Eh, Ambassador was already 30 years old during DS9 and already being replaced by post-Wolf 359 designs like Akira, Norway, Saber, Sovereign, etc. It should have been a bit more of an option than the Excelsiors, but at the same time there were a ton more Excelsiors than Ambassadors. Pretty much anywhere DS9 could have used an Ambassador they plugged in the much more capable (and better looking, just personal opinion) Nebula instead, for better or worse
@@dragonsword7370 was a 3d file ever made? i think they had a physical model but when they moved into 3d.. they had the ships used in first contact, and used most of those and made a few more. But i also think the Ambassador should've had a large number in the dominion war i think galaxy wings and a ambassador wedge! having a couple with powerful forward shields being abit more compact than the galaxy could punch through while under fire!
That's 4 Warbirds from twenty years earlier vs the Enterprise C with TNG weapons. Maybe it would've been a push or a slight edge going to the Ambassador in that battle if it was both upgraded and at 100% repair.
@@johnassal5838 Except the Enterprise D did not upgrade, or transfer any upgraded technology to the Enterprise C before sending her back. Only Lt. Tasha Yar.
@@Shutterbug5269 Indeed. They discussed doing so, but the Klingons attacked before they could, and even undid the progress of the repair crews with their strafing run on the poor C. important to remember, the C came through the anomaly at the *end* of its battle with the Romulans, when it was about to be overwhelmed; and it went back in basically the same battle-damaged condition. That long running battle took place before the anomaly interaction.
@@Shutterbug5269 You've got a point about there not being any anachronistic upgrades and now that I think about it this war timeline Federation may not have advanced as much as in the Prime timeline either. I don't think that "all progress" for the repair teams had been erased though. Even with that Klingon strafing run and the death of Cpt Garrett. The 1701-C should've been at its absolute weakest when those warbirds closed for the kill. If even the slightest improvement in weapons or shields would've allowed them to do a lot more damage at the end than their attackers expected. Especially with Yar actually having time to prepare tactics and a battleplan implemented just as they were expected to be stunned and helpless.
That no lead-in Drach appearance!! I was one of "them" that dismissed Ambassador as a failure, but when you think about it... It really isn't. It's actually incredibly innovative, particularly that Starfleet finally went in for the replacement of Duotronic circuts with LCARs and isolinear chips. That, to me, is the jump from floppy disks to blu-ray, and yes I skipped a few steps. Especially the point that *everything* on Ambassador was new. There was nothing old in her. She was the first modern starship in decades. Excellently done. Love these little chill chat style vids!!!
The Galaxy Class was basically a Starbase with a warp drive tacked onto it, intended to spend 5 years at a pop in deep space exploring with enough crew amenities and family life to keep the crew from going insane and killing each other. The Federation and Starfleet just got cold feet about sending them out to do that because if how many deep space exploration ships got lost or destroyed.
What bothers me the most is that so many content creators assume that just because Enterprise C was destroyed there had to be something inherently wrong with the entire class. Nearly half of the original 14 Constitution class ships were lost (Including Enterprise) and nobody says that about that class.
@@Shutterbug5269 It is beta canon thing. Ambasador was relatively new design after half century of stagnation. It also didn't exactly know what it wanted to be.
I loved the Ambassador for the first time I saw her on screen. You could see the design legacy and the hints of to Galaxy to come and 10 year old me had to know more
Exactly my thoughts :) They really found the right balance between ALL the Enterprise designs at that time, feeling every bit the Missing Link between OST and NG. Ambassador class remains one of my favourites
I always imagined that the TNG Era is where Starfleet got too comfortable, arrogant. They started to believe they were not a military organization, and were humble explorers; who just happened to have ships that also are very capable warships. They invited families aboard to come with them on their 5 year journeys out into deep space. The TOS Era captains knew very, very well that they were a military organization and would often face threats. It took Q to introduce Picard and Starfleet to the Borg to humble that line of thinking, and soon the "anti-borg" warships began to appear. The frontier does not care if you are "peaceful explorers", and it will fight back.
“In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilisation is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a lifeform advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives.” - James T. Kirk
@@BakaVHS I am sure you had to point this out to further cement the point about federation being actually military organization. Even these morally questionable aliens see through this... surely this isn't just pointless attempt at criticism that doesn't go anywhere.
I've always loved the Ambassador class. I still have a large Eaglemoss model of the Enterprise C. During the brief time we were able to get a good look at it, the vessel seemed like the perfect melding of TOS and TNG era technologies and defense systems. A truly transitional ship that served as a noticeable precursor to the Galaxy class, except that from my perspective it seemed even more suited as a true Heavy Cruiser. Or even within a Battleship role, in a pinch.
Easily my favorite ship in the entire series. there's just something fundamentally right about it's design i adore, like starfleet stopped and put together everything that was reliable, well tested, and sturdy so that the new technologies had a sturdy backbone to grow from.
It would be great to see it in a tv-show because of the awesome design and because of the era it was used. But it would be more awesome in an open world video game.
Can you imagine the Romulan reaction to their first battle with the Ambassador class? The Enterprise C fights 4 warbirds. A huge exchange of photon torpedoes occurs and one Warbird is heavily damaged. The Enterprise C looks crippled but suddenly, a split second later, her shields are back up and she's ready to fire! A strange sensor ripple happened but there's not time to analyze that because the Enterprise C is firing AGAIN. WTF?!? Didn't they just exhaust all their tubes?! Worse this time the torpedoes and phasers are targeted much tighter nailing Warbird #2 in exactly the right places. It's almost as if the weapons officer of the Enterprise C learned exactly where to hit the newest warbirds after just one salvo! Warbird #2 explodes crippling the already damaged Warbird #1. Warbirds #3, and #4 drop into cloak to reload and rearm. The Enterprise C also reloads. Warbirds #3 and #4 drop out of cloak and another exchange of torpedoes occurs. This time the Enterprise C is crippled.... again... and Warbird #3 is destroyed. It's like their weapons officer has a copy of the damned Warbirds blueprints! She is targeting their weakest points like a surgeon! (note: Tasha Yar would absolutely have access to 20 years of information on these 'new' warbirds) The mission to destroy the Narendra 3 outpost is cancelled - the mission is now to learn as much as possible about this new Federation threat - the Ambassador class. Clearly, Romulan intelligence has underestimated this ship and the remaining Warbird #4 has orders to board the hulk. The Romulans quickly discover that the engineering team has set the engines to overload - they capture as many crew as they can and Warbird #4 hauls the crippled Warbird #1 back to Romulus. This humiliating defeat and unquestionable act of honor is shown to the Klingon high council who signs the treaty of alliance with the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire go and hide behind the neutral zone until the D'deridex is created. Roll credits .
Good comment. It would be cool if the D'deridex would be slightly tougher after the Yesterday Enterprise episode because they changed the history and the Romulans thought they need a stronger ship. And if you think about it Tasha survived and I'm 100% sure the Romulans can extract any information from her so she told them she is from the future. I wish Trek writers would be more consistent and brave.
The Ambassador Class reminds me of the Wichita Class heavy cruiser. She was built as the last treaty cruiser, and as such was overshadowed by the newer, non-treaty cruisers built afterwards like the Baltimore Class and the Oregon City. But, despite being smaller and weighing 20% less than its successors, the Wichita was quite capable in its own right, boasting good armor protection, speed and armament, and a good basis for improvement. The Ambassador was sturdy and had a punch and may not have been as sexy as the 2360s vintage ships, but she was quite a capable heavy cruiser in her own right, and deadly after refit with new technologies.
Just to be sure, we're you comparing Starfleet ships to US Navy vessels? It's just that you switched between ship names without specifying the service you're comparing. Nvm just needed time to catch up.
Although the Excelsior was no longer the top dog, it was far from obsolete. We saw new Excelsior's being built in Voyager and we also saw an upgraded Excelsior almost evenly matched with the Defiant in DS9.
