Are there any other modules that would do well on the side of the ship? It seems like the ends might be more useful as weapons and sensors.
With that being said. I think I'm leaning towards 6 mid bays with 4 shuttles instead of aft bays.
Also, Mechanis do you mind posting or summarizing the vote results in the threadmarked post? It makes it way easier to catch up if you find a quest late or get busy and miss a few votes.
Are there any other modules that would do well on the side of the ship? It seems like the ends might be more useful as weapons and sensors.
With that being said. I think I'm leaning towards 6 mid bays with 4 shuttles instead of aft bays.
Also, Mechanis do you mind posting or summarizing the vote results in the threadmarked post? It makes it way easier to catch up if you find a quest late or get busy and miss a few votes.
As for the sides of the ship vs the centerline, you ironically don't actually have much of the stuff that really really cares about that (yet) so it's mostly firing arcs.
And, well, given your technological level, and the sheer size of this thing, you have a surfit of room.
Yeah uh
Please specify how big the bay is in your votes
(For example the midline bay can be built for 3, 6, 9, 12 or 15 craft; the aft center bay can bring anywhere between 1 and 6 shuttles, et cetera)
Close to the centerline, extending across the hull from one side to the other, with the doors on the aft port and starboard hull (slightly more to the dorsal side- essentially the bay floor would be near or on the ship centerline.). Similarly, the aft bay would be slightly higher on the dorsal surface, similar to the 2009 Connie's engineering hull; the fore bays of course are more distinctly dorsal/ventral since, y'know, the great big deflector is occupying the centerline space.
Having settled on a modest aft-facing bay with enough room for six shuttles, with a standard complement of four, the next concern is weapons.
The first step is to determine the ship's torpedo complement—as torpedoes are a ship's primary weapon—and a few locations are suitable for them. Firstly, a fore dorsal bay could accommodate up to three tubes. Secondly, port and starboard bays could also accommodate up to three tubes each, for a total of 6. Finally, up to four tubes could be fitted to the ship's aft, in dorsal and ventral bays; while conventional doctrine has all torpedo tubes facing the ship's fore, there is some concern given the sheer size of the Trailblazer that it might be prudent to provide aft facing torpedoes as well. For a similar purpose, the port and starboard bays could also be mirrored to cover the ship's rear aspect.
[ ] Torpedoes 1: Use a fore bay
- [ ] with one tube (2 MI)
- [ ] with two tubes (4 MI)
- [ ] with three tubes (6 MI)
[ ] Torpedoes 1: Use port and starboard bays
- [ ] with one tube each (4 MI)
- [ ] with two tubes each (8 MI)
- [ ] with three tubes each (12 MI)
- [ ] mirror to aft (double MI cost)
[ ] Torpedoes 1: Use both a fore and side bays
- [ ] (tube configurations from above)
[ ] Torpedoes 2: Do not add aft torpedo bays
[ ] Torpedoes 2: Add an aft bay
- [ ] with a single tube (2 MI)
- [ ] with a pair of tubes (4 MI)
- [ ] with four tubes (6 MI)
Fore:
Side:
Aft:
Secondly there is the matter of energy weapons, and here a heated debate on the matter of lasers has arisen. While traditional doctrine has lasers as the primary point defense weapons, it is argued that the development of the Photonic Torpedo—or more specifically, the deflector shield which protects it—renders them unfit for purpose; recent simulations show a better than seventy five percent survival rate for modern photonics even against very heavy laser batteries. The laser's time is, if not past already, certainly near, and barring some kind of fundamental breakthrough it is perhaps time to consign them to the realm of obsolete technology.
If you do add lasers, there are a few possible options. The first is to use basic coverage, which on a design this size would require sixteen individual mounts. The second opinion would be to double the laser mounts, either by doubling up each mount, or adding additional mounts for overlapping coverage. Alternatively, you could do both, or some combination.
[ ] Lasers: Do not use lasers
- [ ] … and decline to order them for future designs. (Lasers will be obsoleted with this option.)
