Scouting is a traditional role for cruisers, and one that would align well with our next explorer being cruiser grade/a Connie equivalent (since many of the characteristics of a scout also are favourable for an exploratory vessel).
You don't tend to employ a heavy cruiser for scouting, that's a massive misuse of resources for stated purpose. Instead one finds in the real world that fleets tend to use their screening units for scouting, thus the frigates, destroyers and light cruisers. As one can not afford to needlessly disperse ones heaviest combat units from the fleet to be picked off individually to little effect for tasks that can and have always been done by lighter craft that stand out less and typically tend to be a bit faster and thus more capable of escaping problems.
The traditional role of the cruiser instead is independent long range operation. In reality the exact role morphs between the different eras and thus it kind of depends in practise really. But in no era did one use heavy cruisers for immediate fleet scouting, and far more so they were used in things like a heavier raiding asset or operations far from ones main logistics centers where one needs the additional endurance.
You don't tend to employ a heavy cruiser for scouting, that's a massive misuse of resources for stated purpose. Instead one finds in the real world that fleets tend to use their screening units for scouting, thus the frigates, destroyers and light cruisers. As one can not afford to needlessly disperse ones heaviest combat units from the fleet to be picked off individually to little effect for tasks that can and have always been done by lighter craft that stand out less and typically tend to be a bit faster and thus more capable of escaping problems.
The traditional role of the cruiser instead is independent long range operation. In reality the exact role morphs between the different eras and thus it kind of depends in practise really. But in no era did one use heavy cruisers for immediate fleet scouting, and far more so they were used in things like a heavier raiding asset or operations far from ones main logistics centers where one needs the additional endurance.
Before we go crazy on anything, let's look at what we have.
We're just wrapping up Project Halley which is the definition of a truck and also a decent engineering vehicle. She's a tug in the SFB sense of the term, and quite good at her job.
Before this, we built the Kea, which is a science ship that can't fight effectively. It can defend itself, but the lack of any torpedo tubes is kinda sketchy.
Before that was a starbase truck stop. Okay, cool, but not mobile and therefore not really useful in war.
Before that, we built the Selachii. Now the Selachii is a vicious little thing for her time, but at this point she's a bit slow and her weapon suite is a bit dated as well, predating the type-2 phaser, and, well, she's a little thing. Less than 50k tons, the Selachii isn't a brawler. For that, we have to go a bit further back.
Before the Selachii, we built a police ship. If these get used in war, something has gone very wrong.
Now we jump back another generation of warp engines. The Sagarmatha was the last ship to use the old type 2 nacelles. She is outdated in basically every metric at this point. Her warp drive is outdated twice over, her phasers are obsolete, her hull was just rendered out of date, her impulse engines are old... I think the only things she's got that haven't been superceded are her photons and maybe her shields, and even then I'm not sure about the shields. The mountains are old at this point. Against what the Klingons will bring, I doubt the old girls will be up to the task.
So, what do we have?
- A very modern and probably eternal engineering/logistics ship that can't fight well
- A modern science ship that can't fight well
- A fighty little ship that's starting to show its age
- A police cutter that's not worth considering
- A roughly fifty year old explorer/"heavy cruiser"/actually-a-battleship-but-we-don't-call-it-that which is firmly outdated
I'd say it's time to put the old mountains to bed. Time for a new EcksBawksHueg ship to carry the banner forwards.
You don't tend to employ a heavy cruiser for scouting, that's a massive misuse of resources for stated purpose. Instead one finds in the real world that fleets tend to use their screening units for scouting, thus the frigates, destroyers and light cruisers. As one can not afford to needlessly disperse ones heaviest combat units from the fleet to be picked off individually to little effect for tasks that can and have always been done by lighter craft that stand out less and typically tend to be a bit faster and thus more capable of escaping problems.
The traditional role of the cruiser instead is independent long range operation. In reality the exact role morphs between the different eras and thus it kind of depends in practise really. But in no era did one use heavy cruisers for immediate fleet scouting, and far more so they were used in things like a heavier raiding asset or operations far from ones main logistics centers where one needs the additional endurance.
