+Fox Piano Definitely. Starfleet needs smaller starships for short-term deployments. I always imagined Nova or Oberth size ships would have a standing operational crew and itinerant scientific crews who were deployed from starbases for specific missions.
The scorch marks and other battle damage is a very nice touch, I believe. I'd have liked it a lot better if they had kept some battle damage on Voyager from episode to episode, as well as changes to the ships where Voyager's crew attached new tech to the vessel. They did it in some of the Borg episodes, and then the idea was also used in the "Battleship Voyager" special Holodoc episode I can't remember the title of, and I believe they once toyed with the idea of Voyager purchasing advanced weaponry to fight the Hirogen. I think this would have given Voyager an altogether more realistic feel, certainly better continuity for a ship that was stranded this far from home with the crew having to improvise. I suppose the reason they didn't do that was to not confuse viewers who had missed an episode or two, but I've always preferred television series with great overarching continuity, such as Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine.
The damage on Equinox is basically what I thought Voyager should start looking like over the years as they got in battles and patched up the ship. Repair plating like the Enterprise has in Star Trek III over the area were Voyager got rammed early on, and things like that. Would have been a nightmare for continuity and the effects crews as they couldn't reuse old shots over and over again as the damage mounted.
9:30 I personally think that it was a mistake to blow up the Galor in Voyager’s pilot. We could have had the Cardassians, Maquis and Starfleet stuck in the Delta Quadrant and being forced to work together to get back home all while a member of the Obsidian Order was pulling strings behind the scenes to get the Cardassians and Maquis to betray Voyager. Even barring that, we never really encountered any of the aliens that the Caretaker transported. We know from the Equinox that he didn't bring them back afterwards so if you are on a ship of a pre-warp civilization you are not going anywhere. 13:07 That looks a bit like a Lorimar-class.
I'm so glad you guys did this. This has become my fav ship class in Trek. However I think I can solve some of the size issues. The class turned out to be more versatile then expected, and several variants were made. I don't know about the carrier version, but I do know that a more tactical type was designed. Mainly due to its maneuverability, and smaller profile. It had a larger weapons load out, and some science areas were converted to tactical areas. This version did have fighters instead of shuttles, but not as many as shown in the carrier design you guys showed. There are many arguments as to wither this design was actually built. Anyway thanks guys. Keep up the good work.
I love the carrier Nova concept. It is reminiscent of historical "Escort Carrier" type ships, CVEs for short, which served during WWII as cheap, mass-producable carriers. Their hulls were essentially merchant ship hulls but with all the insides cut out and rearranged to house a small hangar. Wonderfully whacky ships.
Loved the episode Equinox. Another two parter. Always reminded me of when the Pegasus showed up in the original Battlestar Galactica series. Anyone remember that, and perhaps agree?
The thing is you have the wrong length for her. You have it down at the 181m length. Which does make for quite a small ship. And I've seen the 181m length and the 165m length, but Rick Sternbach has actually clarified the size. To quote "I drew the blueprints at 1"=30', and the ship is 24.25" long, so the real thing would be 727.5 feet or 221.74 meters" Which puts it more than 25% larger than you have it listed. And while that may not seem like much, remember it's 25% in all directions. length, width, height. This makes the Nova's about 2/3 the size of Voyager. Which 1) Fits with the Defiant design items (This was to be the first Defiant) and 2) the Crew of the Nova's being 80. Being one of the people that love the Nova and her being one of my faves, her being more than 25% than many people think sort of sticks out.
The Nova Class is essentially a scaled down Intrepid class. It uses the same architecture. A primary hull that's integrated with the engineering section without a neck between them. It obviously comes from the same design bureau. You could easily do a whole series of ships of different sizes, differently shaped primary 'saucer' sections and different warp nacelles.
I have always loved the Nova Class. I fell it was the ideal size to be mass produced with several custom variants. What has always bugged me about the Galaxy class is the concept that Starfleet would waste so much resources to build a relatively small number of massive vessels that while capable to perform any task it basically meant that 90% of the ship is currently useless. Meanwhile the rest of Starfleet if forced to fly around in ships that 're old enough that the current captain's grandfather could have commissioned(my biggest pet peeve of the early TNG seasons). About the only problem I have with how the Nova was portrayed on screen is the the captain was of equal rank as Janeway. I feel that this ship should have been commanded by a commander if not LTG.
They way I recall (cant remember where from) the function of the Nova was as a 'second line' science explorer. Your 'first line' science ship such as a Luna would do your standard sorta survey of lets say a planet, then it'd carry on (hell it might just be a very quick scan as it passes by) then a Nova would tootle along and do a more in depth investigation of anything interesting the initial survey picked up on. it was small, slow in comparison to pretty much every other starfleet ship of the same design period because it wasnt intended as a main line ship, same as the oberth
"then a nova would tootle along" XD for some reason that gave me an image of a nova class, puttering along like some old car in an old cartoon, just slowly following along behind a sleek, fast, luna class.~
Its one of my top two favorites on Star Trek the other being the Saber class. I like smaller ships and I also have always liked the Science specific mission profile vessels. The Oberth is another good ship, in my opinion.
This ship looks like it was built to be a destroyer. Imagine the cut outs in the saucer being torpedo launchers and it suddenly becomes a small fast heavy hitter.
with regards to the Nova Carrier, I had been thinking of mocking up something simular with the Galaxy Saucer and Defiant class ships, you could probably fit 8-12 defiants in cavities in the surface of a Galaxy class Saucer, and launch them like escape pods or the Captans yacht. The logical reason for that was that (as far as I could remember) the Defiant is relitavely slow, I was sure it was supposed to max out at something like warp 8.4 top speed, while the Galaxy can sustain literally thousands of times that speed for days, that would give Starfleet an option to quickly deliver a fleet to remote areas, and the Galaxy can launch the Defiants then withdraw, if Starfleet were to keep a few of those saucers in reserve, refit time to turn a Galaxy Class exploration ship into a Defiant carrier would be less than 2 minutes, and you could then have the rest of the Galaxy Saucer devoted for crew quaters, maintenance and supplies for the Defiants, as they just fight then return to the Galaxy you would only need maybe 10-20 crew for each, the Galaxy crew could handle maintenance. Even with the faster speeds quoted for the Defiant, those required rerouting pretty much everything to the engines, which would not leave the Defiant in good condition for a fight. One of the things I always wondered about the Galaxy was why Starfleet did not produce mission specific saucers, e.g. a much smaller "combat" saucer with dozens of torpedo tubes and many thousands of torpedos, as well as many sheild generators powered by a secondary warp core, or a "mobile dry dock" or SCE saucer able to expand and fit smaller ships inside for repairs.
