Federation Zanzibar-Class Scout

Overview:

The Zanzibar-class scout cruiser was commissioned in 2342. It was primarily designed for the Daystrom Institute's new Reflex Array drone network. Each ship carries a dorsal structure containing four drone launch bays, four drone recovery bays, and a large data transceiver array, with a second set of transceivers mounted on the ventral warp nacelle housing. Each cruiser would deploy, direct, and recover a complete network of twenty sophisticated sensor drones.

This drone network could thoroughly rapidly map an entire star system, down to the composition and orbital details of each asteroid and comet, much faster than a heavy cruiser or explorer. They were also used to conduct in-depth analyses of nebulae, and occasionally served as a complete early warning system for border incursions. Zanzibar-class ships also had great success using this drone network to thoroughly scan and model spatial ion storms and quantum filaments. They were the first ships to feature a holographic multi-deck Stellar Cartography facility as part of their mapping and modeling capabilities.

Zanzibar-class ships regularly patrolled the Federation's border with the Tholian Empire. The Reflex Array proved to be an excellent counter for Tholian stealth technology, and several incursions were quickly repelled. During the more recent Dominion War, two ships of this class (the USS Ostend and the USS Jutland) deployed their drone networks to protect the Baku homeworld from Son'a raiders. The Zanzibar-class has excelled within those regions' dangerous spatial anomalies.

Like most ships from the Ambassador-class family, the warp core, nacelles, and warp plasma radiation levels were extremely high in the Serova-band--which could lead to subspace rifts. They were far more resource-intensive to retrofit than other legacy Starfleet ships. They were limited to Warp 5 travel speeds, and most Zanzibar-class ships were removed from active duty after 2370. Two were briefly reactivated during the Dominion War--their drone networks were more capable of monitoring the Briar Patch for Son’a incursions than other ships.

Specifications:
Entered Service: 2342
Active Ships: 0 as of 2382 (9 inactive reserve)
Endurance: 9 months
Length: 234 meters
Beam: 131 meters
Complement: 74 crew

Designer’s Notes:

While browsing the Cygnus X-1 Trek Blueprints, I noticed a Jackill Designs scout ship called the Vanguard Class:
link

I thought it was a pretty cool design. There were a couple things I didn’t like about it (too large overall, the weird connection between the lower sensor and the nacelle kind of looked like an office stapler). But overall, I kind of dug it. And I hadn’t attempted a single-nacelle ship before. So I decided to make a similar ship using CaptainMojo parts.

The original Vanguard was covered (top and bottom) with these cube-shaped sensor modules. Fandom is used to sensor arrays looking like modular pods (Antares, Nebula, Apollo, Springfield, the pods on the New Orleans class, etc.). The Vanguard sensors didn’t really match that styling, so I came up with the idea of using them as some kind of network communications array.

Built from the following CaptainMojo Parts Kits:
The following CaptainMojo parts kits were used:
Most components have been stretched, skewed, flipped, and otherwise transformed.

Saucer, Impulse Engine, and Nacelle: Niagara-class
Saucer Deflector: Cheyenne-class deflector module
Bridge and Shuttlebay: Freedom-class
Neck: Star Empire dreadnought
Sensor pylon and modules: original parts

Pretty much every part has been stretched, skewed, trimmed, flipped, or modified in some way.

Please post your prints and remakes!