Hey guys, great video as always. Here is a suggestion, can you make a video on every Star Trek ship in a timeline? It would be great to see the first and the latest ship, how many ships in a certain period, what causes a deluge of new ship designs, and how it corresponds to the major event in Star Trek history.
The thing is when thinking and talking about warships it is best to think like how to build a WW2 battleship. When doing that you can come to the conclusion that the only true warships the federation made are the defiant class, all others have other roles to play or are weak in areas. The defiant class was also an attempt at making a warship for the federation but most likely got cold feet because of how dangerous that path could go.
I remember I learned about the Steamrunner Class from Star Trek: Armada. I think they were like siege units or something. Firing tricolbolt torpedoes at long range. I enjoyed the heck out of the game as a kid.
Yeah, I love that game too. While a very "basic" game, I loved all the different ships available. (Plus the cool "scientific advances" / "Special attacks", were REALLY cool!) I think I still have it around here somewhere. But I don't know if it can run on my current computer or not. (maybe I'll 'dust it off' and give it a try sometime)
Then you might be amused to know that in Star Trek Armada 1&2, they're armed with Tri-Cobalt Torpedoes and serve an artillery role. Their special weapon in both games was Engine Overload. It creates a pulse that disable engines on all enemy ships around it. They outrange everything by other arty ships
I always liked the steamrunner, its small and unconventional. it definitely comes across as a tough little but odd looking warship, kind of like a monitor or pocket battleship.
I liked how another TH-camr thought they were designed to take hits. His idea was that the steamrunner’s job was to run around in front of the fleet and act like a tank character in an mmorpg; taking hits so others can handle dealing damage
@@SuperGamefreak18 personally I believe the order could be Steamrunner with its inset nacelles and heavy armor is the tank that can still dish out decent damage Sabers are the fastest small ships that can swarm a ship while also taking over the primary EW (electronic warfare) job Defiant is the dps that moves in with the saber swarm. Akira acts as the torpedo boat from midrange and, if beta canon is used, also acts as a carrier that can release wings of Peregrine fighters. The Norway is the long range artillery ship with the guy who designed it saying there were plans to have it have a special long range canon that would hit multiple ships that was cut from first contact movie And finally the Sovereign acts as a command ship and probably a midrange brawler that can support other units if they get in trouble
If starfleet was adapting to the Borg it always made sense to me that they would capitalize on their diverse membership by allowing them to develop ships and technologies that the fleet wouldn't normally be prone to. A lot of the anti borg designs look like they could be alien ships painted starfleet colors and using some standard hardware. Seems likely to me.
According to an on-screen graphic depicting the fleet formation in Picard season 3, a USS Appalachia was present. Production designer Dave Blass posted a render by artist Pundus citing it was indeed the Steamrunner class that appeared in First Contact.
One of my favs. Loved the fact it used Tricobalt torpedoes out of a sniper totpedo launcher in Armada 2, and came with a verteron burst to shutdown other ships engines. Honestly the tactical operations escort description with the surveillance duties really does fit without weapons setup too, that just makes the thing scary.
I really like the design of this thing. Interesting note, apparently every Steamrunner class after the NX name ship of the class was named after an earth mountain range.
I made a mod that renamed it the barfbag class, because the game physics caused ships that were turning to go into a spin when hit with the engine disabling torpedo. The ship names were barfbag, nausea, blow chunks, etc.
It's my main ship as well and I love it. I was so disappointed that for the longest time it looked like it would never be able to get a T6 variant what with issues with Steam. It was a day 1 buy for me when the T6 variant did launch.
@@Kleion_RFB I like it as well. I fly the blockade runner escort version on my main. Specced into command and run a torpedo build. Not the best torpedo platform but i find it fun to fly.
@@EdKolis Canon would likely be the radiation emitted by the warp coils. But I remember reading in the defiant that they had developed a new material for shielding the radiation, which reduced its need for distance, allowing for more compact designs (it also might've been a triangulum video that i remember it from).
The Steamrunner has been my favorite ship since the moment I first saw it. It's definitely unique, but in a really cool way. I've got the eaglemoss model sitting on my desk.
These things were amazing in Star Fleet Armada 2, they were basically your artillery ship that used to hurl torpedos that caused huge splash damage over long distances. You could cheese any mission in it with a huge blob of steamrunners just nuking everything.
The RTS game Star Trek Armada had the Steamrunner as an artillery platform firing, I believe, tricobalt devices (or possibly something else entirely, but definitely not photons or quantums). For some reason, that particular interpretation of the ship has stuck with me.
In Star Trek Armada, the Steamrunner had long range proximity torpedoes. They were really good and destroying orbital defense platforms and stations. Kind of a demolition style unit for structures. Then again, Akira class ships had bouncing torpedoes that would hop from ship to ship, damaging them more with each impact. I enjoyed the variety of purpose that game gave to these ships. I primarily used Romulans.