I mean if we're talking gun warship era, then no, screen units were not usually used for scouting. They lacked the capability to do so effectively. You had light/heavy crusiers and armored cruisers/battlecruisers, so a light scout and a heavy scout. And more independent operations rather than tactical fleet scouting was almost always the province of the heavy scout.
Age of sail the fleet's scout role was typically occupied by a frigate, which very much leans on the heavy end of sail-driven ships and which evolved over time to become even heavier, to the point that when armored warships were developed they were built on the basis of frigates, not ships of the line.
Yep. Though I'd probably post the link to the sv overarching discord (if I can), so not as secret really.
Unfortunately I probably won't have enough join-ees to warrant it's existence. But I still resent the destruction of the discord. It's only secret if one allows it to be. And hell, nothing stops people from discussing the quest elsewhere anyway, there's hundreds of discords with a connection to sv, any one of them could build a "cabal" or have one already.
Edit: among other measures, maybe there's a section of the site for posting invites to places, I'd have to check.
Then I'm and likey others are going to feel that going to have to vote for the exact opposite plans you vote for for trying to hide the goddamn discussion.
I mean if we're talking gun warship era, then no, screen units were not usually used for scouting. They lacked the capability to do so effectively. You had light/heavy crusiers and armored cruisers/battlecruisers, so a light scout and a heavy scout. And more independent operations rather than tactical fleet scouting was almost always the province of the heavy scout.
Age of sail the fleet's scout role was typically occupied by a frigate, which very much leans on the heavy end of sail-driven ships and which evolved over time to become even heavier, to the point that when armored warships were developed they were built on the basis of frigates, not ships of the line.
Age of sail screen units (insofar as that particular combination of words means anything to begin with, which it kind of doesn't because that's not really how age of sail doctrine worked in the first place) frequently didn't have the range to go out and scout. Remember, in the age of sail, your range was limited by your provisions, most notably your fresh water supplies, as those took up a lot of space. Space that little ships just didn't have.
If they truly were not adequate, then the Klingons need not have kept their distance over a mere warp 8 refit on them. As you can hardly expect with one design cycle left to have had a large number of new heavy ships patrolling around that would have given them pause. So I think it likely that refits help keep them more combat effective then you might be giving them credit for.
And if Warp 8 is the difference, then one has to really look at the roles where Warp 8 has the biggest impact, which would be for instance in the cruiser area. Those ships as well are equally rather old, but actually need the faster engine more then the heavy hitters do.
As such the most logical place to start for the Federation in general would be the cruisers then I think. This would allow the most ships to be gotten out the quickest that make the most use of the advantages that only the warp drive can give them, while helping to project strength more as the cruisers will be seen far more in the Klingon area of space then the top end spacecraft.
Aside of that, I do some times wonder if the Federation doesn't have some other design bureaus doing things as well. As this amount of designs over such a long period of time is obviously a little on the low side.
In any case, there is a strong argument that there Starfleet needs to replace many ship classes as soon as possible, they'd probably want craft early on that are required to fulfill several tasks at the same time. As that would help more quickly let them get many of the roles on the new Warp engine at as low a cost as possible, just so there aren't to many delays. So for instance a Scout/Raider/Anti-Raid craft.
It seems logical to me at least that Starfleet would be aware of any growing mismatch with the Klingon, and would try to close those capability gaps preferably earlier rather then later.
Dreadnoughts are extraordinarily inefficient in the current era of the gimbaled Type-2 Phaser mount. We are still operating on the bottleneck of being able to shoot out of just one double phaser bank at once, so there's no incentive to add extra phasers after we've covered 100% of the tactical engagement envelope. Hypothetically with the narrow-arc, harder-hitting option for Type 2 phasers, we could put like a dozen phaser banks on a big saucer to get 100% coverage with the harder-hitting phasers, and maybe made a servicable dreadnought that way, but it's not to be.
Age of sail the fleet's scout role was typically occupied by a frigate, which very much leans on the heavy end of sail-driven ships and which evolved over time to become even heavier, to the point that when armored warships were developed they were built on the basis of frigates, not ships of the line.
It's actually kinda funny, given how often Starfleet of TOS is compared to an age of sail navy the frigate equivalents (the Constitution-class) are rather sparse in number (basically just being a doubling of the Continental Navy's frigate count).
