If you were going to make a heavily armed warship, it only makes sense to put a lot of science suites on that warship so it can explore dangerous locales, I suppose.
We need to be able to hit nimble cloaking raiders.
We need to be able to kill larger battleships.
But fortunately we have two weapon systems to do these two tasks. We just need to get 100% phaser coverage and then put as many photon torpedo tubes in the forward arc as the QM allows.
Able to engage small nimble targets but with a powerful forward punch to knock out large targets that cannot easily evade.
I think the problem is that every time EPS conduits get robust enough to support more phasers at a time Starfleet just ups the size of phasers to still use all the EPS capacity with just two phasers.
The reasoning is likely that 2 phasers are the most tactically sensible. The value of being able to shoot at 2 small things at half power or 1 thing for your full energy output outweighs the complexity of more phasers and therefore a more complex EPS grid. Hitting 3 targets for 1/3rd power is less useful.
The best way to think about it is to ignore number of phasers entirely. Ships care about total energy output (determined by warp core) and coverage( determined by phaser placement). The number of phasers don't matter save that they can add more placement locations and thus coverage. The difference between 2 beams and 3 less powerful beams on a target is academic at our level of abstraction.
Look, if we're so worried about cloaking ships and/or think it's a huge force multiplier, I will note that the Federation in this timeline has not signed any treaty limiting its use of cloaking devices.
So instead of putting anti-cloak sensors on an engineering vessel, maybe just build our own cloaked battlecruiser or something. Probably a better way of both understanding the limitations and benefits of cloaking.
With no treaty banning our usage of cloaking tech, why is cloaking tech not standard practice for us by now? Not only is is super useful in just about every way, it's also a key tool for Prime Directive concerns when studying younger species. It's also in keeping with Starfleet's conflict avoidance character--you can avoid a fight if the other side never knows you're there.
i believe we will have time for 2 more ships before the war. make the first the big exploration vessel as the first warp 8 and make the second the warp 8 skate/selachii to work as our combat focussed small vessel.
the warships always take less time to design due to not having many anxilliary systems
With no treaty banning our usage of cloaking tech, why is cloaking tech not standard practice for us by now? Not only is is super useful in just about every way, it's also a key tool for Prime Directive concerns when studying younger species. It's also in keeping with Starfleet's conflict avoidance character--you can avoid a fight if the other side never knows you're there.
Because we got out of the Romulans data about how to roughly detect that someone is cloaked, but not enough to localize them. We did not get actual cloaking tech and so we literally don't know how to do it yet.
My read on the Klingon war is that had much has a multiple decade long war may look appealing it's not when you will eventually lose. we simply have a too big economy, robust logistics and tech advance speed. So the gambit for victory will be simple go for a blitz strike on the core worlds to cripple those advantages and brak the moral of the federation.
This is why i think we need a dreadnought class ship we currently don't have anything with enough firepower and toughness to form any type of defence anchor or offensive hammer.
When we build the Thunderchild we build in auxiliary capabilities that would be useful in peace time (it was the highest engineering score we build at the time) i don't see why we can't do it again we have at least 2 serious options and 1 less serious.
1- it's becoming clear that due to our rapid expanding economy command and controls are becoming a problem. Designing our dreadnought to operate in peace time a mobile cnc base will be important since the rate of expansion should only accelerate.
2- a generalist disaster relief vessel probably not a 1st responder due to how few them will be but the cavalry coming behind. The dreadnought should have great spread of sensors/engineering/medical due to it's role coupled with its size i will allow a more wide spread type of response. Also would reduce the stress to build generalist vessels and continue our specialization route.
3- On a less serious note there still is a ambassador ship on docked, it would not be that hard adapt the design to double has an Embassy in peace. It is a secure has possible with out being planetside somewhere with enough space and comforts to house foreign diplomats. The Klingons at least would be impressed. The good old carry a big gun principle.