I like this ship, reminiscent of the NX01 to me. I was thinking the federation needed a quick little gunship to do hit and runs whilst the big battlecruisers slugged it out, and I think this would fit the bill, although I would have a cloak on it. Ymmv. 😊
Oddly enough, at the end of the second episode in season 4 of ENT, uou can spot a few of these ships in the background moving towards the battered enterprise upon her return home.
@@anthonysmith3577 might it have been the "Intrepid-type"? They had D-shaped hulls, and a similar nacelle placement. Nope, I just spotted the "unnamed 22nd-century separate secondary hull class" article while checking the name of that triangle-shaped one, and it totally is a very tiny Steamrunner. I'll be damned!
These kinda grew on me, but they mighta been cooler with the deflector pod mounted high rather than looking kind of extraneous. I always saw em as kinda cool little tankey 'fast turtles' that could get in and mix it up close. The sensor angle actually kinda meshes, (ie, don't get caught, but if you do, punch through the situation. ) For an escort, detecting threats to a convoy further out really does make sense, and then you can hopefully engage at whatever range you can manage.
I remember the steamrunner from Star Trek Armada. I didn't realize that I'd already seen it on First Contact until years later when watching scene breakdowns. In the game it was basically the engineering/spellcaster type.
I love the steam runner ship. I’d love to see a scaled up version (like akira or voyager size) as a hero ship. It’s sleek and the profile looks like a mean sports car. I know it’s small size / compact design is a asset for anti borg but I think a larger hero version would make sense because it has a Enterprise E vibe that other anti borg ships (minus the Norway my other favorite hehe) don’t have.
The Akira is obviously the star of the ST:FC background fleet ships, but I always liked the Steamrunner quite a bit too. It looks practical and dangerous and wish it had gotten more screentime in some of the battle sequences in DS9. Incidentally, back in my ‘writing fan fiction that no one read but myself’ days, my crew started on a Steamrunner-class ship. It struck me as completely natural that a ship like this would be a type of deterrence cruiser, or patrol ship, so that’s what I had them doing when the adventure started, post-war deterrence patrols of Cardassian and Breen space. Love to see my headcanon backed up by your lore!
At 0.9c 1 year ship time would be about 2.3 years rest frame. Or a factor of about 2.3:1. Time dilation is a factor, but only for absurdly long sprints.
And nothing really prevents them from establishing a low level non-propulsive warp field to perhaps mitigate much or some of the time-dilation. We've seen in cannon where warp fields can be used for much more than direct propulsion.
Even with it's questionable design, it's still my favorite (Non hero) Starship in Star Trek, and if I had to choose which ship to captian, I would pick the Steamrunner Class
The biggest question I have for these anti-Borg ships designs is if any that were still in service around the 2400s were internally retrofitted to be more Starfleet-wholesome. I could see the Steamrunner and Sovereign classes being well-suited for it.
Steamrunner has always been my favorite canon Starfleet ship. Everything is so pulled in, close and slim, the forward profile being SO small for a ship with THAT hard of a punch.
7:00 The idea of having the gaping great hole in the back part of the ship, it’s called a twin boom design and brings to mind the TX-204 Target carrying aircraft from Thunderbirds and the NX class from Star Trek enterprise. There is a ton of real life aircraft that have a similar rear section design, the P 38 lightning to name a famous one.
I love the concept in the Star Trek Armada 3 Mod. In Armada 3 is the steamrunner a light "artillery" torpedo ship and doing very well in early and midgame vs the borg. Love them there.
Shoutout to the Tholian Dreadnought just chilling in Earth orbit in the background 😏 Damn, the ver we got does look cool, but wow that more streamlined version with inverted bussards and deflector looks so cool! I want that version!
In star trek lower decks season 4 finale. Mariner used the ship for most of the episode! I was not expecting this ship to be so focused on and I'm happy it got some attention. I personally remember this ship from star trek armada 2.
I like the vibe of the steamrunner. The best example of the ship I can remember was the USS Orion from the SCE books, from Wildfire under Captain Tsu. That was one of the best Star Trek stories I think Pocket Books ever put out and was written by David Mack.
...Man! The Steamrunner Revamp & the 4-nacelle version are pretty badass! Even the Criterion - though a bit Yu-gi-Oh Cartoon World-y for my taste - looks fairly decent. Could we get those in STO, please? Even if only has skin options for the Steamrunner & Steamrunner T5 ships.
