Department of Starship Design (Trek-ish)

[Jalinth]

For Iron Road, I want minimal refit for existing ships, full rebuild for new construction. Keep what we've got flying flying, but no reason not to have the new ones capable of faster warp.

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The Full Rebuild seems pointless. I'm 99.9% sure they already have a Warp 4 engine. Now there might be something ELSE that the rebuild adds that's important but I'm pretty happy with the ships as they stand now.

Why did the warp 4 not improve our cruise

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It did. Iron Roads just have less cruise boosting than the Star Seeker does; with the same engine as a Star Seeker the Iron Road would only make Warp 2 cruise and 2.9 sprint (it would be a bit faster because, you know, something like half the mass).

When you get around to the Block Two refit, the Star Seekers will be even faster than they are right now.

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Yeah, it seems pretty clear that the option to upgrade the Iron Road warp drive is simply an oversight. There are a LOT of things to juggle with a project this big, so no surprise.

Edit 2: Iron Roads only got a single batch of five ships approved at the end of their plan. Expected to be completed two in quest years ago. Unless I missed something, those 5 are all that will be in service.

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Only the first run of five Iron Roads are complete at this point, though another five are in progress.

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There's an answer for you.

Anyway here is a template for people
[] Plan
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (3 points) Minimal Refit
--[] (6 points) Full Modernization
--[] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Furious Wind class.
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (2 points) Minimal Refit
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
--[] (8 points) Full Rebuild
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Iron Road class.
---[] … For Future Production only.
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (13 points) Minimal Refit
--[] (25 points) Full Rebuild
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (5 point minimum buy.) Build a new ship class

And here are some plans for talking points. One thing in common with them all is the Modest Refit for the Iron Road. It's going to do good things to their ability to defend themselves and is fairly inexpensive.

[] Plan Furious Wind is back!
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (13 points) Minimal Refit

This is the easiest and fastest way to get more fire power, and also harden our in-system convoys against potential raiders. The Furious Wind refit probably won't be as good as a brand new ship but it will be close, and it will get us some numbers faster then a whole new ship. This has the factor that less real time will be spent before we get to the event and the next R&D phase.

[] Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (14) Build a new ship class

This plan has us building a new ship to replace the Gold Road. Build an interstellar cargo ship that is less expensive than the Iron Road. Let's face it, while the Iron Road is awesome, it's pretty damn huge.

[] Plan Furious Replacement
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Furious Wind class.
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (26) Build a new ship class

This gives us the budget to build a light cruiser. Something a bit larger then the Furious Wind full rebuild, and no doubt more capable. Of course it's going to limit the numbers of decent warships we can produce. It will leave the Winds very vulnerable.

[] Plan Furious Replacement 2
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (6 points) Full Modernization
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (20) Build a new ship class

This is a lower budget for the new ship, but it will bring our old ships up to a reasonably useful standard as fast as possible. Gives us 23 decent ships, and then we can build a solid replacement for them.

 

[Karugus]

Minimal gold probably still has them pretty much stuck in our solar system, at which point the shields and EFF are almost entirely unnecessary unless we're planning for our home to be invaded without a sizable fraction of our navy to contest it. A navy that might be very well weaker just so these ships that can't leave home waters are up to a bureaucratic standard rather than a realistic one.

There will be a time and a place to rebuild the golden roads so we have a real interstellar merchant marine. It's probably not now.

[] Plan: Furious Replacement 2
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (6 points) Full Modernization
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (20) Build a new ship class

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Definitely where I'm currently at. This should probably let us build a fresh 180kt-200kt ship, though there is something to be said about waiting for Warp 5 and settling for just a modernization of the Furious Wind for this turn.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

We could definitely use a cheaper modern cargo ship at some point. Iron Roads are good, but they are FAT and pricey. You dont need a big rig for every job, sometimes you want a box truck.

But yeah, if the Warp 4 thing is a mistake, I see no real reason to go the full refit on a noncombatant.

 

[TeaMug]

The Full Rebuild seems pointless. I'm 99.9% sure they already have a Warp 4 engine.

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Yeah, I'm probably going to have to re-evaluate. I'm hoping we get some clarification.

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This plan has us building a new ship to replace the Gold Road. Build an interstellar cargo ship that is less expensive than the Iron Road.

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I like the idea of a new cargo ship. If we aimed for a smaller fast-courier type, it'd be fun to see how high we can push our warp factor. Or maybe try for a maximally-cheap build.

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I still want EFF for the Gold Roads, basically as an OSHA minimum safety standard. Don't really care about the rest, I'll probably try for a write-in.

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If we don't spend all our refit points, what happens? Are they wasted, are they re-invested into industrial growth, are they spent on civilian construction?

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

If we don't spend all our refit points, what happens? Are the wasted, are they re-invested into industrial growth, are they spent on civilian construction?