The Ambassador class was a solid design. It marked a turning point for Starfleet technology, lessons learned from the Excelsior project. It was the first to incorporate LCARS systems, new materials in hull and frame construction, while maintaining the familiar shape of the Constitution class. It's a shame not many were deployed, like a lot of lost-era vessels, it doesn't get the attention it deserves.
@@martinjrgensen8234 Yup. It was a bridge between new and old Starfleet. Without the Ambassador there would be no Galaxy or Sovereign classes. I look at pre-Ambassador class vessels the same way I see Klingon Birds of Prey - pretty, however they are old, dated, vulnerable. With the exception of the Excelsior class, which was far ahead of its time, until the Sovereign debuted.
The fact that Galaxy classes had entire families stationed on board makes me think that Roddenberry didn't intend them to be viewed as 'battleships'. They were meant to be viewed as science/exploration ships first and foremost, but they could fight if they had to.
The writers really never talked about any Federation ships being Frigates/Cruisers/Battleships. That's very much fans choosing to interpret them as warships. In terms of what's on screen, Federation starships are always general purpose explorers, or else dedicated science vessels until the Defiant is introduced. Only other factions ships are talked about in terms of warships as battlecruisers/cruisers/battleships. I think the only thing Starfleet ever called a battleship on screen was a Dominion ship over twice the size of a Galaxy class, and not loaded with classrooms for children and science labs. So in terms of what Starfleet (and the writers) would have considered a battleship, the Galaxy Class certainly wasn't it.
@@guaposneeze There was that one TNG episode, where the crews memory was wiped, and when they viewed the ships armaments, they immediately called it a battleship.
Imma be honest, Star Trek is at its best when the morals of crews are tested a la DS9. Roddenberry kinda just had his head in his ass most of the time. "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" Diplomacy first but get ready to annihilate them if Diplomacy fails.
In terms of enterprises, this class represented the biggest jump. From Constitution to Excelsior is significant, but from Excelsior to ambassador is crazy.
God, this was just the sort of video I needed for the end of my day. You have no idea how happy I was when I got the notification while I was at work. 👌
One thing to consider. The Galaxy class had families which is why it had it had roughly 1400 souls on board. The Ambassador Class theoretically could have started out with 500 souls on board, but then could’ve jumped to 900 souls once families were allowed to be on starships during the golden era.
Exactly what I was thinking. When you actually break it down, the Galaxy class was the first ship developed with that in mind. It has the internal volume of a Nimitz class carrier, which has over 2000 crew. The Galaxy has all that extra space not just for families but for ease of movement and comfort for those families. That extra space is also useful in emergency evacuations in humanitarian aid as the life support system is capable of double the stated compliment. The Ambassador class was built in an era shift. In "Yesterday's Enterprise" they make pretty clear families are not the ship, but it would be plausible to assume the the extra space for movement on the Galaxy was initially tested or implemented on the Ambassador.
Here is how i have always explained the two “Ambassador” classes and PROPERLY aligned their purpose with their names The Enterprise C we see on the TV screen is an ADMIRAL (Kirk) Class vessel… built for tactical, engineering , and “hard” sciences where research needs to be done in dangerous environments. It has more internal space dedicated to tactical systems, redundant shielding, penetrating sensors, tractor beam emitters. It has shuttlebays with a large complement of work bees and large occupancy shuttles and cargo shuttles…. It is a uprated version of the refit constitution class The version we only see in artistic form on TV (the sculpture and the painting) is in fact the AMBASSADOR (SPOCK) Class…. A more elegant design its mission profiles were tailors to its namesake legacy in both diplomacy and soft (biological and planetary) scientific research…. It was divided into three sub classes, 1 a mixture of both diplomatic and science with the other two focusing on one or the other . The diplomatic had a more luxurious arrangement with large meeting halls that spanned two decks and floor to ceiling windows looking out into space …. In the scientific version the large spaces were instead converted into arboretums and environmental tanks where biological samples could be examined in reproduced environments … THESE ships were enlarged and up grade version of the excelsior class … What has been forgotten is that these designs are merely a continuation of the final versions of the excelsior and constitutional class that were purposed built for single mission profiles with tactical, engineering, hard science specific constitution classes and diplomatic and scientific and medical excelsior classes often with mixed sqaudrons of both classes providing mutual support on missions …. This was the era of the mini fleets as starship construction had hit a glass ceiling on the size of vessel they could build and the Ambassador/Admiral Classes being only a PARTIAL break through. Its wouldnt be until the Galaxy/Nebula era that starfleet could return to the concept of multi mission ships
@@sgt_s4und3r54, I’d say the populations were: Constitution: 400 (Down to 300 by 2293) Excelsior: 500 Ambassador: 750 Galaxy: 1000 Sovereign (not a flagship class): 700
Narendra is far superior to this bulky abomination. And it also is technically an Ambassador class. And it has even more legitimacy because it's based off the original concept for this class of ships created by Andrew Probert
You're wrong though. the Excelsior class remained in service all the way through the period of TNG. The Ambassador if anything was the short lived class.
Great video and nice crossover of naval history and Trek. Love the Warrior and have been aboard a few times. Combat automation controlled by one crewman on the bridge was done long before Worf on the D. ST III had the Enterprise in full automation mode with just bridge crew. As Scotty explained in the film, she was not prepared for combat, and was heavily damaged to boot, but in this mode she could still target, load and launch torpedoes purely from the bridge console. As you mentioned, in TOS, M5 had full automated operation of phasers without phaser room crews. The phaser crew that we saw in Balance of Terror (the ship could not fire without them!) and mentioned in Corbomite Manuever were unnecessary additions imo, and generally forgotten about in other TOS episodes, where fire control is entirely controlled on the bridge.
Phaser strips as weapons are such a Starfleet thing. Think of any other factions, they will always go for the bigger guns and front-facing firepower. But not Starfleet, they are "safety and defense first" and put strips on their ships to cover every angle, so you are pretty much under fire the moment you get in range or drop your cloak. Starfleet might not carry big siege guns, but with their strips 24th century Starfleet vessels are difficult targets to approach. Even more so when in formations with other ships. If the Dominion didn't have their shield piercing guns, the fight against the Odyssey might have gone the other way.
the defiant had giant front phaser cannons but they still put a normal phaser on top. plus the phaser itself is more swiss army knife than sword. it can heat, drill, vaporize, melt, stun, harmonize, etc. every ship being a science vessel with guns means individually a lot of ships can't stand toe to toe with a big enemy ship but a federation fleet means a whole lotta guns. any wars might have looked like the rogue ai ship vs Cali class fleet.
I have ALWAYS loved the Ambassador design, my first thought when seeing it was that it looked like a TMP era Connie that hit the gym really hard. As much as the Ent D grew on me over the several seasons of TNG, i wish we had gotten the Ambassador class design for TNG.
Cool to more Drach and live action. The Ambassador class being class holding an Enterprise in it ranks, is fittingly a revolutionary design. An interesting exploration on the development of the dedicated explorer and computer cores. I'm curious to see the comparison with the Narendra class.
New to the channel and absolutely loving your content so far. Would love to see a video about the Vesta-class and her subclasses like the Aventine-class and Palatine-class
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and form provided on this format and subject matter on the Ambassador class Starship's and on all of its main functions and abilities of its warp engines, weapon systems, shielding and various other requirements of the ship as well as duties and mission parameters and so forth and so on!; A job very greatly nicely well done indeed Sir!👌. (And p.s. it is truly one of my all time favorite Starship's as well!)...
Thank you for finally covering the Ambassador class. Really interested in seeing your take on this class. I always really liked this design for its overall geometric simplicity. I daresay I liked this design better than the original probert concept.
Was a good step in the evolution of utilitarian design of TOS era and the more artistic and streamlined design of the 24th century. Constitution refit is still my favorite with Sovereign being my favorites.
