Ptolemy Class Exploration Frigate


Drawings, writeup, and original design by Robert Dunehew
Ptolemy class frigate
Ptolemy Class Exploration Frigate

Inscription on Commissioning Plaque:
"The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate." - O. HENRY,
General Specifications:
Length: 100 m
Width: 31 m
Height: 44 m
Max Warp: 3.5
Cruise: 3
Max. Impulse: 0.15 lightspeed
Crew: 12 officers, 36 enlisted

Armaments: Two Laser cannon turrets, 1 fwd, 1 top. During the Romulan wars, the landing craft was replaced by a nuclear missile rack and uprated fire control sensor array.

Type: Exploration Frigate

Status: Twelve produced starting in 2141. Last example produced was either "Socrates" or "Aesop" (records are incomplete). Registry numbers ranged from NCC-23 to NCC-106, issued as each keel was laid, without regard to sequence. Four were lost in exploration, three were missing in action during the Romulan war, two were destroyed due to enemy action during the Romulan war, one was destroyed during testing of missile rack retrofit, one ("Pythagoras") was scrapped at the end of its service life, and one ("Thales") is preserved as a display at the museum at Alpha Centauri.

About Ship: An Intermediate design between the S.S. Valiant (Where No Man Has Gone Before, TOS) and the Deadalus class, the Ptolemy class has the older bell-shaped impulse nozzle of previous types. This is the first design to offset the warp nacelle "thrust line" from the center of gravity, a move which greatly increased warp drive efficiency.

Designed prior to the invention of transporters, the Ptolemy used a landing craft (LC) that was midway between a conical reentry vehicle and a flying disk. Propulsion was provided by fusion reaction motors arranged as an annular "plug-nozzle". Reentry was performed along a ballistic trajectory if sufficient atmosphere was available. Four landing jacks supported the LC for hard surface landings. The LC was buoyant enough to land on any liquid surface with a specific gravity greater than liquid ammonia.

Although powered by fusion reactors, the Ptolemys were fast for their day, though undergunned. At the start of the Romulan war, Several Ptolemys were re-fit with a nuclear missile rack and uprated fire control sensor array. United Earth SPace Administration (UESPA) scrapped the one remaining "war conversion" Ptolemy (the Pythagoras) at the war's end. The Thales is the only remaining example of the type, maintained as a walk-through display at the Zephram Cochrane Memorial Space Museum in orbit at Alpha Centauri III.

Return to history index