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 New Orleans cruiser is clearly an off-shoot of the Galaxy-class development program. Due to its immense size and enormous cost, the Galaxy-class was never intended to be an incredibly prolific starship class, and so Starfleet felt that a new generation of smaller, cruiser-weight vessels was needed to compliment the upcoming behemoth.
One of these new cruisers was the New Orleans-class, which enjoyed a relatively quick and trouble-free development and testing process. After all, most of the new innovations were being developed for the Galaxy-class - all the engineers designing the New Orleans needed to do was scale those innovations down into a cruiser sized frame. As such, the USS New Orleans was launched on active duty while the USS Galaxy was still undergoing lengthy test trials.
The New Orleans' design is a compact variation of the traditional Starfleet design philosophy - a saucer-shaped primary section raised above a secondary engineering section, with two long, raised warp nacelles behind. The most notable features of the New Orleans are the three large torpedo launcher pods attached to her dorsal and ventral hull.
The New Orleans was initially intended to be a general-purpose starship, but as the Border Wars with the Cardassians continued on, her designers made the decision to slightly alter their plans in order to give the New Orleans an added edge against Cardassian aggression. They developed a unique photon torpedo launching system that effectively increased the torpedoes' effective range by several factors. Three of these experimental launchers were mounted on the New Orleans prototype and quickly proved their worth against Cardassian fortifications. As such, they became a permanent feature of the design.
Since the Border Wars, Starfleet's New Orleans starships continue to serve proudly in peace throughout the Federation. In times of conflict, they will once again be called upon to fulfil their special duty providing long-range fire support.
I always loved the design of this ship as well as the Springfield class.
Then again I slapped a mate who said the Freedom class was fugly so It could be a refined taste. :)
Apparently the TrekYards people hate it. But I personally loved the design. It just works. Nice compact ship with good firepower.
Sorry, but the Freedom class is ugly lol. However I do like the looks of the New Orleans. I don't know why, but the weapons pod top-side and the overall look always made me think it and the Galaxy were the 24th century version of the Miranda/Constitution.
I will find you and unleash my Freedoms Phasers in all her glory.
But i think i like the freedom so much because Saladin/Hermes feels.
Gotta have the phaser boats alongside the Torp cruisers.
This ship lacks anti-aircraft phaser for self-defense...
I’ve noticed this ship happens to lack phasers entirely. What’s the reason for that?