Star Trek: Armada III begins with the first stirrings of the Dominion War and allows players to take command of five unique factions, the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union/Dominion Alliance, and the Borg Collective. Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.
The following is a list of Federation starships that entered service in the mid-late 24th Century but enjoyed only limited production runs, making them uncommon sights in the Federation fleet. From left to right:
- The Springfield-class cruiser is a derivative of the Galaxy-class development program, and is unique in that both the secondary hull and upper pod are fully modular and can be removed and swapped for mission-specific equipment. Unfortunately this design did not meet the performance expectations set by the New Orleans-class, which it was launched alongside, and so few of these ships were constructed.
- The Freedom-class frigate is a very unusual design launched in the early 2350s. Using a mix of components from the Ambassador-class production run, the Freedom is only ever utilised for light patrol and research duties.
- The Challenger-class cruiser is another spin-off from the Galaxy-class development process. A lighter alternative to the larger Galaxy and Nebula-classes, the Challenger is suited to light exploration. A variant of the Challenger, the Surak-class, serves as the Federation's diplomatic cruiser, and is essentially a mobile embassy.
- The Cheyenne-class light cruiser is a fast and nimble patrol cruiser. One of only a handful of Federation starships ever to use four warp nacelles, the Cheyenne takes on light exploration duties, but primarily serves to support and defend Federation colonies.
- The only Federation starship to use three warp nacelles, the Niagara is a smaller variant of the Ambassador-class heavy explorer. Upgraded with newer nacelle designs, the Niagara is a fast and capable heavy cruiser that serves proudly exploring the frontier.
- The Melbourne-type is an experimental subtype of the modular Nebula-class. A test-bed for Starfleet's experiments in warp field geometry manipulation, the Melbourne is a fast, well-equipped and advanced starship further demonstrating the Nebula's great utility.
I love all these ships.... a part from that Springfield it's weird design of having the deflector and secondary hull attached by a pair of pylons! Some people say that they use transporters to go between saucer and secondary hull but to me that seems such a waste of energy, room space and resources to do such a thing.
She's a weird one, definitely. I think the Challenger is my favourite of the bunch, though.
Same out of all these misfits the Challenge is definitely my favorite. She just looks like a proper design that had thought put into her really. She has really nice weapons coverage and if she was given the Venture refit treatment and added arrays on her nacelles like the Galaxy, it would of covered her blind spots.
I even once tried to make a ship based off her design in Space Engineers.
Thank goodness that the Freedom Class and challenger Class were only provided in limited numbers. I love the quote "light patrol" and Exploration. I would compare this to a Policeman turning up on a clown bike or the British government commissioning a rubber dingy as its replacement for Brittania.
These look like truly terrible ships. Allocated to Captains approaching retirement or issued to the guy who scraped the paintwork of the starbase whilst reversing out.
It took you long enough.
Fine ships.
And Rhode Island? Mr.Kim?
The Rhode Island is in the mod as a refit of the Nova.
Monsieur Kim will not be in the mod. All references to him as a hero unit in the past have been (hilarious) jokes.
No Kim?
No...No... It cant be! You can't! ... Where is he?!
You, bastards, you've killed Harry!?!
He died as he lived. As an ensign.
Vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net
Battlemage's feels ^
He's on the background, judging what you fiends are doing here.
i love the Melbourne
She's a pretty one.
Will the Melbourne be faster in the game than the Pheonix and Nebula? They're always tend to be hanging round at the back in a large fleet movement?
Actually yes, in a way. It has a special ability that allows it and the surrounding friendly ships to move faster.
How do you get it, though? I didn’t see it amongst the ships you can summon with the Federation’s defense station.
On a related note, IMHO it would be nice if there was a submod that switched out the Miranda, Constellation, and Excelsior with the Challenger, Cheyenne, and Niagara. They just look more technologically advanced to me, and thus fit better with the other 24th century ships the Federation uses.
The Wolf 359 fleet can be summoned from your Starfleet HQ structure orbiting your capital planet.
If comeone were to make an add-on that replaced the older ships in the fleet with those of the Wolf 359 fleet, we would be happy to host it on this ModDb page.
Just a random comment but for another game I used 3D Max and kitbashed the New Orleans. I removed the pods and used the pod version as a tactical upgrade.
For the Springfield I have several versions, one without the Pod and secondary hull, another with the Pod reconfigured as through deck mini carrier and keep the standard impulse engines on the aft saucer; I also changed the warp engines on both the Springfields and the Cheyenne to TNG warp engines to give the illusion of propulsion upgrades.
For the Freedom and Niagara I swapped in the standard Challenger (TNG) saucer but kept the bridge modules so by the time the game's shiplist/spacedock introduced the Galaxy Class the fleet looked like the ship shared many similar traits in design.
I also took a Springfield, inverted the nacelles/pylons downward, attached the New Orleans Pods on top and made a TNG Miranda variant sort of speak. I kept the originals in the game but eventually the game phases the original designs out when the stardate reaches the Galaxy/Nebula time frame and phases in the kitbashes.
So many things can be done with these designs especially if you have multi era games. Then you can truly see the TOS into TMP into TNG evolution.
Anyways, great job guys.
Fun Fact, these ships were among (the many) ships that were apart of the Wolf 359 attack. And have been in 359 ship packs for various Star Trek games in the past. For that reason, I've always referred to them as the 359 ships. That's just me though.
I did always like them though. The idea of Starfleet eeking out as much as possible with one basic design is neat. Waste not, want not.
They are indeed the Wolf 359 fleet.
Indeed, after watching TWOK and seeing how closely the Miranda and Constitution resembled each other then years later looking at the Galaxy and Nebula; I was always sad that TNG didn't get more money put into it so we could really see the Federation lineage on screen. 359 ships should have been throughout Starfleet traveling around but instead we got lots of Miranda and Excelsiors onscreen. Which is fine bc I love the classics but to see a New Orleans or a Challenger every now and then would have been cool.