The Royal Navy in 1805 had 105 ships of the line, 120 frigates and ~420 smaller vessels. The one thing of value Discovery has contributed to Star Trek discourse, imo, is giving the Federation Starfleet a proper size (about 7,000 I believe, once losses were accounted for) in the TOS era, meaning the Royal Navy in the age of sail was by itself about 10% the size of Starfleet (in terms of hulls, in personnel terms probably about as big).
Whilst we've got systems/national navies to keep in mind I feel like the Federation could reasonably support a Starfleet bigger than this.
Yeah I'm down for this. The current fleet composition and setup for Starfleet means that the combat endurance on such a thing will be categorically insane if we decide to full on take the plunge here.
Something that can take a superlative pounding and walk it off with their critical systems intact synergizes extremely well with the Halley and Pharos heavy setup we've been gunning for up until now. By definition scouting craft can be put out more quickly and cheaply, plus they can be more efficiently refined once we've put out a proper ship of the line to testbed everything up until this point
Except San Fran just spat out the Newton. That's not its designed purpose, exactly, but it's definitely able to do the job. I'm not sure another ship that size is needed.
Dreadnoughts are extraordinarily inefficient in the current era of the gimbaled Type-2 Phaser mount. We are still operating on the bottleneck of being able to shoot out of just one double phaser bank at once, so there's no incentive to add extra phasers after we've covered 100% of the tactical engagement envelope. Hypothetically with the narrow-arc, harder-hitting option for Type 2 phasers, we could put like a dozen phaser banks on a big saucer to get 100% coverage with the harder-hitting phasers, and maybe made a servicable dreadnought that way, but it's not to be.
this doesn't track. the Sagarmatha was a combat threat to the Klingons with the Type 1 phasers and now we have the Type 2 phasers with +50% damage base so we don't have to worry about the precharging, the new type 3 impulse engine, new armor, and the Warp 8 core giving us a boost to impulse speeds
The next explorer is going to hit like a truck and as long as we keep weight under control for medium or medium high speed she's gonna dance for ship her size
Aside of that, I do some times wonder if the Federation doesn't have some other design bureaus doing things as well. As this amount of designs over such a long period of time is obviously a little on the low side.
And the numbers, at least for some of the classes, I'd say.
I imagine it's a combination of it being rather tedious from a QM perspective, needing to keep on top of what existing/high quality fan designs these other bureaus have done and from our own quester perspective of if every other group ends up doing better than us (rather demoralising).
That being said I could see us getting 1 competitor per era (since we kinda have already, going by TOS) and potentially +/- 1 for Federation shaking events like the potential Battle of Andoria (the Andorians would probably want one of their bureaus constantly putting out warships designs to be built if it came so close to them, to prevent it from happening again*).
*And lock them into only competing on combat designs.
This is just speculation on my part, though, since I'm not Sayle.
The other group fills some gaps or makes some platforms that we choose not to. When we flub or they flub a design then Starfleet submits the same design brief again after the 5-10 year cycle has completed. Maybe the reduced number of hulls or specific lack in a strategic region also drives the goals. We just don't hear about it much because we only get requests for what is needed not more of what they can already produce. Or time shenanigans.
The next explorer is going to hit like a truck and as long as we keep weight under control for medium or medium high speed she's gonna dance for ship her size
If we do end up making the theoretical battlecruiser explorer (since it does fill a lot of our immediate needs, potential concerns and should have the ability to both fight and explore well) two impulse engines is kinda a shoe in, given what we know the smaller Connie managed to get away with on one.
Except San Fran just spat out the Newton. That's not its designed purpose, exactly, but it's definitely able to do the job. I'm not sure another ship that size is needed.
For my two cents on the topic of "what to build next", I still think that a generalist cruiser is the best option - something that's good enough at most things, and can use the Warp 8 engine to get where it's needed right now instead of being a perfect ship at any one role but potentially useless if something that doesn't call for its specialty shows up.
ie., the Sagarmatha's are too slow to keep up with a Klingon battlefleet? Generalist cruiser is tactically capable enough that the Klingons have to work to deal with it, and fast enough at warp they can't just outrun it forever - meaning they have to slow down from warp to free up their options for maneuvering, letting the Mountains catch up. Massive disaster severely damages a colony? Generalist cruiser gets there and can use what it has on hand to keep things from getting worse while a Halley is dispatched with the engineering capabilities, crew, and supplies to fix things. Medical emergency or scientific curiosity? Again, the Generalist gets there first to start responding, even if it's not a perfect fit, and can advise follow-on responders about what's going on.
