The Forgotten Ships of Star Trek: The Next Generation 

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The New Orleans class was definitively the highlight of the video.

There's a very important message in this video: you can make terrific ship designs with simple creativity and freedom. Budget does not denote excellence without the imagination to back it up. I'd take these ship designs (and those of First Contact) over all the Trek designs made since.

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the _New Orleans_ class starship. It’s a real favourite of mine that should’ve gotten more screen time.

Always had a soft spot for the Nebula. Back when I played the mid-90s Trek CCG, it was my best Federation ship.

More like First Person: Hey, where did my highlighters go? Co-worker: They boldly went were no highlighter has gone before. First Person: What??? Wait! never mind... Just just keep them.

Cheyenne for me. Reminiscent of the ship from the TOS era novel Dreadnought.

the Springfield Class is my favourite out of these. Looks like the most versatile Design to me.

Wish they'd shown more Ambassador class ships running around. Those, and maybe a variant of the Galaxy class...not the dreadnought version.

My fave design ever : The Cheyenne class. Brilliant.

The *Cheyenne class* is definitely my favourite. I have a thing for four nacelle ships, they look _balanced…_ like a *space* craft should. The off vertical centreline two nacelle layouts "indicate a two dimensional pattern of thinking" - to quote Spock. If only in Picard that had become the new StarFleet paradigm (with them brought in close on thick pylons or even attached directly like the Defiant, to show a muscular compact look with menace). They had already gotten rid of the silly long thin neck by the end of the TNG era, with the new Intrepid class and later the Sovereign class attaching the primary hull directly to the secondary hull. And then there were the new *First Contact* anti Borg ships. A continuation of that aesthetic would have been beautiful and also shown StarFleet getting more pragmatic and militant.

I love the 4 nacelle Nebula-Class variant, there is just something about the various sized nacelles that just works.

I was always a fan of the Equinox in Voyager

I have an theory as to why we didn’t see these in the dominion war while we did see older stuff like the Excelsiors and Mirandas. In WW2 the backbone of the british battleship fleet was the five Queen Elizabeth’s and the 5 revenge class battleships, now the QE’s were older, and that resulted in them being upgraded before the Revenges. So when war broke out the QE’s were the workhorses of the Royal Navy, while the revenges were stuck on convoy and shore bombardment duty. What if the same thing occurred in Star Trek, the federation knew war was coming, and as the Lakota showed, they were upgrading older ships. What if they upgraded the oldest ships, the Excelsiors and Mirandas first, and the unmodernised ships were left for convoy duty and system defence?

You forgot the Niagra class. Definitely NOT one of my favorite designs, but it is a rare 3-nacelle ship.

Of these ships, I would have to say the Cheyenne class. My favorite Trek design is still the Akira class, followed by The excelsior. But of the kitbashes, I like the Cheyenne the most. Something about the quad nacells really makes me happy. The symmetry is elegant.

My favorite 24th century ship was actually one that was unmentioned in this video, the Centaur-class. Granted, it *was* a kitbash of an Excelsior and Miranda classes, but there's something I just really liked about it. It looks really sleek, and perfectly suited for the role of a fast attack destroyer.

I utterly love the New Orleans. I like to just headcanon that we see so many Excelsiors because the more modern ships are on very long range assignments and things, and older ships fill in safe gaps in peacetime.

I love these lesser known ships Akira class (one of my Favorites) Centaur class Norway class Steamrunner Class Alaska Class Prometheus And the Dauntless (Even if it was an alien ship, it still looked amazing) *And thank you Eaglemoss for allowing me to finally get my hands on these rare ships!

I fly a New Orleans class in STO, it's a beast. I've always loved the look of the Cheyenne class.

I love all of these, even the goofy Challenger and Freedom classes. I've built models of all of these because I absolutely love the aesthetic.

I like the single nacelle Freedom class from the TNG era. It can trace it's lineage back to the Saladin class during the TOS era.

Spacedock: Which ship do you want? Me: yes

Always been a fan of the Nebula Class. I just like the way it looks.

Sounds like the title of an EC Henry video.

If they'd been using good cgi at the time, they probably would've used those ships more. Unfortunately, using physical models was their biggest limitation. The quicker a model was made, the less screen worthy they thought it was. Hero ships always had more details and budget behind them so they ended up used the most, even if it was silly to see a hundred year old in-universe design.

I love the Cheyenne and the New Orleans class.

I have a model of the Kyushu on my desk, I was looking up lesser known ships and came across it once and just instantly fell in love with the New Orleans class

I'm a fan of the Freedom class, I'm a sucker for oddball ship designs

It's like they had more creativity, with a small budget, lower tech, and still came up with something better than the copy paste of Star Trek Picard.

