In-Universe Context
| Registry | NCC-42044 |
| Class | Centaur-class |
| Type | Medium cruiser |
| Active | 2373 to 2378 |
| Decks | 16 |
| Length | Approximately 450m |
| Capacity | 390 humanoids 1800 humanoids maximum limit |
| Max. Speed | Warp factor 9.2 |
| Max. Cruising | Warp factor 8.8 |
| Armament | Phasers (x11 phaser arrays) Photon torpedoes (x2 launchers) |
Following the successful transwarp experiments of the U.S.S. Ardennes, Starfleet designed the Excelsior to be the first of a new wave of starships built to take advantage of the new four fourth generation warp drive (which necessitated the adoption of a new warp scale). The first ship of the Excelsior-class, the U.S.S. Excelsior, was launched in 2285, and it was the first of many. The Excelsior-class rapidly became the "face" of the United Federation of Planets, as it proved to be one of the most capable starship designs in Federation history and was soon a ubiquitous part of the fleet. The Excelsior remained at the forefront of the Federation's exploratory and military efforts throughout the 23rd and 24th centuries, and the Excelsiors combined participated in more first contacts than any other starship class to date.
The U.S.S. Chiron, launched during the third Federation-Klingon War that precipitated the Dominion War in 2372, was the first Type-D Excelsior-class starship built. Assigned to the Federation's seventh fleet, the Chiron was one of only 14 ships to survive a disastrous counterattack operation in the early months of the war. The Chiron's secondary hull was lost in the battle, and the Chiron became one of the first Excelsiors to be refitted into a Centaur-class starship. As a centaur-class starship, the Chiron served the remainder of the war in a support capacity, and eventually restored after the war.
Commentary
After completing my Excelsior project, modeling a Centaur seemed like the next logical step: despite only appearing briefly in a single episode of DS9, the Centaur is a fan-favorite design, and arguably one of the only kitbash designs that feels unique or otherwise compelling. Generally, I don't like kitbash models--they're only ever the product of necessity, and it always shows. The Centaur model itself has a great profile, but like most kitbashes, suffers from having far to many minor details--bits of bobs of plastic glued onto the whole for no other reason than to differentiate it from the original model. (You can read more about the Centaur-class studio model at this Ex Astris Scientia article.)
As always, when I model a ship, the first thought in my mind is, "why does this design exist?" I've never been fond of the idea that kitbashes only coincidentally resemble the starships whose parts they borrow, so for me to justify the Centaur-class, I first had to explain why Starfleet would bother building such a ship using an Excelsior-frame, when it would arguably be better to simply build an Excelsior-class starship in the first place.
Ultimately the rationale I arrived at was perhaps the simplest, and most obvious: the Centaur is not a "real" starship class, but rather a temporary solution to a temporary problem. During the Dominion War, the Federation suffered enormous losses. They were losing ships left and right. Surely, then, their shipyards would be at capacity, busy building new ships and repairing old ships as quickly as possible. If an Excelsior-class starship were to suffer catastrophic damage to its secondary hull, with the primary hull remaining intact, it would be prohibitively expensive to construct a new secondary hull to affix to the old saucer. Likewise, as the primary hull of an Excelsior is not warp-capable, it possesses little to no combat utility. The solution? Simply affix a different, smaller secondary hull to allow the damaged Excelsiors to continue participating in the war effort, despite their diminished capacity.
This justification allowed me to be "lazy" and simply re-use the primary hull of my Excelsior-class Type-D model, whose new features already go a long way toward erasing the need to replicate some of the Centaur's more bizarre features, like the way the secondary hull is merged with the saucer to allow for a very small, forward-facing shuttlebay. My saucer, after all, already has a vertical-launch shuttlebay on the primary saucer.
As such I felt little need to adjust the Excelsior's primary hull; the new secondary hull would attach to the bottom of the saucer using the exact same "neck" apparatus as the Excelsior proper, though it would need to be much shorter in order to more closely adhere to the proportions of the studio model.
I also re-used multiple components from the Excelsior model on the Centaur's new secondary hull: the two forward-facing torpedo tubes are the kind of cylindrical launchers as the Excelsior's aft torpedo tubes, and the navigational deflector, too, is the same--but scaled down. In order for the new secondary hull to also be able to operate independently, I added to small engine pods on each nacelle strut, near the secondary hull. After that, it was merely a matter of adding all the other little necessary bits and bobs. My only change to the primary hull was to add some slight discoloration to the hull panels, to subtly indicate that sections of the hull were damaged and hastily repaired--a neat visual trick borrowed from the Millennium Falcon.
One of the stranger and more divisive aspects of the Centaur-class is the spacing of the nacelles. To some fans, they're too far apart. For what reason would Starfleet built a ship with nacelle struts so long, with so much empty space in between? Such a wide ship would require a much larger warp bubble, we can reasonably assume, so surely it would be more efficient to cluster the nacelles closer together. Well, herein lies the difference between the Excelsior and the Centaur: where the Excelsior is a heavily armed starship capable of operating on the front-lines in major combat engagements... the Centaur is not. The only time we see the Centaur, it's patroling a quiet section of the front lines (we can assume that in DS9: A Time To Stand, Sisko's route into Dominion space tried to avoid areas where it would be more likely to encounter other ships). The Centaur's secondary hull is much smaller, meaning a smaller warp core, meaning (presumably) less power to go around; never mind fewer auxiliary craft and fewer weapons systems. So, then, what is the point of the Centaur?
Front-line support.
To my mind, there can be only one reason why the Centaur is proportioned the way it is: to generate a very large warp bubble, capable of completely enveloping another, equally large or larger, starship.
To this end, I added a small superstructure to the bottom of the secondary hull, terminating aft with a large tractor beam projector. Ideally, this projector would be able to focus multiple beams simultaneously, allowing the Centaur to tow as many ships as could fit in its warp bubble. (Now seems like a good time to briefly discuss my approach to warp travel: I basically assume that the space within a warp bubble is motionless, with all of the movement occurring at the "skin" of the bubble. Therefore any and all matter within a warp bubble would be carried with the starship to its destination. This means that shuttlecraft, for example, don't need to actually land inside a shuttlebay before the warp drives engage--though they probably should, for safety reasons--they simply need to be very close to their mother ship.)
The powerful tractor beam and unusually larger warp bubble, coupled with the sturdy Excelsior-class components and its relatively high amount of firepower, would make the Centaur a very valuable support craft on the front lines: its duty is not to engage the enemy directly, but rather to make sure as many Federation ships survive each engagement as possible.
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