Hi,

My fleet has just built the lvl 3 shipyard and there are no Cruisers made avaliable only the Defiant and the Nebula and various science vessels.

As the Metroen Gas cannister mentions it can be equipped on a Fleet Assault Cruiser Retrofit I have a few questions therefore.

1/ When is the Fleet Assualt Cruiser Retrofit due to be released.

2/ Will there be a Fleet Advanced Cruiser Retrofit?

3/ When/if released will these be put in at the lvl 3 shipyard to provide cruiser options which seem to be missing here.

Thanks.
Andy.

1) Whenever they feel like it, it's not on Tribble yet/again (it was in the list prior to S6 launching on Holodeck), so it going to be a bit before it's out is my guess.

2) Probably not, the Excelsior looks wrong to be fighting on even footing with ships so much newer.

3) I think it was either Tier 3 or 4 when it was on Tribble prior to being removed.

Fleet Excelsior probably wont happen. However the fleet heavy cruiser retrofit should have had Exelsior layout...

Fleet heavy cruiser retro already has issues that need to be worked out before we get ambitious with it. Namely: it needs the 42K hull and 1.1X shield multiplier that other fleet cruisers get. I don't know if it's an oversight or part of their plan to sell more Regents by withholding the fleet assault cruiser and ships like it, but it's pretty ridiculous that they offer a fleet ship that has objectively worse stats than other ships that cost the same resources.

In STO canon the only dictator of tech is size and shape. It makes perfect sense that some hoity toity Admiral would want an Excelsior shell with tip top equipment. Both of these ships need fleet versions asap.

i know it is not the answer you expected or comment you wanted, but it has 8 turnrate. still low, but thats the reason for the weaker stats.

As someone flying a Fleet D7 TOS K't'inga KDF-side, I think Cryptic have already given themselves no excuses whatsover for leaving the Excelsior out of the Fleet Refit party

Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofits are fleet versions of a T3 ship, so like all other fleet versions of T2 and T3 ships it's shield capacity is better than the actual shield mod says. With lower cap shields like Omega or Borg (maybe even Maco) and without Field Generators it actually has a higher capacity than the Fleet Star Cruiser. Hull Points are slightly less but the difference is completly irrelevant. They are already the +1 or +1.5 Sovereign, not only thanks to a turn rate of 8.

There is nothing wrong with the Excelsior fighting alongside newer ships, it seems to me it's the single most successful design in starfleet history, 200 years of its use says that, why shouldn't fleets refit it?

Personally I think the fleet shipyard should work a little differently:
Rather than buying ships for modules, there should be a limit (perhaps 4) on how many changes you can make to the ship choosing from a list of available options. Perhaps each change could cost 1 module thus retaining their 'value' and each change would affect something else such as:
1: Tac console would affect ship health and turn rate
2: Eng console would affect ship health, resists and (maybe) power
3: Sci console would affect shields, other science stuff and (maybe) turn rate
4: Turn rate would affect health (and vice versa)
(And many more I can't currently think of)

But I think that would work brilliantly allowing you to make a non-fleet ship into a fleet ship that does to the current ships as C-store ships did before F2P

There were many ideas regarding refiting ships much like the one your proposed. Something you would do as you level up. But Cryptic's tech does not allow that.