A _carrier_ version of the Nova? Why do people have such *stupid* ideas? The entire point of the Nova is that its a tiny ship designed for short duration missions with a modest crew complement and no room for crew facilities such as a holosuite. The last thing it needs is taking out a huge chunk of usable volume for a through-deck flight bay. Then there's the fact that a carrier requires even *more* crew accommodations (for pilots and maintenance technicians), plus maintenance facilities, fuel and munitions storage for the fighters/shuttles, etc The SD deckplans also make it clear there is no way you could fit a realistic through-deck flight bay into that hull. _Especially_ not a full-width one, and definitely not without sacrificing at least two full decks to get vertical clearance for flight operations. If you want a small escort carrier, the SD deckplans for the Steamrunner class come purpose-built with a flight deck sized for Peregrine class fighters.
I’m right there with you. The Only way that works is if they use unmanned space vehicles (USVs) instead of crewed shuttles. Our Navy is currently experimenting with lightly manned crews and/or unmanned vessels. It’ll be interesting to see how this work turns out.
I could imagine Starfleet having competing shipyards, each with their own R&D, so that the Nova and Sovereign Classes are developed by one team of engineers at a shipyard around, say Andor or someplace like that, their engines sourced from one engine manufacturer/contractor, while the Intrepid Class was developed by the Utopia Planitia Skunkworx as a support ship for the Galaxy Class line of ships, sourcing their engines and other components from other contractors. Starfleet could set things up like this to encourage different lines of advancement, then every 20 years the new technologies are analyzed and merged into the next gen flagship class (maybe the Sovereign was the next gen flagship for the 2380s, while the Galaxy was the next gen flagship class for the 2060s). I know none of this is canon and there is scant evidence to pull from to retcon such a thing, but I think it would be awesome.
Add ablative armor, regenerative shields, type XII phasers, a few more arrays, a warp drive capable of cruise speed of warp 8 and maximum warp 9.8, and quantum torpedoes, and it’s perfect! 👌
The first thing that went through my head looking at the Nova class was a disturbingly girly voice screaming "CUTE". But seriously, the Nova pretty much IS the "cute" little ship, it still looks graceful like most TNG designs, but this ship has something about it that can only described as "adorable". Even the powerful weapons can´t change my impression.
+Galvars USS Defiant in DS9 barely looked like a federation design, what ended up being nova-class is original idea that was definitely a part of the fleet.
For those commentators who are unaware, this ship design was originally created by the DS9 staff as a proposal for the Defiant class might look like, before they chose to go with the design which, while cool, looks nothing like a Starfleet ship. The VOY staff decided to repurpose the design because it fit the bill for a small vessel for the Equinox story. Of course if it had been used as the Defiant class it would have been fitted out with heavy weapons like the final design, not configured as a science vessel.
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely done and very well explained and informative indeed guys,And I have the Eaglemoss model of this ship, it's a very cool looking ship indeed 👌...
What I loved most about Voyager was unlike the Next Gen and DS9 is you don't see an Excelsior class star ship or anything older utilised in an episode! I prefer the Rhoad Island variant mind! Nova is a science vessel and it's size is perfect! And who is to say that there weren't other federation vessels brought into the Delta Quadrant!
Another part of the Pathfinder for the Defiant that was carried over into the Nova...or rather vice versa, *is* that bridge. Note the Defiant class has an identical recessed bridge.
Hey guys, great briefing. If you want to, check out our ship the USS Cuchulain NCC-61922, a Nova class ship. Based in Ireland, we are a chapter of SFI. We have a nice little video of the Cuchulain on our website. And we have the ship incorporated into our logo and have a cool LCARS master display mug available in our merchandise section.
The first mention of the Nova Class that I remember was in the TNG Technical Manual in 1993 or 1994. Near the end, there's a section speculating about what the Enterprise-E might be, and Rick included a work-in-progress drawing about the Nova Class in its planning stages. Surprisingly, they kept quite a few elements when they introduced the ship in Voyager.
Yo you guys are great, I'm so glad that I found a youtube channel that talks about Star Trek and loves it as much as I do. I love watching each and every episode of Trekyards and love hearing others opinions on Starships and to see if you agree with my own opinions.
Funny that you happened to be doing this one today. My Eaglemoss Equinox model had a little fall and broke a nacelle the other night. I just finished gluing it back together (and managed to glue my finger to it in the process). Now I've got dried glue on me but at least my Equinox is good again!
I think the Nova would be a jeep carrier at best. Bringing fighters or other supplies to larger ships or small colonies.... For every Enterprize or Nebula, I woud expect 10 of these.
the novas were meant to replace the oberths for science missions but be more adaptable for different missions...and in the equinox episode they are better in an atmosphere, which captain ransom uses that tactic against voyager..so maybe the nova class can land on planetary surfaces also?
Ransom went into the atmosphere, because following them would weaken Voyagers shields, making it vulnerable to aliens. Ransom had the special shield, so it did not matter if his shields get weakened.
One of my fav ships..... I like and it shows starfleets shift in design during/after the war even for science ship is more battle focussed small but she could still Handel herself
I'd love to see a variant of the Nova with the nacelles tucked in a little closer to the engineering hull, and with a slightly beefed up hull - perhaps have the aft "wings" of the saucer swept back a bit.
