THE ORIGINAL SCHEMATICS FOR THE ANDOR CLASS never made much sense to me.  Why position the warp nacelles inboard of their pylons, when the whole point behind putting them on pylons is to allow them to be safely ejected away from the ship in the event of a catastrophic warp failure?  Also, wouldn't having the nacelles so closely confined cause problems with warp field geometry?  And if the nacelles are placed the way they are for protection, why hide them behind the pylons when destruction of a pylon during combat means essentially the destruction of the nacelle it is attached to?  Or how about the fact that the three Andor cross-sections, as originally drawn by FASA, are very difficult to reconcile with one another.  With no visible torpedo bays, are we left to infer that the torpedo launchers are hidden in the large "wing" structures?  Why are the secondary engineering hull and saucer not to scale with the nacelles?
        With all this in mind, I finally sat down and re-drew the Andor from scratch (2006) using scanned schematics from "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" as a starting point.
        The first decision was whether or not to scale the re-draw to the size of the original saucer, or the size of the original nacelles.  Since this ship is supposedly not as massive as the Constitution Refit, from which many of the Andor's components are borrowed, I opted to scale by the nacelles, which necessitated drawing a whole new saucer from scratch.  I therefore blended two themes for the new saucer: the dorsal lines from the Constitution Refit and the overall shape of the Excelsior saucer, when viewed from the side.  The bridge module and impulse deck are standard Constitution Refit, as is the engineering hull; though I foreshortened the engineering hull and carved out a larger piece off the tail end to keep it somewhat in line with the intent of the original designer of the Andor.  Finally I added visible torpedo bays, operating on the assumption that, yes, the wings were meant for this purpose.  The four forward and two side-launching torpedo apertures are now clearly visible, as is the single forward phaser bank on the dorsal surface of the saucer.
        During game play, the Andor has a lot of offensive punch thanks to its spread of torpedoes.  Each single torp does not do much damage, but there are four tubes facing forward and one to both port and starboard.  At any given moment, the ship can fire at least five tubes on an opponent in three different arcs (save for aft) and that can add up to a heck of a lot of damage.  Assuming hits from all five tubes, that is a total of 40 points, a fell blow that even some of the largest Kirk-era battleships might not recover from, assuming all the damage is done directly to a vital area like engines or superstructure.
        The single forward phaser bank is almost an afterthought, useful for finishing off an opponent once the torpedoes have done their work.
        Defensively, the Andor is not bad off, with an adequate shield system and decent amount of superstructure.  Combined with its offensive abilities, the Andor is a great cruiser for use in one-on-one melees with Klingons or Romulans, and can also be used in the heavy frigate role, escorting other ships in multi-ship scenarios.  Never intended to be primarily an exploratory vessel, the Andor plays much like a heavy frigate, sans a sizeable complement of marines.
        A side note on the "blue fleet" idea that is used in the backstory for this class, and a few others.  The Andorians were barely ever seen the Trek films, and only featured once (that I can recall) in ST:TOS.  Only in the failed ST:ENT series have we seen the Andorians a lot, and it's almost believable that the Andorians in the time of the Federation would still be war-like enough to warrant an offensive-minded fleet, and ships of their own.  But this is pure invention on the part of the FASA writers and seems to have no basis at all in official canon.
        Due to the fact that this class is current with other classes like the Miranda/Soyuz (aka: Reliant), which have a lengthy operational lifespan stretching well into the 24th century, I elected to generate several upgrades which would operate in the timeframe stretching from (roughly) the launch of the NCC-1701-B until the destruction of the NCC-1701-C.  This ought to make the Andor playable against the more advanced Klingon and Romulan designs from the same era.

          — BRT

From the FASA Star Trek FEDERATION SHIP RECOGNITION MANUAL, circa 1985
Andor Class IX Cruiser
Notes: The Andor Class is the only operational missile cruiser in Star Fleet.  These unique vessels have gained the respect and admiration of their crews because of their handling characteristics and offensive capabilities.  The overall design came from Andorian design teams contracted to create a cruiser with photon torpedoes as its main weapons.  These ships have so captured the heart and spirit of the Andorians that the majority are crewed solely by them.  All have been named for Andorian military leaders.  The Andor Class forms the core of all squadrons in the famed 'Blue Fleet', and is an integral part of front line forces for Star Fleet.
        Like the Thufir Class destroyer, the warp engines are mounted close together and center aft of the main hull.  This affords the engines more protection during battle because of the partial cover provided by the secondary hull.  As with all Star Fleet vessels, the engines can be jettisoned in case of an overload in the matter/anti-matter chamber.
        The most unusual feature of this vessel is the weapons array. Mounting two FH-13 phasers and 8 FP-7 photon torpedoes, it well deserves its informal name of 'missile boat'. Andor Class vessels are capable of engaging the enemy at 80,000 km with their phasers, and 160,000 km with their torpedoes. Due to the number of torpedoes and the ranges at which they are most effective, these vessels normally operate in combat at 120,000 km. The Andor Class has been encountered and engaged by both Romulan and Klingon forces, which were taken by surprise when the Star Fleet vessel fired a spread of torpedoes whose number was unexpected. In each case, the enemy withdrew from the field of battle before the cruiser could be fully put to the test.
         The Andor Class cruiser is manufactured at the Andor and Salazaar shipyards at a combined rate of 28 per year. Of the 140 Andors built, 138 remain in active service. Two have been scrapped after a high-speed collision that resulted in irreparable damage.