Ships get a refit every 50 years after 2400. No extra points aside from that.
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Just got the TNG collectors in and I already love it.
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Would you prefer it leatherette for practical concerns? Or are they simply ethical ones?
Ethical, to be honest. But that is nothing that should be discussed here. I’m no saint and will certainly not require anyone to be one.
Yeah that’s fine, I was just curious if there were practical advantages to leatherette/etc.
Just got my TNG Collectors UP book and totally loving it.
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Okay. That math is hard. Here’s what I think it means.
Let’s say we’re playing in 2420.
Example 1: the Galaxy-class has a service year of 2359. That means refits in 2369, 2379, 2389, 2399. There’s obviously no refit in 2419. I think there’s also no refit in 2409 (even though that 10-year period starts before 2400). But by the time 2449 rolls around, there’s one more refit (even though it hasn’t been 50 years since 2400).
Example 2: the Intrepid-class has a service year of 2371. That means refits in 2381 and 2391, but after that, the next refit is 2441.
Do I have that right?
BC
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I would just say any ship launched before 2400 has a 10-year refit at the first opportunity after 2400, to bring it up to the 60 baseline, and then refits every 50 years after that.
So I just got a physical copy of the book and while its pretty awesome I do wish starships had dimensions (length, width, etc) and also crew numbers listed. Those setting stuff in previous versions of Star Trek rpgs were quite fun to read and enjoy.
That said the ships and stations were awesome to read, the descriptions were all pretty cool. I am especially happy that the ships aren’t alphabetical but rather based on era. That was cool.
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Ship lengths, based on what few resources there are, are listed in the front and back endpapers, if you know where to look. 
Crew size is entirely up to the gamemaster and players and will vary regularly based on the ship’s mission, duties, attrition rates, etc. I didn’t want to tie anyone down to a specific number, so use the Scale as a rough guide and then make the crew size whatever you need it to be for the purposes of your game.
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Hm, Nova class is listed at 180, despite the “official” length being 221… My first STA ship was Nova class, so I looked into it quite a bit. Sternbach’s design was scaled as 221.74 meters, which is what Eaglemoss used in their booklet for it. But the ship onscreen certainly appeared smaller that that (although there was no shot that had a really good angle to compare to Voyager)…
I saw as small as 160 in the deck plans from Cygnus—the 180 is from the ACTD stuff, which I’m always slightly wary of using as an actual reference, since they’re a weird amalgamation of canon and fanon. I never figured out how they got 180 when I looked at screencaps from the episode, although the Cygnus deck plans’ 160 is slightly pixelated and kinda looks like 180…
I was wondering about the numbers, but never looked at them closely. Very cool that “flavor” LCARS numbers are actually functional. Edit: Oh my gosh the page numbers are clickable in the pdf! That’s neat.
I noticed that the first time I cracked open the book. Quite clever to include the lengths and page numbers so inconspicuously.
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Yeah, when I need to find out a ship’s dimensions, I always go to Eaglemoss. I trust them to get the right measurements because of all the websites I’ve seen, they’re the only ones to get the size of the Centaur class right at 210 meters because everyone else was fooled into thinking that just because it has an Excelsior-shaped primary hull, it must be the same size as an Excelsior primary hull. If the Centaur were really that oversized enough to be a Scale 4 ship, it would have wiped the floor with Sisko’s Scale 3 Jem’Hadar fighter in the DS9 Season 6 episode “A Time to Stand.” People tend to forget that scales change haphazardly with kitbashing.
It’s for this reason that when I make my fanmade write-ups of starships for STA, I always make sure to include the dimensions right underneath the picture so it’s the first thing the reader sees right after they see what the ship looks like.
UP is perhaps the best supplement yet! Congratulations to the team that put it together. Too bad the budget didn’t allow for more stuff! But an amazing work, and food for many ideas and years of wonderful ST:A gaming! Thank you and congratulations on this wonderful book!
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So, this came up on the STO fourms of all places, but given the Inquiry’s length at 640 meters long, wouldn’t scale 6 be more approperate for it?
From Utopia Planitia:
Scale represents far more than the size of a starship, it also represents its crew, its typical assignment, how redundant systems are on board, etc. Smaller starships tend to be Scale 2 or 3, but mainly due to less redundant systems, smaller crew, and a smaller mass making it difficult to build in reinforced bulkheads and the like. For example, a kilometer-long cargo vessel with a crew of twenty may be considered Scale 2, while a 300-meter heavily armored and overly engineered starship may be considered Scale 5.
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In the case of the Inquiry class, the ship has a narrower beam and profile, fewer decks, and therefore quite a bit less internal space than the Galaxy class, despite the similar length. That means a lot less room for crew support, redundant systems backups and so on. I think Scale 5 is justified.
Brian, not very long ago and before the UP book was published, I would have agreed with you; I was under the same impression that length/size was the most important factor in determining Scale. But as Felderburg notes with the direct quote from the UP book, there are a number of non-visual factors that affect Scale despite a starship’s apparent size. Don’t feel bad: I thought the same way you did for years until the UP book finally explained things.
I have no idea if the UP book is the most popular of the STA products (however you would measure that metric: total sales? buyers’ ratings?), but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. It’s certainly my favorite of the STA books (as well as the one I most refer to whenever I’m writing up my fanmade STA stuff). 
Am I missing something, or does UP leave out the command division’s section on starship docking when it talks about starbases/space stations?
I didn’t have room to reprint the section in UP, so didn’t. Feel free to reference the Command SB as needed for that info.
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