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More refit points means a bigger budget if we choose a new ship. If we dont refit anything, we get 250-300 KT to play with for a new warship. If we only have 5, the new ship can only be sub 100 kt.

And less than 5... either goes to waste or goes to speeding construction somewhere else I suppose.

 

[LawsOfRobotics]

If the Iron Road really are already Warp 4 engines, then the Modest Refit is all that is needed there. That leaves 26 refit points which I think we should use to either replace the Furious Wind or upgrade all the Gold Roads. We have a lot of Gold Roads, so I would expect the economic boost for making them faster would be pretty big, and it would give us a lot of small transport ships to accompany our Iron Roads. If we designed a small transport from scratch it would look a lot like a fully refit Gold Road.

The Iron Roads have the Engineering and Science score to build a colony, and a good amount of crew comfort, so I think if we cycled crews between ships convoys of several Gold Roads and an Iron Road would work well. We just designed a warship that can keep the limited number of systems we are in safe, and are facing no known active threat. If we focus on upgrading all our transport to a modern standard then next cycle we can build a decent frigate to replace the Furious Wind.

[] Plan Upgrade all the transports
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Furious Wind class.
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (25 points) Full Rebuild

If we don't want to fully upgrade the Gold Roads, then I think it makes sense to just leave them alone for now, to be refit next time, and instead replace the Furious Wind with a good new frigate. Something like Plan Furious Replacement. FYI @Jalinth the colon in plan names messes up the vote tally, because it is looking for just the word Plan, so I recommend leaving that out.

[] Plan Furious Replacement
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Furious Wind class.
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[] New ship
--[] (26) Build a new ship class

 

[TeaMug]

On further consideration, I'm feeling pretty minimalistic right now.

[] Plan I'd rather build more Halberds
-[] Furious Wind Class
--[] (3 points) Minimal Refit
-[] Iron Road Class
--[] (2 points) Minimal Refit
-[] Gold Road Class
--[] (unknown) OSHA Refit
---[] Mk I EFFs only. No shields or disruptors
---[] If this write-in is unacceptable, No Refit
-[] No new ship
--[] (0 points) Do not build a new ship class

I'm eager to get to our next event.

Edit: NEVERMIND THAT'S APPARENTLY NOT HOW THIS WORKS

 

[Jalinth]

Here are some factors to consider -

Do we want to do a new ship? This will probably take a couple weeks to get through the process with only the same toys we've just been playing with. Not a bad thing, but the extra real time taken in this turn could be spent on other things.

If we are not going to do a new ship this turn then my Furious Wind is back! plan seems like the best bet. It fully upgrades the Winds to modern standards, with a larger size to take advantage of batteries and stronger shields. It gives the Iron Roads a large survivability upgrade, hopefully without hurt it's cargo capability too much. The remainder of the points are being spent on making the Gold Roads a bit more survivable. All 125 of them. That's a pretty significant return on investment for 13 points, even if it is only good for our home system. It leaves 1 point left over, but heck maybe that will go to refitting the Type 1s or something.

If we are going to do a new ship what kind of ship do we want? The three options I see are a new small cargo ship, a small escort, or a light cruiser. The bigger the ship we do the slower they will be to build. Based on how fast the Iron Roads are to build, the Halberds are going to take a while.

If we go for Plan Furious Replacement then we are going to be lacking numbers. Very lacking numbers. The Winds were ok ships until we saw the results of the disruptor programs. I feel less optimistic about them being remotely useful anymore.

Plan Furious Replacement 2 will get us 23 decent system defense vessels to protect our home in the event of something bad happening. I suspect this will be popular with the public, knowing that there are that many more modern warships available. This plan still gives us enough budget for a solid replacement for the Winds.

Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road will give something small for numbers, lets us get a less expensive cargo ship into production, and leaves the field open to us building a better warship next turn once we have lessons learned and more tech.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

Thing is I WANT an escort here. We have the main line combat vessel, we need the support craft one way or the other.

I'd rather make a new warship, but there's definitely an argument to be made to spend that time on a replacement for the Golds instead, and rely on the Winds for another decade or two.

On the OTHER hand, the refit only covers a total of 23 vessels if we dont go full bore, barely outnumbering the already ordered 15 Halberds, we would need another class to give them proper support regardless. And I am confident in saying that a refit design is very rarely going to outmatched a purpose built vessel at similar pricepoint.

 

[Karugus]

The survivability of the Golden Road is a moot point with a Warp 2 drive that's effectively incapable of leaving our home system. Can we really think of any examples where we wouldn't take the extensive forewarning we'd have of attackers coming for it to bring the Gold Roads to the most defensible parts of the system with all the other priceless infrastructure we'd need to protect anyways?