Always liked the understated nature of the Steamrunner. But one thing that was on my mind, star-trek related was the missed opportunity of the Galaxy Class. After the Dominion War started and the Federation began to field gun-boats and even fighter type craft.. the perfect role for the Galaxy was as a Fleet Carrier/Command Ship. No other ship in the fleet has the internal space, let alone crew space, or even, most importantly, arguably the single largest shuttle-bay and maintenance space of any large ship in Starfleet. The absolute nutty size in cannon of the Main Shuttle Bay on the Galaxy Class ships basically screamed gun-boat/runabout/fighter wings should be there. Just going by the cannon dimensions of main shuttle bay, you can put about 30 of the Federation's fighters in there, on top of at least 10 gunboat sized craft, maybe even a few runabouts can fit on top of everything else. It would have been wicked smart for Starfleet to have refitted the spaces in the Galaxy to enlarge that capacity, increase the service areas for light craft, plenty of room for the air-wing crews. Hell, take out cetacean ops and use the space for more light craft, light craft service and maint, and flight crews. In scale, it really is the floating island/city and I think when the designers were drawing her up for the show the ridiculous sized shuttle bay was because they were thinking.. aircraft carrier. No other ship design dedicates so much space to one gonzo of a shuttlebay. From an FX perspective, that would have been an awesome scene to order fighters and gunboats launched and just have a stream of ships flying out of the galaxy class command ship at the start of the battle. Kind of like the missed opportunity of one of the most over-phasered ships never firing all of it's phasers at once. Galaxy Class, Deathblossom mode...
I made a mod in armada or armada 2 that renamed it the barfbag class, because the game physics caused ships that were turning to go into a spin when hit with the engine disabling torpedo. The ship names were barfbag, nausea, blow chunks, etc.
I was introduced to the Steamrunner class through Star Trek: Invasion on PS1; a mission where you have to rescue the U.S.S Discovery's escape pods from the event horizon of a black hole before they all get pulled in.
Yeah, i've seen some lore saying that she doesn't have a cloak but has "warp dispersion" capabilities allowing it to scatter warp fields to make them harder to track. Powerful EM Jamming systems, allowing it to present itself as a much larger target then it is... Now this would draw borg attention to it, meaning it would draw fire away from other ships, BUT the larger profile, also made it harder to hit. Picture seeing a ship 2-3x larger then it is. So when you aim at it. say its warp nacelle, wel that could be as much as 1 full ships length away from where you aimed because of its size bloom. Combined with sensor suppression where it could go dark, and lower its sensor silhouette made it much harder to find and detect when doing covert ops. its an interesting concept and a way around the whole "can't have a cloak" thing.
Great video, Thou I was surprised there was no mention of the earlier versions of the class working in tandem with a Saber class which is mentioned in several expanded universe sources. I would assume like you mentioned post war and expansion of science facilities, the need to work together vanished.
Im sure I read somewhere that the steamrunner and sabre classes where meant to work together, each one having strengths to cover the others weaknesses.
I knew about this ship from LUGTrek's TTRPG, where the Steamrunner was introduced (for me at least) in the Price of Freedom supplement (ie, the Starfleet sourcebook), along with the Sabre, Norway, and Akira. While I prefer the Norway's design, I do like the Steamrunner's overall profile.
Upon my first foray into STO, this was a nice change from the basic Miranda I found myself unfortunately captaining. Although i then realized i should spec into something and i chose BIG SHIP SO COOOOOOOL when i ran into the Akira and eventually SOVEREIGN.
The first time I saw the California Class, I thought I had to be a design predecessor of the Steamrunner Class from before the breakthrough necessary to run the nacelles through the saucer section. I didn't know you had just done this video when I made a similar comment on the California class.
Love the Steamrunner, Defiant, and any other class of ship that integrates the nacelles directly into the hull for a more streamlined, sleek, and compact look. It's probably the only way the NX-01 could look any better than it does. Also love the cyber warfare aspect of the ship.
At the 1:48 mark, for a split second, it looked like a Battlestar Ship from Battlestar Galactica. I was taking a quick glance at it and that’s the first thing that came to my mind.
The name ''Steamrunner' is rather bad ass as it is a direct reference to the warship that takes down a Martian Tripod in War of the Worlds. and what does she do she stands in a final stand against Alien Invasion of Earth too just like her class namesake did nearly half a Millenia earlier.
I remember reading somewhere that the steam runner was a torpedo boat with a very large magazine of 200 torps. supposed to be used in conjunction with the Norway which intern was a more phaser oriented ship. love the design though it looks mean lol
Would love to see videos dedicated to the whole first contact fleet! At least those you haven't done yet. Like the Norway class, also the Prometheus and Nova if they haven't been done yet.
I like the Steamrunner class. Although it breaks from the traditional design aesthetics, it still feels like a Federation design, compact but capable. Although introduced at the same time as the Sovereign, Akira, Norway and Sabre Classes, the only one I paired it with was the Sabre because of the sharp edges.
