Archer class

For other uses, see Archer.

Template:ShipInfobox The Archer-class was a type of Federation Starfleet scout vessel in service at least in the 2260s. Archer-class ships were designed to go "very far, very fast, and not be noticed." They go "to the edge of nowhere and peek behind the curtains."

The ships are small and cramped. Of the crew of 14, only the captain and first officer have their own quarters. The remainder of the crew shares 4 single-bed compartments by "hot bunking". The ship is also too small to have a turbolift system, instead crew rely on ladders to travel between decks.

The class was named for the famous 22nd century explorer and the fourth President of the United Federation of Planets, Jonathan Archer of United Earth and the United Federation of Planets. (VAN novel: Harbinger)

Background

The Archer class was designed by Masao Okazaki, he described the designs development at the Trek BBS:

Marco (Palmieri) suggested I base Sagittarius on one of the ships in the Starfleet Museum. Because of the capabilities Marco requested and the description in Vanguard: Harbinger, I thought my Paris class was the best fit. However, the ships's been radically rescaled and is now only about 50 m long, with a single deck in the disc (barely thick enough for a standard docking port) and an open-ceiled engineering department in the secondary hull. I also added a big deflector since it's a scout. The primary hull is round, but its dorsal bulge is pushed forward to make it look a bit speedy. The other candidate was an "unpublished" design of mine called the Capella-class, a "jeep ship" that was intended as a precursor of both Oberth and Miranda.

In the same discussion Vanguard series editor; Marco Palmieri described the Archer classes landing capabilities:

The structure aft of the deflector dish has a long footpad, and two landing struts deploy from the underside of the saucer, directly behind the port and starboard hatches.

To which Okazaki responded with a further explanation and description of the interior arrangement:

The interior was designed to give a submarine-like feel, with the cabins only being full height near the center of the dorsal dome. At the outer areas, the rooms are only tall enough for bed alcoves, desks/tables, storage lockers, and various types of equipment.

The interior was designed to match the description in Harbinger exactly, meaning that Xiong is able to leave his cabin, travel aft past the mess hall, shake hands with the burrito-eater, then ascend by ladder to a small transporter alcove.

The landing legs are, for me, the neatest part of the ship. I designed a foot pad that opens like an umbrella and folds in around the leg when the landing gear is stowed. This allowed the feet to be large enough to support the ship's weight (I calculated the ground-pressure tolerances without considering any antigrav assist) but also small enough to be stowed out of sight. Before I hit upon the umbrella mechanism, we considered various non-tractable and semi-retractable landing gear that made Sagittarius look a bit like a 1930s airplane. However, they didn't fit so well with TOS design principles, and the feet were too small (the high ground pressure meant they would either sink into the ground or crack most hard surfaces). The doors covering the landing gear have a very nice, elegantly curved shape.

In 2014, David Mack added new details to the ship class in advance of the publication of the first Star Trek: Seekers novel, Second Nature, on Trekbbs.

Questioner: What are the dimensions of the Sagittarius, again?

Mack: Length: 45 meters. Width: 22.5 meters. Height: 9 meters. Crew Complement: 14.

Questioner: What are the cruising/top Warp Speeds and the main weapons load-out of the Sagittarius?

Mack: The Sagittarius has a top cruising speed of roughly Warp 9.4 (TNG scale). She has a single, multipurpose probe/torpedo tube, but she usually carries only about four photon torpedoes at any given time. She has twin phaser nodes, both mounted on the dorsal side of her saucer (which makes the ship a bit more vulnerable on its ventral side). If she ever goes in for a TMP-era refit, this is one thing I would definitely want to fix. The ship is equipped with a single lifeboat, on the starboard side of the main deck. In the cargo hold, the Sagittarius carries two amphibious rover vehicles, which are stored disassembled between deployments, to save space. (Its original rovers, Roxy and Ziggy, were lost in action in Storming Heaven; the new rovers are Vixen and Blitzen.) The Archer-class ships are actually newer than the Constitution-class ships, and they carry Starfleet's state-of-the-art sensors and comms. They are made to go very far, very fast, and peek behind the curtains without anyone else ever knowing they had been there. More details about the ship can be found in this Vanguard Series Bible Addendum. Note that this document is a bit out of date, especially with regard to the current crew, and it contains SPOILERS for Reap the Whirlwind. Archer-class ships can also outrun and outmaneuver Constitution-class ships (in part because of their superior power-to-mass ratio), but the Archer-class ships are not made to last long in firefights. They are designed as high-speed outriders, and their loadouts are specialized for scouting operations and long-range reconnaissance.