That would be awesome to see Captain Garret backstory before Enterprise even though she dies in the mid 24 century, they'll definitely have some time travel plot device to make it fit the story.
A lot to read here, bear with... •"Limited future-proofing"? Excelsior-class was in service for at least 100 years (2290s - 2390s) • Lacking design variation? 3 distinct impulse engine formats (all 3 in active service circa 2260-2280s), 2 distinct configurations of secondary hull, and bridge module (excelsior, Connie, and Oberth ALL shared a degree of modularity - 2390s was where this design trend hit its stride) • Running duotronics? 1701-B had isolinear circuitry (watch Kirk fix the deflector), and given that its UI was essentially identical to NX/NCC 2000, 1701-A, and 1701-C, it's safe to assume isolinear systems were in widespread use by 2300 The excelsior's problem was essentially one of stamina: as the UFP expanded, ships were required to travel faster to reach further destinations, and poor Excey just couldn't keep up. In all other respects, it was a solid, reliable class, relatively adaptable, and pretty damp sturdy...until the Jem'Hadaar... Ambassador did the same things, just faster and for longer between rests (we've all heard *that* before, am I right?). Indeed, many of Excey's design elements were carried over to the Ambassador. IRL, the designers envisioned 1701-C as a ½way point between NCC-2000 and 1701-D, since ST:VI established Excey as taking over Connie's mantle
Everyone loves the Ambassador, It is good to see it getting a breakdown explaining why it was the King of it's day. On crew. I've had thoughts about this sort of thing as well. I think 500 for an Ambassador could of been done, but the question that needs to be asked is "What was that Ambassador doing?" If it was doing was Short range assignments, say it's initial shakedown and first year/two in service. Then 500 crew might be perfectly fine, but for long range, sustained exploratory mission more people with more skillsets are going to be needed to keep the crew well rested and keep the ship going. In short, a "Full Crew" can vary depending on assignment. I suspect around the time Ambassador came into service with it's heavy Exploratory nature might be the point where we see the crew quarters move away from the bunk style systems we see on 23rd century designs and transition fully to individual crew quarters for maximum comfort and sustainment of the crew during long voyages. I can't say I agree too much with the assessment of the Excelsior. I'm not sure I agree with the idea of "Warp Powered-Impulse engines" It seems a very weird choice. I can understand Impulse engines boosted or supported by excess warp power. But totally reliant on it sounds terrible. On the Shuttlebay I'd say: Did it need to be bigger? Is there a rule that says a bigger ship must have a bigger bay? Assuming that the bay is just that room and there aren't any elevators to bring more up from storage then the Excelsior can still hold at least 6 decently sized shuttles if it really needed to. But I don't think it'd ever really need to. Most shuttle missions only really use 1 shuttle and very rarely 2, so having 3-4 more on standby is perfectly logical and more might be considered excessive. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that Isolinear is not a replacement for duotronic. I think Duotronic got replaced by Isolinear, and what we see later is that Voyager supplements it's Isolinear systems with BioNeural ones. A supplement to a Supplement doesn't fit quite right with me. It doesn't matter what time period you are in, your ship is utterly reliant on a functioning computer to work and having a backup is always sensible. I also don't really think the Bio-Neural Gel packs were bad at all, if anything they proved remarkably capable and reliable. 7 years in the Delta Quadrant under extremely adverse conditions and Voyager had 3 Incidents with them: One involving a single crewmen being forced to maintain the whole ship for a month, so maintenance was already down the tube and only at the very end did the a couple of them start to fail. One Incident where they got infected by a Bacteria from Neelix's cheesemaking. Which honestly is basically on par with when the Ent-D's Computer core was brought to it's knees by a highschool boy's science project attacking the Isolinear systems. One final incident where a BNG got infected by the Macrovirus. Which honestly didn't actually change anything about that episode since the Virus would of and did just infect the crew anyway. I may not of agreed with everything, but it was a good video that definitely gave the Ambassador its due.
01:20 - 07:00 There's a lot of bashing on the Excelsior Class, a good deal of it seemingly baseless, yet the Excelsior design was successfully refitted for frontline service prior and throughout the Dominion War. In fact, by comparison the Ambassador class appears pretty absent.
Found the comparisons you made between ambassador and warrior to be very interesting and apt in showing how modernisation and technological advances can be a game changer in freeing up dodge and making crew available for newer and other duties that they couldn’t see to before.
When I played Star Trek Online as a Romulan, you couldn't get Tier 5 Federation ships (And I didn't want to fly Warbirds) with one exception, the Ambassador class. The Ambassador class served as my ship of choice for a long time, and while I eventually switched to another ship type once Federation ships got fully unlocked for Rommies, it still has a place in my heart in a way. Such a lovely ship, with a nice crew size, pleasant visual design, and good armaments.
It makes sense that the Ambassador would have been the main vessel for Star Fleet while the Galaxy was being developed. They should have been seen during the Dominion War.
3:45 I would disagree with Excelsior's have gen 1 warp core as there is dialog that the Excelsior could catch the Enterprise with just her warp drive let alone transwarp. It would have to be a gen 2 similar to the Enterprise A. 5:10 Say what? The Excelsior has shuttle bays at the base of the secondary hull as well as the one on the stern of the secondary hull 13:21 Yeah, but no. Thrust vectoring does improve maneuverability but it only enhances it. RCS thrusters do the lions share of of changing trajectory of the ship and can even move the ships trajectory even while the ship is not underway. 14:39 the Ambassador class did not use isolinear processors but still used duotronic systems and this severely impacted its performance to the point that Starfleet was gonna retire the class then isolinears came along and starfleet retrofitted the Ambassador's as a testbed for the technology.
He makes so many wrong assumptions about the Excelsior. We also see in Star Trek 6 thats its shields are much more powerful that a Connies. The Enterprises hull takes damage from the BoP torpedoes even with shields up. The Excelsior shields completely tanks the torpedoes.
"Rebellious machine-spirit" So you're telling me @drachinifel, one of my favorite TH-camrs, is not only a foremost expert on one of my favorote subject but also into Trek and Warhammer? Hell yeah.
You did an excellent job describing the ship that said I did not hear you say why it has such an underrated performance. I believe the reason is the fact that it's big appearance was in yesterday's Enterprise. In that Captain Garrett describes taking a volley of torpedoes almost as soon as the battle began and then being in the future. This implies that a single valley of romulan torpedoes turned the ship into a floating derelict.
Great video with lots of good infomation, only thing I felt seemed left out was the mention of how the Excelsior Class was designed during TMP era during the height of the "Cold War" between the klingons and that was why it was a Battlecruiser, whereas the Ambassador Class was designed after the Khitomer Accords when Starfleet assumed a much more exploration focus during peace time.
It's my favorite Star Trek ship based on aesthetic alone. It's so quintessential Starfleet and so reminiscent of the galaxy class, which I have a lot of nostalgia attached to.
The Ambassador was a great design...with the exception of the pylons that were too angular and rigid, along with the nacelles which were just too fat. I always wanted to see mroe of her regardless. Especially in the lost era because the ambassador is a handful of ships that should have been given the spotlight. Looking forward to the Probert/Nerendra, which I prefer over the Ambassador itself.
What about the Excelsiors still serving into the Dominion War, and one even fought Defiant somewhat effectively... Did it have THAT much future proofing/Upgrade space? Also, given the Excelsiors took hits that split Mirandas, where their shields upgraded THAT much?
I respect your study of the designs, both those from real world examples like the HMS Warrior and the analysis of the Trek designs - you know your subjects well and probably gave it a lot more thought than the show makers might have done; I hope I'm wrong in saying that the filmmakers didn't put that much backstory into the designs for the filming.
Remember the Excelsior class was the Great Experiment for trying to create transwaro drive. She was only retrofitted as a regular ship once transwarp drive failed. Excelsior class is an excellent ship class
I see the Ambassador class as being about 30 years ahead of its time. The tech hadn’t yet caught up and it only really came into its own in the TNG and later eras.