They barely thought about this! Torpedos are in their face and then commander slur says they are located in the neck. Now to see if they call nessels, engines, again..
Regarding the style of the ship reflecting the era in which it was designed, remember the Equinox had been in the Delta quadrant when Voyager arrived at DS9. So the class would have been in service before Voyager's launch.
I remember seeing a ship that looked like a scaled-up Rhode Island variant Nova Class done by Gabriel Koerner several years ago. I printed it out and still have the print. It had a copyright date of 2003, but unfortunately I could not find it anywhere on line recently! If you can get in touch with him, perhaps you can ask him about it.
i'm part of 2 nova class ship RP groups, and the nova class is rather cozy for me, but not as cozy as the galaxy class of course XD, but i went and check out the USS solstice, (one of the nova classes i RP on secondlife), it is pretty big still.
You know what I have always wondered? After finding the Equinox, why did no one look up other ships to have disappeared in the badlands? There could actually be a small fleets worth of Alpha Quadrant ships over there. A few other Federation ships at least. They could have used the advanced sensors in astrometrics to calculate there approximate location baised on speed.
Nova class carries about 80 people. "We lost 39 ppl in the 1st week, half our crew". Like the Akira class this ship reminds me somewhat of ENT's NX Enterprise. I cannot see it as a carrier! It's clearly the Oberth class replacement. I wonder how Voyager would have played had they & Equinox joined the 39's planet of humans. I don't see the show as necessarily stagnant anymore than DS9 was. They both had a new quadrant to explore. Galactica & Pegasus kind of did it for us years later. Another great episode thanks.
+Rare VHS uploads That was my take as well. A modern update for the Oberth. A good multi role science ship with some mixed exploration/rescue/diplomacy/light combat use. A gorgeous little ship. Wasn't this originally cooked up as a possible Defiant design? That's why the recessed protected bridge. But it was rejected as too conventional?
I really like the idea of turning the Nova into a escort carrier (for fighters not runabouts though). I can well imagine that conversion happening during the Dominion war.
They often build ships in "batches". I.e. The Halifax class frigate was built in 2 batches with each batch having design changes and tweaks. My thoughts, Equinox= batch 1, Rhode Island = Batch 2??
I like small ships, i like knowing the crew, if i'd be a Ship's Captain i'd like to know my underlings, i don't say run the who ships as a family, because that brings problems, but i don't want to walk through a Galaxy class ship and haven't even seen half the people i meet on the lower levels. It also makes it possible to know most system up personal, 6 or 7 decks is manageable. It's why i like the Defiant so much, it's so lovely compact, even if not luxurious.
Quick question for you guys. What would you think of this ship scaled up to a Sovereign class size? I think that this would make a great large sized war ship. Do you agree?
Robert Hayes My understanding is that RDM wanted to see a show where there were real consequences; where the ship and the crew REALLY struggled to survive; where it FELT like they were really stranded on the other side of the galaxy and had to make hard decisions. I'll admit I didn't watch all of Voyager, but it always felt very safe, always resetting back to square one, always visiting Earth in some way or another. I'd have loved to have seen RDM's Voyager. I guess that's Galactica…
It's an interesting idea but it isn't really Star Trek. I always thought the idea of Voyager was to show some new material that wouldn't be possible to see in DS9 at the time. I think a couple of episodes was enough to show that idea.
The Nova Class does certainly have some design elements in common with The Intrepid Class The duel Deflector/sensor being the obvious one. The hind Quarters from the top are also rather similar in shape with the blended neck. the little cut out and things Voyager has are also not that unlike the ones on the Equinox. But many other elements scream 1st Contact era so much more. The Nacelles in particular. I look at the ship and think Voyager and a Saber class had a baby.
Not just that but both ships can land on a planetary surface, both classes were the first to employ the emh, and both ships had a reconnaissance craft the waverider shuttle and the aeroshuttle.
I have long wondered if there could be a variant of this ship that has a larger saucer plonked on top of the existing cobra head primary hull. As it sure does look like a ship after it's had a saucer separation. Oh and No I don't miss the Vs. I didn't even notice they'd gone until several videos had passed without them. I can't speak for anyone else but personally I'd rather see more Videos than have the production slowed by a niche feature like Vs that seems to be one that appeals most to a sub-set of a subset of a sub-set of fans.
I love the idea of a captains yacht, and of all things we never see it, only one time in a movie on the e, such a great idea and so shamefully unutilized...
People didn't like it. Thought it was too self serving and nerdy. Plus with release schedules and such we never know which ship will be next. Lots of reasons.
+Trekyards I for one, enjoyed it (partly because it was nerdy), and you guys seem to have fun doing it. Maybe doing versus against the previous episode's ship, if that helps with some of the reasons that it was stopped.
I have some problems with the Nova class 78 crew 8 decks roughly 10 crewmen per deck if I understand scale correctly the warp drive is not much bigger than than that of a runabout. Now I am assuming the USS Raven was a converted merchant marine class for use as a science ship with mostly automated system required a crew of 2 and was larger was larger than the Nova class. That is like putting 6 in a Winnebago camper for vacation by the end of two weeks you are going to kill people. I know with the Borg and other threats to the federation science budget is a dead horse but considering the range of the ship is it practical
I had wished the Marque ship had survived a while longer too. It would have increased the realistic ability of them surviving the trip home. I loved this ship and wished they had shown its class more in DS9 toward the end. To be fair mentioning that you like the Rhode Island better because it is whiter forgets that the Equinox is shown with battle damage which is discoloring its paint. Voyager should have looked at least this beat up when they met. They should have had an Episode with Paris and Kim scrubbing the outer hull to explain why Voyager is always new looking except for the alternate time line episodes. lol
I don't know if either of you live near it but will either of you guys be attending sci-Fi valley con this year in Altoona Pennsylvania? I'm going and I'd love to meet both of you very much!
