Design starships from Enterprise onwards, dealing with production capabilities and internal layouts to meet the demands of Starfleet as Earth takes the galactic stage. With art!
It's a good day for United Earth: after a century of rebuilding with Vulcan help, the majority of the environmental and infrastructural damage from the Third World War has been repaired. As a part of these efforts the spaceborne activities of the human race have been centralised under the United Earth Starfleet, an organisation dedicated to the protection of Earth and the exploration of space. As the Vulcans are unwilling to share their technology the Warp 5 Engine project has been working for over a decade to prototype a design capable of propelling a starship at the eponymous warp factor.
Three years ago, it succeeded in breaking Warp 3. Projections are that an engine at least capable of reaching Warp 5 is likely to be available at the end of the decade. That has been the signal to Starfleet that now is the time to start launching starships that are capable of true extrasolar travel, rather than relying on colony ships and civilian freighters for the expansion efforts of humanity. All too often both have failed, with no help available to rescue them or investigate their disappearance.
With that in mind the Starfleet Design Bureau has been established in San Francisco, nominally to begin work on Warp 5 starship designs. But with currently only the Warp 3 engine available there has been some trepidation at the thought of beginning those designs and potentially having to start from scratch further down the line. Fortunately the United Earth Prime Minister in Paris and Starfleet Command are both in agreement that a new starship could be used more locally and as a useful training cadre for more sophisticated vessels.
Enter Project Daedalus. It is a simple request: to create a starship capable of Warp 3. Ideally it will be capable of carrying cargo to reduce reliance on the 'boomers', the space-borne families who run the United Earth Cargo Service. But more importantly it should have basic tactical systems to dissuade pirates and provide simple defensive functions. United Earth does not anticipate any large-scale hostilities, but the inability for cargo ships to decisively see off pirates with their standard defensive plasma cannon has been an increasing theme in the last decade.
It doesn't have to be elegant or cutting edge. It just has to work. That said, United Earth has laid the groundwork with several major industrial concerns, and are willing to provide extra funding to accelerate certain paths of research if you feel it would be useful to your work. What do you consider to be most in need of extra attention? The option(s) you decline to pick will follow their usual development timelines.
[ ] The current impulse thrusters are too bulky and space-inefficient. (Reaction Thruster -> Type 1 Thruster Prototype)
[ ] The particle cannon yields are too low to inflict meaningful damage to heavily polarised plating. (Particle Cannon -> Phase Cannon Prototype)
With that decided, you need to decide what shape Project Daedalus will take. The first option is to focus on the cargo request, using the minimum of material for maximum internal space. The ship will consist of spheres and circular elements, which will likely have a detrimental effect on warp efficiency and manoeuvrability but do a great deal to make a larger practical starship. The second option is to consider the tactical role more closely, focusing on a refined but low-mass design that can patrol freighter routes and the outer Sol system with a fast intercept time. This lower profile would have minimal cargo space and less endurance in exchange, however.
[ ] Focus on providing cargo and transport space for the United Earth Starfleet. Will require more warp coils and hull plating.
[ ] Focus on a small ship for short-range interception and basic patrol duty. Will require more polarisation relays.
Project Daedalus
TAC:
ENG:
SCI:
Warp:
At present roughly half your available industrial space in shipyards and factories across Earth and Luna has already been taken up by component manufacturing for the expected starships that you will be designing. This covers the tritanium hull plating, reaction thrusters, polarisation relays, particle cannons, spatial torpedoes, deflector systems, and more. But it is expected that the remaining capacity will be rapidly taken up to match demand for those same systems, or even to build specific starship designs in future. You can't take that free industrial space for granted, and in a few years may have to start making difficult decisions.
We all know that the new ship will also have even newer shiny prototypes as options, which we will inevidently also pick, so both ships will be disasters overloaded with experimental prototypes.
It's supposed to be a sort of electrically-charged ceramic, but it's just treated as a shield instead of anything interesting. They don't even need to repair the plates after they go "offline".
Presumably what's happening is that enemy fire knocks out the power to the system polarizing the hull plating well before it does significant damage to the hull.
This, however, is stupid for a different reason, as it means that the polarized hull plating 1) is sufficient protection against enemy weapons fire without polarization and 2) fails to protect the ship's internal systems, which is its one job!
Do not try to be generous to the creators of Enterprise, they will only punish you for it by revealing depths of stupidity you did not know were possible.
Personally, I think focusing on a patrol ship and weapons systems is a good idea. Starfleet isn't big enough to be replacing the civilian cargo industry, nor should it really be trying. By instead focusing on protecting those ships we can allow them to flourish safely and not need to direct our own resources to the task of bulk transport.
We all know that the new ship will also have even newer shiny prototypes as options, which we will inevidently also pick, so both ships will be disasters overloaded with experimental prototypes.
I dunno, if the thread can manage to channel the restraint that let us design the Renaissance, Reliant, Ushaan, and Endeavor with just 2, 1, 3, and 3 prototypes I think we can do it.
[ ] The current impulse thrusters are too bulky and space-inefficient. (Reaction Thruster -> Type 1 Thruster Prototype)
[ ] Focus on providing cargo and transport space for the United Earth Starfleet. Will require more warp coils and hull plating.
I'm thinking these.
Smaller impulse engines for more space and then using that space for logistics and convoy protection.
Personally, I think focusing on a patrol ship and weapons systems is a good idea. Starfleet isn't big enough to be replacing the civilian cargo industry, nor should it really be trying. By instead focusing on protecting those ships we can allow them to flourish safely and not need to direct our own resources to the task of bulk transport.
I agree with this sentiment, but that still leaves the question on whether we should focus on impulse (faster reaction to raids), or weapons (actually be able to defend things).