In my head canon the unorthodox design of the Steamrunner was a direct reaction to the weaknesses of the New Orleans class. The NO clearly began life as a down scaled prototype of the Galaxy class and was a bit of a glass cannon which would suffer terribly when it’s shields failed. The Steamrunner’s rugged space frame and armored hull seemed aimed squarely at providing Star Fleet with a ship which could survive the loss of its shields.
today i was in my new hysperian intel battlecruiser on sto with a defiant class next to it, it was twice the length of the defiant class so it 340m long if sto has the same measurements with seven decks but no unquie interior i wish they did a bridge,engineering&mess hall like we see in lower decks but for not,the dragons breath is a hugh inguling flame that if right destorys everything in it path,great vid i love these ship at where build to face the borg and that they learned form wolf 359 and the intresting creation of the first contact ships where the new ship that star trek came out with because use the older models for fed ships in tng with the nubula & ambassador class the only one see in tng
Huh, I had always figured that the intelligence, scouting, and EW duties would be good for a Nova refit, but it makes sense that Starfleet would design a purpose built ship for this mission
y'know, it may be a kinda visual/rolling retcon but I kinda like the thought that the Steamrunner was a Borg/Dominion War era translation of the California class design language. Smaller, of course, but taking a lot of the same cues. Perhaps you could envisage the design teams of different 2360s era ships being pulled in and told 'we want what you did before, but tough as nails and cheap to build'. Perhaps by the time of the Pic version of 2401 they've been pulled from front line/glamorous duties in favour of cargo running and logistic duties.
When i saw the steamrunner for rhe first time I thought what a little and conpact ship. I never thought it was that heavily armed and rhe ablative armour as well
![The Wall Song ร้องข้ามกำแพง | EP.213 | กรีน อัษฎาพร | 3 ต.ค. 67 [1/5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3KrlLbCsadI/mqdefault.jpg)
John Eaves and Alex Jeager concept blog link: johneaves.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/alex-jeager-and-the-ships-of-first-contact/
Hey guys, great video as always. Here is a suggestion, can you make a video on every Star Trek ship in a timeline? It would be great to see the first and the latest ship, how many ships in a certain period, what causes a deluge of new ship designs, and how it corresponds to the major event in Star Trek history.
The thing is when thinking and talking about warships it is best to think like how to build a WW2 battleship. When doing that you can come to the conclusion that the only true warships the federation made are the defiant class, all others have other roles to play or are weak in areas. The defiant class was also an attempt at making a warship for the federation but most likely got cold feet because of how dangerous that path could go.
I remember I learned about the Steamrunner Class from Star Trek: Armada. I think they were like siege units or something. Firing tricolbolt torpedoes at long range. I enjoyed the heck out of the game as a kid.
I always stationed a few of them by a black hole and used its special on large fleets passing by.
@@no2partyThat, sir, is diabolical! Love it! Keep up the good work!
Loved it too. Did hate having to tell it to fire in o.g Armada.
LOVED that game! i wish i still had a computer capable of running it!
Yeah, I love that game too. While a very "basic" game, I loved all the different ships available. (Plus the cool "scientific advances" / "Special attacks", were REALLY cool!)
I think I still have it around here somewhere. But I don't know if it can run on my current computer or not. (maybe I'll 'dust it off' and give it a try sometime)
the steamrunner class always gave me the "quiet kid" type vibe
Then you might be amused to know that in Star Trek Armada 1&2, they're armed with Tri-Cobalt Torpedoes and serve an artillery role. Their special weapon in both games was Engine Overload. It creates a pulse that disable engines on all enemy ships around it. They outrange everything by other arty ships
don't piss off the quiet kid
Funny thing about that, i was the quiet kid growing up, and now this is my favorite class of ship
😅Got a communique don't go to the neutral zone today.
"Good soldiers are like waiters. Quiet and unnoticed. Until they kick down the door and shoot everybody. Unlike waiters." - Bluestone 42
I always liked the steamrunner, its small and unconventional. it definitely comes across as a tough little but odd looking warship, kind of like a monitor or pocket battleship.
I liked how another TH-camr thought they were designed to take hits. His idea was that the steamrunner’s job was to run around in front of the fleet and act like a tank character in an mmorpg; taking hits so others can handle dealing damage
@@Nostripe361same tanking hits while sabers swarmed the target
@@SuperGamefreak18 personally I believe the order could be
Steamrunner with its inset nacelles and heavy armor is the tank that can still dish out decent damage
Sabers are the fastest small ships that can swarm a ship while also taking over the primary EW (electronic warfare) job
Defiant is the dps that moves in with the saber swarm.
Akira acts as the torpedo boat from midrange and, if beta canon is used, also acts as a carrier that can release wings of Peregrine fighters.