With no treaty banning our usage of cloaking tech, why is cloaking tech not standard practice for us by now? Not only is is super useful in just about every way, it's also a key tool for Prime Directive concerns when studying younger species. It's also in keeping with Starfleet's conflict avoidance character--you can avoid a fight if the other side never knows you're there.
My general feeling is the main reason the Federation in uninterested in cloaking technology (we don't talk about Discovery) is probably as much ideological as practical. Having cloaked fleets or not knowing if a Starfleet ship is nearby breeds strategic tensions with your neighbours, a not substantial number of which are paranoid and/or distrustful of your alleged generosity and goodwill in the first place. I don't think the Klingons would ever have got to the point of tentatively trusting the Federation to be honourable if they were permanently concerned about starships sneaking around in their backyard.
Also I suspect there's also the awareness that having a capability to have invisible ships nobody can see doing things breeds the impulse to use that technology for more concrete benefits, and those actions are usually inherently proactive or involve subterfuge that isn't healthy to open transparency.
Having installed the hefty material-processing facilities needed for a versatile manufacturing capability you move on to the final set of accessible spaces. There are three major areas towards the bottom of the primary hull that could house additional systems, and you have a couple of choices for each. The first space could be used for either antimatter storage to expand the Halley's operating range or a science lab to give the ship the ability to carry out basic investigations. If it ends up transporting cargo to undeveloped regions or the outer colonies the capability could come in handy.
The second space could be used either as a geology lab or a secondary computer core, both with the aim of boosting the Halley's ability to process data on its surroundings or areas of interest. Somewhat relatedly, the final empty area could be used for a geophysics laboratory to analyse planetary dynamics at any colonies the ship delivers to or to create a recreational space for the crew to take the edge off the long and repetitive journeys that are likely to comprise the vast majority of the design's service life.
But fortunately we have two weapon systems to do these two tasks. We just need to get 100% phaser coverage and then put as many photon torpedo tubes in the forward arc as the QM allows.
People complain that our phasers are too weak when it's our torpedo's job to kill bigger ships and the cheaper we can get phaser coverage the more torpedo's we can slather on.
Ship designs have been taking increasingly longer to design due to the increasing sophistication of our technology and to a lesser degree the increased size of our ships.
Project Kufu (the Cygnus) for example began in 2166 and ended in 2167 (~1 year) and right afterwards the significantly larger Project Copernicus (Sagarmatha) took ~5 years (2170-2175).
Following the introduction of the Type 3 Nacelle which itself took ~4 years (2176-2182) to develop the first ship design that took advantage of it (Project Protector's Constable) took twice as long to design despite being a much smaller design than even the Cygnus (125kt vs 24kt).
This would remain consistent as Project Soyuz (Selachii) which followed right after Project Protector also took more than twice the time (~5 years from 2185-2190) of the Cygnus to launch despite being smaller (125kt vs 45kt).
With how long the Kea took to develop (~9 years from 2202-2211) I suspect our next gen explorer will breach the 10 year mark from development to launch and that even a smallish combat frigate will take more than 5 years barring the Klingon War kicking off.
With that in mind we likely have 2 pre-war designs left with the last one likely launching on the eve of the Klingon War.
This could make a pretty good science ship, but 6-10 science is pretty average and we already have a good one in use. On the other hand making a long-range ship with additional CAD-esque programs and data analysis for better construction is fantastic for the logistics-fulfillment purposes that we want this factory ship for.
My general feeling is the main reason the Federation in uninterested in cloaking technology (we don't talk about Discovery) is probably as much ideological as practical. Having cloaked fleets or not knowing if a Starfleet ship is nearby breeds strategic tensions with your neighbours, a not substantial number of which are paranoid and/or distrustful of your alleged generosity and goodwill in the first place. I don't think the Klingons would ever have got to the point of tentatively trusting the Federation to be honourable if they were permanently concerned about starships sneaking around in their backyard.
