Having actually taken a closer look at the hull numbers, assuming 6 phasers, 4 torpedo tubes, one thruster, two nacelles and a standard warp drive the Miranda should either be 230kt or 180kt depending on if it uses standard or heavy shields. 28 cost will buy 194kt of standard shielded hull or 142kt of heavy shielded hull.
This should give it either 46 or 45 shield and either 48 or 38 hull. If we do assume that it's slightly heavier than a canon Constitution, it would be 230kt which is also a Kea-sized heavy cruiser? I guess ships are getting bigger? It's also entirely more durable than a Kea and better armed to boot. How is this midweight?
The OTL Constitution is 190 kt in this quest; you can see its stat block in the Excalibur Retrospective
@Strunkriidiisk did numbers here for a theoretical 200kt Miranda
Prospective Miranda cost, assuming middle-of-the-road spending:
Shields: 22.8 (200kt, standard-weight covariant shields at 11.4/100kt)
Hull: 6 (Duratanium, 3/100kt) 3
Warp Core: 8 (standard)
Nacelles: 11.5
1 type-3 thruster: 5
8 type-2 phaser 'banks': 24
4 type-1 launchers: 9
Total: 86.3 83.3?
All in all, a tidy little ship. But it just goes to show that we can't expect to compete on price - we need to prototype the new armaments which means that if we treat the Miranda's complement/arrangement as our baseline - and even if we cut phaser count by a quarter down to 6 and only upgrade forward tubes to Type-4s - we're still looking at a final cost of 143.5 - i.e. two thirds more expensive. That also leaves us with a slightly lower alpha strike than the Excalibur (102 versus 110), which, while it may not strictly be as necessary for the Fed's intended role, is concerning for a much heavier ship with less ability to pick and choose fights.
Standards are moving targets, and differ between generations
The Sagamartha was 290,000 tons as a heavy explorer, and was commissioned inn 2275
Thirty six years later, the Kea was 255,000 tons
Size inflation is ongoing and accelerating; if even the Klingons are building 180kton pure warships, you know theres solid technological trends in play
Regardless, if it actually is the 230kt ship, we're a fair bit more durable with an extra 30 shield and an extra 10 hull and we'll hit harder with a similar weapons fit that all deals more damage, but we really do need to differentiate this by the modules. The Miranda will probably be refit with the same weapons as the Federation at some point (the same number too if we go with 6 phasers), so we're not going to hit harder for long. I still think it's probably worth spending extra to get full coverage, so we don't have literally the exact same weapons as a Miranda post-refit, but it probably doesn't matter that much.
That means our only real differentiation (aside from being 50% more durable) is our much-improved cruise speed and our extra 70kt of space, so we probably need to figure out something that involves a whole lot of flying all the time if we want to see a decent order quantity. If the Miranda is actually 230kt and carries a basic science lab, extra shuttles and cargo it'll probably have like 5 cargo modules, so that might make a dedicated cargo hauler unattractive. I'm not sure what else benefits so much from the max cruise, though. Emergency response or high-value cargo, maybe?
The Feddie will always hit harder because of how phasers scale to ship mass
And at only 1x impulse thruster, its much less agile for its weight class
Which makes it both harder to aim its torpedoes, and makes it harder to dodge enemy torpedos and energy beam fire
That means its a much less effective combatant; genuinely surprised they cut costs there
Remember how Excaliburs used to body D7s at 2:1 and 3:1 odds? According to the War reports, the D7s had better shields and still got scragged. Thats what happens if a couple Mirandas fight a Feddie
Similarly a K'tinga murders it, and its at mortal risk from B'rel wolfpacks of around equivalent mass
Everything benefits from Max Cruise
That higher speed makes it a better border patroller because it can cover more space in a given time. A better emergency responder. A faster transport for scientists off to see a rare event. A better mail courier or secure transport for diplomats.
The ability to maintain a higher operational tempo is a qualitative advantage thats hard to quantify
if you only ever need to order 4 ships and they last for very long, and do what there supposed to do, is it truly a failure?
United Earth ordered 12x Sagamartas last century, each massing 290ktons
The Vulcans alone still operate 7x Kisharas, nominal weight 500,000 tons
I
My read of the brief for the Federation is that it's not supposed to built in large numbers. It's supposed to be an uncommon heavy vessel that when it shows up makes a huge impact- whether that's in combat, or in whatever its non-combat role ends up being. It's all very well having a bunch of lighter cruisers, and I won't deny the utility of those, but sometimes you really do need the big stick.
Nah, its meant to be mass produced in large numbers
Less than the Mirandas sure, but Starfleet has explicitly eschewed inexpensive light cruisers in the aftermath of the war and the grim losses of the Newtons(130kt) and Saladins(180kt) and smaller ships
Crews are expensive too, after all
We have two (E: forward) torpedo tubes and that's it. This is not going to be a torpedo ship regardless of what we pick for the phaser vote.
A Feddie with four tubes is 169 pts, with three tubes is 164 pts
Not really enough to economize on
Never going to be a torpedo boat, but still a vital element to its offense
