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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Starship Design Bureau Starfleet Design Bureau
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Mechanis said:
anyway, while I'm not sure what the phaser options are going to look like, I think that a rapid launcher in the neck and two standard tubes in the saucer would be good? If we get an option to cram a third standard tube into the aft that would be nice, but that's strictly a nice-to-have given the level of Zoom this thing is going to have. It might not quite spin like a top but I imagine that regardless of engine configuration it's going to make more than a few Klingons go a little wild-eyed and "it's how fast‽‽‽"
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Given how fast we are I think we just need to have the front and rear covered with 2 Phasers (assuming both can fire, 1 if the "Bank" is 2 Phasers) to maximize damage for a lower cost whenever the torpedoes fire.

Really IMO the overall weapons loadout just depends on what will get us an S Rank in Tactical since that should allow it to take on multiple Klingon ships at once which will make it an incredible force multiplier as our only Warp 8 ship.

In the previous version of this quest the S Rank Tactical rating Sovereign design only had a single batch built during the Dominion War as the Defiant was way cheaper but still incredibly deadly (the Defiant probably also qualified for an S Rank Tactical rating) but afterwards had several more batches made due to the shear amount of ass that the initial batch kicked.

We don't have a Defiant equivalent here and based on all the measures Starfleet has taken with this project this is likely intended to be the go to mass produced warship at the very least until the war actually kicks off and likely will remain in production throughout the war.
Sayle said:
Enter the Heavy Cruiser Project. This is a cooperative project with San Francisco, with your teams liaising with each other to increase pace and reduce delivery time. Starfleet has issued a challenging brief for Project Constitution, a heavyweight cruiser capable of going toe-to-toe with the threats of the modern era. The Klingon D6 has long been an awkward measuring stick to match ships like the Newton or Kea against, and with signs of increased resource flows to the Klingon interior there are concerns that there has either been a major uptick in production of an already tactically problematic design or even a new and more dangerous vessel.

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. For that reason the expectation is the ship should mass around two hundred thousand tons, which is what your cost and efficiency metrics are assuming.
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It's currently 2228 and given the fact that we're cooperating with SanFran on this project we're probably looking at most at a 9 year development period like the Kea which would mean the first batch launching around 2235.

If I had to guess unless we go completely overboard with Rapid Fire Torpedo Launchers this ship will likely take about as long as a Kea to build (2 years) so we can expect a few batches to be launched unless the war ends up happening before 2240.
 
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LOLROFL said:
Given how fast we are I think we just need to have the front and rear covered with 2 Phasers (assuming both can fire, 1 if the "Bank" is 2 Phasers) to maximize damage for a low cost whenever the torpedoes fire.

Really the overall weapons loadout just depends on what will get us an S Rank in Tactical since that should allow it to take on multiple Klingon ships at once which will make it an incredible force multiplier as our only Warp 8 ship.

In the previous version of this quest the S Rank Tactical rating Sovereign design only had a single batch built during the Dominion War as the Defiant was way cheaper but still incredibly deadly (the Defiant probably also qualified for an S Rank Tactical rating) but afterwards had several more batches made due to the shear amount of ass that the initial batch kicked.

We don't have a Defiant equivalent here and based on all the measures Starfleet has taken with this project this is likely intended to be the go to mass produced warship at least until the war actually kicks off.
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I don't think S tactical guarantees being able to engage multiple ships at the same time- rather it reflects a ship that goes beyond what is ordinarily considered top of the line for Starfleet at the time. But at this point Starfleet is not in the position versus the Klingons or Romulans that it ends up in the 24th century. The Klingons are at this point still ahead of Starfleet technically and industrially. They can build a more capable, larger ship than Starfleet can.
 
thepsyborg said:
But I really have to wonder if the folks voting for two Type 3s have ever had anyone explain to them- in small words with many examples and maybe a demonstration using colored blocks- the concepts of "greater than" and "less than". Because the two Type 3s are a (very, very rare) objectively bad choice. Compared to four Type 2's, they have the same maneuverability, the same internal space, less redundancy, more cost for the first run (you know, the ones we might actually have by the time the war starts), and slightly more cost for future production runs.

They're either tied or worse on every metric. I would be amazed if anyone voted for them. I am completely at a loss to explain about half of the questers voting for them. This isn't even a vote with aesthetic or nostalgic appeal involved! It's against all sense, reason, and sanity! Worse, it's blatantly and obviously so!