I'm pretty much with you on these: love the New Orleans class (9/10), hate the Challenger class (2/10) it looks naff (British word for useless, no good, in case you're not familiar with it), awkward and unbalanced. Of the others, I like the Springfield class (7/10) and think the Freedom class are OK, a bit so-so. I wouldn't give it more than a grudging 6/10, actually leaving more to 5/10. Those are just my aesthetic judgements. I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as any of the people who have posted here. I've only just become aware of your channel and have just subscribed. So by way introduction I thought I'd add bit of background. I was a big fan of TOS and was very sceptical about TNG when it first came out, but was quickly disabused of my reservations and was very impressed at how it stayed true to TOS initially, but developed really nicely. My favourite episode is probably ‘Yesterday's Enterprise’ and I really loved how the consequences and repercussions of the events in that episode affected later ones. I thought DS9 was really going into steady decline from season 2, but persevered and am glad I did. It started picking up again in season 3 and was vintage by season 5. I was not so keen on Voyager, although I thought that really picked up with the addition of Seven of Nine and I really liked Enterprise and not just because I found Jolene Blalock unbelievably hot. A quick summary of my opinions there. I enjoyed the video, many thanks, and look forward to more. 🍻

There's an Excelsior study model that shows up at Wolf 395 and the scrap yard in Unification, that been stretched out till the engineering is long, thin and directly connected to the saucer. Two versions show up in the scrap yard, one with 4 nacelles and one with just 2. I'd honestly love to see this ship rendered properly

Aww, I always had a soft spot for the Freedom Class. I like that it's kind of an odd ball, makes it seem like a ship clearly designed for some unusual, specific purpose in a fictional seeing where all the ships are generalists.

The Freedom Class looks like it screams: "Please kill me!"

The Nebula is the best kitbash ship, but Yeager class love forever!

I've always loved the Nebula class!

It's always nice to see people honoring those designs. Star Trek mod developers (e.g. for Stellaris or SoaSE) sometimes takes them in their mods which is always nice to see. You definitely could make another video over more of those forgotten ship designs!

You just wanted to praise the New Orleans again, didnt you?

The Cheyenne is a damn sexy ship, is sleek, elegant and pretty unique.

Cheyenne is certainly my favorite. I love the 4 nacelles on ships as they are an often forgotten element when people talk about systen redundancy in spaceships and it makes for a better visual aesthetic to me.

Love the Cheyenne class, looks simply amazing and adds diversity to Starfleet.

Kitbash: *exists* Daniel “I love it!”

Daniel as usual spot on. We're a Federation Chapter in New Orleans. We've been happy with being the lead ship of the class for a decade now.

The New Orleans Class is my favorite of these ships. In fact it's one of my favorites all together. It's a cool design and it looks like something we really should have seen more in TNG. It would have been great if we saw more of them in the Dominion War as support craft.

and then we got the last space fight in Picard; 100 times the same ship; ...sad

lore-wise we don't see them later on because so much of that wave was destroyed at wolf359 and by the dominion war were too old. but they were much more prominent During the Cardassian border war. (BTW you didn't mention the 3 nacelled Niagara class now thats a strange ship.)

I'm in a Star Trek Adventures campaign and our ship is a New Orleans class. I was the one insisting on it to the GM, and he couldn't resist its awesomeness. Such a great ship. And great video, you've opened my eyes to the Cheyenne class!

Thank you! Someone else remembered the "Forgotten Fleet"! I always wished we had these in DS9 instead of 80+ year old Excelsior and Miranda ships. Heck, they could have used the Springfield for the new Trek animated show. Also, you forgot the triple-nacelle Nigara class. ;)

I like the Freedom class, actually.

...for some reason looking at the Springfield-class I find myself thinking it would've made a better ship for Lower Decks than the Doritos.

I absolutely love the nebula class ship, It's truly my favourite design of federation ship. I feel it was under underutilized given how versatile it would be with swappable mission specific pods.

The good news is there is a mod for Sins of a Solar Empire called Star Trek Armada 3 which includes all of these ships in some form: Phoenix class is a heavy command/support cruiser while the Nebula class is a battlecruiser. New Orleans class is a long range siege/torpedo cruiser Challenger class pulls double duty as a ship that can be called in for support and a refit version called the Sarek class which is a diplomatic cruiser. The Freedom, Cheyenne, Springfield and Niagara classes are all used as part of support fleets. The models are pretty detailed too. I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it before and just goes to show they have not been entirely forgotten.

