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what about the condor - the bird with the largest wingspan

Also, fair, but If we go for Federation class I think it'd be better for the names to be more terms similar to Federation, but I can't really come up with anything for that
 
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Godwinson said:
And yet critically, they're cheaper right now, when Starfleet has a desperate need for ships to perform basic patrol and service missions.
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Which is why I agreed that Starfleet's going to be procuring a ton of them even if I think they're going to struggle in the long term, my point was that the fact that the Federation's armaments aren't going to need a refit for a good while unlike the Miranda is a point in it's favor.

I'm don't think that Starfleet shouldn't procure Miranda's, heck until they've managed to replenish their numbers a bit I think spamming Miranda's should be the priority given all the Newton losses they need to make up for but afterwards just continuing to spamming Miranda's would be a repeat of the mistakes Starfleet made when choosing to be reliant on the Newton's as the bulk of their combat ships in the prelude to the Klingon War.

Beyond just the Newton's lacking coverage they also didn't compare favorably to their Klingon contemporaries at the time the D6 which made up the bulk of the Klingon capital ships.
Sayle said:
The Klingon D6 has long been an awkward measuring stick to match ships like the Newton or Kea against
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That became a huge issue when the Klingons move on to their next generation of capital ships which was why when designing the Excalibur's we were explicitly told that the only thing that mattered was how deadly the Excaliburs were.

That's resulted in the Excalibur's suffering heavy attrition (they weren't great at non-combat stuff relative to their size) once Starfleet had to find non-combat things for them to do after the war and is probably also the reason why Starfleet hasn't bothered to order another batch after the war despite being really short on ships.

The fact that we've gotten detailed info on both of their next generation projects with shield strengths and weapons loadouts (I guess Klingon Engineers leaked info onto Space-Warthunder to prove the they can totally make something superior to the Excalibur) means that Starfleet knows it can't rest on it's laurels and all the tactical limitations I've pointed out with the current Miranda design (can't run away or chase, gets curbstomped by K'tingas and D7's aren't easy fights) should be things they are aware of as well.

Either way, our design is pretty complimentary to the Miranda since the Miranda is an excellent design for purely doing stuff in the Federation interior on the cheap while still being combat relevant against anything that isn't a bleeding edge capital ship whereas the Federation keeps us competitive with the next big Klingon capital ship which is an overall improvement compared to just Newtons vs D6's.
Lohjak said:
The Saladin actually continued to do science on the interior after the war, it just wasn't able to be deployed out to the frontier:

Which makes perfect sense, seeing as how around the same time the Kea had its dilithium analysis suite removed. If a Kea finds some dilithium in the process of surveying a planet, divert a Saladin from patrol to go check it out.

It's much harder to justify diverting the fastest, heaviest, most capable ship you have to run back to the interior to go check out some dilithium than it is an aging patrol boat (which will remain in service until 2271 anyways). I'd rather just wait for Starfleet to throw a survey package together for the Miranda.
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2240 was the last year they were considered Science ships (they first entered service in 2211), the Retrospective mentions that they lost their designation as a Science ship after 2240.
Sayle said:
The Saladin accomplished vital industrial work in its dilithium prospecting missions, very much paying for their own warp engines, but after 2240 the shortcomings of their single-nacelle design and lesser capabilities effectively removed their status as a science ship only three decades after their launch.
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LOLROFL said:
2240 was the last year they were considered Science ships (they first entered service in 2211), the Retrospective mentions that they lost their designation as a Science ship in after 2240.
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Yes, but it still continued to serve as a survey vessel. The argument is that we desperately need more dilithium so we should add a dlithium analysis lab to the Federation, but that only makes any sense if we just turn the Federation into a survey ship that can do more than look for dilithium while it orbits frontier planets.

There's just no reason for the Federation to be out surveying random planets unless we turn it into a survey ship, and while it's certainly going to carry enough modules and be dangerous enough to be an effective frontier surveyor, it's also a complete waste of the max cruise we paid for, and competing with the Excalibur as an explorer to boot. And the Excelsior will probably come along within the next two ship designs, so a survey Federation becomes redundant in like twenty years.
 