What the hell!!?
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Well, first, why do you think that 2 Type 3s will use the same amount of internal space as 4 Type 2s will? It's more likely that 2 T3s will need less space than 4 T2s. And this extra space without giving up maneuverability is why I voted for 2 T3s. I want the extra space to give the ships some extra features so they won't be discarded post-war.
Second? Why do you think there'll be a slightly higher cost for future production runs? If anything, the expediting of the technology's development cycle will reduce the cost of future production runs.
I'll give you less redundancy, as that is something to consider. But it is not objectively worse than the other options.
 
[X] Three Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 39.75 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]

I think we should save where we can because those new phasers and shields will definitely eat into the budget.
And we do want a lot of these.
 
ScyBlade said:
Well, first, why do you think that 2 Type 3s will use the same amount of internal space as 4 Type 2s will? It's more likely that 2 T3s will need less space than 4 T2s. And this extra space without giving up maneuverability is why I voted for 2 T3s. I want the extra space to give the ships some extra features so they won't be discarded post-war.
Second? Why do you think there'll be a slightly higher cost for future production runs? If anything, the expediting of the technology's development cycle will reduce the cost of future production runs.
I'll give you less redundancy, as that is something to consider. But it is not objectively worse than the other options.
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Both 2 Type 3s and 4 Type 2s don't give up internal space. That's the reason for both options. If 4 Type 2s did give up space, then they wouldn't make sense against 3 Type 2s.

They will be more expensive for future production runs because 4 Type 2s are cheaper than 2 Type 3s even after the prototype cost penalty is removed for the latter. The reason to go for Type 3 is to push for sooner introduction of the Type 4 and to standardize it if we expect our next design to require it(maybe some sort of heavy frigate that can't have more than 2 engines).
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
I don't think S tactical guarantees being able to engage multiple ships at the same time- rather it reflects a ship that goes beyond what is ordinarily considered top of the line for Starfleet at the time. But at this point Starfleet is not in the position versus the Klingons or Romulans that it ends up in the 24th century. The Klingons are at this point still ahead of Starfleet technically and industrially. They can build a more capable, larger ship than Starfleet can.
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This is supposed to be our Timeline's version of the Constitution which absolutely could take on and beat Klingon D7's.

We know what the quest's version of the Canon Constitution is armed with and we can match and even surpass it's firepower while maintaining superior maneuverability to mitigate the fact that our shields aren't as good.

The examples I showed of ships that got an S Rank Tactical rating were all able to fight and defeat multiple pear opponents of comparable size and I would expect that if we are able to achieve that here then our design would be able to defeat multiple D7's.

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While I wouldn't expect the Defiant to solo multiple Dominion Battleships it can definitely kill a bunch of comparably sized or somewhat larger ships.
 
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ScyBlade said:
Well, first, why do you think that 2 Type 3s will use the same amount of internal space as 4 Type 2s will? It's more likely that 2 T3s will need less space than 4 T2s. And this extra space without giving up maneuverability is why I voted for 2 T3s.
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They explicitly- neither of them- use any internal space. This is why we voted half-saucer. It can mount paired thrusters externally, on the aft face of the saucer, without using any internal space. Thus the 2 Type 3s do, in fact, use exactly the same internal space as the 4 Type 2s- zero.
ScyBlade said:
Why do you think there'll be a slightly higher cost for future production runs? If anything, the expediting of the technology's development cycle will reduce the cost of future production runs.
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Because it's explicitly stated? The 2 Type 3s are 3.5 more expensive for the first production run when the thrusters are still Prototype, and still 1 more expensive for future production runs when the thrusters are Standard.

They would, theoretically, become cheaper in the far, FAR future when Type 3s are Mature, but 1) there's little chance we'll still be building this class by that point, 2) it'd be a very straightforward redesign to just tack two Type 3s on the Block III ships rather than four Type 2s, because external mount (as aforementioned), and 3) being maybe slightly cheaper in the very far future is absolutely not worth the extra expense now when we need fifty of them yesterday as many of them as possible, as soon as possible.
 
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LOLROFL said:
This is supposed to be our Timeline's version of the Constitution which absolutely could take on and beat Klingon D7's.

We know what the quest's version of the Canon Constitution is armed with and we can match and even surpass it's firepower while maintaining superior maneuverability to mitigate the fact that our shields aren't as good.

