These bottom three are examples my own 3D model. See more here....

Ambassador Class: 2302 - Still in Service

This large long range Ambassador Class cruiser was a direct yard replacement for the Excelsior Class in capital ship construction. Many of the systems on Ambassador Class ships were prototype for the Galaxy Class. In fact, this class was a primary predecessor to Galaxy, and successor to Excelsior as Starfleet's primary trailblazer. The USS Ambassador, and her sister vessels, could best be described as an overall patrol and exploration vessel -those being the principal missions for a fleet vessel, ones perhaps analogous to the famous Constitution Class of the previous century, but this class' Hardware designation would fall into the Heavy Cruiser bracket (the Explorer designation wouldn't appear for some time). Other than exploration they'd patrol the home sectors, accommodate dignitaries, and sometimes oversee first contact missions. 

Now though, many would be undergoing field tests after major refits, due to their considerable age (over 70 years for the early batch vessels). Although all ships are regularly updated with the latest technologies, a lot of Ambassadors would've in all likelihood needed weapons and sensor tweaks to be more efficient in the recent war effort against the Dominion.... A few of the 98 commissioned are listed.

Footnote *

-It is stated in The Next Generation Technical Manual that the Ambassador Class had a total vehicular mass of at least 3.71 million metric tonnes, as stated in the specs above, and on the Definitions page.

-In the TNG episode 'Conspiracy', Data referred to the Horatio as "Ambassador Class, Heavy Cruiser".

-This class is another example of inconsistent registry numbering by the creators, as the canon registries either begin NCC 105..., or NCC 26... So I'm not sure exactly how it works with this class. But it's construction was intended to reflect or suggest 'an intermediate step between Excelsior and Galaxy Class ships'. (I think it has more Constitution Class about it than Excelsior). Anyway, if this is indeed so, it should really be placed within a time-frame of 2320-2330 as a rough estimate for the first commissioning of this class. But judging by the prototype's registry, it definitely indicates that Ambassador is from the first decade of the 24th century, so I'm forced to place it in the earlier bracket of 2302, and indeed it may even be older than that...

-I've also speculatively assigned the title of flagship for this era to The Ambassador, not The Enterprise.

KEY

*A ship would visit drydock for many reasons, including refits, repairs, servicing upgrades, preliminary trials and testing of new components, and spacedock for similar reasons, as well as crew rotation, reassignment, prep period before redeployment, and so forth.

The listed specifications for ship classes are partly hypothetical, but some data such as ship lengths, weapon stats and crew complements are in some cases canon. For an explanation on the specs, and what the Ship designations mean, see Spec Definitions.

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