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Why? Even at the height of the Reganavy plans the US only intended having 15 aircraft carriers, and that number included the Midways, Forrestals and Kitty Hawks, which were less capable ships than the nuclear carriers. Starfleet's dozen Connies would be the equivalent of a Reganavy with a dozen Nimitz's.

Thats 15 carriers to a planet. We're talking a far larger area which takes years to cross at the limited speeds they had. You'd need moe just to cover the area since a large number would be out on those 5 year missions.

Do we have solid numbers for the size of the TOS-era Federation, or the speed of their ships? I don't think we can rely on the "c^3" formula, given that TNG demonstrated speeds far higher the the 2000c that is the E-D's "official" top speed.

Captain Seafort wrote:Do we have solid numbers for the size of the TOS-era Federation, or the speed of their ships?

No, the only solid numbers for the TOS fleet are the twelve Constitutions. And speed could possibly be judged from the screen map of the Neutral Zone in Balance of Terror.

I don't think we can rely on the "c^3" formula, given that TNG demonstrated speeds far higher the the 2000c that is the E-D's "official" top speed.

Vessel speed in Post-TOS Trek seems to be highly variable. OOU it's basically at the whim of the writers, IU maybe they have warp highways or something (areas where faster warp is possible due to technobabble effect).

If its verbally stated to be something we can take that as canon.

As for the size we have the 1000 world quote which while not a size gives an idea on the size of it.

Teaos wrote:If its verbally stated to be something we can take that as canon.

As for the size we have the 1000 world quote which while not a size gives an idea on the size of it.

Since we don't have hard canon backup on numbers, I'd go out on a limb and say that at least 0.5 starships per world would be reasonable. That's starships meaning ships which are not purely logistical (i.e. supply ship, fuel ship, cargo ship etc.) I would say that's a conservative and probably too low number for the total fleet numbers, especially if the proportions of "core ships" to "rest of the fleet" have remained comparable between TOS and TNG. (In TNG, we had initially 6 galaxies.... increased to something like a dozen or thereabouts, as opposed to thousands of ships overall. So if you apply any similar proportion to Constitutions and "total fleet", the numbers are rather large.)

I'd say the 0.5 number would only apply to habital worlds.

I think by the end of their service life, the Constitution-class had at least 100 vessels and some variants.

SuperSaiyaMan12 wrote:I think by the end of their service life, the Constitution-class had at least 100 vessels and some variants.

Makes sense, as it would become relatively cheaper and easier to build over time when it ceased to be "absolutely top of the line." I would not be surprised by similar leaps in numbers of Galaxies and Nebulas by the time the Sovereign has been replaced by something better.

Would have they stopped building them when the Excelsior came out or kept building them in limited numbers to fill the work horse roll.

Teaos wrote:Would have they stopped building them when the Excelsior came out or kept building them in limited numbers to fill the work horse roll.

It doesn't make sense to me how fast the Connie was discomissioned. Over time, they could have been retrofitted and refitted into Light Cruisers.

At a certain point it is easier to just build a new ship than refit an old one.

Teaos wrote:At a certain point it is easier to just build a new ship than refit an old one.

They kept the Miranda around for that long even though it was only slightly newer than the Connie.

Maybe the Miranda was more robust. I'd imagin the skeleton of the Conny came under more stress than the Miranda due to the design. It is rather harder to replace bulkheads than it is to fit a new torpedo tube.

SuperSaiyaMan12 wrote:

Teaos wrote:At a certain point it is easier to just build a new ship than refit an old one.

They kept the Miranda around for that long even though it was only slightly newer than the Connie.

True but Mirandas were modular and probably easier to upgrade and modify