! This is one of my favorite FASA ships. I really like the long sleekiness (to quote the commander). I like the TOS version a lot and I think the excelsior version is great too but I think it needs some major tweaking to look right. I think it would need a larger saucer section and a modified 2ndy hull. The one thing that totally had me going nutso pututso in this episode of the USS cockings, I always wanted to see this ship with a roll bar and wondered what it would look like. I think its stalky chunkiness lends itself well to a roll bar and given the ships main purpose makes sense since you can put more weapons on there.
When I played the game way back when, I had an Andor Class as my Fleets Flagshship called the USS Blitzkreiger but do not remember the hull number of it.
I always loved this ship design and the torpedo launchers were fun. I actually programmed a fasa starship simulator in the early 90s so that I could play with the ships and it was pretty decent at the time. I should put it up somewhere for download because it runs in Windows compatibility mode.
I think it's funny how haters say Discovery's warp nacelles violate the Roddenberry Rule yet don't have a problem with the Andor Class' warp engine placement.
Like most men, they had size issues. When they 3D'd this ship, they should have used the mini. The orthos in the manuals were simply place holders. There had to be an actual set of blueprints to make the mini in the first place.
+sw gs I wanted to say the same and even the front view has a similar vibe to a Galor. If you ever do a full episode on the Andor-class would you consider putting them next to one another?
+Trekyards Mr. Foley, question. You hate the JJ Enterprise's close nacelles, but yet you love this ship. Is it because you just expect the Enterprise's nacelles to be a bit more separated or do you just hate anything JJ associated with Star Trek? LOL! No, but seriously.
+Jaime Rivera I dislike how close the JJprise nacelles are because it's not correct looking for that design. This design is made to have them close. I don't hate everything JJ. Just some aspects of that ship sucks. And yes if the nacelles were spaced a little further apart and not on curved struts I would probably like the ship. But you can't compare that ship to Andor in regards to engine placement. That is just silly.
I thought the same thing ... the Andor's top-view "cobra head" look might have helped inspire the look of Cardassian ship models (for TNG and DS9). Although a few of the other FASA ships also had roughly similar top profiles.
It is basically a front-line artillery platform. The engines don't really need epic range and fuel economy and endurance, they just gotta get those weapons into the fight in time.
13:53 That shuttle bay position in the rear bottom of the saucer is bad -a. If the impulse engines put out thrust they be a danger to shuttle operations -b And vise versa Impulse engines could be compromised by shuttle crash.
+Robert Hayes It was 2 part special with all the facts and figures but because of all of the extra time needed to make it we are planning on spreading them out and doing the other parts a little later. From working on the Galaxy we got behind on all of the other shows so we are doing a few normal weeks before we make any other parts and then once its all done release the complete version as a feature length presentation!
It's crazy how the 80s had such an obvious lack of talent. Unless it was like DND or Battletech where they literally were stealing designs from everyone it looked like this kind of garbage. And none of these 80s games aside like Battletech or Cyberpunk or Shadowrun really exist anymore now. But the cyberpunk scene overall was one of the few areas in the 80s that had actual talent within it. Now we have an oversaturation of talent, all these artists on like Deviantart, but a lot of it is people just copying the style of someone else where they might as well be an AI.
Shangri-La vs Andor. Which one is beautiful, which one is ugly? I think we might have opposite answers. To me the Andor is instantly distinctive, striking, memorable - it looks functional and it fits quite well with the design forms of other ships from the era. While to me the Shangri-La is just another generic and forgettable blurry background filler - it looks like a sleek but random pile of mixed-scale Nova/Prometheus/Intrepid/Prometheus modules glued together to quickly fill out another improbably vast and uninteresting CBS-Trek copypasta battle fleet.
Good episode as always but not a fan of this ship. I find too many of the Fasa/starfleet battles designs just look like things have been attached without thought to what it does.
Ugh, I hate fasa ships... I understand you guys like them and the game and I may be coming off like a jerk here but it seems like there's been a lot of fasa lately is all. Just not my cup of tea I guess. :)
+jakemonster001 We alternated each month with a different theme for the Monday show..firs it was Star Trek Online ships then it was fan designs then it was fan film designs then fasa!
I love how it's armored and has protection for the nacelles and other sensitive areas.
Roll bar looks great!
God I hate the TH-cam algorithm I must’ve typed in FASA Star Trek 200+ times and I see this 5 years in. Talk about a real treasure hidden in TH-cam fantastic video guys
Suggestion for future episodes - when you have miniatures - rather than holding them up to the webcam, perhaps take some photos of them and then show them on the main screen? Would have liked to have seen the FASA mini a bit bigger on the screen.
