Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Registry Number Explanation

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Posted by grb on :

Starfleet registry numbers reach above 80,000 (the saber-class uss yeager was something like 81XXX). However, it seems unlikeley that 80,000 starfllet starships have been built when many ships still in service could possibly be very old. But what if registry numbers were not limited to starships and runabouts, but also included shuttlecraft, starbases, workbees, ect.?
Well, we've never seen the registry numbers on these craft, but maybe they just aren't written on the side.

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Posted by Deep6 on :

Ummmm....The Yeager's registry was NCC-61947.

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

This was a misprint in encylopaedia 2.
The 6 was mistaken written as 8.
Actually the numbers have reached around 75100 in the year 2375, which is where the series is now.

Runabouts certainly have registries, which could account for a lot.
Actually I think starfleet may have up to 10,000 ships in operation. It'd need that many to patrol such a HUGE area of space efficiently. 400 crew on each? (That's 4 million crew in all, drawn from a total UFP poulation comprising over 150 planets!
That's about 26,000 per planet.)

I guess they skipped a few of the early numbers for whatever reason, although by now they seem to have learned to go through them all, and stave off the day they need a 6th digit.

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Actually: The Sabre (Saber) class USS Yeager has the regisry number NCC-61947. The 8 is an error.
The highest numbers are in the 75XXX range.

But that aside:
- On a starbase? Very unlikely.
- On shuttles? Unlikely, but maybe possible.
- On workbees? Very likely!

To extend this:
What about fighters? And those 'trains' in "The Motion Picture"?

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Hmmm...
3 replies in about 10 minutes.

Oh well...

I did some diggin', and found that in the TNG episode "The Outcast" there was a shuttle #15 (called: Magellan). If starships have an average of say 7 shuttles (make the match easier ), then there would be about 10.000 starships build. I think that this number is far to low to be correct.

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

In my opinion there are three criteria for a spacecraft to bear its individual NCC or whatever registry:

1. The spacecraft is independently operational/has warp drive.

2. The spacecraft is larger than a shuttle, consists of more than just a cockpit.

3. The spacecraft is is not assigned to a larger spacecraft.

Applying one or more of the above criteria, any numbering scheme (individual NCC or not) can be justified for a small spacecraft.

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Posted by grb on :

All right, so maybe shuttles don;t have their own registires, but have just sub registries off of the staships (In TOS, the galileo was 1701/7). Those fighters, raiders, and runabouts would take up a bunch of registires. And actually, now that i think about it, doesn;t it seem that workbees would take up possibly too many registries? So, let's say registries are given to.....

starships
runabouts
scout craft (like DATA's in Inssurection)
raidrers (like chakotay's)
fighters (SoA, et. al.)

Does this seem OK?

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"How many people does it take before it becomes wrong?"- Jean-Luc Picard

"Fortune Favors the Bold."- Benjamin Sisko

Captain Alex Herenwhiner,
Transwarp inter-dimension timeship explorer U.S.S. Liberty

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

I reckon all ships are included in the possible 75000 numbers, including the NARs etc. That's gotta make it a bit more likely that all the possibles have been used.

Plus, I have a theory I've been kicking around. . . that come the turn of the century, they switched from 4-digit registries to 5-digit ones. I mean, we know of hardly any numbers between the 2000's and the 10000s. . . this could be because most of those ships have long since been decommissioned.

Apart from some Constellations in the 3000s (and one in the 9000s, annoyingly) we don't know of any. Whether in 2300 or later for some unknown reason, it seems possible they might have done a format change. I can't believe that in the past twelve years they've only built 5000 ships, but nearly 65000 in the previous 70 years!

[This message was edited by The First One on June 10, 1999.]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

I doubt NAR and NCC share the same numbers. I mean, the Mariposa had a four-digit NAR number, well before the three-digit Daedaluses we know of. And how about that five-digit shuttle from STVI?

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Some time ago we had a thread about civilian space travel. I reckoned that millions of civilian starships would be required if a certain fraction of the population would go on interstellar travel only for three or four days a year. Even if most people permanently stay at home, there has to be a huge transport fleet, more capacity than Starfleet in any case. I wonder where are all these ships, since we only get to see Starfleet ships.