Ship reminds me of our new littoral combat ships- like the USS Independence or Freedom they are designed to had combat packs that can be switched out depending on the mission I could easily see this vessel doing picket duty or escort or starbase protection if needed I think Star-fleet would have saw this vessel as multi-mission vessel... just my opinion
My three favorites: Titan, Ares, and Shenzhou; all ships with underslung nacelles. But the Equinox/Nova class is my fave for the overslung nacelle ships.
Secondary deflector on the saucer section??? We've never seen that concept anywhere else in Trek; if you've got one on the secondary hull, you don't need one on the primary. It looks more like a shuttle pad with a lighted bay door, similar to the Sabre class. That would better explain the modification on the Rhode Island, as well as the idea behind those dubious through-deck graphics with the shuttles and fighters; someone else must have had the same idea about it.
Yes! This is one of the arguments I make. I don't think the phrasing is as explicit, but it implies that the ship did have holodecks at one time. It annoys me when people continually say that it didn't have holodecks, when there is absolutely nothing in the show or in any other alpha canon source that says it didn't. To me, I feel like a planetary survey vessel would want to have holodecks, not only for crew recreation, but also because it can help them simulate planetary environments onboard the ship. I've even identified where they might potentially be on the Nova's MSD. My best guess is that it probably had two small holodecks, one of the unlabeled "large" rooms on the printed MSD.
Nope. No holodecks. Not enough room for one. This ship is NOT an "explorer". It's merely science/survey craft meant for short term missions like the Oberth. No need for holodecks when the missions are very short by design.
@@Tirpitz7 I don't think they would use a "holodeck" for that. This is a short term planetary survey vessel. It's not a full on full blast science ship. It has it's limitations and it's top warp speed is weak. The only cool thing about the ship is that it was a new design which is far more effective than pathetic one shot one kill Oberth. I wish this ship had have been a Sabre class.
Ah roleplay I remember simming on aol late 90s early 2000s star trek sims on aol arts and entertainment chat room and the private sim groups with private chat room sims and e mail storyline sims. FGO later renamed UGO group. Gyver48170 was my old aol an.
the carrier version of the nova is made and used by the marquise hence why they used such a small ship to make a carrier it's all they can either afford or get their hands on plus they don't have the man power to overhaul and refit a large starship
+CaptainROXAS It's entirely outside the realm of possibility that the Maquis would be able to make a ship of this complexity and size. All Maquis ships pictured are tiny and older designs and civilian ships that have been modified with weapons. There's a reason for that. The resources needed to make such a ship is well beyond them. The Maquis with a Nova class is just the fantastical one handed fantasy of someone without adequate reasoning skills. If they somehow got their hands on one, Starfleet would quickly hunt them down to regain or destroy it.
+lokisgodhi yes I do believe they couldn't build a nova but they could buy or steal/capture a nova and modify it. like you said the maquis ship are fairly small so a carrier Nova is perfect for them
CaptainROXAS Perfect? Not at all. Steal a Federation warship and everyone is going to be after you. Like Thomas Riker and the Defiant. It would be immediately unusable. If you want a ship to run Maquis attack ships off of, you get an old decrepit looking freighter no one would give a second look to. In addition, the facilities it would take to be able to re-engineer and then gut a starship in order to rebuild it with that big a deck inside would be well beyond the capacity of the Maquis.
To add a shuttle deck you'd have to remove more then one deck. It'd require at least two or maybe even three. You'd essentially separate the top decks from the bottom ones, eradicate their connection. You'd lose all the internal vertical support structure of the 'saucer'. It's painfully obvious that his carrier design was done by someone who never gave any thought to the internal structure of the ship.
I really like the small size as it is! No scaling up required!
+Fox Piano Definitely. Starfleet needs smaller starships for short-term deployments. I always imagined Nova or Oberth size ships would have a standing operational crew and itinerant scientific crews who were deployed from starbases for specific missions.
love this tiny ship ever since the equinox aired in voyager.
The scorch marks and other battle damage is a very nice touch, I believe. I'd have liked it a lot better if they had kept some battle damage on Voyager from episode to episode, as well as changes to the ships where Voyager's crew attached new tech to the vessel. They did it in some of the Borg episodes, and then the idea was also used in the "Battleship Voyager" special Holodoc episode I can't remember the title of, and I believe they once toyed with the idea of Voyager purchasing advanced weaponry to fight the Hirogen.
I think this would have given Voyager an altogether more realistic feel, certainly better continuity for a ship that was stranded this far from home with the crew having to improvise. I suppose the reason they didn't do that was to not confuse viewers who had missed an episode or two, but I've always preferred television series with great overarching continuity, such as Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine.
Dhindara Vrel agreed
Living Witness is the episode with "Warship Voyager".
The damage on Equinox is basically what I thought Voyager should start looking like over the years as they got in battles and patched up the ship. Repair plating like the Enterprise has in Star Trek III over the area were Voyager got rammed early on, and things like that. Would have been a nightmare for continuity and the effects crews as they couldn't reuse old shots over and over again as the damage mounted.
Pro tip: you can watch series on Flixzone. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies during the lockdown.
9:30 I personally think that it was a mistake to blow up the Galor in Voyager’s pilot. We could have had the Cardassians, Maquis and Starfleet stuck in the Delta Quadrant and being forced to work together to get back home all while a member of the Obsidian Order was pulling strings behind the scenes to get the Cardassians and Maquis to betray Voyager.
Even barring that, we never really encountered any of the aliens that the Caretaker transported. We know from the Equinox that he didn't bring them back afterwards so if you are on a ship of a pre-warp civilization you are not going anywhere.
13:07 That looks a bit like a Lorimar-class.
Enterprise-H mmm..nah
I'm so glad you guys did this. This has become my fav ship class in Trek. However I think I can solve some of the size issues. The class turned out to be more versatile then expected, and several variants were made. I don't know about the carrier version, but I do know that a more tactical type was designed. Mainly due to its maneuverability, and smaller profile. It had a larger weapons load out, and some science areas were converted to tactical areas. This version did have fighters instead of shuttles, but not as many as shown in the carrier design you guys showed. There are many arguments as to wither this design was actually built. Anyway thanks guys. Keep up the good work.
