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Department of Starship Design (Trek-ish)

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Skjadir said:
When the too and from trip at the current warp speed takes a year or more for anything but the nearest star (using our current fastest cruise speed), I don't think regular trips out of system are going to be happening much apart from rare supply runs to outposts and switch for the crews there.
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The Iron Roads were described as colony ships outright at a cruise of 2.5. If we can modestly exceed that, I'd call it a decent interstellar hauler. But that's just me.

Don't forget, before steam power, every single voyage too and from the New World was a matter of months at minimum, on ships with FAR worse amenities. If we can get below that threshold, it can be made to work economically.

Admittedly, at present we dont have the out system assets to make such a thing worthwhile, but having the capability before it's an issue is smart.

Worst case scenario, not!Vulcan not!Amazon shaves a few hours off interplanetary deliveries.
 
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_rFaMci3A4

The California or Cali class is a backbone ship of Starfleet and not made for exploration, patrol or defensive duties. It is instead pretty much a logistics, support and admin vessel of the Federation as seen in Star Trek Lower Decks as the USS Cerritos.

I rather like the ship, I was curious if we can make our own variant of something similar. Its no hero ship but it is reliable. Doesnt have the flare of a hero ship or the strength of a front liner.

But it serves an important and crucial role in the back lines.
 
We arent at the point where we really need one. Everything that presently needs doing is being done in our home system, and though the ships being used are well over a century out of date, the existing fleet is meeting our logistical needs.

Speaking of, did the Star Seeker find any decent colony sites before the Nebula encounter forced it home? Or are our people stuck with building new stations and cylinders in our home system?
 
It's a useful ship, but you gotta remember how much slower and how much more logistically independent virtually all of our ships are in comparison to Starfleet's. Our explorer, bulk carrier, and ship-of-the-line each have redundant heavy and precision fabrication capabilities plus an industrial matter printer. Our light warship may yet end up with onboard industrial fabrication capability as well depending on how this vote goes (though I expect it to be of very limited use in practice for lack of raw materials given how tightly constrained the ship already is on ordinary operating supplies, and am glad it's currently losing the vote).

Given the much lesser need for it, as well as the much lesser effect of it between far slower Warp speeds and far fewer industrial and logistical centers needing to be integrated than the Federation, I don't think a miscellaneous logistics/support/admin ship is a good use of our development time or shipyard capacity right now.

Calis are kinda cool though, you're not wrong about that.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Mechanis on May 22, 2024 at 4:46 PM, finished with 58 posts and 16 votes.
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Right then...
 
I do wonder if we'll ever get some alternate nacelle options. I know that the Vulcan architecture specifically precluded a lot of the options for modified warp geometry that you can do by repositioning linear nacelles, but there's still options.

Puller rings with the Nacelles positioned forward of the center of mass. A tilted ring with one edge closer to the fore and the opposite further aft. Nested rings. A ring forward and aft.

I know someone brought up a foldable ring that could rotate into the hull, which is interesting but of questionable utility.
 
Nested rings could be cool, especially if we continue to make big ships and bigger ships. Puller rings could also create some weird and interesting looks. I'm kind of imagining combining that with a Hemicircular design to create a sort of hammerhead ship, with the majority being a "secondary hull" behind the nacelle.
 
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Turn 3, Refitting: Furious Wind VI (Final Touches)
  • Threadmarks
    • It is determined that the aft hull will be mostly given over to a second medium cargo bay, and 8 Auxiliary reactors will be fitted, allowing for Warp speed comparable to standard ships should main power be disabled.
    The final matter is that of the remaining space in the side hulls, which could be given over to a pair of labs or crew lounges, one of each, or one either and extra cargo capacity; and that of extending the ship's sensor array similarly to the older models. There is also the matter of its shuttle compliment. The ship's shuttlebay is only large enough to support two Shuttlecraft, but given the ship's small size and overall role it has been suggested that a quartet of smaller shuttlepods might be more useful. Alternatively, one shuttlecraft and two shuttlepods would perhaps provide the greatest potential flexibility.
    [ ] Use a pair of (Small Labs/Crew Lounges)
    [ ] Use a (Crew Lounge/Small Lab) & extra cargo capacity
    [ ] Use a Crew Lounge & Small Lab
    [ ] Add only 2 Aux Sensors
    comparatively similar capacity to original model
    [ ] Add (3-10) Aux Sensors
    [ ] Do not add Aux sensors
    [ ] Use a pair of Shuttlecraft
    [ ] Use four Shuttlepods
    [ ] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods
    Please Vote By Plan ​
    One Hour Moratorium ​
     
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    • Oh boy, now we get to argue about crew lounges!

    "Crew lounges are a waste of space, these ships will always be near a planet or station"

    "If we ever want to move them between star systems, we need to install a lounge or consign our crews to suffering"

    "They can just transfer to another ship in their convoy, and use the rec facilities there"

    "What convoy? Are you confident we'll always deploy like that?"

    "Without sufficient cargo space, they'll have to travel in convoys, with a ship that can actually hold enough supplies to make it to the next system!"

    There, that's out of the way.
     
    TeaMug said:
    "If we ever want to move them between star systems, we need to install a lounge or consign our crews to suffering"
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    This one's been straight disproved by word of QM. Every ship has enough leisure facilities by default to keep the crew sane.

    Crew lounges are a pure extra. A nice extra, but an extra.

    I'll still pick it over a science lab for this ship though.
     
    Yeah, that do be how it is. I would not have put either on this ship, I'd rather put in more cargo space. But the options are labs, lounges, or one of each.
     
    I've sketched out a plan. It's based on my old version, so the location of things in the side hull are rotated. In short this shoves an aux sensor into all the 1x1 spaces and leaves a couple 2x1 spaces free for more cargo or whatever.



