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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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What I believe Oneiros is saying, is that any new designs need to fill a specific role and do so better than its predecessor, to keep the number of different designs in place from ballooning massively. Not that this is some longstanding policy, but rather, a reflection of the way that Starfleet's relationship with the Federation Council is evolving in the new century. Old designs are grandfathered in, and refits aren't a concern for it.
 
Briefvoice said:
Yes, easily. Assuming no ships get blown up, we should make the Science requirement in 2316 and the Defense requirement in 2318.

Science is currently ~170 and Defense currently ~191, depending on whether ships in the midst of refit count to the total or not.
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didn't know that those numbers were not up to date. that makes me a lot less worried. thanks for the info
 
I guess my attitude toward our ships is simple.

[Takes a bit of Kipling and performs surgery]

When 'arf your event checks fall into the ditch,
Don't call your poor Constie a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young Starfleet spacer.
Fight, fight, fight for the spacer. . .
 
Constellation-P 2284-2370 [310m 700k t]
C3 S4 H2 L3 P3 D4
Cost [70br, 50sr, 3? years] Crew [O-2?, E-4?, T-2?]
25br/25sr/1yr to refit

Constitution-B 2310-Now [289m, 1m t]
C5 S3 H3 L4 P3 D5
Cost [100br, 80sr, 3 years], Crew [O-3, E-4, T-4]

Renaissance 2320-2360 [330m 1m t]
C5 S3 H4 L5 P4 D5
Cost[100br, 80sr, 3 years], Crew [O-3, E-5, T-3]

Miranda-A Now-Now [277m, 655k t]
C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
Cost[60br, 45sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-1]

Centaur-A 2308-Now [315m 800k t]
C3 S3 H2 L3 P3 D3
Cost[80br, 70sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-2]

The new Constellation compares very favorably as a cheap garrison ship.

It's cheaper in BR & SR than everything save the Miranda-A. It has less crew than the Constitution-B or Renaissance. It has equal or higher Science, Presence, & Defense than everything save for the Renaissance.

It's the perfect garrison ship and I don't get why you're calling it a 'shitbox.'
 
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chriswriter90 said:
Constellation-P 2284-2370 [310m 700k t]
C3 S4 H2 L3 P3 D4
Cost [70br, 50sr, 3? years] Crew [O-2?, E-4?, T-2?]
25br/25sr/1yr to refit

Constitution-B 2310-Now [289m, 1m t]
C5 S3 H3 L4 P3 D5
Cost [100br, 80sr, 3 years], Crew [O-3, E-4, T-4]

Renaissance 2320-2360 [330m 1m t]
C5 S3 H4 L5 P4 D5
Cost[100br, 80sr, 3 years], Crew [O-3, E-5, T-3]

Miranda-A Now-Now [277m, 655k t]
C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
Cost[60br, 45sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-1]

Centaur-A 2308-Now [315m 800k t]
C3 S3 H2 L3 P3 D3
Cost[80br, 70sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-2]

The new Constellation compares very favorably as a cheap garrison ship.

It's cheaper in BR & SR than everything save the Miranda-A. It has less crew than the Constitution-B or Renaissance. It has equal or higher Science, Presence, & Defense than everything save for the Renaissance.

It's the perfect garrison ship and I don't get why you're calling it a 'shitbox.'
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Crew cost. Using double the Officer & Enlisted of a Centaur for just +1 S & D isn't good value when crew is the #1 bottleneck on contruction. Comparing it to Rennies or Connie-B, on a purely price-based perspective it's better for garrison duty, but those two are general cruisers. They have a wider mission scope so they need to do more, and therefore cost more.
For a singe-role ship to cost that much crew, I'd expect better stats. The Kepler will have better stats. Do the refits though, for sure. It breathes a whole lot of life into a pretty crap ship, but the refit just brings it up to par. I'd rather invest in spaceships with a longer service life ahead of them.
 
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OneirosTheWriter said:
The sheet changed because the Integrated Coolant part was being abused like a rented mule =P

All of the current roles had smaller requirements once upon a time and have been updated. In a Starfleet less desperate for hulls it can put into the void, the Constellations, even the Constitution-A, may even be deemed surplus to requirements. After all, 8 crew mostly duplicating the capabilities of 5 or 6 crew frigates isn't particularly efficient.

Naturally, nothing is liable to be retired any time soon, because with all these sectors and now conflict every which way, Starfleet needs hulls like a lush needs a gin house.

Now, pretty much every refit thus far has just been bespoke, but as we go along, refits should match either existing roles, or new roles. You can designate a second-line/reserve general cruiser role for Constellations to fulfil, to reflect that they are no longer your preferred cruiser role (the Connie-B is now, and the Renaissance will be) and why, if things cool down, they should remain in service.