The Norway is the long range artillery ship with the guy who designed it saying there were plans to have it have a special long range canon that would hit multiple ships that was cut from first contact movie
And finally the Sovereign acts as a command ship and probably a midrange brawler that can support other units if they get in trouble
@@Nostripe361 ooh that works, and even works with what we saw in first contact as well
If starfleet was adapting to the Borg it always made sense to me that they would capitalize on their diverse membership by allowing them to develop ships and technologies that the fleet wouldn't normally be prone to. A lot of the anti borg designs look like they could be alien ships painted starfleet colors and using some standard hardware. Seems likely to me.
I'd like to see those Steamrunner concept designs as full ship classes for background shots.
Most of them look janky, but I like the four-nacelled one.
According to an on-screen graphic depicting the fleet formation in Picard season 3, a USS Appalachia was present. Production designer Dave Blass posted a render by artist Pundus citing it was indeed the Steamrunner class that appeared in First Contact.
Duh!
Jesus that ship has a hell of a long service life
One of my favs. Loved the fact it used Tricobalt torpedoes out of a sniper totpedo launcher in Armada 2, and came with a verteron burst to shutdown other ships engines. Honestly the tactical operations escort description with the surveillance duties really does fit without weapons setup too, that just makes the thing scary.
I really like the design of this thing. Interesting note, apparently every Steamrunner class after the NX name ship of the class was named after an earth mountain range.
The Himalaya, the Rocky, the Appalachia, the Ande, the Alp, the Neru, the Ozark?
This immediately became one of my favorite star ship designs when I first saw it.
I miss the Armada 2 warcrimes version that let me blanket enemy fleets in tricobalt devices.
I made a mod that renamed it the barfbag class, because the game physics caused ships that were turning to go into a spin when hit with the engine disabling torpedo. The ship names were barfbag, nausea, blow chunks, etc.
I just miss armada games
I captain a Steamrunner in STO, it's a pretty cool little ship I love it's design
It's my main ship as well and I love it. I was so disappointed that for the longest time it looked like it would never be able to get a T6 variant what with issues with Steam. It was a day 1 buy for me when the T6 variant did launch.
@@Kleion_RFB I like it as well. I fly the blockade runner escort version on my main. Specced into command and run a torpedo build. Not the best torpedo platform but i find it fun to fly.
@@mrbreck1 I just wish the Steamrunner Refit in STO didn't have those blue lines.
@@CoffeeFurret Purple, but I get you.
I always liked the steamrunner class, always looked more practical than the standard nacelle pylon designs, with the long necks.
I wonder if speed or maneuverability were compromised by not exposing the nacelles? There must be some reason they're usually on pylons...
@@EdKolis Canon would likely be the radiation emitted by the warp coils. But I remember reading in the defiant that they had developed a new material for shielding the radiation, which reduced its need for distance, allowing for more compact designs (it also might've been a triangulum video that i remember it from).
The armored-up nacelles had alwayd beeny favorite aspect of the Steamrunner. It gives me a definite Defiant variant vibe.
The Steamrunner has been my favorite ship since the moment I first saw it. It's definitely unique, but in a really cool way. I've got the eaglemoss model sitting on my desk.
I love the Steam class it can do pretty much anything and it's a great modern design for a starship while still looking very Starfleet
These things were amazing in Star Fleet Armada 2, they were basically your artillery ship that used to hurl torpedos that caused huge splash damage over long distances. You could cheese any mission in it with a huge blob of steamrunners just nuking everything.
That's how I used the Steamrunners in Star Fleet Armada 2 as well.
armada one's steamrunners had the same purpose
The RTS game Star Trek Armada had the Steamrunner as an artillery platform firing, I believe, tricobalt devices (or possibly something else entirely, but definitely not photons or quantums). For some reason, that particular interpretation of the ship has stuck with me.
In Star Trek Armada, the Steamrunner had long range proximity torpedoes. They were really good and destroying orbital defense platforms and stations. Kind of a demolition style unit for structures. Then again, Akira class ships had bouncing torpedoes that would hop from ship to ship, damaging them more with each impact. I enjoyed the variety of purpose that game gave to these ships. I primarily used Romulans.
I like this ship, reminiscent of the NX01 to me. I was thinking the federation needed a quick little gunship to do hit and runs whilst the big battlecruisers slugged it out, and I think this would fit the bill, although I would have a cloak on it. Ymmv. 😊
Oddly enough, at the end of the second episode in season 4 of ENT, uou can spot a few of these ships in the background moving towards the battered enterprise upon her return home.
@@anthonysmith3577 might it have been the "Intrepid-type"? They had D-shaped hulls, and a similar nacelle placement.
Nope, I just spotted the "unnamed 22nd-century separate secondary hull class" article while checking the name of that triangle-shaped one, and it totally is a very tiny Steamrunner. I'll be damned!
@@kaitlyn__L there's 3 or 4 of them lol
Always liked the Steamrunner. I always thought it looked like it would be a fantastic smuggler's vessel.
I liked these on ST: Armada II as they had tri-cobalt torpedoes. Although the Romulan equivalent ship was better.