I love the carrier Nova concept. It is reminiscent of historical "Escort Carrier" type ships, CVEs for short, which served during WWII as cheap, mass-producable carriers. Their hulls were essentially merchant ship hulls but with all the insides cut out and rearranged to house a small hangar. Wonderfully whacky ships.
Loved the episode Equinox. Another two parter. Always reminded me of when the Pegasus showed up in the original Battlestar Galactica series. Anyone remember that, and perhaps agree?
Except that happened in the ORIGINAL b.s.g too.
Intrepid Class and Nova Class have great deflectors.
I love this ship class, been flying it in Star Trek Online for ages. :)
Thanks!
The thing is you have the wrong length for her. You have it down at the 181m length. Which does make for quite a small ship. And I've seen the 181m length and the 165m length, but Rick Sternbach has actually clarified the size.
To quote
"I drew the blueprints at 1"=30', and the ship is 24.25" long, so the real thing would be 727.5 feet or 221.74 meters"
Which puts it more than 25% larger than you have it listed. And while that may not seem like much, remember it's 25% in all directions. length, width, height.
This makes the Nova's about 2/3 the size of Voyager. Which 1) Fits with the Defiant design items (This was to be the first Defiant) and 2) the Crew of the Nova's being 80.
Being one of the people that love the Nova and her being one of my faves, her being more than 25% than many people think sort of sticks out.
The Nova Class is essentially a scaled down Intrepid class. It uses the same architecture. A primary hull that's integrated with the engineering section without a neck between them. It obviously comes from the same design bureau. You could easily do a whole series of ships of different sizes, differently shaped primary 'saucer' sections and different warp nacelles.
I have always loved the Nova Class. I fell it was the ideal size to be mass produced with several custom variants. What has always bugged me about the Galaxy class is the concept that Starfleet would waste so much resources to build a relatively small number of massive vessels that while capable to perform any task it basically meant that 90% of the ship is currently useless. Meanwhile the rest of Starfleet if forced to fly around in ships that 're old enough that the current captain's grandfather could have commissioned(my biggest pet peeve of the early TNG seasons). About the only problem I have with how the Nova was portrayed on screen is the the captain was of equal rank as Janeway. I feel that this ship should have been commanded by a commander if not LTG.
+steven heckert Well then a small ship like the Voyager wouldn't have been commanded by a full captain either.
They way I recall (cant remember where from) the function of the Nova was as a 'second line' science explorer. Your 'first line' science ship such as a Luna would do your standard sorta survey of lets say a planet, then it'd carry on (hell it might just be a very quick scan as it passes by) then a Nova would tootle along and do a more in depth investigation of anything interesting the initial survey picked up on.
it was small, slow in comparison to pretty much every other starfleet ship of the same design period because it wasnt intended as a main line ship, same as the oberth
"then a nova would tootle along"
XD for some reason that gave me an image of a nova class, puttering along like some old car in an old cartoon, just slowly following along behind a sleek, fast, luna class.~
Its one of my top two favorites on Star Trek the other being the Saber class. I like smaller ships and I also have always liked the Science specific mission profile vessels. The Oberth is another good ship, in my opinion.
Nova and Nebula classes have always been my favourites. Don't need the biggest, strongest starships available, just a capable one.
Nova class starships are science vessels in peacetime and scout vessels in war.
Wonderful episode guys! One of my if not the favorite ship in starfleet :) I adore the size and so much about this little ship.
Defiant + Intrepid + Sovereign class properly scaled down
This ship looks like it was built to be a destroyer. Imagine the cut outs in the saucer being torpedo launchers and it suddenly becomes a small fast heavy hitter.
with regards to the Nova Carrier, I had been thinking of mocking up something simular with the Galaxy Saucer and Defiant class ships, you could probably fit 8-12 defiants in cavities in the surface of a Galaxy class Saucer, and launch them like escape pods or the Captans yacht.
The logical reason for that was that (as far as I could remember) the Defiant is relitavely slow, I was sure it was supposed to max out at something like warp 8.4 top speed, while the Galaxy can sustain literally thousands of times that speed for days, that would give Starfleet an option to quickly deliver a fleet to remote areas, and the Galaxy can launch the Defiants then withdraw, if Starfleet were to keep a few of those saucers in reserve, refit time to turn a Galaxy Class exploration ship into a Defiant carrier would be less than 2 minutes, and you could then have the rest of the Galaxy Saucer devoted for crew quaters, maintenance and supplies for the Defiants, as they just fight then return to the Galaxy you would only need maybe 10-20 crew for each, the Galaxy crew could handle maintenance.
Even with the faster speeds quoted for the Defiant, those required rerouting pretty much everything to the engines, which would not leave the Defiant in good condition for a fight.
One of the things I always wondered about the Galaxy was why Starfleet did not produce mission specific saucers, e.g. a much smaller "combat" saucer with dozens of torpedo tubes and many thousands of torpedos, as well as many sheild generators powered by a secondary warp core, or a "mobile dry dock" or SCE saucer able to expand and fit smaller ships inside for repairs.
A _carrier_ version of the Nova? Why do people have such *stupid* ideas? The entire point of the Nova is that its a tiny ship designed for short duration missions with a modest crew complement and no room for crew facilities such as a holosuite. The last thing it needs is taking out a huge chunk of usable volume for a through-deck flight bay.
Then there's the fact that a carrier requires even *more* crew accommodations (for pilots and maintenance technicians), plus maintenance facilities, fuel and munitions storage for the fighters/shuttles, etc
The SD deckplans also make it clear there is no way you could fit a realistic through-deck flight bay into that hull. _Especially_ not a full-width one, and definitely not without sacrificing at least two full decks to get vertical clearance for flight operations.
If you want a small escort carrier, the SD deckplans for the Steamrunner class come purpose-built with a flight deck sized for Peregrine class fighters.
