First commissioned in 2364, these explorers were the precursors to the Intrepid Class in many ways. They have served with distinction on the Federation's frontiers for the past decade.There was a recent attempt at an Intrepid-style refit of this class; along with an altered hull color scheme, the prototype featured variable-geometry warp nacelles - each shorter engine containing fewer (but more advanced) warp coils. As was found with the retrofitted Excelsior Class starship U.S.S. Lakota, performance was greatly improved, but was prohibitively expensive - it would use more resources to retrofit a good number of Andromeda Class starships than it would to create the same number of Intrepid Classes, already in production. 