Very long range area bombardment goes really well with cloaks!
Love that game....at least the first one.
@@mephistoxarses8585 first one had better story arc. Second one was better to play though.
I used these in ST Armada to just launch waves of torpedoes at the enemy. I loved them. Great fun.
Inalways loved the Steam Runner design.
These kinda grew on me, but they mighta been cooler with the deflector pod mounted high rather than looking kind of extraneous. I always saw em as kinda cool little tankey 'fast turtles' that could get in and mix it up close. The sensor angle actually kinda meshes, (ie, don't get caught, but if you do, punch through the situation. ) For an escort, detecting threats to a convoy further out really does make sense, and then you can hopefully engage at whatever range you can manage.
This design has "grown on me" over time. The concept is great and the profile is awesome! Thanks for another fantastic video!
I remember the steamrunner from Star Trek Armada. I didn't realize that I'd already seen it on First Contact until years later when watching scene breakdowns. In the game it was basically the engineering/spellcaster type.
In Star Trek Armada 2, they were ideal hit and run artillary siege ships, especially when paired with venture class ships with fully upgraded sensors.
I got a Steamrunner/Appalachian class in STO and made it into a torpedo boat. Lots of fun!
While not the standard Starfleet configuration, I do like this ship's look.
I’m glad to see this. I was gonna suggest the rest of the Borg busters, they’re not covered so well online
My absolute favorite class.
Many thanx 👍👍
I love the steam runner ship. I’d love to see a scaled up version (like akira or voyager size) as a hero ship. It’s sleek and the profile looks like a mean sports car.
I know it’s small size / compact design is a asset for anti borg but I think a larger hero version would make sense because it has a Enterprise E vibe that other anti borg ships (minus the Norway my other favorite hehe) don’t have.
The Akira is obviously the star of the ST:FC background fleet ships, but I always liked the Steamrunner quite a bit too. It looks practical and dangerous and wish it had gotten more screentime in some of the battle sequences in DS9.
Incidentally, back in my ‘writing fan fiction that no one read but myself’ days, my crew started on a Steamrunner-class ship. It struck me as completely natural that a ship like this would be a type of deterrence cruiser, or patrol ship, so that’s what I had them doing when the adventure started, post-war deterrence patrols of Cardassian and Breen space.
Love to see my headcanon backed up by your lore!
At 0.9c 1 year ship time would be about 2.3 years rest frame. Or a factor of about 2.3:1. Time dilation is a factor, but only for absurdly long sprints.
And nothing really prevents them from establishing a low level non-propulsive warp field to perhaps mitigate much or some of the time-dilation. We've seen in cannon where warp fields can be used for much more than direct propulsion.
@@meatybtzso only if warp were completely offline for an extended period of time would time dialation be a problem, then.
If anyone's curious, the equation is 1/(1-X^2), where X is the fraction of lightspeed.
@@stevenscott2136 You left off a square root there.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuisBut even then, impulse engines DO contain warp coil-esque structures which cancel out the worst of time dilation
I've never taken a long look at this class, but now that I have, it sure is pretty!
Even with it's questionable design, it's still my favorite (Non hero) Starship in Star Trek, and if I had to choose which ship to captian, I would pick the Steamrunner Class
Attaching the nacelles directly to the main hull is my preferred design choice, which makes me love this class.
The biggest question I have for these anti-Borg ships designs is if any that were still in service around the 2400s were internally retrofitted to be more Starfleet-wholesome. I could see the Steamrunner and Sovereign classes being well-suited for it.
Most of them are still around at the turn to the 25th Century.. accept the poor Norway Class she always gets screwed over.
I'm sure they ripped out a few torp magazines to jam in a holodeck and a ballroom
Steamrunner has always been my favorite canon Starfleet ship.
Everything is so pulled in, close and slim, the forward profile being SO small for a ship with THAT hard of a punch.
7:00 The idea of having the gaping great hole in the back part of the ship, it’s called a twin boom design and brings to mind the TX-204 Target carrying aircraft from Thunderbirds and the NX class from Star Trek enterprise. There is a ton of real life aircraft that have a similar rear section design, the P 38 lightning to name a famous one.
I love the concept in the Star Trek Armada 3 Mod. In Armada 3 is the steamrunner a light "artillery" torpedo ship and doing very well in early and midgame vs the borg. Love them there.
I like the steamrunner class. its a nice design and unique....definitely deserves more screen time
loved the steamrunner and akira classes best and wished i had seen them used more or the legacy passed on into the future
thanks for the video
Shoutout to the Tholian Dreadnought just chilling in Earth orbit in the background 😏
Damn, the ver we got does look cool, but wow that more streamlined version with inverted bussards and deflector looks so cool! I want that version!
I have a new appreciation for this ship now. Always thought deflector way in the back was odd though.
