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Having done some number crunching it seems to me that the 32 shuttle option would be best suited to some sort of amphibious assault ship equivalent. The commando carrier HMS Bulwark carried 16 Westland Wessex during Operation Musketeer, each of which was able to carry about 16 troops, for a total of 256 (about 32% of her 800 strong Royal Marine Commando compliment in each wave).

With a basic capacity of 6 passengers the 32 shuttle option would let the Class F Shuttles carry some 192 troops in a single wave (216 if counting the extra 4 shuttles).
 
I'd go for 24 shuttles and 2 cargo. (1 cargo is 2.67 shuttles) Not sure about losing half the shuttles.
 
Candesce said:
I'm almost certainly going to vote to have one, and only one, of the utility options. So, if we do loading docks here, I'll vote for a full engineering deck next vote; if we vote for More Shuttles now, I'll be voting for Medical next.
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Only going for one utility option on the utility ship is certainly a choice, I guess.
 
Thread said:
@Sayle , do you do the pictures and are they 3D models? Do you use CAD or some other 3D program? You don't have to say but I was just woundering about that.
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Sayle does pixels, I have been turning those into geometry.

Given the 16 shuttle option includes the only internal cargo we're getting, it's a no-brainer; double that is more than it would ever need anyway (WTF are we going to need 36 shuttles in one place for ever, especially the Type F that's the current standard, which, as mentioned by others, has fairly short independent range, and effectively no capacity outside of personnel and cargo transport, 20 is plenty)
the fact that this is probably going to be as good or better than what our competing design carries by itself j just makes it even more amusing.

As for the other options, we'll see what they actually look like when we get there.
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NavySeel said:
Only going for one utility option on the utility ship is certainly a choice, I guess.
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given the rather large amount of space (and the precident of the current vote) I expect that this will either have multiple options, or be a choice between "all the medical, all the engineering, or some medical & engineering" in the next section.
 
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Firehawk242 said:
32 shuttles feels wildly excessive. That's more in line with a station than a ship.

The loading dock option opens up some courier missions, assuming running with no pod actually does make the thing faster. Broadening the ship's mission profile strikes me as a good thing.
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'More in line with a station' is exactly the idea. The idea is to be an orbital manufacturing station that can roll up to wherever it's needed and just absolutely go to town.

Fouredged Sword said:
Also I cannot help but imagine this thread as a roleplay of the kinds of back and forth that happens IC among the design team.
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Oh absolutely!
Candesce said:
I'm almost certainly going to vote to have one, and only one, of the utility options. So, if we do loading docks here, I'll vote for a full engineering deck next vote; if we vote for More Shuttles now, I'll be voting for Medical next.

Given our in-setting context and the upcoming war with the Klingons, I'd lean towards the military logistics vessel over the disaster response ship, but the second would probably be more in keeping with the ideals of the Federation.


It would have the bonus of letting the Halley keep an escort fleet fueled while putting up a station somewhere unexpected.

"They built a supply and refueling station where?" is a wonderful note for a strategic surprise, militarily.
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Civilian logistics are military logistics. Quite aside from the economics - which are nothing to sneeze at - the more solid and established our colonies and starbase network are the more we're able to sustain military operations. The more manufacturing and wartime resource production we can get. The more redundant our subspace relay network and antimatter fueling stations are. If we focus on pure military we're fragile. The idea of an engineering powerhouse like this is to turn that fagility into true strategic strength.
 
Candesce said:
I'm almost certainly going to vote to have one, and only one, of the utility options. So, if we do loading docks here, I'll vote for a full engineering deck next vote; if we vote for More Shuttles now, I'll be voting for Medical next.

Given our in-setting context and the upcoming war with the Klingons, I'd lean towards the military logistics vessel over the disaster response ship, but the second would probably be more in keeping with the ideals of the Federation.


It would have the bonus of letting the Halley keep an escort fleet fueled while putting up a station somewhere unexpected.

"They built a supply and refueling station where?" is a wonderful note for a strategic surprise, militarily.
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*checks*
The Cygnus class was Engineering 5(Shuttles, Transporter, Fabrication, 3 Cargo)
Our remit is to do better than that.

With just the Loading Dock option, we'd already be well ahead of the Cygnus design before even getting into the dedicated Engineering section.
I think we'll be good either way.

