Imagine if they built a "battle pod" attachment. full Q-ship mode. (nothing to do with powerful entitities)
"That cargo pod, is actually covered in phasors!"
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"That cargo pod, is actually covered in phasors!"
- Location
- USA
I will point out in favor of the carrier design, just because we have CAPACITY for 32 shuttles doesnt mean they all get used. In desperation, one mor more bays could have its compliment of shuttles offloaded to make room for crates.
We have to remember that design=/=usage. If the service finds deficiencies, the crews will figure out ways to compensate.
We were also explicitly told that No, Starfleet does not currently have its own bulk haulers. Anything to big to fit in one of our prior designs had to be loaded onto a much slower civilian hauler. The Halley WILL be the fastest cargo ship worth the name in Federation space for years yet.
We have to remember that design=/=usage. If the service finds deficiencies, the crews will figure out ways to compensate.
We were also explicitly told that No, Starfleet does not currently have its own bulk haulers. Anything to big to fit in one of our prior designs had to be loaded onto a much slower civilian hauler. The Halley WILL be the fastest cargo ship worth the name in Federation space for years yet.
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- west
Internal cargo is pretty much mandatory for that to happen.
Given that us designers added the engineering section and it's single turbolift with the intention to include the attachment points for a cargo pod, I feel safe assuming that whatever throughput exists is enough to handle the cargo pod.
If this was a post-design retrofit trying to plug one in I could understand the concerns, but I think we can generally assume competence for things that are designed in from the start.
Having a single ship be able to show up and disgorge dozens of teams simultaneously is pretty much exactly what I'm hoping for this design, really. We're rocking up with double or so the mass of the Newton and already have the cargo to match that kind of disparity, doing the same with shuttle capacity just seems like the obvious next step to me.
The extra shuttle bays could serve as a speed multiplier in terms of completing it's jobs too though. If we count each individual shuttle as being able to do one arbitrary Thing at a time, then going from 20 to 36 shuttles is an 80% increase in the amount of Things a single Halley can do simultaneously, and could thus decrease the amount of time needed to complete all the Things it's meant to do that mission proportionately.
Sure, but it was described as giving it "cargo capacity of a freighter". We've already picked an option that gives it lots of cargo. Adding a tiny bit more feels somewhat redundant.
- Location
- USA
The counter to that argument is that there could be plenty of missions where that capability will be sitting idle.
Ugg, this is the comment that convinced me.
That secondary utility to make people think twice when attacking them is actually worth it, to me.
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
In the short term, it could help prevent them getting jumped as readily by raids, because they're never completely sure they're not a trap.
Even when you drop them into the civilian sector 50 years from now, Starfleet could keep a couple around as Q-ships to help combat piracy.
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Yes, but a ship still spends most of it's time going from point A to B, not sitting at B doing said task.
Single
Giant
Photon
Torpedo
Your fortress battle station will not save you.
EDIT - I hold that it is feasible. Mount an antimatter tank to a single use photon torpedo tube up sized to shoot a photon torpedo the size of a large shuttle, then shove it all into the shell of a cargo pod. It's not a photon torpedo the size of a cargo pod, but it would absolutely wreck anything unable to dodge.
It just probably takes an hour of cycling warp plasma to prime the damned thing, but hey, it's not like the station is going to run.
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And cargo space will always be useful for something.
Okay, where are we going to find the quarters space for approx. 145 more pilots, work crews and support staff?
If we're getting into the nitty-gritty of this, then for me the biggest thing in favour of the loading bay is not the internal storage - it's purely how much it effects the throughput of cargo to the shuttles. The main job of the shuttles is getting things - personnel, engineers, useful equipment, supplies - from Point A to Point B in a way that is not convenient or possible to use a transporter through. This means that the actual logistical chain involved, how long it takes to load a shuttle with what it needs, how many steps that takes, is actually crucial to the ability of the ship to sustain a big operation, to "surge" supplies or people, and so on. One could plausibly imagine a situation where a ship has twice the shuttles but less ability to actually sustain an operation, because the shuttles are all kept waiting whilst guys with handcarts have to schlep stuff up from the cargo pod.
The key question is, should we imagine that Starfleet are this stupid? Or should we imagine that the shuttle bay has at least some ability to pre-cache supply crates next to the shuttles, that there are specially designed turbolifts from the cargo pod to the shuttle bay to expedite the loading process as much as possible, etc.?
This still might not be as useful as having cargo bays right next door, particularly for surging a massive amount of supplies in a very short amount of time depending on how things are configured. But it massively changes the implicit trade-off here, and realistically the only way to clarify is to ask @Sayle. I am slightly disheartened that rather than asking and risking getting an inconvenient answer, people instead instead kept going with their own interpretations which favoured a particular vote (whether for or against, not singling anyone out here.) But only slightly disheartened, because this happens to some extent with every quest vote where different interpretations of the vote option areuseful weapons in vote arguments.
Anyway, I'm not hugely invested in this vote and actually initially voted for the loading bay before deleting it, I think both are fine and cannot radically mess up the ship. Excited when we get to the internals, and I can annoy half of the thread by aggressively stanning for us to include at least one Science option.