One of my biggest complaints about TNG was the lack of a fleet. They always made it seem like 20 ships was a large fleet but in reality, it would take thousands of ships to protect the Federation. I know it was a limitation due to budget, but imagine if TNG had been made today, we probably would have seen more ships.

The Challenger Class makes more sense for warp bubbles in theory.

Kit-Bashing perfection - yes they are highlighter pens painted grey, but nobody thought so until you pointed that out ....

The Cheyenne and its variants are some of my underrated favorites in STO. I'd love to see a T6 version someday.

The Freedom Class is the TNG era Saladin class. A lazy design just to shoehorn a mid-level cruiser into the fleet.

Definitely the Chyanne-class

I like the Cheyenne class, but it just seems so wide and cumbersome- the nacelles so far away from the saucer section make it feel a little chunky as well. That being said, I absolutely ADORE the New Orleans class, and it has quickly become one of my favorite Starfleet ships designs of all time.

I really enjoyed the Springfield class, thank you for brining it to light!

Personally i would have liked to see more of the new designs that only came with the First Contact movie, especially the Norway and Sabre class. But those came too late for the show, only appearing briefly in later installments.

Should have seen more enterprise C era ships as well......

My favorite forgotten ship was the Centaur-Class Destroyer. Then BAM, it got some screen time on DS9

I really like the Springfield class, it looks really cool. I'm also really partial to the Cheyenne class because of star trek online, and 4 nacelles is really neat.

I really wish that we could have had a lot more Ambassador class ships. It only had a few appearances*, and should have had many more. *according to Memory Alpha: 4 in TNG, 1 in DS9, and 1 in ENT.

You'd captain a Freedom class if given the chance. Admit it.

When I asked this question to Michael Okuda on Twitter his response was that the nebula class WAS the fruit of that effort to get the Wolf 359 ships into prominence. It speaks to the producers' sensibilities that only one ship- the nebula- got such a gift.

The Cheyenne is easily my favourite. It's beautiful. If you hadn't told me that was a kit bash, I would never have known.

You didn't mention the greatest kitbash of all time, _perhaps because it's DS9 and not TNG…_ The *Yeager.*

Agree AND I would have loved to have seen the Akira and Ambassador classes shown more prominently as well. My favorite has always been the Excelsior class though..

I really like the challenger class/ vertically stacked nacelle ship from my Starfleet Battles days where it was always a destroyer class that I played as a picket ship in fleet battles.

My favorite of those is definitely the Cheyenne. I used to play STO, and have always had a love for their quad nacelle designs.

The New Orleans also tops my list. In general, I'm not a kitbash fan, but I do like that this design feels more innovative. And I want to see more Frigate scale Federation vessels, some of the smaller ships that don't get to be the "hero ships"

The Cheyenne Class looks really cool.

New Orleans is definitely my favorite, but also like the Cheyenne as design successor to the Stargazer Constellation-Class.

How have I never found you!!! Thisi severything I've wanted in a Space Sci Fi Channel. Thanks!

Great episode Spacedock!

Great assessment, and agree about the general starfleet ascetic thing, don't know why after Yesterday's Enterprise, we didn't see Ambassador class ships popping up (especially for the vip service). After all they did spend time and money on the model shots for it

Agreed on the cheyenne and new Orleans. You can even see in season 7 episode the pegasus where in engineering one of the displays shows a 4 nacelle ship even though it was depicted as oberth. Given the dialog that the ship was 20 yrs old and held tech that would eventually find its way on the galaxy class, i could see the cheyenne being the one buried in the asteroid rather than the war canoe (love that term from Lore Reloaded) Also someone else here commented about ambassador class. Would have loved to see those too as well as maybe kitbashes of both the galaxy and ambassador in Miranda class configurations. Imagine a smaller galaxy saucer with a roll bar and under slung nacelles.

Starfleet ships with vertical nacelle arrangements always put me in mind of someone showing up to the big fleet battle on a unicycle, like the music should shift from stirring orchestral themes to being played on a carnival organ.

The Niagara and Freedom classes represent a good transition from the Ambassador class to the Galaxy class. The old, flatter saucer design, but with new warp nacelles. The Challenger, Springfield and New Orleans classes clearly look like little brothers and sisters of the Galaxy and Nebula classes. I think these designs are really well done. The Cheyenne class is such an attempt to recreate the Constellation class with elements of the Galaxy class. Appears more friendly. It's a shame they never built a model for the Bradbury class. Only the prototype NX-72307 was mentioned in one episode.

These Videos are awesome. I like that you are showing love to the other starships from Star Trek. My Favorite of the TNG era starships that we never saw was Definently the Cheyenne Class.

