The saucer section doesn't have huge windows, but window insets because the saucer hull angle is so shallow, and the normal sized windows are lighting up the inset window alcove from the inside, fading to black by the edge because the alcove is so deep.
So after announcement that Enterprise Refit/A is now Constitution II Class and Titan is Constitution III Class (or as stated Neo-Constitution), I have wondered: if Excelsior had refit version of which was Enterprise B and Lakota, then it should be Excelsior II Class, so this ship from this video should bear name of Excelsior III Class.
They could probably just say they weren't major refits or redesigns since they were still ultimately the same configuration, just with a couple of extras whereas Constitution II was a complete, near-ground-up redesign.
The Excelsior class has always been one of my favorites. I was blown away when I fist saw this new version, very briefly in Picard Season 1. I think all of the new versions of older ships that they have introduced are incredible. Just enough nostalgia mixed in with new ideas Well done! On another note. Why have we never had an Excelsior Hallmark Christmas Ornament? WAY overdue!
Sam's initial analysis is spot on. At first glance, it's a great honoring of the original while doing something new and updated. Feels more correct than anything we've seen from DISCO so more of this please!
I thought the same. They look recessed like the ones on Voyager. However instead of one recess with a row of windows in it, each window appears to have it's own recess which is what's giving the impression of the huge windows when viewed from above.
This "!Neo Excelsior" looks very nice. In many ways the propotions are bit odd in first the absurd huge Main Hangar Door. XD And side by side with the Exeter class in STO like a re- reunion of this iconic shipclasses. And it fits good between the Sovereing and Odyssey class.
I was sure the "doors" at the rear of neck were shuttlebays, from the first moment I saw them. My guess is that they are larger shuttlebays and doors to accommodate larger auxiliary craft (the Ent-E's standard shuttles were huge, after all)... so they might also carry Runabouts and/or Delta Flyers!?
Considering the Ocean we are swimming in now, I would suggest the large shuttles seen on Mars would fit in those big doors = also why not have one door with 2 decks of shuttles and the ability to open the doors up or down or both. The top floor could contain small shuttles the lower deck some fighters, the upper right deck vehicle transports and medical shuttles and the lower right deck engineering and other specialist craft or gear. Though if they needed such specialist gear that might come out of the lower cargo bay too.
For an Excelsior evolution, it's excellent. Now, my problem with this ship is that they put a "II" in the class name. That's just so ridiculous, everyone knows it's an Excelsior variant, it didn't need a number.
It's not uncommon to put a II in the name of a ship class that evolves upon an older class while keeping to its basics. Excelsior II rings well as a name.
For what it's worth, a very famous fan-made ship CG model was also called the Excelsior 2. 20+ years ago, nobody in the ship community questioned this naming convention.
Because Starfleet is clearly still using the original Excelsior, unchanged. In STO, during the Iconian War, they were still used in full fleet operations against them. It is the only class unbroken in its history. They will literally field both ships side by side in any key battles that need to be fought once these are mass produced. The Miranda is totally unrecognizable now, and the Akira is no different, and those two classes are as respected as the Excelsior. This class will stay almost identical throughout its history.
Great looking ship. I just wish its true size was as large as the windows seem to indicate. Being substantially smaller than a Sovereign doesn't make much sense visually unless the windows are really small for which there wouldn't be a reason.
Hey, if you're main shuttlebay holds muliple Defiant-class ships, then humungous doors are what you're going to need. And with such huge doors, I've got to assume there's something much bigger than regular shuttles or runabouts in there.
🖖😎👍It's a very nice and cool looking ship indeed, And as always you guys did a great job of informatively explaining and executing it in every way and detail indeed👌...