Already liked the design, then loved the quad nacelle concept art 👌🏻
In star trek lower decks season 4 finale. Mariner used the ship for most of the episode! I was not expecting this ship to be so focused on and I'm happy it got some attention. I personally remember this ship from star trek armada 2.
The Steamrunner appears in Activision's Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Armada II as a long-range artillery ship firing tricobalt torpedoes.
These have a lower yield than Voyagers Tricobolt devices which were a higher yielded version.
It also appeared in ST Invasion
Where it's crippled and Valkyries rescued the crew but the ship ended get suckled into Blackhole
I actually love this ship because it is so unique
LOL love the ship personification dialogue
I always liked this little ship, and loved that it was in Star Trek: Resurgence.
This ship reminds me, vaguely, of the Enterprise era Intrepid class
I laughed when you said "It could bite back before escaping". Says small but terrible🤣🤣
I like the vibe of the steamrunner. The best example of the ship I can remember was the USS Orion from the SCE books, from Wildfire under Captain Tsu. That was one of the best Star Trek stories I think Pocket Books ever put out and was written by David Mack.
...Man! The Steamrunner Revamp & the 4-nacelle version are pretty badass! Even the Criterion - though a bit Yu-gi-Oh Cartoon World-y for my taste - looks fairly decent. Could we get those in STO, please? Even if only has skin options for the Steamrunner & Steamrunner T5 ships.
Always liked the understated nature of the Steamrunner. But one thing that was on my mind, star-trek related was the missed opportunity of the Galaxy Class. After the Dominion War started and the Federation began to field gun-boats and even fighter type craft.. the perfect role for the Galaxy was as a Fleet Carrier/Command Ship. No other ship in the fleet has the internal space, let alone crew space, or even, most importantly, arguably the single largest shuttle-bay and maintenance space of any large ship in Starfleet. The absolute nutty size in cannon of the Main Shuttle Bay on the Galaxy Class ships basically screamed gun-boat/runabout/fighter wings should be there. Just going by the cannon dimensions of main shuttle bay, you can put about 30 of the Federation's fighters in there, on top of at least 10 gunboat sized craft, maybe even a few runabouts can fit on top of everything else. It would have been wicked smart for Starfleet to have refitted the spaces in the Galaxy to enlarge that capacity, increase the service areas for light craft, plenty of room for the air-wing crews. Hell, take out cetacean ops and use the space for more light craft, light craft service and maint, and flight crews. In scale, it really is the floating island/city and I think when the designers were drawing her up for the show the ridiculous sized shuttle bay was because they were thinking.. aircraft carrier. No other ship design dedicates so much space to one gonzo of a shuttlebay.
From an FX perspective, that would have been an awesome scene to order fighters and gunboats launched and just have a stream of ships flying out of the galaxy class command ship at the start of the battle.
Kind of like the missed opportunity of one of the most over-phasered ships never firing all of it's phasers at once. Galaxy Class, Deathblossom mode...
I've always loved this hull.
When Picard S3 first came out, I thought Dr. Crusher’s ship was Steamrunner class, but it turned out not to be. Although, it could be a variant.
the Steamrunner is my favourite class
Steamrunner is just such a baller name. I think it’s stocky design fits the name well
I made a mod in armada or armada 2 that renamed it the barfbag class, because the game physics caused ships that were turning to go into a spin when hit with the engine disabling torpedo. The ship names were barfbag, nausea, blow chunks, etc.
One of those designs that says I'm strange yet beautiful.
Thank you for the informitive video Rick
I was introduced to the Steamrunner class through Star Trek: Invasion on PS1; a mission where you have to rescue the U.S.S Discovery's escape pods from the event horizon of a black hole before they all get pulled in.
Steamrunner, sabre and Norway classes are still my favourite designs...
Yeah, i've seen some lore saying that she doesn't have a cloak but has "warp dispersion" capabilities allowing it to scatter warp fields to make them harder to track. Powerful EM Jamming systems, allowing it to present itself as a much larger target then it is... Now this would draw borg attention to it, meaning it would draw fire away from other ships, BUT the larger profile, also made it harder to hit. Picture seeing a ship 2-3x larger then it is. So when you aim at it. say its warp nacelle, wel that could be as much as 1 full ships length away from where you aimed because of its size bloom.
Combined with sensor suppression where it could go dark, and lower its sensor silhouette made it much harder to find and detect when doing covert ops.
its an interesting concept and a way around the whole "can't have a cloak" thing.
I like it. In Armada they made it a long sniper of sorts. A few volleys and that target was scrap.
Great video, Thou I was surprised there was no mention of the earlier versions of the class working in tandem with a Saber class which is mentioned in several expanded universe sources. I would assume like you mentioned post war and expansion of science facilities, the need to work together vanished.
Im sure I read somewhere that the steamrunner and sabre classes where meant to work together, each one having strengths to cover the others weaknesses.
