HOME | DD

Description

The Horizon class heavy cruiser and its subclasses (Advance , Whorfin , Indomitable , Horizon Flt II , Advance Flt II , Essex , Archon ) are Part 1 of the Project Starship series.

Image provided by: Adrasil
Original inspirations from: Rick Sternbach (Spaceflight Chronology) and video game Star Trek: Legacy
History from: Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet , by Timo Saloniemi

Variant blueprints: Access via Adrasil's Download button

Featured in: Starship Recognition Manual #296

In the 2180s, capital ships from the Romulan War—comprised of myriad designs from the founding states—entered periods of inspection and surveys, with expected results: they were tried, tired, and increasingly out-of-date. Star Fleet responded with a call for a new heavy cruiser design. While "quantity" was a constant demand for the expanding service, the requirement for destroyers, tenders, and transports meant that this new generation capital ship had to stress "quality" foremost.

Chiokis Corporation of Andor, a sub-contractor on previous designs, introduced as its first ever primary submission what was immediately declared to be an updated Yorktown battle cruiser. A monster of a ship (at 562,000 metric tons), it was comprised of two hulls and bracketed by nacelles of significance, the PB-18s. The ship's length was an impressive 294.1 meters, with a beam of 117.1 and a height of 46 meters. The primary saucer hull, the broadest part of the ship, had a thickness of 8 meters at the rim, allowing not only quarters and weapon emplacements in the impressive 10 decks, but also six high-tech laboratories. The secondary hull had a clear lineage with that of the Yorktown, though it was enlarged both in depth and length, providing a sense of streamlining with its curving shapes and the undercut stern. The two outrigged pylons slightly sloped downward in order to provide improved positioning for the nacelles. The PB-18s allowed the ship to cruise at warp 3 and attain a maximum velocity of 5.3. The massive Scarbak GPM impulse engines cowled onto the lower secondary hull avoided all the complications and compromises of the two-stage Enterprise/Columbia arrangement.

The ship itself was equipped to sustain its crew of 35 officers and 278 enlisted on 4-year missions over 400 light-years, protecting them with 2 banks of dual laser emitters in the 1.2 gigawatt range, 8 Type I phased particle cannons (900 gigawatts), and 2 Type H (700 gigawatts) covering the aft. Eighty photonic torpedoes were also carried in the primary hull, fired from the battery on the ventral side. The Horizon was Star Fleet's first capital ship to go out sans any armor, fully confident in the ship's reliance on two shield generators to wrap the crew with a blanket of subspace/graviton fields.

Thirteen cruisers of this initial design were fielded, with more planned. The ships were respected for their capacity for independent exploratory deployments outside known space, as well as their various military duties. The Horizon herself had a distinguished career of exploration under the command of Captains Mann, Gatulla and Broderick. The three-year expedition under Captain Mann established first contact with no less than 12 civilizations, a feat no longer believed to be possible after the early days of the Enterprise exploits. However, shortcomings were identified, especially in regards to "hearth world defense," which would be addressed with the follow-on Advance subclass battle cruiser.

Note: shout-out to Adrasil , as this is not a kitbash, by any definition. He designed well over 90% of this ship from bare source images lacking any detail of note (though there is one significant component that hearkens to a most-familiar class of ship). The saucer is my personal favorite, as it provides so much of the personality of the Horizon, though only when mated with the secondary hull and nacelles does the ship seem to be forcefully surging forward. Again, though, each and every component was created-pixel by pixel-by Adrasil.

Would you like to learn more about this class of ship? Download the free Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet , a three-volume, 1236-page history of space flight, by Timo Saloniemi.

For an extremely rich gallery of Star Trek starships and vessels from other universes, check out my partner, Adrasil , here on DeviantArts.

Description

The Horizon class heavy cruiser and its subclasses (Advance , Whorfin , Indomitable , Horizon Flt II , Advance Flt II , Essex , Archon ) are Part 1 of the Project Starship series.

Image provided by: Adrasil
Original inspirations from: Rick Sternbach (Spaceflight Chronology) and video game Star Trek: Legacy
History from: Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet , by Timo Saloniemi

Variant blueprints: Access via Adrasil's Download button

Featured in: Starship Recognition Manual #296

In the 2180s, capital ships from the Romulan War—comprised of myriad designs from the founding states—entered periods of inspection and surveys, with expected results: they were tried, tired, and increasingly out-of-date. Star Fleet responded with a call for a new heavy cruiser design. While "quantity" was a constant demand for the expanding service, the requirement for destroyers, tenders, and transports meant that this new generation capital ship had to stress "quality" foremost.

Chiokis Corporation of Andor, a sub-contractor on previous designs, introduced as its first ever primary submission what was immediately declared to be an updated Yorktown battle cruiser. A monster of a ship (at 562,000 metric tons), it was comprised of two hulls and bracketed by nacelles of significance, the PB-18s. The ship's length was an impressive 294.1 meters, with a beam of 117.1 and a height of 46 meters. The primary saucer hull, the broadest part of the ship, had a thickness of 8 meters at the rim, allowing not only quarters and weapon emplacements in the impressive 10 decks, but also six high-tech laboratories. The secondary hull had a clear lineage with that of the Yorktown, though it was enlarged both in depth and length, providing a sense of streamlining with its curving shapes and the undercut stern. The two outrigged pylons slightly sloped downward in order to provide improved positioning for the nacelles. The PB-18s allowed the ship to cruise at warp 3 and attain a maximum velocity of 5.3. The massive Scarbak GPM impulse engines cowled onto the lower secondary hull avoided all the complications and compromises of the two-stage Enterprise/Columbia arrangement.

The ship itself was equipped to sustain its crew of 35 officers and 278 enlisted on 4-year missions over 400 light-years, protecting them with 2 banks of dual laser emitters in the 1.2 gigawatt range, 8 Type I phased particle cannons (900 gigawatts), and 2 Type H (700 gigawatts) covering the aft. Eighty photonic torpedoes were also carried in the primary hull, fired from the battery on the ventral side. The Horizon was Star Fleet's first capital ship to go out sans any armor, fully confident in the ship's reliance on two shield generators to wrap the crew with a blanket of subspace/graviton fields.

Thirteen cruisers of this initial design were fielded, with more planned. The ships were respected for their capacity for independent exploratory deployments outside known space, as well as their various military duties. The Horizon herself had a distinguished career of exploration under the command of Captains Mann, Gatulla and Broderick. The three-year expedition under Captain Mann established first contact with no less than 12 civilizations, a feat no longer believed to be possible after the early days of the Enterprise exploits. However, shortcomings were identified, especially in regards to "hearth world defense," which would be addressed with the follow-on Advance subclass battle cruiser.

Note: shout-out to Adrasil , as this is not a kitbash, by any definition. He designed well over 90% of this ship from bare source images lacking any detail of note (though there is one significant component that hearkens to a most-familiar class of ship). The saucer is my personal favorite, as it provides so much of the personality of the Horizon, though only when mated with the secondary hull and nacelles does the ship seem to be forcefully surging forward. Again, though, each and every component was created-pixel by pixel-by Adrasil.

Would you like to learn more about this class of ship? Download the free Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet , a three-volume, 1236-page history of space flight, by Timo Saloniemi.

For an extremely rich gallery of Star Trek starships and vessels from other universes, check out my partner, Adrasil , here on DeviantArts.