[ ] Lasers: Use basic coverage (option 1) (8 CI)
[ ] Lasers: Use double batteries (option 1&2) (16 CI)
[ ] Lasers: Use twice as many batteries (option 1&3) (16 CI)
[ ] Use twice as many double strength batteries (option 1-4) (32 CI)
[ ] Use some other configuration
- write in options (1 & 3; 1, 2 & 4; 4&2, etc)
Lastly there is the matter of particle accelerators to consider; again a few possible configurations present themselves—three different designs for maximum coverage, which could be combined if desired, and one extra heavy design with additional forward emitters for heavier firepower. Alternatively, you could combine options, but this could easily put the ship well over budget. Alternatively, a smaller number of mounts with poorer coverage could be mounted as a cost saving measure, but is it worth the risk?
- [X] Plan: Balanced Tech
-- [X] Torpedoes 1: Use port and starboard bays
--- [X] with two tubes each (8 MI)
-- [X] Torpedoes 2: Add an aft bay
--- [X] with a pair of tubes (4 MI)
-- [X] Lasers: Do not use lasers
-- [X] Particle Accelerators: Reduced coverage (6 MI)
--- [X] configuration 1
Saves laser obsoleting for a future vote (in case we, I dunno, come up with a better CIWS..)
Leaves with *some MI* (personally I'd prefer to spend it here but)
and maintains our use of primary weapons, with some particle accelerators.
[X] Plan: almost all forward
- [X] Torpedoes 1: Use both a fore and side bays
-- [X] with three tubes forward (6 MI)
-- [X] with two tubes each (8 MI)
- [X] Torpedoes 2: Add an aft bay
-- [X] with a single tube (2 MI)
- [X] Lasers: Do not use lasers
- [X] Reduced coverage (6 MI)
-- [X] configuration 2
Mostly forward fire power with a single aft tube for running away in warp and some basic point defense.
Wait, do we need to leave budget for the cloak or is that already included?
[X] Plan: Particle Accelerator focus
- [X] Torpedoes 1: Use a fore bay
-- [X] with two tubes (4 MI)
-[X] Torpedoes 2: Do not add aft torpedo bays
-[X] Lasers: Do not use lasers
-[X] Basic coverage (12 MI)
--[X] configuration 3
[X] Plan: almost all forward
- [X] Torpedoes 1: Use both a fore and side bays
-- [X] with three tubes forward (6 MI)
-- [X] with two tubes each (8 MI)
- [X] Torpedoes 2: Add an aft bay
-- [X] with a single tube (2 MI)
- [X] Lasers: Do not use lasers
- [X] Reduced coverage (6 MI)
-- [X] configuration 2
Mostly forward fire power with a single aft tube for running away in warp and some basic point defense.
Wait, do we need to leave budget for the cloak or is that already included?
We need almost 20 MI to cloak this ship (4 MI per 100 ton and 480 tons including nacelle) but we started with 72 MI and only spent 4 for shuttles plus 7.2 for the hull unless I'm missing something.
question for lasers:
Does there exists the possibility for a .5 upgrade using them? I.e something like the salarian high frequency guardian systems from ME which have longer range and more power but costs a lot more (iirc, its twice the capabilites for four times the cost)
I am assuming the cloak in your budget because not having it would be silly. Cloaks are sorta your thing since it's the big Revolutionary Technology you currently have.
Note that you can spend all the MI you need; there's no other systems that use it.
question for lasers:
Does there exists the possibility for a .5 upgrade using them? I.e something like the salarian high frequency guardian systems from ME which have longer range and more power but costs a lot more (iirc, its twice the capabilites for four times the cost)
It's possible for you to build Fancy Exotic Lasers that are boosted with Subspace Magic™, if you roll the right combination when research comes around. Those would be more bulky and cost more of course, and likely go back to needing military industry to produce; half the reason why they've been kept in service is that they don't need any high end manufacturing (by your standards) and so aren't competing with partiticle accelerators and torpedoes for budget. You'll also have the option in the next turn to change how lasers are used; at present they're built for point defense, meaning small, rapid travel mounts designed to shoot down missiles- you could decide to experiment with simply building bigger lasers which would of course be more powerful, though more expensive per unit.
Or you could expand the standard number of individual lasers per battery from the current pairs to, say, four, at the cost of constraining where you can mount them more.
You could also do this with particle emitters, of course.
