Ok, read the last... 20-ish pages? Honestly, if I caught the prior vote in time I would have voted for the Dreadnaught/Battleship anyways. But yeah, both sides had really, really bad arguments. Some I agreed with, some I didn't. I'll just leave it at that.
So, things I've noticed: Earth was not adequately defended whatsoever. I get a lot of people would like to keep the Star Trek feel... but in my mind that isn't truly possible right now. I'd like to establish a bunch of defensive installations/defensive satellites in various orbits around the Earth and across several planets in the Sol system. One, because that gives a degree of safety, and two, it gives our ships less things to do. Yes, I'd also like to keep ships in our territory to protect things and respond to various situations, but having those DefSats would be a whole lot better in the long run for our safety.
Since we're a ship design group, that isn't really possible unless DefSats could be put under the umbrella of ship design, which I'm very, very sure isn't going to happen. And, not to mention, the DefSats wouldn't have to be anything too impressive, either just a space station with a couple guns on it or just a space-gun with a few movement thrusters slapped on it so it can aim. Nothing too excessive.
Onto the BB design, while I can see that the arrowhead design isn't as... good as we'd want, I'd like to lean into it for this design. Why? To give it a (relatively) different look to our standard ships. It would show that this ship was designed for war and not peace, which in my eyes would do wonders to distinguish it and the ships we'll go on to design later. It lets us differentiate how we design ships and gives us a (rough) framework of things common on our military ships.
I'd also like to bring back another thing from old Earth seafaring warships... flak. It'd allow us to just fill space with a lot of lead/lasers that it'd make it difficult for any enemy ship to do anything. Of course, concentrated fire would be good, but I'd also like to have flak across the top, port, starboard, and underside of the ship to give it some biting power when its main weapons aren't facing the enemies attacking it from those angles. Of course, that's what I'd want, so that isn't really a requirement for the design. (Nor does it really make since it my mind for Star Trek design philosophy, but I'd like to see it in some form as my brain jumps for joy when seeing thousands upon thousands of explosions covering a ships... Spacespace? Voidspace? Airspace? Eh, whatever.) Another benefit of flak, in my eyes, would just be overwhelming volume of small fire going against a single or multiple vessels. Perhaps enough to put several dings in their shields?
Moving on, I'd also like to put in as many experimental weapons/engines/Warp-core designs as feasibly possible. And if possible, shields. If they work, good, we've built a warship capable of taking out several Romulan fleet. If they don't work as good as we want? Well, that's a situation I'd like not to happen.
Torpedoes are a good idea, of course. Slap a few of those bad boys on and you're golden.
What else? Ah, yes, purpose and role. Ideally I'd like a space-based aircraft carrier, or spacecraft carrier. But I'd also like some heavy-hitters, so having the heavy-hitting design than the carrier design right now is my go-to. But if we get the chance later I'd go all-in for a carrier design. So far we'll have a capital ship that we can base fleets around, with NXs and Stingrays acting as escorts and screens respectively. The future BB would be able to dish out the damage, NXs could be able to pick off various incoming attacks and a few ships, and the Stingrays could be used to attack ships both offensively and defensively. That's my view, however, and it can have a few holes in it.
I'm all for building dedicated warships past the end of this war, but only for defense. I feel like expecting any more is pushing it. Also, my stance on having warships boils down to "better have it and not need it than need it and not have it". Sticking to solely science-based multi-role ships just so we can continue giving off that Star Trek feel shouldn't be our concern right now. Right now we need a military ship that can exceed at doing its job. Nothing fancy, nothing obtuse, just a ship designed to do what it's supposed to do with no additional bits and bobs. However, I am not saying that we shouldn't build multi-role ships, we very well should. Sending out a pure science ship into the vast unknown is basically telling its crew that you do not care for their safety, or care very little for their safety, so adding on some extra stuff would help very much. What I'm advocating for is continuing designing our standard ships while also designing a few warships to act as anti-piracy, defense, and if we need it, true warships capable of invading enemy territory and removing their ability to make war... by destroying their purely military infrastructure and not killing their civilians, we shouldn't stoop to that level.
So, in summary:
1. Arrowhead hull
2. If possible add flak, you can't get enough flak.
3. Put in as many experimental systems as possible, when it makes sense.
4. Torpedoes are good, I want them.
5. Either a Pure Battleship or a Battleship-sized Carrier, either works in my opinion.
6. Make a small fleet of warships to act as fallback options but continue as we have, not much to say there really.
7. Chill, please. I'm just pointing out my opinion, so please don't chew into me for having the opinion that Starfleet should have a group of dedicated warships. There's a lot out there in this galaxy, and we have to have the option to fall back on humanities' favorite pastime, excessive amounts of violence. Seriously, though, the Romulan attack on Earth should tell us that we can't just go full Star Trek, I'd like to keep a lot of the original stuff a part of this quest's timeline, but we need more teeth. However, that's my point of view after the Romulan attack. Once this war ends I do advocate for peacetime ship designs, but I'll always have that want to design at least one specialized warship... just in case.
(Looking at it, I can definitely see some very interesting opinions forming. You could easily harken my last line above for any kind of point of view from history, but don't think about it like that. This is space, and we have future conflicts and the Borg to look towards, so I think having warships would help those situations. I can also concede that post-Romulan War we could add a science lab or two to the warships, but no more. Just so they can do some science when going about protecting our territory. I also agree that this will let us break into larger ship designs earlier. While it isn't cost-effective to build ships of those size now, it'll be a boon to be able to later and not have the growing pains associated.
Also, on ship and class names. I think we should do something along the lines of 'Brasillia's Restitution' of either the 'Brasillia' class or 'Brasillia's Restitution' class. Names for further ships could include place names plus something to do with payment, IE, 'Idaho's Remittance'. However, I think just using Brasillia for the class and name would also fit.
Editing this in as others have mentioned it, a lot of this is if I could set policy, but we can't, we just design the ships the policy-makers build policies around. I mean, we probably could influence policy, but never set it. So, in those terms, I think we'd be able to influence the policy makers to perhaps take notes from Earth's past, but outside of that it's out of our hands. Other than that, thoughts?)
Edit: Took so long to write this that I missed votes starting up.
[X] Arrowhead
[X] Half-Saucer