LOLROFL said:
That became a huge issue when the Klingons move on to their next generation of capital ships which was why when designing the Excalibur's we were explicitly told that the only thing that mattered was how deadly the Excaliburs were.

That's resulted in the Excalibur's suffering heavy attrition (they weren't great at non-combat stuff relative to their size) once Starfleet had to find non-combat things for them to do after the war and is probably also the reason why Starfleet hasn't bothered to order another batch after the war despite being really short on ships.

The fact that we've gotten detailed info on both of their next generation projects with shield strengths and weapons loadouts (I guess Klingon Engineers leaked info onto Space-Warthunder to prove the they can totally make something superior to the Excalibur) means that Starfleet knows it can't rest on it's laurels and all the tactical limitations I've pointed out with the current Miranda design (can't run away or chase, gets curbstomped by K'tingas and D7's aren't easy fights) should be things they are aware of as well.
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No, it was outright stated all of the Excalibur casualties were the same deaths that happened to its canonical counterpart. There was legitimately nothing to be done about that, and it was decent as a Science ship. It just wasn't built to handle plot armor incidents.
 
[X] Two Forward (Rapid) [36/108 Damage] [Cost: 173]
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Rapid) [36/108 Damage]/[18/56 Damage] [Cost: 185]

After the integration of the planet Gensokyo, the tactics of bullet hell were quickly adopted as an extreme advantage over previous, slower paced firing brackets..
 
Wootius said:
This is the Kea's successor, it must have a bird name.
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The Kea was 255k tons, had low maneuverability, and flubbed its Tactical score. It retained omnidirectional coverage, but its weapons complement was frankly sad, even in comparison to the Thunderchild - it had less than half the sustained firepower and only a quarter the alpha strike. This from a ship fifty years newer. The Thunderchild, however, sat at 280 tons, had medium maneuverability, retained omnidirectional coverage and alpha-strike potential that can only be described as gnarly, and had a price tag to match.
Our Feddie here has omnidirectional firepower, a gnarly alpha strike, is surprisingly maneuverable, and will be a very bad day for anything it comes across. This vessel is the best spiritual successor we're going to get for the Thunderchild, and it's going to be a good long time before we build anything that compares. If we don't use the name here, we're probably never going to unless by some apocalyptic scenario we need to crash-build giant ships to face some existential threat, and frankly I like the name too much not to fight for it. If we want to establish this naming convention, now's the time.
 
Onionjones said:
what about the condor - the bird with the largest wingspan

Also, fair, but If we go for Federation class I think it'd be better for the names to be more terms similar to Federation, but I can't really come up with anything for that
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Honestly, for Federation, I could see the naming scheme just being "Important names in the Federation's history" - ie., you could just as easily have a UFS Kumari NCC-1905 as you could a UFS Thunderchild NCC-1901, or ships named after Federation member worlds, or something else.
 
Iridium Flare said:
The Kea was 255k tons, had low maneuverability, and flubbed its Tactical score. It retained omnidirectional coverage, but its weapons complement was frankly sad, even in comparison to the Thunderchild - it had less than half the sustained firepower and only a quarter the alpha strike. This from a ship fifty years newer. The Thunderchild, however, sat at 280 tons, had medium maneuverability, retained omnidirectional coverage and alpha-strike potential that can only be described as gnarly, and had a price tag to match.
Our Feddie here has omnidirectional firepower, a gnarly alpha strike, is surprisingly maneuverable, and will be a very bad day for anything it comes across. This vessel is the best spiritual successor we're going to get for the Thunderchild, and it's going to be a good long time before we build anything that compares. If we don't use the name here, we're probably never going to unless by some apocalyptic scenario we need to crash-build giant ships to face some existential threat, and frankly I like the name too much not to fight for it. If we want to establish this naming convention, now's the time.
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Have the Thunderchild-A or Warspite-A be one/two of the ships, not make this the Thunderchild-A class. 🤔
 
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]

[X] Two Forward (Rapid) [36/108 Damage] [Cost: 173]

Personally, my ideal torpedo configuration would be 2 Rapid Mark IVs on the front, and 1 Standard Mark IV as an aft launcher. Unfortunately though that is not an option, to mix and match like that, so I'm okay with any of these three options. Definitely going with Mark IV for all options though, the increase in combat capability is too great to ignore.

