Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
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- He/Him
I mean, we gotta make progress to advance stuff, and that means snapping up new tech to test.
Linked contents
[X] Type-2 Impulse Thruster (Type-3: Theoretical -> Experimental, Size: Standard)
- Location
- USA
[X] Type-3 Impulse Thruster [Theoretical] (Three Success Rolls: Size -> Thrust -> Prototype Performance)
TheShadowDeamon
Mighty Dragon
I'm expecting that the neck thickness will have to be about halfway between the original Connie and Excelsior, as it's the only place the vertical core had space to go in the original movies and they had extra plating on the ouside to protect it. Look how much damage she takes in ST: 6 and consider what would've happened if when the shields failed Chang hit the neck instead of the saucer. Our core absolutely MUST!! have better protection. If we do end up doing the usual "make mine a large" I wouldn't be suprised if it is as big as the Excelsior was.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPz-6HuM8Sc
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
I mean, maybe very slightly, but the canon Connie appears to have been equipped with pairs on the dorsal and ventral surface of the saucer, a forward torpedo launcher and... that's it. and of the design type we didn't go for, with lesser fire arc, at that. I'm certain we'll be giving it some flavor of rear Torpedo and probably 6+ phasers as things stand.
and this of course assumes we aren't looking at a Type Three phaser, seeing how it will be something like three decades on since we went to the type two, by the point where we're starting that project. It does strike me, after all, that major redesigns of one's basic power grid design, such as, say, sticking a dedicated fusion reactor under each phaser to solve the power distribution issue, would be the kind of thing that happens when one is, oh, radically altering the geometry of one's warp core and ergo the design of non-trivial portions of said power distribution system already...
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
No idea if this has been brought up in the thread so far (I avoid reading the discussion to avoid unneeded stress), but one of the possible mechanisms that could be used to balance employing a lot of prototypes on a ship is to include a roll for each prototype part to see how much it adversely affects the ease-of-maintenance for a ship class.
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
- Location
- The Center of the Universe: Toronto, Canada
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- He/Him
[X] Type-3 Impulse Thruster [Theoretical] (Three Success Rolls: Size -> Thrust -> Prototype Performance)
LunaMoth
Wings of Kynareth is my comfort song...
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- He/They
No idea if this is a good take, but I like it when choices in something like this aren't an immediate no/yes.
I think what would really help the prototype thing, is to have it not be random at all, but rather have it start as an option that always hobbles the ship you are making now in some flavor heavy way, has one minor but present upside, with a promise that the next generations start to lose the downsides and even gain some upsides as they go up in tier from prototype to mature tech. You could also probably still have tech become outdated under this system.
Sorry for saying it again, but it may help to have three options, with them all 'upgrading' or 'downgrading' different parts of the ship.
I think what would really help the prototype thing, is to have it not be random at all, but rather have it start as an option that always hobbles the ship you are making now in some flavor heavy way, has one minor but present upside, with a promise that the next generations start to lose the downsides and even gain some upsides as they go up in tier from prototype to mature tech. You could also probably still have tech become outdated under this system.
Sorry for saying it again, but it may help to have three options, with them all 'upgrading' or 'downgrading' different parts of the ship.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
and on further thought, the Alt-Connie is, in the fine tradition of our previous explorers, likely to be perhaps the largest vessel we have built to that date; and it occurrs that space consuming features like "dedicated local reactors for high energy systems" are the sorts of things that such a vessel might experiment with, in a way a smaller vessel wouldn't (for lack of volume).
After all, the obvious solution for "the wires can't handle the power load", after "get better wires", is "hook the things to the generator directly."
Even if such a reactor can't handle powering the phaser by itself, it would probably defray the power load on the main grid enough to fire at least a few more phasers at once. Even going from two to three or four would be a pretty significant advancement, given our basic phaser design.
After all, the obvious solution for "the wires can't handle the power load", after "get better wires", is "hook the things to the generator directly."
Even if such a reactor can't handle powering the phaser by itself, it would probably defray the power load on the main grid enough to fire at least a few more phasers at once. Even going from two to three or four would be a pretty significant advancement, given our basic phaser design.
What's interesting that in canon the Constitution might be iconic but probably wasn't actually an incredibly fantastic ship? It lasted maybe 40 years before having to get a refit that replaced basically the entire ship, then lasted another 30. Starfleet built a lot of them as a sort of general heavy cruiser and did lots of missions with them, but they also had very high attrition rates. By our classification they'd probably be an explorer in that they could kind of do a bit of everything, but the generation that finally got the "can do everything" ship is probably the Excelsior.
Now that's probably because in TOS for production reasons the only models you saw were basically the same model of the Enterprise/Constitution-class. But it makes you wonder if Starfleet shifted to a very production-line heavy process to try and standardise the fleet doctrinally. Have one model of heavy cruiser, one model of frigate, if there's a light cruiser use basically the same components in a different way, etc.
I feel like we can get rid of prototyping during ship design entirely. Stuff like how many engines or if we place them for maneuverability or straight line speed should be options yeah. Or non-standard installations of parts not working out but "hey the ship's frame is already designed and built for that so it's kind of hard to change at the end of the design" might work.
But actual prototyping should probably be moved into the separate technology votes. If we want to risk going to the edge of (current) material science for the type 3 impulse engine that'd be fine, but it's really kind of unintuitive to ruin the engine for every class of ship that's going to use it by voting for it here.
