Starfleet Design Bureau

[X] Two Nacelles (Warp 3.6, 15 -> 23 Industry)
[X] Four Nacelles (Warp 4, 15 -> 31 Industry)

Either of the two is good, but please not three nacelles on our flagship in the middle of a war we do not have the time to eke out potential problems
 
[X] Four Nacelles (Warp 4, 15 -> 31 Industry)

Everyone keeps mentioning how 2 nacelles is enough to match pace with Stingray escorts. But as a Saucer with all-around firepower, should this ship even need escorts? It doesn't have blind spots, not really. And there's huge value in strategic speed: our Warp 5 engines let Starfleet intercept the Romulan fleet far away from Earth. A Dreadnought that can outpace Romulan ships and bring enough firepower to take on multiple enemy ships at once sounds like an absolute terror. We might build one or two less Stingrays, but with a ship like this, we won't need them.
 
[X] Four Nacelles (Warp 4, 15 -> 31 Industry)

Everyone keeps mentioning how 2 nacelles is enough to match pace with Stingray escorts. But as a Saucer with all-around firepower, should this ship even need escorts? It doesn't have blind spots, not really. And there's huge value in strategic speed: our Warp 5 engines let Starfleet intercept the Romulan fleet far away from Earth. A Dreadnought that can outpace Romulan ships and bring enough firepower to take on multiple enemy ships at once sounds like an absolute terror. We might build one or two less Stingrays, but with a ship like this, we won't need them.
A fast bb would be nice if we had the concentrated killing power/maneuverability of the arrowhead to overwhelm the romulan shields. We don't have either, point in fact the cycopic deflector is fucking with the BBs forward firing arcs. Or so you understand people argued for an allround covered ship that has no OBVIOUS weak arcs and then weakened the most important one anyway. Speed is really the smallest problem on this poor abomination.
 
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Wanna learn vote swing now
Adhoc vote count started by Sarpedon on Nov 19, 2023 at 7:04 AM, finished with 201 posts and 101 votes.


:(
 
[X] Four Nacelles (Warp 4, 15 -> 31 Industry)
[X] Three Nacelles (Warp 3.8, 15 -> 27 Industry) [Experimental]

Originally I just voted for three, but that looks like it might lose, so I will also vote for the other choice I like.
 
The argument for the two Nacelles is: don't go without escorts!

Even with the faster options, nothing stops the Bulwark from flying in formation with the escorts. Just because it can go faster, it doesn't have to. The only real reason for me to take two Nacelles would be to save on cost or reliability. These are the only two arguments that indeed count.
 
Honestly, even as someone who voted for Two Nacelles, I'm content as long as Three Nacelles doesn't win - we don't have time for troubleshooting the third nacelle if it starts causing problems, and even "not the worst outcome" could still see substantial amounts of internal space lost to extra computer cores just to make the warp field asymmetry work properly.

The argument for the two Nacelles is: don't go without escorts!

Even with the faster options, nothing stops the Bulwark from flying in formation with the escorts. Just because it can go faster, it doesn't have to. The only real reason for me to take two Nacelles would be to save on cost or reliability. These are the only two arguments that indeed count.
The problem here, though, is that a slower warp speed also doesn't prevent that - either stepping it up .2 warp factor to keep pace with the NX-class, or stepping down .2 warp factor to avoid outpacing the Stingray-class. I'd want confirmation from @Sayle if possible, admittedly, but I'm not seeing (or aware of) a reason beyond fuel efficiency (and maybe equipment longevity) why the cruise speed is set where it is - and I'm also dubious that a .2 increase over the cruising speed would start causing major problems unless there's something very wrong with the ship(s) in question. To clarify, that .2 warp factor difference is a whopping 8c - when we're already traveling well above 40c even at Warp 3.6.
 
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Yeah being slower than the NX is WAAAAY less of a downside than being slower than the Stingray would be. As long as these ships arent THE slowest in our military fleet, it's fine. And it makes both the four and three nacelle designs less attractive.

Matter of fact, it's such a small concern I legit question the three and four nacelle designs even being considered here.

Four nacelles are hideously expensive and leave the ship with a cruise speed it cant make full use of without ditching its escorts. Sure that's good for post war duties and futureproofing, but this design is being made specifically to see combat in the Romulan conflict.

Three nacelles are reasonably priced, but run into the exact same problem of being unable to use the full speed without driving escorting Stingrays hard. And that with the added complication of the prototype design.
 
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[X] Two Nacelles (Warp 3.6, 15 -> 23 Industry)

I'm partial to four nacelles as well, but in wartime when we desperately need quantity that's probably not optimal. As long as the new dreadnought can keep up with the Stingray, being slower than the NX isn't such a great problem.

Now, three nacelles would be the real folly. We can probably afford the ship being a bit slower or a bit more expensive than preferred, but we can't afford it undergoing spontaneous existence failure due to warp drive failure.
 
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[X] Two Nacelles (Warp 3.6, 15 -> 23 Industry)

Four is absolutely ruinously expensive, I can't justify skimping on the deflector because of industry concerns and then DOUBLING our unit cost the very next vote. If it can comfortably cruise with the Stingrays then that's all it needs to do - this thing should never operate alone unless it's a dire emergency, and the bulk of the fleet it will have to work with is Stingrays.
 
Everyone keeps mentioning how 2 nacelles is enough to match pace with Stingray escorts. But as a Saucer with all-around firepower, should this ship even need escorts? It doesn't have blind spots, not really. And there's huge value in strategic speed: our Warp 5 engines let Starfleet intercept the Romulan fleet far away from Earth. A Dreadnought that can outpace Romulan ships and bring enough firepower to take on multiple enemy ships at once sounds like an absolute terror. We might build one or two less Stingrays, but with a ship like this, we won't need them.

Every ship is unsinkable until it isn't, sending an expensive capital ship off unsupported is just begging for a single run of bad luck (or plot events) to inflict the worst loss Starfleet has ever suffered. Maybe the Romulans get a lucky shot that disables the phasers in the rear arc and just park there blasting it into smithereens because it can't out-turn them, maybe it encounters a cloud of ultra-high-density positron flux that overloads the warp core and gets stranded in deep space, whatever. There's just too much that can go wrong in the universe to risk capital warships without any kind of escort or assistance.

If it was an exploration ship that dedicated the hull volume to triple redundancies and 10 years of stores and a huge machine shop etc. then I'd be more willing to send it out alone, but a warship that doesn't have any of that because it's minmaxing for tactical systems is far too subject to the whims of fate to roll the dice on.
 
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Where is this from, this is an awesome ship, I like my starships boxy; I don't know how to explain it but the long-ness and roundness of starfleet ships has always bugged me. :V


Star Trek Attack Wing: Tholian One (Tholian Web Prize Ship) - YouTube TAS: S1 - E1: Beyond The Farthest Star - Trek Report
Star trek online Dervish class, Patrol Escort.
 
[X] Two Nacelles (Warp 3.6, 15 -> 23 Industry)

[ ] 28 Nacelles

28 Nacelles. YOU DIDN'T WANNA LEAVE IT TO CHANCE, HUH? DID YOU FEEL ANGER? HATE? I KNOW YOU EXPLODED THE PROTOTYPE WHY WON'T YOU SAY IT?

You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! IT EXPLODED OVER ROMULUS! WE DID WHAT WE HAD TO DO AND YOU WILL SLEEP BETTER KNOWING THAT WE DID! - Proto-Section 31, probably
 
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