Well I do agree that having aft torpedoes as standard is a very good idea, I don't necessarily think two aft launchers really makes any sense, given the higher than normal maneuverability of the Federation class. Yes it's not the most maneuverable thing ever, but it's still enough that really we only need one launcher in the aft to properly cover our rear. Given that it will be the centerpiece of fleet formations, with plenty of varying escort ships all around it to complement its tactical abilities, the aft launcher will prove most useful in Solo engagements when it's on patrol or doing things otherwise far from Federation space, where things are riskier.
 
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The Thunderchild was 280kt, and this nearly 100 years ago. This ship is simply way too small to be a true successor.
 
Tinkerer said:
No, it was outright stated all of the Excalibur casualties were the same deaths that happened to its canonical counterpart. There was legitimately nothing to be done about that, and it was decent as a Science ship. It just wasn't built to handle plot armor incidents.
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Our input to ship design has the ability to avert events that happened in canon like Tarsus IV or the loss of the Constellation, my point is that if we weren't graded solely on tactical capabilities when designing the Excalibur due to how bad the strategic situation was we could (and likely would) have designed a ship that could have averted a few of those losses like how maxing out the Excalibur's maneuverability let the Constellation dance around the Planet Killer's BFG and survive.

For example if we had the leeway for a bigger ship with more emphasis on non-tactical capabilities which could fit more general or specialized science facilities it might have meant that some of those Excalibur's would have had more scientists onboard and that might have tipped to scales to allow them to figure out the solutions that the Enterprises crew were able to figure out in canon.
 
NSMS said:
One problem: if we name it Toucan, it'll be taken down for copyright infringement. :V
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they wouldn't dare 👀

avatar11792 said:
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]

[X] Two Forward (Rapid) [36/108 Damage] [Cost: 173]

Personally, my ideal torpedo configuration would be two rapid fire Mark IVs on the front, and one standard Mark 4 as an aft launcher. Unfortunately though that is not an option, to mix and match like that, so I'm okay with any of these three spreads.

Well I do agree that having aft torpedoes as standard is a very good idea, I don't necessarily think two at launchers really makes any sense, given the higher than normal maneuverability of the Federation class. Yes it's not the most maneuverable thing ever, but it's still enough that really we only need one launcher in the aft to properly cover our rear. Given that it will be the centerpiece of fleet formations, with plenty of varying escort ships all around it to complement its tactical abilities, the aft launcher will prove most useful in Solo engagements when it's on patrol or doing things otherwise far from Federation space, where things are riskier.
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it's five cost at this point between one and two aft for it's primary mission profile. 36 extra damage on your third attack(forward torpedoes, phasers anywhere , and aft torpedoes) is nothing to sneeze at. the type IV is the best value to money the ship has spent imo and it'll really shine in fleet battles
 
[x] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
I like this, it's a classic Starfleet torpedo layout. Same fit as the Galaxy and a bunch of other designs.

On cruise and sprint speeds, it's very much relevant that warp speed is a cubic effect. The FEDERATION design is going to be nearly 1.5x as fast (1.45something) as the Miranda at standard cruise. At maximum cruise, 1.18x, and with a sprint once again 1.5 times as fast, which is a huge difference for internal response. The difference is actually slowest at strategic speed (though if I had to guess, a ship with more room to go faster will be better at holding max cruise for longer), but is really huge for exploration, internal response, and regular redeployments.
 
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