I TOTALLY HATED THE APPEARANCE OF THE NCC-1701-D WHEN IT DEBUTED during the first season of ST:TNG.  I mean, I really, really, really HATED this design.  It seemed to violate ALL of the neat industrial aesthetic set down with the Constitution Refit: the saucer of the Galaxy was not circular and seemed completely too large for the secondary hull, the warp engines were in the wrong place and shaped wrong too, the secondary hull was smooshed, and the deflector not circular, et cetera.  I detested it.  I mean, I really struggle to make it clear to you guys how much I barfed at the Galaxy class design.  It took me years to get over it.  As much as I recoiled over the initial Excelsior design, the Galaxy design rubbed me wrong ten times worse.  Really.
         Having said all this, the Galaxy class and its new-agey organic aesthetic have grown on me over the last 30 years.  Grudgingly, haltingly, I have come to recognize this design as being perhaps one of the most beautiful among all Enterprise designs.  Perhaps the most beautiful of all?  Like any acquired taste, it took me awhile to come around to seeing this class with some fresh eyes.  Not exactly a fan of the TOS-era Enterprise, the TMP-era Refit design was, for me, the ultimate Star Trek ship in the 1980s.  In fact, I still have to rank the Constitution Refit as my all-time favorite, though I readily acknowledge that the Galaxy class probably surpasses the Constitution in not just complexity, but artistry.  The Galaxy also provides us with a template for the Starfleet ships of the 24th century, replicated and imitated again and again from the Nebula class to the Intrepid, and beyond.  Just like the TMP-era Enterprise, and the TOS-era Enterprise before that.
        In the STSTCS the Galaxy class is the king of all the original FASA Federation ships.  More superstructure, more energy, more weapons.  The ship is truly a cut above all the rest, especially offensively, which both does and does not make sense considering that this ship carries civilian families onboard and is designated as an explorer, not a fighter.  I have often thought that, in the real world, if a ship like the Galaxy were ever built she would not rely on a tremendous amount of onboard weaponry, but rather would save such energy and space for science equipment and bunking for personnel, leaving the brunt of offense and defense to a companion fleet of frigates and destroyers.  Indeed, from a realistic point of view, the NCC-1701-D should have never gone into the great unknown unaccompanied!  It should have its own small fleet of support ships.  When the United States Navy sends a nuclear carrier to sea, does the carrier go all by itself?
        Anyway, what's done is done.  The Galaxy class, as built by FASA, is a super-tough hombre of a ship.  I have created a new mark, improving on the original Mark I model, which makes the ship even more tough, approaching the toughness of the ultra-recent Sovereign class heavy cruisers that picked up where the Galaxy and Nebula classes left off.  Like most of the Enterprise designs, the Galaxy gets a huge amount of screen time and, for this reason alone, is more likely to be involved in fan scenarios than most other ships.  The obvious being pitting a Galaxy versus a D'deridex, or a Galaxy versus the Klingon Vor'cha or the KDF-2.  Maybe the Ferengi Marauder?
        One odd thing to note is that the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach indicates that the stardrive and saucer have consolidated torpedo launchers that are "rapid fire" in operation.  Instead of multiple torpedo banks being spread across the ship, the stardrive mounts a single torpedo bay forward and a single bay aft, and each bay is capable of delivering multiple-shot volleys in a single stroke thanks to rapid-fire automation built into the launchers themselves.  This is certainly an advancement over Kirk-era manual and semi-automatic torpedo loading, as seen in Star Trek II and Star Trek VI.  But for game coherency I have continued to rely upon the old FASA system wherein torpedoes are listed individually.  Same goes for the phasers, which are technically no longer mounted in banks but are instead mounted into the hull in long, thin collimating "strips" that have fields of fire on the order of 180 degrees to 360 degrees.  The TNG Tech Manual states that these collimated strips are actually made up of hundreds of small phaser points set side by side, but it's ridiculous to assume that the Galaxy actually has hundreds of phasers at its command.  Easier to just write out the stats in practical game terms, defining firing arcs in degrees if necessary.
        Finally, doing the stats for the Galaxy was tricky because the Galaxy is essentially two complete starships in one package.  The stardrive and saucer sections are fully equipped and capable of operating independently of one another, even at warp.  Each has independent weaponry, power, superstructure, and so forth.  Yet 99.7% of the time the two ships are joined as ONE SHIP.  So, below, things look a little weird.  I have posted stats for the stardrive, the saucer, and then combined stats for the entire ship taken as a single whole.  I hope nobody gets too confused.

        — BRT