The Connie-B more or less fills the General Cruiser role, but given its origins were less in a carefully planned design process and more in an urgent attempt to counter the Jaldun, I think its reasonable that it strayed outside the neat and orderly system of roles.
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Thanks for the clarifications.

So it's not that old ship roles have expiration dates per-se; it's more that once we get over the combat cap or whatever other limits the Council mandates, then the Council may come and ask us what the heck these outdated ships are still doing in the service. Which aligns with Starfleet's intents anyway - we'd rather replace older ships with newer ones when we hit fleet size limits.

Then the only practical consideration that should matter for Starfleet is the aftermath of a war or crisis, when threat level can plunge down, and our expectations on max fleet size are suddenly thrown into a tizzy. In such a hypothetical situation, the Council may want to allow only surplus ships that still meet current role requirements, having us mothball all the older ships until we're back under the limit. Starfleet would rather avoid that immediate mothballing and instead gradually replace the older ships with newer ones as they come online. Well, this is all just supposition - the Council may allow this anyway.

edit: OTOH, I may be misinterpreting "a Starfleet less desperate for hulls it can put into the void" and "if things cool down" scenarios - I'm equating those to having ships in excess of our combat cap.

OneirosTheWriter said:
By and large, my advice with the roles has always been to make roles to express what you need and/or want. I'll operate based on what is in the roles, after all, so this isn't the area that people should try to play mechanics shenanigans with.
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Just to be clear, we don't need to designate a "second-line/reserve general cruiser role" just to get that Pacifist spec Constellation refit, right?

Narratively, there used to be a role for the Constellation even when Connie-Bs came out. They were the best sprinters that Starfleet had, and thus were the best for short-range response. Not that this made any difference mechanically. And now narratively, according to Simon Jester's omake, the Renaissance beats the Constellation at sprinting.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
I wouldn't build more either. I'd take the refit, but more of that shitbox? Nah.
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Well I don't see Starfleet ever building more Constellations. But our member fleets...

I can imagine Vulcans building some, since their incomes are skewed so heavily toward crew rather than BR/SR. Betazoids are in a similar situation, but less so, particularly since they also have long-term priority to increase their budget. Andor have a large crew surplus and small BR/SR reserve, while only building a single Renaissance, so they may choose to build a Constie or two just to get garrison ships ASAP to free up their combat frigates for the expected upcoming Cardassian conflict. See prior analysis.
 
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That also means that if we want to keep the Excelsior in service as garrison anchors once we've got several Ambassadors in service, then at that time we better define a light explorer that fits the Excelsior and the heavy explorer role in a way that fits the Ambassador.
 
So I've been working on a design for the Kepler recently, based on the recent sheets in the SDB (specifically @Katsuragi 's recent one). Still have to do the side and front views, though.
 
chriswriter90 said:
Constellation-P 2284-2370 [310m 700k t]
C3 S4 H2 L3 P3 D4
Cost [70br, 50sr, 3? years] Crew [O-2?, E-4?, T-2?]
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chriswriter90 said:
Centaur-A 2308-Now [315m 800k t]
C3 S3 H2 L3 P3 D3
Cost[80br, 70sr, 2 years], Crew [O-1, E-2, T-2]
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lbmaian said:
I can imagine Vulcans building some, since their incomes are skewed so heavily toward crew rather than BR/SR. Betazoids are in a similar situation, but less so, particularly since they also have long-term priority to increase their budget. Andor have a large crew surplus and small BR/SR reserve, while only building a single Renaissance, so they may choose to build a Constie or two just to get garrison ships ASAP to free up their combat frigates for the expected upcoming Cardassian conflict. See prior analysis.
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I am going to have to agree here with Ibmaian.

The Constie-Refit is cheaper than a Centaur-A in materials cost, more expensive in Crew. If you have a high Crew budget but not a lot of materials, then the Constie gets you more bang for your construction budget. Even the longer build time factors in because if you have low materials, you cannot afford to keep pushing out 2 year build-time more expensive hulls anyway. If you have the materials, you would build Centaur-As because of the lower crew and the shorter construction time.

Star Fleet has a Crew shortage - we'd be stupid to build more Consties. But if something happened to all our resource mines, then the situation would change ...
 
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aledeth said:
Crew cost. Using double the Officer & Enlisted of a Centaur for just +1 S & D isn't good value when crew is the #1 bottleneck on contruction. Comparing it to Rennies or Connie-B, on a purely price-based perspective it's better for garrison duty, but those two are general cruisers. They have a wider mission scope so they need to do more, and therefore cost more.
For a singe-role ship to cost that much crew, I'd expect better stats. The Kepler will have better stats. Do the refits though, for sure. It breathes a whole lot of life into a pretty crap ship, but the refit just brings it up to par. I'd rather invest in spaceships with a longer service life ahead of them.
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Eh, resource-gating is a temporary thing, and incentives are liable to change as income streams develop, and as expenses shift. I'm not inclined to put too much weight onto either aspect of our costs; whether we want the refit Constellation or the refit Centaur depends entirely on what we have spare... which is to say, what gets left over once we can't afford another Renaissance.
 
