Federation Ships

General Federation Ship Overview: The Federation is a very advanced and powerful nation. The Federation's ships have followed the saucer on top/secondary underneath/nacelles right at the top configuration since the 2160's when the Daedalus Class was in service. Only now are some Starfleet designs starting to differentiate from this established design. Starfleet traditionally does not build warships although after the battle of Wolf 359 Starfleet has become much more military based in an effort to defend against future Borg incursions like that of 2373. Federation  ships are traditionally armed with phasers, a direct energy weapon that normally comes in beam format. However recently the first pulse phasers were fitted to the Defiant Class although currently only available in cannon format I expect pulse phaser emitters to eventually appear and replace beam phasers. Phasers are ranked by size. The larger the number (in roman numerals) the larger the phaser. The largest phaser ever seen attached to a ship is a Type XII with phasers larger than Type X usually used on space-stations. Type I-III are used by humanoids. With Type I being palm phasers, Type II being pistol phasers and Type III being Phaser rifles. Type IV-VI are usually found on shuttlecraft and other small vessels. Type VII-XII are often found on ships and above Type XII are usually found on space-stations. Other standard issue Starfleet weapons include photon and quantum torpedoes. Occasionally ships are also armed with Tri-Cobalt devices, an extremely slow weapon that most ships can dodge but extremely effective against space stations due to its huge yield and the fact that Space Stations don't typically move much. Federation ships can be divided into two categories. Pre-Wolf 359 ships are large, unmanuevarable and typically lightly armed compared to other vessels of their size and advancement. Post-Wolf 359 ships are smaller, more manoeuvrable and usually heavily armed warships or combat based vessels. Federation weapons technology is surprisingly powerful for a nation of Peace-makers. However Federation shielding is lagging behind. (Note: I believe Federation shield tech is lagging behind as Galaxies have weak shields for their size, Intrepids have light shielding as they usually rely on their manoeuvrability and Defiants usually rely upon ablative hull armour to survive). Below is a list of some of the main Federation ship classes. Below them is a list of Federation classes which information is practically unavailable on. The more advanced Federation ships often have a variant designed to supplement its ability while being more economical.

(Note: Ships going at maximum warp's engines overload over a certain amount of time. On this page there is a time in hours in brackets after some maximum warp numbers, usually 12 hrs. This is the amount of time it takes for said engine to overload. If the time is not there then most Federation vessels have an overload time of 12 hrs. Assume that this is the time.)

There is little or no information regarding the following ships:

Andromeda Class
Antares Class
Apollo Class
Bradbury Class
Challenger Class
Cheyenne Class
Chimera Class
Deneva Class

DY-100 Class
DY-500 Class
Erewhon Class
Freedom Class
Hokule'a Class
Istanbul Class 
Korolev Class
Mediterranean Class
Merced Class
New Orleans Class
Niagara Class
Renaissance Class

Rigel Class
Sequoia Class
Springfield Class
Surak Class
Sydney Class
Wambundu Class

Yeager Class

Yellowstone Class
Yorkshire Class
Zodiac Class