Excelsior Class Starship

After prototype runs, some modifications were made, such as major redesigns of the Bridge and Shuttlebay structures seen priot to the NCC-2000 class-ship. Several variations of the original design have continued in service up to the Dominion War.

Being the largest vessel constructed (at the time), it was Starfleet's principle class ship. Indeed... The Excelsior held the title of flagship for some time. The class' overall success is demonstrated by how many were built over this period, with a second, slightly enhanced variation introduced in 2293 with the USS Enterprise-B. A number of the 192 ships built (of all types) are detailed below.

Twelve (12) banks of 2 Siege Phaser Cannons: Primary energy weapon system with five banks on the top and five banks on the bottom of the primary hull. The ship also has two banks on the top of the secondary hull. While this ship does not have mega-phasers, the large number of siege phasers is still very effective. The weapons damage is about equal to laser cannons used by the CAF but the Phasers have a greater rate of fire. The phasers are also slightly shorter ranged. Phaser Cannons in each bank may be linked, or fired separately. Several ships of the Excelsior class have had their phasers rebuilt to increase their firepower and range.

Photon Torpedo Systems: All launchers are mounted in the secondary hull. Two launchers forward, mounted above the main deflector array and Two launchers aft. While the launchers are older than those used on the U.S.S. Defiant and other Next Generation ships, they can use Quantum torpedoes. Newer photon torpedo warheads carry more anti-matter. Effectively very similar to Phase World cruise missile launchers but instead of having groups of multiple launchers, Starfleet has concentrated on launchers that can launch more than one torpedo at the same time. Once a spread of torpedoes has been launched, the launchers must reload and rearm before launching another spread. In the early service of this ship, it carried photon torpedoes which were anti-matter/matter warheads.

Torpedoes have a top speed of Mach 25 in a planet's atmosphere. In space, they have an acceleration of 10% of light per turn (far faster than any starship). When the drive goes dead, the torpedo will still cruise unless preset to self destruct or receives a destruct code but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and torpedoes when dead at -25% to detect.).