Holiday Break

Well, April 1st is the last day of the Easter term - and believe me us teachers celebrate that more than the kids! I'm off to spend a week with the family somewhere a lot sunnier that this, so there will be no updates, newsgroup postings, or replies to e-mail enquiries for at least that long. I promise to make up for it once I get back - there's a whole new section in the works...

A page for the Impulse drive has been added, along with a couple of images to compliment it. Much is taken from the TNG Tech Manual, with some speculation of my own thrown in to explain at least a little of why Impulse drives seem to be so anti-Newtonian at times.

The B'Rel and K'Vort pages have recieved newly scanned images to replace a couple of non-original ones. By my count, this brings the number of non-originals on the site down to about ten.

New Classes

Now added, specifications pages for the Rigel and niagara class starships to go with the size comparison images. No pictures, unfortunately.

Many Federation ship classes have now been updated with new ships that we have seen over the last season or so.

A new set of pages has been added to the technology page outlining a few of the different kinds of force fields we have seen in use in Trek. There is an image or two showing each type of field working - or failing to work in some cases.

A couple of the non-original images have been replaced with my own scans. The site is now pretty close to being entirely free of non-original images.

Miranda Class

Now has specifications for the pre-refit version to go with the new size comparison image (see below).

Lots of changes here today : from the TNG-era the Rigel and niagara classes have been added, while from the TOS-era the Federation class Dreadnought, pre-refit Constitution and Miranda, Ptolemy, Saladin and Hermes classes from the original Starfleet Technical Manual. Many of these images have been specially created for this site and are not available in this form anywhere else (yet). The image of the Shelley class has now been replaced with a much more accurate one - one of the many flaws in the DS9 Technical Manual is that the Shelley in the Starships section is nothing like the one that appeared in the episode.

Rather irritatingly, after naming the Intrepid variant the Chimera class I have found that there is already a class of this name which predates the Dominion war. So I've changed it to the Griffin class, which is another monster made of parts of different animals.

Interface Changes

Well, after much toil and work we are today premiering our new 'active' interface. As you will probably have noticed by now this makes the buttons that you use to navigate the site 'click' down and up as you press them. This has entailed changing things behind the scenes on just about every page on the site so I hope you like the result. This effect is only possible, however, if you are using Netscape Communicator 4+ or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4+ and have JavaScript enabled. Sorry, it's just not possible to make this work on version 3 or lower browsers, for you the site will continue to work as before. If you wish to upgrade your browser you can freely download the upgrade from the Netscape and Microsoft sites. They can also be found on lots of magazine cover disks.

Now added are three new classes, all taken from the DS9 Technical Manual. In that book they were not given names - but since it makes no sense that a reference guide of the 24th century would not know the names of these ships, I have been reluctnatly forced to call them the "Griffin class", which is the Intrepid saucer with Constitution nacelles on Danube struts attached to a TOS-era hull; the "Trident class", which is the three-nacelled Excelsior type with the double saucer section; and the "Polaris class", which is the Constitution variant which has no engineering hull. These ships are naturally unusual in many respects, and I recommend you read the 'comments' page on each for the arguments as to why I have made the choices I have regarding the performance figures, etc. Naturally, pretty much the entire of each entry is speculation and they are really just here because it was so much fun to play with these kitbash designs!

The size of the K'Vort has been increased from 300 to 327 metres. For reasons, read the class comments page.

We have noticed that the ship we where describing as an 'Academy Trainer' was actually a picture of the 'Peregrine Class'. We've changed the links and names accordingly.

In addition, some of the references on the sizecomp Comments page have been re-worded slightly and one or two moved to place them into the correct order.

The main power entry for the Galaxy class starship has been largely re-written; thanks to all the posters on startrek.expertforum.ricksternbach for their insights into all things power related.

In addition, the Relics figures for shield capacity have been modified to include various detail changes. Thanks to Elim Garak for pointing out that the changes were needed.

Size Comparison

Lots of new stuff going up here today :

The selection page has been re-designed to have a four column layout. The area of graphics on the page have been cut almost in half, which should reduce download time significantly and allow easier use as all sixty nine ships now fit on the screen at once if you're using a 1024 x 768 or better resolution.

I've re-sized the Intrepid from 373 m to 343 m, which is in line with what the bulk of evidence supports rather than based on a single behind the scenes quote. This has had a knock-on effect on several others - see the comments page within the size comparison section for details.

The Centaur class has been given a new size based on its primary hull, which comes from an Excelsior.

The Danube has been given a new length based on The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual.

The Galor has been given a new length based on The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual.

The Challenger class from the "Best of Both Worlds, Part Two" graveyard has been added.

The Yeager class from "In the Cards" has been added.

The Shelley class from "A Time to Stand" has been added.

The Romulan Shuttle from "In the Pale Moonlight" has been added.

The Bajoran Raider from "The Siege" has been added.

The Bajoran sub-impulse ship from "The Siege" has been added.

The Intrepid variant from The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual has been added.

The Constitution variant from The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual has been added.

The Excelsior variant from The Deep Space Nine Technical Manual has been added.

The Hideki class from "Tribunal" has been added.

The Keldon class from "Defiant" has been added.

Several ships have new higher quality scans of the size comparison images.

The Ferengi "Marauder" class has been given the more correct "D'Kora" class name. The Negh'Var has now been given the correct spelling (it was previously Neigh'Var).

Another four new additions today - new people pages for Uhura, Data, Bashir and Paris All with the usual images.

Write ups have been added for the first two episodes of both Deep Space Nine season 7 and Voyager season 5. The statistics ranking each season and series overall will be updated when the season ends.