I was the same way. Originally didn't like the excelsior design at all. But over time it really grew on me and when I saw the II in STO well I just had to have it. Only issue is that it's not account wide
I think it makes more sense to look down for scale rather than look up. What this class is intended to be is second tier (ship total) of the fleet. This is meant to be the bulk of the fleet. Like the Excelsior before it. The focal point is to compare it to the size of the Intrepid class silhouette. That being a current 3rd tier specialty ship. It fits in with the contemporary scaling of the time for a second tier class between Sovereign and Intrepid. On par with its sister class, Akira. Now we need a comparison video between Excelsior, II, and Obena class
Excelsior II cuts a nice silhouette. I don't mind a set of those skylights atop the saucer. Though I agree there may be too many set of them on both top and bottom of the saucer. I need a closer view of the model along the top of the secondary hull. I'm under the impression that the center hump of the struts - where the aft torpedo launcher is mounted - doesn't sit flush to the hull. Perhaps a slit negative space under it? A shuttle could egress through from front to aft. Toward the smaller raised section at the tail? Possibly a smaller, forward facing shuttle bay door there?
I have this in STO it’s a nice ship but I am curious what the gap is in the back between the the central pylon section and into the neck of the ship if you have it in game adjust view to look odd gap there
I saw this too. It also looks like sometimes during the use of the ship's intel skill (not BOFF ones) that something flies out of there and back comes back. So I don't know if it's supposed to be some sort of inset intelligence thing like an AWACs plane or what.
I want to like it, but the balance feels... off. Think it's the neck; if you were to halve the solid bit at the back of the neck, and nudge the saucer forward a bit, think it'd feel better proportioned. Agree about the saucer rim and shuttle bay too. Wonder if the saucer being less perfectly oval, something like the Luna's rim might work better too?
As I've said elsewhere, it's weird that Star Trek Online is now the defacto place for clear images of canon Star Trek ships, since CBS/Para don't seem to want to publicise them any more (even Dave Blass's massive season 2 ship threads got deleted).
I remember the first day this ship was availabel in STO, I eagerly watched around Earth Spacedock for players whom would go and obtain one so I could examine it. And it fell apart for me in the very same way it did for Sam. The 'large slitted windows' didn't much feel like windows or simply had bad texturing. The window size everywhere was super inconsistent and the escape pods were minuscule scale-wise. As pretty as the ship was, in terms of Startrek ship anatomy, a lot about it didn't make sense. I was prepared to think it was an oversight from the STO team trying to churn out the vessel and QA not picking up on this/waving it off as 'fine', but studying the 3d model shown off by Dave Blass, the vessel shown when Picard S2 aired had the very same flaws. So, this goes up either to the designers, or the people that made the model for the show (the latter feeling more likely).
Your right, the windows are terrible. However, the ship can use the galaxy style windows also in the ship's customization, which in my opinion actually looks better.
So, I have this ship in game. Those long things are windows. They are very badly textured and look like stickers up close. My original thought was that they were like large bay windows that would be multi-deck like the windows on ESD, but they are textured poorly. The good news is that you can use the galaxy style windows on the ship which do change this overall look and makes those large bay windows look like escape pod sized porthole windows instead. Overall the ship in game is nearly the same size as the sovereign but not that much longer than the resolute (which annoys me from a kitbash point of view).
I’d enjoy fighting this ship in a combat simulation, but as a former Soldier and Marine Officer the one aspect that Star Trek gets wrong is the bigger is better concept. Weapons systems, and the platforms carrying said systems, are shrinking so it makes sense that 500 years into the future a space ship/battleship like Excelsior wouldn’t be so large yet still pack a tremendous wallop. I didn’t hear anything discussion on her weapons, numbers of Marines aboard, ability to support fleet operations, etc. In modern Naval strategy the battleship was the mainstay of the fleet until the advent of naval aviation where the battleship then became a ship that supported the carrier. How does Star Trek deal with this conundrum?
The proportions are off. I like the original and refit Excelsior. Especially how they kind of reminded me of a naval vessel. Even the bits on either side of the deflector for the refit. This doesn't have enough of that feel for me. And the lower hull is too bulky. I would like to see them do a redesign to clean that up. It has a lot of potential.
What's going to blow everyone's mind is the new Neo-Constitution class is nearly the same length, with far fewer yet much larger windows than this Excelsior II.
