I don't feel that's a very good trade. Each Starbase only fights in one location, unless we're going to start doubling them up. Ships are additive to existing defenses. As for repair yards, certainly we need them, but for one, we'll only have 1 Excelsior in the GBZ, and for two, we'll have the option of forgoing an E-A refit or pushing the Constellation build to SF-1 once the Miri-A there clears.
I feel not taking advantage of our existing infrastructure will create a genuine risk of actually losing the war.
It depends on the context and situation, really - if we somehow didn't vote for an Indorian starbase this year, I'd rather spend some of that assumed 50pp on that next year. But discussion on 2317 political will costs is rather premature. It may turn out we have a huge pp surplus in 2317 as we have this year. We don't even know what the revised pp costs are with Sulu in charge.
While I like the overall build plan (Rennies!!), I still worry about the lack of berth free space until 2319 or so, especially during resumed GBZ campaigning. I'd be much more willing to back this 2317 build plan, if we had more berth space available then, perhaps via yet another UP expansion. Unfortunately, the other berth snakepit projects are either pp-inefficient or require 3 years to come to fruition (although the idea of an Amarkia or Ferasa shipyard is pretty appealing).
Worth noting that the only reasons our heads were above the water in terms of crew were empty berths and refits. Filling the berths has us demonstrating low crew numbers again, and if we didn't have so many refits we'd be back to being utterly screwed. This seems to indicate that we haven't yet caught our crew income up to our berth list, and the idea that we might be SR limited seems much farther away, given that we start to accumulate surpluses with filled berths.
Well, to be both more general and more precise, it's war and ship battles that tend to delay our crew problems in favor of SR shortages.
Even if we were allowed to follow our original pre-Licori-War 2315 build plan and just have repairs bump off existing builds as necessary (which would be a planning nightmare, but bear with me), SR would still be more problematic than crew. The reasons are two-fold:
First and most obvious: repairs require berth time. In both the GBZ and Licori war, repair yards either weren't ready yet or were too few to make a significant dent. And there were only so many free member fleet berths available, so many repairs ended up in our own yards. This, by the way, is why I want more free berth space available in the coming years.
Second, our repair resource costs tend to be more expensive than our crew replenishment costs. This is primarily because ship losses result in crew recovery rather than replenishment. Now, this has not been the case in the GBZ so far, because we've been very lucky on not losing any ships there yet (IIRC we did still hit a SR crunch then, but it was because we were always skating by on SR while still having a large bank of crew). But it's definitely true for the Licori war:
Net change in Starfleet non-EC crew: O-4 E-3 T+1 (note: this does include the 2/2/2 war recruitment campaign)
Net change in Starfleet EC crew: O+6 E+4 T+4 (or O-0 E-1 T-1 if ignoring
Enterprise-B loss)
Repair costs: 295br 295sr (excludes E-A refit costs of 100br 60sr in the repairs)
Brute force repair additional costs: 70br 50sr
I get that but such a "high" casualty strategy seems to go against the character of the Federation, at least in my opinion. I think the Federation would rather go for the ressource expensive, quality and "safer" option than the "cheap" but expendable path that Mirandas characterize in my eyes.
A couple points:
1) You're talking about Starfleet rather than the Federation as a whole. Apiata and Caitian fleets beg to differ. Even the 4 original member fleets had a lot of Mirandas.
2) Out of all the powers, I'm pretty sure Starfleet has been the most hardcore on producing explorers over more efficient frigates like Mirandas. It was only 2 years ago that we started crash building Mirandas due to the Gabriel campaign. So it's not like we aren't already emphasizing "bigger is better" ships.
3) All the pre-Renaissance Starfleet stat lines actually indicated that it was the Federation that was counting on superior firepower (and science) over durability. For sure, Starfleet vessels tended to be less durable than Klingons (with the exception of the BoP), the Federation's main enemy in the second half of the 23rd century. That could imply that Starfleet was aiming for hit and run tactics, but I find it more likely that the Federation was in the mindset that producing sufficient firepower-heavy ships for battle was more important than limiting casualties, and that they were counting on superior industrial capability.
Stat lines (C H L D only):
Soyuz: C2 H1 L1 D1
Miranda: C3 H1 L2 D2
Miranda-A: C3 H2 L3 D2
Centaur: C3 H2 L2 D2
Centaur-A: C3 H2 L3 D3
Constellation: C3 H2 L2 D3
Constellation-A (2303 option): C4 H2 L2 D4
Constellation-A (2313 escort option): C3 H2 L2 D4
Constellation-A (2313 cruiser option): C4 H3 L3 D4
Constellation-A (2314 pacifist option): C3 H2 L3 D4
Ranger: C2 H2 L1 D2
Constitution: C3 H3 L2 D4
Constitution-A: C4 H3 L3 D5
Constitution-B: C5 H3 L4 D5
Excelsior: C6 H4 L5 D6
Excelsior-A: C7 H4 L6 D6
It's only for new designs like the Renaissance and Ambassador that we've been considering shifting to greater durability rather than firepower. Some of that is due to combat cap concerns; the other consideration is reducing battle repair and crew replenishment costs.
Chen only has to be in office when ships are started for them to benefit, so any time after this year would be fine.
Do you mean that the parallel build savings of a year lasts for the whole build, or just the year's progress?
If it's the latter, that's what I'm assuming as well.
But do you have a source? I'd like to get something concrete behind my assumptions.
Hey
@OneirosTheWriter could you add a profile for
Certunn Guk?
I realized he's been in office as head of Starfleet Academy a long time and might make a good Vice Admiral candidate, but we don't have his traits. Here is what was said about him when we initially voted him into office back in 2304:
[ ][KEIKO] Commodore Certunn Guk
Tellarite Male, 52
Current Posting: Director of Astrosciences School, Starfleet Academy
Certunn has led his school for four years, and is a loud, outspoken advocate for the importance of technical training. Gain +.5 Starfleet Tech, +.25 Explorer Corps Tech throughput.
Speaking of Certunn Guk, perhaps this organizational reshuffle isn't the right opportunity, but I do eventually want a different person in charge of Starfleet Academy. His bonuses (which might include the ability to expand the Science Academies) just aren't very useful anymore.