A missed kit bashing opportunity would have been to take the primary hull of a *Oberth,* without the pylons and canoe _[which it was able to jettison, in universe. All the science labs were there and in case of a out of control experiment could be discarded. That's why the weird pylons, it was infection control decontamination],_ and then either use two primary hulls stuck bottom to bottom as they were both flat, or stick some other hull directly to the flat underside. Perhaps a couple of really big highlighter pens! Something made in the shape of the New Orleans class torpedo pods but scaled up to give a sense of the size across different ships. It's a simple shape so hand making bigger ones or finding something equivalent in the correct scale shouldn't be difficult (I'm assuming that the Oberth and New Orleans models weren't built to the same scale, which is a fair assumption). It would make *in universe* sense as well, without the secondary hull and the science labs in it, a Oberth primary hull would be fast and have a lot of power to spare. Slap a couple of weapons pods underneath and you've got a nimble fast raider. You could even have a pod at each pylon anchor point for some internal consistency, it's just the aesthetics of it would have to be judged… did it look good or awkward? _And what is the in universe dimensions of the New Orleans weapon pods compared to a Oberth primary hull?_ Would it look mean with underslung weapons like limbs ready to pounce (evocative of a Eagles claws or a pair of arms ready to punch) or would it look silly with a ship riding a weapons pod like a surfboard?

I definitely like the Nebula class the most from that collection. Especially the idea that it possibly could exchange it's saucer with a Galaxy class. That would have been interesting to see. One more forgotten ship is the Ambassador class. While it is not a kitbash, it is a crime it wasn't shown more often. Its design is the bridge between the TMP and TNG area and thus should have been featured more prominently in TNG. Particularly the original Ambassador design by Andrew Probert, which is absolutely beautiful.

Being an old Star Trek gamer I've always loved the practicality and diversity of the Larson Class. It's one of the oldest serving classes in the S.T.U. . If you remove the lower nacelle from the The Challenger class, it would look like a TNG version of the Larson. So for that reason it's now in my top 5 fav ST ship list. Thank you so much for meticulously going through episodes and finding this hidden gems.

As soon as I saw this video go up, I was looking forward to hearing you talk about the New Orleans! I love the Galaxy aesthetic but with a sleeker, Sovereign-esque profile, and in a smaller, more logistically practical scale for mass production. It's a wonderful element of in-universe nuance and it just looks so damn good!

Love the Norway and Akira Class.

One of the writers or producers said that there were actually 2 U.S.S. Melbourne's at the Battle of Wolf 359. 1 was an Excelsior class and the other was a Nebula class. The idea was and they never got to put it in the episode, that the Excelsior class was being retired and replaced by the Nebula class. And that the Nebula Class Melbourne was the one offered to Riker.

New Orleans and Cheyennes are probably my favorite kitbash ships from TNG, not counting the Nebula which while technically a Galaxy kitbash, it stands apart enough in a way that the Miranda does compared to the Constitution despite it too technically being a kitbash.

you're speaking my language! I loved these ships and always wanted to see more of them!

Cheyenne! Great star trek online memories, getting my first four nacelle design. Love that ship

Honestly I like em all. Yes even the stupid single nacelle ship with the Turbo-Laser on it. Kitbashing is such a neat art, and I think that they did an admirable job with the designs they were able to make.

In TOS there were scouts and destroyers with just one warp nacelle, as well as tugs with two nacelles below the saucer section and no secondary hull. The tugs hauled around a huge tubular hull a couple of times the length of the ship.

Thanks for the kitbash content.

I wished the 2360's era Execlisors had a remodel refit with cosmetic changes like lengthen Ambassador style nacelles and saucer to distinguish it from its original 2280's design and bring the older starships closer with the modern mid 24th century designs. I would also like to see many of the TNG kitbashes far more often

I really like the New Orleans as well. The idea of those external pods being torpedo hard points is a fun one turning the ship into a torpedo boat. I used to use the New Orleans in Star Trek Online back when I played it just because the design was so cool.

Dont forget about Dominion war Nebulon refit thats basically a mini-galaxy-class, with a giant weapons platform up top.

Great imagination by the staff to offer variety to the show. I wish the people in charge had the same passion for the ships and work done here.

So many great starship and station designs in TNG. I really like the kind of transitional phase of the early season with the kitbashed 23rd century Starfleet ships still in use.

Dude i gotta agree with you. The New Orleans class looks like a grand ship, and the nebula modularity would absolutely work. Fine the federation is technically post scarcity, but they arne't post time managment or post manpower. So anything that can save time? Good reason to go with that so your limited man and equipment pool can move on to something else.