Thank you for giving the Ambassador it's, in my opinion, overdue respect! I love the Excelsior, but never accepted the excuses for why the Ambassador was decommissioned with so many of it's predecessors around! It seems to me that if during the Dominion War Star Fleet had built Ambassadors with Galaxy Class warp cores and engines instead of so many of the a fore mentioned with up to 60% of their volume unused, they would had a faster, more maneuverable, smaller target with all the capabilities of a Galaxy (or at least easily upgraded to) that could be built in greater numbers for about the same cost if not less. That secondary hull could have been converted into an enormous carrier for combat craft, effectively turning the Ambassador into a battlestar!
HMS Warrior is a very good analogy to make. Phaser arrays would have been an advancement that truly changed the strategic calculus in-universe; not only is it a general improvement but it nearly nullifies the advantage of cloaked ships, which had been able to pick optimal first strike angles. From this point onward Federation ships would be able to respond with defensive fire nearly instantly as well as relying on powerful shields. This defensive ability combined with 360 degree phaser fire coverage, which peaked with the Galaxy family of designs, likely seemed to have addressed the Federations traditional threats - Klingons and Romulans - but would be what set them up badly for the 'next generation' of threats in the form of the Borg & Dominion. After this the additional power of fixed or turreted phasers (phase cannons) for offensive fire, which in turn requires improved manœuvrability, needed to be incorporated. The peak of this may be shown with the Defiant, but after this a more all-round balance may be the reason some ships have arrays and turrets in the Picard era.
Always loved the Ambassador Class. I suspect we'll be seeing more of this class when the new Section 31 feature premiers. BTW, you're spot on about 23rd Century Starfleet building Warships that had Science and Diplomatic capabilities, in contrast to 24th Century Starfleet which built Diplomatic (exploration) vessels that had science and warship capabilities.
A class that got forgotten a lot, I don't recall seeing a single ambassador outside of yesterdays enterprise while you saw quite a few exelsior & miranda classes.
Sean Farrell and I had the pleasure of accompanying Venom and Drachinifel to Portsmouth Historic Dockyards back in February when these clips were filmed. A very big thank you to Drachinifel again for giving us all an amazingly detailed tour of both HMS Victory and HMS Warrior
I do have to say it is very interesting to compare Star Trek ships to our warships given that they filmed starship battles very similarly to naval battles.
I see it more as- and maybe there is lore that counters my head canon. But that the Excelsior is the backbone a ship that is powerful enough fast and large enough for all tasks. Then they prototype a newer design the ambassador and they build a couple and they're great but.. the cost is much greater for a small upgrade they use the few ships to test new systems make one the flag ship, treating them as limited number and building them but never on the scale to the previous two main line ships of the line. During the limited production they start the galaxy project which also helps them think that over producing this ship while they design a ship of the future a step ahead of the ambassador class, still using it as a test bed and the flag ship.. until the galaxy is finished up. Who also don't get producted in mass for quite a while the excelsior is still produced even into the future moving away from just over producing the new ship of the line and expanding more into specialized ships to handle different threats than one ship of the line that can do everything.
the Ambassador and Galaxy classes do not use a Duotronic comutor system Isoliniar computors replaced them, the idea was the Isoliniar chips are like a small computor in on themselves, the main computor core as shown in Star Trek Lower Decks is a massive Isolinar bank rather than traditional computor, the Isoliniar computer system basically treated every chip as both data storage and as a braincell for computations for the Ambassador, Calafornia and Galaxy classes the sensors, propulsion, holodeck diagnostic and every key system was directly routed to the computor core whereas in the sovereign class the computor core was present but they built neurogel cells into isoliniar chips themselves for ease of modularity
The way I see it is that from the 23rd Century onward, it was always possible to have as little as one person fly a whole ship. The only flaws with doing so is that you can't do it quickly and efficiently because normally you have someone to handle all the targeting and navigation separately. As for why it's a terrible idea flying a ship without a crew, rather than systems going down for a few moments because someone somewhere in your crew is actively monitoring them and mitigating/repairing them, you take a shot, systems go down entirely with no one around to keep them up. A full crew can make a fight last an hour or more, but only one or two people and that same fight will last a minute instead because some overload in the shield grid blew a relay somewhere that took out all systems on the forward end of the ship, preventing you from firing anymore when normally there's some no-name crewman who would have isolated that relay to prevent the blowout and a team ready to run to that section and replace the relay.
The Ambassador class _really_ should've been prominent in DS9. They'd have made fantastic battlecruisers, especially after the fleet-wide upgrades.
Eh, Ambassador was already 30 years old during DS9 and already being replaced by post-Wolf 359 designs like Akira, Norway, Saber, Sovereign, etc. It should have been a bit more of an option than the Excelsiors, but at the same time there were a ton more Excelsiors than Ambassadors. Pretty much anywhere DS9 could have used an Ambassador they plugged in the much more capable (and better looking, just personal opinion) Nebula instead, for better or worse
It's sad it wasn't. The reason fyi was because the data files for the ship, 3D-wise was lost or something akin to that.
Do we even ever see an Ambassador class outside of Yesterday's Enterprise?
@@dragonsword7370 was a 3d file ever made? i think they had a physical model but when they moved into 3d.. they had the ships used in first contact, and used most of those and made a few more.
But i also think the Ambassador should've had a large number in the dominion war i think galaxy wings and a ambassador wedge! having a couple with powerful forward shields being abit more compact than the galaxy could punch through while under fire!
Ikr. If given the "Lakota treatment" with upgunned Phasers, quantum torpedoes and ablative armor itd be a pocket Sovereign class.
Enterprise C did fight 4 Romulan Warbirds to a standstill until her weapons and shields ran dry and she was overwhelmed.
That's gotta be tough enough.
That's 4 Warbirds from twenty years earlier vs the Enterprise C with TNG weapons. Maybe it would've been a push or a slight edge going to the Ambassador in that battle if it was both upgraded and at 100% repair.
@@johnassal5838 Except the Enterprise D did not upgrade, or transfer any upgraded technology to the Enterprise C before sending her back. Only Lt. Tasha Yar.
Hell yeah. I like the design too. Not in my top 5 but still looks good 👍🖖🏻
@@Shutterbug5269 Indeed. They discussed doing so, but the Klingons attacked before they could, and even undid the progress of the repair crews with their strafing run on the poor C.
important to remember, the C came through the anomaly at the *end* of its battle with the Romulans, when it was about to be overwhelmed; and it went back in basically the same battle-damaged condition. That long running battle took place before the anomaly interaction.
@@Shutterbug5269 You've got a point about there not being any anachronistic upgrades and now that I think about it this war timeline Federation may not have advanced as much as in the Prime timeline either.
I don't think that "all progress" for the repair teams had been erased though. Even with that Klingon strafing run and the death of Cpt Garrett. The 1701-C should've been at its absolute weakest when those warbirds closed for the kill. If even the slightest improvement in weapons or shields would've allowed them to do a lot more damage at the end than their attackers expected. Especially with Yar actually having time to prepare tactics and a battleplan implemented just as they were expected to be stunned and helpless.
That no lead-in Drach appearance!!
I was one of "them" that dismissed Ambassador as a failure, but when you think about it... It really isn't. It's actually incredibly innovative, particularly that Starfleet finally went in for the replacement of Duotronic circuts with LCARs and isolinear chips. That, to me, is the jump from floppy disks to blu-ray, and yes I skipped a few steps. Especially the point that *everything* on Ambassador was new. There was nothing old in her. She was the first modern starship in decades.
Excellently done. Love these little chill chat style vids!!!
Much love for the Ambassador! She always looked way more practical, well proportioned and balanced to me than the overbearing, top-heavy Galaxy class
The Galaxy Class was basically a Starbase with a warp drive tacked onto it, intended to spend 5 years at a pop in deep space exploring with enough crew amenities and family life to keep the crew from going insane and killing each other.