I’m right there with you. The Only way that works is if they use unmanned space vehicles (USVs) instead of crewed shuttles. Our Navy is currently experimenting with lightly manned crews and/or unmanned vessels. It’ll be interesting to see how this work turns out.
I could imagine Starfleet having competing shipyards, each with their own R&D, so that the Nova and Sovereign Classes are developed by one team of engineers at a shipyard around, say Andor or someplace like that, their engines sourced from one engine manufacturer/contractor, while the Intrepid Class was developed by the Utopia Planitia Skunkworx as a support ship for the Galaxy Class line of ships, sourcing their engines and other components from other contractors. Starfleet could set things up like this to encourage different lines of advancement, then every 20 years the new technologies are analyzed and merged into the next gen flagship class (maybe the Sovereign was the next gen flagship for the 2380s, while the Galaxy was the next gen flagship class for the 2060s).
I know none of this is canon and there is scant evidence to pull from to retcon such a thing, but I think it would be awesome.
Add ablative armor, regenerative shields, type XII phasers, a few more arrays, a warp drive capable of cruise speed of warp 8 and maximum warp 9.8, and quantum torpedoes, and it’s perfect! 👌
The first thing that went through my head looking at the Nova class was a disturbingly girly voice screaming "CUTE".
But seriously, the Nova pretty much IS the "cute" little ship, it still looks graceful like most TNG designs, but this ship has something about it that can only described as "adorable".
Even the powerful weapons can´t change my impression.
She's a great little ship. Always been one of my favorites.
This ship should have been the USS Defiant in DS9.
HERESY!
+Galvars
USS Defiant in DS9 barely looked like a federation design, what ended up being nova-class is original idea that was definitely a part of the fleet.
762rk95tp Nova would be a shooting target for anything from Gamma quadrant. It is a short range sience vehicle, it would end like Grissom.
I agree, it looks much better in the federation ship sense.
For those commentators who are unaware, this ship design was originally created by the DS9 staff as a proposal for the Defiant class might look like, before they chose to go with the design which, while cool, looks nothing like a Starfleet ship. The VOY staff decided to repurpose the design because it fit the bill for a small vessel for the Equinox story.
Of course if it had been used as the Defiant class it would have been fitted out with heavy weapons like the final design, not configured as a science vessel.
I need one of these to use as my personal ship. I would probably only use it to go on vacation to Risa, but hey, gotta go in style!
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely done and very well explained and informative indeed guys,And I have the Eaglemoss model of this ship, it's a very cool looking ship indeed 👌...
What I loved most about Voyager was unlike the Next Gen and DS9 is you don't see an Excelsior class star ship or anything older utilised in an episode! I prefer the Rhoad Island variant mind! Nova is a science vessel and it's size is perfect! And who is to say that there weren't other federation vessels brought into the Delta Quadrant!
Correction Commander, the nova class has two forward torps launchers at the front down from four and it has single aft launcher down from two.
It can also be a scout vessel.
I Always like the more smaller vessels like the NX Class or the nova
Another part of the Pathfinder for the Defiant that was carried over into the Nova...or rather vice versa, *is* that bridge. Note the Defiant class has an identical recessed bridge.
It's a nice tie in to the USS Enterprise NCC1701E
Hey guys, great briefing. If you want to, check out our ship the USS Cuchulain NCC-61922, a Nova class ship. Based in Ireland, we are a chapter of SFI. We have a nice little video of the Cuchulain on our website. And we have the ship incorporated into our logo and have a cool LCARS master display mug available in our merchandise section.
my favourite starship design
The first mention of the Nova Class that I remember was in the TNG Technical Manual in 1993 or 1994. Near the end, there's a section speculating about what the Enterprise-E might be, and Rick included a work-in-progress drawing about the Nova Class in its planning stages. Surprisingly, they kept quite a few elements when they introduced the ship in Voyager.
Yo you guys are great, I'm so glad that I found a youtube channel that talks about Star Trek and loves it as much as I do. I love watching each and every episode of Trekyards and love hearing others opinions on Starships and to see if you agree with my own opinions.
I checked real quick the Reya website. their medical officer is a Klingon. Lol. XD
Funny that you happened to be doing this one today. My Eaglemoss Equinox model had a little fall and broke a nacelle the other night. I just finished gluing it back together (and managed to glue my finger to it in the process).
Now I've got dried glue on me but at least my Equinox is good again!
I think the Nova would be a jeep carrier at best. Bringing fighters or other supplies to larger ships or small colonies.... For every Enterprize or Nebula, I woud expect 10 of these.
the novas were meant to replace the oberths for science missions but be more adaptable for different missions...and in the equinox episode they are better in an atmosphere, which captain ransom uses that tactic against voyager..so maybe the nova class can land on planetary surfaces also?
Ransom went into the atmosphere, because following them would weaken Voyagers shields, making it vulnerable to aliens. Ransom had the special shield, so it did not matter if his shields get weakened.
It can land on a planet's surface, so it can act as a mobile planetary scientific base, it's in the wiki.
One of my fav ships..... I like and it shows starfleets shift in design during/after the war even for science ship is more battle focussed small but she could still Handel herself
But could it Bach or Mozart itself? Or even more importantly, could it Beethoven itself?
I love this ship, both variations. I don't know why but I'm crazy about this ship.
Whats cool is the captains quarters is on the right side of the bridge on the same deck
I'd love to see a variant of the Nova with the nacelles tucked in a little closer to the engineering hull, and with a slightly beefed up hull - perhaps have the aft "wings" of the saucer swept back a bit.
That info graphic @ 19:40 is wrong. The Nova actually has a maximum velocity of Warp 8.
They barely thought about this! Torpedos are in their face and then commander slur says they are located in the neck. Now to see if they call nessels, engines, again..
Regarding the style of the ship reflecting the era in which it was designed, remember the Equinox had been in the Delta quadrant when Voyager arrived at DS9. So the class would have been in service before Voyager's launch.
I remember seeing a ship that looked like a scaled-up Rhode Island variant Nova Class done by Gabriel Koerner several years ago. I printed it out and still have the print. It had a copyright date of 2003, but unfortunately I could not find it anywhere on line recently! If you can get in touch with him, perhaps you can ask him about it.
