To be honest just a few years ago I would have agreed with you.
My guess back then was the Klingons would send regular ships to patrol their borders and when they find something of interest but beyond their capabilities they'd call for a civi ship with proper labs and sensors to check it out.
I also thought they'd handle expansion the same way: send a warship and see what comes up.
But even the I wondered how well suited a ship with mostly tactical sensors would be useful to find worlds that might be of inerest to the civis in the first place.

However there is a novel series about a Klingon battlecruiser called the IKS Gorkon (that is part of STO's background, the Gorkon is mentioned in "The Path to 2409") that depicts how Klingons conduct exploration.
And I can tell you they do more than find a world and order a real science ship to do the actual exploration.
The ships they send out do both, because they can do both.
It annoys the heck out of their tactial officers since they have nothing to do most of the time, but they spend weeks scanning and investigating worlds and stars.
And when they are done investigating they don't call for a real science team to do the actual work.
If they found a world worthy to plant their flag on, either they call for a colonization team or for a fleet to conquer it when there is a population there to exploit.

In case of the titular Gorkon, it's a new design that is based on the Vor'cha even though the schematics in the novel "The Brave and the Bold" show some differences.
*EDIT: Darn, the link doesn't work the way it should, but here's a page that depics the ship the way it looks on the schematics:
http://thedieseljester.tripod.com/glory/id23.html
*

It has a new and powerful sensor array that makes it ideal for such a task.
They explicitly don't send conventional warships on such missions.
Those only stand by for the conquest part.

So the Klingons do this sort of stuff and they don't leave it to the civilians to do it.
They send Defense Force ships on such missions so why should the Defense Force not have ships that are even more suited to such a tasks than a line of cruisers with advanced sensors?
A faster ship with a stealthier profile and really good sensors would be even better for this.
Not to mention better passive sensors would make it even more diffcult to detect on such missions.
And a mobile platform with excellent sensors can keep an eye on borders where people who specialize in stealth may lurk, like the Romulans.

Even though "blue" BO and console slots in STO are called "Science", please don't mistake "Science" for tree-hugging.
It represents powerful sensors, electronics etc.
Think this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-2_spy_plane
and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA-6B_Prowler
on a Raptor hull.

The Klingons would be foolish not to have something that can do this.
Both for military expansion and to keep track of what the enemy on the other side of the border does.
And while it might be possible to send a BoP on some of these missions, refitting one would only yield a ship with a very limited operational range, like a Klingon version of the Nova only with even less space for electronics to get the job done.
And of course a very low endurance when caught.
IMHO it makes no sense to send a ship on an exploration or Singal Intelligence mission when:

- it is either too big to remain undetected for long (like a slow, bulky cruiser) something happens in the 3rd Gorkon novel to the I.K.S. Kravokh

- or too squishy to make it back with the actual information (like a BoP)

Well I still don't think the Klingons would make dedicated sci ships, but for the sake of the game I now agree with you. You should be able to get the sci experience with the Klingon look without lock boxing. They could justify it with Tal Shiar problems or something.

Yeah its def looking like the KDF is being left to rot

Thanks.
And there's a reason I stayed as far away from the term science ship as possible.
I dont see science as pure research, especially when you read how very different the disciptions of a Federation and a Klingon science officer are when you create a new character.

I disagree that the KDF would not build Science vessels. I think they would build them but like the specialized vessel it would be, it would also be a rare vessel in service.

Exactly true, and also the reason why it sucks when the Devs write us as acting like the feds in how we do things.

Force multipliers like ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) units are always somewhat rare.
But it's not their purpose to be the mainstay of a military force.
That doesn't make them any less valuable.
I know there are a few Science Captains out there who probably don't want to give up their beloved carrier, BoP or Varanus.
But I think the fact this thread is currently at over 300 views and the old one at over 780 shows there's some interest in a ship like this.

Klag himself put it this way in "The Brave and the Bold" book2:
"A true warrior goes into battle with the proper weapon."
This was his response to the idea of his operations officer to modify the ship's tractor beam to counter a telepathic attack.

And an Electronics ship is a weapon that slices through jamming and allows allies to strike at the heart of the enemy with unparalleled precision.
And it prevents treachery like the Romulan attempt to smuggle war materiel to the Duras family during the civil war.

I read the words "Featured Episodes" somewhere in those lines.