The Federation and Starfleet just got cold feet about sending them out to do that because if how many deep space exploration ships got lost or destroyed.
@@Shutterbug5269 An ugly Starbase.
@@Shutterbug5269I LOVE that description 😂
The Ambassador truly is underrated wish the class got more screentime in both TNG and DS9.
AND the TNG movies!
Yeh. Star Trek is notorious from under using assets. Like why we never see any ships from Wolf 359.
What bothers me the most is that so many content creators assume that just because Enterprise C was destroyed there had to be something inherently wrong with the entire class.
Nearly half of the original 14 Constitution class ships were lost (Including Enterprise) and nobody says that about that class.
@@Shutterbug5269 It is beta canon thing. Ambasador was relatively new design after half century of stagnation. It also didn't exactly know what it wanted to be.
It would have made more sense as the bulk of Starfleet's cruisers during the Dominion war than the Excelsior did.
Drach = Awesomeness
Drach + Venom = Awesome Sauce
I loved the Ambassador for the first time I saw her on screen. You could see the design legacy and the hints of to Galaxy to come and 10 year old me had to know more
Exactly my thoughts :) They really found the right balance between ALL the Enterprise designs at that time, feeling every bit the Missing Link between OST and NG. Ambassador class remains one of my favourites
I always imagined that the TNG Era is where Starfleet got too comfortable, arrogant. They started to believe they were not a military organization, and were humble explorers; who just happened to have ships that also are very capable warships. They invited families aboard to come with them on their 5 year journeys out into deep space. The TOS Era captains knew very, very well that they were a military organization and would often face threats. It took Q to introduce Picard and Starfleet to the Borg to humble that line of thinking, and soon the "anti-borg" warships began to appear.
The frontier does not care if you are "peaceful explorers", and it will fight back.
They were the borderline unchallenged quadrant hegemon.
I believe the people in starfleet who keep saying this mean it honestly but i take the side of quark or romulans when they distrust them.
“In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilisation is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a lifeform advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives.”
- James T. Kirk
@@robertkalinic335ferengi and romulans, themselves very honest and courageous states. No duplicity here lol
@@BakaVHS I am sure you had to point this out to further cement the point about federation being actually military organization.
Even these morally questionable aliens see through this... surely this isn't just pointless attempt at criticism that doesn't go anywhere.
I've always loved the Ambassador class. I still have a large Eaglemoss model of the Enterprise C.
During the brief time we were able to get a good look at it, the vessel seemed like the perfect melding of TOS and TNG era technologies and defense systems. A truly transitional ship that served as a noticeable precursor to the Galaxy class, except that from my perspective it seemed even more suited as a true Heavy Cruiser. Or even within a Battleship role, in a pinch.
Easily my favorite ship in the entire series. there's just something fundamentally right about it's design i adore, like starfleet stopped and put together everything that was reliable, well tested, and sturdy so that the new technologies had a sturdy backbone to grow from.
I would love to see the Renaissance Class added to Star Trek Online
It would be great to see it in a tv-show because of the awesome design and because of the era it was used. But it would be more awesome in an open world video game.
i think the class is just good it fits the role of battle cruiser has tos thinking still behind it and it has starting tng thinking behind it
@@stitch626aloha Same here , although I love the Ambassador Class,
Finally, the love the Ambassador class deserves.
Loved this ship. Wished they had shown it more. I was shocked they did not have it show up a few more times.
Can you imagine the Romulan reaction to their first battle with the Ambassador class? The Enterprise C fights 4 warbirds. A huge exchange of photon torpedoes occurs and one Warbird is heavily damaged. The Enterprise C looks crippled but suddenly, a split second later, her shields are back up and she's ready to fire! A strange sensor ripple happened but there's not time to analyze that because the Enterprise C is firing AGAIN. WTF?!? Didn't they just exhaust all their tubes?! Worse this time the torpedoes and phasers are targeted much tighter nailing Warbird #2 in exactly the right places. It's almost as if the weapons officer of the Enterprise C learned exactly where to hit the newest warbirds after just one salvo! Warbird #2 explodes crippling the already damaged Warbird #1. Warbirds #3, and #4 drop into cloak to reload and rearm. The Enterprise C also reloads. Warbirds #3 and #4 drop out of cloak and another exchange of torpedoes occurs. This time the Enterprise C is crippled.... again... and Warbird #3 is destroyed. It's like their weapons officer has a copy of the damned Warbirds blueprints! She is targeting their weakest points like a surgeon! (note: Tasha Yar would absolutely have access to 20 years of information on these 'new' warbirds)
The mission to destroy the Narendra 3 outpost is cancelled - the mission is now to learn as much as possible about this new Federation threat - the Ambassador class. Clearly, Romulan intelligence has underestimated this ship and the remaining Warbird #4 has orders to board the hulk. The Romulans quickly discover that the engineering team has set the engines to overload - they capture as many crew as they can and Warbird #4 hauls the crippled Warbird #1 back to Romulus. This humiliating defeat and unquestionable act of honor is shown to the Klingon high council who signs the treaty of alliance with the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire go and hide behind the neutral zone until the D'deridex is created. Roll credits .
Brilliant!
Just how it went down, I like to think.
Go, Lt. Yar!
Let History remember the name:
Enterprise!
Good comment.
It would be cool if the D'deridex would be slightly tougher after the Yesterday Enterprise episode because they changed the history and the Romulans thought they need a stronger ship.
And if you think about it Tasha survived and I'm 100% sure the Romulans can extract any information from her so she told them she is from the future.
I wish Trek writers would be more consistent and brave.
Very impressive battle report
Hats off to you 🖖🏻
The Ambassador Class reminds me of the Wichita Class heavy cruiser. She was built as the last treaty cruiser, and as such was overshadowed by the newer, non-treaty cruisers built afterwards like the Baltimore Class and the Oregon City. But, despite being smaller and weighing 20% less than its successors, the Wichita was quite capable in its own right, boasting good armor protection, speed and armament, and a good basis for improvement. The Ambassador was sturdy and had a punch and may not have been as sexy as the 2360s vintage ships, but she was quite a capable heavy cruiser in her own right, and deadly after refit with new technologies.
Just to be sure, we're you comparing Starfleet ships to US Navy vessels? It's just that you switched between ship names without specifying the service you're comparing.
Nvm just needed time to catch up.
Although the Excelsior was no longer the top dog, it was far from obsolete. We saw new Excelsior's being built in Voyager and we also saw an upgraded Excelsior almost evenly matched with the Defiant in DS9.
Yeah I think this videos take on the Excelsior is way off what we actually see
Drac! Your channel went up two steps in reputation.
The Ambassador class was a solid design. It marked a turning point for Starfleet technology, lessons learned from the Excelsior project. It was the first to incorporate LCARS systems, new materials in hull and frame construction, while maintaining the familiar shape of the Constitution class. It's a shame not many were deployed, like a lot of lost-era vessels, it doesn't get the attention it deserves.
Apparently the section 31 movie is set in the lost era … I’m hopeful
I think the Ambassador got lost in the rapid evolution of technology Starfleet was going through at the time
Lost era vessels and uniforms and the world all are very cool.
@@stankythecat6735 If you are still hopeful you are very naive.
@@martinjrgensen8234 Yup. It was a bridge between new and old Starfleet. Without the Ambassador there would be no Galaxy or Sovereign classes. I look at pre-Ambassador class vessels the same way I see Klingon Birds of Prey - pretty, however they are old, dated, vulnerable. With the exception of the Excelsior class, which was far ahead of its time, until the Sovereign debuted.
The fact that Galaxy classes had entire families stationed on board makes me think that Roddenberry didn't intend them to be viewed as 'battleships'. They were meant to be viewed as science/exploration ships first and foremost, but they could fight if they had to.
Yup. Which is why picard kept mentioning that he was an Explorer not a soldier.