I knew about this ship from LUGTrek's TTRPG, where the Steamrunner was introduced (for me at least) in the Price of Freedom supplement (ie, the Starfleet sourcebook), along with the Sabre, Norway, and Akira. While I prefer the Norway's design, I do like the Steamrunner's overall profile.
Ive got an eaglemoss of a Steamrunner, this a treat!
Also, now you have to do videos on the Saber and Norway classes. If you haven't.
Upon my first foray into STO, this was a nice change from the basic Miranda I found myself unfortunately captaining.
Although i then realized i should spec into something and i chose BIG SHIP SO COOOOOOOL when i ran into the Akira and eventually SOVEREIGN.
The first time I saw the California Class, I thought I had to be a design predecessor of the Steamrunner Class from before the breakthrough necessary to run the nacelles through the saucer section. I didn't know you had just done this video when I made a similar comment on the California class.
This was a fun TNG/DS9 era ship design
Love the Steamrunner, Defiant, and any other class of ship that integrates the nacelles directly into the hull for a more streamlined, sleek, and compact look. It's probably the only way the NX-01 could look any better than it does.
Also love the cyber warfare aspect of the ship.
My favorite starship class ever.
At the 1:48 mark, for a split second, it looked like a Battlestar Ship from Battlestar Galactica. I was taking a quick glance at it and that’s the first thing that came to my mind.
The name ''Steamrunner' is rather bad ass as it is a direct reference to the warship that takes down a Martian Tripod in War of the Worlds. and what does she do she stands in a final stand against Alien Invasion of Earth too just like her class namesake did nearly half a Millenia earlier.
HMS Thunderchild, a torpedo ram.
Not quite but certainly they share a concept.
Love this ship design.
I 1st encountered this ship in the game Dominion War. And in Armada as a ranged attacker.
I would rather see these really shine than never ending new classes
The Steamrunner class makes me think of it as being Defiant's bigger, more well-rounded brother.
I remember reading somewhere that the steam runner was a torpedo boat with a very large magazine of 200 torps. supposed to be used in conjunction with the Norway which intern was a more phaser oriented ship. love the design though it looks mean lol
Uh. Fast sensor platform packing a puch... basically SR-71 armored like an A-10. Pretty cool!
Very Informative!
Would love to see videos dedicated to the whole first contact fleet! At least those you haven't done yet. Like the Norway class, also the Prometheus and Nova if they haven't been done yet.
I like the Steamrunner class. Although it breaks from the traditional design aesthetics, it still feels like a Federation design, compact but capable. Although introduced at the same time as the Sovereign, Akira, Norway and Sabre Classes, the only one I paired it with was the Sabre because of the sharp edges.
This is my favourite class.
I love this wierd ship. The design grows on you.
Good video, although you forgot to mention the steamrunner class has a large torpedo magazine in some beta content.
In my head canon the unorthodox design of the Steamrunner was a direct reaction to the weaknesses of the New Orleans class. The NO clearly began life as a down scaled prototype of the Galaxy class and was a bit of a glass cannon which would suffer terribly when it’s shields failed. The Steamrunner’s rugged space frame and armored hull seemed aimed squarely at providing Star Fleet with a ship which could survive the loss of its shields.
another awesome video sir congratulations ! maybe you in the future could make a video about chimera class! thanks in advance!
today i was in my new hysperian intel battlecruiser on sto with a defiant class next to it, it was twice the length of the defiant class so it 340m long if sto has the same measurements with seven decks but no unquie interior i wish they did a bridge,engineering&mess hall like we see in lower decks but for not,the dragons breath is a hugh inguling flame that if right destorys everything in it path,great vid i love these ship at where build to face the borg and that they learned form wolf 359 and the intresting creation of the first contact ships where the new ship that star trek came out with because use the older models for fed ships in tng with the nubula & ambassador class the only one see in tng
Huh, I had always figured that the intelligence, scouting, and EW duties would be good for a Nova refit, but it makes sense that Starfleet would design a purpose built ship for this mission
y'know, it may be a kinda visual/rolling retcon but I kinda like the thought that the Steamrunner was a Borg/Dominion War era translation of the California class design language. Smaller, of course, but taking a lot of the same cues. Perhaps you could envisage the design teams of different 2360s era ships being pulled in and told 'we want what you did before, but tough as nails and cheap to build'. Perhaps by the time of the Pic version of 2401 they've been pulled from front line/glamorous duties in favour of cargo running and logistic duties.
I can see a little Battlestar design aesthetic in this.
Easily one of my favorite Starfleet ships
When i saw the steamrunner for rhe first time I thought what a little and conpact ship.
I never thought it was that heavily armed and rhe ablative armour as well
Nice little ship
"cyberwarfare suites" I have an image of these pretty little monsters vomiting copies of Moriarity onto Dominion ships, with utter chaos ensuing.