Ok, I suppose I better put an explaination in why this ship looks so much different then the standard SFB designs.
If anyone is a fan of my work, I like SFB, but I grew up as a kid when Star Trek II TWOK was out and loved the TMP era more then the TOS era. When I was about 12 to 13 years old, I bought SFB for the first time, but when I played I always imagined the ships in the game with a "TMP"ish design. I decided about 2 years ago to make SFB ships for SFC and wanted to make the designs have a more "TMP"ish look to them for those who don't like TOS designs. That is why the Engines look the way they do on this Old Light Crusier. Also, I have always considered the SFB Universe as a different Timeline or Paraell universe to the Star Trek one and this is also a reason why my designs are a bit different then the Standard Star Trek/SFB Cannon designs. I guess you could say this is my "Re-evisioned" look of what SFB looks like.
Below is the pics of the few other Fed ships I have already made at Battleclinic which can be downloaded...
As Carney had pointed out above, the SFB Light Crusier was heavily refited over the years as Technology advanced. I tried to reflect this into the design with Bulky Photon Torpedo Tubes, Large Phaser Banks (refited from older Phaser during the Early Era of SFB), and even using the old UFP insignia on top of the hull to reflect this being one of the first UFP designs built. I aslo wasnt to give ths ship a more "Modern" feel to her, yet I still wanted to keep the design similar to the Standard SFB we see a lot and even a hint of similarites to the ADB Ship counter silouetes. And most of all, as Carney had said, this ship was built during the First Fed/Romulan War so it was more of a War ship then an Explorer. Heck, I think the ship was even capable of landing on planets in SFB so I refelected this by giving the design a "smooth" look with some areodynamics to help do this (it even has landing gears on the bottom). And what you see now is basically the Standard Era/General War era Old Light Crusier. I was planning to make a Early Years version with less advanced engeins on it, just haven't gotten around to do it yet.