The writers really never talked about any Federation ships being Frigates/Cruisers/Battleships. That's very much fans choosing to interpret them as warships. In terms of what's on screen, Federation starships are always general purpose explorers, or else dedicated science vessels until the Defiant is introduced. Only other factions ships are talked about in terms of warships as battlecruisers/cruisers/battleships.
I think the only thing Starfleet ever called a battleship on screen was a Dominion ship over twice the size of a Galaxy class, and not loaded with classrooms for children and science labs. So in terms of what Starfleet (and the writers) would have considered a battleship, the Galaxy Class certainly wasn't it.
@@guaposneeze There was that one TNG episode, where the crews memory was wiped, and when they viewed the ships armaments, they immediately called it a battleship.
Imma be honest, Star Trek is at its best when the morals of crews are tested a la DS9.
Roddenberry kinda just had his head in his ass most of the time.
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum"
Diplomacy first but get ready to annihilate them if Diplomacy fails.
@@guaposneezeWord called the Galaxy class Enterprise a Battleship in the episode where their memories are altered.
The Connie still has my heart, although the Ambassador is definitely lovely.
Agreed!
me too
Golden-Era SF, "We finally got tbe Andorians and violent humans off the design committees."
Post-Borg/Dominion, "Where'd the Andorian & violent humans go??"
and that Klingon guy who did the bird of prey warp core, put him on the defiant design board...
I need more Andorians in my trek
In terms of enterprises, this class represented the biggest jump. From Constitution to Excelsior is significant, but from Excelsior to ambassador is crazy.
Love the Ambassador-class. One of my favourite starship designs.
The ship that should have had it's 25th century version seen in show. We need a new USS Victory for the Horatio class.
God, this was just the sort of video I needed for the end of my day. You have no idea how happy I was when I got the notification while I was at work. 👌
One thing to consider. The Galaxy class had families which is why it had it had roughly 1400 souls on board. The Ambassador Class theoretically could have started out with 500 souls on board, but then could’ve jumped to 900 souls once families were allowed to be on starships during the golden era.
Exactly what I was thinking. When you actually break it down, the Galaxy class was the first ship developed with that in mind. It has the internal volume of a Nimitz class carrier, which has over 2000 crew. The Galaxy has all that extra space not just for families but for ease of movement and comfort for those families. That extra space is also useful in emergency evacuations in humanitarian aid as the life support system is capable of double the stated compliment.
The Ambassador class was built in an era shift. In "Yesterday's Enterprise" they make pretty clear families are not the ship, but it would be plausible to assume the the extra space for movement on the Galaxy was initially tested or implemented on the Ambassador.
I hated civilians on ships tbh. Glad it was abandoned for DS9 onwards
Dr. Crusher: Computer, why am I the only crewmember on this Ambassador Class ship? Oh, that's right. WESLEY! Get me out of this WARP BUBBLE!
Here is how i have always explained the two “Ambassador” classes and PROPERLY aligned their purpose with their names
The Enterprise C we see on the TV screen is an ADMIRAL (Kirk) Class vessel… built for tactical, engineering , and “hard” sciences where research needs to be done in dangerous environments. It has more internal space dedicated to tactical systems, redundant shielding, penetrating sensors, tractor beam emitters. It has shuttlebays with a large complement of work bees and large occupancy shuttles and cargo shuttles…. It is a uprated version of the refit constitution class
The version we only see in artistic form on TV (the sculpture and the painting) is in fact the AMBASSADOR (SPOCK) Class…. A more elegant design its mission profiles were tailors to its namesake legacy in both diplomacy and soft (biological and planetary) scientific research…. It was divided into three sub classes, 1 a mixture of both diplomatic and science with the other two focusing on one or the other . The diplomatic had a more luxurious arrangement with large meeting halls that spanned two decks and floor to ceiling windows looking out into space …. In the scientific version the large spaces were instead converted into arboretums and environmental tanks where biological samples could be examined in reproduced environments …
THESE ships were enlarged and up grade version of the excelsior class …
What has been forgotten is that these designs are merely a continuation of the final versions of the excelsior and constitutional class that were purposed built for single mission profiles with tactical, engineering, hard science specific constitution classes and diplomatic and scientific and medical excelsior classes often with mixed sqaudrons of both classes providing mutual support on missions …. This was the era of the mini fleets as starship construction had hit a glass ceiling on the size of vessel they could build and the Ambassador/Admiral Classes being only a PARTIAL break through. Its wouldnt be until the Galaxy/Nebula era that starfleet could return to the concept of multi mission ships
@@sgt_s4und3r54, I’d say the populations were:
Constitution: 400
(Down to 300 by 2293)
Excelsior: 500
Ambassador: 750
Galaxy: 1000
Sovereign (not a flagship class): 700
Finally someone else appreciates my favourite class! The Ambassador class has the prettiest lines IMO. Though the Narendra class comes closest!
Narendra is far superior to this bulky abomination. And it also is technically an Ambassador class. And it has even more legitimacy because it's based off the original concept for this class of ships created by Andrew Probert
You're wrong though. the Excelsior class remained in service all the way through the period of TNG. The Ambassador if anything was the short lived class.
Great video and nice crossover of naval history and Trek. Love the Warrior and have been aboard a few times.
Combat automation controlled by one crewman on the bridge was done long before Worf on the D. ST III had the Enterprise in full automation mode with just bridge crew. As Scotty explained in the film, she was not prepared for combat, and was heavily damaged to boot, but in this mode she could still target, load and launch torpedoes purely from the bridge console. As you mentioned, in TOS, M5 had full automated operation of phasers without phaser room crews. The phaser crew that we saw in Balance of Terror (the ship could not fire without them!) and mentioned in Corbomite Manuever were unnecessary additions imo, and generally forgotten about in other TOS episodes, where fire control is entirely controlled on the bridge.
This thorough and serious dissection of completely imaginary spaceships is delightful. I mean that in the best possible way. Keep it up!
Phaser strips as weapons are such a Starfleet thing.
Think of any other factions, they will always go for the bigger guns and front-facing firepower.
But not Starfleet, they are "safety and defense first" and put strips on their ships to cover every angle, so you are pretty much under fire the moment you get in range or drop your cloak.
Starfleet might not carry big siege guns, but with their strips 24th century Starfleet vessels are difficult targets to approach. Even more so when in formations with other ships.
If the Dominion didn't have their shield piercing guns, the fight against the Odyssey might have gone the other way.
the defiant had giant front phaser cannons but they still put a normal phaser on top. plus the phaser itself is more swiss army knife than sword. it can heat, drill, vaporize, melt, stun, harmonize, etc.
every ship being a science vessel with guns means individually a lot of ships can't stand toe to toe with a big enemy ship but a federation fleet means a whole lotta guns. any wars might have looked like the rogue ai ship vs Cali class fleet.
I think of the Defiant as a big fighter-bomber, it moves like a fighter rather than a capital. And so like a bomber, it has a few turrets.
@@russellmz The Defiant isn't really ship that is exemplary of Starfleet.
@@JoacinoDaGona yeah even though it was off Starfleet spec they still put a normal phaser on it as a tool
And those strips enable an old fashioned broadside in battle.
I have ALWAYS loved the Ambassador design, my first thought when seeing it was that it looked like a TMP era Connie that hit the gym really hard. As much as the Ent D grew on me over the several seasons of TNG, i wish we had gotten the Ambassador class design for TNG.
Cool to more Drach and live action.
The Ambassador class being class holding an Enterprise in it ranks, is fittingly a revolutionary design.
An interesting exploration on the development of the dedicated explorer and computer cores.
I'm curious to see the comparison with the Narendra class.
I was wondering when this would go up :)
DRACH! Good show bringing the master of 19th/early 20th century naval history.
