Starfleet Design Bureau

[x] 140 Meter Saucer (200,000 Tons)
[x] 140 Meter Thin Saucer (140,000 Tons) [Canon: Constitution-class]
 
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Gonna be funny if half wins and then we have to live with a functionally useless for anything but combat ship post war. Since that whole plan seems to be pure combat and damn everything else.
 
Modules are important for the sort of warship we're building, for the wartime (since we're going to be doing a lot of independent action) and for post-war too (said action lends itself to exploration and other purposes, and we'll have more room to fit in peacetime modules for refits), with that in mind either the 140 metre thin saucer or the 140 metre saucer are the best picks to ensure these are as highly capable as we can make.

[x] 140 Meter Saucer (200,000 Tons) [4 Midline Decks] [8 Decks]
You'll want to change that to "[] 140 Meter Saucer (200,000 Tons)" to be counted.
 
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[X] 140 Meter Thin Saucer (140,000 Tons) [Canon: Constitution-class]

We need to stay light so more Connies are built, but I'd like at least some modules.
 
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Modules are important for the sort of warship we're building, for the wartime and for post-war too, with that in mind either the 140 metre thin saucer or the 140 metre saucer are the best picks to ensure these are as highly capable as we can make.
The thick 140kt half-saucer has at least the same and probably slightly more internal space than the thin 140kt saucer. Definitely more if you compare high-engine-count versions, where the half-saucer explicitly can mount a lot of engines without interfering with other components.

Of course, if my best guess is correct, it likely uses that space for an extra pair of torpedo tubes (which we desperately need anyway), so if you really want to force us into noncombat modules with a looming existential war in which we are already explicitly disadvantaged, then...more power to you, I suppose, but the thin saucer might do just that.
 
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Gonna be funny if half wins and then we have to live with a functionally useless for anything but combat ship post war. Since that whole plan seems to be pure combat and damn everything else.
On balance, I can live with that. We'll just give it a different class name - I liked the suggestion of Chesapeake. Our next heavy, proper exploration ship can be named Essex or Yorktown.
 
[X] 140 Meter Half-Saucer (140,000 Tons)

I still don't get why people want to go half saucer capital ship.
I don't get why people want a thin saucer beyond "looks cool". It seems like the thread has pretty much assumed that we're going to max maneuverability, so we might as well take the option that most efficiently mounts four thrusters.

Gonna be funny if half wins and then we have to live with a functionally useless for anything but combat ship post war. Since that whole plan seems to be pure combat and damn everything else.
Did we read the same design goal?
The metrics are simple: it needs to take a punch and hit back, the cheaper the better. While Starfleet will never say no to engineering and scientific capability, what it really needs is something to dissuade the eruption of open hostility with neighbouring powers. Increased spending needs to be tactically justifiable, and the more ships the fleetyards can pump out of the resulting heavy cruiser design the better.
This is very explicitly meant to be a warship above all else. If it doesn't make it better at killing D7's, Starfleet doesn't care. It needs to be as dangerous as possible for as little as possible.
 
I still don't get why people want to go half saucer capital ship.
Because the advantages/disadvantages of the different types are as follows:
  • Full Saucer: Has the most space for systems, but the highest mass so we need more engines for the same maneuvuerabiltiy and may run into total mass issues.
  • Half-saucer: Needs to mount at least two engines, but also has most/all of the engine bulk outside the Saucer so we can fit more modules than the Connie.
  • Connie: Can fit any number of engines, making it more flexible in that area, but the engines will all impinge on the internal space (so it effectively has less modules than the half-saucer for the same total mass).
As the general consensus seems to be we want maximum engines, the Half-saucer offers a real benefit over the Connie if you're concerned about internal space and can achieve high speeds and/or fit a larger engineering section more easily than the full saucer due to the lower mass.
 
[X] 140 Meter Half-Saucer (140,000 Tons) [4 Midline Decks] [8 Decks]


It trades off internal space for more torpedo tubes and better engine layout options, which is a trade we want for such a combat-focused build.
And then what? Ya'll are trading any ability to refit after the war into something besides a warship for let's be honest, mostly likely 1 more torpedo tube and maybe a half letter grade improvement.

If we go with that sorta straight combat damn all else design then we are gonna build some before and during the war and then never again since it has not a single bit of utility to cram all that in at the size.
 
Gonna be funny if half wins and then we have to live with a functionally useless for anything but combat ship post war. Since that whole plan seems to be pure combat and damn everything else.
Not seeing why that would be funny? It's kind of the expected outcome when one builds something that is explicitly a warship.
Well, I say it's the expected outcome, but I also think "useless" is likely to be an overstatement. Vastly inferior at jobs that aren't "being a warship" than something that wasn't built expressly to "be a warship" (or, more accurately/likely, was built to do that specific job instead)? Sure. Actually useless? Possible but unlikely.
If nothing else they'll be good for deterring raiders, guarding other, less combat capable ships that are busily doing their non-combat jobs in less secure areas, and hunting pirates.
 
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Gonna be funny if half wins and then we have to live with a functionally useless for anything but combat ship post war. Since that whole plan seems to be pure combat and damn everything else.
Torpedo tubes and their associated magazines take up a ton of space and are, by virtue of their location on the exterior faces of the hull, relatively easy to rip out in refit. If we can ditch four standard tubes for a single rapid-fire mount and two small noncombat modules post-war, I will be utterly satisfied.

Anyway, even without a refit, a cheap hard-hitting design won't be useless post-war- it'll just be the Warp 8 generation's Skate or Selachii. As hull sizes continue to increase, today's cheap heavy cruiser is tomorrow's agile, affordable frigate, now featuring useful operational range, better creature comforts, and enough space to refit at least once for continued effectiveness as technology advances!

Hell, it wouldn't even be a shock to see them still around to be equipped with the Warp 9 engine when that finally comes about- we did go out of our way to get all the intergenerational incompatibilities out of the way between 7 and 8.
 
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let's be honest, mostly likely 1 more torpedo tube and maybe a half letter grade improvement.
That one torpedo tube is likely to be the difference between being able to take a D7 and not being able.

Which means in practice, the question is if we can mount a very large number of standard tubes, or if we'll need to increase the cost of the warship by about 50% to mount double rapid tubes and leave Starfleet with 2/3s of the ships to defend the Federation with.
 
That one torpedo tube is likely to be the difference between being able to take a D7 and not being able.

Which means in practice, the question is if we can mount a very large number of standard tubes, or if we'll need to increase the cost of the warship by about 50% to mount double rapid tubes and leave Starfleet with 2/3s of the ships to defend the Federation with.
While I know it'd be completely impractical, a large part of me thinks it'd be funny to just go 'fuck the economy' and mount half a dozen rapid-fire tubes.
 
And then what? Ya'll are trading any ability to refit after the war into something besides a warship for let's be honest, mostly likely 1 more torpedo tube and maybe a half letter grade improvement.

If we go with that sorta straight combat damn all else design then we are gonna build some before and during the war and then never again since it has not a single bit of utility to cram all that in at the size.
... Not seeing the problem here? Again, It's a warship built when there is relatively urgent need for such. That's kind of the expected outcome, anything else is a bonus.
 
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