[X] Plan Everything But The Mule
@Sayle does the shuttle bay count as +2 towards utility, because it masses twice as much?
This decided it for me. The extra utility of a shuttlebay is both somewhat redundant and not worth losing so much mobility. But we can easily fit in and afford a cargo bay without losing mobility, which is as flexible a utility option as it can get.
[ ] Plan Feature Creep
-[ ] 0: Shuttlebay (+20,000 Tons)
-[ ] 1: Transporter (+10,000 Tons)
-[ ] 2: Cargo Bay (+10,000 Tons)
-[ ] 3: Brig (+10,000 Tons)
-[ ] 4: Tractor Beam (+10,000 Tons)
There, just so we can potentially have everything
There's some vote splitting happening here. These two plans are identical, but have different names. And because Plan Feature Creep hasn't been voted for fully yet, it only appears in the tally as a single line.Anyway,
[X]Plan All In 120,000
- [X] 0: Shuttlebay
- [X] 1: Transporter
- [X] 2: Cargo Bay
- [X] 3: Brig
- [X] 4: Tractor Beam
I've made my arguments why we should be having all five utility functions already.
You could have police-operated tugs in addition to the cutters. There's a doctrine toward having a wider variety of more specialized vessels, but the nature of the quest makes it preferable to have more general purpose vessels.I would think we would find impounded vessels quite hard to move with disabled engines and no tractor beam
Others mentioned a situation where a small number of crew members were smuggling a small amount of stuff. Besides that, there are political situations where it's not expedient to detain the ship, but some of their cargo is illegal in the Federation. The crew can choose between surrendering that cargo versus leaving the Federation entirely. Or if there is a minor civil penalty, it might not be worth anyone's time to bring in the whole ship.Police Cutter A inspects Freighter A
Contraband is found.
Would the freighter just be let go with a ticket and contraband goods seized, or would they have to go before a judge or some other legal official and the ship would be taken to the nearest space station with said legal official?
There's some vote splitting happening here. These two plans are identical, but have different names. And because Plan Feature Creep hasn't been voted for fully yet, it only appears in the tally as a single line.
This isn't really a space cop car, it's a space coast guard ship and we wouldn't just be pulling over space cars, we'd be pulling over space ships including freighter ships which may contain large amounts of cargo we may want to confiscate.[X] Plan Ranger
I don't really see the need for a 10 kiloton cargo bay, this is a space cop car. Pull people over, write them speeding tickets, harass them about their taillights, brig if you need to arrest anybody. If you suddenly need to seize a lot of contraband you call the dudes with the reinforced van to come meet you and pick up all the space cocaine, not attach a trailer to your police cruiser. So in the interests of keeping costs down just stick with the essentials IMO.
The goal isn't to produce a versatile ship, though, the requirements are for a cheap, focused design. The design goals didn't even mention a brig, the Tellarites just stuck one in.A shuttle means that the patrol ship can be in two "places" at once to some extent, and if more shuttle types are developed instead of the basic admin type that's additional versatility.
I think the everything-but-the-cargo-hold setup seems sensible.
Both of the other ships presented do seem to assume that there are other ships available, which makes perfect sense for an in-system police ship.You could have police-operated tugs in addition to the cutters. There's a doctrine toward having a wider variety of more specialized vessels, but the nature of the quest makes it preferable to have more general purpose vessels.
Does a cargo bay really add much capability, though? The tractor beam already allows us to hold the cargo and crew. The brig is useful if some of the crew needs to be separated. But in what circumstance are we going to need to separate the cargo from the other ship and the crew, but be happy to keep on our ship?So the way I see it plan Ranger can hold ships and capture criminals.
It's a solid ship, and functions much like a general police car. I think it would win.
However I do think the addition of the cargo bay, in the everything but the mule plan, adds a very large extra aspect of being able to work independently without needing a second ship to function.
That's pretty huge in terms of simplifying logistics, reducing costs and speeding up the entire process of taking contraband. Needing only one ship instead of two when something is discovered is a massive boon, and a cargo bay adds minimal cost both upfront and in upkeep, at only a tiny malus to maneuverability that doesn't even drop us a category.
Save an entire ship. Get the cargo bay.
Yeah, and it operates close enough to friendly infrastructure that if someone has contraband they can turn around and turn it in themselves, or we can call someone to come and get it.This isn't really a space cop car, it's a space coast guard ship and we wouldn't just be pulling over space cars, we'd be pulling over space ships including freighter ships which may contain large amounts of cargo we may want to confiscate.
Or transporting equipment somewhere. Such as, say, setting up a listening post at a known criminal rendezvous point, or delivering small shipments in-system. Or even out of system for that matter, as these would make decent courier ships as well.This isn't really a space cop car, it's a space coast guard ship and we wouldn't just be pulling over space cars, we'd be pulling over space ships including freighter ships which may contain large amounts of cargo we may want to confiscate.
in that situation (with no cargo bay), you wouldn't arrest them all—you would escort/tow the vessel back to a stardock and sort everything out there (remember, this is an in-system vessel, primarily, so it wouldn't be too far). I don't see any civil rights issues here—if your ship is found to be harboring a huge amount of contraband, you can't get too mad if your ship is taken in for a bit. the story post made a very big deal about "how much you can cut out" etc so I think that should be taken into accountThe sticking point, at least for me, is not how a stop plays out, it's what do you do when in the course of a stop you figure out that you have a cargo you want to impound in whole or in part, but a crew you don't want to detain, or of whom you only want to detain some but not all? If in that situation you don't have a cargo bay, but have to keep the cargo on the seized ship, you're also stuck detaining the whole crew at least for the duration of the trip to the nearest station. And at that point the crew has some very real civil rights concerns. I'm not a big believer in "take 'em all in, let God sort 'em out," and I don't think the Federation legal system is either.