The Defense Forces definitely would not build science ships, but keep in mind that the KDF is not Starfleet and that the KDF is responsible for the military objectives of the Empire only.

Everything else from Engineering advances to Scientific developments would be handled more on a per House basis given that the Society is a modified feudal system. That is to say that Science ships would be commissioned by Houses or Organizations within the Empire that were pursuing specified goals.

I believe that the only vessels that would be built by the KDF that would be considered to have any 'Science' qualifications would be those for exploring beyond the Empire's borders for the purposes of expanding the Empire.

This reminds me too that there are really good options for the B'rel for torp/mine boats but only if you use Plasma projectiles. A few things they should really open up on is ways the B'rel can use all kinds of different projects efficiently.

A few ideas on this could be throw into engineering where the rotate shield frequency could be used also that applies from torpedoes fired from the b'rel or even some already existing boff skills or doffs that could apply additional shield penetration.

I just think it would be more fun to see more chang bop style setups out there so that if per pvp sake or even npcs that have naturally high damage resistance to plasma that it doesn't limit the KDF so much because its becoming a lot like KDF and Science officers hand in hand where every week we see another nerf to both. Then not seeing any compromises on buffing things that need to be buffed.

Are you sure you're in the right thread?

Been thinking of this thread and had this idea pop into mind:

"At the beginning of the conflict with the Federation the KDF was flush with it's victory against the Gorn and confident in the construction of it's newest generation of ships. They expected glorious battles and even more glorious victories. In the beginning this was the case as their might battlecruisers, powerful raptors, and nimble birds of prey outperformed their Federation opponents and brought victory after victory.

But in their haste to move to battle they had overlooked the possible E-War capabilities of Starfleet's dedicated science ships deeming them to be little more than soft targets, easily destroyed and far too lightly armed to pose a threat to any but the greenest of training cadres. As with most of the KDFs assumptions this proved to be true...at first.

As the war continued and resistance from Starfleet began to stiffen these small, lightly armed ships began to be a powerful nuisance and under the command of shrewd captains were even threats in their own right. More than one Klingon commander found himself unpleasantly surprised when facing a Starfleet ship that had turned its powerful and extensive suite of scientific equipment to the purposes of war.

Still, it was not until fleets of Starfleet battlecruisers and escorts working alongside these re purposed science vessels began to turn the tide of the war against the Klingon Empire that the Klingon High Command realized just how badly they'd underestimated the threat posed by the entirety of Starfleet having dismissed a full third of the fleet as being little more than target practice.

There were several attempts to redress this problem, each meeting with limited success and ultimately being deemed insufficient. The closest to a solution was the Gorn's own small fleet of science and exploration ships which were quite easily adapted to serve the same role as their Federation counterparts, but this solution had two major problems. The first was that the number was small and that attrition would quickly run through the existing hulls. An increase in production would have been an easy solution had it not been for the second problem: the perception of weakness.

The High Command could not abide a solution that was completely reliant upon one of the Empire's subservient races as it exposed and acknowledged a weakness the Empire was unable or unwilling to correct. For this reason it turned to Klingon engineers and shipbuilders and gave them a simple command: "Fix this."

With typical Klingon efficiency they did just that. Instead of creating a new line of ships whole cloth they did as Klingon engineers have done for centuries and made what they had work for them. They evaluated current designs against what they needed. Birds of Prey were a failed solution to the problem, the might carriers of the fleet had the needed equipment but lacked the agility and speed of the Federation science ships making them easy prey to their counterparts even without escorts, and the mighty battlecruisers of the fleet while not as slow and cumbersome as the carriers were still not suitable platforms.

In this way they came to the Raptor and determined it to be the most suitable platform currently extant within the fleet and with typical Klingon efficiency stripped it of armor (Hull HP) and all but the bare minimum tactical systems replacing them in turn with more powerful shield generators and emitters (Shield HP) and the needed science equipment. This equipment was less extensive than that found on STARFLEET ships and lacked much of the versatility, but was every bit as effective on the battlefield as that carried by the ships this new breed of Raptor was meant to counter."

Just my own long winded explanation for how such a ship could come to be along with an idea for how the Devs could get it in the game as an F2P ship - namely by reusing the existing Raptor skins and attaching a new set of BOFF stations to them. What does anybody who read that whole thing think?