If I were to customize a ship.....?
 

A few friends and I were talking about what ships were our favorites, or if we could have a ship, which one would we choose. They all came to the consensus of wanting Mirandas, on the condition that realistic, equipment-modernizing refits and customization could be done. I would have wanted a Constellation, under the same conditions.

The point is this: what data tables, Star Trek ship "laws of nature," rule-books, or people would we have to consult to make our ideas within the boundaries of Star Trek reality? Three of the questions I am confronted with are: warp-core compatibility from other (more powerful) classes; cross-race equipment, like Ferengi plasma emitters replacing the Miranda's phasers; and de-columnating phasers (to look like the Reliant's, from Star Trek 2[?]), for instance: Assuming it's possible, how would it effect power drain or damage modifying?

Can anyone point me in the right direction here?

ERm, can I ask what you're talking about? How do you intend to change the Miranda's technology, by what medium? Are you talking about a game mod? If that's the case, you might get a better response if you ask a moderator to move this thread to the relevant topic. If not, then what?

sorry for being vague and stuff. What I mean is: not by any game, but by "real life" in Star Trek, the shows, movies, and books. What I mean by "changing" technology is everything from upgrading the computer interface to replacing the outadated impulse engines with newer engines like you'd see on Nebulas, Sabers, Defiants, et cetera (more effective and generally better impulse engines, because you can't say that 80 years will go by without research and improvements in the area of propulsion). What I mean by: is like, would it be feasible to take a warp core from an Intrepid class (or rather, not necessarily from an Intrepid class ship, but the same model), because it is newer, more powerful, and yet still somewhat compact?

Oh, I see now.

I think that ships such as the Miranda-class recieved refits throughout their service; newer sensor pallets were insalled, more powerful shields, power systems, and even the weapons - as seen in ST:2 the Miranda-class had pulse phasers, more powerful but less accurate, and were upgraded to beam weapons as seen in DS9 - were upgraded. Their hull design, durability and age generally determine when a starship will be decommisioned. A starship spaceframe is much like a car, you can put turbos and nitrous-oxide fuel enhancements on it, but eventually maintenance to the chasis and critical systems is too high to bother with upgrades.

As for swapping technology around between ships, the 'Frankenstein Fleet' created by Starfleet, which included one-offs such as the Griffin-class, consisted of a variety of cobbled together starships. The Griffin-class was an assortment of parts from Intrepids, Excelsiors, and even parts from old moth-balled Constitutions.
There are some images of these in the DS9 Technical Manual, or if you don't have one, there might be some info on the DITL somewhere.

But yeah, the ships that are in service for long periods of time have as many enhancements and refits as possible otherwise a Danube-class runabout could take out a Miranda. I expect there is some level of 'overclocking' to max out the old components, but they do get uprgraded. And sure, you can swap around ship components, even put together a working starship from the wreckage of several different classes, one of the reasons the Frankenstein Fleet was created - recycling. Starship designs are highly modular; it is possible to swap any component of comparable size (obviously, a Galaxy-class warp core wouldn't fit into a Miranda-class, it's what, 11 decks high?) with different starships. I

thanks, that's pretty helpful, and the DITL websiteis nice itself. Just one more question: What about cross-race customization? stuff like smacking a Ferengi plasma emitter or a Klingon cloaking device onto a Federation starship.

Well I think the Borg have showed that anything is possible. I don't actually remember any episodes where this has happened (fill me in if you have), as the Federation doesn't like sharing technology. Though that said, Voyager did install alien technologies such as Borg Transwarp coils, and adapted the ship to slipstream, to name just two. And as the computer can interface with completely new alien races instantly, it seems perfectly plausable.
I suppse that if the power-grid uses similar principles to the Federation (e.g. Matter/Anti Matter reactors, EPS power grid) then it would probably be as simple as buying an adapter plug to use abroad (bad example, I know).