EDIT
For comparison, the Sagmartha-class Explorer was Engineering 6(Shuttles, Transporter, Fabrication, 6 Cargo)
So I think its probably reasonable to rule of thumb that internal cargo appears to contribute to Engineering scores at a rate of 1 pt of Engineering/3 Cargo
 
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

This is the only option we'll have for any extra cargo and it also nets us more shuttles than the Newton has (16 + our 4 initial). As far as I am concerned this is the only real option, unless we suddenly decide to make an amphibious assault ship.
 
Hm. I am swayed by the argument of having an internal storage area for sensitive/high-value stuff that absolutely must go to where it needs to go, no exceptions.

[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
 
Sayle said:
Midship (Shuttles/Cargo) -> Lower Decks (Engineering/Medical) -> Subsystems (Antimatter/Auxiliary)
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Next update is going to be between an engineering option and a medical option. And I since I'll always favor more medical capacity, that means I need to vote for the bigger +Engineering option here. Otherwise, we might not have enough raw Engineering score to justify taking the medical option.

[X] Shuttledeck [8 Engineering, 32 Type-F Shuttlecraft]
 
Ash19256 said:
if Starfleet really needs 32 shuttles in one place, an easy solution is to just send a Newton and a Halley
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The entire point of a design contest for a ship is to minimize the logistics by building as few different objects as possible.

Any argument founded on "Just build more" not only contradicts the point of a design contest (best bang for your buck) in the first place, it's a self-nullifying argument because literally everything can have "just build more!" applied to it, which then leads into a...not sure if recursive loop is the correct term, but it is a wasteful one.

Besides, word of QM is that the Newton is only an engineering ship by barest technicalities, which means even if we do double up it's still a waste of time and money when we could have two Halleys instead.

EDIT: Oops, voting opened while I was typing.

[X] Shuttledeck [8 Engineering, 32 Type-F Shuttlecraft]

While I appreciate the idea of a central vault for cargo, this ship is not well defended enough to make such a feature worth the expense of fewer shuttles. Most engineering materials aren't terribly dangerous to store (as long as they are stored correctly) and can be found elsewhere without too much trouble. Maybe if we had gone all in on Tactical I would consider a vault ship, but we didn't so I don't.
 
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[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

No way do we need that many shuttlecraft if it means losing internal storage for the ship.
 
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

I admit, I'm happy enough with either option here, but I am absolutely sick and tired of the "every ship must also be a hospital ship no matter what the brief actually asks for" thing, and I think it'll be easier to outfight that next round if the lower-Engineering-score option wins this round.
 
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

To engineer, one must have materials. Six cargo isn't a ton, but it's more than any previous Starfleet ship other than the Sagamatha, and that's almost 130,000 tons heavier.
 
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[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

Made my argument on this already, but to reiterate, twenty shuttles is plenty for the role and already more than basically any four other ships put together. (it's also a nice round number that makes logistics brain happy)
 
darkstarling said:
Civilian logistics are military logistics. Quite aside from the economics - which are nothing to sneeze at - the more solid and established our colonies and starbase network are the more we're able to sustain military operations. The more manufacturing and wartime resource production we can get. The more redundant our subspace relay network and antimatter fueling stations are. If we focus on pure military we're fragile. The idea of an engineering powerhouse like this is to turn that fagility into true strategic strength.
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No it isnt.
The QM just got done telling us that civilian ships dont use antimatter fuel. That pretty much removes all commonality with military ships that already are constructed with non-standard hull materials, use non-civilian weaponry etc.

The only real overlap is food and (strategic)communications.
 
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]


16 shuttles plus the standard 4 gives us a total of 20 shuttles.
That seems plenty for an engineering ship thats going to be largely operating in places where some infrastructure and shuttles already exist, and gives it a decent amount of flexibility without going completely overboard.

And this is the only option for internal cargo storage.
We are going to need some of that for certain categories of cargo.
 
Derpmind said:
Next update is going to be between an engineering option and a medical option. And I since I'll always favor more medical capacity, that means I need to vote for the bigger +Engineering option here. Otherwise, we might not have enough raw Engineering score to justify taking the medical option.

[X] Shuttledeck [8 Engineering, 32 Type-F Shuttlecraft]
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Normally I am 1000% the medical and biolab person, but the ship can't afford to lose fabrication.
 
[X] Shuttledeck [8 Engineering, 32 Type-F Shuttlecraft]

There is no reason to sacrifice engineering capability, the raison d'etre of this class, for cargo capacity when we already have a huge amount in the pod.
 
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]

Yeah, this is the way to go, we're still getting a lot of shuttles, but we're also getting a good amount of internal cargo space for high value supplies, or stuff that needs more TLC than basic atmosphere and power.
 
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