The Enterprise E has giant windows in the floor there seems to be walk way above them and you can stand and look down, so I guess the floor ones could do the same and be a way to look down at a planet the ship is orbiting from some sort of false floor mesenine you are standing on. I don't disagree that it looks odd, but the only other purposes that makes sense would be cetacean windows & they would be evacuation points with explosive bolts if the ship ever crashed in an ocean. I do agree with Stuart that they could be mistaken for a lot of other things besides windows. But i am going to presume they are windows even if they make Samuel ill to look at them.
If I was a excelsior fan I’d love it but never was a fan tho on Star Trek online I have one bug kit bashed but unfortunately this one doesn’t kitbash with the others
Bit of fluff for my taste. Like the military making a Willis Jeep II instead of the JLTV. I like when Star Trek leans into its semi realism. It would be a cute civilian ship, retro styling works in that arena. Scale it way down but keep the shape, I actually really like the design. And for a video game I don’t mind it, but it bugged me when they canonized it for Picard, I want something fresh for what is a pseudo military organization.
Incredible looking ship in my opinion. Shame the trek yards boys seem to think the only acceptable ship design in three tubes two sticks and a circle 😂
Would like this if not for that huge neck, It goes too forward. The width is okay, but the length is just too much. The entire ship balance just feels broken for me. Why is the lower sensors dome not in line with the top bridge structure on side view? Oh yeah it's place is taken by long long neck. Nope don't like.
What a battle ship. dosen't look very federation friendly ^_^ i like the enterprise E warp necells better they have the perfect balanced tapperd shape not to big not to narrrow for me :)
I don’t like the neck, it’s the same problem I had with the original design but in reverse, it’s too thick. I like the resolute class neck better. The Resolute Class neck is thicker than the Excelsior neck but not too thick.
Love the ship but not a fan of the moniker, Excelsior II-class needs a name change, maybe the Repulse-class or something given that it was among the oldest Excelsior-class ships in operation if the registry is any indication and it pays homage to the ship's longevity. The ships long and weird looking windows maybe recessed into the hull, much like the deflector.
Not a fan of the Excelsior ll class. The original Excelsior was a beautiful ship and is my all time favourite ship. I kinda wish the Obena class was a direct replacement for the original Excelsior
I had my problems with it, but when you guys showed the head on and the rear view, I don't like it. That was just to ugly. P.S. Dang it, I just realized that there are some things that I do like about it. It's giving me the impression of having some NXC-2701 Enterprise elements. I always thought that that would be a cool way to take the Enterprise design after III. Here, with the Excelsior, especially with the nacelles, its giving me that 80ties feeling. P.P.S. To bad the coloring is throwing it all off. That's purely Sovereign. I miss the bright hull colorings. Everything went bad when they decided to start using Aztecing as hull paneling. The one thing that I loved about the Connie. As a kid, I didn't think that her skin was made of metal. Out of panels. I thought that the Enterprise was advanced. That she had a 'skin'. Something grown. Boo Aztecing!
Sorry, but I am sick of the designers of this show lacking any real originality. Give us some brand new ships that are not just rehashes of the old ones.
Well, we have the Inquiry, Titan A, La Sirena, Crusher's ship in the first teaser. All are completely new designs, not counting the STO ships that were added.
Lazy ass redesign of one of my favorite ships. They just stretched the body and neck, saucer is relatively the same, and then they slapped some ugly warp nacelles on it. Gross.
I agree, it was like the lazy Akiraprise, from Enterprise, then they changed the title to Star Trek Enterprise, they had an Enterprise in between the Space Shuttle, and the TOS Enterprise, which was featured in TMP on the recreation deck, it was apparently one of Matt Jeffery's early concept drawings of the Enterprise. Take carw, and all the best.
Yeah, I really don't care for it. Was never a big fan of the Excelsior...and I'm definitely not a big fan of the long, pointy nacelles. I don't care for boxy, stubby nacelles, or excessively simplistic nacelles, either. I like balance. Everything these days is just extremity without justification.