Anyway, I doubt the civilian ships are included in the numbering scheme. Another argument is that the prefix N** would be redundant, if the numbers were unique.

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I reckon that there ARE thousands of civilian ships - and that the inner highways of the Federation would look remarkably like the skies of Couroscant SP?? just think of the amount of traffic from say the Rigel System to the Terran System! but think of it as a network - Earth - as a point with about 200+ (cause there are more than just 150 actual planets in the Federation) routes out of the terran system... then do that with every other MAJOR system in the Federation - not to mention between other races not IN the Federation

Its just that we don't see these ships cause in TNG and DS9 - we aren't in the thick of the Federation - TNG - rarely went to earth - and if we did see earth - it was after a borg attack or at the entrace to a spacedock...

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Space is a big place.

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Gee, Sol, you're so poetic... :-)

BTW, if the registry I have down on my list for the São Paulo is correct, we're up to 75633.

My guess is that, at least at one time, the registries were indeed assigned in batches. However, many of these ships were never built. Starfleet sent out an order that registries xxxxx through yyyyy would be reserved for ships of Zzzzz class. When a new ship of that class was needed, the builders would grab one of the registries in that range and build the ship. However, in many cases, the class would be retired, or at least fall into disuse, before all those numbers were used up. This would explain why they've gotten so far, but w/o actually building as many ships as the numbers would suggest.

Obviously, the runabout/fighter thing would also be a contributing factor...

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Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

My pet theory is that prior to 2300 or so NAR and NCC were completely seperate (with NAR following some sort of completely screwed-up system, hence five-digit shuttles etc.).

However, it became problematic when NAR-1234 and NCC-1234 in the same sector, or when NCC-5432 was retired from Starfleet Service and picked up by some Federation reserchers but NAR-5432 was already taken by some transport in the Rigel system.

So somewhere around 2300 the UFP decided to standardize all public vessels with the Starfleet numbering system by requiring all the NAR, NDT etc. ships coming in to be refit to change their numbers to be constant with the Starfleet System. As a result, the registries reapidly jumped from the 2000s to the 10000s with only a few Starfleet (NCC) registries intermixed in them. Since then, the numbers have gone up much faster because new transports and science ships and stuff eat up the numbers as well as Starfleet vessels.

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Posted by Trinculo on :

Posting erased.

[This message was edited by Trinculo on June 11, 1999.]

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Trinc: The Yridians aren't members in the Federation, so that 3069 holds no water.

The Galaxies we see in the war scenes have no registries visible either, but that doesn't mean that Galaxies don't get registries. It only makes sense that if runabouts get registries then raiders do too.

Technically, all good-sized shuttlecraft are perfectly capable of Interstellar travel, despite what the specs in the TNG tech man seem to imply. Shuttles consistently go from system to system, even across sectors (as per "Interface"). Probably the only reasoning behind getting a registry is being a public vessels (a related point, in the moneyless Federation, what by way of private vessels are there?) and being independent of another spacecraft or starbase. (Runabouts do sorta push that envelope, but I do see them being used as general interstellar transports around the federation.

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"A Star Wars picture that preaches against greed is a little like Bill Clinton in the pulpit for a chastity-begins-at-home campaign."

-Rex Murphy on Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

Bernd: Your theory is fine, except that runabouts are often assigned to larger vessels, like in "Timescape."

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I think runabouts and raiders exist in a quasi-ship level. They have factory assigned registries, like a starship, but the names are up to whomever gets them on the other end. Sisko apparently names his runabouts...other commanding officers probably name theirs. As for the raiders, they would be named by their pilot(s).

This might explain why Data's scoutship didn't have a name painted on it. None was assigned, perhaps because Admiral Dougherty wanted to file as little paperwork as possible.

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Shipmaster: IIRC, the E-D was delivering a runabout to DS9 in "Timescape", weren't they?

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Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

I think the registries are selected at random from a small boy named Todd.

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

TSN: No, they were just coming back from a conference.

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