Springfield Class
The Springfield-class science vessel is a medium-sized, well-equipped research platform developed and built during the mid-24th century to replace the aging Miranda II and Oberth-class vessels that performed the majority of Starfleet's scientific missions well into the 2350s. Sharing a clear lineage with the much larger Galaxy-class explorer, this class was developed during the Fleet Modernization Program and was considered a very successful design, but production lines were diverted to the more tactically-oriented Norway-class light cruiser in the 2370s. The class remains in service and is still considered to be an excellent, comfortable science vessel—though her overall top speed and design philosophy are both now considered to be dated by the beginning of the 25th century.
Science and Exploration
Throughout their careers in Starfleet, Springfield-class starships have been used both as generalist science vessels sent on general exploratory missions and as discipline-specific research platforms tailored to one particular area of scientific inquiry such as xenobiology or xenoarchaeology. Occupying a size range between the larger Olympic and Sutherland-class research cruisers, which are akin to spaceborne universities in their capabilities, and the smaller Nova and Grissom-class surveyors, which are intended only for short-range charting missions, the Springfield is tailored to handle scientific missions across the middle of the spectrum.
For instance, Starfleet Science's Bureau of Xenozoology has operated two Springfield-class starships for many decades to study and transport dangerous terrestrial organisms. They are equipped with two multi-story labs capable of safely containing animals significantly larger than elephants on Earth, along with dedicated veterinary facilities and all the specialist labs necessary to handle all aspects of studying non-sapient alien life. Other Springfield-class vessels operating in a general configuration have teams and facilities distributed across life sciences, stellar sciences, planetary sciences, and social sciences, all ready to study any phenomenon they may encounter.
Reconfiguring a Springfield-class vessel for a different scientific specialization can take anywhere from weeks to months in spacedock, depending on the specific configuration required for their missions. In addition to changes in facilities, science teams must also be swapped out. Because of these logistical challenges, Springfield-class vessels tend to retain the same configuration for years at a time, moving to other bureaus or assignments during their routine five-year servicing cycles. A typical vessel of this class will dedicate eight labs either to its specific mission or will have them available to configure as needed, with a further eight labs spread across standard starship scientific disciplines, enabling them to take on general missions in a pinch as well as to enable secondary teams to perform ongoing research projects independent of the ship's primary missions.
As with other ships from this era, the ship's saucer section is ringed by a wide lateral sensor array with dozens of configurable pallets. Like the labs, they are typically balanced between specialized mission equipment and general-purpose equipment. There are also four large long-range sensor mounts (two forward and two aft) on either side of the secondary hull. These sensors feed massive amounts of data into the ship's primary computer core, which is of the same standard built for the Galaxy and Nebula, but approximately half the size. Vessels assigned to computing-intensive assignments such as stellar mapping have been retrofitted with isolinear or hybrid bioneural-isolinear computer systems to ensure that they stay at the cutting edge.
Diplomacy
Springfield-class vessels handle diplomatic tasks as a secondary aspect of their missions. Thanks to their comfortable facilities, they are more adept at this than some modern vessels of the same size, and they have a limited number of guest suites as well as a well-appointed conference lounge. Unusually for a vessel of this size, the Springfield is equipped with the same type of captain's yacht as embarked on Galaxy and Nebula-class vessels, which can be used for VIP transport functions. (More often, the yacht is used as a field base for scientific surveys, though.) The most frequent diplomatic interaction Springfield-class vessels engage in is the negotiation of survey rights to a particular area of space—and this can often extend to who has the rights to use whatever resources, artifacts, or discoveries are produced by those surveys.
Engineering
The Springfield-class uses a very similar primary hull design to the New Orleans-class frigate, which is a smaller version of the one used aboard their larger Nebula and Galaxy-class cousins. Sharing the same boxy warp nacelle design as the Cheyenne, the Springfield's engines are built for reliability and ease of maintenance above absolute top performance. Given their tendency to linger in an area of space for a long time period, their modest top speed of warp 8 and cruising speed of warp 6 have been more than sufficient for their mission profile. The warp core is the same model developed for the California and is housed in the underslung engineering hull. Like the earlier Oberth, this creates a complex power distribution flow, with warp plasma being routed through pylons up into the primary hull and then out through the second set of pylons into the warp coils. The ship has two small impulse engines on the aft end of the primary hull, which give it adequate sublight speeds.
