Being a look back at cards from the Star Trek CCG, and what I thought of them back when they were fresh and new... in EPISODE order. And now the last card from Encounter at Farpoint, full stop, and this is one that was never reviewed in the original Rolodex - Riker's previous posting...
PICTURE: The Hood always looks strange to me because the ridged "neck" of the ship was so dark, it melted into the background and made it look like it had saucer separation abilities. And yet hid the second nacelle. Good angle and nice size, but my eyes reject it. Let's settle at 3, but it could have been higher with better contrast.
LORE: The basics, but also who it was named for, which is a nice bit of trivia that other ships could do with. And of course, that all-important matching commander reference. Gets 3.5.
TREK SENSE: If I compare it to the Movie-era Excelsior, the modern design gets 1 more point in Range, which makes perfect sense. Not only do TNG-era ships move faster, but the Excelsiors have become the work horses of Starfleet, always seen ferrying some VIP or piece of tech to the Enterprise-D. They're still big ships even if smaller than the Galaxy-class, and therefore needs two staffing icons. Always weird when a ship doesn't require a Command icon - I mean, it still has a captain - but it's meant to denote a less glamorous assignment. Tractor Beam is standard. Hard to argue here, but not particularly innovative at 3.2.
STOCKABILITY: In the early game, you might have been happy to get a Federation ship with good stats, but as the game grew, there was less and less reason to take the Hood out of spacedock. It wasn't until All Good Things - the very last 1st edition product - that the ship gained its matching commander and some extra abilities besides. See, not only could the ship now be Logged and Plaqued to increase its stats to 9-9-10, but Robert DeSoto also allows the Hood to report VIPs directly to itself. Okay, that's not necessarily enough to save the USS Hood from the binder. There's a stronger ships and VIPs aren't the best classification, but it really depends on your missions, doesn't it? Or perhaps you want to have a quick line to some VIP's special ability. An average 3 should do.
TOTAL: 12.7 (63.5%) And to think, Riker could have become captain of this rust bucket.
Comments
You don't actually see a NCC-2000 style Excelsior-class until the Melbourne in Emissary.
The fun thing about the Excelsior is if you go by on screen evidence Starfleet had one design (ST III), tweaked it a few years later (ST VI), did a big refit a few years after that (Generations), then went back to the first design 80 years later (Farpoint), then back AGAIN to the second (Emmisary), then back AGAIN AGAIN to the third (Paradise Lost), and then reverted to the second design going forward.
(But hey, going by onscreen evidence the nacelle endcaps on Kirk's Enterprise could morph, so whatcha gonna do?)
I'm also utterly baffled by this ship being named after a relatively little-known 20th century admiral (whose claim to fame is getting killed at Jutland), rather than his rather better-known 18th century namesake Samuel Hood who was First Sea Lord. I'd have made a Lore deduction for that, since I suspect it's a mistake by someone at Decipher.