Shields and EFF on a Warp 2 ship don't make any sense unless we're expecting fighting to spill onto the homeworld. It is the very definitional of preparing for failure rather than investing resources into avoiding said failure state.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

One other factor I have yet to see mentioned, people have been saying in previous votes that our torpedoes are kinda shite right now, arguing for keeping them limited. The Furious Winds are torpedo boats. We have limited space to work with without yanking out some of said tubes.

Not sure how much more room the additional tonnage gives us, may not get anything at all between shields and the increase in size for the warp core.

 

[Jalinth]

The survivability of the Golden Road is a moot point with a Warp 2 drive that's effectively incapable of leaving our home system.

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There is a reason I'm only suggesting that option if we are passing on doing any new ships at all this turn. I'm not really in favor of it, but if feels like the best way to go IF we are skipping any new ships.

One other factor I have yet to see mentioned, people have been saying in previous votes that our torpedoes are kinda shite right now, arguing for keeping them limited. The Furious Winds are torpedo boats. We have limited space to work with without yanking out some of said tubes.

Not sure how much more room the additional tonnage gives us, may not get anything at all between shields and the increase in size for the warp core.

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To hit the 180kt or 200kt option I'm assuming a secondary hull will be added. Including Nacelles 180kt is a 50kt hull, while 200kt is a 60kt hull. So base 25 or 36 spaces, minus shape and shields. That should be enough to make the Furious Wind a much more useful craft.

I've done a bunch of theory crafts on upgraded Furious Winds. I'm pretty sure that the 6 and 12 point options are going to give us something worthwhile.

Right now I'm in favour of doing the full upgrade to the Furious Winds, and spending 14 refit points on making a whole new replacement for the Gold Road. I want to get a bit more tech before we do our next warship. There is a very good chance we will be getting the Warp 5 engines next turn, which is going to have a big impact on the capabilities of a new warship.

I am currently against going for the no upgrade to the Winds and spending 26 points on a new warship. It feels like we will be failing to get a ship that is significantly less expensive as compared to our new flagships.

I'm going to toss a vote towards my two preferred plans, since the moratorium is well and truly past, and I'm not sure how much more time I'm going to be spending on the forums tonight.

[X] Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road
-[X] Furious Wind Class
--[X] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
-[X] Iron Road Class
--[X] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[X] Gold Road Class
--[X] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[X] New ship
--[X] (14) Build a new ship class

[X] Plan Furious Replacement 2
-[X] Furious Wind Class
--[X] (6 points) Full Modernization
-[X] Iron Road Class
--[X] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[X] Gold Road Class
--[X] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[X] New ship
--[X] (20) Build a new ship class

 

[WGDragoon]

Thing is I WANT an escort here. We have the main line combat vessel, we need the support craft one way or the other.

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Do we though? The usual rules that make escort craft a necessity don't really apply here. Torpedoes and 'Starfighters' are rare weapon systems, and the Halberd already has excellent point defense coverage. We're already pushing the envelope on what can be achieved with Warp 4 in terms of speed, so an escort or light cruiser isn't going to be significantly faster. Our newest ship is perfectly capable of independent operation.

 

[zac1]

[X] Plan Furious Replacement 2

Furious winds can be modernized I figure it can remain relevant in the fleet for a bit longer.

 

[luckless21]

[X] Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road
-[X] Furious Wind Class
--[X] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
-[X] Iron Road Class
--[X] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[X] Gold Road Class
--[X] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[X] New ship
--[X] (14) Build a new ship class

 

[WGDragoon]

[X] Plan Furious Wind is Good Enough
-[X] Furious Wind Class
--[X] (12 points) Complete Rebuild & New Production
-[X] Iron Road Class
--[X] (4 points) Modest Refit
-[X] Gold Road Class
--[X] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[X] No new ship
--[X] (0 points) Do not build a new ship class

I don't want to design a new ship class and I don't see much point in a Gold Road refit or replacement at this point. We won't have all that many colonies or trade partners for a while at this rate, and I'd rather wait on Warp 5 for our fast freighter/trade ship if there isn't any demand yet. A Furious Wind rebuild should be good enough for short term defense while the Halberds are building.

Edit:
[X] Plan Gold Filigree
[X] Furious Wind v2 and Shields for Everybody!
[X] Plan Upgrade all the transports

 

[Jalinth]

Do we though? The usual rules that make escort craft a necessity don't really apply here. Torpedoes and 'Starfighters' are rare weapon systems, and the Halberd already has excellent point defense coverage. We're already pushing the envelope on what can be achieved with Warp 4 in terms of speed, so an escort or light cruiser isn't going to be significantly faster. Our newest ship is perfectly capable of independent operation.

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What I want an escort ship for is to be in places that the Halberd is not. It doesn't matter how powerful your ship is if it isn't at the battle. The ability to have smaller ships to cover other areas is important. Heck, scouts are something we want. Send a ship to check out some things while keeping the main fleet concentrated to respond when the enemy is found.