FASA designed several really nice ships, one of my faves was the Larson class Destroyer
One thing guys; the torp launchers were 4 forward, 1 port, 1 starboard, and two aft.
The Excelsior hull on the Andor Class looks like what would happen if Starfleet needed ships *NOW* and only had odds and ends. Good exercise in "kit bashing"
Andor-class model with some Excelsior-class features/modules ...
th-cam.com/video/XzYlUN10LV8/w-d-xo.html
Don't recall if I was in High or Middle school when this game came out but I do remember that this was my favorite ship in the game. Great video.
I'd like to see a TOS-style version of this haha. LOVE this ship. awesome side and front view.
But this is already a TOS-style TOS-era ship, lol.
It was the FASA line of a multiple variety of ships and designs that definitely got me back into Trek fandom so deeply. I have always been interested in design aspects of made objects and structures, none more so fun than that of science fiction where there are so few limits.
The Andor was and in that era of trek ships has always been one of my most favorite designs. The idea of a mostly crewed vessel of a federation member species torpedo ship bringing maximum offensive firepower to bear is a cool concept.
This affection for FASA's role out of so many ships and in some cases books with some back stories for those ships came about for me during the the introduction of STTNG. So with that came lots of other points of information, including FASA's TNG book of design and sampling of many next gen. ships as well. The M'Benga class being the only one I really liked from the pictures provided.
Somewhere in all that new information I read about specific placement of the nacelle's in relation to the ship being important. After reading that it caused some problems with the Andor's design. I'd often wanted to, yet never found the time to kit bash an Andor class ship, yet I had thought it an interesting idea for the nacelle's to remain folded in tight when engaging in battle or standard maneuvering for the added protection of the shielding, yet having a roller lock mechanism that swung them out to increase peak efficiency while in warp transit.
This was a plan never realized in the model I had hoped to build, yet found it ironic when many years later Voyager did something a bit similiar. Heh, similiar, yet seemingly redundant and useless if waiting for something under 30 degrees transition to warp might mean life or death. Why not just build the ever so slight degree change into the final design? Anyway, minor complaint considering gimmicks like that are enjoyed by so many.
Anyway, I just found you guys and this awesome TH-cam site and plan on checking out much more of what has been covered. Thank you for the time and effort to bring about a detailed and enjoyable source of information.
-Jason Sorensen
Yep one of my top 5 ships design
I am a huge FASA fan !
Andor was a favorite Federation combat ship. I was good with the Klingons, but the Andor could take a pounding and dish it out
I think from a design standpoint the warp engines should roll 180 deg. to the outside for the warp field to work properly but then it wouldn't be the Andor would it lol
Those ships give me Cardassian ship design vibes. Which I kind of like, it's different and still works.
That's the ship we all agreed on in my first campaign.
Something I thought the Illustrious Capt. would mention...The in-game reason the nacelels were placed as they were was for added protection.
The 2385 "update" for the FASA game, they updated the Andor, called the Metalstorm, if I remember correctly. LOVE the rollbar! Andor shows up, party's over.
At first, I thought that the Andor-class starship was named after Cassian Andor (from Rogue One)...
The Andor class addressed an issue that always bugged me about Federation ships. The mosr important part of any starship is it's warp drive. So there it is, out away from the ship. Great big warp nacelles, so please! Shoot me here! Take out my primary power and mobility source.
From most angles espeacilly from the forward approach angle. The warp nacelles are mostly or completely blocked from incomming fire by the ships structure. You can call them many things. To me, they are there to protect the warp drive.
The variants are cool, especially the one with the Defiant style rollbar.
Unfortunately FASA's combat system didn't take into account for the ship's structure protecting the warp nacelles.
A battle squadron of Chandlers escorted by a wing of Andors. Is something no Federation foe ever wants to see on sensors.
Roddenberry's requirement that the warp engines have uninterrupted line of sight to each other was violated by many other starships on and off screen. Bird of Prey and Defiant are obvious examples - and quite fast, agile, powerful.
So I don't have any problem accepting this unusual "Andorian influenced" arrangement for the warp engines.
Those pylons beneath the Nacelles are probably magazine's for the launchers. Salvoing eight Torpedoes at once means your going to need serious magazine capacity.
FASA's designs all predate Roddenberry's late-life laying-down of "the rules", so most of the "Andorian" designs violate the principle that "Bussard collectors must be unobstructed from the front". I think the main reason the 3D render looked so off was that the builder tried to reconcile the existing design with the Roddenberry edicts, rather than simply rendering the design as-is. Of course, it was arguable as to whether or not the flat nacelles even _had_ collectors to begin with. But I generally liked the "protect the nacelles" philosophy of the Andorian designs. Except where they got crazy with the nacelle pylons, which FASA did a lot of (I'm looking at you, _USS Northampton_)
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and very well informatively executed and explained indeed guys, And I still own a few of the Fasa ships in my collection had some more but some how they disappeared and I have no idea who probably took them?.
