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Ash19256 said:
I'm inclined to go for either the Blister Deflector or the full secondary hull with deflector - we picked Full Saucer for a reason, after all. That, and it'd allow for additional capability in terms of shuttlepods for surveying and exploration, enhanced medical and biological research facilities (useful if we need to press this thing into service as a hospital ship, or to research unique lifeforms/biohazards found on surveyed planets), etc.,
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We can give it vertical shuttlepods, but I really think we should avoid scope creep for now.
 
Its worth noting that we don't know how much internal space we will lose with the inline blister and experimental nacelle arrangements may let us remove an inline secondary hull entirely, further reducing the internal space cost it has.

Sayle said:
The deflector itself is the next step, and unlike the Skate there's no way you'll manage to install a smaller variant. The question here is where to put it. The first option is to put it in the front of the saucer section, allowing you to install an inline secondary hull - or even no secondary hull at all, depending on how experimental you feel with the nacelle layout.
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I like the idea of prototyping a classic UFO or near UFO look while staying at around 200,000 tons and thus around the current civilian manufacturing cost.

We could take this, and then later on experiment with options that reduce the penalty it gives and give us more information on valid Nacelle arrangements.
 
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220kt with the blister puts us at about 60% of the mass of the Enterprise-class, and 260kt with the secondary hull at 70%. I think that, given the more limited (but superior individually) tactical options of this ship, and the fact that she shouldn't need as many supplies, given the much faster warp speeds we're going to have, 60% should be fine to pack in a science capability that handily exceeds that of the Enterprise-class, while also keeping enough space for self-defense and sustainment.
 
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Having just found this thread today: I am definitely in favor of the fore blister type so long as we can still play with the nacelle arrangements (I'm inclined to give vertical mounts a try; that is, one nacelle above the saucer and one below, both centerline) or even try for a single nacelle design if we can swing it (that ought to make the bean counters happy!); That seems like the best option to balance between internal capacity for Fancy Science Toys and maybe some modest engineering capacity, without the invitation to Scope Creep and more importantly increased cost of a full secondary hull.
 
Honestly, with the blister deflector, I kind of want to try and make a proto-Miranda to go along with the proto-Constitution that we turned the NX-class into. ie., take the nacelles and sling them under the hull, centered on the aft of the saucer section (which could be bulked up into a proper engineering block if needed).
 
I'd also like to draw more attention to the higher warp factors, I don't think we've fully internalized them. If the Warp 7 engine performs as designed, we'll have a sprint of 343c, 3 times faster than our previous vessels. We'll likely be able to cruise near our previous sprint speed, since that's what happened last time. Given the current rarity of the Warp 7 engine, since it was a major project of the entire Coalition, this should make us easily faster than most threat vessels.

Edit: this will also reduce our supplies burden, or let us go farther for the same quantity of supplies.
 
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Raw90 said:
I think the blister makes perfect sense here. We don't want to lose the internal space we got with the saucer, but there's no reason to add an engineering section when we're almost certain to build a patrol cruiser/frigate that has explicitly asked for engineering and cargo capability next. The middle of the road choice preserves what we've already paid for without adding a lot of cost.
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Well, there's nothing that explicitly states we have to put cargo capacity or workshops and the like in the Engineering Section. The NX's secondary hull is mostly filled with the Warp Drive+fuel, Deflector, shuttle bay, and secondary computer core. It's own workshop was put in the saucer, so a theoretical science ship with a big separate Engineering Section should still be able to focus primarily on Science instead of being made to take on other internals.

I'm just not sure that with the extra internal space in the saucer it's worth adding 40,000 more tons to the mass for even more internal space.
 
Raw90 said:
I'd also like to draw more attention to the higher warp factors, I don't think we've fully internalized them. If the Warp 7 engine performs as designed, we'll have a sprint of 343c, 3 times faster than our previous vessels. We'll likely be able to cruise near our previous sprint speed, since that's what happened last time. Given the current rarity of the Warp 7 engine, since it was a major project of the entire Coalition, this should make us easily faster than most threat vessels.

Edit: this will also reduce our supplies burden, or let us go farther for the same quantity of supplies.
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Sure, but that's more of a factor when we get around to hanging guns on the thing; for which I will definitely be arguing "one torpedo and one energy weapon in the major arcs" as being plenty. After all, this has basically no business getting into a fight with anything, so a strictly perfunctory armament is sufficient for the role.

7th Hex said:
Well, there's nothing that explicitly states we have to put cargo capacity or workshops and the like in the Engineering Section. The NX's secondary hull is mostly filled with the Warp Drive+fuel, Deflector, shuttle bay, and secondary computer core. It's own workshop was put in the saucer, so a theoretical science ship with a big separate Engineering Section should still be able to focus primarily on Science instead of being made to take on other internals.

I'm just not sure that with the extra internal space in the saucer it's worth adding 40,000 more tons to the mass for even more internal space.
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I definitely think that a full secondary hull would be contrary to design goals here; if we were doing a full up cruiser I would absolutely advocate for it but we're not. Frankly the proto-Miranda idea isn't unattractive, even if I want to spend some time in these early days playing with nacelle design more, as a sort of early days "test all kinds of weird ideas" flavoring you tend to see.
 
The way I see it, a surveyor's job is looking at the neighbor's yard, the explorer's job is looking at the next town over.

That is, the surveyor undertakes (relatively) short duration missions in and immediately adjacent to your own territory, while the Explorer goes around, well, basically doing the classical Five Year Mission type stuff. If not necessarily for that long in one go, this early.
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Roaming_Guardian said:
I want the fucky wucky inline deflector. I desire a hideous abomination of a ship.
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I'm favorable to playing with nacelle design; we have yet to receive clarification if we have to pick the inline deflector for that or if a blister arrangement would allow that as well. In the latter case I favor the blister to preserve internal volume without breaking the budget on a full secondary hull.
 
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Were this an explorer, full saucer, engineering section would be an easy grab. But given this bad boy is suppossed to be interior surveys only? It doesn't need the glut of supplies and endurance an Explorer has. Given that we want a LOT of these bad boys chonking them up isn't in our best interests.

[X] Inline Deflector (-Internal Space)
[X] Blister Forward Deflector (200,000 -> 220,000 Tons)
 
[X] Blister Forward Deflector (200,000 -> 220,000 Tons)

Let's keep that internal space we paid more for, but I don't think it's that necessary to add so much additional tonnage for more.
 
So uh can we get some clarity on whether the blister will let us do Weird Stuff (or at least Novel Stuff) with the nacelles Sayle?
Because that's the deciding factor for me on this one.
 
[X] Blister Forward Deflector (200,000 -> 220,000 Tons)

I've already made my reasoning on why this compromise appears to be the best option available here.
 
[X] Engineering Section (200,000 -> 260,000 Tons, +Internal Space)

She's a big beautiful ship and I want her to be even more so!
 
[X] Blister Forward Deflector (200,000 -> 220,000 Tons)
[X] Engineering Section (200,000 -> 260,000 Tons, +Internal Space)
 
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