New to the channel and absolutely loving your content so far. Would love to see a video about the Vesta-class and her subclasses like the Aventine-class and Palatine-class
Woah, nice to see Drachinifel :D
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and form provided on this format and subject matter on the Ambassador class Starship's and on all of its main functions and abilities of its warp engines, weapon systems, shielding and various other requirements of the ship as well as duties and mission parameters and so forth and so on!; A job very greatly nicely well done indeed Sir!👌. (And p.s. it is truly one of my all time favorite Starship's as well!)...
Thank you for finally covering the Ambassador class. Really interested in seeing your take on this class. I always really liked this design for its overall geometric simplicity. I daresay I liked this design better than the original probert concept.
Was a good step in the evolution of utilitarian design of TOS era and the more artistic and streamlined design of the 24th century.
Constitution refit is still my favorite with Sovereign being my favorites.
Drach! Great to see you here!
Cheers lads
Well this is timely as theres a rumour circulating that young captain Garrett in gonna appear in the section 31 movie
That would be awesome to see Captain Garret backstory before Enterprise even though she dies in the mid 24 century, they'll definitely have some time travel plot device to make it fit the story.
Ambassador class is my favorite design honestly. Combines both the new and old aesthetics beautifully
I love the ambassador class Star ship
The cut to you irl on that warship was a delightful surprise. And I loved he gag about the summoning circle and/or containment for the gun’s spirit. 😁
A lot to read here, bear with...
•"Limited future-proofing"? Excelsior-class was in service for at least 100 years (2290s - 2390s)
• Lacking design variation? 3 distinct impulse engine formats (all 3 in active service circa 2260-2280s), 2 distinct configurations of secondary hull, and bridge module (excelsior, Connie, and Oberth ALL shared a degree of modularity - 2390s was where this design trend hit its stride)
• Running duotronics? 1701-B had isolinear circuitry (watch Kirk fix the deflector), and given that its UI was essentially identical to NX/NCC 2000, 1701-A, and 1701-C, it's safe to assume isolinear systems were in widespread use by 2300
The excelsior's problem was essentially one of stamina: as the UFP expanded, ships were required to travel faster to reach further destinations, and poor Excey just couldn't keep up. In all other respects, it was a solid, reliable class, relatively adaptable, and pretty damp sturdy...until the Jem'Hadaar...
Ambassador did the same things, just faster and for longer between rests (we've all heard *that* before, am I right?). Indeed, many of Excey's design elements were carried over to the Ambassador. IRL, the designers envisioned 1701-C as a ½way point between NCC-2000 and 1701-D, since ST:VI established Excey as taking over Connie's mantle
I truly love the Ambassador Class ship design... It has such a beautifully smooth look to it !!!!😊
Nice to see you guys near my hometown Gosport. I've had many a drunken work do, on the warrior. Great place to grow up for a naval enthusiast.
Everyone loves the Ambassador, It is good to see it getting a breakdown explaining why it was the King of it's day.
On crew. I've had thoughts about this sort of thing as well. I think 500 for an Ambassador could of been done, but the question that needs to be asked is "What was that Ambassador doing?"
If it was doing was Short range assignments, say it's initial shakedown and first year/two in service. Then 500 crew might be perfectly fine, but for long range, sustained exploratory mission more people with more skillsets are going to be needed to keep the crew well rested and keep the ship going.
In short, a "Full Crew" can vary depending on assignment.
I suspect around the time Ambassador came into service with it's heavy Exploratory nature might be the point where we see the crew quarters move away from the bunk style systems we see on 23rd century designs and transition fully to individual crew quarters for maximum comfort and sustainment of the crew during long voyages.
I can't say I agree too much with the assessment of the Excelsior.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea of "Warp Powered-Impulse engines" It seems a very weird choice. I can understand Impulse engines boosted or supported by excess warp power. But totally reliant on it sounds terrible.
On the Shuttlebay I'd say: Did it need to be bigger? Is there a rule that says a bigger ship must have a bigger bay? Assuming that the bay is just that room and there aren't any elevators to bring more up from storage then the Excelsior can still hold at least 6 decently sized shuttles if it really needed to. But I don't think it'd ever really need to. Most shuttle missions only really use 1 shuttle and very rarely 2, so having 3-4 more on standby is perfectly logical and more might be considered excessive.
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that Isolinear is not a replacement for duotronic. I think Duotronic got replaced by Isolinear, and what we see later is that Voyager supplements it's Isolinear systems with BioNeural ones.
A supplement to a Supplement doesn't fit quite right with me.
It doesn't matter what time period you are in, your ship is utterly reliant on a functioning computer to work and having a backup is always sensible.
I also don't really think the Bio-Neural Gel packs were bad at all, if anything they proved remarkably capable and reliable.
7 years in the Delta Quadrant under extremely adverse conditions and Voyager had 3 Incidents with them:
One involving a single crewmen being forced to maintain the whole ship for a month, so maintenance was already down the tube and only at the very end did the a couple of them start to fail.
One Incident where they got infected by a Bacteria from Neelix's cheesemaking. Which honestly is basically on par with when the Ent-D's Computer core was brought to it's knees by a highschool boy's science project attacking the Isolinear systems.
One final incident where a BNG got infected by the Macrovirus. Which honestly didn't actually change anything about that episode since the Virus would of and did just infect the crew anyway.
I may not of agreed with everything, but it was a good video that definitely gave the Ambassador its due.
Love the casual drachinifel cameo
01:20 - 07:00 There's a lot of bashing on the Excelsior Class, a good deal of it seemingly baseless, yet the Excelsior design was successfully refitted for frontline service prior and throughout the Dominion War. In fact, by comparison the Ambassador class appears pretty absent.
Found the comparisons you
made between ambassador and warrior to be very interesting and apt in showing how modernisation and technological advances can be a game changer in freeing up dodge and making crew available for newer and other duties that they couldn’t see to before.
I love the lines of the Narendra, and am looking forward to your lore and tech speculation on her!
When I played Star Trek Online as a Romulan, you couldn't get Tier 5 Federation ships (And I didn't want to fly Warbirds) with one exception, the Ambassador class. The Ambassador class served as my ship of choice for a long time, and while I eventually switched to another ship type once Federation ships got fully unlocked for Rommies, it still has a place in my heart in a way. Such a lovely ship, with a nice crew size, pleasant visual design, and good armaments.
I’m so excited to hear Dracs input!
It makes sense that the Ambassador would have been the main vessel for Star Fleet while the Galaxy was being developed. They should have been seen during the Dominion War.
3:45 I would disagree with Excelsior's have gen 1 warp core as there is dialog that the Excelsior could catch the Enterprise with just her warp drive let alone transwarp. It would have to be a gen 2 similar to the Enterprise A.
5:10 Say what? The Excelsior has shuttle bays at the base of the secondary hull as well as the one on the stern of the secondary hull
13:21 Yeah, but no. Thrust vectoring does improve maneuverability but it only enhances it. RCS thrusters do the lions share of of changing trajectory of the ship and can even move the ships trajectory even while the ship is not underway.
14:39 the Ambassador class did not use isolinear processors but still used duotronic systems and this severely impacted its performance to the point that Starfleet was gonna retire the class then isolinears came along and starfleet retrofitted the Ambassador's as a testbed for the technology.
He makes so many wrong assumptions about the Excelsior. We also see in Star Trek 6 thats its shields are much more powerful that a Connies. The Enterprises hull takes damage from the BoP torpedoes even with shields up. The Excelsior shields completely tanks the torpedoes.
Wonderful video, one of my favorite ships thanks👍👍👍
You'll get nothing but love for the Ambassador in this house.
"Rebellious machine-spirit" So you're telling me @drachinifel, one of my favorite TH-camrs, is not only a foremost expert on one of my favorote subject but also into Trek and Warhammer? Hell yeah.
Excuse me,... I just cant help but smile while this presenter speaks of these ships, IN THE PAST-TENSE. lol
My absolute favourite ship. The Ambassador Class is a fantastic vessel
You did an excellent job describing the ship that said I did not hear you say why it has such an underrated performance. I believe the reason is the fact that it's big appearance was in yesterday's Enterprise. In that Captain Garrett describes taking a volley of torpedoes almost as soon as the battle began and then being in the future. This implies that a single valley of romulan torpedoes turned the ship into a floating derelict.
