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Starfleet Design Bureau

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[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)

If we don't do it this time, we'll have to do it next time and then those nacelles will be incompatible. This is already going to be a refit - if we take this now, maybe next time can be a simple swap.
 
[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)

Let's go all in. Making a clean break with the old, and moving to the new seems to be the best choice.
 
[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)

I didn't think it was worth degrading compatibility for just a size reduction last time, but a size reduction and max warp buff seems worth it (the potential issues requiring a core restart didn't apply to the horizontal option because it would have just used the older magnet tech). It doesn't sound like we will do that many refits anyway so we might as well get the best new warp core we can.
 
[x] High-Flow Injector System

Glad to see this back! I think we absolutely want to be able to do refits where we need to, instead of having the system be fully incompatible.
 
[X] High-Flow Injector System

Literally making our next ship design completely obsolete before it leaves the docks for marginal performance gains for a hypothetical ship that probably won't see service for 15 years is just terrible. And having a fleet entirely of completely obsolete designs for the next decade and change where we need to replace everything ASAP is going to strain our design committees, our ship building capacity, and all of the bean counters funding us. The value/cost effectiveness of any design we make in the future is going to be heavily undermined if we've demonstrated a tendency to avoid refitting and updating them.

It's all well and good to talk about the tendency for naval tech to move fast, but there's a reason the bigger ships got and the more expensive they were the less that actually happened.
 
Ignoring that a ship being 'obsolete'* before she leaves drydock was the norm for well over a century (including when Roddenberry was working on Star Trek) when rapid advance came after revolutionary advance (just like we're experiencing) if we keep going with the mindset of needing to be able to refit everything into our oldest ships as well as we can organically fit it into our newest we're going to end up always end up falling short of what would otherwise be achieved.

*And obsolete is something of a strong word here, we've seen from the in universe descriptions here (and on screen/text for Star Trek as a whole) that even obsolete vessels can still contribute in a number of ways, even if they're not slugging it out on the frontlines.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Lord Necromancer on Jun 9, 2024 at 5:01 PM, finished with 97 posts and 55 votes.
Click to expand...
 
I'm okay with the older designs being relegated to second-line duty if the newer stuff can vastly outclass them.

[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)
 
This is genuinely a hard one. But ultimately quantity has a quality all its own, and one we're going to be completely lacking if we go with the no-refit option. Bleeding edge new rollouts are what we want for hero ships doing hero things, not for a stable space nation.

If we keep up the bleeding edge philosophy we'll wind up like the Romulans - flying around in ships powered by artificial black holes only to be forced to drop the whole tech tree when they find out extradimensional aliens like to lay eggs in them. Star Trek is a WEIRD PLACE, stuff just happens sometimes.
 
[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)

I don't care about max warp (I am a card-carrying member of the Cruise Mafia), and only somewhat about size reduction, but this one isn't even an incompatibility we can turn into refits by spreading it out over generations; it's hard incompatible between gens, and so we should get it out of the way ASAP. Bite it now or bite it later, as somebody upthread said.

It does occur to me that if we're all in on size reduction we might free up enough aux slots to finally manage to pull off fully satisfactory tri-role capability (combat+scientific+engineering) on the next-gen explorer, which would be a nice bonus.

And at least this one shouldn't cause any additional increase in development time.
 
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I think one of the most important considerations here is the fact that in Star Trek, the warp core trumps nearly everything else in terms of importance. Having a better warp core doesn't just mean a faster ship, it means stronger shields, it means harder hitting weapons. It's more power for life support, more power for your auxiliary systems ,for your computing systems, for your sensors; everything. incremental improvement in other design areas is okay, but revolutionary improvements in warp core technology make the entire fleet massively superior without changing anything else, because EVERYTHING draws from the warp core.
 
[X] High-Performance Injector System (Size Reduction) (Type-4 Nacelle: +Max Warp) (Refit -> Incompatible)

Even if we can't refit them to the new standard, it's not as if our older ships will be precisely slow (Warp 7 isn't crawling speed). Just slower than they could otherwise be. And while that's not a good thing, it's also not a crippling issue- older ships will be reassigned to less critical areas as newer ones are commisioned, and being bleeding edge isn't a requirement there.
 
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