Also I suspect there's also the awareness that having a capability to have invisible ships nobody can see doing things breeds the impulse to use that technology for more concrete benefits, and those actions are usually inherently proactive or involve subterfuge that isn't healthy to open transparency.
And probably a few for Starfleet Intelligence as well. It's too useful a technology to just leave on a shelf, even if it never becomes standard its gonna wind up on specialist vessels.
I feel like Labs + Geolabs. It gives us a solid +6 science and allows us to potentially prospect for local resources to expand what the ship is capable of. The big question in my mind is if we take recreation or not. The Geophysics lab gives us an impressive 8 science score making this a perfectly serviceable science ship. For reference I believe the Kea, our premiere science ship, got a science score of 9.
Ship designs have been taking increasingly longer to design due to the increasing sophistication of our technology and to a lesser degree the increased size of our ships.
Project Kufu (the Cygnus) for example began in 2166 and ended in 2167 (~1 year) and right afterwards the significantly larger Project Copernicus (Sagarmatha) took ~5 years (2170-2175).
Following the introduction of the Type 3 Nacelle which itself took ~4 years (2176-2182) to develop the first ship design that took advantage of it (Project Protector's Constable) took twice as long to design despite being a much smaller design than even the Cygnus (125kt vs 24kt).
This would remain consistent as Project Soyuz (Selachii) which followed right after Project Protector also took more than twice the time (~5 years from 2185-2190) of the Cygnus to launch despite being smaller (125kt vs 45kt).
With how long the Kea took to develop (~9 years from 2202-2211) I suspect our next gen explorer will breach the 10 year mark from development to launch and that even a smallish combat frigate will take more than 5 years barring the Klingon War kicking off.
With that in mind we likely have 2 pre-war designs left with the last one likely launching on the eve of the Klingon War.
Since this is going to be a rearline ship, this kind of thing is gonna be utterly necessary for efficiency purpose, I think. Keep the nerds from having idle hands out of boredom, you know? Hobbies.
Long range seems like a very good idea for a ship we want to use to extend our logistics reach.
Went for the Geology department rather than the secondary computer because we've been talking about using this thing to set up mobile refinery and extraction equipment, and Geology is actually important for that.
I feel like Labs + Geolabs. It gives us a solid +6 science and allows us to potentially prospect for local resources to expand what the ship is capable of. The big question in my mind is if we take recreation or not. The Geophysics lab gives us an impressive 8 science score making this a perfectly serviceable science ship.
Logistics or science? The latter makes it a generalist when we already have one (or more) of those, while the latter gives us a ship that can flit from colony to hotspot for extended periods of time and won't drive the crew completely cabin-fevered mad in the process.
This could make a pretty good science ship, but 6-10 science is pretty average and we already have a good one in use. On the other hand making a long-range ship with additional CAD-esque programs and data analysis for better construction is fantastic for the logistics-fulfillment purposes that we want this factory ship for.
I really do approve of this. Extra fuel for extended range, a computer core for additional functionality, and crew comfort to allow this ship to actually be pleasent to serve on while responding to all the engineering stuff it needs to.
This could make a pretty good science ship, but 6-10 science is pretty average and we already have a good one in use. On the other hand making a long-range ship with additional CAD-esque programs and data analysis for better construction is fantastic for the logistics-fulfillment purposes that we want this factory ship for.
Long range seems like a very good idea for a ship we want to use to extend our logistics reach.
Went for the Geology department rather than the secondary computer because we've been talking about using this thing to set up mobile refinery and extraction equipment, and Geology is actually important for that.
There absolutely is. It can serve as a tanker with that capacity, since Anti-matter requires dedicated storage facilities, iirc?
If one of the points of the ship is on site repair and management for damaged ships in say wartime, then the capacity to carry extra anti-matter to hand off to depleted ships would actually be an extremely critical logistical benefit to expand Starfleets capability as a whole.