    [X] Plan Max use of space
    -[X] Use a Crew Lounge & Small Lab
    -[X] Add (7) Aux Sensors
    -[X] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods
     
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    Roaming_Guardian said:
    Yeah, that do be how it is. I would not have put either on this ship, I'd rather put in more cargo space. But the options are labs, lounges, or one of each.
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    no, it's lab-and-cargo, lounge-and-cargo, or lab-and-lounge.
    Jalinth said:
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    took me longer than I want to admit to figure out what everything was without a key, but looks good to me! The conclusion of "7 is max Aux Sensors without impacting cargo space" is very useful information, thank you!

    I'm ambivalent about the labs, but flexible capabilities were noted as directly impacting the ship's perceived usefulness and ultimate longevity, so sure, why not. Shuttle plus shuttlepods for the same reason- greatest flexibility.

    Now, the Crew Lounge. Hoo boy.

    On a game level I'm strongly opposed to Crew Lounge becoming a mandatory Space tax on literally every design we ever produce. On an in-setting level I think it's an only-slightly-surprising outcome for a species with cheap internal volume and slow warp drives.

    I'm still a tiny bit irritated at the crew lounge debate returning again here
    • in the lowest-tonnage ship,
    • in the least-volume-per-ton hullform,
    • with outsized logistical burden for its tonnage (due to reactor choice),
    • with a (non-wartime/emergency) mission profile that does not include long solo deployments-
    -if literally any ship we could ever even POSSIBLY DESIGN should not have a crew lounge it's this one! Both on "does not need" AND "cannot afford" grounds! This is absurd!

    so I'm going to write up my preferred plan:

    [] Plan This Ain't Royal Caribbean
    -[] Use a Small Lab & extra cargo capacity
    -[] Add (7) Aux Sensors
    -[] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods

    but I won't be surprised, and only minimally salty, when it inevitably loses.
     
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    Given the Furious Winds are going to be our patrol-craft and coastguard equivalent for the foreseeable future, I'd like them to have the one small lab. For "what the hell were these people smuggling, anyway" checks, if nothing else.

    Beyond that, more cargo remains good.
     
    thepsyborg said:
    no, it's lab-and-cargo, lounge-and-cargo, or lab-and-lounge.

    took me longer than I want to admit to figure out what everything was without a key, but looks good to me! The conclusion of "7 is max Aux Sensors without impacting cargo space" is very useful information, thank you!

    I'm ambivalent about the labs, but flexible capabilities were noted as directly impacting the ship's perceived usefulness and ultimate longevity, so sure, why not. Shuttle plus shuttlepods for the same reason- greatest flexibility.

    Now, the Crew Lounge. Hoo boy.

    On a game level I'm strongly opposed to Crew Lounge becoming a mandatory Space tax on literally every design we ever produce. On an in-setting level I think it's an only-slightly-surprising outcome for a species with cheap internal volume and slow warp drives.

    I'm still a tiny bit irritated at the crew lounge debate returning again here
    • in the lowest-tonnage ship,
    • in the least-volume-per-ton hullform,
    • with outsized logistical burden for its tonnage (due to reactor choice),
    • with a (non-wartime/emergency) mission profile that does not include long solo deployments-
    -if literally any ship we could ever even POSSIBLY DESIGN should not have a crew lounge it's this one! Both on "does not need" AND "cannot afford" grounds! This is absurd!

    so I'm going to write up my preferred plan:

    [] Plan This Ain't Royal Caribbean
    -[] Use a Small Lab & extra cargo capacity
    -[] Add (7) Aux Sensors
    -[] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods

    but I won't be surprised, and only minimally salty, when it inevitably loses.
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    I will vote with you my friend.
     
    Candesce said:
    Given the Furious Winds are going to be our patrol-craft and coastguard equivalent for the foreseeable future, I'd like them to have the one small lab. For "what the hell were these people smuggling, anyway" checks, if nothing else.

    Beyond that, more cargo remains good.
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    Yeah. We don't need a lot of lab space, but we want some to make sure whatever we come across doesn't blow up in our face or infect us with a zombie plague.

    … Now I'm imagining an in universe tv show that's a weird hybrid of LAPD and Star Trek following the exploits of the crew of one of these on coastguard duties. That'd be pretty good.

    Otherwise:

    [X] Plan Max use of space
    -[X] Use a Crew Lounge & Small Lab
    -[X] Add (7) Aux Sensors
    -[X] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods
     
    Oh, hey, moratorium's up.

    [X] Plan This Ain't Royal Caribbean
    -[X] Use a Small Lab & extra cargo capacity
    -[X] Add (7) Aux Sensors
    -[X] Use one Shuttlecraft and two Shuttlepods
     
    I'll admit that I want a crew lounge, because I like roleplaying a civilization willing to spend a little extra on taking care of its people.

    Efficiency be damned. Maximum overkill.

    [X] Plan Max use of space
     
    I really don't get the hate for the better crew amenities. Yes, the QM said they are not required. But it was also said "but when you do find the room for them, it has a significant impact on morale". I don't know about you, but 4 spaces for something described as a significant impact feels pretty damn good to me. The extra* transporter bay, and the extra medium cargo bay have already been added. Lets give the crews some better QoL as well.

    *See the below quote.
    Mechanis said:
    Note that even if a ship is not equipped with these specific modules, some basic functions—transporters, sickbays, and so on—are considered part of the basic ship construction.
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    TeaMug said:
    because I like roleplaying a civilization willing to spend a little extra on taking care of its people.
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    This is very much my feelings. Try to be just that little bit better. It's the same reason I voted to hail the aliens before opening fire on them. A little idealism goes a long way.
     
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