The examples I showed of ships that got an S Rank Tactical rating were all able to fight and defeat multiple pear opponents of comparable size and I would expect that if we are able to achieve that here then our design would be able to defeat multiple D7's.
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It could, but our ship isn't going to have that much more firepower. I seriously doubt that we'll get 18x2 phaser batteries. At that point we pack one/two extra photons and are more mobile than the canon Constitution, but a 2v1 fight means that the firepower/durability is still strongly in their favor and it's much harder to effectively utilize maneuverability against two ships than against one.
 
thepsyborg said:
Actually, no! Literally every single thing you just said was wrong!

Having shiny new high-tech engines that your engineering chiefs don't have twenty years of experience with makes maintenance exponentially more complicated, especially in high-stress situations like combat! New things to break, more surprise breakdowns and unscheduled maintenance shifts, more everything. And having to source twice as complicated of engines for every starship is going to be a massive hassle, too!
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So you're telling me that the better engines are actually worse. That's certainly a take.

Basically, this might be true if we were using completely experimental engines. We're not. We're using new engines. Huge difference. If the engines were a bad sneeze away from randomly shutting down like you describe they wouldn't be ready for service, period. The engines are fundamentally sound.

Now, it's true that they won't have twenty years of experience on these engines. But they're still engines and these are Starfleet Engineers. They know how engines work. And maintaining four engines is far harder than maintaining two. And maintaining, oh, forty thousand moving parts is far harder than twenty.
 
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darkstarling said:
So you're telling me that the better engines are actually worse. That's certainly a take.

Basically, this might be true if we were using completely experimental engines. We're not. We're using new engines. Huge difference. If the engines were a bad sneeze away from randomly shutting down like you describe they wouldn't be ready for service, period. The engines are fundamentally sound.

Now, it's true that they won't have twenty years of experience on these engines. But they're still engines and these are Starfleet Engineers. They know how engines work. And maintaining four engines is far harder than maintaining two.
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If the two new engines were cheaper to operate, they would be cheaper in stats. Like it is a very explicit thing in this quest that new equipment is not better per unit cost than old equipment.

Outside this, one thing I'd poke people about is that if you're voting for 3 Type-2's on the basis of price, consider approval voting 4? It is still cheaper than the Type-3's.
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
If the two new engines were cheaper to operate, they would be cheaper in stats. Like it is a very explicit thing in this quest that new equipment is not better per unit cost than old equipment.

Outside this, one thing I'd poke people about is that if you're voting for 3 Type-2's on the basis of price, consider approval voting 4? It is still cheaper than the Type-3's.
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The price is cost to build right? That's not cost to operate. And anyway we're not talking money, we're talking strain on the engineers. That's the big decider for me. I don't want our new warship to be a hanger queen.
 
darkstarling said:
The price is cost to build right? That's not cost to operate. And anyway we're not talking money, we're talking strain on the engineers.
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There's not any explicit definition of what cost means. Also like... this impulse engine predates most of the engineers. It's been around for decades. Everyone knows how it works, how to run it, how to repair it, and there's a easy supply chain and commonality with basically every other Starfleet ship. The Type-3 won't have any of that. It's a more complex, sophisticated piece of equipment that is relatively new. Unless you came off of engineering on an Archer class, you won't have ever worked with this engine.

EDIT: Remember as well that these ships are heading straight into a Four Year War scenario. Lifetime operating costs aren't going to matter as much, because many of these ships will have operating lifetimes of two years before they get exploded by a D7.
 
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DeltaV11.2 said:
If the two new engines were cheaper to operate, they would be cheaper in stats. Like it is a very explicit thing in this quest that new equipment is not better per unit cost than old equipment.

Outside this, one thing I'd poke people about is that if you're voting for 3 Type-2's on the basis of price, consider approval voting 4? It is still cheaper than the Type-3's.
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...Sure, why not. My first preference of the triple Type-2 isn't going to win and lacks behind the quad option anyway

[X] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
There's not any explicit definition of what cost means. Also like... this impulse engine predates most of the engineers. It's been around for decades. Everyone knows how it works, how to run it, how to repair it, and there's a easy supply chain and commonality with basically every other Starfleet ship. The Type-3 won't have any of that. It's a more complex, sophisticated piece of equipment that is relatively new. Unless you came off of engineering on an Archer class, you won't have ever worked with this engine.
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Basically, I have faith in our engineers to figure out a new engine but I think there are unavoidable levels of hassle and complication that come with doubling your moving parts.
 