I'd prefer the Defiant would have kept this design style rather than what it got.
i'm part of 2 nova class ship RP groups, and the nova class is rather cozy for me, but not as cozy as the galaxy class of course XD, but i went and check out the USS solstice, (one of the nova classes i RP on secondlife), it is pretty big still.
You know what I have always wondered? After finding the Equinox, why did no one look up other ships to have disappeared in the badlands? There could actually be a small fleets worth of Alpha Quadrant ships over there. A few other Federation ships at least. They could have used the advanced sensors in astrometrics to calculate there approximate location baised on speed.
the equinox and defiant ship hall are easy on space engineers and low end pc.
but i like them both, and thanks for your time on this.
Nova class carries about 80 people. "We lost 39 ppl in the 1st week, half our crew". Like the Akira class this ship reminds me somewhat of ENT's NX Enterprise. I cannot see it as a carrier! It's clearly the Oberth class replacement. I wonder how Voyager would have played had they & Equinox joined the 39's planet of humans. I don't see the show as necessarily stagnant anymore than DS9 was. They both had a new quadrant to explore. Galactica & Pegasus kind of did it for us years later. Another great episode thanks.
+Rare VHS uploads That was my take as well. A modern update for the Oberth. A good multi role science ship with some mixed exploration/rescue/diplomacy/light combat use. A gorgeous little ship.
Wasn't this originally cooked up as a possible Defiant design? That's why the recessed protected bridge. But it was rejected as too conventional?
I really like the idea of turning the Nova into a escort carrier (for fighters not runabouts though). I can well imagine that conversion happening during the Dominion war.
Its amazing how much better looking than Voyager this ship is side by side
Captain Foley - "so tell me about this group". Me - "skip".
I like the small size. But I think a sicence vessel would need room for science equipment.
Give it ablative hull armor, quantum torpedo s and it would be a deadly little ship.
nova class ships look a lot like a smaller Prometheus class with only two nacelles
They often build ships in "batches". I.e. The Halifax class frigate was built in 2 batches with each batch having design changes and tweaks.
My thoughts, Equinox= batch 1, Rhode Island = Batch 2??
It's a mini voyager
it is a scout/short range siance vessle
Good choice Capt. Foley regarding the RI. :)
I like small ships, i like knowing the crew, if i'd be a Ship's Captain i'd like to know my underlings, i don't say run the who ships as a family, because that brings problems, but i don't want to walk through a Galaxy class ship and haven't even seen half the people i meet on the lower levels. It also makes it possible to know most system up personal, 6 or 7 decks is manageable. It's why i like the Defiant so much, it's so lovely compact, even if not luxurious.
Quick question for you guys. What would you think of this ship scaled up to a Sovereign class size? I think that this would make a great large sized war ship. Do you agree?
Ah, Equinox. Ronald D Moore's statement on the show 'Voyager' should have been.
Robert Hayes My understanding is that RDM wanted to see a show where there were real consequences; where the ship and the crew REALLY struggled to survive; where it FELT like they were really stranded on the other side of the galaxy and had to make hard decisions.
I'll admit I didn't watch all of Voyager, but it always felt very safe, always resetting back to square one, always visiting Earth in some way or another. I'd have loved to have seen RDM's Voyager. I guess that's Galactica…
It's an interesting idea but it isn't really Star Trek. I always thought the idea of Voyager was to show some new material that wouldn't be possible to see in DS9 at the time.
I think a couple of episodes was enough to show that idea.
Robert Hayes Yeah, Voyager was very popular so obviously it catered to a need. People like me who wanted something grittier had DS9.
6:18...guys there are torp launchers on each side of the secondary deflector
Swap the wave rider out for a couple labs and haolo deck.
The Nova Class does certainly have some design elements in common with The Intrepid Class The duel Deflector/sensor being the obvious one. The hind Quarters from the top are also rather similar in shape with the blended neck. the little cut out and things Voyager has are also not that unlike the ones on the Equinox.
But many other elements scream 1st Contact era so much more. The Nacelles in particular. I look at the ship and think Voyager and a Saber class had a baby.
Not just that but both ships can land on a planetary surface, both classes were the first to employ the emh, and both ships had a reconnaissance craft the waverider shuttle and the aeroshuttle.
I have long wondered if there could be a variant of this ship that has a larger saucer plonked on top of the existing cobra head primary hull. As it sure does look like a ship after it's had a saucer separation.
Oh and No I don't miss the Vs. I didn't even notice they'd gone until several videos had passed without them.
I can't speak for anyone else but personally I'd rather see more Videos than have the production slowed by a niche feature like Vs that seems to be one that appeals most to a sub-set of a subset of a sub-set of fans.
I love the idea of a captains yacht, and of all things we never see it, only one time in a movie on the e, such a great idea and so shamefully unutilized...
thanks guys for this! this is my favorite ship!!
If the Nova was to be used as a carrier, it would be an escort carrier variant.
James E Williams not enough room.
I actually love the design of this ship. I do wish it was bigger.
Aren't there two torpedo launchers, one on either side of the saucer deflector dish? They're pretty obvious.
Torpedo launchers are on the front of the saucer right near the 2nd deflector.
why don't you do "versus" at the end of the episode anymore?
People didn't like it. Thought it was too self serving and nerdy. Plus with release schedules and such we never know which ship will be next. Lots of reasons.
+Trekyards I for one, enjoyed it (partly because it was nerdy), and you guys seem to have fun doing it. Maybe doing versus against the previous episode's ship, if that helps with some of the reasons that it was stopped.
+Trekyards if you do more STO ships, will you consider doing my favorite, the Risan Luxury cruiser? :D
I am new here, but I think doing some VS (new episode types) could be fun and you could just reference these as longer intros to the ships.