While resembling the mission pod used by classes like the Nebula, the Springfield's superstructure is not a truly modular component. The aft two-thirds of this section contain the ship's cargo and shuttle facilities, both of which are accessed by a huge set of rolling doors that split at the deck of the shuttle bay and the ceiling of the cargo hold, while the forward end houses the ship's forward torpedo launchers and shield generators. The purpose of this design choice was to save as much room within the ship as possible for labs and scientific systems, and the result is a larger shuttle bay than many ships of this size. This extra small craft space is useful for scientific missions, but also gives the Springfield a supporting role in humanitarian and logistics missions when large amounts of cargo need to be moved. To aid in servicing, the entire outer cowling of the superstructure can be detached at a shipyard using a series of magnetic latches, which allows large components like the shield generators to be swapped out.
Tactical
The armaments aboard a Springfield-class starship enable it to perform scientific surveys in areas that are not entirely secured, but she is not intended for sustained combat. Like other vessels of this era, she has good phaser coverage provided by two large phaser arrays on the primary hull and two smaller arrays on the ventral surface of the ship. Originally, the ship was built with type-IX arrays, but these were upgraded in the 2370s to the type-X standard. In addition, there are two torpedo launchers forward in the superstructure and one launcher aft on the stern. These are primarily intended for probe launch and retrieval, so they lack the fire rate of dedicated tactical vessels. However, they are also easy to maintain.
The Springfield-class has much better shielding than the Miranda-class and Oberth-class science vessels that it was intended to supplant, meaning that it can successfully shrug off a few hits before retreating. Given the nature of her missions and the valuable scientific equipment aboard, a Springfield captain will generally retreat if faced with anything more serious than light raiders.
Shipboard Life
Life aboard Springfield-class ships is comfortable, as they have all of the conveniences of other modern 24th century starships. With holodecks, holosuites, an arboretum, and several gymnasia, crew needs are seen to easily by this ship, and many of them have now been refitted with shipwide holographic projectors. These ships are a popular choice for science officers, as they typically do not run into trouble on their exploratory missions. Their captains are almost always former science officers themselves.
Compared to other ships of her size, the Springfield has a relatively high crew count at 200, which accounts for all of the additional scientific personnel she carries, but due to not spending unnecessary space on extra armaments or guest quarters, accommodation standards remain similar to the Intrepid-class.
With a greater endurance than the Nova-class, these ships’ crews often develop a strong rapport, on charting missions of up to three years within Federation space. Rivalries develop between different scientific problems and the atmosphere is like a prestigious scientific institute more than it is a military vessel.
Class History
The Springfield-class was designed in the 2340s as the first part of the Fleet Modernization Program that would eventually lead to the Galaxy and Nebula-class ships in the 2360s. This class was the first off of the assembly lines and was intended to be a purpose-built science ship at the same scale as the Miranda-class, to supplement the hodge-podge of converted science vessels in Starfleet service. The design was not particularly revolutionary, but it did introduce the elliptical saucer design that would be a hallmark of Starfleet design for the next two decades. It also prototyped the computer and sensor systems used aboard the Galaxy, as well as the primary computer design.
The Springfield was developed before the new warp coil design introduced on the Challenger and instead retains a more modest engine system, but otherwise, it was a highly capable design for its time. So much so, that Starfleet never produced them in huge numbers, placing only modest orders. While they were significantly more capable than Miranda-class ships for scientific missions, they were also that more costly to build and maintain, while also being less versatile for other types of missions. The Springfield class was named after 20th century English singer Dusty Springfield, and subsequent vessels in the initial order were named after literary, musical, cultural, and scientific luminaries from around the Federation, such as Anton Chekov (author), Antonín Leopold Dvořák (composer), Leo Tolstoy (writer), and T'Karath (philsopher).
The Chekov and Dobrovolsky were both destroyed at the Battle of Wolf 359, and though this was not an indicator of this class’s specific weakness, production on this class was terminated after a run of about fifteen years with 150 of them in service, in favor of the new Norway-class which was a more combat-hardened design for a medium-sized science ship and the Nova-class as a planetary surveyor. These ships were refit with Type-X phaser arrays as part of other improvements to the fleet’s tactical abilities in the 2370s.
Several Springfield-class ships were destroyed during the Dominion War, but they were generally kept off of the front lines. Many of them were used for medical and transport duties, a role that continued into the 2380s. They remain a popular but relatively rare science vessel, one that saw its production slowed because it was simply not the right balance of resource expenditure and versatility for the Starfleet of its time.
In Play
- While the Nova-class is a good planetary surveyor and the Norway class is much better as a light cruiser, the Springfield-class is one of the best medium-sized science vessels in service. It’s very good at scientific tasks but is relatively slow and requires a large crew.
- This older class of ship will mostly see service within Federation space and, like other science vessels, it will most often be commanded by a former science officer.
- These vessels make a good stock NPC ship to encounter as well, given that they would generally need help if they ran into any more trouble than a lone pirate raider.