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DeltaV11.2 said:
It could, but our ship isn't going to have that much more firepower. I seriously doubt that we'll get 18x2 phaser batteries. At that point we pack one/two extra photons and are more mobile than the canon Constitution, but a 2v1 fight means that the firepower/durability is still strongly in their favor and it's much harder to effectively utilize maneuverability against two ships than against one.
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I gave the Canon Connie 24x2 Phasers in those calculations so those calcs actually favor the Canon Connie more especially since they also assume the Canon Connie with it's worse maneuverability and narrower Phaser firing arcs will be on target as often as our more maneuverable Connie with wider firing arcs.
 
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darkstarling said:
The price is cost to build right? That's not cost to operate. And anyway we're not talking money, we're talking strain on the engineers. That's the big decider for me. I don't want our new warship to be a hanger queen.
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You do understand that Starfleet ships (even NX ones) Could operate more than twenty years without shipyard/depot maintenance right? I mean yes these ships do suffer problems in the long run but they are not hangar queens, the type two is well understood, cheap, and plenty tech immediatly avaible in large numbers, and adding four of them means the tech is never running on 100% so in the long run extending engine service life, making replacment once the type three are cheaper very easy, give us an extra module, and are redundant meaning that youl have to kill two engines to get her to medium Maneuverabilety.
 
Bedpotato said:
You do understand that Starfleet ships (even NX ones) Could operate more than twenty years without shipyard/depot maintenance right? I mean yes these ships do suffer problems in the long run but they are not hangar queens, the type two is well understood, cheap, and plenty tech immediatly avaible in large numbers, and adding four of them means the tech is never running on 100% so in the long run extending engine service life, making replacment once the type three are cheaper very easy, give us an extra module, and are redundant meaning that youl have to kill two engines to get her to medium Maneuverabilety.
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If there's another phrase that means 'really high maintenance' without needing to literally be sitting in a hanger I'll use it?
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
I seriously doubt that we'll get 18x2 phaser batteries.
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...it's not 18x2 phaser batteries, it's 18-dmg phasers (already confirmed) x2 firing at once (as phasers do). That math is, as far as I can tell, completely accurate.
darkstarling said:
the better engines are actually worse. That's certainly a take.
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I'm telling you that for this ship, in this weight class, in the saucer configuration that we explicitly optimized for the old engines, the better engines do not have any benefits, direct or indirect, present or future, definite or possible, to this ship class.* That when Sayle says "they're cheaper", they actually mean that they're cheaper. Will cost Starfleet less- not "to roll out of the shipyard", less outright for their lifetime, construction, operation, maintenance, and downtime combined- than the new engines.

*They do mean that the first run of Type-3-using postwar designs will be cheaper.
darkstarling said:
The price is cost to build right? That's not cost to operate.
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WRONG. The price we're given is not "the number on the check Starfleet writes the shipyard". The price we're given is "the cost metric that Starfleet uses to determine how many they can afford to build and operate for their expected service lifetime". Starfleet is neither so stupid that they can't nor so shortsighted that they won't do TCO projections. Yes, this is absolutely total cost of construction, operation, maintenance, and repair, including man-hours to operate and maintain them, and the price of any downtime caused by malfunctions, maintenance, and repairs.
darkstarling said:
And anyway we're not talking money, we're talking strain on the engineers. That's the big decider for me. I don't want our new warship to be a hanger queen.
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That's not a thing. Like, seriously, there is absolutely zero chance of that happening. It is overwhelmingly more likely that the Klingon Admirals will personally stage and perform the Nutcracker Ballet in Moscow for Christmas this year. On ice. Wearing bikinis. The old engines are mature tech: they are well understood, and any of their reliability issues are long since sorted out. The total cost of ownership of two Type 2s is lower than that of one Type 1. When Sayle says "cheaper" they are not actually lying to your face.

Edit: It is a basic, established principle of how tech advancement works in this quest that each tech advancement will be less cost-effective- at base, not just with the prototype cost penalty- than the previous generation. Being awesome is expensive. We have gone way out of our way with this design to achieve maximum awesome on the previous generation's tech, so that we could be awesome for cheaper. Please, I am literally begging you, don't throw all that effort away to vote for the better engines, because they are worse.
 
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