I love the look of this ship. The Cockings is just Sexy with the roll bar. On the Excelsior version 3D model it look like the secondary hull was not even attached and might look better with out a secondary hull.
That was one of MY first minis to buy, as well.
The big "shuttle" cutouts could also be used for mine ordnance or missile bays. Extra shuttles seems a bit redundant for what seems like a pure warship.
p.s. Yes I like leaveing presents out the back... destroyed many ships this way.
It wasn't until the Cockings variant that this class caught my eye.
As someone who likes the Thufir-class, is there any reason why the Andor-class has got an edge over that Andorian FASA design?
15:38 I may be mistaken, but if I look at the sideview the impulse engines are located higher than the warp nacelles. In the 3D-model they seem to be lifted to account for the shuttle-bays which do not appear to be present in the original design. Also, if you look more closely you will see that the original concept does not show the neck in the side-profile of the ship. Combine that with the fact that the saucer is located much more closely to the deflector dish and it is not farfetched to conclude that this variant does not have the Excelsior’s thick neck.
this was a great episode ( I think I say that about every one I watch)! This is one of my favorite FASA ships. I really like the long sleekiness (to quote the commander). I like the TOS version a lot and I think the excelsior version is great too but I think it needs some major tweaking to look right. I think it would need a larger saucer section and a modified 2ndy hull.
The one thing that totally had me going nutso pututso in this episode of the USS cockings, I always wanted to see this ship with a roll bar and wondered what it would look like. I think its stalky chunkiness lends itself well to a roll bar and given the ships main purpose makes sense since you can put more weapons on there.
The Andor from the bottom three quarters view looks like a Miranda Class saucer with the Constitution Refit secondary hull and warp nacelles.
When I played the game way back when, I had an Andor Class as my Fleets Flagshship called the USS Blitzkreiger but do not remember the hull number of it.
I always loved this ship design and the torpedo launchers were fun. I actually programmed a fasa starship simulator in the early 90s so that I could play with the ships and it was pretty decent at the time. I should put it up somewhere for download because it runs in Windows compatibility mode.
My favorite tactic was to run a wolf pack of these. My friends hated it when I broke out the shipsheets for three of these for a SIM.
Top view reminds me of a galor class. Gul dukat approves
Have you guys ever thought about doing the Mars class battleship from starlfeet command one and two?
Great little ship. :-) Love the U.S.S. Cockings. :-)
I think it's funny how haters say Discovery's warp nacelles violate the Roddenberry Rule yet don't have a problem with the Andor Class' warp engine placement.
I have this one in Star Fleet Command 3.. Got to say she is pretty awesome in that too..
Like most men, they had size issues. When they 3D'd this ship, they should have used the mini. The orthos in the manuals were simply place holders. There had to be an actual set of blueprints to make the mini in the first place.
it looks better without the 2ndry hull.
Lots of variations of this ship. So so many to look at. LOL
+Trekyards Looks like Cardassian ship from top.
+sw gs I wanted to say the same and even the front view has a similar vibe to a Galor.
If you ever do a full episode on the Andor-class would you consider putting them next to one another?
+Trekyards I think Fundation3d has a model of it, in the TOS style, I think.
+Trekyards Mr. Foley, question. You hate the JJ Enterprise's close nacelles, but yet you love this ship. Is it because you just expect the Enterprise's nacelles to be a bit more separated or do you just hate anything JJ associated with Star Trek? LOL! No, but seriously.
+Jaime Rivera I dislike how close the JJprise nacelles are because it's not correct looking for that design. This design is made to have them close. I don't hate everything JJ. Just some aspects of that ship sucks. And yes if the nacelles were spaced a little further apart and not on curved struts I would probably like the ship. But you can't compare that ship to Andor in regards to engine placement. That is just silly.
Love the row bar. It makes it look very powerful. Shouldn't the nacelles be armored?
From the top view, it looks a bit like a Cardassian ship.
Cardassians were decades away from being invented when this ship was created.
Gary C. It doesn't matter when they were invented they were still around. Even in this time period because we see cardassian vole in discovery
I thought the same thing ... the Andor's top-view "cobra head" look might have helped inspire the look of Cardassian ship models (for TNG and DS9). Although a few of the other FASA ships also had roughly similar top profiles.