@Mechanis In addition to confirming what was posted previously about the Iron Road already having a Warp 4 engine, could you tell us what happens to unspent refit points? We have some plans that are not looking to spend all of them. If those points are rolled into other things that's fine, but if it is use it or lose it then it's a foolish idea.

 

[WGDragoon]

What I want an escort ship for is to be in places that the Halberd is not. It doesn't matter how powerful your ship is if it isn't at the battle. The ability to have smaller ships to cover other areas is important. Heck, scouts are something we want. Send a ship to check out some things while keeping the main fleet concentrated to respond when the enemy is found.

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We don't have a huge number of points to defend right now, and I feel a Furious Wind rebuild and new production run wound have that angle covered for a turn. We also have shuttles and probes for most short-range scouting missions. A long-range scouting mission has the same mission profile as an exploration mission. For a Light Explorer we're really going to want Warp 5.

 

[Candesce]

[ ] Plan Furious Replacement 2
[x] Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road
[x] Plan Tiebreaker

My preference for a second naval vessel would be something cheap-ish in the frigate weight classes, not a second cruiser, so not that many points need to be assigned to it. Based on the ranges given, the 14 in the "Replace the Gold Road" plan might well be enough - so don't assume I'll automatically vote for a cargo hauler if that plan wins.

Given that we can mount weapons on the full-refit Gold Road, and there's a lot of them (more than five times the numbers of Furious Winds), we'd actually still have last-ditch forces even without big refits on the Furious Winds, so I'm going to put up a plan for that even if no one else is going to vote for it:

[x] Plan Gold Filigree
-[x] Furious Wind Class
--[x] (3 points) Minimal Refit
-[x] Iron Road Class
--[x] (2 points) Minimal Refit
-[x] Gold Road Class
--[x] (25 points) Full Rebuild

... Thought about sticking with a modest refit for new-build Iron Roads only, but adding shields is just too important. This plan would definitely require a second rebuild of the Furious Wind in the near future, because they still wouldn't have shields.

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

[X] Plan Iron Wind
-[X] Furious Wind Class
--[X] (6 points) Full Modernization
-[X] Iron Road Class
--[X] (8 points) Full Rebuild
-[X] Gold Road Class
--[X] (0 points) Do not refit the Gold Road class.
-[X] New Ship 16 points

 

[Jalinth]

Plan Iron Wind

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I'm curious, why the full rebuild of the Iron Wind instead of the modest refit?

 

[Roaming_Guardian]

I'm curious, why the full rebuild of the Iron Wind instead of the modest refit?

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Dont want to spend quite 20 on the hypothetical new ship, plus it leaves the Iron Road a better Tender in a hypothetical conflict.

A ship that can resupply the front, in the unlikely event it needs to, without being an easy target. Admittedly, a cheap cloak hauler would be far better at the job.

 

[Karugus]

There is a reason I'm only suggesting that option if we are passing on doing any new ships at all this turn. I'm not really in favor of it, but if feels like the best way to go IF we are skipping any new ships.

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If we're not doing any new ships, then I think we ought to settle on a full rebuild of the Furious Winds. 180kt is a solid breakpoint and this means that at least for a while we won't have to split our escorts into varying degrees of capability. A full rebuild of the FW also leaves the door open for additional refits if I'm understanding things right, and that means we could refit them to Warp 5 in a few turns. This means not pursuing a Warp 5 escort next turn most likely, but it also gives us more time to pursue things like exotic power, better deflectors, start the climb to getting Replicators, better computers, plasma weaponry, as well as exploring the opportunities your Blue Sky opened up. Frankly I don't think an escort we build this turn would notably exceed the Furious Winds to justify it's parallel development, and I'm even a bit skeptical the Gold Road 2 will be much different than a smaller Iron Road.

[X] Plan Furious Wind is Good Enough
[X] Plan Furious Wind is back - Replace the Gold Road

We'd have decent warships, we'd be committing to building a lot of them, and we leave them room to be upgraded with all the technologies we'll likely see in a turn or two. I'm still leery of replacing the Gold Road- but I think if we demand frugality from ourselves in the first place we might be able to manage it. There's something to be said for rearming and replacing our ships too frequently when our tech is so rapidly changing.

 

[Jalinth]

If we're not doing any new ships, then I think we ought to settle on a full rebuild of the Furious Winds.

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I agree? That's what is in my no new ships plan. I just wasn't leaving points unspent until we had some confirmation that there was some benefit to it. That said, I see Mechanis is looking at the thread now so hopefully we'll get an answer.

 

[Mechanis]

Unspent points are just unspent, unless you use them for a new ship; they're more a representation of yard capacity and man-hours.