Alright, assuming that we'll still get the Pacifist spec Constellation-A refit option without having to designate a new role for them...

[X] [ROLES] Do Nothing [2.0x Weighting on this vote]

I like the write-in options for having a decent portion of TF4 practice intercepting mentats. Of the two proposals, I'm willing to spare 2 extra pp to include an Excelsior.

[X] [WG] A Fleet "Battle". The Thirishar, Gale, Harmony, Astute, and Assist vs the T'Mir and runabouts to simulate civilian traffic. The Svai and Calypso are available as a reserve. The objective is to prevent the "mentat" on the T'Mir from penetrating the patrol area and destructively completing their thesis, which would result in the annihilation of Betazed. A second Oberth [Torbriel] is secretly participating as a decoy. [Please caucus this vote with the similar plan that does not use Thirishar, if it does not win] Cost: 6pp.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
That also means that if we want to keep the Excelsior in service as garrison anchors once we've got several Ambassadors in service, then at that time we better define a light explorer that fits the Excelsior and the heavy explorer role in a way that fits the Ambassador.
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Hmm, if the frigate/cruiser/explorer frame requirements weren't so rigid, I'd just reclassify them as general cruisers, and have an additional role for light cruisers.

This would only be relevant if the Council starts penalizing us for retaining the explorer role for Excelsiors, since it's in Starfleet's express interest to keep that role for as many ships as possible.

aeqnai said:
So I've been working on a design for the Kepler recently, based on the recent sheets in the SDB (specifically @Katsuragi 's recent one). Still have to do the side and front views, though.
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Nice. Looks like you're going for an early 24th century style yet intermediate design towards the Nova class? Resembles the Renaissance, yet has the more triangular saucer shape and the Nova-esque saucer deflector dish.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
That also means that if we want to keep the Excelsior in service as garrison anchors once we've got several Ambassadors in service, then at that time we better define a light explorer that fits the Excelsior and the heavy explorer role in a way that fits the Ambassador.
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It's almost certain that our combat cap will never fall far enough to force us to retire all or even most of the Excelsiors, especially with a refit that I think meets the heavy explorer requirement in its own right... but yes, some day we probably will need to define a 'pocket explorer' role that the Excelsior-A can meet. And possibly design a new 1.8mt ship that's cheaper.

lbmaian said:
Alright, assuming that we'll still get the Pacifist spec Constellation-A refit option without having to designate a new role for them...

[] [ROLES] Do Nothing [2.0x Weighting on this vote]

I like the write-in options for having a decent portion of TF4 practice intercepting mentats. Of the two proposals, I'm willing to spare 2 extra pp to include an Excelsior.
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Aw, thanks!

Honestly, I feel like we need to give the defending force an Excelsior just to make this remotely fair and to give the defenders a chance to learn anything. I may have excessive faith in T'Mir, but that crew is one of the few Veteran ones we have. They successfully concealed themselves from an entire civilization for a period of several years, even after making close approach to one of their star systems on at least one occasion, while making regular reports back to us about what they'd found. With Zaardmani in Torbriel running interference- let's just say that if I knew we were up against that caliber of weird and sneaky in a real conflict, I'd definitely want an Excelsior present.
 
Blackshard said:
Eh, resource-gating is a temporary thing, and incentives are liable to change as income streams develop, and as expenses shift. I'm not inclined to put too much weight onto either aspect of our costs; whether we want the refit Constellation or the refit Centaur depends entirely on what we have spare... which is to say, what gets left over once we can't afford another Renaissance.
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The thing is, crew is going to be our major limiting factor for an extremely long time. This won't change unless we get some sort of specialized academy upgrade.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Should warn you that the optimal Kepler may well have a non-saucer deflector dish. Seems more likely than not by my estimation.
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I can certainly edit for that, and for part changes etc, though I do wish the sheet would settle down so there could be a finalized one soon.

I do have to admit, I'd like to keep the saucer deflector, if for no other reason than it makes the design lineage towards the Nova more explicit. Though most likely by the time we get to the Nova it'll be redesigned too...
 
aeqnai said:
Oh, just don't ask for the Oberth. Jesus Christ the Oberth. The S5 comes from the spatial anomalies involved in its construction, you know.
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I'm telling you, the warp core is in the saucer, and the secondary hull is just one massive sensor array that runs off of warp-plasma, but the designs for the sensors were censored by the Organians, because of plot.
 
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