[ ] The particle cannon yields are too low to inflict meaningful damage to heavily polarised plating. (Particle Cannon -> Phase Cannon Prototype)
[ ] Focus on a small ship for short-range interception and basic patrol duty. Will require more polarisation relays.
If we do these two options we can make a sort-of convoy escort type ship.
Edit: Yoyodyne gets founded this century, WE CAN STILL TRUST IN THEM!
[ ] The current impulse thrusters are too bulky and space-inefficient. (Reaction Thruster -> Type 1 Thruster Prototype)
[ ] Focus on providing cargo and transport space for the United Earth Starfleet. Will require more warp coils and hull plating.
I agree with this sentiment, but that still leaves the question on whether we should focus on impulse (faster reaction to raids), or weapons (actually be able to defend things).
Weapons. Impulse engines are important, but the Enterprise never really had a struggle with dancing round an enemy. Being able to actually hurt them however...
I agree with this sentiment, but that still leaves the question on whether we should focus on impulse (faster reaction to raids), or weapons (actually be able to defend things).
Well it seems that the weapons we currently have are fairly crap so I figure those first. No point getting there quick if you can't fight once you're there
If we focus on impulse engines and patrol craft, perhaps we can stop them from going boom in the distant future. (Yoyodyne looms on the horizon, I don't think it's founded yet, but I'm unsure).
Also to be frank even the first generation impulse engines are gonna be crap compared to what everyone else has. Our cargo ship wouldn't be able to outrun an enemy but a purpose built patrol/combat ship with the upgraded weapons might be able to outfight a pirate ship or at least make them decide we're not worth the fight
Personally, I think focusing on a patrol ship and weapons systems is a good idea. Starfleet isn't big enough to be replacing the civilian cargo industry, nor should it really be trying. By instead focusing on protecting those ships we can allow them to flourish safely and not need to direct our own resources to the task of bulk transport.
Yeah, hard to disagree with that - We are not yet far enough along in warp drive development to make a ship that does the Reliant's job.
So, instead of developing a better impulse engine to push a cargo-fat all-in-one vessel along, we can put together something that can punch hard enough to make pirates think twice about preying on Earth shipping.
Ignore this post. A Reliant-type Daedalus is what we want, because it would be faster at Warp than the current shitty boomer freighters.
From the description it seems that cargo hauling and transportation is already sufficient to handle current demands but are politically inconvenient because they aren't controlled by the gov't. We could score brownie points for going with the cargo options to undercut the Boomers but personally I think going down the route of a short range interception/patrol ship. It should be enough for closer operations and if there are any routes that are far enough that interception becomes impractical we can piggyback off the the Boomers and create a convoy.
Basically keep Earth and its surrounding safe with a dedicated focused anti-pirate ship and piggyback and feed of Boomer Ships in a Convoy for long range operations. We have no need to go out our way to fight pirates and assault their bases nor do we have the capability to do so.
If we focus on impulse engines and patrol craft, perhaps we can stop them from going boom in the distant future. (Yoyodyne looms on the horizon, I don't think it's founded yet, but I'm unsure).
If we focus on impulse engines and patrol craft, perhaps we can stop them from going boom in the distant future. (Yoyodyne looms on the horizon, I don't think it's founded yet, but I'm unsure).
Yoyodyne is founded by this point, they build the engines for the colony ships the Federation has been sending everywhere. Which explains why so many were lost.
Personally, I think focusing on a patrol ship and weapons systems is a good idea. Starfleet isn't big enough to be replacing the civilian cargo industry, nor should it really be trying. By instead focusing on protecting those ships we can allow them to flourish safely and not need to direct our own resources to the task of bulk transport.
I get the impression that the desire to be better at moving stuff is the newly born hierarchical structure [label: Starfleet] attempting to expand its... authority over broader conceptual space.
I can see why that structure would benefit: If it has broader remit, it will have/be allocated more resources.
----
I want people to live without suffering or death, and pople like that also exist in the game, and probably also in the hierachy 'starfleet'
So I argue for a tactical focus here. Because an uptick in piracy is probaly going to be better responded to with 'much better escorts to cargo ships' than 'better armed cargo ships'.
The goal of a pirate is not to kill, but to profit.
If we are able to prevent the possibility of profit by having an escort be there to kill the pirate, regardless if the priate defeats the cargo ship, then they will be dissuaded from attacking.
----
Metagaming:
It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.
For all we know some of these pirates are Romulans or Klingons, and we're probably better served in the short term by getting a bit better at making combat vessels than aiming for the long term play; describe in the counterpoint.
---
Long term counterpoint: getting good at making bigger spaceships may lead into being better at making spaces for science labs, and that is the medium scale strategy that supports the Federation's long term one:
Diplomacy, or: Infecting and Subsuming External Orginsational Structures Via Rootbeer
----
Edit, if we move Starfleet ship designs in the direction of tactical here, at the expense of starfleet not expanding into quickly into the 'cargo' service, then next turn I hope we have and take the opportunity to go heavy into making a science/science ship or a science/diplo ship, provided next turn doesn't occur with us facing the possibility of war.
[ ] The particle cannon yields are too low to inflict meaningful damage to heavily polarised plating. (Particle Cannon -> Phase Cannon Prototype)
[ ] Focus on providing cargo and transport space for the United Earth Starfleet. Will require more warp coils and hull plating.
[ ] The particle cannon yields are too low to inflict meaningful damage to heavily polarised plating. (Particle Cannon -> Phase Cannon Prototype)
[ ] Focus on a small ship for short-range interception and basic patrol duty. Will require more polarisation relays.
Heavy armed Patrols ships are superior to fat cargo vessels.