FASA Chandley class is the all-time coolest Federation starship, or tied with Defiant and "Harry Kim's Rhode Island.
The problem I have with the design is that the ship’s primary hull is blocking the bastard collectors.
It is basically a front-line artillery platform. The engines don't really need epic range and fuel economy and endurance, they just gotta get those weapons into the fight in time.
Is their a place we can view your CIG models online?
Can you post a link to the 3D model? I love this ship. Thanks!!!
Can you send me closeup HD pics of the miniature? I've been wanting to do drawings based on the actual model.
Very Pugnacious... I like the RoleBar version.
YES!Andor class!Next up Northampton class!?
This ship feels like a Reliant/Defiant hybrid to me.
If the engineering hull were a little furter back, with a thicker neck, it'd be sleek.
I hope you guys get to do ships from the star trek flight chronology book. there is so many wonderful ships there.
with me the reception is about as cold as an Andorran summer.
I like it!
I'm trying really hard to hate this ship, but the more I look at it, the more I like it...
you guys should do some videos on Star fleet battles.. I love a lot of the ships like the Burke class
I feel like it would look a lot better without a secondary hull. Maybe with an NX style deflector instead.
13:53 That shuttle bay position in the rear bottom of the saucer is bad
-a. If the impulse engines put out thrust they be a danger to shuttle operations
-b And vise versa Impulse engines could be compromised by shuttle crash.
Dana Knutson was a genius.
Foley X. Andor, make it happen!
Whatever happened to Galaxy Class Part 3?
+Robert Hayes It was 2 part special with all the facts and figures but because of all of the extra time needed to make it we are planning on spreading them out and doing the other parts a little later. From working on the Galaxy we got behind on all of the other shows so we are doing a few normal weeks before we make any other parts and then once its all done release the complete version as a feature length presentation!
+power543 Ah, apologies. For some reason I thought there was another part coming.
Robert Hayes Not a problem! More coming eventually! And the other main ships!
the 3d rendering of the excelsior version was horribly done. doesnt even come close to resembling the 2 d drawing
Hmmmm.........FASAnating !!!!!
The nacelles seem too close together. I would spread them out a bit.
+Robert Hayes smaller target this way.
I prefer the FASA miniature!!!
Samuel's comments were a bit misleading for a moment - it sounds like you were suspending all content for 2 months.
FASA is a game publisher! and this is NOT a missile cruiser, It is a Torpedo Cruiser (and I don't care what the label says).
looks like an odd Meranda class
It's crazy how the 80s had such an obvious lack of talent. Unless it was like DND or Battletech where they literally were stealing designs from everyone it looked like this kind of garbage. And none of these 80s games aside like Battletech or Cyberpunk or Shadowrun really exist anymore now. But the cyberpunk scene overall was one of the few areas in the 80s that had actual talent within it. Now we have an oversaturation of talent, all these artists on like Deviantart, but a lot of it is people just copying the style of someone else where they might as well be an AI.
I prefer the FASA miniature
They could be shuttle bay
Federation Galor Class.........
FASA... Fa as in the musical note and Sa as in the word saw. Not long A's
Starfleet command game models fasa andor look it up model by Kreeargh texture skins by Atheorhaven.
Grown men and their toys.
I just watched the Shangri La episode: from the most beautiful to the ugliest design! 😂
Shangri-La vs Andor. Which one is beautiful, which one is ugly?
I think we might have opposite answers.
To me the Andor is instantly distinctive, striking, memorable - it looks functional and it fits quite well with the design forms of other ships from the era. While to me the Shangri-La is just another generic and forgettable blurry background filler - it looks like a sleek but random pile of mixed-scale Nova/Prometheus/Intrepid/Prometheus modules glued together to quickly fill out another improbably vast and uninteresting CBS-Trek copypasta battle fleet.
This ship at times reminded me of Cardassian ships
Ugly as sin, but surprisingly likeable.
I'm usually not very critical of oddball designs, but.. I really don't get why people like this one. Nothing about this design makes sense to me.
Good episode as always but not a fan of this ship. I find too many of the Fasa/starfleet battles designs just look like things have been attached without thought to what it does.
My problem with this (and all FASA ships) is that they look like fold and tuck cardboard toys punched out from a Happy Meal Box
Ugh.... this design is kinda fugly IMHO. No streamlining or anything whatsoever.
Ugh, I hate fasa ships... I understand you guys like them and the game and I may be coming off like a jerk here but it seems like there's been a lot of fasa lately is all. Just not my cup of tea I guess. :)
+jakemonster001 We alternated each month with a different theme for the Monday show..firs it was Star Trek Online ships then it was fan designs then it was fan film designs then fasa!
horrible design.