The Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet and Its History is a 1,236-page, three-volume fan account of the history of Starfleet and some of its major founders, written by Timo Saloniemi. First released prior to 2003, its last updated release was in January 2017.
- "This guide is intended to provide the reader with information on the technical, historical and political aspects of the United Federation of Planets Starfleet and its starships. To this end, it chronologically lists and to some depth describes a hundred of these starfaring vessels and some of their ancestors in the pre-Federation fleets, as well as a large number of support vessels, smaller ships and craft, in the process outlining Starfleet history and sociopolitical and technical developments during the past 400 years. Thus, the guide is not a simple ship recognition manual. Visual identification of ships without extensive computer assistance has not been a viable combat procedure for centuries; this work mainly caters for the enthusiastic hobbyist seeking both in-depth information and wide perspective on Starfleet and its starships."
- — Introduction
The Guide is divided into three volumes, comprised of the following parts:
- Volume 1: Part I(a): Starships and Other Large Vessels (1989 - 2268)
- Volume 2: Part I(b): Starships and Other Large Vessels (2270 - 2377)
- Volume 3
- Part II: Small Warp-Drive Vessels
- Part III: Shuttlecraft, Shuttlepods and Other Auxiliary Craft
The ship also has the following addendums:
- About Ship Statistics
- Glossary
- Starfleet Organization - General Outline (unpopulated)
- Abbreviations From Outside
The publication itself is unfinished, as Saloniemi is semi-continuously updating it with new material based substantially from the "alpha" canon, but also largely enhanced with beta-canon (i.e., licensed sources) and other well-regarded fan publications (such as Starflight Chronology). Though artwork is included in the volumes, interspersed through each ship's article, the sources vary from official to fan-produced and a large quantity of captioned spaces are left without corresponding artwork, guiding the reader's imagination.
When asked as to what the Guide is, Timo responded thusly:
- "It's just a chronologically arranged encyclopedia of UESF and UFP Starfleet starships, in the style of Bill Gunston combat aircraft books, with a list of specs first, followed by a freeform article on the ship that describes the design, the reasons Starfleet wanted a ship like this, and possible associated pseudohistorical hijinks. It contains all the canonical starship designs plus at least thrice as many ships from popular non-canon sources, primarily from RPGs (such as FASA or Star Fleet Battles), from computer games (Starfleet Command, Legacy, Starfleet Academy) and from classic books that turn unused sketches by the show's artists (Jeffries, Probert, Sternbach) into actual starships (Ships of the Star Fleet). It also adds ships mentioned or described in novels, and sometimes even in comics. The backstage "making of" books and tech manuals are also included. It takes considerable liberties with the material to make it maximally consistent with modern canon. It tries to steer clear of introducing all-new, original ships, though, as the wider Trek universe is already chock full of designs. Also, if there exists a shape without a name (say, a study model or a background kitbash) and a name without a shape (a mention in a novel or sometimes even in onscreen dialogue), it tries to merge those two to keep things more compact."
- — TrekBBS (online forum): "Timo's Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet"
Delta Dynamics, though unaffiliated with Saloniemi, employs the Guide as its primary source in the production of the Star Fleet Starship Recognition Manuals, formatted in the style of Neale Davidson's Ships of Star Fleet technical manuals. Delta Dynamics has an on-team artist providing custom artwork based on the summaries of the ships described in the Guide, filling in and providing artwork that may be missing from the Guide, in an internally-consistent style.
See Also[]
External Links[]
- Cygnus-X1 Star Trek Blueprint Database: direct index of the available Delta Dynamics' Star Fleet Starship Recognition Manuals
- Delta Dynamics: fan site focused on recognizing and building upon the Star Trek universe, as interpreted by author Timo Saloniemi
- Hobbyist's Guide to the UFP Starfleet: Google Drive directory with Saloniemi's latest release of the Guide