But actual prototyping should probably be moved into the separate technology votes. If we want to risk going to the edge of (current) material science for the type 3 impulse engine that'd be fine, but it's really kind of unintuitive to ruin the engine for every class of ship that's going to use it by voting for it here.
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It also makes sense that if initial implementations have teething problems, it makes sense that subsequent implementations are designed with the benefit of hindsight to negate those problems.
But barring a time and resource intensive refitting program, the original class is stuck with its teething problems.
If that's the case then mea culpa; I remembered us voting against new tech much more often than that. Thinking on it, I might be mixing in memories of the previous iteration of the quest where there was a more explicit cost tradeoff and we tended to be a bit more cautious to avoid tanking our cost rating?
..Or I might just have been totally wrong, and it's the brain spiders talking. 😅
This strikes a great balance IMO, very happy with it.
The cost mechanic gives a strong motivation for us to be selective, which feels very true to life for me. Gold-plating designs or trying to introduce lots of new technologies at once usually leads to delays and large cost overruns, as we can see in military procurement in the real world. So too with the way technologies at different ends of their lifecycles tend to impose different costs. So we end up with a nice blend of (hopefully) shrewd cost-benefit trade-offs, as well as having the fun uncertainty of rolling dice for things and not being quite sure what we'll get.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Type-3 Impulse Thruster [Theoretical] (Three Success Rolls: Size -> Thrust -> Prototype Performance)
Even the previous quest thread had us creating things like the 5 Prototype 1 Experimental Ambassador class, so I'm not sure the voting patterns back then were that much more hesitant about new tech either? Could be wrong, I haven't tallied up every winning vote the last thread to check, just had that example stuck in my mind.
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Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
This certainly does seem to be the era in canon which developed Starfleet's fetish for recycling saucer sections with various different nacelle and secondary hull configurations, it's true. An attempted push for more standardization and parts commonality may well have been done at the time; we're probably ahead of the curve there since we recycled the Saga's saucer for the Kea and went to our fancy new standardized nacelles.
It's also worth considering that the Federation was undergoing a period of rapid expansion (this is, after all, what brought them into conflict with the Klingons) and so may have standardized so heavily in order to produce large numbers of ships very quickly; to cover the rapid expansion of territory.
Personally I quite like view (which I know I've mentioned here before) that the Miranda was a standardisation of technologies developed on the Constitution-A, and was essentially replaced it it as the Federation's "line cruiser" in most roles by the early to mid TMP-era. If the Constitution-A was a fast and temperamental thoroughbred, built for exploration, then the Miranda was built to equal the combat capabilities of the Connie, be easier to run, and carry more cargo/lab space. Obviously this is a lot of speculation on my part, but there is some stuff which bears it out, like the fact that the Miranda significantly outmasses the Connie-A, even though the Connie takes up a larger volume due to her swanlike build and nacelles. The Wrath of Khan certainly at no point implies that the Reliant is anything but a formidable and fairly evenly matched opponent for the Enterprise.
If we look at the volume/mass figures, then we can conclude that the Connie would necessarily have a larger warp bubble, and along with the generally more elegant lines that visually evoke speed and movement, this strongly suggests that the Connie is built for more high-intensity warp-geometry and greater top speed/sustained cruise*. To be more specific; using EC Henry's figures as a base, the Connie's warp bubble volume per unit mass is roughly twice that of the Miranda's. That's a lot more warp field pulling an overall lighter ship. (Presumably this also makes the Connie more expensive to run, as the peak warp loadings and heat flux in the coils it must have to cope with are also higher.) This makes sense for an explorer-battlecruiser intended for exploring vast volumes of space and prosecuting expeditionary warfare.
It also makes sense that the Constitution-A would have a much shorter shelf life than the Miranda. As soon as the Excelsior comes into service, then much of the raison d'etre for the Constitution simply disappears - it's expensive to run, and no longer the fastest most powerful ship the Federation can throw into the great unknown or send to put out fires. Meanwhile the Miranda is cheaper to run, and having roughly the same firepower as the last generation of cutting-edge battlecruiser in an affordable package is still an okay value proposition, especially heading into an era of détente with the Klingons.
- Location
- America
In Canon, the Connie was basically a pretty bog standard heavy Cruiser. The Enterprise was basically notable for having Captain James T Kirk on it. It's exploration mission was basically a job that heavy cruisers did, and the Connie was that, and the Enterprise was a Connie.
In this timeline, Heavy Explorer is a role that we purpose design ships for. These ships tend to be up-scienced battlecruisers which fill the Heavy Metal part of our vanguard-heavy metal combat doctrine. So of course the Enterprise, assuming it's part of our next Explorer line, is going to be bigger than Canon. It's not replacing the original Constitution- class cruiser, it's replacing the Polaris-class Battleship
In this timeline, Heavy Explorer is a role that we purpose design ships for. These ships tend to be up-scienced battlecruisers which fill the Heavy Metal part of our vanguard-heavy metal combat doctrine. So of course the Enterprise, assuming it's part of our next Explorer line, is going to be bigger than Canon. It's not replacing the original Constitution- class cruiser, it's replacing the Polaris-class Battleship
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- Location
- United States
[X] Type-2 Impulse Thruster (Type-3: Theoretical -> Experimental, Size: Standard)
- Location
- Most likely California
You know, between the reasoning for the Halley's name partly being the comet passing through Sol recently, and the fact that its a high-volume, C H O N K Y ship that will probably be assigned to traveling regular routes between star systems, I kinda want the class name to be the Comet-Class.