The key question is, should we imagine that Starfleet are this stupid? Or should we imagine that the shuttle bay has at least some ability to pre-cache supply crates next to the shuttles, that there are specially designed turbolifts from the cargo pod to the shuttle bay to expedite the loading process as much as possible, etc.?
This still might not be as useful as having cargo bays right next door, particularly for surging a massive amount of supplies in a very short amount of time depending on how things are configured. But it massively changes the implicit trade-off here, and realistically the only way to clarify is to ask @Sayle. I am slightly disheartened that rather than asking and risking getting an inconvenient answer, people instead instead kept going with their own interpretations which favoured a particular vote (whether for or against, not singling anyone out here.) But only slightly disheartened, because this happens to some extent with every quest vote where different interpretations of the vote option areuseful weapons in vote arguments.
Anyway, I'm not hugely invested in this vote and actually initially voted for the loading bay before deleting it, I think both are fine and cannot radically mess up the ship. Excited when we get to the internals, and I can annoy half of the thread by aggressively stanning for us to include at least one Science option.
Legit in favor of some scanners on this one. Double checking where they setup stuff is important.
- Location
- USA
Yeah I dont think either of these is a wrong answer, but I like to think I've chosen the more correct of the two.
Writing in to agree that I absolutely don't consider either option to be a trap vote. They're just good at different things.
Now, over the entire design we could probably arrange to intentionally miss every synergy and so create a poor-quality ship, but that's on us, not the parts on offer.
Now, over the entire design we could probably arrange to intentionally miss every synergy and so create a poor-quality ship, but that's on us, not the parts on offer.
- Location
- west
People want to put expanded medical facilities on this thing? Having a giant contiguous space to put wounded when they inevitably overflow the med bay without getting in the way of shuttles would help.
On the flip side if the shuttle bay didn't have a meaningfully less robust loading system why does the loading bay exist?
The way I see it they are different variations of a system optimized for slightly different tasks, but both fundamentally capable of doing any task the other can.
The shuttle bay is optimized for shuttles doing things, being out doing sensor sweeps or powering local projects or taking samples of asteroids.
The loading bay is optimized for moving cargo with shuttles.
Both can do the tasks you would use the other for, but both have their specialties.
I think the loading bay synergizes with the cargo bay and makes the use of the Halley as a cargo ship more attractive, while 32 shuttles makes using it for other tasks more attractive.
And we already added a big cargo pod to specialize in cargo transport. It's doubling up on the same specialty.
- Location
- USA
Given the choices here are supposed to be Medical versus Engineering, I absolutely do NOT want the expanded medical bay over fabrication.
- Location
- United States
[X] Loading Deck (4 Engineering, 16 Type-F Shuttlecraft, 6 Cargo]
Just to be clear, I saw you changed your mind later, but I wanted to put what 6 cargo is into perspective.
6 cargo is the highest value of any ship we've had so far. The Cygnus had 3. It's like a saucer ship of comparable displacement filled with nothing but cargo bays. (The 125kt Cygnus if we had picked only cargo bays would have had 5 cargo, while the 290kt Sagarmatha would have had 12 if we picked only cargo bays)
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If we have standard medical facilities, internal cargo bays, and manufacturing it is entirely feasible to clear out cargo and set up a temporary hospital inside the cargo bays.
A particularly fat one too. Most saucers tapper towards the edges. Ignore the rest of the ship and this baby is a flat topped saucer full of cargo.
Like nothing. This is the center slice of our orb. It is literally an 100 meter saucer filled with nothing but shuttles and cargo.
A particularly fat one too. Most saucers tapper towards the edges. Ignore the rest of the ship and this baby is a flat topped saucer full of cargo.
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I thought the thread had decided they really didn't want this sucker anywhere near combat or the front lines.
Last minute deployment of a space minefield or having dozens of relatively unsupported teams scrambling to dig through potentially trapped enemy wreckage both seem like scenarios we don't intend for this ship to deal with.
Dedicated internal cargo without the pod is never going to not be valued and prioritized by the crew. It's all starfleet's stuff but it's much easier to maintain separate spaces for critical and long term supplies if you've got the internal bay. I see the loading bay/cargo bay as really leveraging our strength in cargo and since that strength was one of the two key aspects starfleet wants us to focus on it sets us up well. I also suspect it'll provide synergies with the workshops I'm hoping we'll dump in.
If the ship was a surveyor or fleet tender I'd likely lean a little towards more shuttles but even then I'd have reservations as 20+ ship fleets seem uncommon.
Last minute deployment of a space minefield or having dozens of relatively unsupported teams scrambling to dig through potentially trapped enemy wreckage both seem like scenarios we don't intend for this ship to deal with.
Dedicated internal cargo without the pod is never going to not be valued and prioritized by the crew. It's all starfleet's stuff but it's much easier to maintain separate spaces for critical and long term supplies if you've got the internal bay. I see the loading bay/cargo bay as really leveraging our strength in cargo and since that strength was one of the two key aspects starfleet wants us to focus on it sets us up well. I also suspect it'll provide synergies with the workshops I'm hoping we'll dump in.
If the ship was a surveyor or fleet tender I'd likely lean a little towards more shuttles but even then I'd have reservations as 20+ ship fleets seem uncommon.
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