I think a battlecruiser would probably be to big. Such large designs can only make use of a more limited number of yards and they take longer to build in those yards as well. So I'd hope Starfleet doesn't give out any Battlecruiser options for the next design round and focuses more on more immediate needs.
If we're planning any significant amount of prototype use on our next ship design, with how they all now come with a percentage-based increase in Cost it may be a good idea to aim for making it work as actually a heavy cruiser, instead of "heavy cruiser". If we just throw the numbers for the T1 and T1 Covariant shields on a 300,000 ton hull as an example, the final Cost respectively would come out to 9 versus 24.
It's another part about why I was thinking of a tactical-heavy light cruiser that specifically focuses down on mapping for later followup instead of a wider spread of science capabilities, so we could still aim for multiple cartography synergies on a smaller cheaper hull.
AIUI, the next Explorer Craft will likely be suitable for War as a side effect of making sure it is ready for its normal duty. The kinds of things our Face Ships get into, well...
The final fittings of the ship mark the end of a long process. The Halley has now been fitted with extra antimatter tanks to expand its range, a secondary computer core to allow more non-critical shipboard operations, and some recreational spaces to assist in crew comfort. There is something to be said for a well-stocked bar and a small cinema to make long and repetitive hauls tolerable.
The ship itself stands out for more than just its utilitarian objectives. The orb gives it a rather stocky and compact appearance compared to the more classical Starfleet lines that give the impression of speed or sleek flight. As if that wasn't eye-catching enough, the new golden hue of the duratanium-enhanced hull is certainly a new look that will define the next generation of Federation starships. Fortunately it takes a very close look indeed to identify the microfractures in the plating's microcrystalline structure, which is currently being studied planetside. At least corrections to the manufacturing process should iron that out in a reasonable timeframe.
The new systems are more expensive than their predecessors, but such is the price of progress. You are content that you have planned a design that does not simply compete with the Newton-class on simple cost but instead introduces alternate mission profiles. You're not likely to find much enthusiasm in Starfleet Tactical, to be sure, but other divisions will no doubt be more receptive. The shakedown cruise will determine your exact fortunes on that front when the final numbers on performance are in.
But before the Halley launches she needs a name. So far there are three themes in the running. The first is inspired by the project name and purports to name any further ships after famous comets. You could certainly do worse than some stellar inspiration. The second proposal is the Hemiunu, after the architect of the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt. Not an unsuitable choice given the constructive tasks the Halley is likely to undertake for most of its lifetime. Finally there is the Archer-class, since this is one of the last ships that will use Henry Archer's warp engine design. The remainder of the ships will be named after other famous engineers and inventors.
[ ] Halley-class. After comets.
[ ] Hemiunu-class. After famous builders and architects.
[ ] Archer-class. After famous engineers.
Huh, for once we actually made a single task ship, it is very very good at its one job, and kinda shit at everything else. The competitor is notably a multirole ship that makes a lot of compromises to be able to fight decently on top of its main job.
For my two cents on the topic of "what to build next", I still think that a generalist cruiser is the best option - something that's good enough at most things, and can use the Warp 8 engine to get where it's needed right now instead of being a perfect ship at any one role but potentially useless if something that doesn't call for its specialty shows up.
ie., the Sagarmatha's are too slow to keep up with a Klingon battlefleet? Generalist cruiser is tactically capable enough that the Klingons have to work to deal with it, and fast enough at warp they can't just outrun it forever - meaning they have to slow down from warp to free up their options for maneuvering, letting the Mountains catch up. Massive disaster severely damages a colony? Generalist cruiser gets there and can use what it has on hand to keep things from getting worse while a Halley is dispatched with the engineering capabilities, crew, and supplies to fix things. Medical emergency or scientific curiosity? Again, the Generalist gets there first to start responding, even if it's not a perfect fit, and can advise follow-on responders about what's going on.