I have some problems with the Nova class 78 crew 8 decks roughly 10 crewmen per deck if I understand scale correctly the warp drive is not much bigger than than that of a runabout. Now I am assuming the USS Raven was a converted merchant marine class for use as a science ship with mostly automated system required a crew of 2 and was larger was larger than the Nova class. That is like putting 6 in a Winnebago camper for vacation by the end of two weeks you are going to kill people. I know with the Borg and other threats to the federation science budget is a dead horse but considering the range of the ship is it practical
I had wished the Marque ship had survived a while longer too. It would have increased the realistic ability of them surviving the trip home. I loved this ship and wished they had shown its class more in DS9 toward the end. To be fair mentioning that you like the Rhode Island better because it is whiter forgets that the Equinox is shown with battle damage which is discoloring its paint. Voyager should have looked at least this beat up when they met. They should have had an Episode with Paris and Kim scrubbing the outer hull to explain why Voyager is always new looking except for the alternate time line episodes. lol
I don't know if either of you live near it but will either of you guys be attending sci-Fi valley con this year in Altoona Pennsylvania? I'm going and I'd love to meet both of you very much!
Nice little ship. What apps/software are out there that would allow me to design my own ships?
Ship reminds me of our new littoral combat ships- like the USS Independence or Freedom they are designed to had combat packs that can be switched out depending on the mission I could easily see this vessel doing picket duty or escort or starbase protection if needed I think Star-fleet would have saw this vessel as multi-mission vessel... just my opinion
Great episode guys!!
Nova class is a cool looking ship
AWESOME episode
The Nova class and the Titan are my favorite 24th century starships.
My three favorites: Titan, Ares, and Shenzhou; all ships with underslung nacelles. But the Equinox/Nova class is my fave for the overslung nacelle ships.
Secondary deflector on the saucer section??? We've never seen that concept anywhere else in Trek; if you've got one on the secondary hull, you don't need one on the primary. It looks more like a shuttle pad with a lighted bay door, similar to the Sabre class. That would better explain the modification on the Rhode Island, as well as the idea behind those dubious through-deck graphics with the shuttles and fighters; someone else must have had the same idea about it.
They build one RB Nova-carrier to replace all the RB's that DS9 wasted in their time 😋
I love this ship. Very cool looking.
I'm not so sure you can definitively say it didn't have holodecks.
I think in Voyager they said it did but they were not operational because of the attacks and power drain.
Yes! This is one of the arguments I make. I don't think the phrasing is as explicit, but it implies that the ship did have holodecks at one time. It annoys me when people continually say that it didn't have holodecks, when there is absolutely nothing in the show or in any other alpha canon source that says it didn't. To me, I feel like a planetary survey vessel would want to have holodecks, not only for crew recreation, but also because it can help them simulate planetary environments onboard the ship. I've even identified where they might potentially be on the Nova's MSD. My best guess is that it probably had two small holodecks, one of the unlabeled "large" rooms on the printed MSD.
Nope. No holodecks. Not enough room for one. This ship is NOT an "explorer". It's merely science/survey craft meant for short term missions like the Oberth. No need for holodecks when the missions are very short by design.
@@poseidon5003 It would make sense to have a holodeck on a science vessel for scientific simulations.
@@Tirpitz7 I don't think they would use a "holodeck" for that. This is a short term planetary survey vessel. It's not a full on full blast science ship. It has it's limitations and it's top warp speed is weak. The only cool thing about the ship is that it was a new design which is far more effective than pathetic one shot one kill Oberth. I wish this ship had have been a Sabre class.
I love this ship. It's so adroable! :3
The right size to be charming.
Love it in STO too. :D
13:02 Those were not captains yachts, they looked more like the Arrow/Gryphon glass runabouts which I believe aren't canon.
Ah roleplay I remember simming on aol late 90s early 2000s star trek sims on aol arts and entertainment chat room and the private sim groups with private chat room sims and e mail storyline sims. FGO later renamed UGO group. Gyver48170 was my old aol an.
Cool cool ship , love it ,,,,,, but warp 7 rely ? I'm not shore if I'm happy with that , but it's a cool ship
I would have loved to see a Rhode Island type, with the nose cutout, I love all the small changes, but miss that secondary deflector
Great animation of the USS Reyga. What software package did you use?
+Nigel Barthorpe Lightwave 3D same as Voyager/Enterprise
+power543 Thank you. Looks great. :-)
Commander, u got all these Eaglemoss. Y don't u refer to the magazines? Or does that come in later research?
the carrier version of the nova is made and used by the marquise hence why they used such a small ship to make a carrier it's all they can either afford or get their hands on plus they don't have the man power to overhaul and refit a large starship
+CaptainROXAS It's entirely outside the realm of possibility that the Maquis would be able to make a ship of this complexity and size. All Maquis ships pictured are tiny and older designs and civilian ships that have been modified with weapons. There's a reason for that. The resources needed to make such a ship is well beyond them. The Maquis with a Nova class is just the fantastical one handed fantasy of someone without adequate reasoning skills. If they somehow got their hands on one, Starfleet would quickly hunt them down to regain or destroy it.
+lokisgodhi yes I do believe they couldn't build a nova but they could buy or steal/capture a nova and modify it. like you said the maquis ship are fairly small so a carrier Nova is perfect for them
CaptainROXAS
Perfect? Not at all. Steal a Federation warship and everyone is going to be after you. Like Thomas Riker and the Defiant. It would be immediately unusable. If you want a ship to run Maquis attack ships off of, you get an old decrepit looking freighter no one would give a second look to.
In addition, the facilities it would take to be able to re-engineer and then gut a starship in order to rebuild it with that big a deck inside would be well beyond the capacity of the Maquis.
granted yes people will be hunting them down but we saw how well the feds did that and to gut and reconfigure 1 deck i could see them doing it.
To add a shuttle deck you'd have to remove more then one deck. It'd require at least two or maybe even three. You'd essentially separate the top decks from the bottom ones, eradicate their connection. You'd lose all the internal vertical support structure of the 'saucer'. It's painfully obvious that his carrier design was done by someone who never gave any thought to the internal structure of the ship.