Clever idea - drawing on Drachfinel to construct the contrast ! Between Starships and warships at sea! Quite logical!
Great video with lots of good infomation, only thing I felt seemed left out was the mention of how the Excelsior Class was designed during TMP era during the height of the "Cold War" between the klingons and that was why it was a Battlecruiser, whereas the Ambassador Class was designed after the Khitomer Accords when Starfleet assumed a much more exploration focus during peace time.
Gotta say your audio quality has come a long way. Good job. No clicks or swallows
It's my favorite Star Trek ship based on aesthetic alone. It's so quintessential Starfleet and so reminiscent of the galaxy class, which I have a lot of nostalgia attached to.
I did not expect the cut from screen to real life.
The Ambassador looks more like what a "Next Generation" Enterprise should have looked like, compared to the Galaxy/D.
Great to see Drach on other media, used to play WoT with the fella about half a lifetime ago.
The Ambassador was a great design...with the exception of the pylons that were too angular and rigid, along with the nacelles which were just too fat.
I always wanted to see mroe of her regardless. Especially in the lost era because the ambassador is a handful of ships that should have been given the spotlight.
Looking forward to the Probert/Nerendra, which I prefer over the Ambassador itself.
What about the Excelsiors still serving into the Dominion War, and one even fought Defiant somewhat effectively... Did it have THAT much future proofing/Upgrade space? Also, given the Excelsiors took hits that split Mirandas, where their shields upgraded THAT much?
Ya for some reason they felt that they had to lie about Excelsior in order to build up Ambassador.
I’m excited for the narendra class video. It’s my second favorite 24th century starfleet design behind the sovereign class
Nice. "Thick Connie" and Drach just when I was debating whether to watch his vid on frigate duels of the War or 1812.
The refit Enterprise could burst fire torpedoes as well. Mr Scott's guide to the Enterprise.
with a loading process that long?
I respect your study of the designs, both those from real world examples like the HMS Warrior and the analysis of the Trek designs - you know your subjects well and probably gave it a lot more thought than the show makers might have done; I hope I'm wrong in saying that the filmmakers didn't put that much backstory into the designs for the filming.
Remember the Excelsior class was the Great Experiment for trying to create transwaro drive. She was only retrofitted as a regular ship once transwarp drive failed. Excelsior class is an excellent ship class
I love the Ambassador class, those are beautiful ships.
Never watched your channel before, but the inclusion of Drachinifel in the title got me. Nice :D
I see the Ambassador class as being about 30 years ahead of its time. The tech hadn’t yet caught up and it only really came into its own in the TNG and later eras.
Thank you for giving the Ambassador it's, in my opinion, overdue respect! I love the Excelsior, but never accepted the excuses for why the Ambassador was decommissioned with so many of it's predecessors around! It seems to me that if during the Dominion War Star Fleet had built Ambassadors with Galaxy Class warp cores and engines instead of so many of the a fore mentioned with up to 60% of their volume unused, they would had a faster, more maneuverable, smaller target with all the capabilities of a Galaxy (or at least easily upgraded to) that could be built in greater numbers for about the same cost if not less. That secondary hull could have been converted into an enormous carrier for combat craft, effectively turning the Ambassador into a battlestar!
I was like.. huh.. haven't seen this channel in my feed before...
It must be cauae of Drachs name in the title... Nice
I love this Channel! Hi Drach!
It was awesome to see your face in this one. Always wondered what u look like.
I like big deflector dishes and I cannot lie
HMS Warrior is a very good analogy to make. Phaser arrays would have been an advancement that truly changed the strategic calculus in-universe; not only is it a general improvement but it nearly nullifies the advantage of cloaked ships, which had been able to pick optimal first strike angles. From this point onward Federation ships would be able to respond with defensive fire nearly instantly as well as relying on powerful shields. This defensive ability combined with 360 degree phaser fire coverage, which peaked with the Galaxy family of designs, likely seemed to have addressed the Federations traditional threats - Klingons and Romulans - but would be what set them up badly for the 'next generation' of threats in the form of the Borg & Dominion. After this the additional power of fixed or turreted phasers (phase cannons) for offensive fire, which in turn requires improved manœuvrability, needed to be incorporated. The peak of this may be shown with the Defiant, but after this a more all-round balance may be the reason some ships have arrays and turrets in the Picard era.
Always loved the Ambassador Class. I suspect we'll be seeing more of this class when the new Section 31 feature premiers.
BTW, you're spot on about 23rd Century Starfleet building Warships that had Science and Diplomatic capabilities, in contrast to 24th Century Starfleet which built Diplomatic (exploration) vessels that had science and warship capabilities.
A class that got forgotten a lot, I don't recall seeing a single ambassador outside of yesterdays enterprise while you saw quite a few exelsior & miranda classes.
There is one in the DS9 pilot Wolf 359 sequence, the USS Tolstoy if I am not mistaken.
Sean Farrell and I had the pleasure of accompanying Venom and Drachinifel to Portsmouth Historic Dockyards back in February when these clips were filmed.
A very big thank you to Drachinifel again for giving us all an amazingly detailed tour of both HMS Victory and HMS Warrior
I always thought of the Ambassador class as a upper middle class retired couple eating in a fine dining restaurant with a piano playing.
You colabed with Drach?! Holy shit dude nice!
I do have to say it is very interesting to compare Star Trek ships to our warships given that they filmed starship battles very similarly to naval battles.
Face reveal? And drach? Such a treat.!
I see it more as- and maybe there is lore that counters my head canon.
But that the Excelsior is the backbone a ship that is powerful enough fast and large enough for all tasks.
Then they prototype a newer design the ambassador and they build a couple and they're great but.. the cost is much greater for a small upgrade they use the few ships to test new systems make one the flag ship, treating them as limited number and building them but never on the scale to the previous two main line ships of the line.
During the limited production they start the galaxy project which also helps them think that over producing this ship while they design a ship of the future a step ahead of the ambassador class, still using it as a test bed and the flag ship.. until the galaxy is finished up.
Who also don't get producted in mass for quite a while the excelsior is still produced even into the future moving away from just over producing the new ship of the line and expanding more into specialized ships to handle different threats than one ship of the line that can do everything.
I appreciate the effort u put in to show the warrior and how it ties in to star trek😊
the Ambassador and Galaxy classes do not use a Duotronic comutor system Isoliniar computors replaced them, the idea was the Isoliniar chips are like a small computor in on themselves, the main computor core as shown in Star Trek Lower Decks is a massive Isolinar bank rather than traditional computor, the Isoliniar computer system basically treated every chip as both data storage and as a braincell for computations for the Ambassador, Calafornia and Galaxy classes the sensors, propulsion, holodeck diagnostic and every key system was directly routed to the computor core whereas in the sovereign class the computor core was present but they built neurogel cells into isoliniar chips themselves for ease of modularity
I lo e it when two of my favourite TH-camrs do a video
Man you deserve at least a million subs
Always my favorite.
The way I see it is that from the 23rd Century onward, it was always possible to have as little as one person fly a whole ship. The only flaws with doing so is that you can't do it quickly and efficiently because normally you have someone to handle all the targeting and navigation separately. As for why it's a terrible idea flying a ship without a crew, rather than systems going down for a few moments because someone somewhere in your crew is actively monitoring them and mitigating/repairing them, you take a shot, systems go down entirely with no one around to keep them up.
A full crew can make a fight last an hour or more, but only one or two people and that same fight will last a minute instead because some overload in the shield grid blew a relay somewhere that took out all systems on the forward end of the ship, preventing you from firing anymore when normally there's some no-name crewman who would have isolated that relay to prevent the blowout and a team ready to run to that section and replace the relay.