The thing is that Klingon's specialize enough in their warbirds that this kind of generalist being the thing primarily produced in the leadup to an all out war with them is going to see Starfleet punished extremely severely. You ultimately need a deterrent in order to give the logistical depth of this iteration of Starfleet time to breathe.
If the Klingon's assume that in an even slugging match they'll dominate, then they'll strike with impunity and render all the efficiency stuff utterly moot, because we know that winning a war is actually important in a relevant timeframe. Generalists are supplemental, and thus can come afterwards.
Enough supplemental stuff has been done for several requests now - it's time for a new tip of the spear to build doctrine around.
this doesn't track. the Sagarmatha was combat threat to the Klingons with the Type 1 phasers and we have the Type 2 phasers with +50% damage base so we don't have to worry about the precharging, the new type 3 impulse engine, new armor, and the Warp 8 core giving us a boost to impulse speeds
The next explorer is going to hit like a truck and as long as we keep weight under control for medium or medium high speed she's gonna dance for ship her size
Here also we see the close-in phaser emplacements near to the center of the primary hull, a design decision driven by the high expense associated with the fabrication of weapons-grade EPS conduits. This was also the last vessel which utilized phaser capacitors capable of holding a full weapon charge, an ability inherited from the phase cannon. However in a more advanced phaser the capability was rarely useful and the capacitors rapidly degraded in effectiveness as they were used. There is only one record of them being used in a combat situation, during which the UFS Kilimanjaro ambushed a Klingon D6 cruiser over Archer IV, turning a lopsided confrontation into an even fight that the Kilimanjaro won after sustaining substantial battle damage. Later vessels would draw phaser power straight from the EPS system as needed, having found it a cheaper and less maintenance intensive alternative.
Normally a D6 would've kicked the shit out of our biggest, strongest ship.
And the D7 is on its way, with the Klinks' own next generation of disruptors and photorps to sear your molecules to a crisp.
We aren't going to beat the Klingons with one big beautiful ship with the name Enterprise lovingly painted across every visible surface. There's going to be quite a bit of attrition across a wide front.
We're going to be stuck using Warp 7 designs for most of the war anyways, because that's the decision we made when designing the Warp 8 engine. So our question here is if we want to have our ONE pre-war warp 8 design be just a faster version of an existing modern ship, or a replacement for a venerable and outdated ship.
The thing is that Klingon's specialize enough in their warbirds that this kind of generalist being the thing primarily produced in the leadup to an all out war with them is going to see Starfleet punished extremely severely. You ultimately need a deterrent in order to give the logistical depth of this iteration of Starfleet time to breathe.
Klingon mentality is important here as well. Having a big scary ship we can wave in their faces often helps when it comes to convincing them that it's just not worth the trouble.
The thing is that Klingon's specialize enough in their warbirds that this kind of generalist being the thing primarily produced in the leadup to an all out war with them is going to see Starfleet punished extremely severely. You ultimately need a deterrent in order to give the logistical depth of this iteration of Starfleet time to breathe.
If the Klingon's assume that in an even slugging match they'll dominate, then they'll strike with impunity and render all the efficiency stuff utterly moot, because we know that winning a war is actually important in a relevant timeframe. Generalists are supplemental, and thus can come afterwards.
Enough supplemental stuff has been done for several requests now - it's time for a new tip of the spear to build doctrine around.
I think in this context "generalist" means making a battle cruiser with a sprint nacelle configuration that has roughly even science and engineering scores.
Fast, shooty, and modestly capable of doing other stuff.
We aren't going to beat the Klingons with one big beautiful ship with the name Enterprise lovingly painted across every visible surface. There's going to be quite a bit of attrition across a wide front.
Which the Halley (Or Archer) is going to be well equipped along with its sister-ship out of SanFran to help strongly mitigate. We need ships capable of surviving that slugging match, and thats just as much an issue of defense as it is sufficient gun to bring things to an end quickly.
I think in this context "generalist" means making a battle cruiser with a sprint nacelle configuration that has roughly even science and engineering scores.
Fast, shooty, and modestly capable of doing other stuff.
I've found its generally best to let the person themselves explain what they mean in that context when it comes to the internet in the event of a miscommunication, rather than making assumptions on their behalf. But I do think we need an anchor more than that right now regardless.
